Hooray for Death!

Hello everyone.

In my last post, I mentioned that fall is here, which technically wasn't true, but I meant that it felt like fall.  Well, now fall is officially here, and it's currently 82 degrees.  The forecast for tomorrow calls for a high of 90.

If this were, say, Phoenix, the weather would be pretty normal.  For North Idaho--mind you, we're less than 100 miles from the Canadian border--it's downright crazy.  I've already talked about how the global warming deniers have been silent all summer, and I fully expect that as soon as we have the inevitable big snowstorm or cold spell this winter, they'll be quick to point out how it's "evidence" the global warming is nothing but a big scam to make Al Gore rich, and that the oil and coal companies really have our best interests at heart when they fund focus groups with the stated purpose of denying and/or downplaying global warming.

The worst thing about this weather is that we've already had a few hard overnight frosts, so most of our garden plants (including all out tomato plants) are history, even though the daytime temperatures are ideal for growing.  Sigh.

Anyway, I've spent the last several blog postings yammering on about beer, which is something I obviously love to drink and blog about.  But I realize not everyone cares.  So today, I'm going to avoid beer talk, aside from the brief beer mention in this paragraph, which you're already past.  Instead, I'm going back to my roots: politics.

Politics

Even though the 2012 presidential election is over a year away, the circus that media pundits like to call "campaign season" is in full swing, and since it's pretty much a given (though not entirely) that Obama will be the Democratic nominee, on the Republican side there's a host of idiots clamoring to do the bidding of the wealthy elite that run this country. 

The candidates have already had several debates, and they've certainly said some interesting things.  But I've been more interested in the crowd reactions than the meaningless catchphrases and other nonsense they try to pass off as responses to questions.  At the debate earlier this month at the Reagan library in Simi Valley, Brian Williams asked George Bush wannabe Rick Perry about the death penalty.  Take a look:



At the mere mention that the state of Texas has killed 234 people, more than any other state, the crowd breaks into applause. I'm not talking about a few people clapping, but widespread applause, complete with a couple of "whoos" and whistles.

As I said on Facebook at the time: regardless of your feelings are on the death penalty, it's nothing to cheer about. A person being killed, even when killed by a state, and even if the person is a really, really bad person, is still a tragedy. Every time someone is executed, someone else loses a son or daughter, or a parent, or a spouse, or a friend. And of course, the person on death row is likely there for committing murder in the first place, which adds to the overall tragedy.

But the knuckledraggers in the crowd cheered the death of 234 people a year as if their favorite football team had just scored a touchdown.

This sort of behavior reveals an incredible lack of empathy for fellow human beings, as well as an incredible lack of critical thinking.  It points to a mindset in which everything in the world is black and white, and people are all either good guys, or bad guys who deserve to die. And it also shows a disturbing willingness to wholeheartedly embrace authoritarianism, where the government is never wrong in its judgement and punishment. That last one is exceptionally odd to see among self-styled "small government" Republicans.

Who decides who gets executed? Juries, which are made of people like me and you, as well as the guy down the road with the Camaro on cinder blocks in his front yard. Also, judges, who are appointed by self-serving politicians, or who themselves become politicians to get elected to their post. And don't forget the lawyers who fight over the cases. And the politicians who passed laws to permit the death penalty. Not exactly the salt of the earth.

In short: dumb people often make dumb decisions.

And let's not forget that numerous times people have been executed only to later be found innocent.

There was just a recent high-profile example in the Troy Davis case, where a number of the witnesses later recanted their testimony and said the police pressured them to testify, and some said that one of the other of the witnesses actually confessed to the murder. Some of the victim's family members even tried to prevent the execution. Despite all the doubts, Troy Davis was executed anyway, quite possibly for no good reason. That's what the people in the crowd were cheering.

At the next debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a question about a hypothetical person with no insurance:



When Ron Paul was asked if the person with no insurance and who couldn't afford a life-saving procedure should just die, several people in the audience shouted "Yes!"

Unreal.  The people in the crowd apparently think you deserve to die if you don't buy insurance.  That sure gives a lot of power to those health insurance companies, no?

