Good things come to those who wait

Wow, how the fuck is it December 21st already?

Now that there's been over two months of inactivity on this blog, it's probably time for an explanation. It's right there in the blog's tag at the top of the page (if you aren't reading this through a feed reader): "Random nonsense from a thoroughly bored geek / nerd / skeptic." In an unexpected twist, that thoroughly bored person no longer exists; thus no more random nonsense.

Avid followers of this blog may recall a blog post from early this year where I had an online dating mental breakdown and took myself off the market. At that time I wasn't really ready to start dating other people and was only trying to because I thought I had to, to prove that I could. I ultimately made the correct decision at the time to get the fuck out. To help resolve my issues, I spent many hours this summer and fall reading Reddit's relationship_advice and relationships subreddits. Many threads were entertaining, educational, and therapeutic. One recurring theme for those seeking love through online dating was to avoid all other dating sites in favour of the completely free OkCupid. So, in late August, while drunk and lonely, I decided it was time for a second attempt at meeting that special someone, but this time on OkCupid and only OkCupid. My timing could not have been more fortuitous.

My OkCupid profile was pretty bad. Rather than use my standard, over-written profile, I wrote this one from the heart... on the spot... while drunk. It shouldn't have worked. But within a couple of days, I had received my first email.

There wasn't much to that email, and the grammar and spelling were atrocious, but I responded eagerly. Her profile, at least, was interesting, and we seemed to have a lot in common. After a couple of emails, we made arrangements to chat on MSN. I was excited to be back out there, and having much more success this time. But I never chatted with that girl. I was pretty busy at this time, dealing with Christina moving in, and it just never ended up happening.

On September 6th, only a couple of days after getting the first email, I received a second email. Two emails out of the blue within a week of joining an online dating site was pretty unheard of in my experience, so I was a little floored by my luck this time. This second girl was moving to Regina from Halifax in a couple of weeks and had rather obviously sent out a form message to more than just me. Her profile was well written, but I thought she might be a little too pretentiously artsy to enjoy spending time with me. For those and other reasons, I waited a week before responding to her with an uncharacteristically short email. I have to admit that I was surprised when she responded quickly with a second email, but I again, for various reasons that I can't even recall, waited a few days before emailing her back.

I'm pretty lucky that my initially lackadaisical approach with this girl did not sabotage things, because shortly afterwards we were emailing back and forth daily and I warmed up to her in a big way. After a week or so of steady emails, we met in person for dinner and a movie. And then a couple of days later we took in an art opening. And a week later, another movie. And then we played Rock Band and sang karaoke and there was no turning back for me.

Her name is Erin. I am in love with her. I am happier now than I have been in a long time.

Also: way, way busier. Blogging is not high on my list of priorities.

I mentioned earlier that the timing of my OkCupid profile could not have been more fortuitous. That is definitely true. However, there are other matters where the timing of all of this has not been quite so great. And by other matters I primarily mean one other matter. And by that I mean Christina.

Christina moving in with me was supposed to be this great thing to get me out of my rut. And it pretty much worked. For a month and a half, we had a good thing going. But then Erin came into my life and Christina was suddenly unnecessary. (Sorry, Christina, that probably sounds harsh, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) And after a while, when things between Erin and I became serious, Christina's presence became an obstacle in ways I had never anticipated. Obviously, if I had known I would meet someone special in September, I would never have invited Christina to move in with me when she did.

Christina is now investigating her options for moving out well in advance of our original plans. But don't feel too bad for her. If all of this hadn't gone down the way it has gone down, she would have been sitting on her hands in my house for the next nine months. Because of the circumstances, I have escalated the process of paying her out of the terms of our separation agreement. Now she can take her half of my house's equity early and invest in her business and career. She'll be better off for it.

So, what now? I'm not saying that this blog is done. The Week/Month in Review stuff is over, for sure. But I definitely have some more Brewblog posts in me. And I might stop in every once in a while for an update on my life. There will be a lot happening in the coming year.

Brewblog, Entry Nine

Good News, Everyone!

212, which will probably be bottled this weekend, is NOT SOUR. Hallelujah. I don't have to quit brewing (yet).

October 2, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #8 (126)

The plan for this brewday wasn't really to do a Brewniversity beer. Simon had awesomely taken it upon himself to build us a bigger mash cooler (66L vs 45L) to match our big 15 gallon pot, so I let Simon create a 38L recipe for the day based around the malts and hops we had in stock. After seeing that his recipe relied on staggered additions of only Amarillo hops for bittering, flavour, and aroma, I decided to slap on the Brewniversity brand.

Malt-wise, it was more complex than the average Brewniversity, having Victory, Crystal, and Munich malts. But 124 (and 224) had been similar, minus the Victory malt, and had also featured staggered hop additions, so 126 made sense for a label for this brew. To me.

The new cooler wasn't nearly pushed to its limits by this batch. That is excellent because it appears that we should be able to do a big batch of big beer in the future. (Right now I'd argue that we have too much big beer in stock.)

After brewday, we attended the Brewer's Dinner at Beer Bros, featuring Half Pints from Winnipeg. It was fucking awesome! I am relieved that my memory blackout for the day only covered a short period between finishing brewing and arriving at Beer Bros. I now believe in teleportation.

October 9, 2010 - Brewed Vanilla Porter 2 (VP2)

The first plan for this brewday was to attempt a Milk Stout. I failed at Friday afternoon shopping (where the fuck do you buy lactose?) and proposed a second attempt at making a delicious Vanilla Porter as plan B. We decided again to do a big 38L batch, which will give us the fun experimental opportunity to split the batch and do different things with the Robust Porter base. This recipe had only a slightly larger grain bill than the 126, so the new mash tun was again nowhere near capacity.

The original Vanilla Porter had been pretty good. The pure vanilla extract added to secondary had lent a very subtle vanilla-ness. For this batch, I purchased both vanilla extract and vanilla beans. I am not yet sure what quantities of vanilla I am going to add to my half of the batch, but I want it to be much more noticeable this time, without being extreme.

The recipe was slightly modified from the original Vanilla Porter. I adjusted the Black, Chocolate, and Crystal 80 malt quantities, and added Munich Malt, based on what I have learned from the various Scott's Stouts and Imperial Stouts and Honey Nut Brown in the meantime. For hops, I went with only Fuggles this time instead of the Fuggles and Goldings blend from the original.

We did make one interesting process change with this batch. Although my house has a water softener installed, it is not operational, so there theoretically shouldn't be a difference between the drinking water tap and the hot water tap. I am assuming that the water heater doesn't fuck up the water somehow. So, rather than heating cool drinking water on our propane burner, we started each step with 145F hot water from my house, letting the high efficiency natural gas water heater handle the brunt of the work. The savings on time is definitely significant. The savings on propane probably is as well. But it remains to be seen if there is an affect on taste.

Next time on Brewblog?

The tenth Brewblog will likely include the next edition of Tasting Notes, discussing the merits of 224, Honey Nut Brown, Matrimonial Ale 6, and the Wee Heavy at a minimum.

Not sure what we are brewing on Saturday. Or if. I'm a lot distracted right now by life. Not complaining. It's fantastic!

A Month in Review, Sep 7 to Oct 10

Oh, I just remembered I have a blog! Oops...

The month of October has been insanely good for me so far, and I haven't been sitting around doing nothing like I did for most of the past year. After the last Month in Review post, I had intended to get back into Week in Review posts, but that fell by the wayside pretty quickly. (Fuck blogging right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Books

This month, I kept soldiering through the massive tomes that are Steven Erikson's awesome Malazan Book of the Fallen. I completed book five, Midnight Tides, and immediately jumped into book six, The Bonehunters. Midnight Tides was fantastic, dramatic but often hilarious, epic while focused (comparatively), and I read its last five hundred pages in a couple of marathon sessions. The Bonehunters has an early set-piece that is breathtaking in its scope and intensity, but since reading those incredible pages, I have been preoccupied with other things. (Fuck reading right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Music

Two of my favourite bands released new albums in the past month. Anberlin's Dark is the Way, Light is a Place is okay, with the band taking a different somewhat disappointing approach with their sound, while Jimmy Eat World's Invented is fantastic, more than worthy of their impressive discography. The other new release for the month was Weezer's Hurley, a huge improvement over the immature Raditude, but otherwise not really worthy of my blogging effort. (Fuck blogging about Weezer right now. Better things to do.)

Anberlin has now released two less than spectacular albums since their peak with 2007's Cities, so it may be that they don't have another Cities in them. New Surrender was at least Cities-like in its structure and sound, but it felt rushed and was very inconsistent. Dark is the Way... is much more consistent, but in a poppy, boring-ish way. To go from re-recording the rocking "Feel Good Drag" for New Surrender's first single to this is particularly jarring. First single "Impossible" is a pretty good indication of what you are in for with Dark is the Way.... It's a good, light, catchy tune, but it's not great. "To the Wolves" is arguably the best track, but album closer "Depraved" continues Anberlin's trend of interesting album endings.

Jimmy Eat World slumped a little with 2007's Chase This Light, but with Invented they have found a way to successfully fuse the diverse sounds of Clarity, Futures, and Bleed American into a cohesive and interesting whole. Songs like "Heart is Hard to Find," "Coffee and Cigarettes," and the divisive "Higher Devotion" find the band experimenting with new sounds and new energy, while songs like "Movielike" and title-track "Invented" knock me over with their classic Jimmy Eat World brilliance every time. And the increased orchestral presence throughout is very welcome. I am relieved that my faith in Jimmy Eat World (as illustrated by a comment in The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More that they are my favourite band that is still together and at the top of their game) was not at all misplaced.

The Month in Movies

I'm not going to review the first movie I saw this month, romantic comedy Going the Distance with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, because you'll never believe me when I tell you that it is actually quite respectable for its genre. This is not a movie that I would ever see by myself, but I wasn't by myself... and it served its purpose wonderfully.

I would have seen The Social Network by myself--because David Fincher! Aaron Sorkin! Facebook!--but I didn't have to. It's a terrific movie, well acted, funny, moving, frustrating, compelling, fascinating, and brilliantly structured. The bookends are perfect.

