Insane weather

The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermaine (What a lame name. I nominate it for David's fantasy team this year) passed through DFW today which created minor havoc. Massive amounts of rain made for really bad driving- I ended up holed out in a coffee shop for a couple hours- especially when people drive without their lights on.

On my way home the radio was buzzing with tornado warnings, watches, sightings and alarms. There was in fact one tornado which touched down pretty near downtown, and was headed near our apartment (but ended up going pretty far west, on it's way to Oklahoma instead).
(not my video)

Some more culinary exploits

First an update: That lasagna with pesto and such? Freakin' amazing. Like the best lasagna I've ever had. I've been rationing the leftovers because whenever I eat one piece I consider eating the rest of it.

But on to the next thing. We got a little more adventurous and made tamales last week. It was an interesting experience. First off, the corn husks had a weird vinegar smell to them, possibly so they don't mold? Then after spending a while researching (mostly watching Good Eats) we figured out (to my surprise) that fine cornmeal and maza (with which you traditionally make tameles) are not the same thing. But we trekked on. (It turns out that 'hot tamales', an actual food, not just a candy that no one eats, are made with cornmeal, so there is some precedent).

Here's the dough, which is blue cornmeal (cool color), water, shortening (usually lard), and spices- we used oregano, and lime zest.


We made the filling with fresh corn, black beans, jack cheese, cilantro, and lime juice.


The assembly line:

Here are the pretty packages cooking:

We don't have a steamer so I put an upside-down pie plate in the bottom of the pot (I think that's an Alton Brown trick but I can't remember) and put them around and on top of that. And it's here that we ran into the slight problem. Twice the water boiled all out and burned...well a lot- the bottom of the pot, the pie pan, the ends of the tamales. Lucky for us, tamales have their own protective shell. So the results were still very tasty, although the pot is now warped. At least it didn't get a hole burned through it.
Purple and delicious:

Getting on the soapbox

So my orchestra at UNT is playing a pretty cool event in the new Cowboys Stadium. It's sort of a hype up to the Super Bowl (you can check it out here) We're playing random "NFL Movies" music whatever that means. It's pretty cheesy but still fun. And we might possibly be accompanying Tim McGraw. There's going to be a bunch of old famous footballers- Emmitt Smith, and Roger Staubach, etc...

Anyway, I'm psyched to be doing this. Unfortunately the logistics of it are pretty annoying. On both Thursday and Friday I have to drive up to Denton (should be only 30 min, but has been longer recently) and then get on the bus to go to Arlington (probably an hour). Stupidly, the bus will almost drive past my apartment.

So to make it easier I looked into finding another way home- ie public transportation. And lo and behold there isn't any. How do they get 80,000 people into this stadium with no buses, trains, trolleys, nada. Not to mention all the Rangers games that happen next door. Arg...

Another dinner post

For tonight's dinner...Lasagna!


Layers of pasta, with olive oil, tomato sauce, Itown pesto, supped up riccotta, and loads of parmesean and mozarella. We actually haven't eaten it so I can't say how good it is, but it smells delicious.


And with the extra pieces of pasta- Mini-lasagna!

Car Update #2

A year into Texas- the shaggin' wagon passed inspection. It needed new brakes, and windshield wipers, but no biggie if that's all I have to do for a year, on a 205,000 mi. car.

Awesome Pizza, care of Itown

Short description of probably the best pizza Kaley and I have made-
Pesto (made by my dad- and freakin' awesome)
Mozzarella (made by central market- kinda cool?)
Goat cheese (made by...idk- still good)
Cherry tomatoes (also made, or rather grown, by my dad- and freakin' awesome)
Dough (continue the trend, made by central market- I think I'm done trying to knead dough, doesn't work and is way too much work)

In conclusion- pesto pizza is delicious.

The Bear is back...with beer.

So I'm restarting the blog after a long summer hiatus. Back on the bandwagon. And to start here's a beer review of a bottle I got to celebrate. But first a big congrats to AK for an awesome beat win. Here's to a big bump for his career.

