I friend of mine recently asked if I was putting all my beer recipes online, and I unfortunately was forced to answer no. When I started brewing I tried to put them all online, but the write-ups just took too long. So I’ve decided to start posting them again, but in a very limited format. That way it doesn’t take me long to post them, and hopefully I can solicit input from others. Beer Information My goal for this beer was to make something easily drinkable for some of my family that generally prefers lagers, and tend not to like really bitter ales. I find most blonde ales a bit boring, so ...

About a year ago I picked up a new hobby – home brewing. I had quite a few friends who were into the hobby before me, and it just so happened that there was pretty great home-brew supply shop in town. So I thought at the time it would be fun to try my hand at brewing my own beer at home. I quite enjoy the entire brewing process to be honest. For me a picture-perfect Sunday usually involves a few movies on Netflix, a roast chicken in the oven for a late dinner, and brewing an occasional beer over the course of the day. That said my two least favourite aspects of the beer making process involve ...

Back when I got back from Europe in December, I decided I needed a hobby to help me get through the cold Canadian winter. I eventually decided to take up beer making, since a) I like beer b) some of my friends brew beer and c) most of my friends like to drink beer, especially when it’s free. I’ve probably done close to 10 all-grain beer brews so far, and I wanted to share some of the things I have learned in this adventure. Had I read a post like this before I started, it probably would have saved me lots of pain and grief. But in the nature of giving back to beer drinkers and brewers around ...

I had an opportunity the other day to record an hour long podcast with my friend John Biehler. John recently started a technology-based podcast called TekEh that has a particular emphasis on Canadian content and guests. His first episode was Kemp Edwards from HootSuite, and talked mainly about the experiences of being in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. I was excited to be the second guest in the series, and spent an hour sipping a rum and coke and talking about WordPress, our experiences at BraveNewCode creating commercial plugins, having clients, photography, travelling around the world, ...

My previous beer, a Milk Stout, was pretty much a total failure. So I decided I would make another attempt at a stout, this time without lactose though (for arbitrary reasons). A beer I’ve always quite enjoyed is Howe Sound Brewery’s Oatmeal Stout, so I thought I would try my hand at making an oatmeal stout. An oatmeal stout, as the name implies, uses oatmeal as part of its grain bill. While the oats don’t really add a dominant taste, they do impart a particular body to the beer as well as some complexity. Recipe The local home brew supply shop I normally use was pretty much out of every ...

About a week after I brewed my first beer I decided I would get another one in the queue so I would have one more to taste when they became ready. I decided to try my hand at a milk stout, another type of beer I thoroughly enjoy. I spent some time looking at other milk stout recipes and ultimately crafted something in BeerSmith2 that I thought would taste pretty good (based on a theoretical imagination in my head of what each of these base malts taste like). Unfortunately I missed my FG on this one by a huge amount (like 15 pts). I finally tracked it down to an improper estimate of mash efficiency ...

Very recently I decided I would try making an American India Pale Ale (IPA). My main reason with choosing this type of beer is that it’s one of my favourite styles, and I have a lot of great memories sitting around drinking a really hoppy beer amongst friends. I decided when I was in Europe that the first method for all-grain brewing I would attempt when I returned back home would be Brew In A Bag (BIAB). Basically you use a big-ass nylon bag to hold all your grains and have your brew kettle do double-duty as a mash tun as well. This method was apparently started by Australian home-brewers as ...

I’m back now from Europe, and taking a well deserved rest from travel for a few months. While I had a good time on my last trip, it wasn’t something I was totally looking forward to at the time, mainly because I had just gotten through recovering from a big surgery and was enjoying life around home. In terms of my surgery, I think the end result is quite a bit better. I had a private CT scan done in Serbia so I could gain some peace of mind with regards to the outcome, and here was the end result. CT scan from after my third surgery You can basically see the titanium mesh which is under my ...

BarCamp, Photo by John Biehler Tomorrow is the kick-off party for BarCamp Vancouver. While I do indeed have a ticket, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to make it at this point. I’m right at the end of a huge client deliverable, and my attendance will depend on whether or not I can get it all done tomorrow. In addition, I’m also hoping to start moving things into storage this weekend if I can. That said, I’ve been to a few other BarCamp Vancouver events before, and am hoping to make an appearance at the party if I can. BarCamp is an unconference – attendees put conference ...

Almost ten years ago, I started playing around with some microprocessor hobby kits at home. At the time they main ones were called STAMPS and you programmed them with BASIC. You could make them run motors, measure temperature, pretty much whatever you wanted them to do. A few weeks ago I ran into my friend John, and he was telling me about a similar thing called the Arduino. It’s basically a small little microprocessor kit that has basic inputs and outputs that you can use to do arbitrary things. Given that I’m an electrical engineer by education and that I haven’t really done anything electrical ...