The Month in Television

Loved: Dexter (5x1/3), Fringe (3x1-3), Glee (2x3), Mad Men (4x7/9-12), Merlin (3x1/2), Modern Family (2x1-3)
Liked: 30 Rock (5x1-3), The Amazing Race (17x1-3), The Big Bang Theory (4x1-3), Bored to Death (2x3), Chuck (4x1-3), Dexter (5x2), Eureka (4x9), Glee (2x1/2), How I Met Your Mother (6x1-3), Hung (2x10), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (6x1-4), Mad Men (4x8), Merlin (3x3/4), The Office (7x1-3), So You Think You Can Dance Canada (3x12-20), South Park (14x8), Stargate Universe (2x1/2), True Blood (3x12), Warehouse 13 (2x10-12)
Meh: Bored to Death (2x1/2), Entourage (7x10), House (7x1-3)

That's a lot of fucking TV shows. Goddamn. I'm obviously only going to address the highlights and/or lowlights.

The following statement is definitely something that I never thought I would say: the best thing on TV in the past month was the two-part season three premiere of (fucking) Merlin. "The Tears of Uther Pendragon" was dramatic, game-changing (or was it?), epic, and unquestionably the best thing Merlin has ever done. Bravo! Sadly, the next couple of episodes were firmly back in the series' predictable ball-park. And I forgot to download Saturday's episode. (Fuck Merlin right now. Better things to do.)

In other good news, Fringe has been having a fantastic third season so far, awesomely alternating between universes to keep things interesting, Dexter's fifth season is off to an interesting and compelling start, Modern Family seems funnier than ever, Glee is still awesomely stupid, How I Met Your Mother is redeeming itself from a terrible fifth season, and Mad Men finally found its dramatic thrust halfway through its season and won me back in a big way.

In less good (and now old) news, True Blood's third season finale was only okay, which puts it firmly in the disappointing category. Entourage and Hung ended how they started, lame and pretty good respectively. Bored to Death's premiere episode was dumb, dumb, dumb, but episode three was borderline fantastic, so they've earned my time for the rest of the season.

30 Rock, The Office, The Big Bang Theory, and Always Sunny have been fine but otherwise unremarkable. Not the strongest seasons for these shows, but it is not unusual for comedies of this nature to run out of steam after so many seasons. I still enjoy them even if they aren't what they used to be.

Eureka went on hiatus with a strong mid-season finale, but Warehouse 13 very nearly went off the rails with its finale. Yet it was still enjoyable in that ridiculous cheeseball way. Sadly, my favourite cheeseball dramedy, Chuck, has had a disappointing fourth season so far. If it doesn't get better soon, I may have to pretend that the series was actually canceled after its fantastic third season.

I haven't watched Caprica's first couple of episodes yet. (Fuck Caprica... okay, I'm sure you get the point!)

Why do I even fucking watch House?

Brewblog, Entry Eight

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

Son of a bitch!

The sour infection that refuses to die came back to taunt me with our Saison. When I racked it, I was sure it was completely fine, but after a few days in the carboy, there was some unusual fermentation activity (a haze) and I took a sample. Yep, sour! Fuck. Suspecting the source of infection to be the plastic Better Bottle carboy, I isolated the batch and crossed my fingers that this was the end, for reals this time. I had already stopped using the pail that gave us the horrible 112 and slightly less disgusting Sour Strawberry Wheat.

Belgian IPA 2 was most likely fermented in the same pail as the Saison. (I should have been keeping better track of these things.) After primary fermentation, it seemed fine, again, but after racking the ten gallon batch into two carboys, unusual secondary fermentation was again witnessed after a few days. In my Better Bottle, there was strange surface bubbling. In Simon's glass carboy, the surface actually hardened into a crust. Cue panic.

Because BIPA2 had initially seemed fine, Extra Special Bitter 2 was also fermented in the same damn pail. Once again, when I racked it, it seemed completely fine, but after a few days there was suspicious secondary fermentation activity in its two carboys. And a weird smell.

Ridiculously, after racking the ESB2, I then threw a friend's kit beer into that same fucking pail.

It was shortly after this that I decided to buy a new fermentation bucket and start using glass carboys and containers more consistently. I was going to put an end to this infection once and for all.

Oh, wait!

Last weekend, I did another tasting of all of the supposedly infected beers. And they are not sour! Well, no, the Saison is still sour, but everything else seems kinda fine. Good, even. ESB2 has a Belgiany aroma that it shouldn't have, but that's way better than sour, and it may actually be due to stressed yeast rather than infection. Belgian IPA 2 tastes and smells like it probably should. Even that stupid kit beer tasted and smelled like a kit beer, even though I would have sworn it was sour when I racked it. Holy confirmation bias! What the fuck?

I guess this is good news, but it's super confusing. Stay tuned for more details as they are available.

September 11, 2010 - Brewed Bushwakker Imperial Stout Clone (WAK2)

This was an interesting experiment (with results still pending). We had all greatly enjoyed the ALES club Big Brew Day Russian Imperial Stout (WAK) where our only contribution to our bottles was the Wyeast Denny's Favorite 50 yeast and the priming sugar. With the recipe for that big batch freely available, it made sense that we would eventually attempt to replicate that beer with our ingredients and our mash equipment.

I had to scale the recipe down and make some substitutions. We did not have Crystal 120, so I used Crystal 80. We did not have Carafa Malt, so I did a lot of research and determined that our Chocolate Malt would work. We did not have Munich 120, so I devised a combo-substitution of Munich 90 and Black Malt. For hops we had what we needed, namely Columbus and Willamette, but I had to guess at quantities without knowing alpha acid details.

I had originally planned to use an old ranched London Ale yeast for this batch. I created a starter and everything. But our second sour scare was now underway and the starter smelled funny, so I backed away from reusing the yeast and threw in two packets of dry ale yeast instead.

When we racked this beer one week later, the sample definitely showed a lot of promise. The beer hasn't been touched since then. Nothing wrong with bulk aging this batch since we still have a fair bit of WAK left to drink.

September 18, 2010 - Brewed Harvest Ale (HA)

One of the first awesome beers I had as an ALES member was a Pale Ale made with locally grown fresh Cascade hops. Inspired by that, Simon and I both planted rhizomes from that hop plant in our yards. Both of our plants did quite well this year after not doing much last year.

Actually, my plant is fucking ridiculous. SO MUCH HOPS. So it was time to try using them. I had no idea how effective the hops would be, but the standard recommendation is five times as much wet hops as you would usually use of dry pellet hops. With no other evidence, I took that as gospel.

For a recipe, we went with an all Pale Malt grain bill to keep things simple. I picked a pound of hop flowers on Saturday morning, devised a staggered hop addition schedule, and hoped we'd end up with something that tastes like an American Pale Ale in the end.

Um. No. It does not. Based on the sample from racking, it needs way more hops. Dammit. I still intend to dry hop it with more of the fresh hops before bottling. Hopefully a nice pleasant citrus aroma will distract from the bready taste.

September 25, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #7 (212)

Oh, sour 112, you are the absolute worst. How can we learn anything about Goldings hops from your ketchup chips-ness? Trevor had a fantastic idea about using the 112 to marinate meat for a BBQ party. We certainly don't want to drink that shit.

Lucky number seven? 212 was pretty much the exact same recipe as 112, with minor adjustments to Goldings hop quantities. I haven't touched it yet. It had better not be fucking sour. If it is, I quit.

Next time on Brewblog?

Dunno. Hopefully some good news about WAK2's awesomeness. And confirmation that 212 is not sour.

Brewblog, Entry Seven

August 7, 2010 - Brewed Matrimonial Ale 6 (MA6)

With most bottles of Matrimonial Ale 5 gone, it was time to start the cycle all over again. The consensus (two out of three, anyway) for MA6 was that we should try the same Imperial IPA concept of MA5, but with the citrus hops of MA4. And that's pretty much exactly what I devised in BeerSmith on the morning of brew day. I say "pretty much" because I had a new 15 gallon pot to work with.

After using a friend's 8 gallon pot for over a year, we finally saved up enough money to purchase a big pot of our own in July. With twice as much volume to work with in the new boil pot, we are now able to create 10 gallon batches (38L) of some beers instead of the standard 5 gallon (19L). I say "some beers" because we haven't yet upgraded our cooler mash tun, so there are limits on how much grain we can use in a batch. We can easily make 38L of a 4% beer, but as the alcohol content goes up, we can make less and less volume, until we bottom/max (depending on your perspective) out at 19L around 9%.

(We will not brew 38L every brew day, just because we now can. Between only three guys, that's simply too much beer. We just like now having the option to go big if we want to.)

Having previously maxed out our cooler with Blackout Stout, I had a vague idea of how much grain and water I could fit in the mash for MA6. I planned the recipe for a 22L batch of 8% beer, requiring nearly 8 kg of grains. The cooler was definitely maxed out once again.

I had been very happy with the Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast's performance with the Wee Heavy so I wanted to give it another chance to impress on a strong beer. My first attempt to reuse a ranched yeast (the Denny's Favorite 50 in MA5) had been a dismal failure, but I was confident that a yeast starter was key to success. And I was right. MA6 had a very healthy primary fermentation with more than a foot of krausen and better than expected attenuation. Like the Wee Heavy before it, MA6 easily crossed the 9% threshold.

MA6 was bottled on September 4, so I will reserve comments on the finished product for a few more weeks. The samples have been promising. The dry hopped aroma is excellent.

The Matrimonial Ale series, for me at least, has always been about experimenting with American IPA and Imperial IPA recipes to find what kind of crazy things we can make, but one member of the club wants us to settle on an MA recipe and start making that over and over. I expect that MA4 will be the model for future Matrimonial Ales, putting the series firmly back in American IPA territory (it started American, went Imperial by accident, then American, American, Imperial, Imperial).

However, as a big fan of MA5 and hopefully MA6, I am not giving up on the Imperial IPA series. So I need a new name. Aside from Blackout Stout, I haven't really done anything creative with our beer names. Matrimonial Ale was not my idea. Everything else is just named after its style. It's a little boring. But I'm a little boring. So, "Imperial IPA" it is?

August 21, 2010 - Brewed Belgian IPA 2 (BIPA2)

The first Belgian IPA was soured and a big disappointment, but everyone liked the concept enough to try it as our first 38L batch. The plan was to bottle 19L in the standard way but keg the other 19L in Simon's newish kegerator setup. In a month or so, we will do a bottle vs. keg taste challenge.

Not coincidentally, the size of the grain bill for the Belgian IPA 2 was identical to the previous week's Matrimonial Ale 6, maxing out the mash cooler. The extra volume for BIPA2 was added during the sparge process. Ignoring the size difference, the recipe was only slightly revised from the original BIPA, with the same hops, malts, and yeast.

