Flavored Beers

I'm mostly a malt and hops man when it comes to beer. Yet, I can enjoy a kriek or frambozen occasionally. Wit with its bitter orange and other spices is also nice early on a hot day. Outside Belgian classics such as these it is easy to go astray.

Popularity of flavored beers can now be measured by the introduction of chocolate beers by Miller and AB.

Quirky marketing move or sign of the Apocalypse? You decide.

1974

I was only 21 in 1974, but I remember all of this.

I don't want to repeat what happened in the 30s either.

Nut Brown Ale

It's time for our monthly beer club meeting, and we are talking about a megabrew. That's what we call it when we make a brewery-sized batch of wort and parcel it out in 5 gallon carboys for fermentation into beer at home. This time we are talking Nut Brown Ale. That's Samuel Smith brewery in the picture.

Now the first thing to consider is that in England where this style originates, nut brown refers to color. The beer is not originally supposed to have nuts in it. In brewpub parlance, however, Katy bar the door! Hopefully, the club will leave the addition of flavor extracts to individual brewer taste---and the secondary fermentation at home.

From the BJCP Guide:

10B. Northern English Brown Ale

Aroma:

Restrained fruitiness; little to no hop aroma. May have a caramel aspect to the malt character.

Appearance:

Dark golden to light brown color.

Flavor:

Gentle to moderate sweetness, with a nutty character. Balance is nearly even, with hop flavor low to none. Some fruity esters should be present; low diacetyl is acceptable.

Mouthfeel:

medium-light to medium body, with a dry finish.

Overall Impression:

Drier and more hop-oriented that southern English brown ale, with a nutty character rather than caramel.

History/Comments:

English brown ales are generally split into sub-styles along geographic lines.

Ingredients:

English mild ale or pale ale malt base with caramel malts. May also have scant amounts darker malts. English hop varieties are most authentic. Moderate carbonate water.

Vital Statistics:

OG: 1.040-1.050

IBUs: 15-30 FG: 1.010-1.013

SRM: 12-30 ABV: 4-5.0%

Commercial Examples:

Newcastle Brown Ale, Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, Adnams' Nut Brown Ale.

Newcastle Brown Ale uses maize to lighten the taste, which will be pretty typical of UK beers in general---sugar or corn. It will be difficult to get the same gravity and light taste with an all-malt beer. So, just lower the gravity to 1032-6 and call it a nut-brown mild.

A Sam Smith page.

If you want to make a big all malt nut brown, here's one, or replace a pound or two of the malt with maize.

Here's one for extracts with an awesome name.

See ya at the meeting (I hope).

Eco-Friendly

Someone from the Defense Department has helpfully drawn political boundaries on a satellite picture of the Korean peninsula in darkness. The one pool of light in the northern half is where Kim and his bestus buddies live.

I doubt this eco-friendly lack of light pollution can make up for all the burning to cook and keep warm, etc. An extortion racket blown up to country size is not pretty. Here's Kim getting all misty-eyed with a former Secretary of State:

Picture care of the Pillage Idiot.

In other news, a person was seen wearing both a Mao T-Shirt and a Free Tibet button.

Not Your Father's Thunderbird

She wears that jumper better than the guys do already.

Fun in Glock Land, Part 1

I uploaded the pictures as 1024x768, so if you click on them you can get a closer look--if you dare.

This COF start is similar to a start at Area 1, but they learned from that one and required our heels to be on the top surface. At Area 1 I was shooting Production (10 rd limit in mags, none forward of hip) so I had mags in the back that I removed. Thus, I was hanging out if I dropped a mag or other mishap. Here I was shooting Limited, so I only had mags on front and side. I faced that way to not be looking at the rising sun. Yes, I'm wearing a Glock hat. My Glock is lying loaded on the table. I suggested maybe an unloaded gun on the table and the shooter lying loaded on the bed---lucky I didn't get DQd for an alcohol joke, I guess.


I'm usually not this alert when I wake up, but it is because I was sleeping with my rose colored glasses on. The mesh walls are pretend impenetrable. Real solid walls have problems in the wind if they are not anchored real good.


Stay outta da way, she's gettin A. The Princess is in the slow and accurate phase I was in last year. It's a good phase. I probably need to go back into it myself in a while.


The pistol range is built around a cinder cone. So all the bays face into a mountain. Six bays have a covered area, which is probably a pretty good idea in that part of Oregon--but it was beautiful weather for us.

Here's a link to the stage design (it's a PDF).

From the totally cool planes department

OK, it's just a truck hauling around a radar test module for Global Hawk development, but... what a cool looking plane!

Hmmmm, smooth

Combining two of my hobbies, I'm drinking some of my kolsch beer (hoppy like it is in Koln) and looking at autoloaders on da web.

I think I need one of these. H&K doesn't seem to care much for us civilians, but they make damn fine guns.

Homeland Security picked this P2000SK as one of its chosen few.

I don't hold that against it.

How did this happen?

Holy Smoke! I got second on a stage against 75 other shooters, including a Grand Master and several Masters at the 2nd Oregon Glock-Only Championships.

Every once in a while my plan works, and this was a good example. The three steel targets were hidden behind the donut-gong. Since they were lined up and take time to fall, it was a matter of addressing the two paper targets in sequence with the poppers, starting with the first popper. They substituted a small USP at the end of the line, so it was only partially visible through the donut hole.

I shot it all with the minimum round count, so that explains why I did well, but it's a mystery why the faster shooters didn't overtake me.

Course what isn't a mystery is how I tanked on a few of the other stages, but I ended up slightly better than my classification percentage against the overall field and B level (I'm a C) in my division against a Grand Master. So, yeah, I had a great time. Hopefully, a picture post is forthcoming.

