New Mac Mini Server!
It’s me!
After closing my web hosting business last year, I moved all my web domains to a large web hosting company, in hopes of speeding up page loads and increasing reliability. Little did I realize that reliability would actually be significantly worse after the move. My web host, as of yesterday (still un-named, but rhymes with Mo’Baddy:), was causing at least a third of my page views to report web server errors, along with occasionally simply going belly-up for periods of an hour or longer. About four months ago, they notified me that they had moved all my sites to a different shared server to increase reliability. With the move, it got worse.
I’ve been missing the geekiness of hosting my own sites, so I invested in a Mac mini Server and I’m now again hosting the Lazy Brewer completely on my own Internet circuit and personal hardware. Additionally, I’l be hosting my own file, calendar, image upload and mail services. Being a control freak, this makes me happy:)
This little server is also serving as a media server for my family room, using the newly released Plex 9 media server software. It works with the new Plex for iOS iPhone/iPad app that has a remote control for the system, as well as remote viewing of your media. Very, very cool stuff!
Life is good!
Russian River Brewing Company
The secret to a thirty year marriage? Find a beautiful woman who will accompany you on – and be excited about – a craft brewery tour on your 30th anniversary getaway! This is a gallery of pictures from our recent trip to Mendocino – with several stops along the way, and on the way home.
Colona Mexican Lager Tap Handle
Batch 102
I was swapping out some kegs in the kegerator a couple days ago and discovered that my Colona Mexican Lager has only about a gallon left to go before the keg blows. Time to brew it again:)
I named this beer, the first time I brewed it, as a kind of play on words – it’s a clone of Corona – hence Colona.
Lagers aren’t my favorite style, by a long shot, but I do like to have beer available for the masses when they visit Sociables. I will admit that it is a refreshing beer after yard work on warm days! Colona is a crisp lager, bittered with Liberty hops, which have a spicy, earthy quality to them. Think Czech Saaz, only more aromatic and American. The key ingredient is flaked maize, along with some 6-row pale malt, with extra enzymes to help convert the corn. The Colona is cold fermented with White Labs WLP 094, a seasonal yeast, released every spring.
Here’s the recipe:
Colona
1-B Standard American Lager
Author: Mark Ranes
Date: 7/3/10
Size: 10.08 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 263.46 kcal per 16.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.059 (1.040 – 1.050)
Terminal Gravity: 1.015 (1.004 – 1.010)
Color: 3.0 (2.0 – 4.0)
Alcohol: 5.84% (4.2% – 5.1%)
Bitterness: 16.7 (8.0 – 15.0)
Ingredients:
2.0 tbsp 5.2 Ph Buffer – added during mash
10.0 lb Pale Malt (2-row)
4.0 lb Pale Malt (6-row)
1.0 lb 2-Row Carapils Malt
7.0 lb Flaked Corn (Maize)
1.75 oz Liberty (4.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
2.0 ea Whirlfloc – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.25 oz Liberty (4.0%) – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
2000 mL Starter White Labs WLP940 Mexican Lager
Notes
Ferment at 51-53 degrees F for 7 days, then let fermentation warm to 62-64 degrees F for 4-6 days for diacetyl rest, chill 5 degrees F a day until you reach desired lagering temperature. Fine with gelatin or to clarify, carbonate to 2.8 to 3.0.
Flaked Maize for the Colona Mexican Lager
30th Anniversary!
Today marks the 30th anniversary of my wife, Brenda, and I. Mrs. Lazy Brewer doesn’t read this blog, so this post isn’t really being written for her eyes. But, today is a landmark day. Many people don’t reach their 30th anniversary, even with multiple wives/husbands. We did it with just each other – and a couple of kids!
Brenda puts up with all of my quirks, obsessions and hobbies. She keeps our lives in order and is the foundation of our home. She is the glue of our family. And I love her:)
Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale
Brenda and are are escaping the hot Central California summer heat with a road trip to Mendocino. We’re staying a couple nights at the MacCallum House Inn, in downtown Mendocino, and hitting a couple breweries I’ve wanted to visit, for quite some time, on the way north.
First off, we’ll be stopping in Petaluma to visit Lagunitas Brewing Company. I’ve heard wonderful things about their taproom and I’m really looking forward to a visit.
Next, we’ll be stopping for lunch at Santa Rosa’s Russian River Brewing Company, where hopefully I’ll leave with a growler or two of Pliny the Elder – and maybe even Pliny the Younger.