For this double batch, we used the Wyeast Belgian Abbey II liquid yeast that had been ranched from Trevor's Blonde. That yeast has been in my fridge for a few months, and had been ranched and cleaned sloppily and possibly incorrectly, but I made a starter for it two days before brew day, and it seemed healthy enough. And it was. It did quite well.

Simon, unsurprisingly and understandably, wants nothing to do with the sour epidemic of this summer, so his half of the Belgian IPA is currently sitting in a glass carboy, just in case. So far I have detected no obvious sourness in the Belgian IPA, but I am checking on a weekly basis out of paranoia.

August 28, 2010 - Brewed Extra Special Bitter 2 (ESB2)

On this brew day, we wanted to do another big batch (35L or so) to split between bottles and a keg, but of a simple light beer. English Pale Ale was a good fit, especially considering the unused Wyeast London Ale III yeast sitting in my fridge. The first Extra Special Bitter (aka English Pale Ale) was brewed well over a year ago, and I can barely remember how it tasted. In the meantime, we have brewed two Standard Bitters that were solid if unspectacular.

I completely ignored the recipe from our original ESB, instead taking inspiration from various online recipes and our previous Standard Bitters. For malts, it was mostly Pale, with some Crystal 80 and a little Biscuit. For hops, I went with Northern Brewer for bitterness, Goldings for flavour, and Fuggles for aroma.

As I write this, I am racking ESB2 into its two carboys. I detected no sourness in the sample. And it seems like it will be a crisp, refreshing, mildly bitter brew. Nice.

September 4, 2010 - Brewed Simon's Sapporo Lager (SSL)

We don't make many lagers. They require tight temperature control and at temperatures much lower than you'll find anywhere in my house. The first, a Pilsner, fermented and lagered in Simon's basement, had turned out okay (once the sulfur smell went away) despite being fermented and especially lagered at higher than recommended temperatures. But with Simon's kegerator setup, making lagers properly is now a much more realistic prospect.

For our first kegerator lager, Simon wanted to try to make a Japanese rice lager like a Sapporo, so that's what we did. All we could get on short notice was two pounds of rice flakes, so eighty percent of the grain bill was still Pale Malt. I did some research on hops and determined that Saaz and Hallertau were the best fit for bitterness and flavour/aroma respectively.

Other than the rice flakes in the mash, it was a pretty standard brew day. We did only 19L for this batch so it can all be kegged.

Next time on Brewblog

As I conclude this post, I am preparing the London Ale yeast starter for Saturday's Imperial Stout.

A Month in Review, Aug 8 to Sep 6

For a month in review post, this one is actually quite short. I haven't really done that much of note in the last month. Christina moved in, so there was that. And we watched a lot of episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and Queer as Folk. And I've read a lot of reddit threads. And I've been busy at work for a nice change. And I listened to a ton of music as research for the favourite albums posts. It was overall a pretty good month, just not very blogworthy.

The Month in Movies

I can't believe I forgot to review Inception last time. As a big fan of Christopher Nolan's films (Memento and The Prestige, mostly), I was quite excited to see his latest mindbender. What took me by surprise was the fact that it is actually a pretty straightforward storyline. The ending is left open to interpretation, but Inception is otherwise completely logical in structure and easy to follow, once you accept the premise's rules. Repeat viewings are not required to understand Inception, but there are enough details and subtleties to keep the movie interesting in repeat viewings. That is good movie-making. And Inception also features top-notch acting and action. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's zero-gravity scenes were the highlight for me.

As good as Inception was, I enjoyed Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World even more. I haven't read the source material (soon?), but this live-action video game of a movie was entertaining from start to finish, features one of the coolest soundtracks I've ever heard, and even made me like Michael Cera again. From Spaced to Shaun of the Dead to Hot Fuzz to this, Edgar Wright has yet to disappoint.

The Month in Music

Disturbed's "Asylum," released August 31, is a solid hard-rock album. All of the songs are pretty good, but there is an undeniable sameness to a lot of Disturbed's songs since 2002's "Believe," and I certainly don't think they broke out of that rut with "Asylum." Disturbed is clearly unconcerned with diversity. "Asylum" is a more consistent album than 2008's "Indestructible," but "Indestructible" had better stand-out moments, so I'll call them even. Best Disturbed album is... hmmm... I'll go with "Ten Thousand Fists," I guess.

The Month in Television

My first TV task of August was catching up with Eureka's in-progress fourth season, which has surprisingly been the best season of the series to date. The writers took a big risk in the season premiere that could easily have backfired in a huge way, but have so far managed to make it work rather well.

More recently, I also finished all six series/seasons of hilarious British comedy Peep Show. This series might just be my new favourite comedy series of all time. If I compare only its first two seasons with the two seasons of The Office, The Office wins, but Peep Show kept getting better throughout its third season and hit its comedy genius stride in season four. It's embarrassing how often I identify with pathetic sad sack Mark Corrigan. A seventh season is coming later this fall, so: yay!

It is now September, so that means the return of endless television viewing. I'm looking forward to (in alphabetical order) 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory, Chuck, Dexter, Fringe, fucking Glee, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Modern Family, The Office, South Park, and Stargate Universe. I'm reluctantly also going to watch The Amazing Race, House, How I Met Your Mother, and Merlin. I'm undecided about Survivor. And I'm annoyed that Caprica and Parks and Recreation are being held for midseason.

As for new shows, I'm not watching any of them, at least not at first. Not even the promising No Ordinary Family. I can always catch up later if the buzz is strong.

Loved: Futurama (7x9-12), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x10), Sherlock (1x3)
Liked: Eureka (4x6-8), Hung (2x6-9), Mad Men (4x3-7), So You Think You Can Dance (7x22/23), So You Think You Can Dance Canada (3x1-11), True Blood (3x8-11), Warehouse 13 (2x6-9)
Meh: Entourage (7x6-9)

In the best news of the month, Futurama continues to kick all kinds of ass. I can definitely count on twenty minutes of hilarity every week.

Sherlock's third episode/movie, "The Great Game," was the second best of the three, ending with quite the unexpected jolt. I'm looking forward to more of this series, in a year or two or whenever...

Bullshit's season finale, "Vaccinations," was definitely one of the strongest episodes in the eighth season. In particular, the duo's episode-opening demonstration of the effectiveness of vaccinations was eye-opening. Anti-vaxxers need to fuck off and die.

Eureka and Warehouse 13 had fun crossovers this month that I enjoyed. Eureka has definitely been the better of these two similar silly shows this season, but I nearly always guiltily enjoy both.

Sadly, I'm getting a little bored with the rest of the shows. Like with its second season, True Blood's third season lost a lot of momentum in the second half and is now getting kinda boring sometimes. Mad Men seems to have no dramatic thrust this season, so is just there. Hung is still mostly just okay. Entourage is up and down and all over the place. The three HBO shows end their seasons this coming Sunday. I am still pretty excited for True Blood's finale, as episode eleven did have quite the awesome cliffhanger ending. Perpetually overrated Emmy-winner Mad Men still has half a season to impress.

The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More, Part 3

Wow, I've been busy these past couple of weeks...

Better late than never, at long last, I present my top five favourite albums. To make up for the delay, I put a little more effort into each entry this time, including my favourite lyrics from my favourite songs.

If you are late to the party, please check out part one and part two.

5. Catherine Wheel - Happy Days (1995)

The video from Waydown was my introduction to Catherine Wheel. I didn't know what to make of it at first, but it was in heavy rotation on MuchMusic in 1995 and grew on me to the point where buying the album became a necessity. It's fun to remember those days when music wasn't so easily sampled for free, buying albums based on one song you liked was common, and you often quickly came to regret the fifteen bucks you had just wasted. Some music stores let you sample the album in-store, but I rarely took advantage of that; I was a risk taker. This particular risk was well worth it. Happy Days is the best album I ever purchased on the strength of only one song without any prior exposure to the band.

It was only when I checked out Catherine Wheel's previous albums that I realized how much of a departure Happy Days was for the band. Fans of Ferment and Chrome, their two quite similar previous albums, were not necessarily fans of Happy Days. The lyrics and vocals have an awesome angry edge, and it is a much harder rocking album musically. Catherine Wheel continued to change their sound significantly with their final two albums, Adam and Eve and Wishville, because they insisted on never stagnating. I love all of Catherine Wheel's albums, but Happy Days is the one that I fell in love with first, and you never forget your first.

Essential Tracks:
"Waydown" - "I breed deep in me a beautiful thing / And I need energy for my beautiful thing / But pain for days has stayed with me / Expect to see some change in me"
"Heal" - "I can climb a tree and push up through the leaves 'cause / Only when I try am I happier to see / My head's in some kind of space where boyhood used to be / It's how high you are and the time it takes to heal"
"Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck" - "Eat my dust you insensitive fuck"
"Shocking" - "But won't you listen to me, why can't you believe / That you're breaking my heart / And these moments were part of our lives / And it destroys me to see you destroy them / Every time"

Filler Track: "Fizzy Love"

Runner-Up: Chrome (1993) - "The Nude"

4. Silverchair - Diorama (2002)

Diorama is one of those albums that comes out of nowhere to completely blow you away. Previously, I had only moderate interest in Silverchair, just enough to pick up their "Best Of" album at a used CD shop in the winter of 2001/2002. The best song on that greatest hits collection was "Emotion Sickness," an awesome orchestrated rock ballad that showed promise of much greater things to come. Now much more curious about Silverchair, I also tracked down a used copy of 1999's Neon Ballroom, which is definitely a solid rock album, but with no other songs in the same league as "Emotion Sickness." The next album, Diorama, was the much greater things.

As soon as "Across the Night" starts, you know you are in for something special. I've always been a huge fan of orchestrated rock music; the orchestration just gives it that extra kick, a little epicness. Diorama is the best orchestrated rock album in my collection. The influence of the orchestration ranges from subtle touches in some of the harder rocking songs to songs that are effectively built around the orchestration. Another big reason Diorama stays in my playlist is the diversity of songs. In this one album, there are brilliantly quirky songs "Across the Night" and "Tuna in the Brine," awesome hard rocking songs like "Without You" and "One Way Mule," and beautiful ballads like "World Upon Your Shoulders" and "After All These Years." This is an album that repeatedly rewards the listener from beginning to end.

