Singel – nope, Homerun!

Last night I decided to open a bottle of Hardywood Park Singel which they call a Belgian-style Blonde Ale. It rings in at a smidge above 6% and is from the brewery in Richmond, VA. Around Richmond it is fairly easy to find it on draft and bottles are available for sale at the brewery and out and about. This wayward bottle had been snagged from the brewery on one January weekend when I found myself in town. We sampled at the brewery (no draft sales at that time) and decided to grab a bottle or two to bring home.

As I opened the dedicated beer fridge door I spied the lonely bottle of Singel just asking to be opened. I grabbed a glass and off to the races. I have had many pints of the Singel, but the beer was often very cold when served. Not to say it wasn’t stellar on those occasions, but last night the stars aligned with a room temp glass and a beer poured and allowed to rest for a while to warm. The result was a magical elixir of zymurgilogical greatness. All I can say is getcha some!

Quinoa In Beer

A few nights ago at a club meeting we had an English Bitter extract beer in which the brewer had tried to use Quinoa. If you are not familiar with the grain it makes a yummy side dish. You basically cook it like rice and then can make a cold or hot dish using any number of ingredients, herbs, onions, garlic, raisins, dried cranberries, sweet potatoes, etc. Here’s a photo I found of a tasty looking dish.

If you are going to use it in a beer it will not convert itself and must be mashed/mini-mashed with a base grain AFTER you boil it to gelatinize any starches. It will be too small to run through the grain mill and would gum it up after rinsing so you could try to rinse and then spin in a food processor or blender with some water before cooking. Then it would be more like a porridge. I suppose you could use some alpha amylase and try to convert it without mashing, but YOYO to figure that one out. For those who may be new to the homebrewing game base grain is 2-row or 6-row. Munich malt barely has enough enzymes to convert itself, so some sort of base grain with enzymes will be required to take advantage of what the Quinoa might have to offer.

Personally I would not think Quinoa would add more than a mildly nutty character at best which will be trounced by the hops. It could contribute some sugars to the mash, but the contribution would probably not be large. If toasted it may contribute the character from the toasting. I would suggest anyone making a Quinoa beer also make the same beer without the Quinoa to see exactly what difference it may give to the beer.

On a side note I detected a very low soapy character in the beer and as it turns out Quinoa which has not been rinsed has a bitter soapy character. The brewer said he rinsed it several times, which I fully believe, but I do tend to detect things down to a micro level so if you make a Quinoa beer, be sure to rinse many times to avoid that characteristic.

RIP HB111

It certainly appears Senator Phil Berger and Senator Tom Apodaca have somehow conspired to silence HB111. At this point I’m not sure anyone knows the reason why. I have heard conjecture Sen. Apodaca did so to enhance electability, but he is running unopposed in a conservative district and Sen. Berger does have an opposing candidate, but he is also in a conservative area. Sen. Apodaca has his listed profession as an entrepreneur, but that really translates into bail bonds and rental properties. Maybe the bail bonds area is his payoff on this one and he really doesn’t desire less crime since that would be bad for business.

Is that it Tom? How about it Phil?

Here Comes The Bus

I hate to shove someone under the bus, but sometimes they just do it to themselves. I’ll not name the instructor who runs this, and I have heard they provide a good class, but I will say I would never suggest them based upon what I see in this photo. Can anyone else see what is wrong?

If you have a look at the two instructors, both are in front of the firing line and while the range may be cold, people have their pistols out of their holsters and pointed downrange. I can hear this person now, they were practicing, guns were unloaded, blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t matter. Every gun should be treated as if it is loaded all the time. It should always be pointed in a safe direction. What I foresee is two dead or wounded instructors. It doe appear if you zoom way in the action may be open on at least some of the pistols, but how can you be sure no one will release the slide and then magically we have a loaded firearm if the magazine was loaded and inserted into the pistol. It also appears Mr. Orange Cap (3rd from rt) has his booger picker smack dab on the trigger. Most of the holsters are empty which tells me the people have their firearm out and pointed. Mr. Orange Cap has a 1911 still holstered, so booger must be trying out multiple firearms. Now the instructor does have a dummy gun, but all the rest appear real.

Bottom line, never get in front of the firing line unless the range is completely ice-cold. That means no firearms of any kind being handled, period!

 

Oil and Water

If you’ve taken the time to read my About statement for the blog you know alcohol and firearms are not two activities which should occur at the same time, they are like oil and water, they just don’t mix. Anyway, the photo below popped up on Facebook and I’d love to see what happened next. Since it appears to be a 12 gauge shotgun in the photo and he has his arm fully extended I suspect a huge recoil, perhaps a broken collar-bone and maybe even a broken finger.

One thing is for certain alcohol never increases your intelligence and firearms require attention, respect and intelligence to be handled properly. Do us all a favor and wait until after shooting activities to lower your intelligence. 😉

New Breweries Popping Up All Over

Just this past week our local rag posted a list of seven new breweries slated to open or in planning for the Raleigh area. It is difficult to understand how the market has not become saturated post PTC with all the new beers which first entered our market after the law change and now all the new breweries which are opening their doors. Heck, even the number of bottle shops has grown exponentially. At one time Sam’s was the only real game in town. We had a few other places, but nothing special. Then Total Wine came to town and started expanding their beer offering and lately the non-chain stores are opening up left and right. I just got word Raleigh is getting another bottle shop which will bring our total to three just in Raleigh not to mention what Apex and Morrisville have in addition to the chain stores and wine stores which have decent beer selections.

I hope this trend continues, it would be nice to NC to become a beer destination on the East Coast. There are beer cities which come to mind on this side of the planet, but no destination states for beer. We may have the momentum to eventually see that happen…fingers crossed!

Imbicile

I happened upon this article about a NC man who shot his wife in the head and then shot himself in the head. They both lived and now he will hopefully spend the rest of his natural life in jail. Here’s another article about the idiot.

It makes me upset when people misuse firearms to hurt others. It’s a really a shame he didn’t select a larger caliber before turning the firearm on himself.

Anheuser-Busch Airport and Area Codes

What are those crazy Inbev folks up to now. I happened to catch a news flash that AB filed Trademark applications for 42 three-letter airport codes. Almost a year ago they filed Trademarks on 14 area codes and thus far it doesn’t seem like they have done anything with them. I guess that is good news for the (512) Brewing Company people in Austin, TX, of course 512 was not one of the area codes AB filed an application to Trademark. Some have speculated the area code was an effort to thumb the nose at the people who say drink local, and some say the airport code is an effort to have special beers on draft within the airports. I know one thing for certain, AB cannot make a few kegs of anything so having to store LAX this or that beer until it goes dry ain’t gonna happen. I don’t know what AB’s smallest brewhouse is, but would be surprised if it was any less than 500 bbl and that is 1000 kegs to have to manage. Besides does anyone really want to drink a beer which has the same abbreviation as a purgative?

Thirst Quenched

I stuck my head in the fridge last night and perused the available bottles and settled on a bottle of Unibroue Grande Reserve 17 to scratch my itch. The beer has been out on the market since 2007 and I remember getting a bottle way back in the day, but last night it was a pleasure to consume as my first in many moons. I whipped out a Unibroue glass and the rest is history. As it turns out I didn’t forget how to have a beer after all. I guess it’s just like riding a bike. 😉

Grand Opening Tonight

Finally I have gotten over the hump with this virus and feel good enough that tonight I plan to pop a top. It’s been far too long since I last had a beer. Now the decision-making process begins to determine what will be the selection of the evening. Since the AHA Conference is in full swing I’ll have to dig something special out of the stash to toast to my friends in attendance. Maybe even something super special!