A Peek at Life as a Natic

Last Saturday we made plans to leave the kiddos at home and head out for an adult dinner at Maggianos in Buckhead.  Alisha’s birthday and Ryan’s birthday are only a day apart and we always make an annual trip to Maggianos – and this year was no exception.

In the afternoon I had tried to get all of the guys together for a good game of football.  We had about 10 people that were in but most of them backed out due to a little rain.  Four of us showed up and we said “screw it, lets play”.  We played for a while just as a QB and one receiver taking turns trying to make it into the end zone.  It was fun on its own, kept us active, and made for a good time.  We were soaked, but it was still so worth it.  Afterwards, we headed over to Taco Mac for a quick beer and then headed home to get ready for dinner later in the evening.

We made plans to leave little Preston with Alisha’s mom and head out with friends.  Bobby and Courtney came over to our house and we headed out to Buckhead to meet up with Mike, Aubree, Ryan and Andrea.  We had an excellent dinner and had a great time.  It was very nice to see everyone again and as always the food was spot on.

You know us… always need to be doing something, so on Friday I decided to make a run up to Dahlonega to try out a few places that I have not been to.  Since I wanted to head up to try out a beer, I made sure to call Bobby up and see if he wanted to join us.  He of course decided to come along.  On the way up we took a few minutes to show Bobby the NGCSU campus and then headed off to grab dinner and drinks.

We were told about an Irish Pub just off of the square in Dahlonega called Shananigans.  It was in the basement of a house that was turned into a restaurant / pub which was pretty cool.  The place was quite full (not very large though) and had a great vibe to it.  Everyone was kinda seated close to each other and the decor was like you would expect for an Irish Pub.  The food was quite delicious and the wait staff was on point as well.  Everyone there seemed to know each other and the friendly table next to us occasionally carried on a nice conversation about everything from food to beer to Preston.  It was great.

After we ate we headed over to Caruso’s to try out the stout that they brewed for the season.  On the way out the friendly table next to us warned us about the beer but we did not take their advise and shrugged it off.  Holy crap were they right!  We headed over to Caruso’s and ordered just the beer.  It was the worst beer to ever touch my lips.  When I say it was bad I mean it was TERRIBLE!  The beer had a very distinct sour taste to it and was just freaking awful!  I would rather drink Bud Light by far… hell, I’d drink a keg of Bud Light to not drink that again.  While we were sittingn there just looking around, Alisha spotted a rediculous painting of Dale Earnheart.  It was a picture of him above his car about to be spun into the wall that killed him… all in the middle of an Italian restaurant next to a nice mural.  WTF?!?!  Bobby and I left a full glass of terrible beer on the table, got our checks, and got the hell out of there.  UGH!

Alisha has been wanting to stay active so that we she asked me last week if I wanted to go to Athens on Saturday night.  Are you kidding me?  Of course I want to go to Athens on Saturday night!  Bobby was in for the ride in a heartbeat.  I asked Hector and Reagan to join as well as Reagan still has never been out there and she was actually quite interested in going this time!  She has been wanting to come along but being pregnant and not able to drink has deterred her thus far. 

We had Alisha’s mom watch Preston for the night and we headed off with Bobby, Dan, Hector and Reagan out to Paradise City; I mean Athens.  We headed to Terrapin, as always and enjoyed some great local brewery beers and then over to Copper Creek for some excellent dinner.  Dinner and drinks were great but man was it FREEZING.  It was in the teens in Athens and unfortunately Copper Creek’s heating system was not working so we froze.  LOL.  Hell, it was still worth it.  We then headed over to Trapeze for a few more drinks and hung out.  By then we were cashed in.  We are old now but we still had a great time.  I Love Athens!!

I am so glad you came Reagan.  I hope that you had a good time and I look forward to you being able to come when you are able to enjoy it more!  Little Preston did well with his Grandma at home.  He slept and ate well and was very easy to care for while we went out.

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Football with the Guys here

SOME of the guys

Thanksgiving evening the guys in the family took a ride over to Sharon Springs Park in Cumming.  It is right around the corner from Edwin and Geni’s so it was perfect.  When we got there we found that it was a fully artificial turf field and was completely numbered!!  It was AWESOME!  Ever since that night I had been itching to play some more football with the guys.  It was a great time and was a great way to keep active.  My legs were SHOT after playing.

