ChrisTalbot.com

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #10: The jalapeno ale

2008-05-16T06:00:00.000-04:00

I've received a lot of comments about my brewing of a jalapeno ale -- most of them along the lines of "why the hell would you do that?" -- and I've finally had a little sample of it. It turns out I made a rather big error in the brewing, and I definitely didn't add enough jalapeno.

Last night, I spent a few hours bottling the jalapeno ale (which was dubbed Talbot's Hot Sauce a few weeks back, but it doesn't live up to its name), and I kept a little sample aside to give it a taste after I was done bottling it. I poured the sample in a glass and stuck it in the fridge for a little while to chill out.

Now, I don't really think the tasting will really give me a completely accurate idea of how the ale will turn out after it's conditioned in the bottle for a couple of weeks, but it should be pretty close. Unfortunately, what I tasted was a weak, almost watered-down ale with the aroma of jalapeno but only a slight taste of the pepper. There's barely any heat to it at all.

So what were my mistakes?

Well, we'll start with the ale itself. I cheaped out on the pale ale LME and only used 2kg instead of the usual 3kg. I ended up with a low original gravity of 1.032 and an incredibly low final gravity of 1.002 (I shit you not). A quick calculation using an online brewing calculator, and it should be about 3.8% ABV, which is actually higher than I thought it would be.

I think I understand why my assumptions were incorrect, and it all comes down once again to my poor assumptions about yeast. I used the same Cooper's dried yeast I always use for my beers, and that tends to give me beers of up to 5% ABV. Initially, I thought using less extract would net me a lower alcohol content (I guessed about 3%), but what I should have realized was that the yeast would convert all of the sugars to alcohol.

The result? A light beer with the characteristics of a watered down ale.

What have I learned? Don't be an idiot and don't cheap out. Don't make assumptions about the brewing process (this is a lesson I have to keep re-learning, it seems). But most importantly, always use 3kg of LME when brewing an extract beer. Don't use anything less.

As for the jalapeno flavour (or lack thereof), I'm not really sure what the problem is there. I expected to have a heavily jalapeno-flavoured beer with a lot of heat -- perhaps too much heat to actually make it drinkable in anything but small quantities.

I used 15 sliced jalapenos, which came out to 291g (0.64 lbs). I had thought that would be enough jalapeno for a hot and spicy ale, but apparently not.

The end result is an ale with jalapeno aromas, a light jalapeno taste, a little bit of spiciness, an ABV comparable to Coors Light and a taste about as weak. At the very least, it should still make a suitable steak marinade, but it should also be a sippable beverage when nothing else in the beer fridge catches my attention.

2008-05-06T11:13:00.004-04:00

After some additional tasting of my cinnamon mead, I've changed my mind about the flavour. The cinnamon is actually more powerful than I at first thought. I'm actually hoping that it will mellow a bit with age.

Aging will be the tricky part, though. I'm pretty sure I'll go through a few bottles over the next couple of months, but I'm really hoping to be able to stick a few bottles away in the storage room somewhere and leave them. With any luck, I'll forget they even exist and come across them in another year or two, but that's probably wishful thinking.

For the record, I ended up with twelve full 750mL wine bottles of the cinnamon mead and a bottle that was actually a bit more than half full (possibly even closer to three-quarters full). The half-bottle is gone. I took another bottle over to Kevin's last night. Another bottle will probably get opened this weekend. If I don't find a good pace for mead consumption, it'll all be gone shortly -- and I'd really like to have a couple of bottles for Christmas time.

2008-05-04T10:31:00.002-04:00

I finally bottled the cinnamon mead last night, and I was disappointed with the results. It's not terrible, but it ended up very dry instead of slightly sweet (I'd hoped for some sweetness).

It ended up at about 12.5% ABV with a FG of 0.994 (which may have been slightly off because the mead was probably a couple of degrees below room temperature). The OG was 1.094, although that was an estimation because my hydrometer doesn't go any higher than 1.090. For those that don't speak brew, that basically means the yeast ate up pretty much all the sugar. While that bumped the alcohol up to a respectable 12.5%, it meant there was no sugar left.

The mead stayed in primary for over two months, but it had stopped fermenting after about a month. I left it in secondary for a little over two months and then siphoned into a tertiary (the sediment in the bottle of the secondary was a grey-ish brown, probably from the cinnamon sticks in the boil). It sat in tertiary for a little over a month. In total, it's been about six months since the day I made it. If I hadn't run out of patience, I probably should have left it at least another couple of months in the carboy to completely clear.

The mead has a light honey aroma, with no hint of the cinnamon, but the taste is actually the other way around. It tastes more like a dry white wine, with not really much of a honey taste, but with a very slight hint of cinnamon.