Republicans hate the mandate in Obamacare, but I can't really see much of a difference between a system where you're compelled to buy private health insurance by the government, and one in which you're compelled to buy private health insurance because you might die if you don't.  I guess the latter provides Republicans with the illusion of freedom, so there's that.

Here's the thing about both of these debate incidents: If you agree with the crowd reactions in either of the videos, you no longer get to call yourself "pro-life." The same goes if you support the numerous wars/bombing campaigns/occupations/drone strikes happening across the world by our government. There's nothing pro-life about any of it.  And if you're cheering death, you're a sociopath.

I don't know what has happened, but I remember when death used to be considered a tragedy.  Apparently, it's something to cheer about now.  And the downward spiral of our country continues.

In Closing

As much as I follow politics, I've been trying to keep all things political to a minimum here, mainly because it can be downright depressing.  This particular past has been especially so, at least for me, so I'll try to make my next post a bit more fun.  A while back I promised a blog posting about my chili recipe, so maybe I'll do that next.

Now, here it is, your moment of Tucker:

Rob

Corporate Beer Still Sucks

Hello everyone

Fall is here.  It's not terribly cold, but the leaves are starting to fall off the trees.  And the shadows are getting longer, which means the sun is working its way south.  I'm not dreading winter as much as I used to back in the Oregon days, though.  Instead of eight months of overcast skies and constant drizzle, we tend to get a decent amount of sun in between the snowstorms.  Plus, snow is much more fun to go outside and play in than a rainstorm at 40 degrees.  Although, I've been hearing rumors we're supposed to get an extra-harsh winter, one for the record books, if the Farmer's Almanac is to be believed.  Also, the Idaho Transportation Department, in its "infinite wisdom," decided to suspend overnight plowing on all the major highways.  Gotta pay for those tax cuts for millionaires somehow, eh?

Good thing I work at home.

Beer (and a bit of Music) Talk  

I mentioned in my last post that I had recently tried a few new beers.  So I figured now is a perfect time to discuss one of those, "Loser" by Seattle's Elysian Brewing Company, which commemorated the 20th Anniversary of Seattle's Sub Pop record label (even though it's about 25 years old by now). 

The first thing I noticed was the generic-ish looking label, with the slogan, "Corporate Beer Still Sucks."  I can get behind a slogan like that as it is, but I was also immediately transported back 20 years to my senior year in high school, when the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine had arrived at my house (yes, I had a subscription) and featured Nirvana on the cover, complete with Kurt Cobain wearing a t-shirt with "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" scrawled across the front.  The obvious irony was that one had to sift past page after page of corporate ads to get to the Nirvana article.

Anyway, this Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind, and Alternet has a story where the author claims it's the most important album of all time.  I'm not ready to go the full Monty and agree just yet, but the author makes a damn convincing argument, and the article is a great read.  Nevermind was Nirvana's first major-label album after releasing an earlier album and a few singles on the aforementioned Sub Pop, and Nirvana arguably single-handedly turned the record label from a little struggling business with some local buzz into a nationwide success, as they took a lot of credit (deservedly or not) for "discovering" Nirvana and the Seattle scene of the early 90s.

I should note that "Loser" was the name of a mid-90s hit by Beck, who, as far as I know, had no ties to Sub Pop.  But I guess the sentiment was the same.  In the wake of 80s bands who flaunted money and excess, the art nerds took over the music scene, at least for a few years.  It was a beautiful thing.

And the parallel to beer is striking.  On one hand, you have the big corporate brands whose focus is on marketing, with commercials featuring women in bikinis and other nonsense.  And on the other hand, you have the small brewers who care about quality and taste.  Guess who's winning?  Hint: it ain't the big guys.

Anyway, on to the beer itself.  After I finished amusing myself with the label, I cracked the bottle open.  The first I noticed was the smell, or should I say lack thereof.  It was the weirdest thing.  I always smell a new beer as soon as I open a bottle, and I always smell something.  But this time all I could detect was a faint odor of the bottle itself.  I poured it into a glass and nothing.  I stuck my nose right into the glass--to the point that I got beer on the tip of my nose--and inhaled deeply, but still, nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zip.

I thought maybe my sniffer was broken, so I passed it on to Cathy, and she agreed.  Nothing.  Seriously, even swill has an aroma, though not a good one.  It was unreal.

