FOOLCiRCLE

OK, two quick things: – 1 – I know this isn’t a beery kind of post, but it is about one of my favorite book series, so deal with it. And – 2 – PLEASE, if you read this post after Harry Potter 7 comes out and especially if you have finished it, PLEASE do not post spoilers in the comments section. Karen and I read the HP books slowly because we read them the way we feel they were supposed to be read, out loud to each other. So it takes us much longer to finish the books then most people. I will be VERY disappointed if someone who knows me ruins the true ending of this series for me. You have been warned.

NOW, onto the meat. I am going to try and organize my thoughts a little bit so it doesn’t seem to sporadic, but this is the kind of thing where one thought tends to lead into another. To anyone who has not read books 1-6 (especially book 6) there are spoilers below, read at your own risk.

• OK, the big one, we’re all thinking it – Is Harry Potter going to die? And I think, YES. I think Harry HAS to die in order for Voldemort to die and I don’t think JKR will leave us in a world where good has not triumphed over evil.
• Who else is going to die? Well, I say not Ron and Hermione, I think they are our happy ending. I say probably Lupin (possibly protecting Tonks), most likely Snape (Harry will be involved one way or another), possibly Neville (the other ‘Non-Chosen One’?), and maybe and unfortunately Hagrid. And Ginny I’m not sure about. I don’t think she’ll die, but I think some how she will be involved very closely to Harry’s death – like, I’m not sure, Harry sacrifices himself to save Ginny from Voldemort thus protecting Ginny with the ‘love is greater then magic’ protection and sacrificing himself at the same time which I think must happen. Plus, by killing Harry it is a way for JKR to say good-bye to the series too, and it’ll help thwart others from writing unofficial HP books (like Star Wars and such).
• Is Sirius Black going to be back (is he really dead)? Oh, he’ll be back! They NEVER explained his death well enough for me to be satisfied. I’ll actually be annoyed if he doesn’t come back. I’m thinking his first appearance will be via the two-way-magic mirror he gave Harry and he’ll be all Superman II style with General Zod and company trapped behind that crazy-glass-looking-portal thing (Phantom Zone). Did anyone follow that? And I think he’ll make a true appearance and kick-ass, haven’t decided if I think he is going to die (again/for real) or if he will be acquitted of all of the wrong charges and welcomed back into the wizarding world though he will never truly fit in again. Maybe he’ll fly off into the sunset with Buckbeak or Norbert the dragon (yes, I think he will be back and I think it was obvious.)
• What about Snape? Where to begin . . . Is Snape a good guy or a bad guy? I thin Snape is a good guy, ‘Dumbledore’s man through and through’ as someone else says about Harry. I think Snape’s story is very rich and purposefully misleading. I’m not sure if he ever was a Death Eater, or actually a spy/double agent for Voldemort. But I do think that whatever he did/said to prove his loyalty to Dumbledore was true. I’m pretty sure we’ll find out what this even was, but by the time Harry or even us readers find out, it may be too late for Snape – he is going to die. But I also think he will turn on the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters in the zero hour. Check out his name Severus Snape – sounds oddly like ‘sever a snake’ doesn’t it? I think said snake could be physical or metaphorical, but I think Snape is a controlled bad-ass, “Don’t tread on me!” OK, What happened between Snape and Dumbledore when Snape killed him? I’m not sure. I don’t really think it was prearranged. I think it was more along the lines of Dumbledore knew Draco didn’t have the balls to kill him, and he also knew about the Unbreakable Vow, and he also had a feeling Snape was a very important player in the game that laid ahead, and possibly the potion Dumbledore had to drink may have really weakened him or shown him something horrible – but anyway, I think it was more along the lines of Dumbledore sacrificing himself to save Snape. Dumbledore seeing that Snape had a larger role still left to play than himself in this adventure.
