I received my health insurance cards in the mail finally. I rode right away to LensCrafters and got an eye exam.
Then i ordered my glasses. “They’ll be ready by the 7th” they said. They lied. They came early.
Other happenings of this week.
I got my new office chair at work.
Spent a few hours at the beach becoming less white.
Enjoyed a simple birthday that included video chat with Holly and the kids, beach time, dinner at Gordon Biersch with Mary, video chat with Holly and the kids again (at GB so the kids could watch me open presents), and cheesecake.
Some people knit, some paint, some eat, some read, some are sports fans, and others just watch tv. Me? I do beer. And not just in the I’m-gonna-drink-and-forget-life kind of way. I really like beer. Hence the beer making.
Today I went to a new pub called the Real a gastropub. They offers rotating draught beers from 24 taps along with 200+ bottled beers. Tonight I tried a oatmeal mocha stout, a doppelbock, and a bourbon barrel aged scotch ale. They were all delicious. The mocha stout was exactly like the coffee Porter I made last year. The doppelbock was strong and complex, and the Scottish ale was sweet and like nothing I’ve ever tried before. It might just be one of my new favorite beers.
As far as the pub went. Not bad. It was a little on the small size, but had a live blues band and was packed full on a Thursday night. The food was quite good and reasonably priced, although the portions were on the small side. Most food they had contained bacon which is always a plus. This included a bacon cheesecake desert. I didn’t have that though. I had a beef slider with onions, bacon, and blue cheese along with a guinness float for desert. Mmmmm.
Consensus? I am going to have to go back to sample every beer on the menu along with all foods on the menu that don’t contain fish. This might take a while though, as their drink menu changes week to week as the legs empty. 😀
I finally received some of the BYO magazines that were mailed to Maui. One of the issues was full of dark beer deliciousness. Of of the recipes was for a hot chocolate porter. It sounded really good and combined two things I love, beer and chocolate.
Yesterday was my brew day. I set up my tent, table, chair, burner and pot and laid out my grains, hops, chocolate and chili. Then I poured myself a beer and started the process. Five hours later, my beer was in to ferment, equipment cleaned, tent broken down, journal filed out, and spent grains out to fertilize. It was a successful and very satisfying brew day. The grains smelled absolutely wonderful steeping away in the pot. And the chocolate addition made it look like I was making a giant batch of fudge. I can’t wait to drink this.
In the mean time, I’ve checked in on my fermenter and found the closet had the most wonderful smell and the airlock was bubbling away happily. I think I need to clear out the Harry Potter closet so when I have beer in to ferment, I can set up the man chair in there, close the door, read, and take in the wonderful smells that is my beer.
There nothing like a classic Hefeweizen. I’ve worked my way down to a really light beer, and this is the finale. It came out quite wonderful. It tastes just as good as it looks. Feast your eyes on this…
7 lbs. Wheat malt
1.1 lbs. Pilsen
2.4vlbs. Two-row
.25 oz. Hallertau (6.4% a @ 30 min)
.6 oz. Cascade (5.4% a @ 30 min)
WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
Steep grains in 3.9 gallons of water @ 150° F for 60 minutes. Strike with hot water and bring to just over 5 gallons. bring to a boil. Add Hallertau and Cascade and boil for 30 minutes. Filter and cool wort. Pitch yeast. Use a blow off tube and ferment at 69° F for 9 days, then transfer to secondary. Leave for 10 days and bottle with 7.5 oz. corn sugar. Condition for 2weeks.
The day that the boys had to be returned came all too quickly. I felt like we had to cram weeks worth of time into that last day. I really wasn’t ready for it. But we had a good last week. On the 4th of July, we went to the water park with the cousins and watched an amazing fireworks show at Schofield Barracks. Then on the last day before their return, we decided to go fly a kite. We drove to Ala Moana beach park where we had a quick peanut butter and jelly lunch before we busted out our dragon kite. We flew it around the park in perfect weather. The boys had a great time flying the kite and chasing it’s shadow. We got it up there for a good amount of time. Gavin really got quite good at it.
As fun as it was, the boys quickly started to get worn out and were itching to go across the street to the beach. Mary hung out with Leif and I spend most of the beach time with Gavin. I hadn’t felt like I had got to spend enough time with just him this summer. But this was a great day for that. We spent some good quality time together finding coral and shells. We swam and splashed and had a lot of fun. Leif floated around in his tube and played in the sand. Mary spent some time with Leif in the water and then relaxed on the towel watching Leif play. The sun was hot and the weather was perfect.
When it got to be close to dinner time, we packed up our things and went back to the car. It wasn’t hard to get the kids out of the water. We just told them we were going to go to Dave & Busters, which we did. It took a while for the waiters to seat us due to their disorganization, but once we were seated, they were friendly and helpful. We all got ourselves a delicious meal, which the kids devoured instantly, and a couple of power play cards. We took the cards, along with some leftover ones from a previous trip and spent the next 1 1/2 hours playing games. Mary found herself sucked in to the coin drop games. Gavin hit an impossible 450 ticket bonus. Leif ran around like the king of games and played anything we would let him.
At the end of the game playing, Gavin had enough tickets to get himself a hat, and Leif had enough to pick up a little toy bicycle. We all went away happy. We also went away tired. Leif tried so hard to stay awake in the car. He made it most of the way too. He didn’t make it though. He fell asleep very hard a few minutes from the house. Gavin still insisted on being read his book by granny. Leif didn’t twitch a muscle as I slipped him into bed. It’s no surprise that after a day like that, we all slept quite well. The kids got kite flying, swimming at the beach, games, and toys. And I got a full day of quality time with my boys. What more can you ask for in a last day of summer with your kids?