With no odor, I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of taste.  It turned out to be malty, though not cloying.  There was somewhat of a hop bitterness, but not much, and no floral or citrusy flavor whatsoever.  The finish was a bit nutty, and it left a slightly lingering bitterness on my tongue, but nothing unpleasant.

In short: It was good.  Not groundbreaking, not knock-your-socks-off phenomenal, not even incredibly unique.  But something I could see myself enjoying over and over, perhaps for years to come.

Kinda like Nirvana.

In Closing

Not to assign homework, but I highly recommend checking out this article in The Atlantic about college sports.  It's very long, but thorough, and a fascinating read, even if you don't care about college sports.

Now here it is, your moment of Tucker Yak:

Rob

Beer Extravaganza (Part Two)

Hello everyone.

First, my apologies for the lack of blog posts lately. As mentioned, I spent the past week or so housesitting in the boonies, with dial-up and generator-powered electricity. I tried getting online, even just to check my email and Facebook messages, but the connection was so ridiculously slow (45k!) that I gave up. I did make a trek into town to get online at a restaurant that had wi-fi, but I couldn't connect for some technical reason.  And wouldn't you know it, by the time I realized I had already ordered food.

The good thing is I got lots of work done on my book.  I had come to the conclusion that I needed to start over, and so that's what I did.  I certainly wasn't an easy decision to make, as I had spent over a year on it and had written over 35,000 words, but it's the right thing to do.  I'm not really changing the story, but just changing how it's told.  I think my decision kinda freaked Cathy out, but then when I got back home and she read what I had so far, she said she thought it was much better and she agreed with my decision.  Now, I've basically said in 10,000 words what used to take 35,000 words to say, which means the story moves a lot faster, and I've ditched a lot of the pointless bullshit.  And more importantly, I feel better about the whole thing. 

But now I'm ready to do some blogging!

Rob (Beer) Happenings

As mentioned, Cathy and I made a trek up to Schweitzer mountain over Labor Day weekend for their Fall Fest celebration. It wasn't officially fall when we were there, and weather-wise it still felt like the middle of summer, despite the fact that the main village sits in the mountains at around 4,700 feet. It was nice, sunny, and surprisingly warm up there, and there was a pretty good turnout for the festivities. Initially, we brought Tucker with us, but when we walked past the stage, there was a band playing. The amplified freaked him out, and he managed to somehow squirm out of his collar and run away. Fortunately, he didn't go very far, and we got him and brought him back down to the car and let him chill out in the shade in the parking lot where things were relatively quiet.

Then we went back to the festival puppy-free and tried again. The first thing I did, naturally, was stand in line to get a glass and some beer sample tickets. Unlike the Brews Fest at Silver Mountain, where you had to pay for admission that included beer samples, admission at Schweitzer's Fall Fest was free, and if you wanted beer samples you had to buy them. I thought this was a better way to go. Also, Schweitzer had lots of different options for how many samples and even the type of drinking vessel. I chose the "pint," mainly because glass because you get to keep it and this would one more to add to my collection, but also because glass is always better than plastic, which is what the mug at Silver Mountain was made of. There was a plastic mug option, which I appreciate, because for those planning on drinking a lot of beer, it's good to have a non-breakable option.

Once I got my glass, I headed to the beer tent. One thing I liked better about Silver Mountain's Brew Fest was that you could get 1/4 mug tasters, whereas at Schweitzer, my glass came with three full-glass tokens. That was enough beer for me, but I would've preferred the ability to try more of a variety than just three beers.

Deschutes "Hop in the Dark"

In the tent, I found the Deschutes table right away, and they had Hop in the Dark on tap. That's all I needed to hear to know that's what I wanted to start with. Hop in the Dark is a Cascadian Dark Ale. There's a bit of a controversy over the name for this style of beer. Lots of people call it "Black IPA," because it's dark in color but has the hoppiness of an IPA. But here's the issue with that: IPA stands for India Pale Ale, and it's rather stupid to call something both "Black" and "Pale," no? I've also seen it referred to as "India Black Ale" or "India Dark Ale." Aside from the fact that "IBA" and "IDA" sound too much like "IPA," which would be confusing when people are trying to order a beer in a noisy pub, this style wasn't invented in India. In fact, India has nothing to with the beer, aside from a similarity in hoppiness to the IPAs that do trace their roots to British colonization (and exploitation) of India. This style was born and bred in the good old US of A.

