Time To Post Again

Well, its been a very long time since I posted on this blog.  I thought I might start updating it more often.

Since the last post we had a baby girl and named her Zoey !

So here is a fine picture to start things off !

Brewing Beer

Phil Pointer and I won last years Homebrewing Bock competition, and were given the opportunity to recreate our recipe for this years BockFest.

Here's the skinny !

The crew from Elevator Brewing where we made this year's Bock.

" Schoenling Bock is brewed using homebrewer Chris Mitchell and Phil Pointer's winning recipe in the 2010 BockFest Homebrewer's Competition - an annual Bloatarian Brewing League event. Schoenling Bock is a limited edition beer available only at participating BockFest venues. Details for the 2011 BockFest Homebrewers' Competition are available at the Bloatarian Brewing League website at www.bloatarian.org"

Wedding Day ! ! !

It's been a while since my last post. Since then Krista and I have been married and been on our honeymoon in Mexico. We had a few special guests make an apperance at the wedding.

More posts to follow!

Big Snake . . .Big Snake Chase Me !

Last night around 11pm someone was banging on my door. It was my neighbor and he was in a frenzy screaming something about a large snake.

Whatever, I thought. We got snakes all over the place, mostly little gardner snakes and an occassional rat snake. I threw on some shoes and went outside to humor him.
Well he wasn't joking. Near his driveway crawling along the sidewalk was a 4-1/2 foot long Python.. . .that's right. . .I almost choked on my milk and cookies. . . I scooped up the fella with a broom handle. Krista ran and grabbed a pillow case, and then we put him into a big Rubbermaid container.





Not sure what to do with the poor guy; obviously he was someone's pet that escaped. I have no idea how long he has been outside. No neighborhood cats seem to be missing.

I think I am keeping him, and I will call him Harry. . . after Harry Houdini. The great escape snake. . . .

Bockfest 2009

Last weekend was Bockfest ! This is a description of the Festival as per the Bockfest website, http://www.bockfest.com/

"Cincinnati is the home to the world's oldest Bock festival, but many Cincinnatians are unaware of this tradition. If you are one of the unfortunate who have never attended a Bockfest (or who have but can't really remember that weekend) here's a quick primer. In the 1800s, Cincinnati was one of America's most prolific brewing cities. Cincinnatians drank more beer per capita than any city in the country, and Over-the-Rhine was at one point home to more than 18 breweries. A tradition developed among the breweries to release all of their bock beer on the same day. Bock beer is a rich, complex, robust lager that marks the end of the Winter brewing season and the beginning of Spring."

Dan Listermann and I built and rode the "Bloatmobile" (dressed as monks) in the Bockfest parade. The wheels are made from old whiskey barrels.

2009 Big Beers Festival - Belgians and Barleywines

Congratulations to Mike Pedersen, one of my fellow brewing buddies! Mikey lived in Cincinnati for a long time before picking up and moving to Boulder, Colorado. It was after he moved that I discovered that he was heavily into homebrewing and making some kick-a** beers left and right.

We've stayed in touch over the years and he has just won Best of Show at the Tenth Annual Big Beers Festival in Vail, Colorado ! http://www.bigbeersfestival.com/belgians_barleywines_winners.htm

This is huge because as a grand prize his winning beer recipe will be commercially brewed at Dry Dock Brewing Company http://drydockbrewing.com/ and put on tap at The Falling Rock Taphouse in Denver and at the sponsoring brewery, Dry Dock Brewing, located in Aurora, Colorado. Absolutely incredible!

This is the only picture I found. . . I'll get more photos of him soon and repost.

Congrats again Mikey!

Cricket, Krista, and Cliff

My parents come down and visit every once in a while and every time they bring their German Shepherd Cricket. She is a handful and that is one of many reasons why they stay at my sisters house when they visit. . our cats don't like dogs much!

It was a great weekend of food and hanging out. Pictured is Cricket, my fiancee Krista, and my father Cliff taking cricket for a romp in the yard.

When Life Gives You Chicken Bones, Make Chicken Soup !

Every once in a while we roast a whole chicken in the oven Afterwords you're left with a whole lot of scraps, bones, and less than desirable meat. The solution I found is to make Chicken Soup!

Save some of the good meat (or get a boneless chicken breast or two) to add to the soup at the end. Then you boil the leftovers down to make stock, add some fresh vegetables and noodles, add the good meat and you have chicken soup.