Back when I made the mead, I understood nothing about yeast, and I just assumed all yeasts were essentially the same. I'm still no expert on yeasts, but I at least know a bit more. I checked into the yeast I used, and apparently it's for making dry wines, which explains why the mead had such a low FG and came out dry.

With what I've learned, I'm going to make a full 19L batch of mead (no cinnamon or other adjuncts this time). I've acquired a couple of packages of Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead yeast (thanks, Brian), so I'm going to use that instead of wine yeast and about 6kg (~13 lbs.) of clover honey.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #9: An empty beer fridge

2008-05-02T09:24:00.001-04:00

It's been months, but my beer fridge is just about empty. Besides three bottles of Dieu du Ciel's Rosee d'Hibiscus and half a dozen or so bottles of my nutmeg-y Christmas Ale 2007, I've completed run out of beer. Even the last of Talbot's Porter is gone.

Simply put: I waited too bloody long between homebrewing sessions.

Last Wednesday night, while Jacquie was out, I spent the night brewing up a very simple light beer that was to be the base for my jalapeno ale (which I've dubbed Talbot's Hot Sauce, because by the time it's done, it should be a cool beverage that makes you crave a glass of water). This past Wednesday night, I transferred to secondary and added the fifteen jalapenos (about 0.7 lbs. worth) to the beer.

Now the beer has to sit for a couple of weeks before bottling. By the time it's ready to drink (or sample, more likely; again, it should be somewhat hot), it'll be mid-June.

In the meantime, I really want to make a summer pale/blonde ale for sipping on the patio, so I really need to get to that. But first, I need to get some supplies. I ran out of Cooper's dried yeast, and without that, I'm not going to have much luck making beer.

The plan is to run out and buy some yeast this weekend, as well as some bottle caps and wine corks (I'll explain the corks in a sec), and then maybe find a few hours before Sunday night to actually brew the beer.

Also this weekend, I want to bottle my cinnamon mead. I made the batch (half-batch, actually) in November, transferred to secondary in January and then transferred to tertiary in March. At this point, it's spent about four months in secondary/tertiary. While Kevin Tighe suggested I leave it six to eight months in secondary (I won't transfer to tertiary with my next mead), I've finally run out of patience -- and frankly, I want to be able to drink some of the mead during the summer (chilled, naturally).

This is where the corks come in. I have a large number of wine bottles collecting dust in the basement. Kevin loaned me his corker so I could make use of them. Now I just need corks and a bit of time to clean and sterilize about ten to fifteen bottles.

Additionally, Brian over at Homebrewers Retail got Kevin and I some proper mead yeast, so I need to also make use of that. What does that mean? Well, it means I need to buy some more honey and get another mead in primary.

With that much brewing going on, I think I'm going to need some more carboys.

2008-05-01T13:08:00.001-04:00

Apparently MapMyRun.com was just the kick in the pants I needed to get out running. After spending a bit of time plotting out my standard routes and figuring out how many kilometres each of them are, I decided to go out for a short run at lunch.

I was wheezing and gasping by the time I got home, but it felt good to be back out running.

2008-05-01T11:21:00.002-04:00

I've been having a difficult time getting motivated to start running. I've tried going on walks over lunch hour, but it's easy to get distracted and lazy. However, I think I've finally found a Website that will help me get motivated. Check out MapMyRun.com, a site for mapping out runs (duh) and keeping track of your running, walking, cycling, hiking and training activities.

I've created an account and put the link in my Firefox toolbar so I'm always staring at it. If that doesn't get me running, I don't know if anything could.

2008-04-28T11:33:00.002-04:00

I picked up a copy of Mario Kart Wii yesterday and spent the entire afternoon playing it. It was worth the wait. I've even got some friends with copies and have already started kicking their butts in online play.

I guess this will be the video game that gets the most play for the next few weeks.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #8: Plastic wine bottles -- the horror

2008-04-25T16:18:00.002-04:00

I walked into the local LCBO with the intent to buy two bottles of wine for a gathering with friends that evening, and as I strolled through the automatic door, I was greeted with a common liquor store sighting. Standing behind a small podium-like table, a woman was offering customers samples of a red and a white wine.

It's my custom not to approach these people asking for samples, but if they ask me if I want to try whatever they're currently shilling, then I don't turn them down (I'm such a lush). This day, the woman called out to me and asked if I'd like to try an Australian wine.

Sure, why not? I nodded my consent and then struck up a conversation with the wine peddler. While I can't recall what the wine was, I do recall she was offering a red and a white (again, specifics aren't coming to me -- I think the red was a Shiraz). As regular readers and friends are probably aware, I'm more of a red wine drinker than a white wine drinker, so I asked to sample the red. She poured a small sample and I gave it a taste.

It wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away. It also seemed like she was serving it a touch too cool, so it was difficult to truly get the nuances of the flavours. At about fifteen bucks a bottle, I figured it wasn't a half-bad buy, but I'd come into the store with the idea of buying two bottles of the Painted Turtle Shiraz.

At this point, I became aware that the wines had screw tops. Odd. I know screw tops are becoming more common, but there's still this snobbish attitude in me that turns up its nose at screw tops. Give me cork or even synthetic cork, but screw tops? I can deal with that for a cheap, fruity wine, but it strikes me as uncouth for what is supposed to be a finer wine.

The woman picked up the bottle to show me.

"See? It's a screw top, and the bottle's not glass." It looked like glass, but then she squeezed it. "It's plastic."

I cringed. Screw tops and a plastic bottle? You've got to be kidding me.

I think the wine peddler saw my interest in the wine fade to nothing before her very eyes.

"This is the way the industry is moving," she said. All (or at least most) wines are apparently going to be moving in this direction.

"That really takes away the ritual of wine," I said.

She agreed with me, but then explained that the reason for the move to plastic bottles is because it's better for the environment.

"Plastic bottles are better for the environment than glass?" I asked. Actually, it was more of a skeptical question than a true question. What I really wanted to say was, "I call bullshit," but it was neither the time nor the place for such a comment.

I'd stumped her. She agreed she didn't understand how it was better for the environment, either.

"And unless they're using food-grade plastic, wouldn't the taste of the plastic seep into the wine?" I asked. Rich and I have had several conversations about putting alcohol in plastic bottles, and I had flashbacks to those discussions.

She again couldn't really understand it.

"They must have done their research or they wouldn't be in business," she said. Translation: She really didn't have any clue and was guessing.

I'm trying not to be hard on the woman. She was just an LCBO employee stuck showing off a product that oenophiles are going to be highly skeptical of -- and it's clear she didn't have enough information to actually discuss the benefits (if there are any, besides the winery saving money because plastic is cheaper than glass) of plastic bottles.

I thanked her for the sample and walked away, assuring her I'd think about buying a bottle of the wine (and I really did consider it for a moment, but $14.95 for a plastic bottle of wine with a screw cap seemed a bit pricey, especially since the wine wasn't anything spectacular). I headed right for the wine section. As I wandered up and down the aisles, glancing at the various wines on the shelves, I spotted several other plastic bottles. Even the wine I had come for was out in two varieties -- a standard glass wine bottle version and a squatter, plastic version.

Naturally, I chose the glass bottles. I was having dinner that night with at least two wine drinkers, and it would be an embarrassment to show up with wine in plastic bottles (granted, Painted Turtle is probably not considered top-notch wine, anyway, but the point remains). Besides, with a choice, especially since the prices were the same, I wasn't going to settle for plastic when I could have glass (with a cork in it, even).

While in the store (and even now), I wondered if the LCBO was testing the idea of marketing plastic wine bottles to see what its customers would do. I hope the message sent to the LCBO is "piss off with your damn plastic," but I have a feeling the woman who poured my sample is right -- the industry probably is going this way.

2008-04-24T13:56:00.002-04:00

I've lost the ability to be polite to door-to-door religion peddlers. They seem to be coming around lately with alarming frequency, so when I opened the door a few minutes ago to two men that were obviously here to sell me on Jesus (the Jesus Christ buttons on their jackets gave them away), I rolled my eyes, called out "I'm not interested" and started closing the door.

"Do you know of our message?" the younger of the two called back.

Just before the door closed, I yelled back (over my idiotic, barking dogs): "I don't care."

Slam. Click. Locked. Gone.

Would I get arrested if I met these assholes at the door with a Super Soaker? They're really starting to piss me right off.

2008-04-24T09:54:00.002-04:00

My horde of 25mm zombie miniatures from ZombieSmith arrived yesterday. While I haven't counted, there should be nearly thirty zombies there -- all of which are waiting to be based and painted (which is going to take some time).

Actually, I'm starting to feel like some of those miniatures gamers who talk about having hundreds of unpainted figures and wondering if they'll ever get them painted. In the last few months, the number of miniatures (painted or not) in my collection has growth considerably, and I'm starting to feel like I need to go start clearing other stuff out just to make room for it all.

2008-04-23T09:40:00.002-04:00

All the money I've been spending and work I've been doing for All Things Zombie has finally paid off. While Jacquie watched an episode of Survivor on-demand, I set up a basic rural raiding scenario to kick what I expect will be an ATZ campaign.