So what am I celebrating what you ask? I had a successful school audition which placed me in the top orchestra and band (same as last year so not really an improvement, but still good- hopefully some better parts...) So I stopped by Lone Star and bought a bomber of Left Hand Imperial Stout.

The bottle has some grime across the top, not a good sign, but after smelling and tasting, it's not a bad bottle. The color is a dark brown, somewhat surprising, as Imperial Stouts are generally black as night, but oh well. The aroma is inviting and complex. First comes coffee, soy sauce, molasses, and wood. After it warms up the smell is sweeter- lending towards the chocolate, dutch cocoa and brown sugar tones, thought the other aromas are still there and some other subtle notes- rum, smoke, minerals, . The taste is fruitier, but still complex. As in the smell- there's coffee chocolate, woodiness. A lot more boozy on the tongue- this one doesn't cover the alcohol very well (how you take that part of it depends on how you expect a 10.4% beer to taste). Overall I wish the alcohol was a little less present, but besides that I'm very much enjoying this beer- good complexity, very flavorful, sips well, delicious.

Car Update

I took the station wagon in for an oil change. At 201K miles it's chugging along pretty well. The last oil change turned out to be somewhat of a disaster but this one not so much. While I didn't end up at the shop I wanted to be at (apparently there are a lot of Sam's who work in auto shops in Plano) I didn't get ripped off. No weird coolant issues; no scary engine malfunctions; just an oil change and some new fluids. So a big plus to my week there.

Pizza

Another dinner post.
We made pizza on Tuesday night. I handmade the dough but it kind of failed. It seems to be a successful process about half the time- the first time worked out fine, but I don't remember what recipe I used and it hasn't been the same ever since. It's especially hard to judge the amount of kneading and to actually continue to knead it until it's done (makes me wish for a breadmaker). If anyone has a good dough recipe that's hand tested I'd take it. Instead of our normal tomato, mozzarella, onion, green pepper, we opted for some different toppings: sauce, basil and oregano, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, pepperoncini, olives, red bell pepper. Here's it before the oven:


And after, a little browner on the edges:


The toppings were great, but the crust...not so much. Kaley said it tasted like a scone. I was thinking more like floury cardboard. Either way, not good eats. But edible on top so it wasn't totally wasted.

Gourmet Food

We made sangria and bruschetta for dinner last night. Very fun and interesting.


For the sangria we used a bottle of wine from the Seattle wine tasting- "Ravioli Red" from Greenbank Cellers- a sweet and fruity table wine (sangiovese grapes if anyone actually knows what those are). And we added a can of ginger ale, a bit of rum, and cut up fruit- orange, lemon, peach, strawberries. Good stuff for a hot summer day.


We made a whole bunch of different bruschettas. About half (the bottom of the picture)were from a recipe we saw Ted Allen make at Taste Addison- tomatoes, strawberries, basil (from the cool living basil plant from Central Market see below), salt, olive oil, balsamic, and Parmesan.

The second on the left is olives, mozzarella, and oregano. I liked it. The olives were really flavorful. Next to it is a simple garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan (basically garlic bread). It was really good, but pretty basic. Next to that is chopped pepperoncini with salad greens- surprisingly good (I think chopped pepperoncini with white beans would be good too).


Tasty meal, and we'll probably make croutons with the leftovers.

Kick (really Shoot, Stab, and Slice) Ass

Just say Kick Ass at the dollar movie theater (word to 75 cent Tuesdays)
I was expecting an entertaining funny teen movie about an over zeleous guy who ends up with a cute girl. Instead it had an over zelous guy who ends up with a cute girl while an insane father daughter duo brutally masacre any and all bad guys in sight. It didn't turn out to be bad because of this, but definitely unexpected. Interesting highlights included:

-An man exploding in a giant lumber microwave (anyone know if this seriously exists?)

-Guy gets girl and proceeds to go straight to the boobs

-McLovin'

All in all, in combined Mystery Men with Sin City. Fitty, you've probably already seen this but if you haven't you need to go out and rent it.

Some West Coast trip pics

Got back on Monday night after a long trip- first to Chicago to see the crew (here's AK's roundup, including our run in w/ Albert Pujols).

