New Brew - 2 Abbeys

Finally got around to doing some brewing last night. This batch will hopefully taste like a Dubbel, which is a Belgian style Abbey Ale. For this beer I pretty much copied a recipe I found on ratebeer.com with ingredients purchased at Kirk's. Exceptions were that I doubled the amount of special B grains and used amber liquid malt extract instead of gold.

This recipe called for 2 things that were new to me: Belgian Candi Sugar and pitchable liquid yeast. The sugar is extracted from sugar beets and looks a lot like rock candy (although I didn't try any raw). Basically you add this during the boil and it is supposed to add to the beer's body along with providing some sweet-fruity flavors. The pitchable liquid yeast is a strain that is specifically made for Abbey Ale's and is supposed to add to the flavor profile. Until now I've used the dry stuff, which has always worked fine for me; although I must say that this stuff is pretty slick. All you do is pull the vial out of the fridge when you start, allow it to get to room temperature while you brew, shake it up and dump it in at the end.


So far so good. I would describe the color as almost a mahogany. My starting gravity was 1.064, which means that with any luck the alcohol content will be near 7%. The wort tasted really sweet, but I imagine that will mellow as it ferments. This one was definitely the most expensive recipe I've tried, so hopefully it pays off.

Doves in Mourning - Don't they know it's Earth Day?

The little guys in the top pic have been hanging out in my backyard for the past couple of days. They’re a pair of juvenile mourning doves. The picture was taken this morning as I was getting ready to leave for work. I was hopping on my bike when I spotted them sitting on top of some branches I never finished cutting into firewood after a very windy day last year.

I’ve been looking for them since they first showed up Saturday. They don’t do much. Every now and then they'll stretch out their wings and waddle around, but usually they just sit there not knowing what to do with themselves. Sunday I was working in the yard, installing some brick edging around a newly designated garden area. One of them just sat there for a couple of hours watching me. Eventually I had to find something else to do as it was sitting on some of the bricks I was hoping to install. Not sure where the other one was at the time.

The mom, as you can see in the lower pic, was watching me from atop the neighbor's garage. Sometimes she'll call when we get near, that "whooo whooo" that sounds like a depressed owl. Usually she steers clear. For that I've been a little nervous for them. Our neighbor’s cat has been known to take out small critters. I’m guessing they’re not supposed to be on the ground this much. I read that mourning doves make rough nests out of twigs that tend to fall apart after storms. I figure one of the real windy days last week must have done their nest in. They can fly. One of the little guys was on top of the garage with their mom yesterday. Earlier that day the mom was doing a good job chasing off the blackbirds, so hopefully they’ll be fine.

Our feeder has been pretty popular so far this year. I am looking forward to having more mourning doves around. They take me back to when I was young, sleeping in on saturdays, trying to figure out why the owls were still out.

BEER < GAS????

Thanks Brian for the forward!

I actually saw this T-shirt when on my honeymoon last November (our layover flight was in Milwaukee). I almost bought it, but after careful consideration - resisted.

At the time I was thinking - IT IS!!! $3 for a gallon of gas, $2 for an Old Style at the bar.... Then I started thinking more deeply on it (it was a 3hr layover). Really comparing a gallon of gas to a pint of beer isn't a fair comparison. Granted you can't get very far with only 1 of each, but it takes 13gallons to fill my tank and if I had that many at the bar - I wouldn't get home.

So I did some math. My favorite cheapest of the cheap beers is the High Life. In my book, the champagne of beers provides the best bang for the buck. Last time I bought High Life it was ~$12 for a 30 pack of cans. Doing the math that comes down to ~$12 for 2.8gallons or $4.26/gallon of beer.

Currently the price of gas in these parts is around $3.25/gallon. I can't recall the highest it has gotten, but I know we haven't broke the $4 mark yet. Now I realize other parts of the country have had higher gas prices than Nebraska, but they pay more for their beer too. Therefore, I predict it will take 1 more year before beer is actually cheaper than gas!

Pranks Gone Awry

So me and a coworker, but mostly me, decided to play a prank on an other coworker - David. Before I go into the prank and the judgement begins I should give a little back story. David is a good guy and is often sending little pranks our way. He usually answers the phone and whenever there is a telemarketer, forwards the call to us. He seems to feed off our retaliation, so we decided to get him back good.

Out of boredom I was watching the TV show Reaper one day and saw a prank I thought it worth pulling. Basically what I did was put a note on David's car that said:

Sorry I hit your car

Amber

474-2244

The phone number was for the plasma donation center, who we share a parking lot with. The hope was that he'd find the note and waste some time not being able to to figure out what was wrong with his car. We figured he'd come back to the office and ask for advice, maybe call the phone number and we'd all have a good laugh.

Well it didn't seem to work out. He left for the day before I realized and consequently I wasn't there when he found the note. Today he's coming in late so he can "run errands". My fear is that he is taking his car in to get it evaluated or fixed or doing something else that will cost him a lot of money. While it will still be funny, it's a little more vindictive than I intended it to be.

Any advice out there for what to do when pranks go awry?

Omaha Beer Props

So I'd fallen behind in my "beer of the day" desk calendar and decided to play catch up today. Apparently Sunday, April 6th was dedicated to a nearby brewery - Upstream in Omaha. It was nice to see a familiar place as most of the beers listed on the calendar hail from the west coast and don't make it this far east.

To be honest I'm not sure if I've ever had their Firehouse ESB. One of these days I'm going to have to make it a point to stop by and get a sample of all their beers. From the description on my calendar the Firehouse ESB sounds like citrusy sugary goodness. I learned an other thing from my calendar as well. Apparently the Old Market Upstream building was a Firehouse at the turn of the century - makes sense.

On a side note - anyone know what's up with Jobber's Canyon? The rumor I heard was that they were just catering now, but their website makes them sound open.

Elepaint

This is one of those videos that pop up and make me question the notion of man's superior intellegence to animals. This elephant employs techniques that I'm guessing I wouldn't have picked up on in art class until late late childhood. Even now I'm thinking I still probably couldn't paint as well.