Drinking Wine: Willow Crest

Washington is the Evergreen State, but I don't seem to live there. I'm in the eastern part---in the rainshadow of the Cascade Mountains where it is dry and sunny for growing wine grapes. I do have a pet evergreen in my front yard, but the vineyards surrounding me are much more impressive.

The Columbia, Yakima and Snake rivers all come together nearby. Take a drive along one and the vineyards line the roads. Lots of little wineries to stop by and sample too.

Tonight I'm drinking something from the Yakima Valley Appellation. Willow Crest Winery makes a great Syrah with their estate-grown grapes. Sadly, I'm drinking the last bottle of the case and I haven't found another. Yet. There's still hope, though, because I can't read some of the case labels until I reshuffle some.

There are eight nationally recognized appellations in the state with several others pending. These appellations refer to the grapes not the winery that turns them into wine, similar to what is done in France. Speaking of France, the wine country in Washington is at about the same latitude.

I make my own wine too, and I have a couple of barrels of merlot and one of syrah from the Willow Crest estate vineyards in the garage. I'll bottle those before this year's harvest. So I start out with the same grapes that the winery does, but...

I like to drink wine from places I've visited, which is very easy to do around here. Willow Crest is one of my favorites. Pay them a visit next time you're in the valley. The first hit is free.

Fathers Day: Scott E-Vest

So for Fathers Day, I ordered a scottevest, 4.0 and let my wife take credit for it. This is a geek-designed garment to the max. There are 21 pockets, a pocket for your IPod and cell, routes for the headset wires and holsters for the earbuds.

They are $70 off for Fathers Day, which brought one down into my must-buy range. Still out of my must-buy range is the tactical version with over 50 pockets.

Yet even with this starter vest, the sleeves zip out, there's a hood. There are pockets big enough to put the sleeves into---just in case ya need 'em.

I bought one of the caps on sale too, because, frankly, I didn't have a ball cap with any pockets---much less two. Woot!

SF: Fanboy

At the con, I usually go to the panels with the SF and Fantasy writers. I do this to hear the writers pontificate on writing, etc. Yet, often I end up listening to Fanboy, carrying on a conversation with the panelists whether they want to or not. Joe Haldeman or first-time author gets the same treatment where Fanboy effortlessly directs the panel from the audience. At a big con with lots of panels at the same time, I've been known to spontaneously decide to go to another one when I see him sittin' in.

He does not seem to be aware of us "little people" who have come to bask in the glow of the published ones. He will interrupt us in the middle of a question and the authors in the middle of an answer with equal aplomb. He's not off-topic; he's mainly trying to show off his SF-fu, which is pretty good as far as I can tell. Each individual blab fest he goes off on would probably be cool; it's just the accumulated verbiage that comes off as way over the top.

Yet, he is not completely non-entertaining. Today, he came into the panel on "Women in SF and Fantasy" about a third of the way through. Now, if I come in late to a panel, I try to sneak in quietly, take a seat in the back and try to get a sense of where the talk is going. The talk in this particular instance had been about "strong" women characters and the women who write them. However, Fanboy walks in, loudly says "sorry I'm late," sits down and immediately takes over the panel from the audience. Directing it to where he thinks a panel about "Women in SF and Fantasy" should go.

In a blissful, irony-free state, the three women authors engaged him in extended conversation. Luckily, they come off much better when going one on one with a word processor.

Fanboy, you're the best. Sorry, gotta run man, my brain's all full of words. I need to go find the sword-fighting demo and smell some Big T and stare in wordless understanding.

SF: m-f ratio

Against the conventional wisdom that holds that SF is an adolescent male genre, there is the fact of active participation by females of all ages. I was reminded of this at the Burqa Babe party, thrown by the dancers at the con, where the ratio was 15 female to 8 male participants when I counted heads about midnight. I guess all the guys were at the Toxic Waste party next door.

I say that the SF conventual wisdom is: participants will put a lot of energy into violating conventual wisdom.