That's why I am going with "Cascadian Dark Ale," and why I appreciate the fact that Deschutes does the same. The "Cascadian" part of the name comes from the notion of Cascadia being a name for the Northwest. And although this style was supposedly invented in Vermont, it's definitely been popularized and embraced by the Northwest, and it tends to be brewed with a generous helping of Northwest hops. I also am a fan of the Cascadia independence movement, so long as North Idaho is included if and when it happens. I don't want to move again.

Anyway, Hop in the Dark was predictably fantastic, and it's definitely one of the better examples of this style out there. It's got a nice, smooth, thick malty flavor that's balanced by a generous helping of floral, citrusy Northwest hops. Good stuff.

Rogue "Dead Guy Ale"

Speaking of the Northwest, the next beer I had was Rogue Dead Guy. It's hard to categorize Dead Guy. Rogue calls it a maibock, which is a strong German lager brewed with extra hops. But Dead Guy uses ale yeast, which is fermented at room temperature, instead of lager yeast, which is fermented at lower temperatures and is what maibocks use. To confuse things even more, Rogue calls it "Dead Guy Ale."

Whatever it is, it's good. The problem with Rogue is that it's way too expensive. Their beer is good, but I don't know why they insist on charging way more than everyone else. Even in Oregon, where Rogue is located, it still costs way more than Deschutes, Ninkasi, Bridgeport, Full Sail, and other similarly-sized Oregon breweries. I don't get it. It's probably one of those things where they figure if they charge more, people will assume it's because it's much better. But it's not. I mean, don't get me wrong--their beer is good to excellent. But so is the beer from those other breweries, which are 2/3 the price.

Anyway, since all the beer essentially cost the same here, I went with the Dead Guy. I'm still always surprised when I see it in a glass instead of a bottle of how light in color it is, because it tastes like a much darker beer. I don't expect it to be black or even brown, but maybe a dark amber in color.  Nope.  It's pretty light.  Fortunately, it doesn't taste that way.

Northern Lights "Chocolate Dunkel"

I was down to my last beer at this point, and Cathy had mentioned that she noticed Northern Lights had their Chocolate Dunkel on tap, which is something she'd enjoyed up at Silver Mountain.  Being the great husband I am, I spent my last beer token on this beer, just so I could share it with her.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I like the beer, too.

Normally, I don't go for sweet, dessert-ish beers like this one, but this one worked, particularly after the lingering hop bitterness in my mouth from the other two.  It also made a nice "dessert" to our food, which we'd just finished, but was nothing special, and so I won't be blogging about it.  To be honest, it's been over two weeks since the festival, and while I took notes about the beer, I didn't take any food notes, and I really don't remember what we ate.

Moving on.

Through all of this, there was a band playing Latin music.  They were pretty decent, though the music wasn't my style.  At one point in between songs, the singer said how glad they were to be "up here on Silver Mountain," which drew a few boos from the crowd until he realized what he'd said and apologized.  That was amusing to watch.  It was also amusing to watch the older yuppie couple make fools of themselves by salsa dancing in front of the stage while everyone was watching, though in truth I was probably a bit jealous that they were willing to make asses of themselves and not care what other people thought.  Either that, or they were just oblivious of how ridiculous they looked, but then how could you not know how ridiculous two people look when they're salsa dancing?

Overlooking Lake Pend Oreille

After the dunkel, it was time to go.  And we couldn't make the trip back down from the mountain without stopping and taking some photos of the unbeatable view.  The view is even better from the top of the mountain, and we almost took a chairlift to the top to take some more shots, but we had a Tucker puppy waiting for us.  Next time.

It's funny.  I've already gone to more beer festivals up here in the less than a year I've been here than the whole ten years I was in Oregon, the land of good beers galore.  And we're planning on going to another one: this time an Oktoberfest celebration in a couple of weeks.  I guess when you live in Oregon, every day is a beer festival.  Not so much up here.  Still, it's nice to make an event out of drinking good beer.  It makes it seem so much more special.

