Tag: beer

Weekend Notes

March 6, 2023 / DB

College Hoops

I’ll save most of my thoughts for a post later in the week. It is always a bit of a relief when we reach this point in the season and have a few days off.

November and December are usually a mix of big games and ones that KU should win easily. I’m always left wanting more from that part of the schedule, as the Jayhawks often have week-long gaps between games.

The Big 12 schedule wears me down. I don’t know if it is just getting older and it’s harder for me to stay up for a late start and then have my normal struggles to come down afterward, or it’s still some remaining DNA from my youth when the Big 8 only played on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but two months of Saturday-Monday/Tuesday turnarounds make me feel like I’m playing and not watching. I want more time to savor those Saturday wins, or recover from the losses.

So when we hit conference tournament week and everyone takes a few days off, it is a nice break before the real stress of March kicks in.

Naturally in a few weeks I’ll be missing basketball. Such is life as a sports fan.

Kid Hoops

L’s winter league team wrapped up their season Sunday. They were supposed to play a semifinal Thursday and would have likely lost. But that team was unavailable for the weekend’s championship, so they forfeited.

Which left us playing a team that beat us by 41 three weeks ago. Fun.

The championship game got moved to Sunday morning. We were the only game in the building, which was weird. It gave our girls an opportunity to go through a real warmup instead of the three minutes of rushed layup lines on normal game day. I think that pregame shooting paid off.

We lost by 8 but played tough the entire game. We had the lead until just before halftime, dug a 12-point hole in the second half, and trimmed that down to four late.

It helped us that they were missing one good player and another girl who sucks but is super physical and fouls all the time and scares our girls.

Also L played her ass off.

She had a season-high 16 points, a couple assists, more rebounds than she’s had all season, and a couple steals. Those points didn’t come from just getting to the rim. She hit one 3, another just inside the arc, and two baseline jumpers.

Several of her teammates played their best games of the year as well. It wasn’t enough, but it sure was better than getting embarrassed.

We went straight from there to a meeting for her travel team. The program director brought in all the 7th–8th grade teams to talk about organization-wide goals, show them some sets they want all teams to run, and then watch the high level high school teams go through a workout. Not sure they got much out of it, but L was happy to see most of her teammates again. They begin practice next week with their first tournament the weekend of the 18th.

HS Hoops

Both Cathedral sectional games were on TV, and we watched each of them. Friday they played their typical sloppy ball and nearly blew an 11-point lead in the last 90 seconds, but held on to win by 4.

Then Saturday they took on one of the two Indiana teams they lost to during the regular season, a 10-point loss in the City championship game in January.

The Irish were ready for revenge. They jumped out to a 14–2 lead before play was stopped for 45 minutes because of a rim malfunction. After play resumed they didn’t lose any of their momentum and led by 25 at half, gave ten of that back early in the third, then went on a 16–0 run and cruised to a 43 point win. FORTY-THREE!!! Crazily it was the school’s first back-to-back sectional titles in 25 years.

They advance to regionals where they will face the other Indiana team that beat them this year: undefeated, #1 Ben Davis. BD beat them by 12 in December. Revenge game #2? If Cathedral takes care of the ball they can beat anyone. But they love to throw it/kick it/hand it away.

More Faux Spring

It was nearly 80 one day last week. It’s been in the low 60s several other days. We had heavy, spring-like rains Friday. A cold snap is coming, but it’s been nice to pretend it is spring for a few days.

We got all our spring garden trimmings done Saturday. Some years I’m all bundled up and taking regular breaks to get those knocked out. This year I was sweating.

An Old Friend

For the first time in several years, I found Boulevard’s Irish Ale at a local liquor store. It bums me out that Boulevard has scaled back their national distribution and eliminated a couple of my favorite beers in recent years. I wondered if it would take a trip back to KC this time of year to ever drink Irish Ale, my very favorite BLVD beer, again.

But I found two six packs and bought them both. I’m going to run back to that store later and see if they got any more that I can nab before it disappears for the season.

D’s Notes

March 5, 2018 / DB

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a random notes post. As I’m kind of between longer posts, right now feels like the perfect moment to revisit that favorite of blog readers worldwide.

