Pleasantly Surprised!

So the annual picnic was last yesterday afternoon/evening, and damn it was a great time!  Some new faces, and some familiar faces, The weather was great as was the food and of course some excellent home brewed beers.  The time came for those of us in the Iron Brewery Competition to get our entries arranged and ready for the tasting/judging, and of course shortly after the fun began.  There were a total of 16 entries and the roots chosen included carrots, sugar beets, potatoes, ginger, galangal root, and styles varied from IPAs, a stout, a wheat, Flanders Red, and more.  This wasn't your "normal" competition with BJCP forms and standards being followed, this was your basic, "Crowd Favorite" style competition.  Each person in attendance was given a ticket, and each entry had a paper bag associated with it.  After tasting every beer, the 'judges' were to drop your ticket in whichever bag was associated with their favorite beer.  As you may have read in my previous entry, my Ninja was initially a bit heavy on the alcohol flavor at kegging, but this thing just keeps getting better and better!  Even when we got to the party, it seemed to have gotten smoother, and those who had tasted it were already giving me some really good feedback.

So the dust settled, and the votes were tallied.  Cori and Eric were ready to announce the winners, and coming in 3rd was the #2 entry; MINE!  I'm not sure if I've mentioned before, but there are some VERY good brewers in this club, and I was really eager to see what some of the usual heavy hitters were going to bring.  I was definitely not thinking that I would be able to compete with some of these guys and girls, but holy crap!  There's even a guy who is in the process of opening his own brewery in town and I beat him too!  As I said, I was VERY pleasantly surprised, and it was definitely a great time!  I'm looking forward to some more brewing and more brew parties!  So the second place beer was Mike's entry, and I'm sorry Mike, but I don't remember what it was.  And the winner was Adam's Flanders Beet Red.  I'll be honest, if I wasn't voting for my beer, it was going to be Adam's; what can I say, I'm a freak for that style!

Well, all this talk is getting me wanting to brew some beer; off to the homebrew store...

Cheers all...

I Present To You: The Ninja Ginja

The time is here; this weekend's Iron Brewer Competition is only 2 days away, and I think I'm ready to rock and roll!  If you look back, I believe it was May 7th that I brewed my batch of "root vegetable" beer.  Not knowing what I was getting into with this recipe, I was definitely very interested to taste the final product.  At each transfer I'd taste it and wasn't too enthused, but then again, as big of a beer as it is, I knew I couldn't judge it yet.  I kegged it last Friday and poured the first glass Saturday.  The 10.65% ABV was definitely known, but there was a sweet/honey backbone trying to make itself known.  I took some to a friend's place for a bbq and to have them taste it for me; it was met with mixed reviews (which I felt the same).  I hadn't touched it since then until yesterday when I wanted to check the carbonation and tweak any last minute things with it if needed.  I poured a glass with a thin head so I knew I needed to bump the CO2 a tiny bit and try to get some more froth.  The best part was the first sip; everything had really mellowed out and the flavors had melded perfectly!  The alcohol was not such a punch on your tongue, and the honey sweetness has moved more to the forefront.  I'm going to check the carbonation again tonight and will have one last chance to make any adjustments for the grand release at this year's Hop Barley and the Alers annual picnic and Iron Brewer Competition.  I'll get some pictures tonight and post here, but until then, cheers!

Introducing!

If you're local, then you need to find it, of you're not a local, when you come here, you need to find it!  Upslope Brewing Company just released it's 4th can; called Craft Lager.  As the press says, it's a "crisp and refreshing" drink, and one that "you can enjoy several of without suffering from severe hop mouth or contracting a case of the brown bottle flu".  Basically, this is Upslope's first session beer.  I was lucky enough to get a glass of it on a sunny afternoon in the brewery.  Matt took us back to the bright tank where the batch at the time was located and poured up a couple of glasses.  My take was that this is a VERY drinkable beer and one that would definitely find it's way into my beer fridge.  It was clean and refreshing, and just nice drink.  With the lower ABV (4.8% in this case) it makes it the perfect hot afternoon lager for the upcoming summer months!

Random Beer Fact: 6/7/11

Labeorphile.  What do you think that is?  It's a person who collects beer bottles...

how about a meadophile?  A person who studies beer bottles.

I know what you're thinking, "what's there to study there???"

