Frohe Weihnachten und Eine Glükliches Neues Jahr!

Seasons Greetings from the two of us to all of you!

Brewing Made Easy

I spent this past Saturday teaching a couple of friends how to brew beer. Since it's too cold outside to run the garden hose, I moved the operation in doors and went with extracts rather than whole grain. This is the easy way to brew, and the best way to get started. The quality of malt extracts has improved greatly over the past few years and you can brew every bit as good of a beer from them as you can from starting with whole grains (I'll save that for this next spring or summer).

Anyway, to start off we brewed up Lightnin's favorite recipe. It's a knock off of Sam Adam's and actually scored higher than Sam's Boston Lager in a blind taste test. We named it "Sammy Jo's Lager" (Sammy Jo is a nick name given to Lightnin by friends, but that's another story). This recipe calls for two 3lb cans of malt extract: 1 light, and 1 amber. It also calls for 1lb of carapils (an adjunct malted grain, I'll explain in a minute), and 3oz of leaf hops (1oz Kent Goldings, 1oz Hallertau, and 1oz Tettnang), and a tube of liquid German Lager yeast.

The equipment you'll need for this is a 4 to 5 gallon pot (either stainless or speckeled enamel, a canning pot works great, if you have at least two of these it makes brewing much easier), a smaller pan capable of holding 1 gal hot water, a mesh strainer (capable of holding 1lb of wet grain, and later hops), a long handled spoon, 2 glass carboy fermentors (water cooler jugs, 1-6.5 gal and 1-5 gal), 2-rubber stoppers, 2-airlocks, a transfer (racking) tube, bleach (for sanitization), water, snacks, beer to drink, and patience. (Most of this equipment can be purchased at the brewing supply store where you get the malt, hops, and yeast. You can piece it together yourself for cheaper, but it does take a bit of leg work to find it all).

First, sanitize the primary fermentor (6.5 gal) with bleach water (1/2 cup bleach to 5 gallons water, minimum contact time of 30 minutes). Add somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup bleach to the fermentor and fill to the brim with cold tap water, allow to stand for a minimum of 30 minutes. I usually do this before I go any further and then dump out the bleach water and rinse the fermentor with hot tap water just prior to the finishing steps (detailed below).

Next, get a gallon of water boiling in the smaller pan. While this is heating, crack the carapils. This can be done with a rolling pin or mallet by placing the grain into a plastic bag and rolling over it, or smacking with the mallet. You only need to crack the husk around the grain so that water can get in. I have a Corona mill that works pretty good, but it can sometimes grind the grain too much so you have to constantly adjust the gap setting when you change grains (more on that when I write about all grain brewing). Once the water and grain is ready, add the grain to the water, turn off the heat, stir and allow to sit for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes pour through the strainer into the big pot (Brew Kettle). Bring an additional gallon of water to boil in the small pan, this will be used to rinse (Sparge is the brewing term) the grains, keeping the rinsings in the brew kettle.

Next (while waiting for the above water to heat and the grains to drain) fill the sink with hot water, remove the labels from the cans of malt, and soak the malt cans on their sides. This will warm the malt to allow it to flow out of the cans. The syrup is a bout as thick as molasses, but sweeter (go ahead and taste it, you'll want to put it on ice cream!). Open and drain the malt into the brew kettle, rinse cans with hot water pouring the rinses into the brew kettle, stir to dissolve. Now bring this mixture, which from here out will be refered to as wört, to a boil. (These are actual brewing terms, I'm not making this up!)

When bringing the wört to a boil keep an eye on the brew kettle! The proteins in the malt syrup will form a thick foamy head that, if left unattended, will boil over onto the stove creating a much bigger mess than you will ever want to see! (not that I have personnally experienced this, yeah right)

Once the wört comes to a boil, add the first addition of the hops (Kent Goldings), and allow to boil for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. It is important to maintain a good rolling boil at this point, but not an all out splatter the kitchen bubbling boil! When the 45min is up, add the second hop (Tettnang) and a pinch of Irish Moss (a natural floculate: helps particulate material to sink to the bottom during fermentation), and allow to continue boiling for 15 minutes. After 15 min. add the Hallertau hops, turn the heat off, and allow to stand for 5 minutes.