So last weekend I organized for a lot of the guys to get together and play and nice game of two hand touch / flag football.  While we played the ladies planned to get together at our house as well.  We had a great turnout of 17 guys!  A huge turnout even though the weather was in the low 30’s as a HIGH.  It was VERY cold but we all dressed warm and showed up to play a great game of football.  It was such a blast again!  We had some great highlights and just an all around great time.  Everyone got along very well and we had no injuries.  A total success!  I was sore for like 4 days after playing.  That sprinting over and over again really beats the hell out of inactive legs. 

After the game we all headed over to Taco Mac for some food.  The ladies and kiddos came up there as well to meet up with us.  We had TERRIBLE service (always do at 141!!!) but ohh well… we still had a good time.

Shirt Lin and Kara bought

After Taco Mac everyone kinda did their own thing.  We headed back home to hang out with Andrea and Ryan (and the kids).  We all just hung out and talked until about 11:00 or so and then they took the trek back to D-Vegas (Douglasville).

We had such a great Saturday.  Man did I have a great time playing football.  It was awesome!  We are hoping to get the guys together every other Saturday to play.  Hopefully we can make it happen!

The shirt that is on Preston is quite a funny story.  A while back Kara and Lin came over to watch a football game.  Lin and I were in the living room watching the game and Alisha and Kara were in the kitchen.  So Alisha must have caught a glimpse of two linemen pushing and shoving at the line and said, look at those two guys fighting at the hut-hut line LOL!!!!!!!!!  She was referring to the line of scrimage but did not know any better.  She will NEVER live that down.  When Preston was born Kara and Lin got him a shirt that says future member of the hut-hut line  on the front and Natic with a number on the back.  It was a perfect gift!

On Friday night we headed into the city to check out a brew pub that I had been keeping an eye on with some of our friends.  It was called Max Lagers which was located right by the SunTrust building in downtown Atlanta. 

We went down with Bobby and Dan to grab some dinner and drinks and met Andrea and Ryan there.  We had a great time just talking it up but I will say I was not impressed at all with the beers.  I felt as though they were very watered down.  It was almost like good beer Bud Light style…I don’t know… there was absolutely no beer taste there.  Let’s put it this way.  We all know Alisha hates beer…. she actually liked this. 

I dont know if we had a bad batch or something, but it was no good in my book at all.  We were one of three tables on a Friday night and that may be why.  The food was okay, nothing great really, but the service was great.  Our waiter really went out of his way for Alisha and that was really cool of him.

It was a chill night with some good company to wrap up my birthday.

Two Saturdays ago (ugh i have been slacking so badly LOL) started off with some haircuts and ended up with a night in Athens!  It was such a great day!

Alisha had a hair cut appointment in the morning in Alpharetta and somehow convinced me to tag along…. ohh yeah…I remember how… she rubbed Athens in my face LOL.  Since I had so much time to kill I decided to get a haircut of my own at a Sport Clips up the road.  After getting all trimmed up we headed over to Einstein Brothers Bagels for a quick lunch before heading back towards the house to get ready for Athens. 

Terrapin Brewery

Alisha has refused to come along and decided to stay back while Lin, Dan, Bobby, and I headed off for one more night of fun.  Kara and their mom left in the morning to head down from Pittsburgh as she is now living in Georgia!  As you should already know I LOVE Athens and could not wait to head up there to enjoy what may be my last trip up there for a little while.  We had a blast!  The night started off with the traditional visit to Terrapin Brewery.  It is my favorite brewery period.  That place rocks and their beer is just unmatched.  We enjoyed many of their year round beers as well as some special brews.  They had their Wake and Bake (an oatmeal stout with coffee added to it) and Pumpkinfest (an octoberfest with pumpkin) which were both stunning.  That Pumpkinfest has come a long way since it was first introduced and the spices are starting to come through so well.  The Wake and Bake this year was just insane.  I think they may have reduced the amount of coffee added this year which made it the best it has ever been.  mmmmmm!!!!! 

Copper Creek Brewing Company

After Terrapin, we headed off to Copper Creek, another one of our must have stops for Athens.  It is a brew pub that makes some absolutely incredible beers and serves the best food.  I wish this place was in Cumming becuase I would live there!  We had a great dinner and a great time.  MMMMM  I love that place.  Afterwards we headed off to The Globe which happened to be our last stop this trip.  We ran into this chick at the bar that Dan called out for wearing a Tim Tebow jersey.  Turned out that Lin knew her from college and that started a whole night of interesting conversation.  She was a trip.  Next thing you know we are at a table with her and her friends just talking all kinds of college football trash LOL.  This chick was a total trip and her friends were hilarious too.  We had a great time just talking it up before calling it a night and heading back home.