Dirt, Rubber, Upslope Brown, and Walnut Dubbel

Finally temperatures are staying on the warm side and all of the front range trails are in great shape!  A great friend of mine hit me up a couple of weeks back asking if I was interested in doing a long mountain ride soon; of course I was interested!  So the plans came together and the day had arrived; this past Saturday.  We dropped off my truck at a friend's place in Boulder and headed down to the bus station to grab the 10:10 bus up to Nederland.  Normally there are a few other bikers doing the same thing, but this time there were probably 12-15 of us packing our bikes in the cargo area of the N-Bus this particular morning.  What for you wondering?  Some of the best trails in the Boulder area are right outside of Ned, and one of the best ways to see them is to take the bus up there, ride the trails, and ride back to town.

After getting the bikes on, and paying the $4 fare (it has gone up since last year) we settled into our seats for the 35ish minute ride up the canyon.  Once at the lot, we all filed out/off the bus and the excited scramble of bikes, wheels, and camelbaks begun.  My buddy and I found our rigs, quickly readied them for the day, and were quickly off to start the ride.  No sooner did we leave the pavement did the trail start to climb upwards.  It was a steady climb and really not that long; at least, not like the trails closer to Boulder/Golden.  We meandered our way through pine and aspen groves and came across a single speed race taking place on the West Mag trails.  On we went and finally hit the new "Re-Root" trail that we were really looking forward to.  This thing doubles back countless times and has so many cool twists/turns/jumps that makes it a great way to wrap up this portion of the ride.  We got out to the main trailhead and decided to head back in the front trail to hit up another favorite trail, Aspen Alley.  After about 10 minutes we were facing the Continental Divide to the west and dropped in 'the alley'.  Another week or so and the canopy will be full and it'll be like riding through a tunnel of lush greens and white bark of the aspens that line this short strip of singletrack.  Back on the road we made our way to the trailhead/parking lot for a short break and a bite to eat.  Next up, the Dot Trails to the north of Magnolia road.  These are somewhat new to me, but brand new to my buddy, so off we went.  More great singletrack that wound it's way through lodgepole pines and more aspens.  A couple of fun sections later and some short/techy climbs and we were at the anticipated "Car Wash".  This section of trail was put in a replanted section of harvested pines.  The trees are probably 20 feet tall and the trail goes straight down a row that is maybe 3 feet wide at the widest spot.  Don't even think about sitting up on your bike, you'd be spitting out pine needles and picking sap from your nose-hair for days!  You have to get low, yes, like the song, and try not to clip your bar-ends on the trees.  As you might imagine, this trail gets it name from the trusty gas-station style car washes, you know with the big blue and red brushes that spin around.  The pines slapping your arms/legs/face resemble what I imagine walking through one of those washes as being.  What a way to wrap up the trail portion of the ride!  Out to the road we go, and the next item to sort out was where we'd enjoy a 'trail/road side' beer.  Yes, I packed in 3 cans of Upslope's Brown Ale and it was time to enjoy one.  No the ride wasn't over, we still had around 15 miles ride back to town.  We found a nice shade tree and plopped our asses down for a refreshing beer.  That Brown tasted so damn good!  We reflected the trails we had just ridden, and threw a couple of 'first time to get drunk' stories before climbing back on the bikes and making our way back to the car.  The remaining road felt longer than I remembered, but it was definitely a good spin.

Once back to the car, our total time on the bike showed 4 hours, but with the beer/snack/rest breaks, it was probably more along the lines of 3.5 hours of actual ride time.  At this point, it was now time for a proper meal and a proper beer.  We made our way down to the Walnut (as usual) and settled in for a burger and a couple of mugs.  Not a bad little Saturday!

Here's a pic of me on one of the techy climbs...

Here's to your Health!

I'm sure most of you have heard that moderate consumption of alcohol has been found to be beneficial to your health right?  Well, I just saw an article on MSNBC.com talking about how the moderate consumption of beer (and wine, coffee, tea) can help reduce the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes!  For more, read here.  

Cheers to that!

The Ninja (update)

After a long weekend of being on the go, I originally planned to transfer The Ninja into secondary on Monday.  Unfortunately, my energy level was at about 1% of max, and I had nothing left.  I passed out on the couch and there was NO way I was going to get up to deal with beer.  So last night, the time had arrived.  It had been a hair over 3 weeks and this thing was still making alcohol.  After getting things sanitized and the transfer started, I pulled a sample for a taste and a hydrometer reading.  I can't remember if I had mentioned in my last entry about it, but the OG was just about 1.097 (12.9% potential alcohol), and I was eager to see where I was at after 3 weeks of CO2 being pumped out.  So after filling the tube, I dropped the saccharometer/hydrometer in and damn, that thing sunk like a rock; unlike the OG (where it floated like crazy).  Currently, it read 1.021 and 2.25%, which puts this bad boy at 10.65% ABV.  I won't go into flavor and such since it's so young, but I did drop in another bit of ginger to try to get a touch more of that flavor on board.  More to come...