SF: Still Going

If you have ever in your life felt that you were odd or didn't fit in, come to a con because all the people just like you are here. That goes as much for the pros, and perhaps more, as for the fans. For example, we have Dragon. Exhibit A for turning a childhood obsession into a business. I suppose it helps that he only sleeps a few hours a night. Dragon is great to hang out with, but he always makes me feel like I'm not holding my end up, as it were.

Jerry Oltion is an uber-fan that is also a pro. He writes novels, but also builds his own telescopes and homebrews too. So last night at the party, we talked about beer, yeast selection--- you know, important stuff.

I'm resting up (OK, icing beer down) for the room party tonight that we're helping with.

SF: Party!

We don't do much partying normally, but at a SF con it's party party party. We just hung out til 2am at one room party watching demo reels brought by a guy who makes props and special FX in H-Wood. It's almost like we're somebody.

Tomorrow, it's back to panels on how to be a better writer. Then party party party some more.

I stopped at a market and got some Bayern Pilsener. It's made here in Missoula and I've liked it ever since I had it at the Oregon Brewer's Festival. Also had a Moose Drool that is made here too. Maybe living here inspires people to make great microbrews. Probably not enough time for a brewery tour---all that partying ya know.

Drinking Beer: Facilitator

After a while, the beer adventurer has wandered far from the path of mainstream beers. So the question of how to help others to appreciate the beers one is drinking NOW arises.

My favorite trick is to drink Pilsner Urquell. You can find an excellent write up here. The original pilsner beer, it still has respectable bitterness (IBUs around 43). Since it sort of looks like a regular American beer, you can get people to try it. It's my gateway beer for proto-hopheads.

Also, I love Pilsner Urquell.

SF: MisCon

Memorial Day weekend means a trip to Missoula, MT for MisCon.

I've never been to WorldCon, but I've been to a national-sized one that was held on a year WorldCon was out of the U.S.A. So far, I like the smaller, regional cons, like MisCon, the best. It's possible that I just get lost at the medium-sized and larger cons since I don't know enough people in the biz. Yet the uber-big WorldCon might have enough star power to make it the best, overpowering my lostness. I won't know til I go.

If you poke around the WorldCon site, you will find the Hugo Award finalists. Some good stuff in there. Here are a couple of links to PDFs of two of the stories I liked, which are both in the "Best Novella" category. Hugos are a "people's choice" kind of award. Most other awards in the SF and Fantasy genres are by boards or professional societies such as the Nebula.

James Patrick Kelly
"Burn"
A planet's inhabitants confront the new owners.

Robert J. Sawyer
"Identity Theft" — a hard-boiled detective story set on Mars — first appeared in Down These Dark Spaceways, edited by Mike Resnick and published by the Science Fiction Book Club.

Drinking Beer: MEGABREW

Our homebrew club, Mid-Columbia Zymurgy Association or MCZA, does a little thing we like to call megabrew. This is in addition to the big brew concept where we round up several homebrewing kits. Megabrew means we take over a microbrewery and make one big batch of wort that we dole out into individual carboys. You can see your humble blogger doing the doling above.

Since real breweries are licensed, we only do wort production on the premises---all yeast is added outside the bonded facility line. It's really interesting to compare the final beers, knowing that the base wort started exactly the same. We can compare the effect of different yeasts, dryhopping, fermentation temperatures, etc.

Last night, I tried an Imperial Stout made by Steve and Ryan from one of our megabrews. Allowing for it only being a few months old, it was a great example of its class. Not too sweet, great depth of hop character, and a complex roasted flavor and aroma (from the malts we used and from the half-full direct-fired kettle). I'm so looking forward to trying other examples of this brew as time goes by and the weather turns cooler.

A historical note: the fermenter over my left shoulder is a little piece of shrapnel from when my microbrewery self-distructed. Nice to know that it's still gainfully employed in making fine beers.