Ahhhhh Athens… I love you

This afternoon I decided to spend about an hour and half brewing a new cider recipe that I had found.  The first cider that I brewed came out terrible due to a wild yeast strain that took over fermentation.  I recently brewed another cider which is currently in a keg to age in the garage.  Ciders are easy to brew and also very cheap, but unfortunately they need to age for quite some time before they become very enjoyable.  Knowing that, I decided to throw another batch together with the intent to age.  This particular recipe is kind of a hybrid between beer and cider but is supposed to be very good.  It has grains and hops added to it as well as 4 gallons of apple juice to complete the “cider”.  I am looking forward to this one and can’t wait to see how it turns out.

After brewing Bobby came over and we headed to dinner at Bucca di Beppo.  We had a great time catching up on events from the week as well as enjoying some good food.  I will say that I was very shocked by the new pricing.  It costs quite a bit more than Maggianos and the food is NOWHERE near as good.  That may be my last trip to that place for me.  Great atmosphere but those prices are kinda ridiculous even though you are supposed to share. 

After dinner we headed to Cold Stone for some ice cream and then to Taco Mac so that Bobby and I could have the limited beer from He’Brew called Jewbilation 13.  It is a 13% alcohol beer and is made with 13 hops and 13 grains.  It was pretty damn smooth for that kind of alcohol content and was a perfect way to wrap up the night.

notes:  The cider (Graff) has an OG of 1.064 (expected an OG of about 1.060).

So I got home after less than 24 hours from pitching the yeast to find this.

The yeast are working so hard so quickly that the beer is being pushed through the blowoff tube and into the bucket LOL.  This is a sign of a huge fermentation which is good to see.  If I had used an airlock instead of a blow off tube (like many do) it would have clogged it and sent a stream of beer so high that it would easily hit the ceiling and continue to spray like a geyser… fermentations are pretty cool.

On sunday morning I woke up early to head downstairs to brew… well, until I saw this:

RAIN!

Unfortunately it was POURING!  Since I have graduated to all grain brewing, I have to brew outside due to 6 or 7 gallons of water that must be brought to a boil.  The stove could never do that and finding a pot that would fit on a stove would be nearly impossible.  I then decided to redo my brewing space and brought everything into the garage.  I kept the garage door open and brewed right at the end of the garage.  I was making a winter spiced coffee milk stout based on a recipe that I found online.  This method of brewing is literally exactly how breweries brew their beer (except that theirs is all basically automated and they have bigger and more fancy vessels LOL)

The brewing setup

So the process is simple (well…. kinda).  You heat water in a beer keg with the top cut out (which then becomes a boil kettle) to an exact temperature and dump it into the cooler (called a mash tun).  You then add your crushed grains and let sit for about an hour.  You then drain the cooler of the liquid into the  boil kettle leaving behind the grains.  You then add more water heated to a higher exact temperature to “rinse” the grains.  Let that sit for about 10 minutes and then drain the cooler again into the boil kettle.  You then boil the liquid and add hops at a set schedule (for bitterness, taste, and smell) as stated in the recipe.  You then cool the boiled liquid down as quickly as possible by pumping freezing cold water through copper tubing placed in the boil kettle.  After cooling the “beer” you drain the kettle into a fermenter, add yeast, shake away to aerate, and let it ferment out for at least 3 weeks.  This process takes about 5 – 6 hours from start to finish – well at least for me it does LOL.  Some get it done much quicker, but I need to work on my process to get that time down. 

mash tun and mash paddle

So after brewing I took a shower and headed over to my parents house.  We had not been over there in a while and we were overdue.  We hung out and relaxed, had dinner and headed home. 

All in all it was a great day.  Can’t wait to taste this one!

My notes:  this beer’s efficiency was not quite so great.  Expected OG was 1.067 and i ended up with a 1.050.  Beersmith’s strike temperature for the mash was dead on.  Best to bring water higher, put into the mash tun to cool to strike water temperature.  The sparge I think was off.  Use 2 quarts per pound of grain next time at 170 instead of the instructed strike temperature.  Fermentation took off in less than 24 hours with a huge amount of blowoff.  Tested the gravity today (12/3/09) and it was at 1.024.  Estimated FG is 1.024 but that is with lactose.  I may need to skip the addition …. I roused the yeast today now that it is above the 60’s.  Hopefully this kicks fermentation up a little bit if there is anything left in there to ferment.

