Adventures in Homebrewing part 1

On March 8, 2010, In Homebrew, The Finer Things, By Jamie
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When I fell in love with beer, I knew it was only a matter of time until I wanted to make my own. Little did I know that an excellent homebrew supply store was only three minutes away from campus, and when my family chipped in to buy the homebrew supplies as a birthday present I knew I was on my way! The first beer I brewed was based off of Anne Whyte’s recipe for an American amber ale, which we lovingly dubbed “Pillar of Autumn.” It was well-received, but it had a few characteristics I knew I wanted to breed out of it if I made it again. After brewing a batch of the “Rocky Raccoon Honey Lager” from Charlie Papazian’s book, I decided to reach for the stars, put a British twist on the American amber, and see what develops.

Of course, I decided to blog about it, too.

Stock pot, malt extract, yeast, and hops!

“Pillar of Autumn 2.0″

Grain Bill:

  • 8oz Carahell
  • 8oz Caramel Wheat
  • 8oz CaraRed
  • 4oz Belgian Special-B

Hopping Schedule:

  • Styrian Goldings (60 mins)
  • Bramling Cross (30 mins)
  • Styrian Goldings (5 mins)

Styrian Goldings are famous for their use as a finishing hop, and for their flavorings in English pale ales. Bramling Cross is a cross between Bramling, a traditional English Golding variety, and a wild Manatoban hop. The Styrian Goldings are mellow and sweet-smelling, whereas the BramlingX are much fruiter and more floral. They also have a more pronounced presence.

Straining the specialty grains.

Meanwhile, the CaraRed malts give a predictably well-saturated red color. Caramel is the base of the malt’s aroma, with the Belgian Special-B adding a ripe raisin smell. To be honest, I really liked the color of the original “Pillar of Autumn,” and I’m glad to bring it back.

Brewed with 6 pounds of amber malt extract, I’m hoping this will produce a refreshing amber ale, but with a British twist. In fact, the sharp, astringent citrus smell from the Bramling Cross made me think of blackcurrants. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding, but we’re going to see how this puppy turns out.

I’m going to be optimistic and assume that it’s going to turn out well. In fact, I’m going to post the details here in advance, just to display my faith.

Mr. Spoon approves.

Warm 2 gallons of cool, clean water and steep the specialty grains for 3o minutes (aim for water temperature ~150-160 °F, or so I’m told). For maximum efficiency, rinse the grains with water. Add the malt extract. Try to boil 3 gallons if you have a 5 gallon pot.

When the time comes, add Windsor Ale yeast. Anne Whyte suggested this strain for its neutrality. The manufacturer optimistically promises pleasant esters and a fresh yeasty flavor. I’m hoping this yeast will compliment the BramlingX by bringing out esters to base the fruit aroma on.

As of press time, the wort has been fermenting for about 48 hours, and the airlock is bubbling away quite happily. I’ll be sure to update the blog with the timetable I followed and, of course, the final tasting results. I’m hoping to have a complete fermentation and be ready to bottle and rack by the end of the week. More pictures then, too. I’ll be blogging it all with the “Pillar of Autumn” tag.

The amazing part of this whole recipe is how it was Anne Whyte, proprietor of Vermont Homebrew, was able to piece together different pieces of this based on an informal conversation with my roommates. One of my roommates, Joe, just returned from studying abroad in Scotland. He pointed to one of the beer coasters lining the walls of Vermont Homebrew, and instantly Whyte sparked a conversation about beer and Scotch. With just a few gentle questions, her American Amber recipe morphed and changed into something that sounds more and more like a British pale ale. Perhaps I’ll try to clone something from Wytchwood next . . .

Windsor ale yeast

Checking the specific gravity

Had to cook Grandma Darsch's sausages for dinner at the same time.

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Umphrey’s McGee at House of Blues

On March 4, 2010, In Umphrey's McGee, By Jamie
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It was an epic voyage through wind, sleet, snow, and other miscellaneous precipitation, but what seemed like a doomed journey turned into a great success.