Hoops

A shame KU got blown out at Oklahoma State Saturday. But I A) wasn’t super surprised and B) didn’t really care. My blood pressure rose only slightly because so many of the KU players seemed utterly uninterested in competing. As I told several friends before the game, I was cool with KU losing that game and then losing before the Big 12 tournament championship game next weekend. They accomplished this year’s biggest goal: winning the Big 12 again. Despite all the metrics that say otherwise, I don’t think this team deserves a #1 seed. I’d rather they go into the tournament as a #2 seed, and I don’t care what region they play in. I don’t see a deep run in this team, and I’d rather the inevitable end be about 25% less frustrating because they aren’t a #1 losing to an 8 or 9 in Wichita next Sunday.

Weather

Man, we had a good run of weather. For about a two-week stretch the highs were always well above normal, with a couple days up into the 70s. Our lawn has already started to green up a bit. Buds are popping out on some trees and bushes. Flowers are emerging. This is Indiana and it’s still early March, so the inevitable cool down arrived this morning, and this week looks to be cold again, with a couple chances of light snow. For the third straight year we ended meteorological winter[1] with less than 10” of snow. Our biggest snowstorm came while we were in Denver, so we missed the 2.5” we got in late December. And it was the fourth straight winter with less than 20”. Not that I’m complaining, but our snowblower has gone unused so long I’m not expecting it to work the winter we finally get snow again.

Oscars

I only saw Coco among movies nominated for Academy Awards this year. I don’t say that with pride; I’d like to get back into watching movies again. But with a deep Netflix queue of great TV shows and 800 books to read, it’s hard to devote three hours and the hassle of going to a theater to seeing first-run flicks. And with our girls going to bed at 9:00, it’s hard to squeeze in a DVD or streamed flick after they go down. Maybe some year I’ll devote my time to catching up on all the great movies I’ve missed over the last 15 years or so.

Beer!

Two weeks ago the Indiana state legislature passed a bill amending the state’s liquor laws and allowing Sunday sales of alcohol. The bill came with a late amendment that put the law into effect on the first Sunday after it received the governor’s signature. That signature came last Thursday, so yesterday was the first day in the modern history of Indiana where you could go to a liquor, grocery, or convenience store and buy beer.[2] To celebrate the day I went out to a local liquor store mid-afternoon. It was the busiest liquor store I’ve ever been in! The parking lot was full. The aisles were cramped. It was pretty funny. I bought six and four packs of two local beers, which were both 25% off in celebration of the day. I imagine next Sunday most liquor stores will be rather quiet, but it is nice to finally have the option.

December 1 through March 1. ↩
But you can still only buy cold beer at liquor stores. That lobby refuses to cave on that one. ↩

Random Notes

March 25, 2014 / DB

10:50 AM, Tuesday March 25, 2014, Central Indiana. It is snowing.

I shouldn’t complain. This is only flurries and not expected to amount to much. 366 days ago, we got 9” of snow. Could be much worse. And it might even warm up to above normal temps in a few days. I think we’re owed a nice, long, pleasant spring.

A few items from the notebook.

Today is the 84th day of 2014. The snow pile out in our front yard, where all the snow from the street got pushed in January and February, is almost gone. There’s still a two-foot long lump of nasty ice. I imagine that will be gone by Friday, making it our first day without any snow in the yard since New Year’s Day. It’s been awhile.

A pediatrician I know mentioned the other day that they are expecting a Polar Vortex Baby Boomlet later this year. Of course. People were stuck inside for weeks, missing work and social events. What else was there to do?

Didn’t we just have a bump in the birth rate a few years ago and economists attributed it to the financial crisis? Again, people couldn’t spend money to go out, were stuck at home, one thing led to another…

I think there’s a pretty obvious message in there. Doesn’t matter if the economy is good or bad, the weather hot or cold, or some national tragedy. Biological urges will always win.

With a long car trip planned for later this week, I went ahead and got the girls Frozen on DVD the day it came out. You would have thought I got the girls bars of gold or something the way they freaked out when I showed it to them. There was screaming and yelling and celebrating. And it’s not like it was some big surprise we were getting it. I had already told them we would likely get it before our Kansas City trip.

