Athletic Prowess

A couple of weeks ago B. James had an unfortunate incident with combining drinking and moderate exercise.

...He ralphed.

So it led me to wonder. Can alcohol coexist with sports and exercise?


True, sporting events have always had beer available for the fans, but you don't see the offensive line tapping a keg on the sidelines instead of a bright orange Gatorade container. I've run races where there have been picnics afterwords and beer is provided. I've always thoroughly enjoyed a nice cold one after a race. Hell, even when running the Great Race through Pittsburgh, I've always remembered to hit the race keg the college kids have setup along the course as it passed through Pitt's Campus. I like to throw one back and grab a second to dump on my head. Ahh! ...Refreshing!

So I guess from my personal experience, I'll say "yes, the two can coexist in moderation." But that's my opinion. A gentleman by the name of Tim Crytser had the same question I did. Check out what he had to say on the subject.

... every time!

So you start off with this:



...and some how, later on down the line, you end up with this:



... but really, no amount of dissappearing women under satin sheets or barking dogs could be trippier than where they were coming from:



But all that being said, I must say the one with the horses and barking dogs and beer can buildings is my favorite and most makes me want to go buy some Colt 45. For me, that's the one that works.



...every time.

Fermentation Friday: Fire, boobs, and beer

Standing around a turkey fryer in the driveway after sundown really gives you a feeling for the mystical side of brewing beer. The stars twinkling in the crisp, cool spring air. An owl hoots in a nearby tree, the breeze picks up and chills you just a bit. It's such an ancient process, and creates such a historically important item that it almost feels holy somehow. Standing there next to the licking flames and hollow whoosh of the propane burner, you can almost picture hooded monks standing around wood-fired kettles. Scantily-clad pagans smeared with paint praying to some since forgotten deity that their brew yields fermented goodness. Ancient Greeks making some form of offering to Bacchus. Hell, the oldest written recipe on record was for making beer! Alcohol in one form or another has been vital and sacred to so many societies over the years... but no more.

Now it's frowned upon. Decried and denounced as the work of the devil, not holy men. Hatchet in one hand, bible in the other, alcohol has been inextricably linked with the evil some men do under its influence. Needless. Senseless. Wrong.

We've lost that holy connection. That mystical feeling that comes with practicing the arcane alchemy of producing alcohol. And on a crisp spring night, the season of pagan rites of rebirth and fertility, the absence of mysticism from the beer making process seems even more obvious. Empty.

Well, let's bring it back, damnit! Let's take booze back to being something magical. Get our your hooded robes and body paint, we're gonna make some fucking beer!

Hey, there's a thought! Fucking beer... yeah.... that could work! Some kind of pagan rite during the brewing process. Once the boil is going, everyone strips off their hooded robes to reveal nude bodies covered in crude body paintings. Then the ritual sex will begin. And by ritual, I mean free-for-all. It'll be epic! And in the middle, the brew in the turkey fryer will be bubbling away.

Maybe take a break for some kind of neo-pagan events like fire-breathing and... fire breathing. Maybe take care of some little brewing details like sparging. Then back to the orgy! There'll be penises and breasts flopping all over the place (note to self: get some girls to participate). Old school mysticism. The spectacle will be awesome to behold!

No, not like that...

That's what I'm talking about!

It'll be so wild, we'll have to be careful not to forget to take the starting specific gravity. Then we dump it in the primary, pitch the yeast, and put the airlock on, passing around the bottle of cheap vodka so everyone can take a swig before we pour it in the airlock. You know, for good luck. Then, if our randomly chosen divinities smile on us, the beer should be ready to drink by the time the summer solstice comes along, and another batch can be brewed in a similar ceremony while the old batch is consumed! It'll represent... something.

So that's my goal for brewing this spring: turn it into a pseudo-religious orgy festival with fire.


Or maybe I'll make a lager. That'd be cool.

Fermentation Friday-- Hops, Hoarding and Hessians

Spring is edging its way into Chicago. The ice is off the lake and we're down to what the weaker parts of the country consider winter coats and our frost-back northern neighbors consider summer frivolities. In this spirit, Byron asks about how spring fever will affect our brewing. I haven't caught the fever yet, but am ready to put out some tentative roots for when warmness is sprung. This spring its all about hops, hoarding and Hessians. Our first task is to put up some hops, though this may or may not happen. I can't do it at mine, but my brewing partner has a fire-escape balcony we can grow on in tubs.

Spring is also our family time to horde like squirrels. I just got a keggerator, with the agreement that the missus can have the freezer. After the quarterly Costco-run, I'm going to invest in brewing and lay some more roots. First off, a barley crusher then some sacks of grain. I only need to go through 4 sacks of grain to negate the cost of the crusher. Buckets will be filled- a sack of 2-row and another of Pils. I'm also trying to find the cheapest way to buy 2-5# of all the specialty grains I like to use. This spring will be dedicated to lighter American, Belgians and Alt-biers. As mentioned previously, I have some candi-sugar to go through, and we're making beer for my brew-partner's (not) wedding, so this will also be a practice run of that.

Finally, it is spring training and I'm still training my pallete in advance of this June's local BJCP exam. Good times, but surprisingly hard, especailly the multitude of German lager styles which I am entirely unprepared for. Still, I'll soldier along in the name of science.