• Who/what is R.A.B.? Well, I think the obvious choice and the choice that JKR wants us to guess is Regulus Black, Sirius’ brother. I’m not sure about that JKR is the kind of author that likes to spill the beans about big developments, and that just seems way to easy. The only advantage to it being Regulus is that it brings us closer to a Sirius connection. I’m thinking that it stands for a group of people, like the D.A. – Dumbledore’s Army. I have no idea what it means, but my guess is Snape was a part of it. He appears to be close to Voldemort and knows enough about potions that he could have helped pull it off. Oh, a little off subject, yes I think we will see Dumbledore’s Army again.
• Is Dumbledore dead? Dead as a doornail. BUT I know we are still going to get more Dumbledore action. At the least in the form of advise (ala Obi Wan Kanobi) from his portrait in the head masters office. So we will still get Dumbledore advise in this book, but not Dumbledore’s physical help. Not sure how this ties in, but I think Faux the Pheonix will have some sort of reappearance, maybe able to fight for Dumbledore, or maybe not.
• Was Dumbledore right in his guesses on what the 7 Horcruxes were? And will Harry and crew find them all? I’ll start with the second question, yes Harry and company will find and destroy all 7 Horcruxes. Why am I so sure? Again, because I don’t think JKR will leave us in a world where evil triumphs or with a huge open ending like that (for example they find 6 and smite Voldemort so physically he is gone (again) but spiritually 1/7th of him still lives – not going to happen.) No, I don’t think Dumbledore was right, but I think he was close. Obviously Tom Riddle’s diary (1), Marvolo’s ring (2) and Voldemort himself (7) are 3 of the 4 Horcruxes. But I think Voldemort DID plant a Horcrux in an object from each house. Slytherin’s locket (3), Hufflepuff’s cup(4), something from Ravenclaw (5), and something from Gryffindor (6) – and not Nagini the snake.
• So what are the two objects from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor? I don’t have an answer for Ravenclaw, but I’d bet it is something that has already been mentioned in one of the other 6 books. And Gryffindor . . . (this is my BIG revelation where either I’m a genius or an idiot), I think Harry is the heir to Gryffindor and the Horcrux is in him!! I think the Gryffindor family heritage line was hidden at some point for some reason (think The DaVinci Code) and it was never revealed to Harry that he is the heir to Gryffindor. And I think when Harry’s mother sacrificed herself to save Harry (again, the whole love is more powerful than magic thing) somehow at that moment and with Voldemort already planning on killing Harry and using his death to form his 6th Horcrux, things got turned-around somehow and the Horcrux became part of Harry. Think about it, the ultimate sacrifice, in order for Voldemort to die Harry MUST die because a piece of Voldemort is in Harry! To me, it really just makes sense. Plus two other notes that ring along these lines (some how) is the fact that everyone keeps mentioning how much Harry’s eyes look like his mothers (this will mean something) and the fact that Voldemort used Harry’s own blood to resurrect his physical body will be a weakness or a strength in all of this. I’m not sure how these two tie in yet, but mark my words – important.
• Where is Book 7 going to start? I hope with the story of Draco and Snape and what happened with them right after everything hit the fan. Another good start would be Bill and Fleur’s wedding which will be a wizarding galla-event (will Percy be there? will Percy come back to join the Weasley’s good side? I bet Victor Krum could be there or at least in book 7). But I think we’ll start at Privot Drive once more just to show that Harry was there and that the magic put on the house until Harry is an adult is still working? Speaking of Privot Drive, remember in book 5 I think when Aunt Petunia got a howler sent to her via owl? Something along the lines of remember your promise? Well, I don’t think she is a witch or anything, but I am still waiting for her or Uncle Vernon to accidentally use magic or something along those lines some how.

Finally, I am fully ready for this HP book to be the greatest adventure yet, so get ready to buckle-up! We’re going to have the three amigos in search of the pieces to solve the puzzle to the greatest threat to the wizarding world with a climax that will be awesome! I just know it. Enjoy the two pictures of the cover and the special edition cover. You can click on them to enlarge them. Oh, hopefully I covered most of what I wanted to say, but if I think of something else (I had scribbled notes and lost them) I’ll post them here too.