Although the first play was really clunky because I was struggling to put the rules I'd been reading into some kind of perspective, the game actually has a nice feel to it. The Reaction System takes a bit of getting used to, but as with Red Sand, Blue Sky and Six Gun Sound, I like the way it works. I like that it forces certain actions on characters because of events that happen. It gives that feeling of not being fully in control and having a solid element of chaos.

What really makes ATZ shine, though, is the need to watch your fire. Shooting guns attracts zombies. Even though the game started with only two zombies in the play area, a total of seven ended up in play over the course of the scenario (my survivors killed five of them -- sadly, they also found another survivor and got into a firefight with him, killing the poor bastard).

I'm sure I slipped up on a few rules, and I'm sure the next couple of games will likewise be clunky, but once I've got the basic rules down pat, I can see this being a hell of a lot of fun.

2008-04-22T10:22:00.003-04:00

I'm going to have a brew night on Wednesday. If anybody in the area is bored and wants to hang out while I brew my Ode to the Jalapeno Ale, feel free to drop by any time after 5:00. The beer fridge and liquor cabinet will be open for anyone desiring an adult beverage. I should be done brewing by 10:00.

If you show up, you don't have to do anything except keep me company. This is not a cheap trick to get you to brew my beer. Pinky swear.

2008-04-21T15:48:00.003-04:00

I'm not finding enough to write about regarding gaming and comics, so I'm just giving up on those weekly columns (using the word "column" very loosely). I seem to have a never-ending stream of ideas for my Friday posts, though, so those will continue.

On another topic, I recently subscribed to The Movie Network. I'd been thinking about doing so for awhile. There are a lot of movies that hit the theatres that I wouldn't mind seeing, but I don't feel they're worth actually paying for. Subscribing to TMN solves that problem while also allowing me to find some hidden gems.

In the last week, I've watched a hell of a lot of movies -- most them using TMN OnDemand, which is a feature I'm really loving a lot.

2008-04-18T08:20:00.000-04:00

I really need to get a digital camera with a macro lens. :-/

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #7: Experiments with cocktails -- the Manhattan

2008-04-18T07:22:00.000-04:00

I suppose I can blame Bart Simpson for my desire to try the Manhattan cocktail. Although I likely heard of the cocktail before, the first true memory I have of the Manhattan is in the episode of The Simpsons where Bart becomes the lackey for a bunch of local mobsters and learns to make a "superb" Manhattan.

Fast-forward to a year or two ago: I bought Bartending for Dummies and looked up how to make a Manhattan. Canadian whiskey? Check. I almost always have a bottle of Wiser's in the liquor cupboard these days. Sweet or dry vermouth? Well, other recipes I'd read suggested sweet vermouth was the way to go. I had dry vermouth, but no sweet vermouth. Angostura bitters? ... Q'est-ce que c'est? Never heard of it. It seemed to turn up in a lot of cocktail recipes, and Bartending for Dummies even specifically pointed it out as a key ingredient to have on hand for a liquor cabinet. I headed to the LCBO to find it. Nothin'. I checked the grocery store. Still nothin'. I looked online and found the producer. Okay. It definitely exists, and it's not too expensive. Now just where the hell could I buy it?

Fast-forward again to this year's Toronto Wine & Cheese Show. I discovered Angostura in the list of attending vendors, and the company's bitters would be available. I scribbled "Angostura bitters" on to my "must taste" list and then proceeded to track this elusive concoction down at the show.

"Have you ever tried Angostura bitters?" asked the mixologist at the booth.

"No. I've been looking for it for a long time," I said.

He gave me a quizzical look.

"It's available at the grocery store."

"It is? Where?"

"It's in the beverages aisle. Not in the spices aisle where you think it would be. It's usually on the top shelf."

At a trip to Sobey's last weekend, I did as the gent instructed and, to my surprise, found several bottles of Angostura bitters on the top shelf of the beverages aisle. I added a bottle of sweet vermouth to my liquor cupboard that same day.

Armed with all three of the necessary ingredients to make a Manhattan, I selected a martini glass, poured a healthy dose of Wiser's Canadian whiskey, splashed a bit (too much) of sweet vermouth and then opened the bitters. I really wanted to taste the bitters, so instead of just a dash, as the Dummies recipe suggested, I sprinkled what probably amounted to five or six dashes into the glass. Without a cocktail stirrer, I grabbed a spoon, give the liquid a quick mixing and then lifted my first Manhattan to my lips.

Sip. Pause. Cough. Too much bitters. The spices over-powered the whiskey (and that's not easily done).

