Hummingbird Lane Homestead + Studio

Now that I’ve finished de-labeling (shame on you Mayflower Brewing for making your labels so hard to remove) and sanitizing my 12oz bottles, I’m getting ready to put the raspberry and Thai sweet basil tripel experiment to bed. More than a month ago I racked off my tripel into a couple of Martha’s Exchange growlers. One with some fresh frozen local raspberries and the other with Thai sweet basil from my garden. The former was inspired by “just for the hell of it” with the latter inspired by the excellent Bruery Trade Winds tripel.

Everything went without a hitch. Every batch I bottle or keg, I realize what brewing toys I’d like to have to upgrade the whole experience. All the pouring and gravity-feeding of things… I’ll report back in a couple of weeks how these experiments turned out.

While I’m juggling this, neighborhood families are ringing my doorbell. Earlier in the day, I dropped $20 on last-minute big bags of candy at Hannaford. I feel an obligation to hand out candy when I’m home on the 31st. A year ago, I was in Cambridge with friends at the Cambridge Brewing Company’s Pumpkin Beer Fest. It was the night before my wedding. Tomorrow is my first anniversary. So back to this Halloween obligation… I feel obligated to hand out candy when I’m home. It’s just one of those “neighborhoody” things to do and we live in a “normal” neighborhood with regards to trick-or-treat. It started out slow. Not a lot of foot traffic out in the street at 6:00 when things officially started. By about 6:30 or so, there were a lot of people outside. “Flip on the post and porch lights and they will come,” as the saying goes, right?

Wasn’t as steady as previous years, but it seemed busy overall. When all is said and done, we have a big bowl of candy left over. Now to resist eating it…

I finally have the brewing area cleaned out. I will need to patch the hole in the floor and I want to treat/cover the foundation with something. I’m not going to go so far as to trowel on mortar, but I will at least spray it a nice bright white color.  The concrete floor is in good enough shape that a little sweeping will be all it needs for prep. I am scouring Craigslist for a stainless counter, maybe something from a restaurant. I need a solid, flat, easy to clean surface which sit next to the sink.

This was a brief update, but progress is being made. The junk I cleaned out last week was picked up by a couple of guys in a beat up truck earlier tonight.

Every year, the Portsmouth Brewery releases Kate the Great. It’s a Russian Imperial Stout that people line up around the block to get. Hardly 2 years ago when this beer was released you could walk in and get a growler filled or buy a few bottles from the cooler in the brewpub’s store. No lines, no hassles, no hype machine leading up to the release day. All it took were a few gushing reviews and the beer nerd community ran with it. Now you have lines, mob scenes, and of course the nitwits that only care about getting the latest release up on eBay. (Insert whiny pro-capitalist rebuttal here.) Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. But I digress. I’ll rant about greedy beer tickers another day.

Yesterday, Allagash Brewing up in Portland released the second beer in a limited series. The first release, “Gargamel,” was back in May and I wasn’t able to get there for it. There was a bit of drama surrounding my attempts to secure some from afar but needless to say, I didn’t get any. This really bummed me out for the simple reason that I knew what I was missing. In most cases, the people buying this stuff have never had it before. They are going on hype and reputation. Breweries like Allagash aren’t exactly plastering ads in national magazines for this stuff. Maybe a little blurb on their website, a few articles in beer-centric blogs, and the all-powerful hype machines also known as the BeerAdvocate and RateBeer forums. This how most people get their interest piqued before a beer release.

Since Allagash is “local” beer for me, I was fortunate to be able to sample Gargamel at a beer festival earlier this year. It was amazing. I had seconds and thirds. When asked if it would ever be available in bottles they told me it would be released “in a few months in limited quantities at the brewery only.” Other life commitments didn’t allow me to make that first release day, but for this latest release, I planned ahead. Went up Sunday, spent some time at The Great Lost Bear and Novare Res and on Monday morning, I headed over to Allagash.

I didn’t even get there when they opened. I strolled in, bought my bottles, and left. No crowds, no lines, no problems. However, I am not sure this will last. The first release was still available for sale after a few days. This second release, known as “Vagabond,” sold out by lunchtime. If memory serves, there were 800 bottles of Gargamel up for sale to Vagabond’s 500 bottles.

So why do I say “hype light?” Because it seems like each release is getting more publicity. The insanity that a Kate the Great Day ushers in hasn’t arrived here yet. I am going to bet at the next release there will be more people and it will sell out sooner. Crowds and craziness will ensue. Luckily for me, I can easily get to and stay in Portland and have flexibility with my job. Getting to these events (when I really want to) should not be a problem. I’m just not sure I want to deal with the congestion that accompanies these popular releases. Perhaps I just need to suck up and deal, but in the meantime, I will enjoy what I can get on my terms.