I left that reunion early to go to Portland OR for my cousin Phil's wedding. It was at a nice winery near Saleem, and an appropriately mixed Jewish/Christian ceremony.


Lots of good wedding stuff- lots of beer and wine, and chichi doughnuts for dessert instead of a cake.

Kaley and I walked around Portland the next morning and found some random statues:
Teddy Rosevelt (not really any connection to Portland)

Then we drove to Seattle w/ my parents to stay w/ my brother and sister in law where there was lots of eating, drinking coffee,

and long walks.

Also a very nice three winery tour.


Overall a great trip, although the weather wasn't amazing- generally gray and chilly. But still fun, and some nice time spent with the fam.

Mavs won game 1

nuff said...

ok maybe not. I'll say one more thing-

Tim Duncan, you are old. But you can be the David Robinson to DeJuan Blair's Tim Duncan (confusing I know...)

Chitown

Yeah I'm coming. No I haven't bought tickets (I'll do it next week when I have enough time to breathe) (before that though I have another 2 concerts and a trip to Florida for an audition)...

Quick Ballin' post #1- Playoff pics

I'm crazy busy with school and concerts and my mom visiting and getting ready for an audition in Florida, but I wanted to at least get these up for proof before playoffs start tomorrow.

Eastern Conference 1st Round

Chicago v. Cleveland- Cleveland in 5 (D. Rose will have one awesome game to avoid the sweep)

Charlotte v. Orlando- Orlando in 4 (fun frontcourt matchup to watch)

Milwaukee v. Atlanta- Atlanta in 6

Miami v. Boston- Boston in 7

Western Conference 1st Round

OKC v. LA- LA in 5 (see Chicago v. Cleveland and substitute Kevin Durant)

San Antonio v. Dallas- Dallas in 7 (probably most contested first round matchup)

Portland v. Phoenix- Phoenix in 5

Utah v. Denver- Denver in 7

Eastern Conference 2nd Round

Atlanta v. Orlando- Orlando in 5

Boston v. Cleveland- Cleveland in 6

Western Conference 2nd Round

Phoenix v. Dallas- Dallas in 6

Denver v. LA- LA in 5

Finals

Eastern- Orlando v. Cleveland- Cleveland in 6

Western- Dallas v. LA- LA in 7

LA v. Cleveland- LA in 7

Quick lunch break repost

I'm taking a lunch/ coffee (it's awesome how cheap brewed coffee is compared to chichi mochachinno coffee flavored drinks) break in between class and practicing and found this article in my regular blog readings. It's about progress at the FX Matt brewery, otherwise known as Saranac. Reminds me of the random nights spent down on the cheapo Commons bars drinking Black Forest. And even older memories of helping my dad and Tim Mount bottle the wine in our basement (the beer was theirs never mine). Actually those experiences are really my first encounter w/ craft beer. I wasn't ever exposed to BMC stuff as a kid because my parents never drank them. I can't say if that has affected my current drinking much but it might have.

Stressful weeks

I had a very long week w/ rehearsals up the wazoo. I don't think I was home before 9 any night this week except for yesterday.

But it seems that so did a lot of other people, which makes me feel a little better- a least I'm doing something I enjoy, even if it's a little too much right now.

Anyway, to people out there who are feeling overworked and emotionally drained: I wish you the best and will do my best to offer what support I can.

And a side note to AK: I'm most of the way through and I'll try to send at least what I have done by 6.

new IBC head brewer

Just a quick repost for interested Itowners- Ithaca Beer has a new brewer joining the chief-
http://lewbryson.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-york-news.html

SA trip post #5 (Monday)

Last SA trip post...

We ate lunch at the only no meat restaurant in SA- Green. I had a (fake) Buffalo chicken sandwich with quinoa tabouli and Kaley had nachos (and they really pushed the jalapeños on her. Three people asked her if she wanted them and the third person just brought them anyway). Great food and cool atmosphere, all the tables had a theme. I think ours was weddings, or possibly Elvis. I think there was also an airforce one and an adopted children one. And outside they were growing stuff- herbs and lettuce and cabbage (and probably way more once it gets warmer)

Then we saw the Alamo. Free but super long around the block lines so we didn't go inside.

