Little nuggets from GABF

This year was my second year to attend the Great American Beer Festival, the first being 2008.  I figure going every other year is a fairly reasonable goal, although I wouldn't complain if I could go every year.  I usually use Twitter to do some "on-the-spot" blogging of beer reviews as I sample them; you can catch them at PortRoyalBrew.

I didn't get lots of pictures, only a couple on my cell phone's camera:

 This was a pretty cool 1/5 scale model of the brew house of Ninkasi Brewing, including cutaways to see inside the brewing vessels.

If you've ever wondered what "mash rakes" in a pro brewery look like, wonder no more.

This is a new malt from Briess that just debuted on October 1 of this year.  It's a debittered, 500 deg L seasonal malt in their new Maltster's Reserve series.  There were big bowls of different malts that you could snag some grain to chew; this one would be awesome for a Black IPA or Cascadia Dark Ale.  The other seasonal malts are Caracrystal Wheat malt for Jan-Mar, Carabrown malt for Apr-Jun, and Midnight Wheat malt (550 deg L malted wheat!) for Jul-Sep.

Sooooo...

Most blogs I read have started out with this out-of-the-park, change-the-world, mission statement first post.  The rest have started out with something along the lines of, "Uh, this is my blog.  Not sure why I'm doing this or if anyone will read it.  But here goes." Complete with my internal narration in the voice of Butt-head.

My wife has been chronicling our family (fambly?) exploits for over two years.  One of my closest friends is starting a blog as a money-making adjunct to a hobby-cum-revenue stream/career change.  I guess I'm starting this as something in-between.

I have several hobbies, but only two are probably of some interest to an audience-at-large: brewing beer and woodworking.  Not to say that the others won't pop up from time to time as they present a cross-over opportunity, but in an effort to keep my posts focused, I will try to keep to the subjects as stated in this blog's title.

That being said... uh, this is my blog.  Don't know if anyone will read it.  But here goes.