a night of many wonders.

My day consisted of a great chat with a good friend on how simple it is to control people.  Not that control that the government want, the control of positive energy and bringing great ideas to a community and showing people the way to build and create together.  It takes one simple idea, to bring about a huge amount of change.  One must of course plant the seed before it can grow, and your humble author hopes his seed germinates into something beautiful.  One day I hope to be in a position to spend a great deal of time coaching people in the direction they want to move towards.

This post is what I would call an addendum to my earlier in the day post, and hopefully you read that as well.

Shorts Brew presents : Hangin' Frank India Pale Ale

First blog about ale, one of my loves.  Be kind my friends, and here we go.

First sip is hard, almost a soured taste, very hoppy and bold almost java.  As it courses over my palette heading towards my tummy, a burst of fruit fills my mouth, and of course, the joy begins.

The second taste is completely different from the first.  The hoppy flavor remains and fills your mouth like a bouquet of flowers, bringing out a slightly citrus  finish on this 'sip'( A word I use lightly as a man.)
For the True beer geeks out there, the real info you are looking for is all in the abbreviations, that's right ABV and IBU's baby.

ABV = Alcohol by volume, or how much alcohol is in the bottle compared to how much liquid is in the bottle.
IBU= International Bittering Units.  Think of this as a scale of how bitter your beer is, the higher the number the more it'll make your tongue tingle...

Well while Hangin' Frank might be quite high on the rope in IBU's( at a 67) the ABV on this fine brew is 5.5.  This beauty is an amazing example of what a brewery is capable of.  This offering is only around for a short time in spring, and is perfectly placed in the season I might say.  Just as the buds begin to start to form, this beautiful ale is there to greet you and welcome you into spring.  like so many ales from shorts this finely crafted regular pour ale comes with a great story...

Legend has it, they named the beer after a ghost of one 'Frank Fochtman' a Petoskey local, that haunts a grill in the area(the eatery not the cooking device.)
I do love a good story attached to ale, and it would appear Shorts from the Northern part of Michigan is a big fan as well.  On the whole Shorts is what I dream the beer world to embody in 10 years.  They are a radical brewery making some of the best ales on the market, and hopefully will continue to do so for a great while!

Well there you have it, my first beer review and maybe not the last, this has been a great little adventure into the world of ales, and hopefully I'll hang around long enough to do another.

beer is near..

So maybe I'll start to blog about my life a little more.  I'm 21, and have a special spot in my heart(read:Stomach) for ales.  This love of mine is relatively new too me, and hopefully I can learn as well as maybe bring a few of you into the Craftbrew/microbrew world.  I will give a little background.

My top ales at the moment are as followed:

1:  Hopslam, Seasonal from bells in Comstock/Kalamazoo Michigan
2: Crooked Tree IPA from Dark Horse brewing co.  in Marshall Michigan
3:Arcadia Ales IPA from  Battle Creek Michigan
4:Two hearted Ale From Bells in Comstock/Kalamazoo Michigan
5:Huma-Lupa-Licious from Shorts brewing in Bellaire Michigan


As you can tell I am currently captivated by two things, Michigan and IPA.  Neither of these will per-say sway me away from a great ale based on those criteria, but more-so will be weighted against as a standard of excellence I've grown to appreciate.
So if you would like to read my ramblings about what beer I am currently imbibing or about what my day was like, you're in the right place, hope you enjoy!

The Beer... Is Good!: Blue Chip Casino BrewFest Reminder

The Beer... Is Good!: Blue Chip Casino BrewFest Reminder: "Out beer hunting at one of my local bottle shops this evening, I came across a reminder about the first annual Blue Chip Casino BrewFest in ..."

New ideas

Today's been filled with new ideas and possible business strategies that make me very excited.  More later...

Gathering.

So a good friend of mine is a hippie.  He attends quite often these small gatherings with other like minded folks.  These gatherings are generally in the middle of a national forest, deep into nature.  This piques my interest in that, I am a huge fan of nature and bush-craft.  I mean to say, i really love immersing myself in nature, and being alone in the woods.  I enjoy honing primitive skills, creating fire, building shelter, ect.  I would like to bring 5-10 people on this gathering quickly approaching, and teach them things that are needed in the woods.  I think it would be a wonderful asset to bestow onto my fellow companions and give them the confidence to do things on their own.

I am at heart a teacher, i think all people are.  We as humans are all so excited to share the latest news/info/gadgets/widgets with one another, and I believe this all stems from our want and need to teach.  Humans evolved away from teaching skills to sharing ideas, and thought-chains with people, building deep meaningful relationships.  I would like to put some of that primitive learning back on the table.  I think more than ever it will become important to know your roots, and know you can make due in the wild.  I'm not talking about teaching people to eat grubs and such, but if you're out hiking and you get lost, you'll at least be able to build a signal fire, or make a shelter.  The small skills make a huge difference between a comfortable yet scary night out in the woods, vs. a terrifying cold night in which you don't sleep and wake up terrified when you do manage to fall asleep. 

This rant has been powered by coffee... lots of it.

The next step.

I am getting to the point where I am starting to find flaws in systems. I have been able to in the past work around them, and essentially void them, or in other words ignore the elephant in the room.  Now it's the itch on the bottom of your foot under your sock in your shoe laced down tight that you can't get too.  It's all there, I see the problem, and now i have to figure out how to untie the shoe, remove it from my foot and peel the sock off.  Imagine walking down a sidewalk and tripping on a uneven surface.  The current way we fix this is by either painting it yellow and putting it on exhibit, or destroy it and start from scratch, and then the problem goes away.  This is the approach I want to start to take with my life, and the systems within.  Now when I see a problem, I am promising myself to write everything down about why this doesn't work.  After I dissect what is wrong, and how to simply fix it, and while fixing, how to innovate, we as humans generally fix things fast and hard, without much consideration as too the future of this product/place/thing/widget.

This is phase one of my plan for world domination, or at least a more efficient life.