Then a quick trip to one of the three Missions (original Spanish missions from the 1?00's).

Then we drove to Austin to look at the capital.



And finally a quick look around UT because I wanted to see campus and their music building, and because they have tons of turtles.

And then home. Yeah. Successful fun trip. Go check out San Antonio sometime. Questions? Comments?

SA trip post #4 (Sunday)

On Sunday we walked a few blocks to the art museum (SAMA) It, like the rest of our trip was suprisingly nice. They had a buttload of stuff, more than you could see in a whole weekend, let alone a single afternoon. Then we walked down the river a bit to see the giant fish that they put up over the river under a highway overpass (just a block or two from the museum- "The Riverwalk" is the touristy area and downtown, but the river has sidewalks all along it through town).

Then we ate dinner at the Freetail Brewpub. I got my growler (thanks Fitty) filled with Morning Wit, a sour Belgian wheat, and we drank black saison

and a dry hopped IPA (super delicious and hoppy).

Sunday night was tamer. We walked around Alamo plaza and around the Riverwalk and ate some ice cream sandwiches.

SA trip post #3 (Saturday)

So seeing as how I'm a little behind on posts (we went to SA two weeks ago now) I'm going to write up the rest of the trip in a bit of a wildfire fashion.

Saturday we went down to the Riverwalk all day. There were lots of St. Patrick's Day stuff going on including the dying of the river

(okay so maybe it's stolen from Chitown, but it's pretty freakin' cool to see)
Also random Irish dancers with uber-weird curly blonde wigs

And a string band.

We had missed the street parade in the morning but did get to see the boat parade and made a lot of fun of the drunk people on the Guinness float. Mostly about how they all might try to go swimming in the river, or drink the river because they thought it was green beer.

We did drink a green beer. I was hoping if I closed my eyes it would taste like mint or a jolly rancher, but this was sadly not the case. At the skeezy bar (a delightfully Jing friendly place I'm sure) there were a group of four old women who were drinking green beer and having a blast- out of place, but interesting.

Then we walked to a random square with a fountain outside this big church


And got amazingly good pizza:

Pizza=awesome. The crusty was crispy but not too thin and all the toppings were fresh and it wasn't greasy. Also the guy was cooking in front of us and was nice and talkative. We ate the whole thing.

Then we walked back to the downtown area and spent some time hanging out at the Luminaria festival, which was conveniently also on the same weekend.

We watched a glass blower and some fire poi guys, and performing arts high school ballet, and some modern Hispanic art. The lowlight of the night was this act:

Random bad operatic sopranos singing pop covers really loudly and with waaaay too much vibrato, to the point that I thought it was fake ghost noises before we actually saw them.

The rest of the night involved a lengthy search for a classy bar, sitting at a bar that turned out not to be very classy, and ending up drinking at a hotel bar with a happy talkative bartender and the wife of one of the directors of the festival. This leads to the drink of the month: Kaluha and bourbon- sounds gross but is delicious.

SA trip post #2 (Friday night)

So after Real Ale drove down to San Antonio. Quickly checked into the hotel and headed downtown for dinner. We found a nice Tex-Mex restaurant on the Riverwalk that we thought was going to be really expensive but turned out to not be- so there we went, and got to sit on the patio overlooking the river on a gorgeous night. I had oyster tacos with a nice sauce and pineapple. Their pinto beans were pretty good too (sorry no pics). Then we headed down to the river bank proper and walked around for a while- ate some ice cream, looked in lots of shops, and super expensive hotels, saw this tree.

I expected the RW to be fairly small and cheesy and touristy. And it was pretty touristy, but there were tons of people there, and a lot of them just seemed to be locals hanging out. I got a good vibe from the city there.


We spent the rest of the night at this jazz bar. It was an interesting place- pretty divey, but the crowd was upscale, as were the drinks. The house band played mostly Dixieland which was nice and upbeat. They were all older gentlemen (and played everything from memory which I found amazing) except the bassist, and the drummer who was REALLY high. At times I thought he was going to fall asleep at the set. All in all a great day.