I took a second sip -- this time prepared for the spices of the bitters.

"With less bitters, this would be really good."

And just like that, I have another reason to make sure there's always a bottle of Wiser's in my cupboard.

The Game Table #7: More miscellaneous miniatures miniutiae

2008-04-14T14:32:00.001-04:00

Yet another miniatures post probably isn't justifiable, but I've been going through a board gaming and war gaming dry spell lately. That leaves RPGs and miniatures games -- and I've mostly been excited about miniatures gaming in particular lately. Also, I've written more than my fair share on RPGs over the last several years.

I've been purchasing miniatures the last couple of weeks with the intention of using them with All Things Zombie, and by digging out Mage Knight miniatures and buying the HeroScape zombie horde, I'm getting a pretty good mix of zombie miniatures. Add to that an order for various modern zombies (including a Michael Jackson Thriller look-a-like), and I'll have more zombies than I could feasibly use in any given ATZ scenario.

Painting is going to be the real trick, though. I'm a slow, lazy painter. However, some of the minis that should shortly be on their way to me look pretty neat, and hopefully that will be get me excited about painting them up.

So yeah, very little to really comment on this week. The RPG group played Delta Green last night, and things went well for O Cell. We've even got some good intrigue going related to Majestic-12.

2008-04-14T11:45:00.003-04:00

This is so geeky it's cool: Steampunk Star Wars.

2008-04-12T16:01:00.001-04:00

I need to start running again, and now I have a goal (thanks to Dave for letting me know about this): Ajax Waterfront Half Marathon 2008.

Who's in?

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #6: Toronto Wine & Cheese Show

2008-04-11T08:47:00.001-04:00

For the second year in a row, Jacquie and I make the drive across the city to attend the Toronto Wine & Cheese Show, but we came very close to not attending at all. Having a cold makes wine tasting difficult and not enjoyable, so I put off committing to the trip until Friday night. When I felt that I'd be about eighty percent the next day, I agreed to go to the show.

Although I had to twist Jacquie's arm to go last year, it was the other way around this year. Last year, neither of us had realized that the volume of food vendors would rival the wine, beer and liquor vendors -- and while I spent the Saturday afternoon of the 2007 show sampling several different alcohols (and getting a buzz on while doing so), she took full advantage of the food merchants.

This year's event was a very similar vibe, even though we showed up closer to 1:00 instead of noon. While she scoured the floor for good eating, I took to tracking down a list of must-try beverages.

Before leaving in the morning, I looked over the list of exhibitors and the wares they would be sporting (but sadly not selling -- this is the biggest disappointment of the show; vendors aren't allowed to actually sell anything except tasting samples). I made a list that includes two breweries, a winery, a meadery, one hard liquor and an additive.

The breweries
Two breweries stood out in the list -- Big Rock Brewery, which I was slightly familiar with, and Church Key Brewing, which I wasn't familiar with. Although I've sampled one or two of Big Rock's beers before, I wanted to try the Grasshopper Wheat Ale (I may have actually tried this before). It was about on par for a wheat ale -- nothing really special.

At Church Key, I'd scribbled down notes to myself to try the Northumberland Ale, the West Coast Pale Ale and the Cranberry Maple Wheat beer. While I didn't try the Northumberland, I did try the other two.

Church Key's West Coast Pale Ale is a beer that would make hop addicts extraordinarily happy. The hops covered up the malts, but I enjoyed it. The Cranberry Maple Wheat, on the other hand, was a bizarre brew that smells of cream and cranberries. Unfortunately, the taste didn't live up to the aroma, and I found it to be fairly weak tasting.

I tasted one more beer that wasn't part of my original list. The Warsteiner Dunkel is a dark beer made in a Pilsener style, and it definitely tasted more like a Pils than a Dunkel. I swear if I couldn't see it was a dark beer that I would have thought it was a golden Pilsener.

The wineries
You'd think that since it was a wine show, I would have had a lot more wineries on my list, but the truth is I don't need a game plan for most wines at the show. They're everywhere, and everyone plays around with the same varietals.

I'd made special note of Downey's Estate Winery, with the intent of trying their Regal Raspberry and Maple wines. When I tracked the Downey's booth down, though, I realized both of the wines I was interested in were dessert wines. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, but dessert wines are generally too sickly sweet for my tastes. Instead, I looked at the rest of the Downey's selection and chose the Gooseberry wine.

From what the gentleman manning the booth said, calling most of Downey's wines "wine" is pushing it, as most of them aren't made with grapes. Still, I was curious what a gooseberry wine would taste like. I sipped it and found a clean, crisp wine with a hint of ... well, gooseberry flavour.