It’s official. Sometimes I get harassed at the border, sometimes my car gets dented in a parking lot. But usually when I’m down south something happens that shows just how much the US hates me. Today I was driving along, having a pretty good time listening to music, when I looked up in my rear view mirror and saw the cherries flashing. Since it’s been about 12 years since I’ve been pulled over, I didn’t even really get that the lights were for me. I thought, “hmm, that’s peculiar, I wonder why he doesn’t just go around me.” Anyways, I pulled over to the side of the road, and ...

I was out the other day having a few beers at a local watering hole. I actually don’t really drink all that much nowadays, something I’m pretty thankful for. The thing is, when you work in high technology, there are always a lot of opportunities after work to go schmooze at a pub with your bosses or whoever is in town negotiating a deal. Strangely enough, I’ve never liked drinking all that much. The irony of that is that me and my friends were pretty well known for our drinking prowess in university. In fact, I’m still sort of known as the guy who can pound back an insane about of liquor, ...

On Tuesday night I had the privilege of attending a private party at the Molson brewery put on by Molson. Molson decided to have a little get together with some of the local social media individuals and bloggers, and while pounding back a few beers. The event was called Brew 2.0, and it took place down on Burrard Street at the big brewery. I’ve actually never been inside a brewery before, and it was a really cool experience. It’s amazing how many beers Canadians are consuming every minute, something you get a sense of as the machines pump out cans of Rickard’s Red and Molson Canadian. I ...

I haven’t written on here in a few days now. That’s a long stretch for me. Truth is, I’m just kind of busy and a bit bagged. I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately, and feel like I’m a walking zombie. I was feeling pretty nauseous all yesterday, and didn’t really eat that much. I hardly slept at all last night and woke up feeling like I was going to throw-up, so I decided to work from home today and try to save what’s left of my body here. I decided a few weeks ago that I’m taking this weekend off. I don’t know what I’m going to end up doing, but I’m really hoping it ...

I woke up to an email inviting me to a big Molson event down at the Burrard Street Brewery next week. It’s an event geared towards some of Vancouver’s web 2.0 saavy people and bloggers that involves sampling various beers as well as a special blogger brew that they have cooking up just for us. It actually sounds like a ton of fun. Given that I can demolish a few beers without much effort, I think I’ll definitely swing by and check it out. A few other of the night’s attractions will be: Kerry Scarsbrook & Gord Rickards, creator of Rickard’s Red, will be in attendance. Molson Brewery ...

Well, I’m not actually sure if it’s today, but Dave Olsen recently had a birthday. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Dave in the last year or so through Rebecca and John, and he’s an outstanding guy with a real love for the Internet and his friends. Not only is he an amazing podcaster, but if he were about 75 pounds heavier I’m pretty sure he’d be one of the few people to keep up with me at the bar, no doubt about it. In addition, Dave and I have actually been cooking up a little web kung-fu that we’ll be talking about real soon. I was down in San Francisco this weekend, ...

So, it’s 30 minutes past midnight, and we just got back from another long day at Google. I’m sitting in Scott’s 82 degree fahrenheit hotel room with Derek and twelve beers. Last night we realized that a 14 hour day would be a lot better if we had a few beers to finish it off, so we basically started the midnight-gas-station-beer-run tradition. For those of you who don’t really know what Silicon Valley is like, I’ll give you a little heads up. Most of Silicon Valley is centered around a city south of San Francisco called San Jose (affectionately called “Man Jose” by the locals, since ...

One of the strange things I find about getting older is the fact that I no longer enjoy the same things I used to. Board games are a good example — I just plain don’t like them these days. I don’t mind sitting around a camp fire and playing asshole for eight hours, but I can’t be bothered with something like monopoly. Another strange change is that I don’t really enjoy drinking or bars that much these days. I had a fairly crazy university life, and somehow (despite being in a dormitory filled with nerds and scholarship recipients) ended up on a floor full of people that liked to party ...

Tonight I met up with the gang to celebrate Amy’s birthday down at Wing’s on Granville Street. We had a few pitchers of beer and demolished somewhere on the order of 16 pounds of wings as a group (I’m now officially “winged out”, so I probably won’t go back there for a while). It was tons of fun, even though I ate that one hot wing that melted my mouth. Afterwards we ended up down at the Bowling Alley on Granville and played a few games. My head was still a tad sore from the night before (the danger of drinking for free at a bar), so my game was a bit off. I took a pile of photos ...

Ahh yes.. Friday.. So exciting.. This was a really good week. I hung out with friends, got some stuff done in the office, and have a pile of fun things to do this weekend. After work I’m meeting up with Rebecca, Kasia and maybe Keira for some wings and beer. Life’s rough I know. Plus on the way over I want to buy a flash diffuser over at Leo’s Camera on Granville, something that I used at the last wedding I shot and wished I actually owned. Tomorrow there are two parties, one for Rebecca’s birthday and one for Kasia’s. I have to make appearances at both, but I think I can pull it off. ...