Zombers

Zombies are affectionately known around my house as Zombers. My wife is often critical of why I like shows like The Walking Dead and I am quick to point out I like it because it is not real. In reality if a Zombie Apocalypse occurred within a few days to a month there would be nothing but bones left. Once that blood stopped pumping and air stopped going into the lungs, decay is going to set in.

But since this is a blog about firearms and fermentation let’s look at the tools one might use to stop a zombie. Well, a maple mash paddle might be improvised as a club in the event of an outbreak. Of course we’d be assuming all we have seen on TV and the movies is true that you need to “kill” the head. In the world of beer I cannot see much else that might be useful except for a hydrometer or pipette into the eye socket in order to penetrate the brain. I’m more of a lets keep our distance guy so I’d probably look to the firearms to save the day. The problem is the shows always seem to indicate the Zombers react to noise. Now I actually find it hard to believe they would be able to see anything, hear anything or smell anything, but let’s assume for a minute that zombies are not truly dead in the traditional sense of the word, but have come back to live in an unalterable state in which they are partially alive and are hungry for man flesh. So if noise is going to be an issue I think a silencer is going to be in order, otherwise every goon in the vicinity is going to rain down on you and you better be ready to rumble.

My weapon of choice is probably going to be a 22 LR. The rounds are light and you could carry a metric buttload of them. Now you are going to need something light to fire them from which has a large capacity. Generally most semi-automatic pistols in .22 LR have a capacity of 10 rounds per magazine. I’d be looking for something in the 30 range so I might mod a Ruger 10/22 or get a S&W 15-22 and then carry a handgun as backup for when the long barrel is just not going to work. I mean you could carry a 357 magnum, but unless you have a Coonan 1911, the capacity is generally going to be six rounds and the weight of the extra cartridges is going to be an issue. 9mm or .380 ACP would be much lighter, but if all it takes is a knock to the brain I think a .22 LR will be the flavor of the day. Of course all this assumes the Zombers are slightly slow, but if those puppies can run and it takes something different to put out the lights all bets are off.

Anyway, give some thought about what you will do when the Zombie Apocalypse happens. If you don’t know what you would do, the CDC has a Preparedness Guide  on their website.

Have a safe night and Happy Halloween! 😉

Not a gunsmith?

I recently saw a post where someone was trying to do something to a gun which really wasn’t required and was not a standard modification or tweak. Afterwards the gun did not function properly. I’m going to make today’s post short and sweet, if you are not a gunsmith, you really should not try to do modifications to the firing mechanism, chamber, trigger, etc. If the manufacturer did not provide and adjustment screw it probably is no something which was designed to be adjusted.

Just as you wouldn’t try to fix an airplane unless you were an airplane mechanic, don’t mess around with your gun trying to do things a gunsmith should be paid to accomplish.

Philadelphia Convention Secrecy

It seems like the past few years the AHA has been getting more and more secretive about the National Homebrewers Conference. About all they have divulged for 2013 is the dates, June 27 – 29, and the city, Philadelphia. At one time the conference location and hotel was announced, or at least known, by the end of Autumn. Now they are saying it will all be announced in February. I don’t get the reason for all the secrecy. It seems they have forgotten people have to make arrangements for travel and no one wants to get locked into an airfare unless they have a hotel room and conference ticket all wrapped up with a bow. Also announcing earlier allows people to spread the cost out of the conference. At one time we would pay for the registration in November, the airfare in January or February and then the hotel at the end of the stay in June. It’s much easier to eat an elephant one bite at a time than to try to choke down the whole pachyderm.

So if anyone with the AHA is listening. Go ahead and make the freaking announcement of the conference location and hotel so plans can be made.

How young is too young?

We’ve been wrestling with this a bit lately in offering classes as to how young is too young to teach Basic Pistol. I’ve actually go no problem with someone as young as 9 or 10 working with a rifle, but a handgun is a much different animal. According to NC law if the child is under 12 the parent must be in direct supervision to use any gun. I know I broke that law a few times as a tyke if it was in effect back in the day, but makes sense to me. So basically any child under 12 could not be instructed since most ranges only allow two per lane and one would have to be the instructor.