Saturday IPA, well at least what it has been dubbed for now. This was a joint venture between myself and Garrett (mostly Garrett ;-)) brewing up a 20 gallon batch of a super Columbus-Simcoe IPA!! It looks and smells great!!

What is all that green goodness you may ask? That my friends is a pound and a half of equal parts Columbus and Simcoe whole leaf hops. Man, did it feel good and sticky playing with all those lovely green nuggets, it felt a little naughty too. This beer was my first time brewing with this much whole leaf hops and brewing 20 gallons (4 times what I typically brew) of beer. The day takes a little bit longer to brew that volume of beer, basically just because there is so much more water and wort to boil and chill. Otherwise the process is essentially the same as when I brew a 5 gallon batch of beer.

We started around 8AM which came very early after the night before (see the short post on the Kinda Blue Band below) and not falling asleep until almost 2AM. Initially everything seemed like it was going to go OK, we had coffee brewing, water heating, equipment pulled out of the basement, and everything basically set-up. Oh, did I forget to mention that Garrett did all of that before I even got there. From there on we really only ran into one problem, though it was a problem that extended the brew day by a good hour plus. While grinding the grains that morning, Garrett had forgotten that he had his mill set to grind wheat (a tighter setting = smaller pieces), and had ground half of the grain bill at the wheat setting. So, we anticipated we may have trouble with one of the two mash tuns and possibly getting a stuck mash. At first it was just laboriously slow to run off, then it did stick. We wound up working on it a little bit and things got going again. Really the only true hang-up of the day. The rest of the day was pretty good: ran out and bought propane in the middle of the boil that we never needed (lucky us), had a quick and sticky boil-over (oops), and had a hell of a time getting four pounds of Turbinado sugar to melt gently yet quickly. Plus we got to play with all of those lushy hops! The IPA will be plenty bitter especially since both those hops are pretty high in alpha acids, but we REALLY front loaded the recipe with a whole pound going in with less than 10 minutes left in the boil – two 4oz. additions, one at 10 minutes and one at flame-out. The brew day finally wrapped up around 5PM and we enjoyed one last pint before I had to run off to go camping.

The set-up Garrett has to work with works really well – he has pumps to move all the massive amount of liquids, and false bottoms that in conjunction with the whole leaf hops do a crazy good job of presenting really clean wort, and really has his techniques down on his system so the whole day feels very smooth. The “worst” part is that he uses two separate mash tuns which are both really too small for the beers that he brews. Not only did it limit our grain bill some (not that I am complaining with the bill we created), but it really is a pain-in-the-ass and takes twice the amount of time to sparge two separate tuns. I addressed this on Saturday and not surprising he feels the same way and already has a plan to correct this, it’s just a matter of time, timing, and of course everyone’s favorite money. But the plan for him is to build a sick 20 gallon stainless steel brew sculpture that I am sure will be the shit!  Anyway, as of now there are two 5 gallon carboys sitting in the basement blowing off some of the best smelling hops-infused CO2 I have ever smelt, and can smell from probably about 20 feet away – delicious!

On Friday the 13th a bunch of us went out to Rox’s Bar in Marshallton, DE to see our buddy’s band play, The Kinda Blue Band. I have never been to this place before nor have I even heard of it, so my expectations of what the evening were going to bring were all over the place.

The night actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Above is Dave Carson on bongos, Glenn Wiltsee on bass, and John Zdimal on guitar. This is the band that played our wedding for anybody who was there and remembers these guys. This was a new venue for these guys to play and it seemed as if both the band and the owner of the bar thought things went well. The band was asked to come back already, but there is not set date yet. The guys also added some new songs to the mix, I’m sure I didn’t pick up on all of them but there was definitely some Bob Marley thrown into the mix. As the night progressed and the libations continued to flow the girls started to really to have fun. I’m including what I think is a good picture and hopefully it won’t embarrass anyone.