Between Frozen and “Let It Go” and Despicable Me 2 and “Happy,” it’s been a big year for our girls being swayed by the movie marketers.

Somewhere, somehow, L. has picked up a couple funny verbal ticks. She uses the words “yo” and “dog” to finish sentences all the time.

The other night, at bath time, she told me, “I have to go get my pajamas, yo!”

When she got home from school yesterday, I asked what she wanted to do.

“I want to play on the computer, but I need to eat a snack first, dog.”

Love it.

S. bought a new curling iron last week. C. found it while it was still in its packaging, which was purple and shiny. She came walking out with it.

“Ooooh, Mom! What is this?!”

That’s a classic, and predictable, C. reaction.

M. started kickball practice last week. She just got her team assignment last night, and will be playing with some classmates and some fourth graders who played in the fall. I watched her first practice and she did well at the plate, reaching safely a couple times. In the field, she is similar to in soccer: not super excited to get in the way of the ball. I kind of don’t blame her. This isn’t kickball with a red, bouncy, playground ball. They use a heavy, hard ball that feels more like a cross between a basketball and medicine ball.

A week ago I spent an afternoon brewing beer with some neighbors. We each had a batch going in their cool garage setup, and the extra hands and equipment made it a much more fun process.

My Belgian Pale Ale was fermenting away last Sunday night as I was sitting in the basement watching TV, about to go to bed. I heard a sharp BOOM and then a rattle, like a small explosion. At first, I thought something had fallen in the kitchen above me, or even that someone had busted open a window. I ran upstairs and began turning on lights, finding nothing. I also noticed, despite being nearly 11:00, there was no crying or yelling from the girls’ rooms, as would happen during a storm. S., who was already in bed, didn’t react either. If they didn’t hear anything, I bet the noise came from the basement.

My beer!

I ran back down to the bathroom, opened the shower where I store it, and sure enough there was fermenting yeast all over the wall and ceiling, the airlock was on the floor, and the lid slightly raised. I quickly cleaned up, re-sanitized the lid and airlock, and put it back together.

It appears the airlock got clogged by the rather vigorous fermentation Belgians are known for, trapping the gasses inside. Thus the explosion.

I had to clean the airlock three times in the next day to prevent more blowouts.

Hoping the beer wasn’t harmed too much by the exposure to open air. From what I’ve read, this isn’t uncommon and if you get it closed up again quickly, the beer should be OK.

A Quickie

August 21, 2012 / DB

More firsts over the weekend. M. and C. each caught their first fish. Both snagged a blue gill off a dock with a little help from a friend of ours. I didn’t have my camera or phone with me, but I can assure you they were thiiiiiiiiis big! Actually, they were quite small but that didn’t make their joy any smaller. They were both about as excited as could be. L. had given up and headed back to the house, otherwise she might have caught one as well, since the two other girls that were with us each caught a fish, too.

How do people still not understand the difference between Reply and Reply To All? I’m signed up for library duty at St. P’s. There are a couple shifts that need to be covered this week, and a message went out from the volunteer coordinator asking for replacements. There have already been three replies to all letting us know that so-and-so would really like to help, but they have an appointment then, or will be out-of-town, or whatever. This is getting old fast, so expect more messages about it as the school year progresses.

Beer #2 is fermenting. I brewed a modified Octoberfest Monday. I say modified because traditional Octoberfests are lagers, which require a chilled fermentation process. One day I might have the proper equipment to pull that off, but in the meantime I used an ale yeast and will keep the fermenter in a larger bucket with a little cool water in it. My local brewing store said it should work like a charm.

The brewing process went off without a hitch. I used a friend’s turkey fryer and did my boil outside to save the house from the odors S. and the girls objected to last time. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I did feel like I knew what I was doing this time. Hopefully it turns out as well as my first beer, or even better. Now I have three weeks to come up with a name for it.

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First Taste

August 2, 2012 / DB

I couldn’t wait any longer, so last night I cracked open my first bottle of my first batch of beer. While I found it lacking in a few areas, I am reasonably pleased with how the B. Brewery’s first beer, Naismith Nut Brown Ale, turned out.