Now you have a few choices: 1) if you have another, clean non-aluminum, 3 or 4 galllon vessel you can add about 1/2 of a small bag of ice to the pan and then pour 1/2 the wört through the mesh strainer onto the ice, repeat this twice, pouring the strained wört into the fermentor, 2) slowly add ice to the current brew kettle, then pour through the strainer into the fermentor, or 3) add about 2 gallons of cold water to the fermentor, then strain the hot wört into the fermentor. Attach the stopper and airlock (also sanitized with bleach water).

This last part is the most criticle, next to the sanitization step, make sure that the wört has cooled to below 80 deg F and add the yeast. Replace the airlock and partially fill, the airlock) with either bleach water or Vodka. This serves as a filter to allow the release of carbon dioxide, created during fermentation, and keeps microbes (the little bacteria/yeasts/molds that are floating around in the air just waiting to feast on your malt sugar solution). Place the fermentor in a dark cool place (usually a centrally located closet works fine). If you've done everything correctly, and the yeasty boy's like you, you should hear the music of the airlock bubbling away within a few hours.

In a few days, might take a week, the bubbling will stop. It is now time to transfer to the secondary fermentor (5 gal carboy). Sanitize the secondary, the second airlock, and the racking tube with bleach water (1/2 cup bleach to 5 gal water, minimum contact time of 30 minutes). Drain and rinse the equipment with hot water. Set the primary fermentor (the one with young beer in it) on a counter top. Set the secondary on the floor below. Siphon from the primary into the secondary. Attach the airlock and allow to sit in a dark cool place for another week or so. At this point you're ready to bottle, and that my friends is the topic of a future post!

Cleanup isn't too bad either, I usually try to clean as I go so that when the yeast has been added, I'm done and can sit to enjoy a good brew while I anticipate how wonderful the one I just made will be!

I've been brewing beer since July 1993 with over 130 batches under my belt (ok it's obvious by the pictures that most of those are just above my belt), and have been a card carrying beer judge since 1997. So If you're interested in more information around brewing, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to share my knowledge, experience, and some good books that you can check into to get started. Special thanks to our friends: Ollie, Mary, and Rod for hanging out on a Saturday and making the brew day a fun time!

"Superman and Green Lantern...."

If you remember the 60's, or early 70's, then you are probably humming the song referenced in the title.

We're not exactly the dynamic duo, and probably closer to partners in crime, buddies just the same! (Hey when you have such snazzy matching PJs you've got to take the time for the photo opt!)

I just can't say it enough, being a Grandpa is the best gig around! And I know I feel the same as every other Grandpa around the world, that my little buddy is the cutest, smartest, and most entertaining of them all.

We enjoy each other's company every time we get together, which isn't often enough, but whenever possible. Not too long and he'll be old enough to hop on a plane and come stay with us for a few weeks at a time.


I chose the photo below because you can just hear him saying "Grandma, isn't Grandpa a little old to be playing with my toys!" He was patient enough to allow me play for a few minutes.

Ciao Italia!

Being a scientist does have some advantages, one of which is traveling around the world to meet with other scientists. So I've decided to write a little about some of the places that I get to visit. Back in October of 2004 I had the pleasure of visiting our R&D and Production facility in Italy.

I'm Fresh off the plane and my hotel is located about 45 minutes from Rome, a place called Villa Degli Angeli (The city of Angels!). It sits on a volcanic lake, and as you can see from the photo, the view from my room was spectacular. The weather was absolutely beautiful too, mid to upper 80's during the day and cooling to the lower 70's at night.

Yes, I know, I can't believe that I have to work under these conditions either! It's a tough job, but someone has to do it!

Anyway, I don't speak Italian and it seems that out in the middle of nowhere Italy they don't speak English! Lucky for me the hotel staff is mainly college students who have been wanting to practice English, talk about luck! I recieve a crash course in conversational Italian so that I can at least be polite to the locals, and possibly survive the next few days!
Whenever I travel trough too many time zones (no I'm not going to get into time travel again, I got that out of my system!), as in going to Europe, I ususally try to arrive at least a day ahead of when I am supposed to be responsible for thinking, or responding with any intelligent thoughts. This trip was no different and I was able to adjust to the time change while finding out a little bit about the area. The hotel sits directly across the lake from Castelgandolfo, the Pope's summer home. The picture to the left was taken from my patio while I was testing my ability to hold still and utilize my 30x digital zoom!