As soon as Umphrey’s McGee announced their Spring East Coast tour, I saw that they’d hit Boston and Northhampton, Mass., but they wouldn’t voyage up to Burlington. This stung a little bit, but they played a three-night show in Burlington in November. Each of those shows was solid, but the final night was easily one of the best shows of the year . . . so I suppose Burlington had her fair share of Umphrey’s this year.

But I made up my mind that I would see one, if not both, of the Massachusetts shows. I had to scape together some cash, scrape together a crew, scrape together transportation, and finally lodging.

This is Canadian Cow, Andy's co-piliot. I was hoping Umphrey's would play "Got Your Milk (Right Here)" in his honor.

The week before the concert I had no cash, no crew, a broken car, and no place to stay. I had planned on going with Umphrey’s superfan Andy (of Kuztunes.com fame) and Joe, my new roommate who is our resident Phish maven. But then my car broke down, and Andy announced that he had to bail out of the excursion due to his senior capstone project.

It didn’t take much sweet-talking to change his mind. We loaded into his car, bought snacks, and powered down the I-89>I-93 corridor. We still didn’t have a place to sleep, and none of us knew how to navigate Kenmore Square, but a cell phone call to our Bostonian friend Dan saved the day. We parked on-site for a song and grabbed our first-ever meal at Popeye’s Chicken . . . the only fried chicken food restaurant to run out of napkins. Gross.

I had never been in the Old Avalon, so I had nothing to compare the new House of Blues against. The venue was clean and the staff was courteous. The entire floor was wrapped around by bars selling $6 PBR tallboys! and $11 Long Island Iced Teas! but by the second set, I had no choice but to capitulate to my thirst. There were two upper levels, but we didn’t get a chance to scope it out. Since HoB didn’t use haze machines (!) I think the groundlings got the same effect as the people on the balconies.

We saw this SUV three times on our way to Boston. He either had a rear lift kit or was a really heavy dude. I bet the Thule rack didn't help his mpg either.

Eric Krasno and Chapter 2 opened the night, and I was absolutely delighted by the performance. Featuring Eric Krasno, Adam Deitch on skins (John Scofield’s drummer), Nigel Hall on keys and vocals, and bass by Loius Cato. Cato is a freelance session bassist, but I was delighted by his performance: he had great flair and tonal presence— a Victor Wooten Lite. Chapter 2 delivered rock funk straight up, and I would have gladly paid for a soundboard of their set, just to rock/funk out.

The first set wasn’t anything to scoff at: The Bottom Half>Higgins>The Bottom Half, 1348, Uncle Wally, In the Kitchen>”Jimmy Stewart”>In the Kitchen, Prowler>Push the Pig>”Jimmy Stewart”>Push the Pig.

This was a particularly strong set for Joe, who had never been to an Umphrey’s show before. The song choices were well-thought out, even if nothing got particularly huge. Joe really likes Higgins, so THB>Higgins>TBH was a great move. Prowler is always fun, and helped get some traction under the first set.

Set Two: Preamble>Mantis>Ocean Billy>2nd Self>Ocean Billy, Der Bluten Kat>The Song Remains the Same>Der Bluten Kat>Jazz Odyssey>Der Bluten Kat, The Triple Wide.

Encore: Plunger, Mantis

I had never heard Mantis split, and part of me wondered if they were going to leave it unfinished. However, they did no such thing, and the second set got absolutely huge. DBK is always going to be a pleaser for me. Triple Wide was great at the time, but it got very dancetrance, so I might not play it that much now that I have the tape. But Plunger set the night right back into some great rock. Towards the end of Plunger they teased the transition to Mantis. The actual transition wasn’t that smooth, but it was still a huge hit when they came down to it.

We managed to get out of Boston without incident, but the weather was absolutely awful. Andy was the hero of the night for making the 4 hour trek back up to Vermont. With all the snow and freezing rain in Southern New Hampshire, it turned into a six hour voyage. It was a wonderful roadtrip all in all, especially since I won’t get a chance to see Umphrey’s again in my college career.