I usually put the whole batch in the fridge for a day and the fat will congeal to the top. Then skim it off and and its good to go. You can then freeze some in individual containers, or divide it up any way you like. I definitely think it's better after a day of the spices and flavors melding together.

It's cold out so stay warm!

Friday night Krista and I ate at the Cheesecake Factory in Kenwood Towne Center. The wait was extremely long but worth it. We had a gift card from Krista's mom which we really appreciated. To start off, we split a (huge) bowl of New England Clam Chowder while eating the warm sourdough bread brought to the table. Krista ordered a blackened salmon salad, that was presented very nicely and I ordered a featured dish called 'Chicken Bellagio' which was made with Procuitto Ham (my favorite)!

Lots of News: Little Space

It's been a long time since the blog has been updated. Where do I start?

In Late October I asked my long time girlfriend to marry me (and she said yes!)

In early November, my architecture firm, where I had worked for 8-1/2 years decided to lay me off. They let go another employee who had been with them for 35 plus years, so I am only a quarter as mad as he is. . .

My cat was diagnosed with diabetes and has to be given a shot of human insulin every 12 hours for the rest of his life. He'll be fine, if fact he sitting on my drafting table next to the computer knocking stuff on the ground to get my attention. . .

In late November I my Grandmother had her 90th birthday party in New York. Spending time with relatives while being unemployed is a bit like going to the dentist. . but still great to see everyone.

The positive side was I was completely free for the Holidays and spent a great Christmas with my family.

New Years eve was relatively calm, I cooked a standing Rib roast and asparagus for dinner with Krista and myself, and we went to a club in downtown Cincinnati.

So currently I am working on silk screening T-Shirts full time.

More to come soon and I'll try to be better about updating the blog.

Happy New Year's everyone !

The Great Grape Crush of 2008

We finally got our shipment of California Grapes, delayed by weather - specifically by Hurricane Ike that hit Cincinnati. . . Yes that’s right, the Ohio Valley was hit by a Hurricane around 2 weeks ago. Never thought I’d say that in my lifetime. . . Luckily, we sustained little damage and never lost power. Not so for many people who had lost power for over 7-10 days. . . craziness.

But back to the grapes. . . .They looked great and most of them are happily fermenting away as we speak. Three of us usually make wine together, and between the three of us we are making a Chardonnay, Muscato (Muscat), Viognier, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Petite Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our big shipment of Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon is coming in at the end of October. . . . and it is arriving frozen. They pick the grapes and flash freeze them within a few hours of picking, so we know they will be fresh. Can’t wait !

Until the next post, Cheers !

Go Guest !

Guest is a local (Ohio) band that has been around 10 plus years and they still absolutely rock the house !

Ryan "Buzz" Bussey designed a really nice shirt for their 2 upcoming shows. Thanks Buzz for a great design and the referral!

Here their band rep Louis Kontos drove down from Columbus to pick up shirts. The shirts turned out great and everyone is happy !
Friday Guest is playing in Columbus and they will be in Athens, Ohio Saturday night! Check out their myspace profile at :
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=66510205

Cincinnati needs to get these guys to come play a show soon.

Ten Fiddy is here! !

It’s been a while since I have posted. 2 weekends ago we were at Bill and Jill Levenderis’s wedding in Oxford. We saw a bunch of old friends, ate some great food, and heard some phenomenal music by a band called Guest.

My friend Rob from Wisconsin brought me a ton of Ted Fiddy. . .an Imperial Russian Stout from Oskar Blues in Boulder, Colorado. Its as thick as oil coming out of the can, with a great nose of chocolate, malt, coffee, cocoa and oats – rated 100 points out of 100 by http://www.ratebeer.com/ . Some friends and I will be disecting these beers in an attempt to clone. . we'll see how it works out. . .
But I’ll be tucking away quite a few of these babies away for aging for sure. Thanks Rob !

We took pictures, which I’ll post later . . . I’d hate to be the person cleaning up our hotel room. . .

Listermann Mural

Baby steps. . . .a little each day. . .

Watch as soon as I am done. . . .someone will hit it with Graffiti. . . knock on wood. .

Going Into The Sign Business

Several days ago I began the Listermann mural. We set a projector up in the middle of the street, put out orange cones, and attempted to direct traffic around the project while I was up on scaffolding tracing the image with a sharpie. Fun !

As I was up on the scaffolding, 2 police came racing out of nowhere. . . . and I thought we were in trouble. Turns out they were curious what we were doing. . . and they wanted to know how to make beer! Dan Listermann chatted with them for the next 30 minutes while I finished up the tracing.