Essential Tracks:
"Across the Night" - "Never seen the sunshine / From higher points than sunrise / I don't wanna be lonely / I just wanna be alone"
"Without You" - "Old incisions refusing to stay / Like the sun through the trees on a cloudy day"
"Too Much of Not Enough" - "A close look at something so close / It's too much of not enough / When all we need is just a taste"
"After All These Years" - "All those years / I was hurting to feel / Something more than life"

Filler Track: "The Lever"

3. King's X - Please Come Home...Mr. Bulbous (2000)

King's X's Please Come Home...Mr. Bulbous (herein referred to as PCHMB) has a lot of elements working against it. It was written and recorded spontaneously in studio as an experiment, entirely self-produced, features the most ridiculous title and cover art in my entire collection, has foreign language tongue twisters between tracks, jumps from lyrical absurdity to profundity between songs and sometimes within songs, and even includes a beat poetry breakdown. All of these elements actually lend the album a quirky charm. PCHMB is a diverse, crazy mish-mash of an album that works because the songs all work.

Although the members of King's X always share writing credits on all of their songs, on most of their albums it is not difficult to pick out which songs were originally written by Ty or Doug or Jerry, as they all bring different sensibilities to the music. And that is a big reason why PCHMB is special, because the songs don't feel like Ty or Doug or Jerry songs, but Ty and Doug and Jerry songs. And this group effort led to some of the band's best, most melodic songs, really living up to their reputation as the hard rock Beatles, and some of my favourite songs of all time. "She's Gone Away" and "Bitter Sweet" are my favourite songs about marital separation; "Move Me" (annoyingly split over tracks nine and ten) is my favourite song about losing faith in god; "Smudge" and "Charlie Sheen" are my favourite songs about complete nonsense; "Julia" is my favourite song about Julia. (Yes, that last sentence was largely a joke.) PCHMB is a quick listen, far, far too short, leaving you wanting much more, but that's ultimately the best thing you can ask for from an album.

Having said all that, there is no way that I could claim with a straight face that PCHMB is King's X's best album. That honour belongs to 1994's Dogman, which, like Catherine Wheel's Happy Days, found the band at their angriest and hardest rocking. Old school fans might go with 1989's Gretchen Goes to Nebraska, but Dogman was my first King's X.

Essential Tracks:
"She's Gone Away" - "I've got a lot I call my own / My house is full of things / But it's just an empty home / And all day long I walk around / Seeing reminders and reliving all I've found / She's gone away"
"Smudge" - "Any day... yesterday... there's tomorrow to say / Let's forget it anyway"
"Bitter Sweet" - "Ever reading... something's bleeding in my soul / And I can't seem to fill up the hole / And I love you... thinking of you... bitter sweet / So I bury the feeling and empty my head / Just to sleep... too deep"
"Move Me" - "Wish I could whisper how much I need you / After tomorrow I might forget to / If it's only from a story"

Filler Track: "When You're Scared"

Runner-Up: Dogman (1994) - "Cigarettes"

2. Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (1999)

I have already told the story of how I discovered Jimmy Eat World in my second Soundtrack post, so I won't repeat that here. Once again, thanks former co-worker!

Clarity is another diverse album. (If you are starting to notice a pattern, that's because diversity is very important.) It is also unique. Opening track "Table for Glasses" is a slow, quiet, amazing song, not at all representative of Jimmy Eat World or the rest of the album. Album-ending track "Goodbye Sky Harbor," which is awesomely rockified when played live, is seemingly over after three minutes but somehow keeps going for another thirteen. (I used to despise that repetitive instrumental ending, but it grew on me as I started noticing the subtleties of the changing arrangement.) In between, there are catchy pop songs "Lucky Denver Mint" and "Believe in What You Want," rockers "Your New Aesthetic" and "Crush" and "Blister" and "Clarity," epic "Just Watch the Fireworks," and beautiful songs "Ten," "A Sunday," and "For Me This is Heaven." And then there is "12.23.95," the one song that I wish had been left off the album; it's pretty, albeit a little boring, but its worst offense is that it is a fucking Christmas song. It is not bad enough to tarnish the album, but I have been known to pretend that "Ten" comes after "Crush."

Clarity was a major departure, and significant step up, from Jimmy Eat World's emocore major label debut, Static Prevails, and while some of their newer albums have approached its quality level, most notably 2004's Futures, it is still their best overall album. Seeing as Jimmy Eat World is my favourite band that is still together and still at the top of their game, it should make sense that they come in pretty high on this list.

Essential Tracks:
"Table for Glasses" - "Not asking of me anything / Saying nothing about what it means / Without anybody telling me what I should feel / Lead my skeptic sight"
"Just Watch the Fireworks" - "What giving up gives you / And where giving up takes you / I've had and I've been / Here in center frame / Here, there's only air / And just enough space to fit"
"For Me This is Heaven" - "And the time's such clumsy time / In deciding if it's time / I'm careful but not sure how it goes / You can lose yourself in your courage"
"Clarity" - "Wait for something better / Will I know when it can be us? / Wait for something better / Maybe that doesn't mean us / Wait for something better? / I shouldn't, it's not enough / Pull one excuse from another"

Filler Track: "12.23.95"

Runner-Up: Futures (2004) - "23"

And, Now, The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

1. Live - Throwing Copper (1994)

Like Catherine Wheel, I was introduced to Live by the heavy rotation of their first single "Selling the Drama" on MuchMusic. It was awesome, but I was hesitant to buy the album Throwing Copper based on only the one song. (The difference between this situation and the Catherine Wheel situation is that Throwing Copper was released in 1994, when I was a poor high school student with no job, and Happy Days was released in 1995, when I was heading off to university with lots of money from a summer job and scholarships.) The next single, "I Alone," tempted me further, but I was still broke and very frugal. By the time "Lightning Crashes" was in heavy rotation both on MuchMusic and local radio, I could no longer resist Throwing Copper's pull. Three amazing singles in a row was enough justification to spend fifteen bucks of my birthday money.

It should come as no surprise at this point to read that Throwing Copper is a diverse album. Between the distorted wailing vocals of slow-building album opener "The Dam at Otter Creek" and country-infused hidden track "Horse," numerous alternative rock styles are represented. A number of the songs rely on predictable quiet verses, louder choruses song-writing, but that shit is classic and overused because it works. And Live mixes it up wonderfully with a "Top" here and a "Stage" there. And then they throw in the indescribably fantastic "Waitress" and the epic "Pillar of Davidson." Every song on Throwing Copper is terrific in its own way.

Throwing Copper is easily Live's best album. I was never a big fan of their debut album Mental Jewelry, which makes Throwing Copper a hell of a sophomore improvement. 1997's Secret Samadhi and 1999's The Distance to Here have some excellent songs, but are much less consistently strong throughout. There was a brief time that I considered The Distance to Here to be Live's best album, but those days are long gone. The band almost went completely off the rails with 2001's V, but 2003's Birds of Pray was a surprisingly strong recovery and the last worthy Live album. 2006's Songs from Black Mountain commits the unforgivable sin of being thoroughly boring. And then Ed Kowalczyk went full dick and screwed over his bandmates and Live is no more. What a sad ending to my favourite band from 1995 to 2000.

Essential Tracks:
"Selling the Drama" - "And to Christ: a cross / And to me: a chair / I will sit and earn the ransom / From up here"
"Lightning Crashes" - "Lightning crashes, a new mother cries / Her placenta falls to the floor / The angel opens her eyes / The confusion sets in / Before the doctor can even close the door"
"Waitress" - "After all, everybody's good enough / For some change / Some fucking change!"
"Pillar of Davidson" - "Warm bodies, I sense / are not machines that can only make money / Past, perfect, tense / Words for a feeling and all I've discovered"

Filler Track: "Iris"

The End... finally!

Now back to regularly schedule blog content. Brewblog and Month in Review posts should show up early next week... I hope. And, next Friday is my one year blogiversary!

The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More, Part 2

In part one, I listed ten of my favourite albums that I can't get enough of. If you haven't read part one yet, you should obviously start there.

Before I get into the top ten, what about those albums that didn't quite crack the top twenty but were damn close and are at least worthy of a brief mention?

Honourable Mentions

The following albums are presented in alphabetical order by band name.

Collective Soul - Collective Soul (1995)
Essential Tracks: "Untitled," "The World I Know," "Where the River Flows," "Gel"
Filler Track: "Bleed"

Copeland - You Are My Sunshine (2008)
Essential Tracks: "Should You Return," "The Grey Man," "On the Safest Ledge," "What Do I Know?"
Filler Track: "Strange and Unprepared"

Extreme - III Sides to Every Story (1992)
Essential Tracks: "Warheads," "Stop the World," "Rise 'N Shine," "Who Cares?"
Filler Track: "Seven Sundays"

Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape (1997)
Essential Tracks: "Monkey Wrench," "Hey, Johnny Park!" "My Hero," "Everlong"
Filler Track: "See You"

Galactic Cowboys - Space In Your Face (1993)
Essential Tracks: "You Make Me Smile, " I Do What I Do," "Blind," "About Mrs. Leslie"
Filler Track: "Space in Your Face"

Incubus - A Crow Left of the Murder... (2004)
Essential Tracks: "Agoraphobia," "Talk Shows on Mute," "Southern Girl," "Here in My Room"
Filler Track: "Priceless"

Mae - The Everglow (2005)
Essential Tracks: "We're So Far Away," "Someone Else's Arms," "The Ocean," "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making"
Filler Track: "Anything"

Pixies - Doolittle (1989)
Essential Tracks: "Wave of Mutilation," "Here Comes Your Man," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," "La La Love You"
Filler Track: "Crackity Jones"

Radiohead - The Bends (1995)
Essential Tracks: "Fake Plastic Trees," "Just," "My Iron Lung," "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
Filler Track: "Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was"

The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)
Essential Tracks: "Cherub Rock," "Today," "Disarm," "Mayonaise"
Filler Track: "Sweet Sweet"

Without Further Ado: The Top Ten

10. Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999)

Dream Theater is composed of some of the best musicians on the planet, so impressive musicianship is expected. But their song writing is hit and miss, so this can lead to excessive noodling and showing off, and songs that are three times longer than they need to be. James LaBrie's vocals are sometimes thin and he is easily the band's weakest element. All of these issues arguably apply to Scenes from a Memory, but it is still 77 minutes of pure heavy metal magic and Dream Theater's best album by a wide margin.

Scenes from a Memory is an elaborate concept album about past lives, illicit love, and murder, opening with a session of hypno-regression and ending with an unexpected jolt. There is no album that I've listened to from start to finish in my car more times than this one. It's an awesome album for a long drive.