In Closing

I've got still more beer news to blog about, including tasting some new beers and trying a new brewery.  I also made my "world famous"* chili yesterday and plan on posting the recipe and some photos in the near future.  Plus, I feel it's time to talk politics again, since I haven't in a while, and since there's a lot to talk about.  And I might even have something to say about all the crazy college sports (football) conference realignments.  So stay tuned.

Now here it is, your moment of Tucker:

Rob

* Note: "world famous" only applies to Rob Dow's World, not the actual world itself

Just a Quick Note

Hello everyone

This is just a quick note to let you know I'll be away from civilization to do some housesitting in the land of dial-up internet, no cell service, and generator-powered electricity for the next week.  This means I probably won't be doing any blogging anytime soon.  It's quite possible that I might hit a point where I can't stand it anymore, and decide to head into town to find some wi-fi to get online, and maybe do a blog posting.  But if not, I'll be back next weekend with the Beer Extravaganza (Part Deux) post.  See ya!

Rob

Beer Extravaganza (Part One)

Hello everyone.

Whoa!  How did I manage to go a week and a half without blogging?  I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realize it had been that long.  I guess I better get to it, then...

Rob (Beer) Happenings

Last week I brewed a batch of one of my most favoritest beer styles, the India Pale Ale (IPA).  It was surprisingly the first time in the seven or so years I've been brewing that I've tried to brew an IPA.  I don't know why that is.  I love IPAs. 

Fortunately, this attempt turned out better than some of my other attempts at brewing.

This particular batch is called "Ol' Deaths Whisper," and I picked up the ingredients in a conveniently pre-packaged bag from the Home Fermenter Center the last time I was in Eugene, OR.  Their website appears to be down right now (which is why I linked to the Beer Advocate site instead), and I hope that doesn't mean they went out of business, because they have great brewing supplies at really reasonable prices.

This was a "partial-mash" recipe, and for those who don't homebrew, I'll explain what that means in a moment.  But first, let me give you a quick rundown of the entire brewing process.  You start with some barley grains that are soaked in water until they start to sprout and release a lot of sugar.  The grain growth is then stopped by roasting, toasting, or some other method that usually involves a large oven of some sort, and this gives you malted barley. 

When it's time to brew, you soak the malted barley (and sometimes other types of grains, depending on the recipe) in hot water, and basically make a tea out of it.  Next, you get rid of the spent grains (you can feed it to livestock, or compost it, or even use it to make bread) and boil the tea down, adding hops to give it flavor as well as bitterness to balance the sweetness of the malt.  This gives you an "unfermented beer" called wort.  You let the wort cool to room temperature, and then add yeast to ferment the wort (lagers are fermented at lower temperatures). 

Over the next few weeks or so, the yeast turns the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.  Once this is done, you now have beer, and all that's left to do is to carbonate it, either by bottling it with a little sugar for the yeast to eat and convert to more CO2, or by kegging it and adding carbonation from a tank.  I used to be a bottling guy, but since we moved, we picked up a second fridge, and I'm now all about kegging.  Cleaning and sanitizing one keg is immensely easier than cleaning and sanitizing three dozen or so bottles.

But making a "tea" out of ten, fifteen, or even twenty pounds of malted barley and/or other grains is no easy task to do in an average kitchen.  There is all sorts of equipment out there to do this at home, but most of it is out of my budget at this point.  Someday...

Anyway, this particular recipe is a "partial-mash," which is a small amount of specialty grains tailored to the recipe plus a large amount of malt extract, which is essentially a condensed version of the malted barley "tea."  First, I extracted the "tea" from the specialty grains, in this case 3/4 lb. of amber crystal malt, and 1/4 lb. of Munich malt:

One thing brewing requires is a lot of water, and despite us having a well, our water quality isn't good.  It won't make you sick, but it tastes disgusting.  Maybe you like the taste of sulfur, but I don't.  So I used a filter.  The other problem is that we don't have great water pressure here, and when you combine that with a faucet-mount filter, the water comes out like a trickle.  Seriously, I often pee bigger streams than this:

Once the grains steeped for their allotted time, it was time to rinse as much of the sugars out as possible, in a process called "sparging."  I poured two quarts of 170 degree water over the grains:

I know the above photo doesn't show the hot water being poured over the grains, but I was brewing solo, and it's difficult enough to keep from spilling water and/or wort all over the kitchen, let alone trying to do so while also taking a photo.  Just use you imagination.