SA trip post #1 (Real Ale)

Kaley and I took a long weekend trip to San Antonio over the start of our spring break. It was a lot of fun- surprisingly SA is a pretty cool city. Ever since I've been in Dallas, everyone has plugged how great Austin is, but nobody really talks about SA. I'll put up a couple more posts about our trip over the following days, but I'll start with our first stop (not counting a crummy gas station in Waco) the Real Ale Brewery.

Real Ale is in Blanco, Texas, in the hill country. It was nice to drive through and see cherry blossoms and lavender (they grow most of the country's lavender in this area). The brewery is pretty standard looking from the outside: big ass malt silo; metal siding; etc. Their tours/tasting on Friday is free which is awesome. On tap they had their standard pale, their blonde (tastes like Bud- read "AK would like this"), their ESB (English Special Bitter- a fairly malty and inoffensive British ale. Read "AK should try this instead"), and Phoenix (the doubled or Imperial version of the ESB). Now on top of these they had the special, unreleased, never been bottled, barrel-aged Real Heavy (wee heavy, a strong scottish style), and barrel-aged Sisyphus (barleywine). It was awesome to get a chance to sample these two.

Points of note on the tour:
-As their name indicates, they heavily promote "real" or cask ale. This is a way of serving beer in a keg which is naturally carbonated from the yeast. It comes out a little warmer (cellar temp) and with more "creamy" carbonation. They have something like 150 casks at Real Ale. (Ithaca Beer also does some of this- memories of Pixel lounge).
-Their fermenters are glycol chilled, not water.
-Their bottling line is way more mechanized than at Ithaca Beer. They have a machines to fold the sixer boxes, fold the case boxes, put the sixer boxes in the case boxes, label the boxes, and put the bottles into the boxes (along with all the actual bottling of the liquids). The most annoying and labor intensive thing is making the mixed pack which they have to do by hand.
-They have a machine to clean kegs (thus rendering Fitty useless).
-Like Franconia, and a lot of craft breweries, they are rapidly expanding. They just put in a new grain silo which is three times the size of their old one.
-They're currently expanding their barrel program to include more wine barrels and some bourbon barrels (Heaven Hill I think he said?), with the ones they have, seen below. This should make for some incredible beer.



The beer:
I'll limit my thoughts to the two barrel-aged offerings.

Barrel-Aged Sisyphus



I had this one second, but I'm putting it first here because it was the lesser of the two. Don't get me wrong, it was great, and better than normal Sisyphus (which I enjoy anyway), but the barrel didn't come out as much in the taste of the beer. The smell had a nice grapiness to it. There was also a sort of smooth vanilla and oak and silky maltiness. The taste was very much like a normal Sisyphus- sweetly malty, tropical fruit hops, probably more fruitiness than normal. Overall a very delicious beer.

Barrel-Aged Real Heavy

Now this stuff was REALLY delicious. It was one of those beers that I didn't want to drink because then there wouldn't be any left to smell, and it was a real treat to smell. There was amazing complexity with the interplay of sweet malts and fruit and woodiness. Oh and I forgot to mention that this was a slightly sour beer. The barrel had clearly inoculated it with some special bugs. The smell came off with a ton of light vinegar, like white balsamic, or cider vinegar. This was present in the taste too and combined with the maltiness of the base beer was just tasty. Hats off to Real Ale for a great barrel-aged beer (or two) and a great free tour.

Mean Green

Normally I don't pay attention to, watch or in any way follow college basketball with the exception of checking up on Cornell from time to time (mostly via AK) but UNT made it into the dance Sunday night by winning the Sun Belt tourney. So I'll have to watch at least two games. Anyone interested in a friendly wager that the Mean Green outlast the Big Red (sounds like a reality show about interior decorating)?

Random thought of the Day

We were talking about Porgy and Bess in my research class today and I was randomly reminded of Ma Radebe. Anybody else have her back in the day? Remember that crazy homemade video she made w/ things being thrown at her shadow? That shit was crazy and probably was much more interesting than we gave it credit for as 7th graders.