Yesterday was a double bottling day, four cases of beer, very tedious boring work (did I ever mention how much I dislike bottling?). Fortunately I had my lil’ helper Karen there to keep me company. As the title says, we bottled the Pastime Pale Ale and the Saison.

Once again, impatience  proved to be not be an attribute of the qualities found in a good homebrewer. The PPA was brewed 15 days prior to bottling. For what its original gravity was and what its final gravity was this should have been plenty of time for everything to be ‘all good’. Instead what I was dealing with was a rather hazy/cloudy pale ale that had a slight sulfur flavor to it, I was getting pissy. And instead of racking it to a secondary and giving it another two weeks to help fall clear, I went ahead and bottled it anyway – very amateurish. I’m not overly concerned with the sulfury off flavor, I’ve had that before and it has gone away (though now that I’ve said that . . .), and I’m not overly concerned with the haze as long as it tastes fine, though this may still fall clear. What I AM concerned with is that most likely there will be a considerable amount of sediment in the bottom of the bottles, and this has and will always bother me. The Saison on the other hand was bottled with no problems, looked a lovely color, fell mostly clear, and had a wonderful peppery Belgian flavor – aahhh the difference some patience makes.

I also got my regulator back from being repaired! While I was on my short lived kegging kick earlier in the year I accidentally knocked over my tank and regulator and crushed the gauge that tells you how much gas is left in the tank. The good part about this was I was able to still us the regulator to carbonate my beer and push it through the draft box, the bad part was I had no idea how much gas I had or had left and was pushing the limits each time I tried it. Unbeknown to me that gauge was more of a pain in the butt to get replaced than I had anticipated. The first place I went to told me minimum 1 week turn around. Unfortunately I didn’t have time. Second place was a friend who offered to do it through her work. This, I think, may have been one of those thimes where she wished she would have kept her mouth shut. She had it for about a month with several attempts made to repair it, only to repeatedly be stymied because of a backward threading on the gauge. Sorry about the inconvenience, Heather, but thank you all the same! Now that I know how much gas is left in my tank, guess what, it’s time for a fill. I wonder how much a tank of gas costs . . .

The ‘Food Issue’. Definitely a step in the right direction from the last issue, but also seems to be a little trendy to me, a little with the times instead of ahead of the times. Right now, and for the last while, beer & food pairings and cooking with beer have been hot topics. Cool that they are choosing to advocate this, but often I have felt that these guys were slightly ahead of the curve. Oh well, what’s next the ‘Session Issue’?

Right off the bat in the Beer Smack section (where the two founding brothers sign off) there is a great little list of things a restaurant or chef can do to make their place a better beer/food location. I actually thought this was really great, would love to see it flushed out. Perhaps printed in a book-mark-esque format and then flood the restaurant and beer scene so everyone in the business sees this information. Another very current debate going on in the beer world is something along the lines of: are mass produced craft-style beers still craft beer? Like Blue Moon for example. Blue Moon is made by Coors, Anheuser Busch also has several on the market right now. And the debate kind of goes like this; if it were a blind tasting, based on what you see, smell, fee, and taste in the glass (and this is the only information you know) what makes it a craft beer? And should these better mass produced beers be considered craft? I like Blue Moon as a wit, regardless of who makes it. I don’t think it is the best, but it sure is a clean easy drinker. That’s about as far as a fully formed answer that I have so far. Aahhh, 9 Steps to Beerdom, my favorite! This time featuring Rob Tod from Allagash – sounds like he’s one hard working lucky bastard! When we finally get to the main featured article on food & beer, ‘Beer: It’s what’s for dinner’ it isn’t a disappointment. It’s five short interviews with America’s top beer chefs plus included recipes from the chefs. Basically the common denominator that I gathered from the article was use any and all beer, use the beer in a reduction to amplify the flavor, if the flavor is in the beer it will come through in the reduction, and don’t be afraid to experiment. The article actually made me consider getting a job in a kitchen again, fun times with lots of headaches and low pay – sucks. My favorite recipe was for Sean Paxton’s Liquid-Nitrogen-Infused Rochefort 10 Ice Cream, damn right! One it uses Rochefort 10 for the beer (awesome beer), he explains how this style could be applied to make individual ice-creams ala Ben & Jerry’s style (my own words), and it allows you to play with liquid-nitrogen! Now, does anyone know where I can get my hands on some liquid-nitrogen! Next was the too many pages of beer reviews again, I’m starting to sound as repetitive as their reviews, yyaaawwwwnn. Interestingly though, the majority of the beers this time (and I bet hence forth) were either from a brewery or from an importer. Though I know beer is what they do, it must be nice to get that much “free” beer. The issue has a little section in the back that I rarely talk about called Beer Destinations and this time it was all about San Diego. There is enough action going on there that we might need to plan a vacation, nice! Overall, best issue since about issue #4, way to get back on top of things.