Saturday morning was a big day as Hector and Reagan were heading back to the 3d/4d ultrasound studio to get their gender confirmation and I was excited to watch the UGA Auburn game with Lin.  It was bound to be an excellent day!

So in the morning we woke up, got ready, and headed out the door to meet Hector, Reagan, and Geni and the ultrasound studio on Marketplace blvd to do their gender confirmation.  This was the same place that helped us out when we were in need and I highly recommend them to EVERYONE trying to get a 3d /4d ultrasound done.  See the bottom of this post for a full shout out.  We went back and confirmed…. ITS A BOY!!!  Looks like Preston is going to have another partner in crime to hang out with just like I did with Hector when we were young.  It is going to be great for these two to grow up with another family member their age.  I know it was huge for me.  After the ultrasound we headed over to ihop for breakfast with Hector, Reagan, and Geni.  We had a delicious start to the day and then headed off to go shopping at the outlet malls while they headed up to North Point Mall to do some shopping of their own.

After brekfast we headed up to the Dawsonville Outlet Mall to check out Baby Gap and pick up a few things for Preston.  I have fallen in love with that store and before anyone gives any lectures, I’ll be sure to mention that we buy things when they are on sale and they are no cheaper than any other place we look for clothes and they are much cuter and nicer.  We use coupons and watch the sale racks and love every bit of it.  I can’t wait to dress Preston!!!  We then grabbed lunch and headed back towards the house to meet up with Kara and Lin before the UGA Auburn game.

As you know I am a UGA fan and Lin is an Auburn alumni and huge fan as well.  Well… today was the day.  UGA was playing Auburn in Athens and it was bound to be a great game.  Before it all got started Lin and I headed out to Home Depot to pick up some double sided sticky tape and then over to Taco Mac to grab a few beers and watch a little bit of the games on the tvs there.  We had a some good guy time and then headed back to the house to meet up with the ladies.  We caught some shit about disappearing for a while, but hey… we had some bonding time right?  When we got to the house Jason Lucas had come buy on his way home from work to drill a hole in a keg for me before having to head back up to his house to get things done preparing for his move back to MD… damn you Jason…. we will miss ya buddy!  Courtney was also there as she was in the area to work for the night and stopped by.  I did not get to see her much but it is always great to see her.

We had Bobby, Danny, Kelly, Kara, and Lin over to watch the game and had a blast doing so.  Auburn took an early lead and then after the half it was a battle to the end.  UGA pulled off a HUGE win over the Auburn Tigers making my weekend!!!  GOOO DAWGS!  It was a great day full of things to do and excitement.  Congratulations to Hector and Reagan!  We are so happy for you two!

I want to recognize A Window to the Womb on Marketplace Boulevard in Cumming GA for helping us out when we were in need and providing such a great service to people.  It was a beautiful studio with a huge screen and amazing technicians.  If you are in the market for this type of ultrasound, please support them!  Window to the Womb

On Wednesday we decided to head over to Wild Wing Cafe to grab some much needed and craved wings.  Many of us had been really wanting some good wings but nothing around us will suffice.  We have some crappy places around and it would be really nice to get a place that had excellent food.  But what can you do?  Drive to Alpharetta of course!

At Taco Mac, Bobby, Jason, and I decided that we needed to go to Wild Wing Cafe to spend some time together and grab some wings.  We invited Mike, Aubree, Danny, Jason, Bobby, and Lindsay.  It was a hilarious night as we stuffed our faces.  As always Mike and I ordered China Syndrome (the hottest wings ever) and convinced Bobby and Lindsay to do the same.  This was hysterical.. Bobby took one bite and just started pouring out sweat LOL.  They are hot as HELL, but he was just dying LOL!!! After wings we headed to Cold Stone for some ice cream and then called it a night.

We had a great night talking and bsing around.  It was perfect to break up the week!  Going out on hump day is awesome!

Last Friday evening Ifinally sent my banana beer to a carboy.  A carboy is a glass fermenter / holding container which is air proof.  It was quite interesting to see the inside of the fermenter with all of the bananas in there LOL.