Unfortunately, I don't think Downey's currently distributes through the LCBO, so to further sample their wines, I'll have to take a trip to the Brampton area.

Another wine I sampled was the Smoking Loon Cabernet, which was perfect for my tastes. As you'd expect, it had a smoky, oaky smell and taste, with a nice dryness and hints of what I believe are black currants. Very nice, indeed.

Only wine I sampled that day was not to my liking, but I had just been tasting a sweet mead when I found my way to Cornerstone Estate Winery. The Pinot Noir tasted sour, and while I did finish drinking the little one-ounce sampler, I briefly considered giving it the drainpour treatment.

The liquors
The guy I spoke to at the Kaban booth proudly explained to me that Kaban's tequila was made from one hundred percent agave. The Kaban Flavour Infused Tequila brand comes in two varieties -- lime and tangerine flavours (and apparently tropical and natural, as well, but they weren't serving those).

I turned up my nose at the tangerine and instead settled for the more "natural tasting" lime. It was a good choice, and I'll look forward to buying a bottle when the tequila hits the LCBO in the summer. The tequila was incredibly smooth with just a hint of the lime "flavour infusion." In fact, the last time I tasted such a smooth tequila, I was on a bus trip with SOE that left from San Diego and toured around the Mexico/California border.

The meadery
Munro's Meadery was the best and worst part of the show for me. Munro's brought all six of their meads/melomels with them -- Dry Mead, Mead (semi-sweet), Sweet Mead, Raspberry Melomel, Blueberry Melomel and Cranberry Melomel. I sampled all six of them and fell in love with the Mead, Sweet Mead, Raspberry Melomel and Blueberry Melomel. I wasn't too fond of the Dry Mead, and I'm just not enough fan of cranberry to enjoy the Cranberry Melomel.

As I told the gent running the booth, he made my afternoon.

So how could a place like this also be the worst part of the show? Simple. No sales on site, and the place is located in Alvinston (down near Sarnia). I would have happily picked up a case's worth of mead and melomel, but the only way that's going to happen is take a trip down Sarnia way -- or to trust Canada Post not to break any bottles and get Munro's to ship some mead to me.

The verdict
Not much else to say. The Toronto Wine & Cheese Show isn't the cheapest way to spend a day ($18 admission and $1 tickets, with some samples costing several tickets -- thankfully, the mead samples were only one ticket apiece), but it is worth the trip.

For those who stick around for the evening, there is supposedly a lot more entertainment, but my goal was really to sample several different things and then get the hell out of there. Jacquie had a similar goal.

I look forward to next year.

2008-04-09T10:51:00.001-04:00

More YouTube silliness:

The Game Table #6: "You don't need another hobby."

2008-04-07T10:34:00.002-04:00

"You don't need another hobby," Jacquie said as she looked over my shoulder to see model trains and buildings on the laptop screen.

She was right, of course. I don't need another hobby. I wasn't really looking for a new hobby, though -- just trying to extend an existing one. While searching for information on good terrain for miniatures games, I found myself at the Bachmann Industries Website looking over the company's line of Plasticville buildings. These buildings were used in the sample game's photos in the All Things Zombie rulebook, and they look pretty good (and the roofs come off for indoor play, too). Best of all, they're not too outrageously expensive -- and they don't need to be glued or painted.

In the years I've played miniatures games (casually, I should add; I'm not a hardcore minis player), I've often thought about buying or building terrain, but it's not something I've put any real thought or energy into. With the Two Hour Wargames rulesets, though, I've been thinking much more actively about terrain -- even it's just something simple.

On Sunday, before Logan showed up to spend the afternoon painting miniatures with me, I headed out to the local Toys R Us to buy a child's "street carpet" (this thing, sans child). There I was buying a playmat meant for toddlers for use with my miniatures games. I felt a little silly, but I figured anybody who saw me with it would have thought I was buying it for my (non-existent) kid or something.

Next, I hope to find a local supplier of Plasticville buildings and buy one or two of them to get me started.

2008-04-07T08:06:00.001-04:00

The guys at Make Magazine do some neat stuff -- like the telekinetic pen:

Telekinetic Pen! - video powered by Metacafe

2008-04-03T16:55:00.002-04:00

What is it with companies that send people around the neighbourhood and tell them to ask to see the occupants' bills for, say, electricity costs? Why do these people think I'm going to show them something that's absolutely none of their damn business?

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #5: March in Montreal

2008-04-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

On the last Friday of March, I got up early and finished packing my bags. I was about to get in a car with my father and spend the next five to six hours driving to Montreal for CABA's annual March in Montreal event.