Actually, I should just brew this kind of stuff and ignore all the hype and crowds…

My homebrewing hobby has really been progressing as of late. I’m making an effort to brew beer at least every other weekend that I’m not busy. So far, so good. Thing is, I’m also acquiring more and more brewing gear and it has rapidly taken over the kitchen, den, and area at the top of the basement stairs. It has bumped up against my beer cellar, and I’m out of space.

Since moving into my house in 2005, most of the crap in the basement hasn’t really moved. Boxes and Rubbermaid bins full of random stuff- childhood memories, rats nest balls of various wire and cabling, old dishes, Christmas stuff, and things that should be in my garage or shed. So after some consideration, I decided that some work in the basement could convert it from junk collecting space into a productive brewing area for my beloved hobby.

The choice was between my garage or the basement. It wasn’t a hard choice because my garage is not insulated, heated, and has no plumbing. The basement can be easily heated and installing a utility sink is relatively simple. Shelving and workbench space will be installed first, followed by a big sink. There are two challenges with this project: finding a burner solution and ventilation. Those are two things that wouldn’t be an issue in the garage, but I think are more easily (and cheaply!) solved in the basement compared to the others with the garage.

Earlier today, I moved a lot of stuff from the basement into the garage. I have given away a few items on Craigslist within hours of posting them. Gave away an old iMac and a kerosene heater. I probably could’ve gotten a few bucks for them but I just wanted them gone quickly. Guy who took the iMac drove a beat up minivan and said it was for his kids. The woman who took the heater said she lived on a lake in a drafty old house and wanted something to help in the winter. True or not, I’d rather see stuff get used rather than throw it away.

This will be the first “project” that I blog about. It will be an ongoing process, so I hope to update this series periodically. Stay tuned.

Last year I installed, configured, customized, and otherwise spent hours creating this blog. From that point until recently, I sporadically worked on entries and created content. I wanted a critical mass of “stuff” to go live with on this blog (that few will read.) Right.

So here we are in October of 2009. I turned 30 on Monday. Oddly, I feel like I should be thinking about it more. Shouldn’t I be taking more than a few moments to contemplate what expectations and goals I have for myself in the 3rd decade of life? I’m not sure. I feel good about what I’ve accomplished and built so far but there is always room for improvement and learning new things. Life experience is a great thing.

I got a new cell phone after 2 years of torture with an absolutely inferior product called the “Mogul.” Sold by Sprint. Shoddily built by a company called “HTC” which is now rapidly making a name for themselves in hardware that DOESN’T suck. Case in point, my 3 days (so far) with their latest creation- the “Hero.” Pretty stupid names but I now see the light with Google’s Android operating system. Not quite the polish you get with an iPhone but certainly a solid contender and worthy of the smartphone shopper’s list of considerations.

A new phone. That’s how I started off improving my life 30+ years into it. Oh, and 3 days in I also posted this real blog entry to kick things off. And here we are. Thanks for reading and caring. This is the first “official” post that kicks off regular installments.

Today I decided to brew an IPA. It uses generous amounts of Centennial hops. This is my first IPA having brewed an English IPA and Belgian Pale so far. With my camping trip to Lake Umbagog at the end of the month, I wanted to brew something that my uncle would enjoy, really enjoy. His go-to beer is Harpoon IPA which is a solid, go-to beer for me as well when I don’t have any more preferred options. I have pushed him to try new beers and he is always eager to do so. This will be the first time I brew something myself with him in mind. Crisp, clean IPA.

3.3lbs munich
3.3lbs light
1lb wheat
.5lb crystal
.5lb toasted
SAF ALE S-05 American Ale yeast

2oz pellet Centennial @ 60min
.5oz pellet Centennial @ 10min
4oz whole-leaf Willamette @ 5min
.5oz pellet Centennial @ 1min

The Willamette hops were given to me earlier today by a friendly member of Brew Free or Die, the New Hampshire-based homebrewer club that I’m a member of. Originally not part of the recipe, but after poking around the web I figured I’d throw them in as a late aroma hop. I love the Centennial smell, it’s just so fresh and everything I love about hops. I figure I’ll rack into the secondary in 5 days or so and dry hop with another ounce of the Centennial pellets.

Update 9/3/09: The IPA was ready for camping after force carbonating it the weekend before I left. The flavor was pretty good, but nothing at all like I expected. I can do better, and will. In the meantime, the few people I’ve shared this with have really liked it. This is good, because it means I can empty that keg quickly and move on to new things.