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Google Buzz Kill

On February 15, 2010, In Blogs, By Jamie
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Google’s new service, Google Buzz, has been hailed as the the greatest thing to arrive in social media. Ben Parr at Mashable claims that Buzz “has dropped a nuclear bomb whose fallout will permanently alter the social media landscape.” This is the funniest thing I have ever heard.

Let’s take a tour of Google Buzz together, to see if this thing is even worth using.

TL;DR? It’s not. Google isn’t interested in a new social media platform, Google is interested in selling better AdWords. If they were serious, they wouldn’t have tied the service to Gmail. Google Buzz is hampered by Gmail’s small user-base and the unwillingness to cannibalize Gmail’s core functionality.

1. I am the ideal Buzz user.
 Yes, that’s right. I have a Gmail account and a Google profile. I have a Facebook and Twitter. I have a blog and I want people to read it. I use Google Reader to manage RSS feeds, and I spend a lot of time copying URLs from Google Reader to post them on my friends’ Facebook walls.

2. I really want Buzz to work.
 Again, since I’m no stranger to RSS feeds, I would love to have one centralized place where I can check my blogs, Twitter, and Facebook all in one place. I’d love to be able to share this funny picture of a cat with all my friends, without having to leave my browser window.

3. I never use Gmail.com.
 I seem to be a dying breed of people who use something called an “email client.” It allows me to check all my email accounts all at once, organize them, and save permanent copies on my computer.

Don’t get me wrong. Online email access is essential, but only when I’m not at my own computer. Although Gmail’s webmail is a shining example of how to do mail right, it’s still not going to replace my favorite client. This brings me to . . .

4. Gmail is not my preferred email account.
 I’m a full-time student. When I check my email, I’m checking my university email. In fact, I have my school email, my email for this website, Gmail, and my ISP’s email.

I know I’m not alone. The Internet has evolved in such a way that our email is not our sole online identity. Even if I wasn’t at school, I’d have my work email running on my desktop and I might check my personal email during lunch.

(Right now, someone is thinking, “Dude, Gmail can use POP3 to import all your email from other accounts! How else can you expect Gmail to read your email, keep it forever, and then develop the targeted ads that makes them billion$?” No. Just . . . just no.)

5. I don’t know anyone who uses Gmail.

Back in the day, a Gmail address was a sign that you were a part of the Internet Elite. You needed to be invited in. A Gmail account meant you knew somebody who knew somebody. Of course, Gmail is open for anyone now, but I still don’t know that many people who use Gmail. Remember, Gmail’s user-base is miniscule compared to Facebook. But still, let’s play devil’s advocate and assume everyone I know has a Gmail account.

6. Gmail is not my address book.

By the time I got Gmail, I had squirrel-like piles of contacts all over the Internet. AIM. Hotmail. ISP’s mail. My cell phone. So I sat down and I consolidated all my information into Apple’s Address Book program. Sure, I could export this to Gmail. But since webmail < email client, why bother?

So, even if Buzz did the patently Orwellian move of friending my “abusive ex-husband” for me, it would only populate my feed with a list of, say, 1. But even still:

7. I can’t communicate with people on Buzz.

Assuming I have a populated list of thoughtful, Net-savvy friends constantly buzzing about the things I care about, I can’t communicate with them. With Facebook, I can have threaded newsfeed comments, private messages, and good old wall posts. With Twitter, I can send direct messages or @replies.

With Buzz, I can only comment on something my friend has already Buzzed. Think about this: it’s a social media platform without the “social.” If social media is a dinner party, Buzz is a business conference consisting of nothing but PowerPoint slides: no discussion. Think about how bizarre this is.

But the thing about Buzz is that this makes perfect sense. Why would you ever want to send a direct message on Buzz, or write on someone’s “Buzz feed,” or target one of your Buzz readers directly, when your social media is built into your email? In other words, why would Google ever cannibalize their email service?