Essential Tracks: "Overture 1928," "Strange Deja Vu," "Home," "Finally Free"
Filler Track: "Through Her Eyes"

9. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia (2002)

I remember the first time I heard Porcupine Tree's "Blackest Eyes," album opener to In Absentia. It was a bizarre blend of heavy metal with REM/U2-style pop rock, and I wasn't sure if I liked it. This was another Amazon.com recommendation, and I had purchased it entirely unheard on the strength of the rave reviews. Fortunately, second song "Trains" was an instant classic, soon becoming one of my favourite songs of all time. And I now love "Blackest Eyes," too.

In Absentia is a diverse progressive rock album, with no two songs sounding alike. It is arguably a concept album about social deviants, but that's not a major factor in my enjoyment of it. It is musically adventurous, unendingly interesting, and, like all Porcupine Tree albums, even better in DVD Audio surround sound. I'm also a big fan of Steven Wilson's atmospheric, layered vocals.

Essential Tracks: "Trains," "The Sound of Muzak," "Gravity Eyelids," "Heartattack in a Lay By"
Filler Track: "Wedding Nails"
Runner-Up: The Incident (2009) - "The Incident"

8. Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance (2000)

What is amazing about The Swiss Army Romance is that it is only Chris Carrabba and his acoustic guitar (plus awesome use of female backing vocals), but it never feels like anything is missing. His guitar playing is brilliantly rhythmic and almost percussive, providing a surprisingly complete soundscape for his passionate vocals to soar over top of. I was doing similar things with my acoustic guitar before I knew Dashboard Confessional even existed, but I was never even close to this successful at it.

Most importantly, every song on The Swiss Army Romance is something special. There are few albums that are this emotional, this powerful, while being so deceptively simple.

Essential Tracks: "The Sharp Hint of New Tears," "Turpentine Chaser," "A Plain Morning," "Age Six Racer"
Filler Track: "Living in Your Letters"
Runner-Up: So Impossible (2001) - "Hands Down"

7. Alice in Chains - Dirt (1992)

Alice in Chains was the best thing to come out of the Seattle grunge scene of the early 90s (even though it is tough to compare their distinctive sound to other great Seattle bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana), and Dirt is their undisputed masterpiece. Lyrically dark and honest, musically eerie and unique. Years before I was doing the Dashboard Confessional thing with my music, I was trying to do something more like this, but with none of the life experience and absolutely no understanding of real pain. (And no guitar skills anywhere near Jerry Cantrell, who was my guitar hero until Ty Tabor came along.)

Essential Tracks: "Them Bones," "Rooster," "Angry Chair," "Would?"
Filler Track: "Hate To Feel"
Runner-Up: Jar of Flies (1994) - "Nutshell"

6. Green Day - American Idiot (2004)

I was a pretty big fan of Green Day during the Dookie era, but they dropped off my radar in a big way in the mid-90s. When American Idiot was released, it received mostly rave reviews, but I was skeptical and held off checking it out until the release of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" as a single. When I finally listened to it, I was definitely impressed. Green Day had come a long way from Dookie. "Jesus of Suburbia" was an amazing achievement for the band. But I still didn't really care. I didn't give the album the time it deserved.

Fast forward to 2009 and the release of 21st Century Breakdown. Impressed again by Green Day's growth, I gave American Idiot another listen. And, holy shit, this whole album is fantastic! Where previously I had fixated on "Jesus of Suburbia" and the singles, and hadn't really paid attention to the through story, I was now recognizing the album's depth. Every song adds to the whole. It is not only one of the best concept albums in my collection, it has become one of my favourite albums period. I don't even really consider myself to be a Green Day fan, but... probably I should.

Essential Tracks: "Jesus of Suburbia," "Give Me Novocaine," "Wake Me Up When September Ends," "Homecoming"
Filler Track: "She's a Rebel"

To be continued... again... sigh.

Sorry, due to time constraints, I am saving the top five for part three, hopefully going live later this week.

Three of the top five have already been sussed out by my brother in the comments to part one, if you are curious. My brother isn't really familiar with 5 and 3, so it's not a big surprise that he didn't figure those out.

Edited to add: part three is here.

Money and Happiness

This is a rare spur of the moment blog post. On this fine Friday night, I have absolutely nothing to do. I'm all caught up on my TV, except for the shows I'm saving to watch with Christina. I took care of some brewing tasks, but those details will be saved for the next Brewblog (spoiler: another sour beer?!) which I guess I could have written right now instead of this--but no!

I'm sitting outside on my patio swing, patiently waiting for my ThermaCell to scare away the mosquitoes, blogging while drinking an amazingly delicious Honey Nut Brown--we made this, you guys!--and enjoying every minute of it. Daisy and Duke are frustrated; I think they just want to go downstairs and relax on the couch, but fuck them.

I've recently realized something profound that I need to blog about. The realization was triggered by a raise at work that bumped me into six figures (one milli--er, no, that's just one hundred thousand...). And it was the following: holy shit, I'm rich! And then: where the hell does all my money go?

Actually, I know very well where all my money is going. I don't know anyone that budgets and records expenses as thoroughly as I do. So this allows me to say with 100% confidence that I have been led astray by the motherfucking American dream for far too long.

Of the five thousands of dollars that are deposited into my bank account every month, a large portion (approximately 35%) goes to my non-voluntary living expenses (mortgage, property taxes, utilities, etc.). That's life. Approximately 10% goes to Christina (down from nearly 20% last year), but that's actually far less than the amount that went to her when she was my wife, so I'm not too annoyed by that. That leaves... hm, let me see... 55%? What? Seriously?

That's a lot of money. But I'm not writing this post to brag about how much money I have. Because I don't have lots of money. More than half of that discretionary spending money is put towards my stupidly large debt every month. Dammit, Past Scott, what were you thinking?

Past Scott was a sucker. He believed capitalism's lies that having stuff will make you happy. "I will take all of my money and buy stuff," Past Scott said, "and then I will be happy." Sadly, happiness still eluded Past Scott. But capitalism had a solution. "I can't quite afford this super awesome stuff right now, but I will pay for it with credit and then I will be happy."

Now Scott wishes he could punch Past Scott in the face. Now Scott knows that buying stuff can not ever make you happy. So, what does make Now Scott happy? Experiences!

I am greatly reducing my spending on stuff. And when I say stuff, I mean consumer goods. I don't need to buy that new Blu-ray movie; I can just pira--er, I mean, rent it through legal means, of course. I don't need a new TV. I don't need a new car. I don't need new anything. I have everything I could ever possibly need when it comes to stuff.

I want to spend my money on experiences. I want to travel. I want to spend time in places that I love. And I want to see places that I've never seen. I want to drink expensive beers that I love. And I want to drink crazy beers that I've never drank. I want to eat expensive foods that I love. And I want to eat crazy foods that I've never eaten. I want to live. Having stuff is not living. Doing stuff is living.

Now Scott is going to live, dammit! And maybe happiness will follow...?

The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More, Part 1

As I mentioned in my previous Month in Review post, I don't blog nearly enough about music considering how hugely important it is to my life. The concept of this post, a discussion of my favourite albums of all time ("desert island discs," if you will), has been banging around inside my head for a few months, but it was only recently that I started putting it down on "paper."

The following list would be somewhat different if I took a Soundtrack to My Movie approach to it, but what I wanted to do was actually talk about my favourite albums now, not albums that were awesome in their day. If I can still listen to the album as a whole today and love nearly every minute of it, it belongs on this list. I had one simple rule, only one album by any given band, which gave me a hell of a challenge at times.

The list is more or less presented in opposite order of preference--so the best is saved for last, of course!--although that is a little absurd when they are all albums I love. I will attempt to justify each album's placement in the list with a short discussion of its merits. After each entry, I have also listed: the four best songs on the album, in order of their appearance; the one song that I could take or leave (ignoring short instrumentals and hidden tracks); and, if I had a tough choice picking only one album from a given band, I cheated and listed that band's second best album along with its highlight track, just to confuse the matter. You should not be surprised to see a lot of overlap with the Soundtrack to My Movie (and I do strongly recommend starting with that post before reading this one).

20. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil (2005)

I only started listening to Avenged Sevenfold in 2009. Every other band and album in this list has been a part of my life for years. This made it tough for me to decide whether they deserved a spot in the top twenty. Will I still be listening to Avenged Sevenfold in the years to come...? The recent release of Nightmare is good evidence for "Yes, definitely."

It was Avenged Sevenfold's 2007 self-titled fourth album that first got my attention, and for the longest time, I preferred its straightforwardness to City of Evil's progressive thrash metal sound. (Their previous two thrash metal albums do little for me, so they are irrelevant.) But over the course of 2010, I have found myself going back to City of Evil much more than the self-titled album. It is something truly special. The last half of the album, in particular, is insanely good.

Essential Tracks: "Bat Country," "Seize the Day," "Sidewinder," "Strength of the World"
Filler Track: "Blinded in Chains"

19. Third Eye Blind - Out of the Vein (2003)

There was a time that I hated Third Eye Blind. Stephan Jenkins has a unique vocal style that took me a while to appreciate. "Semi-Charmed Life" was such an overplayed song that it was years after its 1997 heyday that I actually appreciated its brilliance. But, in 1999, 3eb released awesome single "Never Let You Go" from their second album and I decided that maybe I should check them out. And I was shocked to learn that their self-titled debut album was actually fantastic from beginning to end. Songs that I had never wanted to hear ever again on the radio sounded perfectly acceptable in the context of the complete album. Their second album, Blue, was also quite good, although much less consistent.

Third Eye Blind's popularity had waned by the time Out of the Vein was released, but sales never reflect quality. Out of the Vein is unquestionably 3eb's best album, diverse, never boring, and frequently catchy and singalong worthy. I didn't even really appreciate it until a few years after its release, when I listened to it again on a whim and was blown away. Although it starts off strong with "Faster" and "Blinded," the album really hits its stride with "Crystal Baller" and especially "My Hit and Run," which is arguably the best 3eb song.

Essential Tracks: "Crystal Baller," "My Hit and Run," "Misfits," "Palm Reader"
Filler Track: "Can't Get Away"

18. Our Lady Peace - Gravity (2002)

Before Gravity was released, I was sure that Our Lady Peace's best days were behind them. I was a big fan of OLP from the very beginning when "The Birdman" and "Starseed" took MuchMusic by storm. Naveed and Clumsy were both awesome in completely different ways. But the two following albums had been mostly disappointing.

Gravity was like a rebirth for a band. Original guitarist Mike Turner had been replaced with Steve Mazur, and a new guitarist meant a new guitar sound. And what a great new sound it was. "All For You" and "Not Enough" are the best examples of Mazur's influence.