Zymurgy magazine ‘The Journal of the American Homebrewers Association’ is probably the best beer rag publication there is. It is written and edited by professionals, ex-professionals, and degree holding highly involved individuals. Overall it makes you feel that what they have to say matters.

This issue was the readers choice awards, for lack of a better idea for what to call it. It was the issue in which the homebrewing society at large are given the opportunity to vote on what they think is the number one beer, brewery, and other such topics commercially available in the US. First I’d like to mention the cool little article on some gentlemen who got to try a 138 year old beer(strong ale), lucky bastards! The results were good to fair (I did vote) on the readers choice awards. Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA was voted the top ranked beer as was Dogfish Head Craft Brewery voted the top ranked brewery – WOW! Double your pleasure, now that was something! Best portfolio, ranked by number of beer brands named in the poll, went to Rogue Ales with 14 and Dogfish Head pulling in a second this time with 13. Top import, not overly surprising, went to everyone’s favorite Guinness Draught. And the final award was the spirit of homebrew award, this ranking is based on total number of votes divided by annual production in barrels, went to AleSmith Brewing, probably the least know out of the five (this is where Dogfish Head used to score big a few years ago). Also in this section were several choice clone recipes, not submitted by the breweries, but of high quality choices all the same. Following that were too mostly interesting and a little bit long articles on ‘other brown malts beyond crystal’ and oat malts. Both were fine reads but neither made me drop my mash paddle and slap myself in the forehead thinking “what have I been doing all this time!” The rest was, you know, the rest.

Now I will take the opportunity to both highlight a small section and embarrass myself. There is a small section in the front of the magazine called ‘You Gotta Drink This’. Well, when the AHA asked for our votes for the above awards they also mentioned we could submit a beer review that may get posted in this section. Guess who’s review made this issue? Yup, mine! Anyway, I don’t know if this is exactly how the original was written, but here’s what they printed:

You Gotta Drink This: Iron Hill Anvil Ale (Served cask conditioned)

This is the kind of beer you find yourself curled up next to for the entire night. After the generous 20-ounce hand-pumped English-pub style glass arrives with the final steps of the cascade still flowing, one is captured. The beer is served “warm”, maybe 55’F. This difference in temperature skyrockets the smell of this beer into a new dimension, really bringing out the hops. The taste is dangerous in the sense that you find you find yourself diving in for more to try and identify the caramel and cereal-like flavors along with the presence of more hops. The taste is like walking on the beach, or hiking in the woods. It is relaxing and rewarding, and could easily replace most daily drinks. The texture is light and smooth without interruption. Creamy smooth goodness runs all the way from lips down one’s throat, very refreshing. This beer would be a daily driver if it were a Volkswagen.

Nuff said.

Brew Your Own (BYO) magazine has dubbed themselves ‘The How-to Homebrew Beer Magazine’. Maybe. I like BYO enough, it’s the lighter fluffier read of the beer rags I receive, and I guess it can’t be too awful if I’m on like my fourth years subscription, but it just seems to be missing depth or something. It is like talking to someone who has an education or job authority that should make them appear to  have superior knowledge to you on a subject, but they talk without confidence so it is hard to rely on or trust everything they say. Kind of a weak analogy, but that’s what I’m talking about.