Google Buzz is not social media. It’s a crufty, also-ran addon to a service used by a shockingly small slice of the Internet. I can’t follow my favorite Twitter celebrities because they don’t have Gmail. I can’t follow my real-life friends, because they don’t have Gmail. My co-workers? Professors? And so it goes. Again I say . . .

Google Buzz is not social media. It’s a glorified way of sending Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Longcat.jpg.

Google Buzzcat

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Read and Unsaid

On January 8, 2010, In Books, By Jamie
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Most of the books I’ve read since my last update were for my capstone seminar, entitled “Endings” and directed by Dr. Will Marquess. It was a pleasure to read them, and their companionship really took the edge off the harrowing “capstone” experience.

If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, brought to English by the impeccable William Weaver. If any well-apportioned library lacks If on a winter’s night a traveler, I forgive the slight at once. If any library has it, however, I extend almost irrevocable esteem. The novel is a book about reading a book by the same title, but by the end of the novel covers censorship, and—in my reading—the delicate connection of art, artifice, and deception. This book is a haven for theory wanks, but anyone who loves books should be able to approach this with all due reverence.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Most everyone I knew had to eat this bullet in high school, but I skirted its edges until now. Awakening is a problem book for me, but mostly because I hate Edna. A critic, whose name escapes me, said something to the effect that Chopin sympathized with Edna, but never pitied her. Perhaps I am the opposite.

Beloved by Toni Morrison. I gave this book multiple readings, because I couldn’t finish in one attempt. Or two. Or three. Beloved is widely-regarded as a success, that is, it achieves the goals that Morrison articulated, but I find that her aesthetic sense rarely appeals to me. Contemporary literature has a lot of bad aesthetic habits, and Beloved legitimizes them.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Of course any course about “Endings” would include Roger Ackroyd. There is no doubt that Christie left an indelible impression on popular fiction, and the device she used in Roger Ackroyd will be forever hers.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. As much as I hate to say it, I like Palahniuk but I hate his fans. Well, perhaps that isn’t true—perhaps I just haven’t yet seen a “transgressional fiction” manage to transgress itself, and I find that it has a penchant for tedious regression. In any event, I’m biased because I feel that David Fincher’s directorial grasp of the story surpassed Palahniuk’s authorial treatment. I find something about Fight Club truly distasteful: not the blood, anarchy, explosions, or any other moral distaste. It’s not an aesthetic distaste either. The book is intentionally polarizing, and divides readers into two camps: “omfg I love Fight Club it’s so raw and manly and let’s all fight and blow something up because nothing really matters” versus the camp of readers who think, “My, this writer is offering an interesting commentary on how it is so easy to misplace our faith when we try to rebel against our consumerist culture.” The latter is the theory wank, the former is what Laura Miller so lovingly called the “stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine Inch Nails.” The problem is that these two readings cannot exist side-by-side: something that all thoughtful readings are (axiomatically) supposed to be able to do. The wanks look down on the eyeliners because they’re missing the subtle, enlightened reading, whereas the eyeliners look down on the wanks for being tools of what the book fights against. If I wasn’t any smarter, I’d say that Palahniuk panders to those who buy his bread while trying to reassure the rest of us that it’s exactly not what it says it is.

My edition came with an afterword from Palahniuk. If I didn’t dislike him before, he did a great job making sure I do now.

Other books I’ve read:

Freemasonry and Its Etiquette by William Preston Campbell-Everden. I was unable to trace the genealogy of this book: Preston wrote it, but it was updated somewhat in New York or Pennsylvania, but is still fundamentally about the English flavored Freemasonry. Bought this in a small bookstore in Montpelier because I had book money over the summer.

