Tim's Travel, Pinball, and Beer Blog
No, not the cryptozoological critter. The barleywine. I was at Cork and Cap last night and picked up a six-pack of 2022, and Sarah asked me how far back I have them. I thought 2009 – and yup, 2009. I’ve got at least two of each year from 2009 to 2022 now.
I think it’s time to do a vertical tasting. Or two.
Steel Valley Brew Works at the Southern Park Mall has finally opened, and is the location of the February 1 Birdfish Pinball League.
The mall has been around a long time but has recently gone through a $30 million renovation that’s supposed to be pretty impressive. There’s one of those theaters with a lounger right next to it, so I may make an afternoon of this, see Spider-Man, and explore the mall.
I can think of nothing more old mannish than ‘Hey, let’s go scope out the renovations at the mall!’. I am embracing it.
Did a Pliny the Elder double IPA clone today. Pliny is a 100-rated canonical West Coast IPA that never makes it out of California, but it’s legendary. The recipe I got was supposedly approved by the brewmaster, Vinnie Cilurzo. It’s a big, hoppy beer:
But note the Cascade leaf hops. They’re added in the mash. I’ve never seen or heard of that before – I don’t know how you’re going to get any hop extraction at 170 degrees. We shall see. And who the hell am I to second guess Vinnie Cilurzo?
Somehow, brewing on a Thursday is much less stressful. I of course used to brew Saturday or Sunday, because it takes about six hours from start to finish. So it’s the weekend, and there was always something that I should be doing on the weekend besides brewing, so I always felt a little rushed. This was… zen-like. I had absolutely nothing to do except brew. I wasn’t trying to fit in anything else around it.
I’m starting to get used to this.
Now that I’m done working with computers, I can finally do what I want. Go back to school for courses on computers!
I basically predated CompSci courses. In 1974, there wasn’t any such thing as a Computer Science department in most places, so degrees were in Business or Mathematics – mine was in Business, and was eminently practical – but I like theory.
And so we begin. Coursera is offering Stanford’s Computational Logic:
CS 157 is a rigorous introduction to Logic from a computational perspective. It shows how to encode information in the form of logical sentences; it shows how to reason with information in this form; and it provides an overview of logic technology and its applications – in mathematics, science, engineering, business, law, and so forth. Topics include the syntax and semantics of Propositional Logic, Relational Logic, and Herbrand Logic, validity, contingency, unsatisfiability, logical equivalence, entailment, consistency, natural deduction (Fitch), mathematical induction, resolution, compactness, soundness, completeness.
Sounds like fun!
My son has a friend who is a docent at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and scored some free tickets to the Krishna exhibit. If you’ve never been, it’s worth a trip. It truly is a world class museum, and it is and always has been free admission to the main museum, with paid admission to the special exhibits. So you have to pay to see the reassembled Cleveland Krishna – but you will still be able to see a huge amount of absolutely wonderful art for free. Like, for instance, some Van Gogh. Here’s a good guide: https://clevelandtraveler.com/cleveland-museum-of-art-guide/
But wait! You’ll be on University Circle. There’s a dozen museums within walking distance, even in January: https://www.universitycircle.org/destinations/museums-galleries. And breweries. And ramen. And… well, lots of good food. It’s home to Case Western University, so there’s lots of fun things to do, including a restaurant called Michelson and Morely. Good restaurant, though kind of ethereal. Hah! Special Relativity dad joke!
Next up, I’m going to start on one of the bucket list books. Either Ulysses or Moore’s Jerusalem.
Came in third in pinball at Birdfish last night, but it was ‘everybody gets a prize!’ night, so this is now up on my beer refrigerator.
So here’s what I mean. Normally when you take a day off, it’s to do something. Either go somewhere, or do something. Do some work around the house, or go Christmas shopping, or something. Nobody ever takes a day off to just sit around and read a book or play a game. Well, except Jacob Thompson; there’s an exception to everything.
But I did today! Didn’t do anything. Finishing up a book; completed the Witcher Heart of Stone expansion pack. That’s it. Didn’t clean up any room; didn’t do anything useful at all.
It was marvelous. I may be able to get used to this.
I cooked, though. Southern green beans, New Youk Times’ Scalloped Potatoe Gratin, and a nice 1-1/2″ thick pork chop with a cider/maple pan sauce.
Modern Methods , my local brewery, has this really good New England IPA that’s called hopfart. NEIPA is really not my favorite style – sorry, Bobby – but this one is pretty good.
The ur-NEIPA is Alchemist Brewing Heady Topper. For those of you that I know likes beer and doesn’t know the story – which is, maybe, an audience of one? – Heather, Corey and I went to Vermont in 2013 and had a wonderful time in Burlington. Very walkable town with much good food and beer. Went to Magic Hat; I worshipped at Greg Noonan’s Vermont Pub and Brewery; drove to Ben and Jerry’s. On our way back to the VRBO there was this sign that said ‘Alchemist Brewery, so I turned right. And there were people lined up to get beer. There was apparently a two-case limit of this beer called ‘Heady Topper’, which was apparently a thing – and I just didn’t know it. See here
We got a four-pack and took it back. That was probably a sin.
NEIPAs have very little bitterness and a huge amount of hops aroma. Hops are very insoluble, so if you want bitterness you need to add them early in the boil, and if you want aroma you add them late. a typical NEIPA is all late hop addition, and massive quantities of that.
But anyway, I digress as much as it is possible to digress.
Hopfart is a good NEIPA, and along with it came a graphic novel. I have trained myself not to say ‘Comic Book’.
Adam, *please* get excited about hops again! <old man> When I started brewing, there were five hops. Now there are five hundred! </old man> But I get the IPA thing. Soon I will be travelling to a small town brewery where there are no IPAs, and five Saisons.