Batch #125 - Summer Pale Ale

I admit that I'm a fan of bicycle road racing, and this July is the 99th annual Tour de France.  I'll catch up on my sleep in August!  Last year, British rider Bradley Wiggins crashed out of the Tour, but this year he came back with a well trained Team Sky, including great British riders Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish, to not only win the overall race, but to make history as the first British team to win this prestigious Bike race.  On Saturday July 28, they will race again in the London Olympics, hoping for a 2012 sweep of the best prizes in bicycle racing. Go Team Sky!
Summer must have at least one Batch of Pale Ale, and this is the first one.  Before the Summer gets away from us, I'll have to brew another!

MT

Batch #124 - The Mudman Returns!

What's a Summer without some good Bitter Brown Ale?  For this batch, I've resurrected the "Mudman" label from Batch #95, back in 2009, as well as the recipe.  In spite of the distasteful label, the beer is very tasty!

MT

Batch #123 - Fire Roasted Pumpkin Ale

My 2011 backyard pumpkin crop, shown in Batch #119 below, had to be pretty widely given away because I ended up with 9 pumpkins,  180 pounds worth, of the two varieties I planted.  I saved 50 pounds of charcoal roasted pumpkin flesh, frozen in 5-pound bags, to use for the next couple of years before I need to think about planting another crop.
I saved the seeds from two heirloom pumpkins, a "Cinderella" variety and a "Lakota Sioux" variety (in this label), that I found in a couple different farmers markets in 2009, and grew them out last year, enough pumpkin to take care of pies, beer and soup for awhile.
Yum.

Batch #120: Habanero Red Ale

After retiring the "roller-coasting monks" from my Habanero Ale labels, I searched for a new subject to grace this popular hot pepper beer.  In a series of Google searches including the term "hot stuff" this little devil kept showing up, so I let him strut his hot stuff for this batch.  I thought it appropriate to use something of a "cartoon character" for this one, because I got a little silly when deciding to amplify the "red ale" appearance of the beer by steaming a red beet until I had a bright red broth in which to dissolve my bottling sugar.  The result is a bit surprising, to see a beer with a pink head, a red body, the flavor of a habanero pepper, and the nutritional characteristics of a 6.5% abv homebrew.

The devil's in the details!

Enjoy!

Batch #119: Pumpkin Ale

I have brewed pumpkin ales for some time now, and my fellow homebrewers at the Roaring Fork HAMs Homebrewers Club have voted this one my best to date.  I used to brew this with pumpkin pie spices in the boil, like cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg, and back in 2009, I made a batch that was half spiced, and the other half not.  The latter was the Club's overwhelming choice.  This year, using one of the large pumpkins raised in my backyard with heirloom seed harvested from 2009's crop, I roasted the pumpkin most of the way to soft in my oven, then finished roasting it on my charcoal grille, adding a bit of smoky flavor.  The flesh of the roasted pumpkin was then separated from the skin and frozen, to be used at my liesure for beer brewing and other culinary adventures, until the 2012 pumpkin crop is ready to harvest.

Cheers!

2011 Champagne Cider

All the Cider pressed for my own use in the Autumn of 2011, was taken from "frozen apples" still hanging on the trees.  We had early hard frost during an apple bumper-crop year, so all the trees we didn't harvest before the frost, held their fruit while losing their leaves.  Most folks would consider this a disaster, as they watch the apples turn brown and appear rotten.  If they had read the book, "Wild Apples" by H.D.Thoreau, they would know that these are the best apples for cider, within a certain window of opportunity.

As the fruit goes through repeated freeze-thaw cycles, the apple converts to a higher juice and sugar content.  Eventually, wild fermentation sets in and the flavor of the juice becomes richer, before it becomes a bit "darker", and not so good.  I've been exploring this window between "rich" and "dark" flavor for several years, and I believe I nailed it this year, with my final harvest of frozen apples just before New Years Day, which I processed into a rich Apple Syrup.  Frozen apples I've tasted since then seem to have a tiny bit of off-flavor to them, owing I'm sure to the wild fermentation, which I'm now leaving for the enjoyment of the deer and the birds.
Meanwhile, I await the proper aging and bottle carbonation of the Champagne Cider, estimated to happen by Valentines Day!

Batch #118 - Occupy Anonymous Ale

I labeled this Anonymous Ale in moral support of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.  In New York, Occupy protesters have organized themselves in the tiny rectangle of public space called Zuccotti Park, which they have re-dubbed "Liberty Park".  They have a community kitchen, a care station, a public library, sanitary facilities, tents for sleeping a few hundred people, and the entire perimeter a public discussion forum.  The Wall Street camp anonymous calls itself "The NYC General Assembly", and publishes views arrived at by democratic discussion and concensus, at http://nycga.cc

In particular, I am in support of the movement's claim that big business and big government are acting together in ways that dis-serve the vast majority and spoil the commons, if I may excerpt from the Declaration of the NYC GA:
"We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known."  Read the entire declaration: Declaration of the NYC GA

I admire these hardy souls who are resolutely preparing for Winter camping in New York City and elsewhere around the world, to bring attention to the injustices brought to us by corporations and government, and I will support their efforts to push for legislative change, but that may not suffice.

In addition, we must each recognize our support for "BIG" government and business in the choices we make every day.  STOP choosing to support "BIG".  Take our money out of the big banks and invest in our communities.  Buy local.  Know your Farmer.  Barter.  Press government to shift management of everything possible from the Federal level to the State and Local levels.  Press government and industry for regulations to outlaw pollution of the commons - including Nature AND the Economy!  And until these regulations have been achieved, I personally urge everyone to boycott "BIG", and choose "small".

The mask we are beginning to see used by the Occupy movement is from the film "V is for Vendetta", and is apparently based on a 16th century Englishman named "Guy Fawkes", who was arrested for trying to blow up the House of Lords, in order to assasinate King James I, in 1605.  His failure to accomplish the deed is celebrated in England on November 5 every year since, known as "Guy Fawkes Day".  His image has been used as a symbol of protest of oppression ever since.