This issue was supposed to be about great summer homebrew recipes. It also had the annual editors picks best label contest winners. Basically, per usual, I am going to go over what I feel are the highlights from this issue.  Right off the bat in the ‘Replicator’ section we get a happy vibe, there staring me back is a clone recipe for Dogfish Head’s Shelter Pale Ale! Sweet! Not that the Shelter is my favorite DFH beer or anything, but I love seeing DFH get props even if they are getting bigger than the state of Delaware. Next, we get to their ‘Style Profile’ section with the man Jamil Z busting out a nice little profile on Witbiers. This dude know what he’s talking about, so I always take note to read his stuff. Second time in a row that BYO seems to be putting their magazine out late or I’m brewing the style early (also happened with my EPA), but it would be nice if we could get more aligned on our brewing. Next is the ‘Label Contest Winners’, I entered this two times I think like two and three years ago, and I’ll tell you, the years I entered some of my labels were better – but whatever. The Grand Champion label was definitely nice with a sweet Willy Wonka themed chocolate bar type label for a Triple Chocolate Stout, the rest – not awful. After that there was an odd little article on ‘Small Scale Brewing’ and they meant small, like a six-pack per batch, that reminds me of the coffee-maker method! Anyway, I can see the attraction of being able to do an experiment on a smaller scale so as not to ‘ruin’ a full batch, but it seems like a lot of work to get back such little results. Though not the same, I think I liked the idea of the Oatmeal Stout Experiment better where I split a five gallon batch five ways and tinkered with each of those. The rest of the magazine from there just felt boring, repeatative, and down-hill. They had a section with 15 beer recipes donated by readers and shops, OK but personally I would have liked to seen 15 clone recipes from the breweries. They also had a section again on how to build a stir plate and how to build a yeast starter (didn’t they just run those articles, yawn). So, per usual, BYO was an OK to read but nothing I’d adjust my style over.

(Working Name) – Anyway, I just finished brewing another Pale Ale about an hour ago. The day went really well without any major problems. This should be a pretty easy-drinking Pale Ale thus the ability to be able to drink it during your favorite past time, like Cornhole!

One of the problems with brewing Pale Ales is that Karen doesn’t really dig the bitter factor of Pales Ales. So, this time around I tried to brew a less bitter but still just as hoppy Pale Ale. I used a very simple malt bill and a hodge-podge of hops, some Willamette, some Cascade, some Perle and I’m going to use some Magnum to dry hop with. Firstly, more as an experiment, I decided to flip the order I’d use the hops in. Typically people use high alpha acid (AA) hops toward the beginning of the boil and low AA hops toward the end, so instead I did the opposite. Plus, I also didn’t add ANY early addition hops, I waited until there was 30 minutes left in the boil to add any hops and then hopped accordingly from there. I’ll take credit for the AA flip may it be a good, bad, or fun idea, but the holding off on hop additions isn’t my own.

I’ve read a few threads on line recently that talk about how on the West Coast there is a movement right now (at least in the homebrewing community) to get more of the bitterness from late addition hops which is supposed to be a smoother bitterness versus the sharp bitterness some early addition hops can give you. They have been using this technique a lot with Double IPAs mostly. Another technique I have been reading about, that even some breweries are using, is a mash time of half of what we’ve been told to use, 30 minutes. And that appears to almost be more of a habit than not with one brewery claiming they can convert their grains in about 10 minutes! Wild.

Also, today I got to transfer the Saison to a secondary fermenter. That thing was a monster of a fermenter so I am going to give it a little extra time. Plus, though the SG right now is low, I’d like it lower. I want it dry and crisp and refreshing low. I want it low enough that it makes you thirsty for another one while your drinking the one in your hand. Anyway, the OG was 1.074 and today it was at 1.014, I’d like to see 1.010 honestly. Also, it was still a little cloudy so hopefully it’ll fall more clear. I wound up saving the yeast from this batch too. Maybe I’ll plan on something Belgian sometime soon; Tripel, Dubbel, Specialty, “Dirty-Dirty Scarry Farmhouse Crazy” – dunno. I need to buy/order more ingredients anyway some time soon.

