Brew #47: Another Freaking Pale Ale

Wendie and I got together with our friends, the Cleveland family, for breakfast and brew and hanging out to visit! We had a great time visiting on the porch and enjoying the conversation so much that it was about 6:30 as we headed for home! Kurt did a back-to-back brew day pumping out a full 20 gallons of specialty beers! Both a chile and a spice, which tasted excellent!

Another freaking pale ale!
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Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch: 5.00 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.069 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 46 IBU
Recipe Color: 13° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.017
Alcohol by Volume: 6.9%
Alcohol by Weight: 5.4%

Ingredients
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American two-row 9.00 lb, mashed
Belgian pilsener 2.00 lb, mashed
Crystal 20L 1.00 lb, mashed
Crystal 120L 0.25 lb, mashed
Belgian Special “B” 0.25 lb, mashed

Amarillo (8.3aa) 1.50 oz, pellet, 10 minutes
Amarillo (8.3aa) 0.50 oz, pellet, 30 minutes
Palisade (8.0aa) 1.00 oz, whole, 5 minutes
Palisade (8.0aa) 1.00 oz, whole, 0 minutes
Sorachi Ace (13.2aa) 0.50 oz, whole, 60 minutes

WLP041 Pacific Ale 1.00 unit, vial

Notes
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Recipe Notes:
Mashed at 146f for 60 min
Ferment at 69f for 7 to 10 days

Batch Notes:

5 Artists that I really dig!

Here’s my top 5 artists, not necessarily in order.

1. Nine Inch Nails : I’ve been listening to Trent Reznor for about 15 years and I continue to enjoy the direction he’s heading with his music. I don’t listen to the older stuff as much as I used to, mainly because my tastes have evolved a bit more away from the industrial and dark undertones. His voice (sampled or not) is pleasing to my ear, and he has a way with layering so many sounds in such a way that gives my ears and mind a workout. My favorite album is probably “The Fragile” but had been “Broken” for a very long time.
2. Tool & A Perfect Circle : Maynard Keenan’s voice is great and I’ve liked the music he’s been part of, in Tool, ever since I saw them at Lollapalooza in ‘93. Years later he formed another band called ‘A Perfect Circle’, which seemed to focus more on melody and art than that of the more surreal/mystical aspects of Tool. APC is no longer active, but I thoroughly enjoy every one of the albums they created. Favorite album has got to be “Mer de Noms” from APC, and “Aenima” from Tool.
3. Linkin Park : What can I say, Linkin Park has a great blend of hard rock and hip hop.. I don’t know who started this genre, but it gets me moving everytime. Mike Shinoda, the rapping influence/artist/producer, is brilliant with his beats and the blending of the hard rock vocals ala Chester Bennington. “Meteora” is my favorite album so far.
4. The Crystal Method : Definitely my favorite electronica band, and they are still kicking out some really great music although at a much slower pace than they used to. To me, The Crystal Method has an unmistakable sound of thier own which incorporates high tempo and beats mixed in with a good amount of distortion. Whether or not the band name is a drug reference makes no difference to me, these are some awesome jams! Because there are typically very few lyrics in their music, I’ve spent many hours with this music banging away at my eardrums while I’m writing code or playing video games..good times. My favorite album is definitely “Vegas”.
5. Massive Attack : This band serves up a chilled electronic sound with a much less edgy feel than that of the others on my list, but still kick ass in thier own way. They produce some of the most epic songs that I’ve heard, and are probably one of the most frequently listened to artist on my ipod. Vocals on these songs are usually featuring various artists, typically females with some really great voices. Again, this is a band that I can turn on and listen to while I’m coding or focusing on other hobbies..the music tends to have an atmospheric quality that I really enjoy. I wouldn’t usually pick a “greatest hits” as my favorite album, but “Collected” is definitely my favorite though it lacks a certain continuity that you would hear on an individual album.

Man on Wire

This past weekend Wendie and I went and watched “Man on Wire“, a documentary film covering a clandestine tight-wire walk between the two World Trade Center buildings by Phililppe Petit in 1974. The photography and re-enactments are epic.. they did a great job tying all of the aspects (planning, training, and engineering the whole event) together to be very suspenseful. We saw the film at the Darkside Theatre in Corvallis, which was quaint but I think the seating wasn’t very comfortable.

Without a doubt, I wholeheartedly agree with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 100% on the rating!

Buddha, by Deepak Chopra

I’ve seen this book a number of times at Borders but hadn’t picked it up until last week. I couldn’t put it down, the story was excellent! Of the others stories I’ve read recounting Siddhartha Guatama’s (Buddha) life, this fictional story hits on all of the major facts but Deepak has done a really good job in his imagination of and the fleshing out of details. I’ve not read any other literature by Deepak Chopra, but I’m to understand this was his first attempt at fiction writing and I think he did a great job. The characters are so well developed I found myself both laughing and feeling sad at times. I’m quite fascinated with the degree of effort, sacrifices to he and his family, and struggle Siddhartha went through to attain enlightenment, joining the ranks of the many Buddhas believed to live before him. In such a short novel, weighing in at around 350 pages, Deepak did a really good job describing the various paths which Siddhartha took to awareness. After years of asceticism, meditation, and even self-mortification, Siddhartha discovered the Middle Way, a path to enlightenment which was free from extremes. Buddhist or not, I’d recommend this to anyone who is interested in spirituality and likes an exciting book!