Next, it was time to add the extract.  This recipe was one of the few I've ever tried that called for both liquid and dry extracts.  I don't have a photo of the dry extract, but just imagine a tannish-brownish colored Kool-Aid mix.  Here's the liquid extract:

I don't like using the word, "liquid," to describe the extract, because it's not exactly liquid.  It's somewhere between the consistency of honey and molasses, and it takes several rinsings with hot water to get all the stuff out of its container and into the brewing kettle.  Meanwhile, you also have to keep stirring the kettle, because the extract you just added tends to immediately settle at the bottom of the pot instead of dissolving right away, and that inevitably leads to scorching.  I've had some delicious smoked porters before, but I can't imagine a scorched beer to be any good.

Once all the extract is in the kettle, it's time to bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring frequently until all the extract dissolves.  A nice foamy layer will form at the top:

Eventually, large bubbles will break through the foam, and that's when you know it's boiling.  That means it's time to begin adding hops, starting with the bittering hops, in this case, one ounce of Chinooks.  This recipe called for three different types of hops: Chinooks added at the beginning of the one hour boil, 1/2 ounce of Cascade hops (flavoring) added 40 minutes in, and 1/2 ounce of Columbus hops (aroma) added in the last five minutes. Each type of hops came in its own hop bag, which is basically a little pouch made of cheesecloth material to hold the hops in (and to easily remove them at the end of the boil):

After the boil, I ditched the hops and added some filtered cold water.  I then covered the pot, set it in an ice water bath in the sink, and let it sit there until the wort dropped down to about 75 degrees.  Then it was time to siphon it (some brew kettles have spigots, but mine does not, hence the siphoning) into the carboy, which is a glass container where the fermentation happens:

Once all the wort was siphoned into the carboy, I added more filtered water to make about five gallons total.  The temperature was still a little warm, so I held off on adding the yeast.  If the liquid is too hot (or too cold), the yeast will die on contact, and there won't be any fermentation, or at least not the good kind of fermentation.  So while I waited for the wort to cool a little more, it began to settle and form cool-looking bands in the carboy:

Finally it was cool enough to add the yeast.  I aerated (shook up) the carboy to get everything going.  By the next morning, there was a lot of activity already.  The bands were gone, and if you looked closely, you could see all sorts of movement inside the carboy as the yeast was gorging itself on the sugars.  There was also a layer of foam at the top from the CO2 bubbling up.  By about 24 hours in, the foam had built up pretty high and begun to work its way up the blow off tube, which is a tube attached to the carboy with the other end submerged in water, so the excess carbon dioxide can work its way out of the carboy, but fruit flies, bacteria, and other crap in the air can't find its way into the carboy and ruin the beer.

From then on, I just checked on it periodically, making sure the temperature stayed in the 65-75 degree range.

Here it is today, one week later:

It might be hard to tell from the photo, but there is still some fermentation going on.  But it has already peaked out.  The foam that went up the blow off tube has receded back into the carboy.  A bunch of sediment has built up on the bottom.  In a few days I'll check the levels, and if things look good, I'll probably siphon as much of the beer out as I can--leaving as much sediment behind as possible--into a secondary carboy, and then let it sit for another week or so.  Then it will be time to siphon it out of the secondary and keg it.  And in a week or so after that, if all has gone to plan, I'll have some delicious India Pale Ale on tap at home.  Yay!


In Closing

I've got lots more beer news, including a report (with photos) from the beer tent at the Fall Fest at Schweitzer Mountain last weekend, as well as three new (to me) beers I've tried at home during the past week.  But I've reached my blogging limit for the day, so you'll just have to stay tuned until next time. 

Now here it is, your moment of Tucker (or what happens when Tucker jumps off the dock right after you do, and you don't realize he's doggy-paddling away in the water above you as you're coming up to the surface):

I think it's time to trim his nails.

Rob