After finding this out I immediately phoned the front desk and had word sent to the Pope to see if he would like to join me for coffee, or purhaps a beer later in the day. It turns out that the pope,at that time, was a wine drinker and refused to have audience with me. (Just kidding! But this may be one of the stories that my Grandson will hear more details about. Shhh! Dont't tell his Grandmother!)

The photo below was taken later that evening. It was really beatiful because from the angle that I was viewing, the sun sat directly behind Catelgandolfo! The next few days I spent working about another 45 mins drive, further from Rome, and returned "home" to my room each night to be greeted with this view. My daily ritual was to enjoy a cappacino while watching the sun rise, work all day, return to "home" to sit on my patio and watch the sunset whil enjoying either a cold biere (beer) or a glass of wine, then sample the finest Italian cuisine for dinner!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I did visit Trivi Fountain and tossed a coin over my shoulder, I will be returning to Rome one day!

Ciao Italia, for now!

Just a few more pictures of Newcastle, England

These are just a couple of castles that were within 2 miles of my hotel. The steps in the one shot lead up to the castle to the left (they made up nearly 1 of the 2 miles). The well was in a clearing about half way up those steps.

That day I definitely earned the Special Bitters that I sampled when I made it back down to the hotel pub!

Time Travel: Fact or Fiction? (or "Look out, the Nerd has a beer!")

So tell me, is "Time Travel" possible?

First off let me give credit where it is due. This post was inspired by my good friend "Florida Cracker" at http://pureflorida.blogspot.com/ from a recent post of his where he apprehended an alleged "Time Traveler". Further credit is due to Albert Einstein who's mathematical reasoning helped to explain what was, until his time, unexplainable. Einstein had a wonderful theory about relativity, which most of you have probably heard of but really didn't take the time to try to understand. It's really common sense once you have explored it, but I'm not going to bore you with too many details. Please feel free to read it if you have trouble sleeping at night (or happen to be a fellow "nerdy scientist")! By using my understanding of Einstein's theory, and a little imagnination, I hope to stimulate your thoughts enough to entertain the idea that "Time Travel" is more than just a plausible theory.

Please do not blame "Florida Cracker" or Albert Einstein for this post, they were merely inspiration and should not be held accountable in any way for the following! ;-)

Now to be clear I'm not talking about traveling through the centuries or visiting another dimension, (come on I admit to being nerdy, but I'm not insane) I'm merely stating my observations. I have the pleasure of working for a truly global company and in my current occupation I have the opportunity to work with some of the world's most innovative scientists. I don't mean for this to sound boastful, but hopefully it will help to explain my postion on this topic. Anyway, I myself work on teams of people that are in several different geographies. Each one of these locations are in different time zones. Because of this my work day can start as early as 6:00AM and end as late as 9:00PM depending upon individual situations.

For example: I am on Eastern Time(ET), but I might need to have a teleconference with someone on Central Time(CT), here in the US, along with someone from Europe, and someone else from Asia. So, (stay with me here) it's 6AM for me, 5AM for CT, Noon for Europe, and 6PM for Asia (based on 24 hour day, standard 12 hr clock). No, this isn't the time travel part, but I needed to explain this to get there.

So let's say that we need to meet in person to have a discussion. So we decide to meet in Europe, because it is as close to a central point as we can get.
(Alright, I will boast a little here. This is the awesome part of my job! I get to travel a bit, and the frequency is just about right. It seems like a trip always comes along about the same time Lightnin asks: "Don't you have someplace to go for a few days?!"; This is also one of the secrets to a good marriage, but that's for another post).
Ok, where was I before I almost bored myself to sleep. Oh yeah, so here comes the math lesson (not really, but it might seem like it). So we meet in Europe at 8AM, that's 1AM to CT, 2AM to me, and 1PM to Asia.

Hang with me here, I'll get to the point in a minute. Get ready though beacause this is where it gets wierd!