While my father isn't a homebrewer -- his brush with brewing his own beer was in the form of the brew-on-premise places that were trendy in the Eighties (some of them are still around, but not in the same numbers they were back then) -- I thought it would be a good father/son road trip. Up until last weekend, we'd never gone on such a trip together. Sure, we'd had many road trips when I was younger, but that was the entire family. This time, it was just the two of us.

Dad arrived just before 9:00 and, after making sure the dogs had plenty of food and water (they're not usually left alone for very long), we threw my little suitcase and a four-pack of homebrew porter in the trunk and headed out. For the first couple of hours, we drove mostly in silence, occasionally chatting about the weather or what we were hearing on the news.

You see, my father and I share very few of the same interests. He grew up as a sports guy, and I grew up as the complete opposite. I love intricate war games and stereotypically geeky pursuits, while my father is perfectly happy to spend an entire evening watching curling or hockey on TV.

The one interest we do share, though, is beer. The first time I ever tasted beer was out of one of his open bottles when I was a kid (I was a sneaky kid and loved to be around beer bottles for some reason -- my parents have several pictures proving this; I'm sure it was no surprise to either of them when I became a beer drinker around the age of twenty). It was a bit early in the morning to start talking about beer, and I also didn't want to exhaust our most important means of conversation before we even reached Kingston.

We stopped outside of a small town just this side of the Ontario/Quebec border for lunch. We both had a pint and a burger -- he drinking Canadian and I drinking Keith's red. As we sat there eating and sipping at our beers, I wondered if this would be the last time I'd drink a macro beer this weekend. The CABA guys are all homebrewers, and all of them seem to be beer geeks, as well. They like to drink craft beer when they can rather than beer from the likes of Inbev and Molson-Coors.

By the time we arrived in Montreal (after fighting traffic through the early hours of rush hour) and found a hotel about fifteen kilometres away from where we needed to be Saturday morning, we turned the TV on (to curling) and crashed for the night. Neither of us were feeling well. Dad was fighting off the last bits of a stomach flu and I'd contracted a cold from Jacquie on Wednesday or Thursday. Both of us wanted to be in peak condition for Saturday.

Saturday started out bad for us, but it quickly improved. See, we'd decided to drive from the hotel to Vices & Versa, the beer pub where the March in Montreal event was kicking off. This was a mistake, as it turns out Montrealers don't believe in parking lots in the downtown core. One resident CABA member told me we were screwed for parking, and so Dad and I took the car back to the hotel and caught a cab.

We had been almost right on time when we arrived shortly after 9:30, but with the trip back and forth, we actually ended up arriving at 10:15. Breakfast had already started, and we kind of missed out on the grub (not that either of us were really hungry, anyway). We'd managed to find a Tims earlier in the morning and get some coffee, so we were good.

Upon arriving at Vices & Versa, we checked in and got our nametags and our drink tickets for Vices & Versa. The first beer (about half-pints) didn't require a ticket, but any beer we ordered after that required either a beer ticket or cash. We made good use of those tickets and made sure to use them up before loading onto the bus at 1:00.

I started with the hefe weizen, which I was told was a good breakfast beer, but after that, I moved over to the stouts. By the time we left, I'd sampled all three of Vices & Versa's on-tap stouts (the imperial stout was quite tasty, but the coffee stout wasn't bad, either).

We watched the various homebrew competition awards being given out. Lunch was served. I ate lightly, but the food was pretty good.

At 12:45, we were asked to board the bus so we could get going a bit early. Then we discovered the awful truth: The bus driver was a surly fellow who refused to bend the rules and let us drink on the bus (a first for CABA in all its many years, I'm told). He couldn't even be bribed. Dick. So our bus trip to the first brewery in St-Jerome was somewhat subdued. Guess who went home without a tip (well, except for the penny Dad left on the driver's seat).

Dieu Du Ciel was our first of two stops. Originally started in Montreal, Dieu Du Ciel grew big enough that it launched the second site in St-Jerome. We tasted several beers on draught, and I continued to make a mistake I'd been making since arriving in Montreal -- that being I tried to speak French and then whoever I was speaking to assumed I was a francophone. I don't know what the girl behind the counter was telling me about the imperial stout, but ... well, it seemed to have something to do with the beer's head. I just pretended I understood and walked away with what turned out to be an excellent, creamy imperial stout.

However, I can find stouts anywhere -- and Kevin Tighe's Russian imperial stouts can't be beat (and he's just around the corner). The one beer that really piqued my interest was one called Rosee d'Hibiscus (excuse the lack of accents, mes amis), so just as we were getting set to leave, I bought a six-pack of it and walked out.