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. I ultimately found this book to be a bit gimmicky, and it was almost fatally hampered by one of the most contrived happy endings ever, but there were moments of delicious uncertainty. The nameless, ungendered narrator is bisexual, and possibly a horrible liar, who really digs married women. That’s all I’ll say about it, because anyone who wishes to read it—please do, it’s a comfortably quick but satisfying read—should try to experience the prose in whatever uncertainty possible.

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Seven Essential Fantasy Reads

On August 21, 2009, In Books, By Jamie
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The New Yorker recently published a list of seven fantasy books for someone who’s looking to go to “second base” with fantasy. Reaction from the blogosphere has been mixed, but on the upshot I’ve been able to uncover many great minds who are blogging about speculative fiction / fantasy.
My Reading List-a-Thon continues with my annotations of the list, my additions, and pointers to other lists. I’ll hope to consolodate them into a Big ol List of Fantasy sometime soon. I do have some misgivings about this idea of “Well, people who like bonafide novels (The New Yorker’s phrase) should try to find something soft and easy to convert them to fantasy.” What on Middle-Earth is there to understand? You mean someone who puts down A Dance to the Music of Time or The Golden Bowl long enough to look at fantasy is going to be somehow confused, lost, or disoriented? “I . . . I just don’t understand . . . Dragons? Dragons aren’t real . . . How did they get into this book? Did Anne Rice interview a dragon, to know what dragonness is like? Oh, that was Anne McCaffery. Never mind.” 

* The Dragonbone Chair: Tad Williams. “If you want to read a classic epic fantasy series that is not the Lord of the Rings, start here.”

I can’t disagree, primarily because I haven’t read it. But if you’re looking to start on something and the main component is “Don’t be LOTR,” this is just as good of a place as any . . . Except for maybe the Wheel of Time series. James Long respectfully disagrees: “its only redeeming quality in my eyes is the fact that it inspired [George R. R. Martin] to write [A Song of Ice and Fire].”

Alas, I’m really wracking my brains here, but only because the surest way to make me tire of a fantasy book is to put an elf in it . . . to my jaundiced reader self, “epic fantasy that’s not like LOTR” is like saying “A professional chef who isn’t, like, carbon based.” Of course, that’s tremendously unfair, but I think Jordan is the only other natural choice. Mark Charan Newton, author of Nights of Villjamur, accused the NYer list as being unimaginative, for such an imaginative genre. I agree.

* Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay. What kind of advice is that? Granted, they do specify several books in particular, none of which I’ve read. After reading Ysabel I don’t know that I’ll ever drag myself back to the GGK table. Adam Whitehead classified this as “Pseudohistorical Epic Fantasy” which is so much of a red flag you could use it to decorate Mao’s birthday party. Mr. Whitehead notes that it’s either Kay or Elliott’s Crown of Stars, whereby Kay would win.

What about . . . you know, I”m not sure if I can make this recommendation and live it down, but what about the Kushiel books? Several are quite good. Steamy, but that’s a given. But it isn’t smut, and it’s great fun. However, it’s not really “epic,” but each individual book helps build a huge, sweeping alternate world.

* Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
No no no no no. This list is dead to me. Observers rightly note that the NYer article mentions that only the first book in the series is worth reading, but I challenge that sentiment wholeheartedly. Again, Mr. Whitehead is spot-on when he notes that the first book is “okay” only in light of the tripe that follows it, but that’s like saying that you’re “okay” after getting run over by a Camry because you know the jackhammer powered garbage truck carrying a payload of lead is about to hit you next. I know a good friend who considers these books to be her favorites: nothing has ever made me change subjects in a conversation faster.
The first book is about a thoroughly unlikable man named Richard, in a world where every other character is named Zedd, Darken, Kahlan, and Demmin Nass. Richard? Anyway, the book starts rocky, ends with an eye-roller of a “twist” ending, and in the middle contains sexual abuse, torture, child abuse, sadomasochism, and I just can’t go on.
Like I said, this list is dead to me.

 * Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

Haven’t read it, nor has Mr. Long. Mr. Whitehead dispenses with it in short order.

* Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Aidan Moher doesn’t think Brooks gets the respect he deserves, but I’m not going to be the first one to step up to the plate. I admit that I haven’t read this book in particular, but I can’t really get behind Terry Brooks in general. To be diplomatic, when I read Sword of Shannara I realized that it hadn’t age well. I read through as much of Elfstones as I could, but had to stop. So I figured I would jump ahead in his writing career and read what was then his latest book: Ilse Witch (“Voyage of the Jerle Shannara”). I haven’t gone back since, and I don’t know when I will.

* The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Again, I can’t comment – I haven’t read this, but it’s also the only book on this list that I feel badly about not reading. I did pick it up and sniff through the first page, and I realized two things: it was probably very good, to be honest, and two—like modern dance, I would need to be in the right frame of mind. I easily see this being my early-October pre-NaNoWriMo novel.

* Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

By the end of the “Beginner’s List” I felt as though I was illiterate: all these “gateway” novels that I haven’t read! However, our panel of commentators panned this one, unanimously saying that it didn’t begin to be on a “Beginner’s List.” Once more, I can’t comment.

 

Since I’m lukewarm about the New Yorker list, I guess it’s time to put up or shut up.

 

* Kushiel’s Scion, see above. These are easy to wrap your mind around, but are filled with spirituality, vibrant characters, and sex.

* A Wizard of Earthsea by the Ursula K. LeGuin. Since the New Yorker list is a gentle slide out of Harry Potter and into what the NYer lovingly referred to as grown-up actual novels, this might seem like I’m coddling. This book might show its age, but its Taoist undertones and fascination with the “true” can lead to the kind of contemplation a “serious” reader can appreciate.

* Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I was torn between Elantris and the Mistborn series, but as excellent as I find Elantris to be, the Mistborn trilogy is technically superior. Mr. Moher omitted Mistborn in favor of Memory, Shadow, and Thorn because that slot “is for those who enjoy taking a step back and falling into a novel, head over heels” while also saying it took him three attempts to fall into MS&T. I fell into Mistborn on my first attempt.

* American Gods by Neil Gaiman, in place of the seemingly obligatory “Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay”, which I’ve already qualified by saying “Anything except Ysabel.” This is an extraordinarily strong “urban fantasy” that’s well-paced and great fun. I was surprised to see this left off of so many lists, although Messers. Long, Whitehead, Moher, and Newton are all residents of Commonwealth countries, whereas I’m a staunch Yankee who doesn’t think twice about reading something called “American Gods.” In fact, I remark with a touch of self-deprecating humor, I was surprised to find that there weren’t any Kennedys represented therein.

* Sabriel by Garth Nix. Sabriel is a lot like Lord of the Rings, except you take away the Fellowship and replace it with a talking cat and amnesiac. And instead of elves, dwarves, and ringwraiths you put in zombies.  So it’s nothing like Lord of the Rings.

* The Wheel of Time series. Ok, I’ll be the one to do it. Just because it has more secondary characters than the “professional reference” section of a gigolo’s resume doesn’t mean that’s its necessarily a hard or cumbersome read, and probably won’t scare away too many. Besides, Robert Jordan managed to employ every single possible trope, cliche, generic theme, and archetype into his writing, and that’s just in Eye of the World. Once a reader sees them in Jordan, he or she can move on to other ideas.

* This final entry is largely symbolic: So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. I doubt any “serious” highbrow reader will stop chewing the fat of The Sound and the Fury in order to read the Young Wizards series. But this is fantasy, and if you don’t, in your heart of hearts, want to be a wizard, the best list in the world won’t help you.

 

 

So, here are the lists I cribbed when I wrote this, in no particular order:

James Long (Speculative Horizons), Mark Charan Newton, Adam Whitehead (The Wertzone), and Aidan Moher (A Dribble of Ink). Out of all the lists, I’m most excited to explore Mr. Newton’s, as it clearly offers a more advanced reading list. I feel similarly towards Larry’s list at OF Blog of the Fallen.

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