Essential Tracks: "All For You," "Innocent," "Not Enough," "A Story About a Girl"
Filler Track: "Made of Steel"
Runner-Up: Naveed (1994) - "Naveed"

17. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica (2000)

There are times that Amazon.com's recommendations are shockingly good, such as the time that the site recommended that I check out Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica. I sampled a couple of tracks, was intrigued, and bought the album mostly unheard. This was my first exposure to Modest Mouse's unique guitar sound and song structure. And, for me, it is still the best album they've ever released.

Essential Tracks: "3rd Planet," "Gravity Rides Everything," "The Stars are Projectors," "Lives"
Filler Track: "I Came as a Rat"

16. Queensryche - Rage for Order (1986)

Rage for Order is the oldest album on this list, and Queensryche is one of only four bands in the top twenty that even existed before the 90s. If there are older folks out there reading this, you may now be grumbling about all of the awesome albums from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that I am missing out on (there's nothing good before the 60s), but it should be no surprise that the music that sticks with me is the music that I have grown up with. The only older albums that were in contention were something from The Beatles and some classic Rush (see next entry!), but there ultimately isn't a single The Beatles album that I enjoy from start to finish. And it should also be no surprise that most of the music I listened to in the 80s is not worthy of this list, because it was mostly garbage. (Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet and Def Leppard's Hysteria came closest, almost making the Honourable Mentions section in part two--yeah, I copped out again and made this top twenty an unofficial top thirty.)

And now I have to somewhat embarrassingly reveal that the first time I heard Rage for Order was in 1996, ten years after it was released. (So, none of the music that I listened to in the 80s made the list.) Actually, this is a testament to its quality. It is an unapologetically 80s metal album, but unlike nearly all of its peers, it hasn't aged miserably. It definitely helps that the subject matter is never partying and rarely girls. It is political. It is dramatic. It is awesome.

Essential Tracks: "Walk in the Shadows," "The Killing Words," "Neue Regel," "Screaming in Digital"
Filler Track: "Gonna Get Close to You"
Runner-Up: Operation: Mindcrime (1988) - "The Mission"

15. Rush - Counterparts (1993)

It's a bit blasphemous for a Rush fan to give the top nod to Counterparts, Rush's surprisingly successful reinvention of their sound for the 90s (technically, this reinvention started in 1989 with Presto, but that's a minor detail), over their numerous classic albums from the 70s and 80s. But that's simply the way this Rush fan feels. I can't pretend that this doesn't have a lot to do with the fact that it was Counterparts that made me a Rush fan.

It's even more blasphemous to then give the runner-up nod to their newest album instead of Moving Pictures or Hemispheres or Signals. But, shit, Snakes & Arrows is awesome, the best thing Rush has released in more than ten years, and it very nearly bumped Counterparts off the top.

Essential Tracks: "Cut to the Chase," "Nobody's Hero," "Double Agent," "Everyday Glory"
Filler Track: "The Speed of Love"
Runner-Up: Snakes & Arrows (2007) - "The Way the Wind Blows"

14. Anberlin - Cities (2007)

Cities is the newest album in this top twenty. If you haven't heard it, this may seem like a bold choice on my part, but it's really not. There are a few minor missteps in the first half of the album, but everything from "Alexithymia" on is breathtaking, and you may recall that its amazing album-ending "(*Fin)" made my Soundtrack. Anberlin's Stephen Christian has one of the best voices in alternative rock, and I mean that both in terms of his strong (albeit Christianity-infused) lyrics and his unique vocal tone.

Essential Tracks: "The Unwinding Cable Car," "Inevitable," "Dismantle. Repair," "(*Fin)"
Filler Track: "Adelaide"
Runner-Up: Never Take Friendship Personal (2005) - "Paperthin Hymn"

13. Brand New - Deja Entendu (2003)

Deja Entendu is the second album on this list that I discovered because of Amazon.com's recommendations. Like with Modest Mouse, I bought the album mostly unheard. (Lest you think based on two examples that this practice always turned out well, there are just as many times that a recommended album was a disappointment. This is also a practice that I've long abandoned in these days of easy access to free downloadable music.)

Unlike Modest Mouse, Brand New isn't really a unique sounding band. They have a pretty standard alternative rock sound, with a couple memorable song exceptions. Deja Entendu is awesome mostly because of the quality of the song-writing. The song titles are ridiculously long and pretentious but still somehow work, and the songs are all fantastic in their own ways.

Essential Tracks: "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades," "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot," "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis," "Good to Know That if I Ever Need Attention All I Have to Do is Die"
Filler Track: "Tautou"

12. Weezer - Weezer (1994)

Weezer's "Blue Album" is a classic. Everyone owns it; everyone loves it. And we all shit our pants the first time we saw Weezer interacting with the cast of "Happy Days" in the brilliant "Buddy Holly" video. While Pinkerton is arguably the better Weezer album, I'd rather listen to their debut on most days.

Essential Tracks: "My Name is Jonas," "Undone - The Sweater Song," "Say It Ain't So," "In the Garage"
Filler Track: "Surf Wax America"
Runner-Up: Pinkerton (1996) - "Butterfly"

11. Pearl Jam - Vs. (1993)

I don't know if there's a band that has squandered more of their potential in my life time than Pearl Jam, but once upon a time when I was in high school they were the shit. Vs. was my favourite album for a long time. It has slipped a little over the years, but it's still a great goddamn rock record. "Go" is the perfect album opener, clearly establishing what type of album it is going to be, and that energy rarely lets up.

Essential Tracks: "Daughter," "Glorified G," "Rearviewmirror," "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"
Filler Track: "Leash"
Runner-Up: Ten (1991) - "Black"

To be continued...

I'm--of course!--saving the top ten albums for part two, which should be up early next week. For a tease, the top ten includes five albums from the 90s and five albums from the 00s, where: 10 begins with hypnosis; in 9 the summer is always slipping away; 8 has no percussion; 7 ends with a question; 6 is from a band that didn't have any representation in my Soundtrack, not even the honourable mentions; 5 feels that it's at 45 degrees; 4 is from a band that made the honourable mentions in my Soundtrack with a song from a different album; 3 pretends to have ten songs by splitting one long song into two tracks; 2 has an album-ending track that refuses to end; and 1 is the best album from 1994.

Edited to add: part two is here.

The Big Move, 2010

It's done. Christina has moved in.

Er, no, not really. Not quite yet. Yes, most of Christina's stuff has been relocated from Calgary to Regina, but the majority is still occupying my garage, and Christina won't be back in Regina to start unpacking until Monday. She's back in Calgary cleaning her old place right now and is going to spend the weekend with her mom in Hanna before heading back.

The move itself went reasonably smoothly. I drove to Calgary on Tuesday, leaving Duke and Daisy in a kennel in Regina. With some help, and over the course of a few hours, we packed most of Christina's stuff into her mom's horse trailer on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, we finished the last of the packing, and then hit the road. Christina came with me in my car, and Christina's mom drove the truck and horse trailer with one of Christina's younger cousins that came along to help carry the heavy stuff. (Aside: I did not appreciate the "Here's something light for Scott to carry" meme.) In Regina, we unpacked most of the trailer into my garage. And while Christina and her cousin assembled her bed, her mom and I sat outside and enjoyed a fire pit.

When I first mentioned that Christina was going to move in with me, I noted at that point that it could only be derailed by something crazy. And something pretty crazy did happen in the last week. But it derailed nothing. Our arrangement is on solid ground until September of 2011, which not coincidentally is the same time that my financial obligations to her will end.

So, what does this all mean for me? For the next year, I will benefit from the following life improvements: more diverse and interesting meals, because left to my own devices I eat sandwiches and hot dogs almost every day; someone to watch my daily TV with, which helps it feel a lot less empty; a dogsitter for Daisy to minimize her destructive tendencies; a partner for exercise activities and ballroom dancing classes; and a subject matter expert of sorts to help me once again navigate the soul crushing world of online dating. On the negative side, there will always be a part of me that is frustrated that we can be such good friends yet fail at marriage.

I will have no shortage of alone time, something that I think everyone needs every once in a while, because Christina will be spending a third of her time not in Regina. I will, more or less, spend both my alone time and Christina time doing the exact same things I've been doing over the last year. There really wasn't much difference between the last year and the one before, other than population. I'm ultimately completely content with the ways I choose to spend my time at home.

I am less content about how much time I spend at home. And I don't mean just getting out of the house to go to a restaurant or bar or club or whatever. What I really need to do is get the fuck out of Regina more often.

So, as silly as it seems to drive to Calgary one day and drive back the next, I actually quite enjoyed the trip. And I definitely made it worth my while. While in Calgary, I visited Zyn, an awesome booze store near downtown, and spent $140 on thirteen big bottles of beer (including one growler). I picked out ten beers from Rogue, two from Tree, and one from Cannery. I've had a couple of them before, but most are beers I've never seen in my life. I'll work my way through them slowly over the next few weeks. Awesome.

A Month in Review, Jul 5 to Aug 7

I don't normally blog on Saturday nights, but I'm also not usually this sober on Saturday nights. As much as I adore brew days and was fucking bored today (so bored that I spent a couple hours rearranging kitchen cupboards and cleaning the fridge), not being hammered drunk on Saturday night is a pleasant change. Well, then, don't drink so much on brew days, dumbass!--yeah, yeah, fuck you.

The Month in Music

As big a part of my life as music is, I hardly mention it in the Week in Review posts. My bad. Err, no, not my bad; there simply doesn't seem to be much new music coming out lately that is worth mentioning.

But Avenged Sevenfold's "Nightmare" is worth mentioning. It's awesome; not quite "City of Evil" awesome, but damn close.

And Broken Social Scene's "Forgiveness Rock Record," which was released way back in May, is pretty fucking sweet, too, possibly their best album to date.

To make up for the dearth of music-related content on this blog, I have a new blog post in the works focused entirely on my favourite albums of all time. Coming soon... I hope.