I started painting a few days ago and its going slow. The white pops out pretty nice and I think it will look great when it’s done. . . .

And the sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside. . . .

Spraying the black and the finished sign.

Mr. Ming exhausted after helping. . . . .

“Off The Beaten Path” is officially open for business ! ! This new retail store is owned and operated by Johnny and Shelley Helfinstine in Oxford, Ohio. . . .and today is their grand opening. -
I finished the sign last night and Johnny came by early this morning to pick it up. I think it turned out pretty nice. This is just a temporary sign until we can get permits for the big Storefront Sign (10 feet by 2.5 feet).

Veggies, Meat, and Cigars!

The vegetables are starting to come. This year we have 6 or 7 different kinds of cherries, romos, and the beefy slicers. . . .also some jalapeno peppers and some green peppers . . . .all much tastier than the ones in the store. This was our first year for cucumbers and they were very easy to grow. Next year we’ll plant more.

Over the weekend we grilled salmon and veggies. The next night I got a hankerin for Caribbean Jerk marinated Rib eyes ( thank you Food Network and Bobby Flay) and rib eyes were on sale at Meijer’s, so we had a super late dinner on Saturday. These are the rib eyes with a store bought Caribbean Jerk marinade spiced up with some fresh thyme and mango. Thanks to Krista’s mom for hooking us up with all this food !

Every once in a while I’ll enjoy a nice cigar. I’ve been trying to stock up my humidor and it it’s slow going. . . .my father’s humidor, on the other hand, is looking good in these pictures! All the yellow labels are cigars from Spain that he brought back. Man are they tasty! Thanks Dad!

Are Pyrex Carboys Flame Safe?

In short, the answer is no. I wasn’t any part of this experiment, but happened to walk in on the tail end of it for the best part.
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Question: “Your making beer, why didn’t you boil in a stainless steel kettle like everyone else? “
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Answer: “Because glass looks way cooler”. Especially when it explodes, sending shards of glass flying through the air. . .

Danna nana nana nana Danna nana nana nana, Batman !

We saw the new Batman movie on its opening night and the theater was as packed as I have ever seen it. Glad I got my tickets online, so we zoomed into the theater and found some seats. . . pretty much the last 2 seats together in the house. Then I proceeded to wait in the concession line for 15 minutes and missed most of the previews.
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I won’t give away any of the details, but I will say that it’s the best movie I have seen in a while. And at the end everyone clapped and went nuts. . . . definitely worth the money to see.
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As we were leaving the movie, the line for the next showing was out the door. A few guys waiting in line( I think that had been drinking) noticed my Homebrewing shirt and started yelling and screaming. We had a conversation about Cream Ale (since we’ll be brewing and selling some at the store). Pretty good group of guys. . . .as are most homebrewers !

Good Beer Radio ! ! !

A few weeks back I was fortunate to take part in Pod Cast radio show called Good Beer Radio. It was held at my local homebrew shop called Listermann’s, where I help out (work) on Saturdays. They had a great line-up of guests, including John Palmer, who wrote “How to Brew”; Steve Wilkes and James Spencer of Basic Brewing Radio (another Pod Cast Radio show); Jeff Bearer of Craft Beer Radio; Dan Listermann; Bonus Beer Bob and the Host of Good Beer Radio, Jeffrey T. -
The show usual features the tasting of commercial beers, but this show was dedicated to homebrew, so there were 20 or so beers that they went through and tasted.
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My buddy Phil and I sat and watched some of the show. Originally I thought we’d sit there and watch the show or help out if they needed anything, but I was asked to sit in on the show when the group tasted an Imperial Bourbon Barrel Stout I brought ! Pretty exciting stuff ! ! !
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Here are the links to the shows. . .
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http://www.goodbeershow.com/
Download show #156, then go to 33.34 to listen to them taste my Imperial Bourbon Barrel Stout.
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The other podcast shows can be found on these websites. . .
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http://www.craftbeerradio.com/
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http://www.basicbeerbrewing.com/

Pictured from left to right. . . John Palmer, who wrote “How to Brew”; Dan Listermann; Bonus Beer Bob; James Spencer and Steve Wilkes of Basic Brewing Radio (another Pod Cast Radio show); the Host of Good Beer Radio, Jeffrey T.; and Jeff Bearer of Craft Beer Radio.

Cheers !