My first concern, as I mentioned last week, was that I had presented too much oxygen in the bottling process and there might be some off odors/flavors present. First thing I did last night was smell the beer. All I smelled was the pleasant, malty, nuttiness you expect from a brown ale. When I poured it, the beer produced a terrific head, a sign the bottle conditining had worked properly. Another sniff before tasting and still no off odors. Then the first taste. It was pretty darn good. I don’t think anyone would confuse it with a quality brown ale you would get from a microbrewer, but the beer had the lingering maltiness that I love from the style.¹

The beer continued to drink well as I worked through the glass, but a couple issues popped up. First, if anything the beer was over-carbonated. I left too much liquid behind when I poured from the boiling kettle to the fermenter, so my final yield was 43 bottles instead of the 50 or so that I should have got. I guess that was a big enough discrepancy to make the final product a little too bubbly.

Second, the flavor is not quite as full as I would expect or prefer. I don’t know if it’s the carbonation that is hiding the flavor or something else. I would say 80% of the taste is fine, but you don’t get hit with the delicious, nut-browniness at the beginning of your sip. I’m going to send a couple bottles to one of my brothers in brewing and see what his thoughts are.

But overall I’m very pleased with the final result. This is only based on one bottle, so hopefully that will still be true as I drink more and the beer ages a little more. My biggest concern about home brewing was doing something wrong and having two cases of beer that I didn’t like and couldn’t get rid of. That’s not a problem, which for a first batch, is enough to call it a success.

Now I have to figure out what to brew next.

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I have a six pack of Red Hook Nut Brown Ale in the fridge. If you like that style, find some of this, because it is excellent. It’s so good it probably made it hard for me to evaluate my beer. ↩

Racked And Ready

July 26, 2012 / DB

Two weeks down, two to go.

Yesterday I racked and bottled my first batch of beer. Racking is the process in which the beer is moved from the fermenter into a temporary container, where it is mixed with sugar which will kick off the carbonation process once bottled.

Everything appeared well with my nut brown ale. When I popped the top of the fermenter, I was greeted by the pleasant smell of a healthy, growing brown ale. As I moved it to my bottling bucket, I took a small sip. The taste was terrific, although at room temperature and with no carbonation, it wasn’t exactly ready-to-drink.

My only hiccup came in getting the beer into the bottle. I don’t have a bottling tube, and using the long tubing from the siphon was unwieldy, and I feared not terribly sanitary. So I just used the spigot on the bottling bucket, which may have presented too much oxygen into the process. I guess I’ll find out in a couple weeks when I stick it in the fridge and then drink it up.

I had a tentative name in mind, but made an adjustment yesterday. I’m pretty pleased with what I came up with. Today I designed some labels and ordered them. All systems are go, providing the bottles don’t explode because I miscalculated the timing on bottling.

Just another reason for my beer-loving readers to visit Indy, so they can try it for themselves!

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Time Is Flying

July 11, 2012 / DB

What a busy few days. Let’s see if I can cram some of what’s happened, and is about to happen, into a post of reasonable length.

We spent last weekend enjoying a fine Indiana freshwater recreation site with some good friends and family. The weather continued to be ridiculously hot, but being in the water was a fine way to cool off. The girls learned how to jump off a dock, pedal a paddle boat (or is it pedalboat?), and were lucky enough to watch fireworks from the water thanks to some friends. A pretty solid weekend.

For some reason I decided to schedule a playdate for C. on Monday. I don’t recommend inviting two six year olds over after you’ve spent three days someplace else. Then M. had her own playdate Tuesday. Fortunately S. just began a run of several days off, so I wasn’t solely responsible for entertaining the girls and their friends.

In fact, Tuesday I took the first step in my newest hobby. I brewed up a batch of beer. I’ve been toying with the idea for a while, and a buddy pushed me over the edge when he started brewing earlier this summer. I visited the local speciality brewery store a couple weeks ago, picked up some tips and a book which I’ve been reading. Monday I drove down and got my supplies and first kit. I took a bunch of notes Monday night, made a script I would work off of, and got to work after lunch Tuesday. Three hours later, my brown ale was sealed into the fermenter where it will sit and, hopefully ferment, for the next two weeks. Then I’ll prime and bottle, let it sit for another couple weeks, and right around the time M. and C. are going back to school, I’ll be able to sample the first run of B. Brown.

