Tasting Notes: Bernie's Dunkel (Munich Dunkel)

I have always run hot and cold with beer names. Originally when brewing was something Jennie and I did together, our brewery had a baseball theme as did all of our beer names. After awhile I ran out of baseball puns and references. Since then I either come up with a great name, or struggle to think of one. 

von Trapp (L) and Bernie's Dunkel (R)

As I drank the first samples, I was reminded of my grandmother's husband Bernie who she married in 2007. Bernie wasn't much of a beer drinker, but he was stationed in Germany while in the army. When he saw our first batch of Double Play Dark he recongized that dark ale as a dunkel. Bernie passed away in 2021. It is fitting this beer honors him.

In the original brew day post, I called the Munich Dunkel I was brewing Shoebert Lager. That name was in honor of a gray seal that visited my hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts. Shoebert swam through a culvert underneath MA Route 62 and ended up in Shoe Pond, hence the name Shoebert. Initially authorities were content to let Shoebert swim and feed in the lower section of Shoe Pond. For several days onlookers gathered at the pond to catch a glimpse of the gray seal. 

Tasting Notes: Pa's Lager (2022)

One of my Brew Year's Resolutions for 2023 is off to a great start! If you count the blog refresh I am working on, that's two. 

Harp Lager and Pa's Lager.

In addition to writing down somewhat detailed sensory notes on this batch of Pa's Lager, I picked up a commercial example to compare it to: Harp Lager. I love Guinness, and brewed in Ireland, Harp Lager was Guinness' first foray into lager brewing. I thought it was a good choice here for a couple of reasons. Presumably both beers were made with malt from the British Isles: Pa's Lager with Muntons Pilsner malt, and Harp with Irish barley malted by Guinness. I also wanted to revisit Harp after making my cheap lager tier list. 

Keeping an effective brew log - what I should have started doing from the beginning

Author David McCullough wrote all of his books on a typewriter. What makes this noteworthy is that McCullough only just passed in 2022, and his last book was published in 2019. His justification was that he never had to worry about one push of a button erasing his work. As I have gone through every published post and inserted recipes, I have noticed more missing recipes than I thought.

Brew sheet from my AHA-finalist Imperial Stout

When I started brewing in 2012, even before I started brewing my first batch, I looked for a mobile application I could use as a brew log. Back then the motto was, "There's an app for that!". At the time storing everything on an iPhone application seemed like the only way to go. Ten years later as our phones fill up with large image files, larger video files, and podcasts, many of us are removing seldom-used apps to save storage space on our devices. 

Blog refresh is underway

I finally started the long-needed refresh of the blog. When I set up the blog on Blogger, it was initially just an archive of what I wrote for Wicked Local. Then I started posting my content here and pushing it to Wicked Local. I never put a great deal of effort into the design and layout of the site.

As I mentioned on my Brew Year's Resolutions for 2023, I knew the older posts which I exported from Wicked Local's WordPress, and imported into Blogger had some formatting issues. This includes mis-sized and mis-located pictures, captions with code showing, and posts with no tags. 

Brew Year's Resolutions for 2023

What should my resolutions be for this year? I have no idea what I am doing with my life. Fuck do I know?

My mental issues aren't this bad.

That is only a slight exaggeration. It's been three years since I made Brew Year's Resolutions. Before starting this post, I skimmed through my previous years resolutions. My batting average on these resolutions is about what I expect the 2023 Red Sox to be. I still haven't studied for, or taken the BJCP Exam since 2019. My basement brewery still doesn't have a sink and is as disorganized as I usually am. I also still have not perfected Galloupe Gold as our house beer. Why do I do these again?

Forcing myself to brew and not think about the future too much

They say one of the signs of depression is no longer finding joy in the things that you love. The past few weeks I have certainly been feeling depressed. In early November I found out that Muntons was eliminating my position at the end of 2022. This wasn't a surprise to me. For at least a year my job felt tenuous. Still, when the call came it was a punch to the gut.