Rosee d'Hibiscus is a red-ish beer with flowery aromas and tastes, so it was unique enough that I felt I had to buy some. Of course, I'll share with any beer afficionados that are tempted.

The bus driver was so worried we'd start cracking beers open that he wouldn't even let us get on the bus with our six-packs. We had to put them in the storage area under the bus and collect them at the end of the trip. That didn't stop a few people from smuggling some beer on board for later, though.

The next stop was Au Maitre-Brasseur, a fairly new brewery in Laval. With a smaller pub area and a fairly tiny brewing area, Au Maitre-Brasseur still makes some nice beers. However, by this time, I was out of cash and had to pass on picking up any bottles (although I think they sold a few bottles of their barley wine and a beer they'd called Orgasme -- I didn't try it, but I heard some others say good things about it).

Since Kevin had brought several bottles of homebrew beer and mead, and he did want us to sample some (he's such a generous guy), we all met in the parking lot to test out some of his various brews. I drank lightly, while others started pounding hard.

By the time we all got on the bus, a few people were somewhat inebriated, but I don't think anybody was hurling in the bathroom. Several bottles of beer had been smuggled aboard, and then the pouring began. After ten minutes, people even stopped hiding the fact they were drinking on the bus. With beers in their hands, a group near the front started singing -- rather badly, I might add, but it caught on so much that most of us at the front of the bus started joining in (including me -- and that wrecked my already sickly throat).

The bus driver must have been trying to ignore us, or maybe he thought he'd get a tip by not telling us to put the beer away, but it was too little, too late for the grumpy driver. He'd pissed people off and ruined some of our fun.

We ended our trip where we began -- at Vices & Versa. I have to admit that even if we hadn't done the brewery tours and had just hung around Vices & Versa all day, that would have made the trip worthwhile. The place has twenty-nine beers on tap (including one cider), and I wasn't hearing any complaints about the quality from the CABA members. The staff at V&V served so much beer to us that they ran a few taps dry.

Dad and I turned in a bit early. While many of the other CABA members went pub-hopping, we caught a taxi back to the hotel, had dinner, watched a bit of TV and then crashed. We were both up around 7:00 or so, and we decided just to head out and get on the road. We had a long drive home.

We had a lot more to talk about on the trip home. We'd had a great time, and even though neither of us are big fans of Montreal, I'd be willing to make a weekend trip there this summer to experience Vices & Versa and some of the other brewpubs while the weather is nice and I have time to just sit around and relax.

Dad and I talked about beer, the bus trip and homebrewing, and we bitched a few times about the driver. In some ways, it wasn't really even the driver's fault that we hated him. Montreal's laws regarding beer in vehicles are the same as in Ontario, but for beer and wine tours, my understanding has the drivers have always been very lenient about the rules. However, the guy wasn't even friendly, so that didn't help endear him to his passengers.

Unfortunately, it's very easy to dwell on the driver and not on the fun time we had. We met a lot of people that I'm hoping I'll see at future CABA events. The CABA guys are a good bunch of people. They're a lot of fun and love to talk about beer and brewing (that shouldn't come as any surprise).

The next CABA event is in June, and I know I'll be doing my best to attend. And I'll definitely make the trip for March in Montreal again next year.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #4: Mead and the slacker homebrewer

2008-03-27T15:08:00.003-04:00

I'm either a day early or six days late for this post, depending on how you want to look at it. I missed writing something last week because of the holiday Friday. And tomorrow, I'm making the trek to Quebec with my father for the annual CABA March in Montreal event. That should be fun.

Before heading off, though, I'm spending a few minutes transferring my cinnamon mead to a tertiary fermenter -- something I should have done a month ago. I've really been slacking off on dealing with the mead. I should be transferring it to a different fermenter about every month, and I definitely haven't kept up to that schedule (nowhere close, in fact).

The reason for the transfers is for clarity. The idea is that as the mead settles, the sediment falls to the bottom. You let it do that for a month, siphon off the liquid, leaving the sediment behind, and then let it sit again for another month. Rinse, repeat.

Right now, the fermenter is being sterilized. When that's done, I'll give it a quick rinse and then do the transfer, which should only take a few minutes. I'm hoping that the sediment has settled so that the mead is becoming clearer, but considering I'm behind on my transfers, I doubt it'll be ready for another couple of months. However, at some point, I'm just going to give up and bottle the damn stuff. I'm patient, but only so much.

While waiting, I took a sniff of the airlock and ... well, damn, it smells good. I might just have to take a little sampler out before the transfer is complete and taste test it. It has a rich, sweet taste with a hint of acidity. Yum, yum.

EDIT: I think this will be ready for bottling in another month. It's looking fairly clear.