The process seemed to go smoothly today. I avoided the dreaded boilovers. I didn’t spill anything or make any mistakes in the order I added the ingredients. And when I dumped the brewing kettle, there wasn’t a huge mess of malt extract and hops stuck to the bottom. I’m not saying the process was flawless: there are a couple things I’m worried about, but I don’t think they’ll be catastrophic. The thing that held be back from trying this before was my concern that between the time investment and the final yield, this can be a frustrating hobby if you make a mistake. I don’t want to pour out two cases of beer if I didn’t sanitize my fermenter properly, or didn’t let the malts boil long enough before adding the first round of hops. And it will be a bummer to spend parts of a couple days brewing and bottling, and then a month waiting for it to be ready, only to be disappointed by the final product.

But I think this is easier to do than it used to be, provided you do some research and follow the instructions. I’m already thinking about what my next batch will consist of.

The downside is our house kind of stinks, which I don’t mind but S. isn’t loving.

Then, of course, there are the MLB All-Star activities in Kansas City I’ve been following closely. I’ll write more about those later.

The final large item on our agenda is a trip to Denver that begins this Friday. We’re heading out to visit our family members who live there, including the girls’ newest cousin. I’ll also be going to a Rockies game with my brother-in-law, eating at the restaurant my sister-in-law manages, and meeting up with some old KC friends who have relocated to Colorado. That’s all cool stuff, but the girls might be most excited about flying on a plane. M. and C. haven’t flown since our last visit to Denver, over four years ago. And L. was just a tiny fetus we weren’t yet aware of on that trip, so she obviously doesn’t recall it.

Like I said, busy times.

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Stocking Up

November 1, 2004 / DB

How does a new father get ready for election night? By going to the grocery store and purchasing Similac and Sam Adams Winter Lager, of course! There must have been a lot of other parents making similar purchases, because the guy working the register didn’t bat an eye at the two items in my basket.
It may be a bit early for Winter Lager, but I love it so I bought it. However, at Blockbuster, there is already a Christmas movie section up. It’s November 1, give us a couple days to prepare!

There’s A Team Called The Bobcats?!?!

June 23, 2004 / DB

We’re approaching the one year anniversary of the blog, which has brought the question, “Will you be breaking down the NBA Draft this year?” The answer: I’m not sure. A couple reasons for this vague response. First, last year I was highly interested in the order of the selections, with two Jayhawks expected to be lottery picks. It was the first big event I was able to watch on the big screen. LeBron was involved. It was an opportunity to kick the blog off with a bang. Finally, the lottery was full of players I had heard of and seen play many times. This year, there are no KU players looking at lottery selections (although rumor has it Jeff Graves is a solid 14-16 pick) and I don’t know who two-thirds of the players who will be picked early are. That said, if I find myself sitting on the couch tomorrow night with laptop on lap, I may very well put some thoughts together.

After a week off, Freak Boy called again last night.

For those interested, some bird and beer updates.
Our squirrels discovered the bird feeder Monday. Little fuckers ate their way through about half the feeder before I could chase them off long enough for birds to take over in the afternoon. The chipmunk was out munching dropped leftovers Tuesday morning. A pair of Mourning Doves occasionally drops down from our high trees to feed. My favorites the Cardinals are ever-present now, including several males who seem to be attempting to steal the one female from her mate. Tuesday afternoon, a pair of Carolina Chickadees showed up. These little guys are awesome! I would run out to shoot a water gun at the squirrels and the Chickadees would immediately swoop in. They’d grab seeds and sit less than three feet from my head, staring at me while they crunched. Good times.

In the bar, I’ve added Rogue Brewery’s Oregon Golden Ale. Hoppy, a little more than I prefer, but still a refreshing summer brew from one of Portland’s finest. For an old classic, I threw in a six pack of Mackeson’s Triple Stout. A milk stout, it’s much sweeter than Guinness, although not quite as good. It was the first stout I ever drank so it brings back fond memories of the fall after I turned 21.