Although Batch #218, "Make Trump Lose Again" Belgian Farmhouse Ale proved to be a fine beer, the message was obviously not a resonant one with the majority of American voters..
We are in for a wild, corrupt and democracy busting ride. Good Luck America!
7.5% abv
"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on" ` old cowboy proverb.
MT
I first learned about Lachlan Morton, bike racer with EF Education in 2021, when he rode what he called the "Alt Tour", parallel with the Tour De France.
Lachlan rode his bikepacking bike from the race start, covering every route for every one of the 21 stages of the race. He also rode all the transfers between stages, which are traversed by the Tour races in buses or airplanes.
The Tour racers covered 2,122 miles in 21 days, while Lachlan rode an amazing 3,424 miles, and beat the Tour to Paris by three days, in 18 days averaging 190 miles per day.
You Rock, Lachlan!
Cheers! MT ~ 7.0% abv
This batch honors Lael Wilcox, who broke Jenny Graham's record of 124 days, by completing her 18,000+ mile ride in just 108.5 days.
Lael's wife, Rugile Kaladyte, filmed the landscapes and many of the moments Lael rode through on her record breaking ride, and Rugile made a beautiful documentary available to stream on YouTube here.
Both of these ladies rode for 150 - 200 miles per day, with the only break days reserved for intercontinental travel. Count me completely amazed.
6.5% abv
Cheers! MT
I was listening to a daily podcast by Lael Wilcox, a famous American endurance cyclist, as she rode around the world.
In one podcast, Lael mentions that she is listening to an audiobook about Jenny Graham's 2018 around the world ride in 124 days. I bought Jenny's book, "Coffee First, Then the World", and was extremely impressed with the courage and commitment Jenny showed as she rode SOLO, from Germany through Russia, China, then Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, Canada and finally Europe.
This rider blew me away! Amazing!
7.0% abv ~ Cheers!
MT
I was able to brew four batches of beer this year of 2024, and I decided to label them all in honor of some amazing athletes, mostly women, who really amazed us with their incredible feats.
In this label for Batch #221, I'm honoring two G.O.A.T.s (Greatest Of All Time) ladies:
Simone Biles, greatest gymnast of all time, bar none;
Mikaela Shiffrin, greatest ski racer of all time, bar none.
5.25% a.b.v.
Cheers!
MT
Due to a complete kitchen remodel in our 125 year old home, I was only able to brew a single batch of Ale in 2023.
I used a bunch of local hops from my friend Rob Janssen in this batch. I don't know what variety they are, but the flavor they impart is delightful, and the bitterness just right.
7.25% abv,
Cheers!
MT
I steoped out of my tent early one morning, to this scene of sunlight breaking through the trees, to evaporate cool surface lake water into this mist. A few minutes later and it was gone. Catch a moment.
Cheers!
MT
"Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Trumpty had a great fall. All his enablers and all of his fans, couldn't (or wouldn't, or shouldn't) put Trumpty together again." ~ MT-2022
In spite of its distasteful label, this Belgian Saison Farmhouse Ale came out quite nicely. I'll be saving quite a few bottles to celebrate with in November of 2024, or before, when the DOJ LOCKS HIM UP.
Cheers,
MT
Jerome Osentowski is the legendary founder and manager of the world's best teaching institute for regenerative, permaculture forest garden and greenhouse based gardening and agriculture practice, teaching hundreds of eager students each year, from all around the world. This hops vine is one tiny example among many hundreds of plant varieties raised and propagated here, including outdoor fruit, nut and vegetable perennials, and indoor Mediterranean and Tropical citrus, papaya, pomegranate, fig and many other trees, all producing far more food varieties than any other property in Colorado.
Cheers!
MT
There you see the "T" boot stamp in the foreground and the armed MAGA followers behind Rep. Cheney, an excellent portrayal of the GOP hypocrites who refused to admit his guilt and voted against his second impeachment. It was most obvious that if it had been Hillary Clinton who had won in 2016, then lost to Trump in 2020, and pulled the same coup attempt after, the GOP hypocrites would have been all over her to be convicted and jailed. LOCK HIM UP!
Cheers - MT
I've given Robb some bottles to save and share, and I'm holding onto a good number of them myself, to let age for a few years, to see how the brew matures. My bottle-conditioned ales tend to be at their finest around 3 years out, then after 4 years, they tend to decline in flavor, all due to the live yeast in the bottles. We'll see how they are in 2024 and 2025.
Meanwhile, Robb has given me another bag of these hops, harvested in 2022, and the brews go on in '23.
Cheers!
MT
It turned out fine, and was well received by family and friends around our dining table. Alas, the following year proved equally scarce in the RF Valley, but I was too busy with other things to brew a 2022 batch. I'm hoping for a bountiful 2023, Nature willing.
Cheers!
MT
This batch was brewed with a "Special B Malt" and a good measure of Cascade hops, for a nice bitter finish, and a fine Winter ale.
Cheers!
MT
With just enough dried Habanero peppers (1/2 tsp per 5-gallons of ale), you can taste the flavor and feel just a bit of an afterburn, but it's never enough to turn away even the sensitive taste buds of the uninitiated.
The climate is certainly changing, drought is persistent, and most people still think it's the role of government and industry to find and implement solutions to this man-made dilemma. Just don't ask us to sacrifice our super-hemi, gas guzzling pickup trucks and Hummers!
Here's to the earliest mechanized transportation solution in human history, the BICYCLE!
Cheers, MT
Brewed on 5.June, this Munich malt and Cellar Science "Nectar" yeast brought a very unique and pleasant flavor to this beer. It came out at 7.0% abv, and is labeled to welcome pollinators back to the garden.
This lady is a Yellowjacket, a species that was prevalent in the garden this season. My Apricot tree served as host to an invasion of Aphids, which our Ladybug and Trichogramma Wasp communities are here to control. This year, the Aphid invasion was particularly strong, and the Yellowjackets, an omnivorous bee, consumed both flower nectar and Aphids, voraciously.
I was never stung by the Yellowjackets in my garden, but one bicycle ride to the post office swept a traveling bee into my shirt collar, and waited until we were in front of our po box, before she decided to reveal her presence by stinging me several times, while I peeled off my shirt and she fell to the floor. The stings weren't too bad, and were gone after a day. It is true, that the Yellowjackets are having a boom year here. Mother Nature put out the Aphid boom, and it was answered immediately by the predators.
Cheers!
MT
This is the second season using "au natural" fermentation, this time with ice apples. I learned this technique from an 1872 article in Atlantic Magazine by Henry David Thoreau, titled "Wild Apples".
Thoreau described methods the western homesteaders were using to make alcohol from apples. I did take it a bit to extreme with the frozen apples, but it has turned out to be my best "fizzy hard cider" yet.
There are a few old trees I have access to, that hold onto most of their apples until after the leaves have fallen, then we wait until the fruit has frozen and thawed a few times, before shaking them off the trees onto tarps below on a cold morning - easy peasy. By the time we have the apples back to the press, they are nearly thawed, and we proceed to press them whole - no need to run them through the crusher. They give up the sweetest cider of the season, and I ferment the cider straight from the press into a carboy - no boiling, no yeast, just like old times. The natural yeast in the skin of the apples does the job, and when finished, I bottle it with some added sugar, so it carbonates in the bottle for a nice bubbly hard cider.
Cheers!
MT
I chose the photo of California hillsides on fire, off the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, to remind us that our activities are causing climate extremes, including wildfires across the west every summer.
Perhaps I should be making my "climate warning" label with a picture of Chinese or Dutch people riding bicycles?
Shine On Conservation!
MT
