Things Keep Happening Updates don't. I'll do my best.
Sorry Pandora, There's Someone Else (It Was You)
Feb 9, 2012
That's right Pandora, I've moved on. As a radio station, you're great, but when it comes to choice its all about Spotify, and let's not forget about the real hero here — Last.fm. On my website I like to display what beers I brew, what I bookmark online, what books I read, what photos I take and yes, what music I listen to. That's a lot of updating, so the final goal is implementing technologies that make updates as automatically and seamlessly as possible.
In the old days before Pandora's newest redesign, I got away with listening to songs and bookmarking ones I particularly liked. That list would then populate my site. Half of the stuff coming across Pandora's stations were of no interest to me anyway, so why would I want it on my site? Well a combination of things have happened to the online music world recently that drove me away from Pandora. The first was the Pandora.com redesign. No more bookmarking! A total crock! I had no way of updating my site, because there was no feed or easy api for displaying any other kind of list. As I was looking for a way I stumbled across Spotify. Being able to listen to whatever whenever was pretty much a no-brainer, so that takes care of that, but there was no way to get this new list of played songs onto my website. Enter Last.fm.
Last.fm isn't particularly new. It's been out there but I had no real interest in it because what I had was working just fine. Well let me tell you, if you're not on there get on it! They have a technology called scrobbleing that takes any music you listen to — wether it be on your iTunes, or Spotify or what have you, and it compiles it all together onto their site. Pretty powerful. It gives you reccomendations based on the songs you listen to, and it also has an extremely robust api. After a few hours - boom! I had a list on my site that updates what I'm listening to withought me having to push a button.
So, sorry Pandora. You still have a great Christmas station!
Libations & Sanitations Notes from the brewery.
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'Sick' Beer Tricks
Feb 7, 2012
Alright, so next year came and went. I didn't win the Big Sky community brew competition that I had second in last year. I didn't even submit an entry! But here's the deal, I was tricked by my own beer.
The category for this year's competition was categoty 16E: Belgian Specialy Ale. Basically a catch-all category for anything outside the norm, but with a decidedly Belgian yeast-type character. Think Belgian IPA, spiced Belgian golden strong ale, or the well known brett-tinged Orval. Coincidentally, a kind of an Orval clone is what I decided to try entering this year.
If you haven't had a good fresh Orval I suggest you do so immediately. I think importing it from Belgium doesn't do it a whole lot of favors in terms of freshness, but it is a pretty unique, refreshing beer, and a standout example of category 16E. If you are like me, and you like the complex, barnyard flavors and aromas that brettanomyces gives a beer, you'll love this, and if you are new to the wild yeast, it is a great beginning beer to try because the horse blanket flavors are fairly subtle.
After brewing and fermenting what I would describe as a malty pale ale with belgian yeast, I racked to a new carboy and pitched a brettanomyces pack from Wyeast and let it work for four weeks. Brett continues to break down proteins and larger sugars that regular beer yeast can't, and the process is slow. When I went in and added the dry hop after six weeks I tasted what I had. The entry date was a week away so I was anxious for a good brew. What I tasted was horrible. I've had more than my share of bad batches in the past, a problem that I thought I was getting over, but this batch was totally undrinkable. I was so descusted and bummed I couldn't even through it out. I let it sit on the hops for two weeks.
Well, another brew day came up and I decided to finally clean that carboy while all my equipment was out. I decided to give the nastyness one more try, and what did I find? This beer was awesome. Not the descusting mess I had before, but a tasty, crisp and clear brew. The entry date for the comp had come and gone, but here I now have 5 gallons a killer beer! It has now been nine weeks since I brewed my Orval clone, and it continues to clear and the brett characters continue to develop.
Why did this happen? I've been hearing more recently about cycles that sour beers go though, and I think I tried it during one of it's 'sick' cycles. I just didn't know that that is what it was. A sour beer has to go through a sick phase in order to get better, it just haden't gotten there yet.
There's always next year to enter the competition, but to be honest I'm just happy I didn't ruin another batch!