Racking the Banana cream ale

After transferring the beer to the carboy it was placed in my kegerator (which has no beers on tap ) to crash cool.  During this time any additional yeast and other sediment from the bananas of brewing process falls to the bottom of the carboy.  After two days of being in the kegerator I pulled it out, sanitized a keg, racked it to the keg, and began carbonating it with co2. 

Fermented Bananas

It will take about two weeks to be fully carbed and actually may need a few more weeks of aging to ensure that there are no off tastes from the recently fermented bananas.  Hopefully within a few weeks this thing will be ready and tasting great!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of my banana beer here

On Friday I purchased 5 lbs of bananas to add to my banana beer that I am brewing along with 2 ounces of pure vanilla extract.  MMMM 

Once home, I sanitized a plastic container and cut up all 5 lbs of bananas (about 23 bananas) and placed them into the container.  I then took the glass fermenter and transferred the fermented beer into another fermenter.  This new fermenter had the 5 lbs of bananas and the vanilla extract in it.  The finished beer was then “racked” on top of the bananas to mix with them and the vanilla.  This will create another fermentation while the yeast eat up all the sugar that is in the bananas (AKA a lot ).  The fermenter is then sealed and an airlock is placed on it to make sure that it remains air tight to prevent infections.  Becuase the temperatures in the house result in the beer being higher than 68 degrees, the fermenters are are placed in a plastic container.  Water is added to the container to surround the fermenter.  Water bottles with ice in them are then placed in the container to chill the water around the fermenter.  A shirt is then draped over the fermenter to act like a wick to pull the water onto it, cooling the fermenter.  Almost 6 days later the air lock is still releasing air from the fermenter which are signs that the yeast are still fermenting the sugars in the bananas.  Unfortunately, I will still need to wait about two more weeks to be sure that this has completed before I can keg it.  Then the dreaded two weeks of carbonation before I can drink it

While I was out I also picked up 4 gallons of apple juice to use for a hard cider.  The last one that I brewed was terrible as wild yeast must have lived through the flash pasteurization that the apple orchard did resulting in a TERRIBLE apple cider.  We had to dump them all .  This time I used pure Apple Juice some grains (for taste) and yeast.  I did the normal with the grains, combined the liquid with the apple juice in the fermenter and added the yeast.  It fermented away like crazy and is now beginning to calm down.  Making sweet cider at home is tricky because yeast will eat sugars until there is none left, or until it consumes its maximum amount.  Well in this case it will take it until the cider is dry.  Some like it that way – I cant imagine that I would.  Since I am kegging, I can chill the cider down very quickly in the kegerator (which makes the yeast “sleep” and drop to the bottom.  Then I can transfer the cider to another fermenter with the hopes that I removed enough yeast to stop the fermentation.  This is what I plan to do.  Then I can keg the cider and carbonate it with CO2.

I cant wait for both of these to be done!  I will most likely carbonate the cider and then bottle it up so that I can free up the tap for the banana cream ale.  Either way it will be a while before that happens.

Note:  The cider started out at 1.052 and finished at 1.010 on 11/6/09.

A friend at work emailed me this today – excellent!

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed.
Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery
and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they
might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say
to myself, ‘It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams
come true than to be selfish and worry about my liver.

- Jack Handy-

A great quote… so great, that it is my facebook status.

This weekend is going to be great!!! 

On Friday night we are going out to dinner to celebrate Spence’s birthday.  After that the guys are heading out to Grant’s bachelor party in the city.  It should be a great time!  On Saturday we are heading over to Geni and Edwin’s for the annual pool party with the family and family friends.  Bobby’s two brothers will be in town as well… so I am quite positive a trip to Taco Mac is in store.

Sunday I am hoping to replace my kitchen sink – I hate that damn thing!  We are putting in a single basin black granite composite sink.  We will need to re-route some of the plumbing below and move the garbage disposal over to the other side but it will be worth it.  Most people like the division of the double basin.  Not I… it drives me nuts.  I cant easily wash certain pots and pans as the division gets in the way.  I am also hoping to get the chair rail up as well as the beadboard in the nursery that we started and install some closet shelving in the garage so that I can finally clean it up.  This means that it will be a busy day and that I need to get all of my supplies before the end of the week so that i will have it for the weekend.  Lots to do… but it will be awesome!

On Monday, I am hoping to brew my newest beer.  I am thinking that it will be a Banana Cream Ale.  I cant wait.  After brewing Alisha and I will find something to enjoy our day off from work. 

I cant wait for this weekend.  It is going to be so great!