2015: A Year in Homebrewing

Is it safe to come out?  Have all the “Year in Review” articles and mini-Facebook movies and all the resolutions and dieting ideas and all that final run their course?  Seems like all we see this time of year is nostalgia for the past (12 months) and unbridled optimism for the future (12ish months).

Well, I guess it’s time to do my part, but in an effort to keep it interesting, I’ll punctuate mine with beer.  Because everything’s better with homebrew.

I had really big plan about a year ago: brew a different and new and interesting beer every month for twelve months.  It seemed like a great excuse to put off writing any blog entries for a good long while, which worked out great!  It also turned out to be a distraction, sometimes welcome, often not, from a year that felt a little like a roller coaster: sometimes you were up, sometimes you were down, and you almost always had a bad feeling in your tummy.

January: I started the year with a pretty neat idea (I thought).  Knowing it was a) cold and b) coming up on my favorite night of inviting friends over to watch funny commercials and a short concert (which for some reason is called the “Super Bowl”), I decided to brew a lager, or two.  First, I brewed a big, strong dobbelbock (9% abv), and bottled 4 out of the 5 gallons.  Then, I took the last gallon, added water, and kegged it to make a 3% abv pale lager.  Eight gallons for the work of five!  And the commercial and concert party we threw went over great.  A perfect start to the year.

February: In February, the snows came.  You probably remember.  Since it was still cold, I stuck with beers that would benefit from a chilly basement, and made an altbier (which is not, as it turns out, a beer created by people on Usenet groups, much to my disappointment).  Soon after that, as we got even more snow, our dog, Joe, went out to pee in the front yard, as he had day after day for the 10 years we’d been part of our family, and never came back.  I looked for him until nearly midnight in the bitter cold.  I called his name, even though he was deaf.  I followed tiny sets of footprints all over the neighborhood.  Friends came and helped us.  Even neighbors we barely knew came out to help look.  We never found him.

To understand the devastation of that moment, you have to know how much Joe meant to us.  How the sound of him licking himself on my pillow was the lullaby I fell asleep to every night.  How we rushed him to the animal hospital when he needed his gallbladder out, despite not having any way to pay for such an operation, and waited up until after 1am to hear that the surgery had been successful.  How he greeted us at the door when we came home, day after day, for ten years.  How he jumped up on the couch and put his paws on the bassinet when Ella came home from the hospital, curious about this new member of our family.  He was terribly abused, abandoned, and starving before we adopted him.  He was a sweet, loving little old man when he left us.  I have no idea why he disappeared like that when he did, though he perhaps he knew (as we did) that wouldn't live much longer.  I don't know.  But finally, February was over.  Though somehow, the world didn't feel any less cold or gray for it.

March:  By this time, obviously, the year was off to a crappy start, and my heart wasn’t in homebrewing.  I made a beer, a honey ale, but it was contaminated and I ended up dumping most of it.

[Best if I skip a bit here…]

Summer:  Spring eventually thawed the snow, but mostly what I remember is spending an awful lot of time in doctor offices and hospitals for various reasons involving various family members.  By Summer, we’d found a new family hobby, which I highly recommend to anyone looking for spend a fun Saturday afternoon: house hunting.  Not serious, “We need to buy a house!” house hunting.  Instead, find some houses (I recommend Zillow) and set up some viewings.  You get to see some really nice places, and some total holes.  The ones with the collapsing ceilings and black mold are always fun, but my favorite was the one house with a brand-new beautifully decorate bathroom in the middle of a bare, unfinished, asbestos-filled basement.  Because that’s a selling point!

I did make a beer to honor Leo’s first birthday.  Since he was born on Bastille Day, it was a French-style saison, and I kept a few bottled with his picture on it.

We also considered a few fairly crazy new diets over the summer, all of which touted the benefit of going gluten free.  Ever game for a good experiment, I found an enzyme that could be added to beer that would more fully convert the gluten in beer into sugar that would then be consumed by the yeast.  The result was a pretty tasty pale “gluten-less” ale.  But after about a month of that, we decided that was crazy and went back to eating gluten.  FYI, fruit and vegetable smoothies aren’t that bad, if you make them right.

