socialy retarded

Soulless gingered Irish red, aged in whiskey (pt1)

Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Derrick.

Several of us fellas will be doing a “going away” brew for our friend who happens to be a ginger and loves whiskey.

Here is the Partial mash recipe

1lb of Colorado 2 row
1/2lb Special Roast
1/2lb Cara Red
1/2lb Crystal 75
8lbs of extract light

2oz of grated ginger at 10 minutes
Crystal at 60 and 30 minutes
Fuggles at 10 minutes

Irish Ale yeast at 65-75 degrees

6 5 gallon batches will be made and re-racked into our Buffalo Trace barrel for 2nd fermentation. I emailed several of the big guys (Russian River, Boulevard, Avery, Lost Abbey, and The Bruery) and got some great feedback on how to re-condition our whiskey barrel. Some of our answers can be found here brewadvice.com

We will be force carbing 15 gallons with Korny kegs and then bottle conditioning the rest for all the brewers to take with them.

You can find a small write up of Nicks batch here. My photos from my batch are following.

The house smell amazing after i grated the fresh ginger.

This is my handy dandy brew tool iBrew.

Wort Chiller (notice I had some boil over.. oops)

I got close, the recipe called for an original gravity of 1.068. I think I’m more at 1.062

BREW DOG!

Continue Reading

Guinness and Cleo “the face”

Posted on 12. Feb, 2010 by Derrick.

I started a series of videos showing Guinness (my dog) and Cleo (roommates cat) who have fallin for each other. This is the second video of the series.

Continue Reading

Love is in the air

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by Derrick.

When BFF Floyd asked to live together, I thought. Man Cave, Drinking, Buddies, steaks, and video games. What we forgot about was his 5 month old kitty Cleo.

Moving day was upon us and the time came to introduce my “bull in a china shop” to the china. Guinness was released in the house and Cleo promptly went nuts climbing a solid wood entertainment center. For 3 days they had some issues, but in the last 4 months they have developed a rather unique dynamic. Some would say its love, some would say it’s a young kitty infatuated with an older dog, I just think its cute.

The roommates and I get a good laugh from these two. The next video is the first in a series that shows just some of the more silly things these two do.

Continue Reading

Snowy Bark Park

Posted on 27. Dec, 2009 by Derrick.

In phoenix Guinness was the master of his domain. The Dog Park. Since moving to Colorado however, I’ve been taking him to open space and on hikes. We haven’t had the time to make the drive to to many dog parks.

Now that we are in the new house, we have a dog park less than a mile away and I thought I’d bring the camera along.

Continue Reading

Photographing cold wind

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by Derrick.

I invited Hyon out for some back country snowshoe photo shooting.  We combined for around 500 photos and went through some of the nastiest blowing snow I’ve had to go endure. But even after all that, I ended up with some decent shots. Hyon has some excellent ones over on his site turbopotato.com

Continue Reading

A woman drove me to drink

Posted on 03. Dec, 2009 by Derrick.

Some time ago I had decided to start writing about my favorite beers, or better, the beers that I’d had and made me go “hmmm”. Then I took a sabbatical from drinking while I trained for my triathlon. Now that I don’t have to lose weight and I can wear sweaters to cover my buda, I’m back on the Beer Wagon. It all started with GABF back in September.

So I’ve decided to write once a week about the beers I had the previous week.  I’m not a craft beer connoisseur, but I’m not your average Joe Sixpack. I’d say I’m somewhat more of a beer geek with low aspirations. I’ll make a special trip for a special beer, but if you look in my fridge right now, you will find a corporate beer of one make or another.

This post is going to include the last two weeks of Beers.

Monday the 16th.

My little sister Annika and I rolled up to Twisted Pine’s tap house for a tapping party of their Northstar Imperial Porter.  Their tap house rules, we counted 5 dogs from the pubs patrons just roaming around. I’ve got to bring Guinness there, but only after we go on a major hike. Guinness loves beer and I have a feeling he would be an annoyance unless I take him out to open space.

• Northstar Imperial Porter:  I found this beer to have mellow roasted flavors, with hints of coffee with just enough acidity to please my pallet. I wouldn’t call it my favorite Porter, but it’s a good one. One worth buying again.
• Pumpkin Brown: This was Annika’s favorite beer of the night. Pronounced spice and pumpkin flavor. This beer was a bit to foo-foo for me but it would be heaven with some oatmeal raisin cookies and a nice roaring fire.
• Reilly’s Oak Whiskey Red: My favorite beer of the night. This is the beer that I think my father would have loved. Burbon, vanilla, and some oak flavor come to the mind. I’d keep a few of these around to enjoy on a cold wintery night when I want to feel nostalgic over my old man.

Thursday the 25^th

Turkey day. I spent the day with Kit,  Annika, and  Kits family. It was great company, great food, and as tradition says, we got a digital slide show of Cairo.

• Dogfish Head Punkin Ale: Unlike the Twisted Pine pumpkin,  Dogfish managed to tone down the spice, left subtle hints of spice and pumpkin. Much more enjoyable beer that twisted pines. I was a little bummed that I had only brought 4 of these to dinner.
• Life and Limb: A collaboration between two craft brewers, Sierra Nevada Brewing and Dogfish Head. Smooth and creamy, with lots of maple flavor, it was one of my favorite beers I’ve had in a long while. The dark American ale is what I think brewers need to strive for. Eccentric beer is only cool when it is drinkable. I think when brewers extend the boundaries they forget about drinkability.

Friday the 26th

Annika and I started the day with a little bit of golf in the morning (Coors in hand) then headed over to Oskar Blues in Longmont for some craft beer and food. The food was okay, I’d expected more but the beer was excellent. Even though we were in a brewpub owned and run but the Dales Pale Ale folks, I decided to go with some of the specialty beers.

• Lost Abbeys 10 Commandments:  A Belgian strong, typically a beer I would love but the beer was complex with rootie herb filled flavor. I was confused with what I tasted, sometimes I would pick up some fruits, raisins, apple maybe. It was a good beer but I think with being out all day I needed something more hoppy.
• Avery Brewing Co, Hog Heaven: An American barley wine. This beer is exactly what I was expecting. Piney hops explode off the tongue and I was happy once again.

Those were just the specialty beers I consumed. Here is the full list, Heineken, Dogfish Head 120 minute IPA, Boulder Beer  Hazed and Infused, Crabtree brewing Ginger Beer, Great Divide Hercules, Great Divide Yeti, Twisted pine Blond, Fat Tire, and of course Coors light.

Some random beer pics from the week.

Drinking up on Breckenridge mountain.

Drinking Rocky Mountain Pisswater out of my favorite mug.

Craft Beer next to Corporate Beer, blasphemy? I don’t think so.

Guinness’ new bottle opener. This is by far the coolest Idea ever. Anytime I’ve forgot to grab my key-chain, I simply just call the dog.

Continue Reading