I just got off of an 8hr flight, but I'm now 6 hours in the future! Think about that for a minute!
Now try this one: my colleague from Asia just traveled 6hrs into the past, yet we're now in the same place in time! I call my lovely wife to let her know that I have arrived safely. (Hopefully you're keeping up with me) She's 6hrs in the past and I have already traveled through those 6 hours!

If your head is starting to hurt, please take a break and maybe sit down and have a beer, hey that's how all this thinking started anyway!

With business concluded a few days later, I board a flight to return home. This is an 8 hour flight, that will take me to 6hours into the past, but when I arrive it's only 7 hours later (flight left at 10AM and arrived 5PM)! Don't even think about the fact that I have just lived 6 hours twice! (I said, don't think about that).

So, you tell me. Is "Time Travel" possible? Doesn't it happen every day? Maybe I just gave you a reason to read more about the theory of relativity! (OK, but it was worth a try!).

I think the key here is to remember that Time is a man made measurement. This measurement is relative to the distance between sunrise and sunrise, at one particular place on the earth. Once you move to a different place on the earth the original measurement, time in this case, is no longer relative. To say another way: once you leave your timezone that time no loger exists, at least for you, because you are now in a different time!

So again, you tell me Is "Time Travel" possible?

I say: "It's all relative"!



Ok, this is the prize for actually reading the ramblings above. This is a picture of Newcastle, England that I took on one of my trips. There are actually four bridges in the photo.

Beer, Not Just for Breakfast Anymore (or This isn't your Father's Budweiser)

I thought that it was fitting to begin with a couple of commercials that you may or may not remember, depending on your age. The title is a parody of the old Florida Orange Juice commercials by Anita Bryant (I believe she was Miss America, from Florida, back in the late 60's or early 70's), and the alternate is a parody of the Oldsmobile commercials in the 90's.

Anyway surprisingly enough this posting is about beer. Not so much the drinking of it, but the brewing. I do however need to provide you with a little background to get you up to pace with me. I am a registered beer judge and I enjoy the opportunity to help out my fellow brewers by examining their wares and providing helpful tips whenever possible. I was scheduled to do just that on this past Saturday, at a local competition that I like to attend annually. However, sometime during this past week my beloved Lightnin some how broke her foot (again, possibly the subject of a series of posts in the future). Not bad and just above the toes but painful just the same, so I decided that I should saty home to make sure she kept her foot elevated. This was no real problem, as I had already secured my official judging points for the year that are required to keep my license. So I was happy to stay at home and "be of use" to my spouse. Aha, I thought to myself, I can stay home and brew while keeping an eye on her. This is where the real story begins!

I am what you might refer to as a contemporary brewer. I have brewed the classic styles and have awards to attest that I do this very well, but I like to work out in the fringes of what is possible. This time of the year is a good time to brew a hearty drink, a stout for instance, so that is what I decided to do. Not just an ordinary Irish variety that you can find on tap at any respectable pub, but a Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Stout. An Oatmeal stout is typically a bit smoother than the standard dry stout that one might be used to and going a bit heavier on the chocolate malt (not the kind that is served at the soda fountain) would give it a nice flavor to go with the berries. This would go well with a Thanksgiving meal and should be ready to serve by then. So I searched through my records, aha I brewed one back in 2001 I'll use that recipe, but make a double batch (one for actual Thanksgiving, and the other to have on hand when people drop by)!

Now, to step back again for a minute, I should explain that my brewing equipment is about as manual as you can get and yet perform an all-grain process. And I have doubled up on recipes before with great success. I did however forget the physical characteristics of one, make that two, of the ingredients in this recipe. I typically use flaked barely in my stouts, to add some body and head retention (foaming). In this particular recipe I used both flaked barely and flaked oats (basically oat meal), to get a really nice creamy rich texture. Worked great on a single batch!

"Aw man, a stuck sparge!" Some brewing terminology: Sparge is to rinse the grains, keeping the run-off to be boiled and eventually becomes beer. A lautertun is used to set the mash (grains steeped in warm water to convert starches to sugars) in to perfrom the sparge. Well, my lautertun was definitey plugged and there was no sparge occuring! It seems that when you double the amount of flaked grains the percentage of oatmeal (the glumpy looking breakfast food) to cracked grains (usually form a natural filter bed and allows liquids to flow), was high enough to form a rather gelatenous structure that could be used to stop the flow of the Ohio River!

