Pumpkin Ale
Well, and I’ve finally arrived at the last batch of homebrew I’ll be making in November — a pumpkin ale. 단호박 I couldn’t get my hands on a big old orange pumpkin — or, rather, I figured I’d have less mess and trouble, and better results, working with a smaller pumpkin. Mind you, I haven’t seen too many “sugar pumpkins” in my neck of the woods, so I went with “단호박” which are the small greenish squash one sees often in Korean groceries. They

Shine Acceptance
Well, way back when, Jetse de Vries (who, I’m pleased to see, makes me feel much better about my own lack of posting here — he hasn’t updated since summer!) announced he would be putting together a short-story collection titled Shine, featuring optimistic near-future SF. Of course, I immediately began working on something, and what do you know? When I met him this summer, he told me that he was taking the story I submitted to him. Between that and the bearhug he gave me on first meeting, Jetse made quite an impression on me, and it was a very good one. It was definitely one of the many wonderful h

Café au Stout
Brewed up another batch tonight, this one a nice coffee stout. Specific gravity ended up at 1.040 right after I mixed the wort with the water. May have actually put too much water in, not sure — the bucket I do primary ferments in now has a more-than-23-liter capacity, so I may be in for a surprise with the carboy. If that happens, I think I’ll keep the remainder in my second bucket, even though it’s usually best to dump it. (I’ll steep it in even more coffee and see what comes of it; if it fails, well, it was extra anyway.) The other day, while I was in Seoul, I bounced through a few chemist shops in Jongro 3-ga. They were disappointing though I didn’

More on Beer-Making
Note, the title of this post could also be read as, “Moron Beer Making”… This weekend, I’ve already moved my wheat beer into secondary fermentation, but I’m also going to start primary fermentation for a second batch, which is — da-da-da-Daaaaaaaaaaa! — Coffee Stout! That is, a nice dark rich Stout with a hint of coffee flavoring. Just, you know, a hint. This is not the bizarre concoction I had one night out with a bunch of people organized by Roboseyo, at some little restaurant, where they made “coffee beer” by putting coffee into a glass of beer. That was alright, I suppose, but this is beer with the flavor of coffee i

Charlatans and Wheat Beer
No, no, this is not a rant about Charlatans. During a Youtube music swap session on chat, I ran across a track by The Charlatans which I came to know in a strange way: my mom bought the cassette tape at a garage sale and gave it to me. I basically responded with, “Huh?” The cover featured an image of a bunch of bananas. It said “Charlatans UK” — the “UK” was because some band in the States had the same name, or so someone told me