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Category: beer

Good Beer for Good Friends

Published September 19, 2008

A fridge full of beer for when friends visit. There is stuff from Dogfish Head, JW Lees, New Holland, Founders, Magic Hat, and Jolly Pumpkin.

People are visiting tonight and bringing good food, so I stopped and got good beer:

· Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale
· J.W. Lees Manchester Star Ale
· Founders Breakfast Stout
· Magic Hat’s Circus Boy
· Magic Hat’s 9
· Magic Hat’s Jinx
· Magic Hat’s Participation Lager
· New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk
· Jolly Pumpkin’s Dark Dawn Stout

Not pictured, not purchased tonight, and / or not in the fridge is a quite-aged bottle of vanilla mead made by a friend of mine, some Sparks (for Danielle), and some Kuhnhenn Chocolate Braggot.

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Stone Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Published August 19, 2008

A bottle of Stone's Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.

I posted this photo instead of the one of the beer poured into the glass because this shows off the logo better. That said, this beer is excellent. Nice and bitter while still rich and oatmeal-y / chocolate-y / all the good things about stouts of this kind.

Also, I’ve been up since 3am. I had my alarm set for 4am, but at 3 I had to use the bathroom, then after that I just laid in bed awake. Today’s work required me to be downtown at a particularly early time, but at least I got to watch the sun rise from a nicely expansive office in a very (well, relatively, given the city) tall building.

After work I was able to get out to Stony Creek and ride around on the trails. I ended up meeting up with someone I’d previously met at the Wednesday night group rides, and he and I rode around a bit before he headed back to his car. I was both riding hard and feeling tired, so I ended up having a couple accidents.

The first one involved hitting the little finger on my left hand on a tree and cutting the knuckle. In the second I tried to go over a new log pile, but for some reason I almost went over the bars and ended up rolling on mostly the front wheel into the tree right after it, with my bike hitting the handlebars and stopping, while I hit the tree with my left pectoralis. Thankfully nothing was hurt, it was just a bit of a shock.

In the third crash I was going fast (27MPH or so, per the max speed stuff on the computer) down a steep, long, somewhat winding hill. At the bottom I had to turn, but when I went to turn left both of my wheels started slipping, so instead of turning I just rotated and somewhat laid the bike down and slid to a stop. It was an interesting fall, and I scraped my knee up a bit, but nothing bad. Some guy came up and asked if I was all right, then said that it looked like I fell right and would have been fine, but he wanted to be sure. It was generally fun, and I need to be sure to fall that way in the future.

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Dogfish Head Exclamation Mark Cap / Niner YAWYD

Published August 10, 2008

Looking down on the stem, Niner YAWYD top cap, and Dogfish Head exclamation mark bottle cap on my bike after fitting the cap. Once I get a less worn cap I may change it out.

After fitting the Niner YAWYD last night and drinking the 120 Minute IPA at IPM I had a nice yellow Dogfish Head exclamation mark cap for my bike. It is a bit more worn than I would like, but it was the best looking bottle I could find yesterday.

After test fitting the cap on the Niner YAWYD I carefully bent the crimped edges of the crown in a bit further then snapped it back on. It works pretty well as can be seen above or here with the cap staying nicely in place.

Being yellow the cap is the most obvious thing on my bike. I was originally hoping to get a nice black cap with the Jolly Pumpkin logo on it, but it turns out that all of their caps are plain ones. Oh well. There is something nifty about a warning sign on a bike, though…

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Niner YAWYD

Published August 9, 2008

The Niner YAWYD top cap on my bike, ready to have a bottle cap snapped in place.

Despite its horrible name the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) seems like a pretty nifty device. It is a replacement top cap for one’s bike which allows a bottle cap to be snapped into place. Yes, I will freely admit that it’s a hokey way of meeting both the good beer and mountain biking cross marketing cross section which I seem to fall in. That said, it does strike me as a bit more interesting than some of the other decorative bike accessories available.

Tonight I’m hoping to have a bottle of Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA and use the nice yellow dogfish exclamation mark cap on my bike. This cap can be seen in my photo of a glass and bottle of 120 Minute IPA here.