What do I do now? I've got over 20lbs of grain that was mashed in a little over 6 gallons of water, and I have my 10gal of sparge water ready to go. Well, nothing to do but go back to the oldest method of filtering the grains that I could think of. I pulled out the wire mesh straininer and started rinsing sparging the grains by hand. Thereby turning what should have been an enjoyable 6hr brewing session into a 13hr labor intensive mess! So about five hours later I have a brew pot full of good wort (the runn-off from the "sparge"), and a kitchen that looks like a tornado hit it (normally the kitchen is left in tact because I brew all grain outside).

Well from there the rest went according to plans, sort of. There was the extra 4 gallons of wort that was created because sparging through the hand held stainer was less efficient and required more sparge water. This of course had to be boiled down on the stove while the rest of the wort was boiling in my real brew pot. The boiling wort smelled wonderful, especially when the hops are added. Thank goodness Lightnin likes brewing too, she actually appreciated the aroma of the boiling wort and hop mixture in the house, of course she hadn't seen the kitchen yet because she was laying in the other room with her foot elevated (at least for now).

"Oh man, look at the time!" It's already 7:00PM, I've got another couple of hours to go before I'm done. "I hope lightnin isn't starving yet!" Too late! I hear the step-drag, step-drag of an approaching orthopedic damage control boot wearer! Luckily I had thought ahead and grilled out both lunch and dinner meats earlier in the day, but the side dishes would still need to be prepared. She enters the kitchen, smiles and asks "When do you think dinner will be ready?" I responded with "Weeelll, I've got a couple of more hours of brewing,and then theres this mess. Your'e not starving are you?" Then it happened, the worst blow of the day. She says "No, but it looks like you could use some help!" (probably thinking: in more ways then one). She continues "Really, I don't mind getting some of these pots rinsed out and then starting on the vegetables". "After laying around all day with my foot up I was getting a little bit of cabin fever, and needed to get up and move around for awhile".

So admitting defeat, I finished the brewing, Lightnin finished the dinner (and cleaned up part of my mess), and I failed to do what I had originally set out to do! Well , not completely, the beer is fermenting just fine and should be ready for the cranberries by next Saturday. If everything goes as planned the beer should be ready for Thanksgiving.

Sorry there weren't any photos of the operation on this posting, but next weekend I'm planning to brew a Rauchbier (a traditional Bavarian style smoked malt lager) and I'll try to get some pictures of that! It should be more colorful, and possibly more interesting!

Fall Colors

Lightnin and I took a little trip up to Michigan this past weekend, to visit some good friends of ours. As luck would have it the beautiful fall colors were out and I was able to at least get one keeper out of the several photos that I snapped.

It was a cool, slightly overcast day, but I think the photo above is a good representation of what Lightnin, along with most others, would consider to be fall colors. I have to admit that this is one of the pleasures that we have up here in the north, and it seems that we have been lucky to have a truly beautiful display of nature's colors this particular year.
For most folks it is an enjoyable time of the year, when the nights turn cool, the insects reduce in number, and of course the breathtaking views. For me it is merely a warning of the upcoming winter, my least favorite time of the year. Thank goodness for fireplaces!

As I stated above the upper photo represents what Lightnin considers to be beautiful fall colors, however the phot below depicts fall colors through "Thunder Vision". OK a fire in the fireplace alone doesn't get me through the winter, but when combined with my version of fall coloration I can survive.

(Pictured left to right: Canadian Lager, Pale Ale, Red Ale, and Porter)

The beautiful glasssware used in the display, along with luxury B&B accommodations, were provided by our good friends Scott and Tami. Their sons also provided some nice entertainment in the way of Ice Hockey league games (Ice Hockey, by the way, is one of the other pleasures of living up north).

Weird Weather in Ohio

Ok just to make it clear, I'm not whining (at least not in this post), but merely pointing out how weird the weather in Ohio can be. We are centered between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, so we get storm systems that are influenced by both.