Car issues

I took my car in for an oil change today. I normally try to go a certain Midas near my house, but they're closed on the weekends and I haven't had a chance to be there during the week so I took my chances on a different place in Denton. So here's where the story starts- they drive it in, and mess with it for a bit while I'm reading (Rolling Stone- surprising selection for an auto place) the guy comes in and says he wants to show me some stuff...great, you know how often that's good news. He starts in about how the radiator is dirty and it needs a coolant flush and this and that...

Here's the thing. I don't know shit about the insides of cars. He could've told me the inner secondary cossex was fragumilated and I would've nodded just the same. Like he took off this cap and goes, "see how dirty this is" and I'm saying to myself "No shit it's dirty, this whole engine is black and greasy and the car's pushing on 200k, of course it's dirty! Why does this particular smudge of dirt matter?" And this is kinda frustrating. I always feel roped into things when I get my car maintained because I don't know what's actually important or not and what's normal or not.

And it's really hard to know to trust some random guys opinion, and think that he's not just screwing you over. Honestly the reason I like the Midas is because the first time I took my car in they DIDN'T try to sell me something else. He in fact mentioned how good shape the car was in considering the age and mileage.

The end of the story is that I did end up paying for an engine flush (whatever the hell that is...if they even did anything) and the coolant does look kinda dirty, but I'm gonna take it into Midas to see about that, since I trust them not to screw me over.

The moral is that I'm going to try to learn the basic workings of cars, maybe this summer, so at least I don't always feel like I'm being taken for a ride (pun intended) whenever they say something's wrong.

Sorry for the long rant of a post, just annoyed at the whole experience and spending way more money than I expected to.

WTF?

Found on the keyboard of the UNT library computer I'm currently using:

"WARNING: Some experts believe that use of any keyboard may cause serious injury. Consult statement on back of this keyboard"

Cell messages

I had to mass erase all the old texts on my phone the other day because it was getting too slow to function, but I made sure to read through the ones I had purposely saved before doing so. Here are some gems:

"When were you being attacked by a winged beast?"

"NYC calls in national guard to contain mobs of CP fans"

"I am now owner of Ithaca Beer"

"Fuck! I just took Nyquil"

"Start a riot!"

"You're just like Jim...just like your personality"

"Mark, give me your pants"

Pete Seeger quotes

I got a couple Pete Seeger cds from the library last week. Some quotes from the liner notes that I found compelling.

"Books, TV, tapes, pictures- All our modern aids to communication are great, but the danger is that they become a substitute for the communication which people used to carry on with each other"

"I'd be proudest if my records were thought of as 'demos'-demonstration records, just to listen to and learn the song"

"The best thing would be for people to sing along with the record. Or else to learn the songs off the record, and sing 'em yourself; THEN GIVE THE RECORD AWAY [caps added]"

"The musicality of a nation should be judged not by the presence of a few highly expert musicians, but rather by the ability of the average rank and file man or woman to sing, or dance, or play some instrument"

Amazing that a person who's source of revenue is record sales (and some concert money I'm sure) advocates the free exchange of his own information.

Mavs update3

I had the pleasure of going to the Mavs game on Sunday night against the Hornets. We got very cheap tickets up in the rafters, but still enjoyable and you could still see the action fine. As Chad said, it was as much as going to see a movie and way more fun. Some notes:

-Haywood is sooo much better than Damp, and way more fun to watch. Dude can actually catch a pass.

-The team surprisingly looked its best when they ran the floor. Obviously this worked best when Jet was playing, but I think that the best way to integrate Butler and Haywood, and to fully utilize the Karate Kidd's skill set, is to continue a fast pace. They don't need to be playing like a D'Antoni team or recklessly putting up shots, but push the ball down and see what you can get, and if there isn't an easy basket then just ease into a half court set and let the German go to work.

-Darren Collison is crazy good. Hornets could trade CP3 for some more fire power in the middle and be totally fine.

-Marcus Thorton is also crazy good. See previous point.

-The lead isn't secure even when it's 25 points and you've been putting on a clinic for an entire half.