September: As the summer made way for Fall, and the school year started up again, my grandmother passed away at the age of 96.  I wish I could write more to sum up my feelings about this loss, but my feelings aren’t done yet, and can’t really be summed it.  Leave it at this: after her funeral, we picked up a six pack of ‘Gannsett and toasted her, and missed her.

At the end of the month, my wife and I managed to sneak away for a couple days to celebrate our 11^th wedding anniversary.  Hanging out with hippies and enjoying bike rides and, yes, good beer, it was the highlight of an otherwise somber month.

October: In October, one of our close friends got married.  My daughter was a flower girl, my wife was a bridesmaid, and I was charged with making 15 gallons of beer for the reception.  It seemed straightforward enough: 3 batches, 3 five-gallon kegs.  What could go wrong?  As soon as I filled the first keg and went to charge it, and heard the CO2 hissing out, I knew exactly what could go wrong.  Suddenly, I was all panic: Was it defective?  Would there be time to get more?  How much CO2 was I wasting?  Would there be enough to serve the beer?  What if I couldn’t fix it?  Would I have to tell our friend that I couldn‘t make the beer?  Would I be responsible for ruining their wedding?  Fortunately, I found that increasing the air pressure and adjusting the seal was enough to fix the leak, and the next two kegs were filled and sealed without problem.  The wedding was a lot of fun, and a couple people might have liked the beer.  Or not.  Didn’t matter to me; I still drank it!

In November, I turned 40.  Shut up, that’s not that old!  Just because I was born during the Ford administration doesn’t mean I’m not still spry and full of youthful—oh , who am I kidding?

In December, our family suffered another loss.  A man very close to our family, whose family had always felt like an extension of my own family, passed away.  To tease out the exact familial bonds from our extended Irish family would take some time, but cousin is the closest term, though that doesn’t do his closeness to us justice.  Uncle is somewhat closer, but Eddie was…well, he was Eddie to us, will always be Eddie to us, and that’s enough.  I brewed an Irish stout for him, because that seemed fitting.  I decided at that I point that I’d had enough funerals for one year.

The Universe, of course, doesn’t care what I think.  Just before Christmas, my father-in-law suffered a major stroke.  We made immediate plans to go to Texas, to see him, to let him see a couple of his grandkids.  We’d almost made it on the plane when the phone rang.  We missed the flight, and rebooked, not for a visit, but for a funeral.  This was the man who I called one day, 13 or so years ago, to ask for his permission to marry his daughter.  And he’d told me, “I’ll tell you what my father-in-law told me.  You can ask her, but she won’t say yes!”  This was the man who coaxed my daughter into taking her very first steps.  We flew to Texas the day after Christmas, to say our goodbyes properly.

So much for 2015. 

Do I have resolutions for 2016?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Well, I guess that’s not entirely fair.  I’d decided near the end of last year to try my hand at fiction writing again.  I still think I’ve got a couple novels in me that need to come out.  But now, suddenly, I’ve come to think that where my writing really needs to be is sitting right in front of me, or rather, isn’t sitting right in front of me because neither of them ever seem to sit still for very long.

I have two wonderful kids, and they’d both probably get a kick out of some of the stories I could write for them.  So this year, and as many years as I can keep it up, my writing will be dedicated to them.  If you don’t see another blog entry for a while, that’s probably what I’m doing.  So if you see my kids, ask them if they like my stories.  I’m hoping they’ll say yes.

4 Reasons to Buy Girl Scout Cookies Right Now!

Hey, you!

Stop whatever you’re doing right now and go buy a box of Girl Scouts cookies.

Oh, you want to finish reading my blog?  That’s very considerate of you, but don’t worry.  I’ll wait.

Preferably from this kid.

Did you do it?

No?

Why not?

Oh, wait, let me guess:

Argument 1: But, Why?

To support Girl Scouts.  Duh.