The Month in Books

I did it! I finally finished Steven Erikson's House of Chains, book four of the super awesome Malazan Book of the Fallen series. What do you mean there are another six books to read in the series, not to mention a few novellas and a second interlinked series from a different author? Motherfucker. House of Chains was my least favourite entry in the series to date, but that's like saying that The Two Towers is my least favourite The Lord of the Rings movie. It was still amazing. I have now moved onto book five, Midnight Tides, which introduces a bunch of new characters on a whole new continent while also providing the backstory for a character that was introduced in House of Chains. This series isn't hugely concerned about linear storytelling, which is cool with me. House of Chains was a direct sequel to book two, Deadhouse Gates, and took place more or less concurrently with book three, Memories of Ice. Midnight Tides happened earlier, possibly concurrently with Deadhouse Gates, I don't know; I'm sure I'll find out shortly. I always find it tough to initially get into a new Erikson novel that isn't Memories of Ice, but once you make it around halfway, suddenly it's hard to put the fucking thing down. Problem is, at halfway, you still have a good three to five hundred pages left to read. I'm nowhere near halfway into Midnight Tides yet, but I am reasonably confident that I can now meet my read two Malazan books goal for summer 2010. Maybe I can read three? Forget I said that; that's ridiculous.

It was just over a year ago that a friend gave me two books written by Charles Bukowski to help ease the pain. I started reading Love is a Dog From Hell (1977), one of many collections of poetry written by Bukowski, last year, but as it was a book of poetry, it was easy to pick up and put down numerous times over the course of the year. I finally finished it in July, fitting in a few poems between each chapter of House of Chains as a breather. And then I read Bukowski's novel Women (1978) this week. There is a lot of overlap in content between Bukowski's poetry and novels. His work is very autobiographical, and his poetry is narrative style, not at all flowery and with no rhymes in sight. Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski, not coincidentally a poet and a drunk, is the protagonist of Women, and you can easily picture Chinaski writing many of the poems in Love is a Dog From Hell as the story proceeds. For me, Women was a lot more enjoyable than Love is a Dog From Hell--but I'll always choose prose over poetry--a quick, entertaining read, endlessly amusing despite its blatant misogyny. The lesson I take away is that writing and performing (good?) poetry is a gateway to an endless parade of women, no matter how much of an ugly, old asshole you are.

And now I understand Modest Mouse's "Bukowski" a whole shit load more:
"Woke this morning and it seemed to me
That every night turns out to be
A little bit more like Bukowski
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read
But God, who'd want to be
God, who'd want to be such an asshole?"

The Month in Video Games

If it wasn't for coffee breaks at work (World of Goo--fuck, yeah!), I don't know if I could even call myself a video gamer lately. I've barely touched Mario Galaxy 2 and have tons of Mass Effect 2 DLC to play, but I've been focusing my spare time on TV and books this summer. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Winters are long in Saskatchewan; video games make winters tolerable.

But I did play the Special Edition of Monkey Island 2 with my brother. Monkey Island 2 was a big part of our childhood, so this was a fantastic nostalgia trip for both of us. Awesome.

The Month in Television

I am now almost caught up on Eureka. I had never seen a single episode of the series previously, and frankly wasn't interested based on its silly premise, but with its currently airing fourth season came a Warehouse 13 crossover and a Wil Wheaton guest appearance, so I decided to finally give the series a shot this summer. And it's okay. The premise of a small town full of scientists causing weekly science disasters is silly, and the average episode is at best dumb fun, drawing upon thoroughly cliched and overused sci-fi plotlines. But every once in a while, the writers find a fun twist on those classic cliches and make watching the series worth my precious (ha!) time. In particular, "I Do Over," a third season time loop episode (almost always awesome--think Groundhog Day) was pretty fantastic. And even when the plot is retarded, the characters can usually be counted on to make it at least palatable and sometimes even enjoyable. Like the show itself, the characters are all pretty middle of the road; there are no characters that I love, but there are also no characters that I hate. Eureka is not a series that I would recommend to anyone, but I don't regret my time with it. It's pretty fitting that the Warehouse 13 and Eureka universes are now overlapping, since both shows are so similar in so many ways.

I've also started watching the ridiculous British comedy series Peep Show. I didn't realize that it starred David Mitchell and Robert Webb, also stars of hilarious sketch comedy series That Mitchell and Webb Look, or I probably would have watched it earlier. Peep Show is filmed in a quite unique way, placing the audience right inside the heads of the two main characters, and is awkwardly hilarious--so awkward that sometimes you just wish you could look away and pretend this shit wasn't happening. It is regarded by some as the best British comedy series of all time. I've only seen series one of six so far, so I'll reserve judgment.

Another Big Catch-up

Loved: Futurama (7x4-8), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x5,7), Sherlock (1x1), True Blood (3x7)
Liked: Entourage (7x3-5), Hung (2x2-5), Mad Men (4x1-2), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x6,8,9), Sherlock (1x2), So You Think You Can Dance (7x12-21), Top Gear (14x3-6), True Blood (3x4-6), Warehouse 13 (2x1-5)
Meh: Entourage (7x2)

That looks like a lot of shows, but other than Sunday nights--really, does every fucking show have to air on Sunday night?--my TV schedule right now is pretty light overall. And I actually have to download all of those Sunday night shows, so it's really my Monday night that is packed. And then the rest of the week is pretty boring. But I prefer this to what is coming in September. Well, then, don't watch so many shows, dumbass!--yeah, yeah, fuck you.

The best thing I watched on TV in July was the fantastic pilot to the BBC's new Sherlock series. Despite having little to no interest in Sherlock Holmes stories, I checked the series out because of creator and writer Steven Moffat, current head writer on Doctor Who. And it was bloody brilliant. Goddamn, that was good! Episode two--or should I say movie two, because each of the only three episodes is an hour and a half--wasn't nearly as good, but not much can be. I don't know who Benedict Cumberbatch is, but his Sherlock Holmes is genius--almost Doctor Who genius. And Martin Freeman always plays a good everyman.

Some Futurama fans have complained that the reborn Futurama is not as good as the first four seasons before cancellation, but those people are ungrateful assholes. I have thoroughly enjoyed every episode so far, and would present episodes six, "Lethal Inspection," and especially seven, "The Late Philip J. Fry," as more than worthy of the Futurama legacy.

For the first time ever, I am watching Mad Men and True Blood as they air this season. So far, so good. Mad Men is rarely a show that I love, with the odd exception (the third season finale, for example); I appreciate the quality of the show more than I enjoy the show. True Blood's third season is definitely shaping up to be better than its second, with last week's seventh episode being a particular gory highlight. I am also watching Warehouse 13 as it airs for the first time, but that's less of a big thing since it's only in its second season, and also it's a much lesser show than those two. Still, it keeps me coming back for more, somehow.

The two stand-out episodes of Bullshit this season (so far; next week is the finale) for me were "Easy Money" and "Criminal Justice." I know tons of people that need to see "Easy Money" for a reality check on the futility of multi-level marketing, and "Criminal Justice" just made me sad. The latest episode, "Self Esteem," was pretty timely as I am currently struggling with serious self esteem issues. Affirmations are bullshit, so here's my personal affirmation: "What the fuck, dude?--get your shit together."

After a slow start, Entourage has improved throughout this current seventh season and is actually quite entertaining again, something it hasn't been in a number of years. Hung also had a slow start to its season, but its last few episodes have been very strong, balancing the drama and comedy very effectively.

In my amateur opinion, Top Gear had a good season this summer. I loved the silly Caravan segment the most, and enjoyed the recurring Reliant Robin gags. I don't tune into Top Gear for the cars nor the car reviews, because, hey, I couldn't care less about cars; I tune in for these three hilarious guys doing stupid shit together, and this season had a lot of good material there.

And that's more than enough talking about TV.

Brewblog, Entry Six

Tasting Notes

I meant to have a section in the last brewblog to discuss how some of the beers we've made recently have turned out. But with four brew days to cover in that post, I forgot the tasting notes.

Promising beers going sour has been the biggest frustration of the last four months for me. I'm mostly annoyed by the disgustingness of the soured 112, ruining our attempt to make a simple experimental beer with only Goldings hops. The remaining bottles of 112 will be around for a very long time. The soured Belgian IPA is not quite as unpleasant as the 112, but will also have plenty of time to age. Simon's Sour Blonde was actually quite drinkable and vanished weeks ago, and Anniversary Bitter 2 is mostly gone and only a tiny bit sour. It's too early to judge what will happen with the Sour Strawberry Wheat.

But that's enough about fucking sour beers; everything else we've made lately has been good to excellent and met my taste expectations. Trevor will say that the best thing we've made is the excellent Trevor's Blonde. Simon was a surprisingly big fan of our very good Blackout Stout, amusingly mistaking it for the Bushwakker Imperial Stout from ALES' Big Brew Day. While I understand Trevor's point of view, because Trevor's Blonde is a very good example of the style, I rarely reach for one in the fridge. And Blackout Stout is pretty great considering that I made the recipe by throwing in whatever black malts we happened to have in the pantry. But I am quite confident that Blackout Stout 2 will be even better.

I am very happy with the newest iterations of our Brewniversity, Scott's Stout, and Matrimonial Ale series. The 114, where I took the 124 recipe and replaced the hops with Willamette, is an interesting bitter brew that always hits the spot for me. The 224, where I took the 124 recipe to the next level, could turn out to be a citrus masterpiece, but it's too early to really judge. Scott's Stout 4 is an evolution of the Scott's Stout 2/3 recipe, roasty and toasty and right up my alley, but not the revolution I thought it could possibly be. Matrimonial Ale 5 is pretty fantastic, crisp and refreshing despite its 8% abv, and just the right amount of piney hoppiness; however, I agree with Trevor that Matrimonial Ale 6 should return the series to its citrus hops roots.

There is a lot of potential greatness in the Honey Nut Brown and Wee Heavy, but those have yet to be bottled, so I'll revisit them with the 224 in the next Tasting Notes.

It's tough to rank our beers due to the diverse styles in play, but I've done it before and I'll try it again. So, as of this moment, the top 5 of all time from my perspective, faulty memory and all:

1. (Tie) Matrimonial Ale 4 & 5

Despite coming from the same series, Matrimonial Ale 4 and 5 are very different beers. 4 is citrus hops, 5 is piney hops. 4 is 6%, 5 is 8%. 4 has awesome aroma, but hop gunk; 5 has pleasant aroma, and no gunk. Both are fantastic, big and bitter, arguably the best beers we've made, and my hand will always gravitate towards them when they are in the fridge. The goal with Matrimonial Ale 6 will be to capture the best aspects of 4 and 5 in one awesome bitter beer.