-If the Mavericks can shore up their defense against guards, they could go all the way. So far at an 8 game streak and in 2nd place in the West they're doing pretty damn well

Cincinnati Beer Scene

Kaley and I went through Cincinnati twice this summer, and then one more short trip on the way home from Ohio between Christmas and NYE, and we were pleasantly surprised by how nice a place it is. Really great areas right next to the Ohio river with the stadiums and a giant park on the riverbank. And then just up the hill a pretty business district with a lot of old buildings and history.

Then today I read about the brewery history of the city, including extensive caves and tunnels for lagering, on a beer blog I frequent. Wish I could be there this weekend for the Bockfest.

USA-Canada?

Looks like the odds are about 2-1 for the Candians. Predictions?

Franconia

I had to get out of the house fairly early today and took the opportunity to go tour the Franconia Brewery in McKinney. It starts at 11 on Saturdays, and McKinney's almost an hour away so it would've normally cut into my sleeping in, but today was a good day for it.

And I'm glad I did- it was the best brewery tour I've ever taken. The tour lasted about an hour after which everyone hung out and sampled some of their fine product including the second batch of their . The brewer/owner Dennis Wehrmann (only one other employee) led the tour and struck a great balance between technical speak and humor. Some key points for me:
-All their beer is brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot, which means only grain, hops, yeast, and water (so sadly no pumpkin beer from them)
-Their annual production was about 1,500 barrels (that's 3,000 kegs) last year and Dennis expects to double that this year (how's that for growth)
-They self distribute their beer (there's a pickup covered in Franconia decals). I'm not sure how they get around all the three tier laws but it's pretty cool and I'm sure it allows their beer to sell cheaper for it.
-They exercise a lot of quality control measures
-They don't bottle their beer (which I knew) but not due to the economics, but rather the environmental issues relating to the US not reusing their bottles. Dennis claimed that in Germany they reuse their glass bottles many many times over before even recycling them, and also reuse their plastic bottles (suprising. Can the Germany trip guys confirm or refute this?)
-The brewery is brand new and very environmentally friendly (no trash can).

All in all a great tour with a great drink local message and delicious beer.

Curling

After a discussion about how ridiculous curling is I found this Wii game...(disclosure: this video is rated PG13 for some mature sexual content)

Local beer from far away

Finished a long research assignment tonight and decided to relax with Dirtoir Black Lager from Rogue brewing in Oregon.


It's brewed with grain and hops which are grown on their own farm, although the label lists a whole bunch of specialty malts before it gets to "Rogue Micro Barley Farm first growth Risk Malts". In general the amount of specialty malts in a beer compared to the base malt is pretty small, so it's probably mostly homegrown. I give them props for cutting down on transportation needs and producing a uniquely local beer. This is a growing trend in beer now. Sierra Nevada recently put out a beer using all their own grown malt and hops. Bells makes a beer with grain(I think wheat)grown on fields they own in Michigan. And it goes pretty hand in hand with fresh hop beers (all but a very select few beers are made with dried hops because fresh ones go bad in a days time). Anyway on to the beer!

It pours beautifully- a total black color with a blooming head of foam that looks like hot chocolate. The look strongly resembles a super intense stout, especially with the dark head. It smells roasty and chocolaty and I can smell bits of smokiness as it warms up. The taste is good. As a lager there's not a lot of fruitiness, but great coffee and bittersweet chocolate notes. It washes down pretty cleanly- I could have a couple of these and not get sick of it or think it was too heavy. Reminded me a lot of the Saranac Black Forest which is probably my favorite Saranac beer, but this is better- more flavor and more complex overall. Quite a nice beer to savor at the end of the day.

Mavs update2

Damp's out for a month, and Haywood's making headlines on Daily Dime. Did I call that or what? In related crappy news for Washington, former Mav Josh Howard is out for the season (that's major bonus points for Cuban for the timing on that trade) and the wizards will be signing this guy to a one year veterans minimum contract in order to have enough players to avoid forfeiting

On the plus side this dude sets the record for oldest current player and he looks like he can smoke the competition.