Now take it a step further, NC law does not allow possession of a handgun by anyone under the age of 18 except under parental supervision. I take parental supervision to mean the parent is supervising the activities. That would require they be in close proximity and can actually see what is going on. So again, at most indoor ranges with only two per lane, they would be out. In some ranges there is an area at the back wall where spectators can observe and IMO that would be fine. So it appears there is an age between 12 and 18 where it could be difficult to instruct on an indoor range and meet the letter of the NC Statutes unless you are the parent of the child.

The best thing a parent can do is take a class and then come home and instruct the minor child before taking them to the range. I think kids should learn to shoot at an early age and the best way to do that is to teach them to enjoy shooting activities.

 

What’s the point?

Several years ago North Carolina enacted a smoking ban in restaurants and bars. Last night we went to a brewery in Bryson City and the whole place reeked of smoke which was being drawn in from outside by the HVAC system. The solution to the issue was simple, either close the wide open front door or shut down the HVAC system when the door is open. It was almost as if the guy smoking the cigarette in the first place had pulled up a chair and was toting on a bone right there. So if you find yourself in Bryson City and decide to hit the only brewery in town, be aware you may find yourself in a smoky non-smoking establishment.

Bottom line is I shouldn’t have to sit and smell smoke when I am trying to enjoy a beer inside a restaurant, bar or brewery if the establishment is in NC or any other state which does not allow indoor smoking. I’m pretty sure the brewery we were in last night had the AC on, space heaters going and the door opened. It just didn’t make sense.

I’ve been bamboozled!

So last night we are having dinner at a new find for me in Swannanoa named Native Kitchen and I notice they have a cider on the menu listed as coming from Yadkin County so of course I had to have some. The cider was McRitchie Dry Cider and it lived up to its name with a definite dry finish, but the aroma was alluring and reminded me of fresh-cut apples right down to the core. It was clean and had it been a tad sweeter I would have asked for an IV drip of it year round.

So imagine my surprise when I decide to get up this morning and wax poetic about this Yadkin County cider only to find the address is Thurmond. Freakin Thurmond, you gotta be kidding me. Thurmond ain’t in Yadkin County, best I can tell it’s in Wilkes County since it’s almost in Stone Mountain State Park. I think they meant to say Yadkin Valley. There is a big difference between the two and now I feel cheated. In all seriousness they got me with marketing, but I would have tried a North Carolina cider no matter what and I am glad I did.

So if you are out and about and spot a McRitchie cider on the bar menu, give it a whirl. It might not be from Yadkin County, but it is from the Yadkin Valley so it’s all good! 😉

New exam grading thoughts

I recently finished grading a set of BJCP taste exams which had been kicking me in the pants for far too long. I know the examinees are probably not reading this blog, but if you are waiting for your results from your late July exam, I may just be what was holding you up. I will say it is much easier to grade a score sheet than a long page of paragraphs which may not all be in the same format.

My MO with taste exams is to always first compile the comments of the proctors onto the second round score sheet. That is a little time-consuming since their score sheets are longer and more involved. I believe that took about 10-15 minutes per beer to complete, so let’s call it 1.5 hours.

In the past I would use an excel spreadsheet to compile the data and had it setup to provide additional information which could be filled into the RTP (report to participant). In this case I graded straight into the EGF (exam grading form) and that worked out to be a good call. Now what the EGF doesn’t do is compile the information from the first and second grader to give an average to allow you to fill in the shading on the RTP. I believe I spent a good half hour just figuring out how to get that information together. So grading is straightforward, take the proctor sheets and mark the examinee sheets beer by beer. So if the first beer is say an Oktoberfest, grade all the exams for the Oktoberfest beer with a highlighter and then go back and award a score for each. The reason to grade all is it could be a substantial number of the examinees found an aroma or flavor missed or overlooked by the proctors. That grading took about 5-10 minutes per beer per examinee by the time all were graded and then entered into the EGF. So if you have 12 examinees, expect to spend  a minimum of one hour per beer to two hours per beer. With six beers that could be 12 hours in total.

Now the RTP really cannot be written until a consensus score is reached between the graders. The time involved is typically not long to reach consensus, but requires both graders to be completed with the grading duties. In my case the second grader finished long before I did and so he was waiting on me. We easily reached a consensus and while it does take small chunks of time, in reality it’s not much, let’s say an hour in total writing emails and adjusting scores.