Now to top that off Cincinnati is actually located in the Ohio River basin and nestled in between 7 hills. The locals here refer to them as mountains (Mt. Adams, Mt. Auburn, Mt. Lookout, Mt. Whatever...), but if you've been to the Smokies, the Rockies or even the Sierra Madre then you would refer to these as hills, but I digress.
Anyway, I'll start off with this past winter. The day before Christmas Eve we got hit with a storm that dumped our normal year's worth of snow on us in one day. We actually received 24 inches in 24 hours. It was beautiful (notice the photo above), except that my folks were flying in to spend the holiday with us. Yep, they were delayed. It seems that we don't quite have the snow moving equipment to handle storms that are normal in places like Buffalo, NY, who would laugh at this tiny snowfall. It was actully fun because I had just purchased and SUV the year before and I finally had a chance to really test out the 4-wheel-drive capability. I figured that the perfect time to do this was while all of the streets were officially closed by the authorities (naughty?, yes; fun?, Oh yeah!). Well, that's what happens when Canadian air meets Gulf breezes in the winter.

But wait, here comes the weird part. I never would have thought that I'd need to worry about a hurrican in Ohio, but this past summer made me a believer. The photo below is the leading edge of Hurricane Dennis as he entered Ohio. Now by no means am I saying that this storm caused us the distress that it did our southern friends, but it was pretty odd for us. Dennis sat on us for 10 days straight. He gave us 10 days of rain, without even a hint of sunshine. For Ohio this is not even close to normal for July weather. This is what happens when a Gulf storm meets up with Canadian air in the summer time!

I already mentioned our spring and fall (almost summer and almost winter) in a previous post so I won't spend anymore time on them except to add that those are tornado seasons for us.

It's always fun to listen to the weather report to hear the "normals" for each day because the "normal" never seems to happen. It is merely the average of the extremes that we have in this part of the country. So if you're thinking of moving to Ohio because the yearly average temperature is around 73F, just remember that it is the average of the number of days at 20 below zero (F) plus the number of days above 90F and that we rarely if ever actully see 73F for single day's temperature!

GrandParenting (the greatest gig ever!)

Becoming a father was a great experience, but it has its drawbacks. Don’t get me wrong I love it, and wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it’s the worrying about your children. Those of you who are parents know what I’m talking about. You worry if you’re doing a good job as a parent. You worry about how well they’ll do in school. You worry if they’ll grow up to be productive citizens. Even when they’re grown and out of the house you still worry. You worry if they’ll have a decent career. You worry if they’ll meet that special someone, as you have which led to being a parent in the first place. Then you worry if they’ll have children of their own. Well for us at least that last worry is over with for one of our boys.

As I stated earlier, I wouldn’t trade being a parent for anything, but being a Granddad is awesome! We don’t get to go visit the little guy as often as we’d like, but every time we do it’s great! There’s nothing like seeing the eyes of your grandchild light up when he sees you coming. Then there’s the total attention that you get when you talk to him, and of course the giggle-laugh when he gets tickled by something that you say or do. Yep, you just can’t beat that feeling of having someone so special treat you as if you’re the most incredible person on earth. That’s what a Granddad is! Ok lightning, Grandma is a pretty awesome job too!

That reminds me, when we heard that our son (well his wife actually) was expecting my wife asked me if I was going to be a “Good Grandpa”. I replied “well yes, what else could I be?”. To which she replied (without a smile on her face) “You know what I mean are you going to be a Good Grandpa like my Grandpa was to me and like your Dad has been!?”. I replied “Yes of course I will, but I’m going to have fun with them you know mess with their minds a little!” Then I got the look! “Ok, ok I’ll be a good Granddad!”

I do look forward to going fishing, hiking, and sitting around a camp fire (or even the fireplace) and just simply being Granddad. Then when Grandma goes to sleep, and it’s just my little buddy and me sitting by the fire, I’ll tell him about how I invented TV, or the time that I drove my motorcycle across the surface of the moon, or that time that I received a US patent for discovering how to make a non-aqueous liquid laundry detergent with non-chlorinated fabric safe bleach, and then there was that time when……..