You see every box of cookies you buy helps provide money not only to the nation-wide Girls Scouts of the USA, but part of it goes directly to that girl’s particular troop.  Your cold, hard cash is directly helping that girl who is selling you a box of cookies.  Isn’t that great?

No?  You need more?

Ok, maybe you’re not a parent.  Or you don’t have any daughters.  Is supporting Girl Scouts still important? 

Yes, of course it is!

The Girl Scouts are not just about teaching girls how to sell stuff.  These girls are learning how to be leaders, how to be good citizens and how to be good humans, how to care for their world and take care of each other, and how to be themselves with confidence and strength.  And as these girls grow up, they will use what they’ve learned to do amazing things.  Whether you personally have a daughter, or know a young girl, or not, you still have a vested interest in helping these girls, and indeed all girls, succeed.  Because our world, our future, will be in better hands if the girls who are growing up now grow up believing that they should always serve God (or whatever supreme being or greater good it is that they choose to serve), serve their country, and always help people, in addition to being honest, fair, considerate, caring, courageous, strong, etc., etc.

And these girls will grow up.  They will do amazing things.  The world will be in their hands.  So you really want them to be prepared for that.

Plus, you get to eat cookies!  That’s a win-win!

Argument 2: Cookies Are Junk Food.  Girl Scouts Are Contributing to Obesity.

First of all, are you serious?

Secondly, the Girl Scout cookie is a continuation of a long tradition, one nearly everyone reading this has engaged in at some point: the Bake Sale.

Bake sales came about through simple necessity.  Kids needed stuff.  Parents often can’t afford to give their kids EVERYTHING they need (we try, but it really is nearly impossible).  Other grown-ups don’t want to give them the money.

For example, maybe the school district can’t afford paper.  (You laugh; I remember this happening.)  Because having locally-elected politicians who are huge high school football fans is somehow the best model we have for an education system.  But I digress.  How do we get paper so the students can, you know, write stuff?

Parents bake things and sell them, and the money goes to the school to buy paper (or that new scoreboard they’ve been eyeing, because sometimes people are awful).  That’s how bake sales work.

When the Girl Scouts were first starting out, they needed money to be able to do activities, to buy supplies, to do Girl Scout stuff.  So, they started holding bake sales, and those bake sales eventually turned into door-to-door cookies sales, which now have become the well-oiled cookie machine we have today.

One of the things I spend time on with my troop during our meetings is teaching them the traditions of Girl Scouts.  These can be songs, games, old uniforms, stories from former Girl Scouts.  It’s a little awkward for me, since, you know, I really wasn’t ever a Girl Scout, but you get the point.  I try to teach them that they are here today, learning to be Girl Scouts, because of all the Girl Scouts who came before them.  And one of those traditions is cookie selling.  That cookie selling also teaches them about being responsible for money, teaches them multiplication, and teaches them how to talk to people in a courteous and professional manner is just icing on the cake, or in this case, on the cookie.

And really, they are not that bad for you.  They’re just cookies.  Pretty small ones, too.  You don’t have to eat the entire box in one sitting.  They will last for a good while (even longer if you freeze them!), so just show a little self-control.  It will be ok.  I’m here for you.

And as it happens, these cookies have nothing at all to do with obesity in this country.  Even if you consider these cookies “junk food,” a recent study of average Americans showed no correlation between junk food and weight gain, pointing out that it really is just matter of how many calories you take it, not the form those calories take.

So like I said, don’t eat the whole box.  You’ll be fine.  And remember, Thin Mints are vegan!

Really!

And if you really don't want to eat them, the Girls Scouts will be happy to donate to someone who does.

Argument 3: I Was Planning to Buy Beer, Instead.

And good for you, I say.  I can’t really relate, since I make my own, but I sort of get the concept: You’re thinking about beer.  That’s fine.  I think about beer all the time.  That’s no reason to deprive yourself of Girl Scout cookies.

In fact, the opposite is true.  You can pair your beer with Girl Scout cookies!

There are several articles out there already that follow this concept.  I agree with some, not so much with others. 

Now, it’s my turn.

Say, for instance, you, like myself, are enjoying a nice Irish stout.  