3. Scott's Stout 3

I've liked all of the Stouts and Porters we've made, but Scott's Stout 3 is the current king. When we made Scott's Stout 2 and it turned out very, very well, I was overjoyed, especially since Scott's Stout 1 had been an early, mostly failed experiment. Scott's Stout 3 was theoretically exactly the same as Scott's Stout 2, but it has a little extra something something that I can't really describe. For Scott's Stout 5, I will be attempting to recapture this magic, but without abandoning the important changes in 4 that made it officially a Stout and not a Porter. Actually, a new Scott's Porter might be a good idea for carrying on the Scott's Stout 2 legacy...

4. 122 American Pale Ale
5. 124 American Pale Ale

The 122 is the only beer to maintain a spot in the top five list since my first ranking. Of all our Brewniversity beers, it still stands in my memory as the best we've made, perfect in every way that counts. When there was a 122 in the fridge, which sadly there never will be ever again, it was always the first thing I pulled out, because drinking it made me happy. Some other people that shall remain nameless ridiculously prefer the 124. Bah! Okay, it's pretty good, too. And there are actually a few competition bottles of 124 still around, so it's not gone for good like the 122. But the 224 (and Honey Nut Brown?) will hopefully boot both off the list shortly.

August 1, 2010 - Brewed Radical Saison (RS)

I have had a Wyeast Saison yeast in my fridge for months, so this brew day was definitely overdue. Saison is a style that I am unsure about as a whole. I have never had a Saison that was "holy god, that's awesome," but they have all had interesting elements and were very drinkable. Our brew club made a Ginger Saison during our first month of all-grain brewing, and it was definitely decent, and after a year of aging, the last bottle was quite pleasant.

Lately I have been creating my own recipes, or modifying recipes from our previous batches, for almost everything we've brewed. With BeerSmith Brewing Software as the ultimate beer recipe creation tool, I feel quite comfortable creating my own recipes for India Pale Ales, American Pale Ales, and Stouts. With a little internet research, I am also now comfortable creating my own Brown Ale and Scottish Ale recipes. But there was no way I was going to try to make up a Saison recipe. And I wanted to create something more interesting than the old Ginger Saison, so I went to one of my favourite sources: Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher.

I did, unfortunately, have to change one major component of that recipe, substituting Pale for the expected Pilsner Malt, because we are out of Pilsner. It remains to be seen whether this substitution was a mistake. In general, we have had better results with Pilsner than Pale, but this recipe is quite complex in unique ways that will likely disguise the limitations of the base malt.

The recipe also used Wheat Malt and Munich Malt for the mash, Northern Brewer, Saaz, and Goldings hops for the boil, and--here's the fun part!--one sour orange peel, twenty grams of coriander, and a gram of pepper for spice. I freshly ground the coriander and pepper and added them to a hop bag with the orange peel for the last five minutes of the boil. If my hydrometer sample of the unfermented wort is any indication, this beer is going to be a spicy bitch.

I haven't discussed our process in a while, so some brief comments are warranted. Earlier this year, we successfully introduced a 30 minute mash to our process, but we haven't actually had that many 30 minute mashes in the interim. We have had a lot of 45 minute mashes lately, including this Saison, usually because it took 45 minutes to bottle whatever previous batch was ready that day. And for big beers like the Wee Heavy and Matrimonial Ale 5, I still insist on at least 60 minutes because of the quantity of grain. Also earlier this year, we started boiling for 90 minutes regularly, theoretically to improve caramelization, but we've noticed little change and have now pretty much abandoned the 90 minute boil, with the notable exception of India Pale Ales where the extra minutes of boil give you extra hop bitterness. The Saison was boiled for the typical 60 minutes and I know it will be fine.

Next time on Brewblog

No brew day this coming weekend, so... that sucks. Boring Saturday. I might still get drunk. A little. By myself. Pathetic.

Next weekend, Matrimonial Ale 6?

Brewblog, Entry Five

Has it really been a month and a half since the last brewblog entry? Yes, yes, it has. Catch-up time!

June 26th, 2010 - Brewed Sour Strawberry Wheat (SSW)

There is a large bin full of Wheat Malt in my brew studio. There was a time that we thought we'd do a lot more wheat beers than we have been doing, but difficulties with stuck sparges and a general overall dissatisfaction with our end products has left that Wheat Malt more or less untouched for months.

But every once in a while, we decide to give it another shot. This American Wheat Beer recipe had a simple 50% Pale Malt, 50% Wheat Malt base, with just a touch of Crystal 40 for body, in an attempt to make a light and refreshing beer for summer consumption. Winter Wheat 2, which scored very respectably in the ALES competition, was the template for the recipe, but we had a Wyeast American Wheat Beer yeast to use in place of the Safale yeast used previously. I also substituted Hallertau hops for Tettnang in the new recipe, although the quantity of hops is so low as to make that change likely imperceptible.

I have no idea if this beer (originally dubbed Beat the Heat Wheat) would have turned out better than Winter Wheat 2 or not, because it was unfortunately soured during primary fermentation. Goddammit!

This Sour Wheat is hopefully the end of the sour beer scandal that rocked our brew club this summer. As a refresher, a few months back we had the not-so-bright idea to attempt to make a sour beer on purpose. Sourness is caused by wild yeasts, and with time and aging often lends an interesting complexity to a beer. Our problem started when the wild yeasts somehow started infecting unrelated batches, beginning with Simon's Blonde and ending with the 112... or so we thought. We thoroughly cleaned all equipment that we thought had come in contact with the sour beers, and we crossed our fingers that it was over. But it next came out of seemingly nowhere to rear its ugly head in the Belgian IPA. And then the same apparently infected equipment was used for the Beat the Heat Wheat, before the sourness had been detected in the Belgian IPA. This equipment has now been marked as "Contaminated?" and set aside to never be used for regular beers again.

I think it was Trevor that had the bright idea how to possibly save the Sour Wheat. I was commenting on how many strawberries I had in the garden this year, more than I could eat myself, so it was suggested that it couldn't hurt to add a pound of sliced strawberries to the Sour Wheat. I ended up adding a kilogram.

We've now bottled the Sour Strawberry Wheat, but it isn't quite ready for consumption. From our sampling, I'm not sure that adding the strawberries made it good, but it definitely made it much more drinkable and appealing than the Belgian IPA and 112, so it'll do.

July 10, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #6 (224)

Our first 200-level Brewniversity recipe, 224 was a refinement of the very well received 124. Brewniversity recipes are always quite straightforward, generally using only Pale Malt as a base and Munich and/or Crystal Malt as an adjunct. For yeast, we continued our recent trend of using Wyeast liquid yeasts; Simon had a yeast cake of European Ale that was healthy and ready to go.

The 124 was our first attempt at staggered hop additions, adding a small amount (17g) of Cascade hops at every 15 minute interval (for a total addition of 85g). For the 224, I slightly increased the overall quantity of Cascade to 112g, and scheduled 10 minute hop additions. My problem with the 15 minute additions was that it only hit one of the three hop utilization peaks that are often key to recipe formulation. Bitterness is easy; the longer the hops are in the boil, the better the bitterness utilization. For hop flavour, the recommended addition time is approximately 20 minutes before the end of the boil. For hop aroma, the recommended addition is between 5 and 10 minutes before the end of the boil. Understanding this, the 10 minute interval makes much more sense than 15, although it requires you to stay on top of the clock more, which isn't always easy while thoroughly drunk.

The end result is in its carboy right now, awaiting bottling on this coming weekend. I will be dry hopping the 224 a few days before bottling to maximize the hop aroma in the beer. The sample I had after primary fermentation showed no signs of sourness--so, yay!--and was very, very good. I have high hopes.

July 17, 2010 - Brewed Honey Nut Brown (HNB)

After racking the 224 to its carboy, I noticed that the Wyeast European Ale yeast was still looking quite healthy. Having failed to plan a recipe for this brew day in advance, I decided to look at what other beer styles Wyeast recommended for the yeast. Southern English Brown Ale stood out to me in the list. We hadn't yet made a Brown Ale of any style (at least on purpose), and I am quite a big fan of Browns personally.

I browsed a few Brown Ale recipes on the internet, not really finding anything that excited me. I then pulled out Radical Brewing, which reminded me about the Oud Bruin that was aging in my basement and had recently ruined four batches of beer (how could I forget?). The base recipe for the Oud Bruin was a quite good Brown Ale, from what I could remember of the pre-sour sample I had tried months back.

But I decided I wanted to take that Oud Bruin base to the next level for this beer. And the easiest way to do that was to go crazy on the malt profile. Over the past year, we have accumulated some interesting adjuncts that were only used once or twice, and I decided that my Brown Ale was going to use as much of them as I could. I grabbed the rarely used Honey Malt, Melanoidin Malt, and Special B out of the pantry, as well as some much more common Biscuit, Crystal 40, Munich, and Chocolate Malts. The base malt would still be Pale, but only just barely (42%). And thus was born Scott's Honey Nut Brown. For hops, which should be more or less undetectable in the sweet maltiness of the final product, I went with Fuggles.

The end result is sitting in its carboy alongside the 224, waiting for a later bottling date. The sample I had after primary fermentation was pretty much exactly how I hoped it would taste at that stage--and again, no sourness, yay! So, again, I have high hopes.

July 24, 2010 - Brewed Wee Heavy (WH)

A Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast had been sitting in my fridge for quite some time, awaiting this day. A bag of Peated Malt had been sitting in my pantry for quite some time, awaiting this day. Our previous attempt at a Scottish Ale, technically a Scottish Export 80, made with Safale dry yeast, had been a reasonable example of the style, although with some unfortunate off-flavours, but all of its bottles were long gone. It was time to make a Wee Heavy.

The recipe for the Wee Heavy was an extension of the first Scottish Ale, but with all quantities of malts and hops effectively doubled. To give it an extra kick of booziness, I also added a pound of table sugar.

My work for this brew day started earlier than normal. On the morning of July 23rd, I prepared my first yeast starter. I followed Wyeast's instructions: 100g of light dry malt extract in 1L of water, with one-half teaspoon yeast nutrient added, boiled for a few minutes for sanitation, and then added when cooled to a sanitized container with the yeast. I have to say that the yeast starter worked like gangbusters.

The Wee Heavy's original gravity was a very strong 1091, and after only three days of seemingly mild fermentation (from visual inspection of the krausen), the specific gravity dropped to an unexpectedly low 1022. Wow. At this point, I'd describe the flavour of the 9% Wee Heavy as peat and burning. It will need time to mellow, but I'm quite confident that we have a winner on our hands there.

Next time on Brewblog

It looks like we will be brewing on Sunday of this coming weekend. I have a few more Wyeast liquid yeasts in my fridge that are begging to be used. Saison is on the top of the list.