Boy am I in trouble. This is only book number three of the year (which is half way over) out of the twelve I promised myself I would read. I guess it is time to turn the computer off a little earlier at night and pick up my book more regularly. Below you’ll find the review I posted on Amazon.com. 

“What worse way to describe a book than, ‘It was OK’, it’s like someone telling you your best atribute is that your ‘nice’. But that’s just it, for what it was supposed to be ‘The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery’ (think about it, that’s a lot of weight in that title) it was only OK. There was some nice insight from brewing professionals whose opinions I already respect, there was some rough ideas of what to expect, and some sections with great detail about things I couldn’t care less about at this point – the point of ‘I’m still reading books to plan a brewery’.

I would have really have liked to have seen more real money and real equipment talked about. Basically they broke it down like this: it is hard and expensive, but if you can pull it off it is sooo worth it. That’s not enough for me. Oh, I will mention there was a very detailed business plan which could be a great reference to the right person, but it reads like a business plan, go figure. Real snoozer of a way to end the book.

One last thing, this is an $80 book that as an AHA member I was able to buy for $50 from the Brewers Association so I at least felt like I got a deal, but to now see Amazon with it for sale for $50 kind of burns me up. This isn’t an $80 book (think college text book) nor really a $50 book (think high school text book or instruction manual), it’s more of a decent $25 book (think normal informative/opinionated book). So, all in all I am not saying don’t get this book, but I would only get this book if you are seriously contemplating opening your own brewery and only as one more reference, not the be-all-to-end-all.”

It’s an OK book. Some of it is enjoyable, some of it funny, some of it boring, some of it informative, some of it repetative – dunno, it’s a weak second addition. The first addition came out 12 years ago (which I have never read), I think in the last 12 years they have enough resources to make this book awesome, it was not.

Saturday was the 5th Annual Fool Circle Beer Tasting. Per usual it was blast. This year all of the Inner Circle were able to attend, so in attendance was myself, Karen, Dave, Richard, Todd, and Robert. These have pretty much been the people with the strongest connection to Fool Circle since the beginning, thus at some point along the way during one of the tastings they were dubbed the Fool Circle Inner Circle. Dave also made “backstage passes” for us all this year which turned out to be a hit, if you look through the pictures you can see the included graphics. Below is a slide show of the pictures from the night, but if you’d rather look at them individually you can see them here.

For the tasting I decided we would do the blind-side-by-side variant. In this way, all the bottles are marked before hand with what beer it is, then they are all placed in brown bags. The bags are all mixed up and each person has an opportunity to re-mix the bags too, in this way no one can no where any one beer is in the line up. This year we had 16 beers to taste with an additional 3 not making the cut, so it had the potential to be 19 beers, but that didn’t happen. The 3 that didn’t make the cut were the Pike Creek Pale Ale, the Angler Ale 2, and the Cocoa Pebble Oatmeal Stout. The first two didn’t make it because I forgot to save one of each for the tasting (oops!) and the last didn’t make it for it was a failed experiment that met its doom down the drain.

I had stated before the tasting that I was not going to be able to win this year. The first three years I had declared I was not allowed to win. Then last year I thought of doing it as a blind tasting (previously I poured each beer in a seperate room) and decided that I would allow myself to win if I guessed the most correct and everyone was OK with that. Last year I guessed 10 out of 12 correct and was happy I had won, but felt a little bit bad for I won by a large margin. So, this year to help keep things fair I decided I could not win. Richard brought up the point that if I got a perfect score (16 out of 16) that I should be able to win, and all agreed. 16 out of 16 would be unheard of, so I decided that was fine.