So now we need to write the RTP. In order to do so you need the information from the first and second grader in a format where you can determine performance of the examinees based on BJCP judge rankings. I use a spreadsheet for that and as I said earlier it took a half hour to an hour to get that together. Then you start to write the RTP and they take about 30 minutes to an hour per RTP. So with 12 examinees you would be looking at a potential of 12 hours. Once they are written the second grader can review and that won’t take long and it won’t take long to tweak the exams.

So adding it all up at the worst it would be 26 to 27 hours or 2 to 2.5 hours per exam. Shorter than it once was, but still no cake walk. So before you get worried about your exam, try to think where you would find 30 hours of time to spend in your life and for goodness sake if you are a National or higher judge volunteer to grade some sweet, sweet exams!

Meat marinade? Just say no!

Yesterday while in a Total Wine checking out the beer to kill a little time I happened upon sixers of Flying Dog Imperial IPA Single Hop Eldorado for $3.99 a sixer. At first I thought they had the wrong shelf tag and that was meant as a per bottle price since the beer is 10% ABV. Upon closer inspection it became clear that was the price of the sixer and I decided to bring it home and give it a whirl and if nothing else it could be meat marinade.

Imagine my surprise when the beer came out to be excellent. Not just passable or good, really good. Now it didn’t blow my socks across the room or anything, but for a 10% ABV brew to not show its alcohol and to be smooth and tasty was a treat indeed. The only flaw I noted was the beer had a bit of haze to it, but in truth I served it fairly warm and had not given any yeast particulate and proteins time to settle after the trip from the store to the house. I had also laid the sixer flat on its side to so I probably caused the particulate suspension to occur.

I don’t know if every store will have this brew at such an awesome price or if this was an isolated price blip at this particular Total Wine location. The announcement for this beer came out in late February so I wondered if they were trying to empty shelf spacing, but typically Total Wine does not liquidate seasonal beers that soon. Anyway, if you spot this one at your local bottle shop it would be worth picking some up even if the price was not as stellar as what I found. Getcha some!

Don’t poo poo the .22

This morning I got to thinking about all the various cartridges which have come and gone and many which were in vogue and now have fallen out of fashion. Take the .357 Magnum, it was really in its heyday in the late 1970’s through early 1990’s with the Death Wish and Dirty Harry movies. I know my first pistol was a .357 Magnum and I still love the cartridge today. The issue is it is more difficult to find at a reasonable price today that in the past. At one time it was on every shelf and a box was affordable. Now it is one of the more expensive cartridges out there.

Many others have gone, or are going the way of the do do. I have a .32 H&R Magnum single-action pistol and it has been a booger bear to find ammo for that gun. I finally located some locally the other day and bought all they had and it was almost $.70 a round. That’s $4.20 if you fire all six cylinders and does not make for a cheap day at the range.

Now one cartridge which has stood the test of time is the .22. I did a little research which in this case means I checked Wikipedia and noticed the cartridge came to be in 1887. That means this little cartridge has been around for over 100 years. Many people talk about it not having the stopping power and this and that, but I suspect more animals and humans (excluding military and revolutionary battles) have been shot with a .22 bullets than with any other cartridge. I spoke with someone recently who said they actually killed their first deer with a .22. Today the .22 is the least expensive cartridge on the market and you can find bulk supplies of ammo and shoot all day for a song. There is something to be said for putting ten rounds downrange at a total cost of less than fifty cents.

So based on cost it is the ideal cartridge. It’s certainly debatable if the .22 cartridge is adequate for self-defense, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say if you put 10 rounds of .22 into an attacker they are probably going to decide to leave you alone and that is really all we are after as civilians. So don’t poo poo the .22, embrace it!

Beer Cocktails

I happened to be watching an episode of Drinking Made Easy and they were mixing up beer cocktails. In this particular case I would call them beer mixes since they were not adding spirits. I do see beer menus starting to pick up this trend and of course the black and tan has been around nearly forever.

Recently at a new restaurant they offered a Sweet P which was Sweetwater 420 Pale Ale and PBR mixed. Reports were all positive that t was a tasty beverage. I didn’t give it a whirl at the time, but rest assured I will my next time at that restaurant.

So is this a new trend which will crash and burn or something which is here to stay. I’m going to vote the latter. I’ve mixed beers when homebrewing and see no problem doing the same with commercial brews. A little of this, a little of that and you end up with a glassful of happiness. So the next time you cannot find something you like straight off the tap, ask if they can do a mix. The purists will be all up in arms, but that isn’t what matters, what matters is you!