Time to Retire, all right

Is Kofi Annan a war criminal? Well the UK Times article doesn't fully answer, but makes obvious that being in charge during genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur does not affect ones promotability at the UN.

He made it all the way to the top--and the largest scandal in modern times: oil for food.

The poodle that is chosen to replace him will hopefully lead the relocation of the UN to Chad and not the multibillion dollar upgrade the their present digs in NY.

Kofi-caricature by Cox at Cox & Forkum.

Fourth Rail

Picture of Pakistan's Leader by Cox & Forkum.

As we get ready to go to the Oregon Glock-Only match, I salute the awesome blogging skills of Bill Roggio. I have found his analysis to be dead on during the move into Anbar last year and this year, he's been to Iraq and Afghanistan, he won't blog on something that he can't back up. Anyway, he has some great posts on Pakistan's losering along the border, and Task Force 145 icing high-value targets. Just go to his blog, The Fourth Rail, and keep scrolling.

Task Force 145--its current name although it changes a lot--- restores my faith in America. Sometimes bad guys just need to be hounded into a corner and killed or humiliated.

Gotta go, the PC police are breaking the door down...

Guide to the Perplexed

Austin Bay helps us understand the CBS Ambush. He's not talking about 60 Minutes, at least not directly.

Raymond Ibrahim talks about how attractive a certain religion is to certain boys and bad men. I must admit that God has never given me slave girls, but that would certainly appeal to some.

On a sad note...my keg of very hoppy pilsner using the German Lager Yeast is...sniff...gone. Fortunately, the Princess bought me a few bottles of Pilsner Urquell to tide me over until my Kolsch is on tap--tonight.

Homeschooling is a crime?

OK, so we didn't homeschool our kids because we wanted them to live to 18 so we could boot them out of the house.

But in Germany it's illegal. Evidently Hitler helped pass the law against the practice and it suits the modern regime to keep it that way.

A Fairy Story

Strategy Page has a story posted that might make good bed-time reading.

The plane falling from the sky is completely gratuitous and was put in only to push sales.

I think his tunic sets off his cottontail in a particularly dashing way, what ho.

Not sure what the farmer was doing in a Tiger though.

OK, What I'm Really Thinking

Little Green Footballs has a post about some socialists making nice with Hamas. Any organization with International and Solidarity in it is pretty much Troskyite by definition. What is with these leftists that bond with 7th-century-enslave-women-kill-gays groups?

I could say they really, deep down, want to be dominated. Look at them, you know I could nail that argument. Or maybe that they'd heard about useful idiots and are trying to fill that role for dear Lenin. You know they're that, big time. Or I could say what I'm really thinking...

Hey look, chicks with guns!

I guess this is success

Variety talks about how the latest nightly news anchor, one Katie Couric, is doing at the bottom. Well, let's look back at another anchor that began at that lowly position. Tom Brokaw also began, naturally enough, at the bottom of the rankings. Yet by the end of his career, he was at the top. Sounds good, but he actually had more viewers when he started at the bottom. So, which is better when you are a news reader: more fans or the best of the bunch, all sinking in quick sand?

Give me internet news! I'll sort out what is believable without a newsreader, thank you very much.

on the range

Out on the range today setting up for our USPSA match next Sunday...too tired from dragging around steel and barriers. Back at it again tomorrow. Two of the stages are my design, so I blame myself for having so many props.

But, I'll get to shoot Sunday. Hooray!

11 September, not THAT one

But sorta related. 11 September 1683, when the Ottomans were at the peak of their expansion into Europe---gathering slaves, ravaging, converting at swordpoint, that is Muslims behaving normally. Vienna was saved by a Pole, when no one else could be bothered.

The Ottomans and Arabs were big slavers. They took almost twice as many African slaves as came to North and South America. Look around the Western Hemisphere from Canada to the tip of Chile, you can see the legacy of that movement from Africa. Look around the lands of the ancient caliphate...where'd they all go?

Politically Incorrect Glock

I've seen hotter pictures of Glocks with accessories, but these are official publicity pictures from the normally staid Austrian company. The last picture explains why the full-sized Glock fits so well in the hand---and also why when they make the handle shorter for the subcompacts it's all tits and butt and no waist, as it were.

Plan Your Vacation Now

Zombietime has a map of Europe circa 2015. The British Isles look nice---much warmer than the old ones.

In a more realistic map, Sweden would be a Sultante.

My Kind of Imperial Stormtrooper

Actually, these are Femtroopers.


I'm pretty sure the Clone Wars would have been less decisive with more Femtroopers involved. The midriff is protected by the inability to take ones eyes off those big hard white mounds---armor is superfluous.

Luke, use the can opener Luke!

Golden Ear Decoration

Pillaging burial mounds has resulted in some spectacular finds. To bad the picture doesn't show how far down the chains go. This would look pretty good on a priestess. I think they had some pretty badass ones---at least if the written word of the ancient Greeks can be trusted.

Coppertone International

1st Sgt. Mario Terenas, from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, shakes hands with an Iraqi boy in Ribiyah during a patrol. Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell L. Klika

Need to get those tan lines low.

A Gun of Their Own

The Stryker is an infantry platform and there's a Combat Brigade of them semi-locally at Fort Lewis. Usually, they have grenade launchers or chain guns of some sort, but a new version has a 105mm gun. Since the aftermath of WWII, big guns have been controlled by artillery or armored brigades. A gun this big that is controlled by the infantry is a throw-back.

I like it.

Explanation Found

Above: How Israel was able to shoot through a rusted-out vent in the top of a Lebanese ambulance, blow off and then cauterize the foot of the driver without smoking the interior or opening the body shell.

No good to reference the articles with all the agitprop on the web, they keep getting edited as the howlers are pointed out. Check out the link and look at more recent posts for more.