This and that Friday

This Sunday is the Ride the Drive event in Madison. The green roads will be closed to motorized vehicles from something like 8:00 to 2:00. Just a heads up if you are goign to MadCity.

I'm making a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone and am looking for a good name. It will not be EXACTLY like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale but in the same style. Any ideas?

Also - my rant about the New Glarus Brewing Old English Porter. Upon further review I see that the word "Old" when it comes to Porters is another way of saying "stale" or "sour" Brewed in the "old tradition" which to me are two words I would not really want any of my brews to be associated with.

HOWEVER - I suppose of you like "old" "stale" "sour" beer this must be a very good one. I suppose there are different classes of poop also but that does not make me look for the good poop.

Did you hear that Craft Beer sales rose 9% in the first half of 2009! In 1978 there were less the 100 Craft Brewery's. At the beginning of 2009 there are 1,575. Do ya think the Big boys are noticing?

Imported beer sales dropped 9.5%.

Also - a lot of people that attend the Great Taste of the Midwest are going ga ga of Cask Conditioned Ale. So what the does Cask Conditioned Ale actually mean?

When beer is being brewed CO2 is produced and it is typically vented into the air. Once this process stops the brew is kegged and sealed. The CO2 is forced into the keg and enters the liquid. When you open a bottle or keg that CO2 escapes creating bubbles and carbonation.

Cask Conditioned beer only means that yeast is not filtered out of the beer the brewer is and letting it eat some of the residual sugars (fermentation) to produce CO2 which gets absorbed into the liquid. If you see a bottle that says "bottle conditioned" this is what happened. Over time the bottle will actually become more carbonated and (slightly) higher in alcohol.

Cask conditioned beer is beer that has been naturally carbonated in a keg. All of my beer is naturally carbonated. "bottle conditioned" "cask conditioned" same thing, just a larger vessel.

Speaking of poop.

Blake is funny. In the mornings I whisper because I get up about 10 minutes before DJ so I'm saying "Blake Blake, wanna go out out?" in hushed tones. So he must think he needs to be quite so when he wants to come in he actually whispers "bark bark" very quietly. Every morning "bark bark" but at night it's his normal "BARK BARK" .
--------------------------

Seems all is not wonderful up dar in Minnesoty. Seems some Viking players are not that excited over our former hero Brett being the QB and have come out and said Jackson will give them a better chance to win.

---------------------------

Geez - 63 tomorrow? are you kidding? with the average high of 77 I hope we bounce the other way at some point and hit 90 yet this year. This August we are about half a degree below normal.

El Niño is here! The Climate Prediction Agency is forecasting warmer ON AVERAGE temps all the way through April.

Gotta run
Rod