Motorcycle & Mountain

Not quite as old an interest as shooting guns is my relationship with motorcycles. At 13, my friends and I built motorcycles out of bicycles and lawn-mower engines. Partly to keep me off of those homemade death traps, my dad helped me get a "Honda 50" when I was 14.5 (twas legal back then for young people to ride motorcycles of less than 5 brake horsepower). This somewhat made up for the state raising the driving license age from 14 to 16 after the leading edge of the baby boom (Bill Clinton, et al.) made their debut.

Harley-Davidson is the great American MC still standing. I never could afford one as a kid and they were saddled by a poor reputation (since repaired) by the time I was a young adult. I always liked the Harley look, even when import bikes were the big thing. So in a recent effort to reaffirm everything that was important for me at 13, I bought an Electra Glide Ultra Classic.

There can be no cooler name than Electra Glide---I don't care if it just means they added a starter moter.

Yamaha (now STAR) and other imports have been busy copying the Harley style. They make nice bikes that go down the road nonetheless for being imitations of the original. They may also be reasonably conceded to be technically superior to my Electra Glide. I don't care---that my attitude is not uncommon is alleged to drive the Japanese crazy.

So here I am, sitting on my bike in front of the volcano, Rainier, after staying the night at Paradise.

Brewing Beer: Gadget Paradise

Occasionally, my brewing partner, Kevin (not shown), and I will not create a new brewing gadget during a brew session. We've been working on CIP (clean in place) stuff most recently since we are using kegs for fermenters. You can see by the picture above that we have accumulated quite a bit o' kit. Cheryll, the lovely lady working the mash rake, has her own tri-level brewstand that had to be left at home because there wasn't enough room in the garage for three stands.

You can, and we did, start brewing with a stock pot and a carboy or plastic bucket. You can start with extracts, add specialty grains later, and slowly move to full mashing by the intermediate step of the partial mash. Just boiling with lots of fresh hops will make a great beer, or at least one I would enjoy drinking.

Recently, we celebrated national homebrew day by rounding up five brewstands and brewing together. Can't wait until I can taste the kolsch I made (scroll down for the recipe). I did double the bitterness units---hard core, I know.

Drinking Beer: Cuvee Rene

One type of beer that I love to drink but don't brew myself is lambic. Not because it takes several years to do it right; I make my own wine and that takes years too. I don't do it because it takes lots of wild organisms that get loose and wreck havoc with my other potables. Cry havoc and let loose the brettanomyces of wort!

In fact brettanomyces bruxellensis, scourge of wine and critical component of this beer, is named after the city in Belgium where in the suburbs lambic is brewed. I have visited lambic breweries and can attest to the fervor with which they do not clean up in fear of disturbing the melange of microbeasties critical for the flavor of the beer. When I taste gueuze, I am instantly teleported in my mind back to the barrel room. Most other people smell horse blanket or gym socks that have recently resurfaced after a long hibernation in the closet.

Not too many lambics make it to the states, and only a few of those in great condition. Always expensive here, though pretty cheap in Belgium, it is a treat to myself to open one as I did the other night. I divided the 750 ml bottle into two classes carefully reserving the sediment so as not to cloud the beer in the glass. However, I swigged the dregs before tossing the bottle---I'm hard core, I know.

After enjoying my portion, my wife brought me hers, saying that she'd had enough. Hmm, with lambic I can be generous and greedy! Careful, the funk'llgetcha.

This beer is imported by Merchant du Vin along with some other nice foreign beers. Check around their website and look for them at an upscale market or bottle store near you.

Hopgoddess

I'm only the Mouth of Hopgoddess. Here is a manifestation of herselfness. Someday, I would like Blogger to take this as my profile picture. Oh yes, I would. But then, it would have to stop claiming that this JPEG is not a JPEG. Wouldn't it?

Sunday on the Range

It being the third Sunday of the month, there was IPSC shooting to be done in our neighborhood. Spring and Summer means lots of tournaments, so our local matches are starting to get heavy on the show stages. Woot! Today we shot in the sun, then the rain, then the sun again. This is the desert? No wind though---our prayers were answered.

Hopefully, I can shoot every Sunday until the big Area 1 shoot.

24 Hours

Here's a picture of me at the 24-Hour beer festival in Antwerp.

First Post

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