This was purchased from Paint Creek Bicycles in Lake Orion, MI when Danielle and I headed up there today to see what they had on sale. There was a really nice looking (but red) Raleigh XXIX fully rigid 29er single speed mountain bike for $500 which I took for a few test rides but couldn’t bring myself to actually purchase. I need a new phone more.

Anyway, once I get the aforementioned cap, or possibly another one fitted to the bike I’ll post more photos of it. In the mean time, here’s the ones I took of the Niner YAWTD and my bike today:

· Front of the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) pacakge.
· Back of the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) package as purchased from Paint Crek Bicycles for US$13.50.
· The bottom of the Niner YAWYD, which appears is milled from 6061 aluminum.
· Top of the Niner YAWYD. This is the side the bottle cap snaps on to.
· Detail of how I found to best remove bottle caps without damaging them…
· Looking down at my bike’s handlebars showing the original plain top cap, computer, etc.
· The screw holding the top cap in place is removed with a 4.5mm hex (allen) wrench.
· Looking down into the steerer tube showing the star nut.
· Detail of the screw and original top cap.
· The Niner YAWYD top cap on my bike, ready to have a bottle cap snapped in place.

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Blimp!

Published July 29, 2008

A MetLife blimp is flying over my workplace for some reason.

There is a blimp flying over my workplace. I don’t know why. Thankfully the camera in my phone still works well enough to get a photo of it. I really could use a new phone, though.

I’ve also posted some other new Moblog images, including the blimp one. Interested in seeing them? Here they are:

· A MetLife blimp is flying over my workplace for some reason.
· Beautiful storm clouds seen from outside of Rochester Mills Brewery on 21-Jul-2008.
· A Surly Cross-Check set up for commuting, parked outside of Rochester Mills Brewery.
· The brewery floor at Rochester Mills.
· A Dyson Airblade in the men’s bathroom at Rochester Mills Brewery.
· People sitting around at Rochester Mills Brewery in the back room for the MMBA Metro North chapter meeting.

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Michigan Brewer’s Guild 2008 Summer Beer Fest

Published July 27, 2008

My glass of Tiramisu Stout and a handful of tokens.

The Michigan Brewer’s Guild 2008 Summer Beer Fest was, at least from my perspective, a great success.

There was a bit of bothersome traffic on the way, but we arrived with plenty of time to meet up with everyone, apply sunscreen, then wander over to the park. Despite being in a rather long line to get in, we were only waiting for about 15 minutes.

There was a set of dark clouds that rolled through and sprinkled a little rain, but not enough to even make one wet.

All in all, it was a really nice time. After the festival closed we all headed back to Brian and Debbie’s place for food and sober-up time and things like that. Unfortunately I just never became sober, so Danielle, who had no problems getting back to normal, drove back to my place.

If you are interested, here is a list of all the breweries and beers at the festival this year, and here is my Michigan Brewer’s Guild Summer Beer Fest 2008 album. All photos were taken with Danielle’s nicely pocket sized Panasonic DMC-FX3. It’s a nice small camera, but it still takes decent photos.

When wandering around we ended up at the tent for Adventures in Homebrewing. Brian knew the person there, and he offered us some root beer in these nice red plastic cups he had. Well, the root beer was excellent, and it turned out that the breweries would happen to fill these cups as well, half a cup for a token. Since 1/3 of a red plastic cup was equivalent to a full normal cup, we ended up with quite a bit more beer than expected. As seen here, Eric had no problem ending up with a large full cup of beer for two tokens.

Oh, and extra tokens were 10 for $5, so near the end of the day Danielle and I acquired $10 worth of extra tokens (one of the red special cups can also be seen here). As most of them didn’t get used we’ll just have to save them for the Winter festival, which is happening on 28-Feb-2009 in Grand Rapids.

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Southern Tier’s Jah-Va

Published July 22, 2008

Southern Tier's Jah-Va poured into a glass. This is a very, very nice 12% coffee stout.