Fall in Ohio

Aaah fall in Ohio! Well that's what's happening this weekend. Yep, I said this weekend. Fall is the time of year when we go from airconditioning on Friday to furnace on Sunday! Friday it was sunny and 75F, today it is sunny and 65F, tomorrow is supposed to be partly sunny and 50F for the high. The low tomorrow morning is supposed to be 38F.

We've found that Cincinnati does have four seasons, it's just that if you blink you miss two of them, Spring and Fall. We have Summer, Almost Winter, Winter, and Almost Summer. Summer can last as long as 4 months, or as short as two. Winter usually lasts at least 6 months but has gone 8 before. Almost Summer and Almost Winter usually last less than a month each, and like this year have been known to last a mere weekend. My one, or I guess I should say two saving graces are my fireplaces (one traditional and the other a deck-top or patio fireplace). If not for that I don't think I could make it through the winter.

Yes I'm whining a bit, but you see I lived in Florida for just long enough to get used to the wonderful weather (about 2 years). I definitely have sand in my shoes and will never get it out. My winter depression was so bad at one time that my wife wouldn't let me leave the house by myself with a full tank of gas because I'd be on I-75 headed south faster than you can say "Pina Colada". So now we have not one but two fireplaces. Yes, my wife obviuosly knows enough about psychology to substitute one instinct with another, the the need to migrate south with the basic male interest in fire.

Well, I've split the wood and we're going to sit out on the deck and enjoy a nice fire while welcoming the coming of Winter. It won't be long before we'll have to retreat to the livingroom and burn the fire in there!

Coming soon: Grandparenting, the best gig in the world!

Ok, one last Oktoberfest posting!

Ok I'sure you're getting tired of hearing about the Oktoberfest, but I had to share this one last photo. During the 3 day event we slow roasted 600 chickens and 18 pigs! Now that's a Bar-B-Que Pit!

Three Generations

This photo was actually taken at one of the other club's Oktoberfest's (Germania Verein). We were fortunate enough to have both our son and my parents visit for the weekend, so we took advantage of the event. Three generations of German-American heritage, with some Belgian influence provided by the distinguished looking gentleman on the right. Coming from that background is was only a matter of when, not if, I would start brewing beer.

I mentioned that our son was able to join us. He is actually stationed in Germany at this time, so through him we have come full circle from Germany to the US and back. Just in case you were wondering, yes he spent time in Iraq and made it back and we are very proud of him. It's brave young men like him that preserve our rights to freely celebrate our heritage at events such as these that I have shared with you!



This was a rare photo that I was able ot get of the official tapping of the keg to start the Oktoberfest. Rare, only because the crowd usually pushes up so close, to try to get the first official beer, that you can't get a clear shot of the tapping.

Lederhosen = Chick Magnet

I think the photos speak for themselves!

Donauschwaben Oktoberfest

Cincinnati has a strong German American heritage with at least 4 active organizations that are trying to preserve tradition of music, dancing, food, art, and my favorites: beer, wine, and spirits. We happen to belong to Verein der Donauschwaben. The Donauschwaben was formed by the Danube Schwabians over 50 years ago and is still going strong. Schwabia was a region of Germany near the Danube River prior to WWII. The region was taken by the Nazi’s and the people either fled to other countries, predominantly the US, or were sent to concentration camps. This past weekend we celebrated Oktoberfest, the coming of fall and the anticipation of the harvest. We are proud of the fact that we host the most authentic of the festivals in this area with most of the clubs members dressed in traditional clothing for the entire weekend. The event includes live bands from Germany and Austria, as well as local groups playing traditional German music. Dance groups of all ages also perform throughout the festival. There are different food, game, and merchandise booths and everyone has a good time. Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!

Hops, more than just for beer!

Hops are not only what makes beer smell and taste like beer, but they are an awesome plant. The hops in the picture are Cascade hops, a native American variety. There are many varieties of hops, each one gives different qualities to the beer. Some are more aeromatic, giving good aroma to the beer, while others give better flavor. I started growing hops about 4-5 years ago, the plant pictured here is in it's third season and is doing very well. Hops are a vine plant and like to have lots of direct sunlight, but also require a lot of water. In the peak growing season, mid to late June in Ohio, they will actually grow 3 inches or more in a single day! The flowers, or cones, are what are harvested for use in brewing.