Pliny the Elder
Eventually, we’ll wind up in Mendocino, after about a five hour drive, and take it easy for the rest of the evening. The next day, we’re hoping to head over to Boonville, and visit Anderson Valley Brewing Company for ales and lunch – followed by a bit of wine tasting on the way back to Mendocino. Somehow, I’m also hoping to fit in a visit to Bear Republic Brewing, in Healdsburg. And maybe – just maybe – a stop at Marin Brewing Company, in Larkspur on the way home.
This is an anniversary trip for us. I’m looking forward to spending some time with Brenda – over some quality ales.
Life is good!
Brenda's Deschutes Brewing Tattoo
Brenda and I wanted to try a new beer festival this year and I’ve kind of looked at the Monterey Beer Festival for the last couple of years. We bought tickets about six weeks before the event and they arrived just a couple days after ordering them on the web. That was a good sign! We booked a room at our favorite place to stay in Monterey, the Merritt House Inn, and we were good to go. We tried to find friends to join us, who didn’t already have something going on the weekend of June 5-6, but it was a busy time for all. That was a bad sign!
Saturday morning we jumped in the Audi TT Roadster and headed for the coast. The weather was unseasonably warm for Monterey when we arrived. We checked into the Inn, and then drove over to the Monterey Fairgrounds. We arrived about an hour after the festival started and were amazed to see a line to get in that was probably 2000-3000 people deep! We followed a car into the actual fairgrounds and ended up parking in the arena – with only twenty other cars:) We went to the end of the line, only to hear someone in front of us mention that there was another line at the main entrance that was much shorter, so we headed up to that area.
Cheap Shitty Tasting Cup!
After another fifteen minute wait, with an ID check and bag pat-down, we received out wrist bands and (incredibly cheap shitty little (no offense intended to the Solo cup folks – I use your stuff all the time. Offense intended for the Monterey Beer Festival folks for using such an unclassy tasting container for this event!)) plastic Solo taster cups – and were told not to lose them. That was a bad sign!
Once we actually hit the beer fest area, the first thing we noticed was the sea of humanity, 94.3% of who were between 21 to 26 years of age. By 1:45 pm, many were obviously well on their way to a serious hangover. Another bad sign! We smooshed our way through the crowd to the center corral of tables, only to discover that all of the beer in that area was being served in a frantic, non-stop manner, by MBF folks wearing “Volunteer” t-shirts – not folks from the various breweries. There were cases of unrefrigerated beer stacked behind the poures, who were serving out of the open cases/six-pack holders that had had ice poured on top of the open cases. Again, that was a bad sign!
MBF sea of humanity!
A couple of the breweries’ beers I specifically went to taste, most notably Goose Island, were nowhere to be found. These best of the bunch were ales from Ninkasi Brewing and Deshutes Brewing. Additionally, I finally tasted Sierrra Nevada’s Tumbler Brown Ale, which was good, but not as great as I had hoped. We worked our way around the booths, waited in looooooong lines, and had probably six or seven tasters of beer. By 3:30, many of the booths were out of beer (Sierra Nevada was closing up by this time) and it just further lengthened the remaining lines as the fest goers flocked to the booths that were still pouring beer.
Peter B's IPA - Yum!
We left about 3:30 and headed back to Peter B’s Brewery, in the Portola Plaza for a quiet ale. I had a couple of their awesome IPAs and we noticed that several other more vintage MBF attendees (not in the 21-26 year age bracket:) also stopped by to an ale. After relaxing on Peter B’s patio, we headed over to the wharf for a quiet dinner, where I enjoyed a nice porter with my mussels and sand dabs. It was a great way to cap off a somewhat disappointing day at the Monterey Beer Festival.
Sand Dabs for Dinner!
All in all, we probably won’t be going back to the Monterey Beer Festival. The overly young crowd, focused on quantity, not quality, the long lines, the fact that many beer offerings were gone long before the end of the event, and the fact that the MBF folks seem to have over-sold the attendance, will probably keep us for going back in future years. This is more of an event for those folks looking to get sloshed on mass quantities of beer, not those who are looking to taste several quality ales. I’m sure there are thousands of people who really love this annual event, but it’s just not what I look for in a beer festival. My BrewBuddy Stephen has mentioned the different nature of beer festivals in the past and I wasn’t really sure what he was talking about, but there is a definite difference between a Beer Festival and a Brewer’s Festival. I’ll be attending the latter type of event in the future.
There were positives, though. The food was excellent. We had a couple wonderful sausage sandwiches. There were several high quality breweries there – though I think the quality of their ales was lost on most of the attendees. Finally, it was good to see that MoreBeer had a booth (it was good to chat very briefly with Jesse) serving some homebrew – that was well received by the attendees. And hey, at the end of the day, I was in Monterey with my sweetie:)