I do declare, Southern Tier makes some of the finest beers I’ve ever had. They are consistently good, with only one or two of their styles ever being something that didn’t set well with me.

Tonight while eating a rather late dinner of leftovers† I had this nice bottle of Souther Tier’s Jah-Va, a 12% coffee stout. I think I spent two hours on this bottle, sipping the 1.5 (or so) pints of it while watching some TiVo’d stuff, balancing my checkbook, talking to friends online, and relaxing. It’s very, very good. I’d highly recommend trying some yourself if you like thick, strong stouts.

Also, based on the flags and sprayed markings in front of my house it appears that either Comcast is installing new boxes or Wide Open West is bringing service to our complex. Here is a photo of the new box, and the short one behind it is specifically labeled Comcast. Maybe I should give WOW a go.

† Thanks, work. At least I got some stuff fixed, I guess.

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New Belgium’s 1554

Published June 17, 2008

New Belgium's 1554, an &quote;Enlightened Black Ale&quote;.

Tonight’s beer is New Belgium’s 1554, which is listed as an “Enlightened Black Ale”. It’s made by the same company which makes the oft-mentioned (and overhyped, I’ve been told) Fat Tire.

This beer is quite good once appropriately chilled, and if I could get it in Michigan I’d probably buy it again. For now I’ll just enjoy this last glass of it figuring I won’t be getting more any time soon. (For reference, this was purchased at Cub Foods in Peoria, IL on Saturday night, along with some Soy Sauce, locally made crispy cheesey junk food things, an apple, and some muffins.)

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Traverse City Is Dull Unless You Like Shopping

Published May 10, 2008

I’m sitting in Espresso Bay in downtown Traverse City, leeching bandwdith from the first AP I found called ‘linksys’, tunneling everything via SOCKS (SSH tunnel). I drove up here yesterday in order to visit my grandparents who live about half-way between here and Grayling.

While I like visiting them, I find it a bit difficult to be in this area at times. I’d really, really like some nice veggie food, or at least some mostly-veggie Thai or Indian or Middle Eastern, but that doesn’t seem to be available. Despite being near water, seafood around here isn’t any fresher than it would be in Flint or Grand Rapids. There does seem to be a local organic / veggie eatery called the Homegrown Organic Eatery (WARNING! MySpace link), but it closed at 8pm. I think I’ll probably just end up grabbing a bean burrito from Taco Bell on the way back to my Grandparents’ place.

On the upside, I did get to do a bunch of outdoor things today. I first went for a bike ride, then swapped the touring tires out for knobbies, then went another 10 miles or so back on random trails that I came across in the woods. Some of the trails were particularly difficult because if the extremely (in many cases 100%) sandy soil in this area, but overall it was fun. I also managed to end up on some piece of property full of oil drilling remains, semi trailers (one marked Radioactive), campers, mobile homes, and other pieces of scrap. I think my grandpa knows the owner of the property and hopefully I’ll be able to get back there tomorrow with my camera and grab some photos.

My main reason for heading to Traverse City today was so that I could make my way up to Old Mission Point (at the 45th Parallel) and wander around the beach there. I ended up wandering down the beach, walking across a bunch of rocks, and ending up way out in the water on a rather interesting sand bar after quite a bit of walking. I think it’d be nice to bike up the peninsula one day, but it’s 18 miles (each way) of rather steep hills. The main road up to the point does have nice bike lanes on it, though. There are also some quite nice trails along the point in the park which might be good for riding around as well.

In lieu of other food I think I’ll just head back to my grandparents house now and grab a bean burrito from Taco Bell on the way. My grandma made turkey for dinner, but that’s one meat I particularly don’t like. No matter what it always tastes dirty to me.

Oh, something very positive: lunch today was pizza from the small convenience store near my grandparents house. While picking up the pizza with my grandpa I found that the store carries a small assortment of very good beers along with the normal stuffs. There were probably two doors worth of better Michigan beers and other imported things. While I don’t plan on getting any beer this weekend, it’s nice to know that it’s available in the future.

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