Hello Darkness, my old friend.

Well, go grab yourself a box of tagalongs.  You’ll thank me later.

Prefer thin mints?  Very popular choice.  And why not?  Their cool and crisp, with a clean and refreshing taste.  Try them with a clean-finishing lager.

Shortbread trefoils, go for a brown ale.

Samoas, invest in a good, strong Belgian ale.

Lemony savannah smiles work with witbier.

As for peanut butter do-si-does, in what will probably be my most controversial suggestion, think along the lines of a really grown-up peanut butter and jelly and pair it with a cherry kriek or raspberry framboise (both of which are styles of sour lambic, in case you didn’t know).

Now, if you’re munching on toffeetastic gluten-free cookies, you’ll probably be looking for something equally gluten-free.  I made a sparkling mead that fits the bill, but in the average beer store, you’ll probably have to stick with cider, or one of the few decent gluten-free beers (Bards is a good choice).

There!  Now, you’ve got no excuses!

Argument 4: But Why Do They Have to Be Girl Scouts?  Isn’t That Discrimination?

You’re gonna make me work for this sale, aren’t ya?

Ok, fine.  Challenge accepted.

Actually, this is a question a friend of mine posed to me a little while ago.  (To be fair to my friend, she was playing Devil’s advocate, not actually accusing the Girl Scouts of discrimination.)  She said, “What if a boy wanted to join the Girl Scouts?”

Nope, I said.  Girl Scouts needs to be there for girls.  I’m not going to argue that girls are different from boys, because I don’t ever argue that, but we have a society that constantly teaches our kids that very lesson. 

We teach our kids, through our shared societal norms, that a girl in a room full of boys is a little like a flute in an orchestra of trumpets.  And I’ve even seen my own daughter say something similar to me, about the “boys” in her class.

But I know my daughter, and I know she’s no flute.  I’m not sure yet if she’s a telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I know she’s not a flute.  And she needs an environment where she can find her instrument, and what kind of music she wants to play (I know, I’m stretching this metaphor pretty thin), without needing to constantly counter the implied gender differences of our society.

And those implied differences have real-life implications that once kept women from owning property, or voting, or working, and even today stand in the way of many careers and ensures that women are consistently underpaid compared to males doing the exact same job.  Women, in other words, have been and continue to be undervalued by society.  The way to combat that is not to pretend it doesn’t exist and teach that there are no differences between males and females, but rather to help change society from the bottom on up.  I want to teach my daughter that she can be or do anything in life, and I want to prepare her to lead a society where this is true (as opposed to the people leading our society now, where it isn’t).  That is where Girl Scouts has its place, as it teaches girls about being both citizens and leaders, and focuses on the experiences of girls, specifically, through history and all around the world.

Because yes, I know, if you look at statistics, even objective, scientifically valid statistical analysis, there are differences, on average, between girls and boys.

But that’s not important.  Because no one is completely average.  Outliers abound.

For instance, I know that my son has a statistically higher chance of winning a Nobel Prize than my daughter, based on a google a search I just did, which tells me that, in the history of Nobel Prizes, 825 men have won, versus just 49 women.

But statistics like that never tell the whole story.  They never tell the stories that I try to tell my Girl Scout troop.  To remind them of what they are all capable of.  Because I know that the first Nobel Prize awarded to a woman was awarded to Marie Curie in 1903, in the field of physics.  Then, in 1911, Curie was awarded a second Nobel Prize for chemistry.  That means that, not only was she the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she remains the first and only human being to ever receive two Nobel Prizes in two different fields.  Because there is no reason that girls can’t be that awesome.

And while Marie Curie was not a Girl Scout, Girl Scouts have done some pretty amazing things!  

And that is why we need Girl Scouts.  To teach them that they can be awesome, and that differences do not mean inferiority, and that someday, they will lead, they will be confident, be courageous, and make the world a better place.  For girls.  And for women.  And for boys and men, too, because helping one means helping the other.

That’s what your buying.  Not cookies.  A better future.

Now, enough chit-chat.  Buy some damned cookies!