The pouring was great, it took a good 15 minutes or so to pour all the beer and you could feel the anticipation building for no one was allowed to taste until all were poured. Everyone was sniffing and commenting about the beers, but only spoke in reserved comments as not to elude to heavily to what any one beer was to not give someone else an advantage. Since I was pouring and not sniffing it was killing me to hear the comments, I really wanted to know what they all were. Once all the beer was poured the tasting commenced and the whole feel of the room changed for a good 10 minutes or so, with everyone much more serious than before. I initially sniffed all 16 beers too prior to tasting and knew 7 of them just by smell, it was really neat. After that first 10 minute period though, things got good and goofy as expected. Each person gets about 2oz of 16 beers, so a little under three 12oz beers in about a 15-20 minute span, it makes it quite intersting fast. Overall the break-down went like this: Richard with a big 3 correct, Karen & Todd both with 8 correct, Dave with a big 10, Robert with a huge 12, and fortunetly (and unfortunetly) Brian (me) with an unbelievable 16 out of 16 correct!

It was great! Not counting Richard (who is really going to shark us all one year) any of the other scores could have been winning scores in the past, this was a HUGE scoring year. Part of that I think goes to the whole side-by-side factor so you can compare and contrast, versus in the past it was one-at-a-time and it was an all or nothing guess. Additionally it was crazy in the sense of there was like 4 different Pale Ales and 4 different Stouts that people had to figure out. No one really grumbled too much after I won since they all had agreed that if I got a perfect score I would win, but I did feel a little guilty. As others pointed out to me, I am the one who made all the beer, have drank multiples of each beer, and have a recognized BJCP palate. Oh well. As a major token of appreciation, not because I guessed them all right, everyone chipped in and bought me a $100 gift certificate to More Beer, my favorite homebrew resource – I was stoked and flattered.

After the tasting it was obvious everyone was starving, so Robert and Todd both had brought stuff for appatizers so we had a warm chili dip and grilled Old Bay BBQ shrimp – both were delicious. I don’t know if it were the appatizers, the beer, the Cornhole, or the medicine but somehow we didn’t eat dinner until about 9:45! Once again, everyone was starving. We had two differnt London Broils, some grilled Vidalia onions and Portobella mushrooms, au gratin potatoes, carrots, rice, and something else. We had tons of food and it was all delicious. Unfortunetly, since it had gotten later than anticipated, Todd was not able to stay for dinner for he needed to get home to his children.

After the tasting and before dinner and after dinner and before we called it a night, the rest of the night was basically filled with playing Cornhole in the backyard. Cornhole is an addictively simple bean-bag toss style game that is too much fun to play, quite simple, and easy to play while drinking. We actually had two sets to play with for Dave finally acquired his promised set from the door prize from the Delaware Digital Scavenger Hunt. We basically only played with one set since we had either 5 or 6 players, not really enough to merit a second set. But we did try a varient on the game and played with three sets of bags so all could play at one time on oneset. The play went relatively smoothly, it was the scoring that was a little hairy. Fun to try, but not something I would suggest we try again. We pretty much played until past 1AM when we were “asked” to stop playing by some of Delaware’s finest, I appologize to the neighbors. After that things quickly rapped up. Robert hit the road and everyone else stumbled back to a bed to stay the night.

It was really a great time and I look forward to it each and every year. If you’d like to recap the past you can visit these posts here: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003. And in our usual style, there are a few colorful quotes that have made it through the tasting. Either we weren’t writing down as many, people weren’t as witty as usual, or I can’t read Dave’s handwriting, but here are the few we have:

• “I just drew on my face with permanant marker.”
• “You’re a cheesy-belly.”
• “Fuck the scoring – Whoever can get them down fastest is the Grand Pooh-Bah”
• “#14 – Smoked Shreaded Wheat?” (MacRae Scotch Ale ’05)
• “You should have seen her on that pole with her wheelchair.”
• “OK – What the fuck was THAT!?” (Gnarleywine)
• “Ugh – It makes me want to take a bite of bread.” (Gnarleywine)
• “We have enough food to choke two donkeys.”