A New Arrival

25 and I are happy to announce that we're . . .

brewing.

For any of you sillies who thought I was announcing a pregnancy, shame on you.  You obviously don't know me at all! Haven't you read my rants about children, and everyone having children, and posting about their children, and blah blah blah children?

We took the plunge a couple months ago and started homebrewing.  Much like a pregnancy, we didn't want to tell anyone until we were sure that we wouldn't lose the batch. It's been a slow process of telling friends and family.  Introducing them to what we made.  Talking about the techniques and ingredients.

Weiz was from a Brewer's Best kit. She was all Amber LME (liquid Malt Extract) and Hallertau hops pellets.

Our first beer was a Weizenbier.  She was a beautiful 4.6% amber colored wheat beer with a slight cloudiness that one wants in a wheat beer.  She has great fruity esters of peach/apricot/pit fruits and some nicely complicated flavors. Not much sediment in the bottles and great clarity.

Just like any first born,  we made some mistakes. It's possible that the fruity esters came from contamination (more than one great beer has been created by accident).  After bottling her, we put the bottles in boxes, in the garage, protected from light as we'd read was important.  Just about the time we did that, the weather started cooling off.  We didn't know that below about 62 degrees, the yeast becomes inactive and won't carbonate the beer.  In conclusion, we have great tasting flat beer. My take is that I'd rather have a great beer with no bubbles than a crappy bear with lots of bubbles.  25 on the other hand tends to like highly carbonated beers with lots of little bubbles so he was a bit disappointed.

The feedback from friends who are drinker and non-beer drinkers has been pretty good.  They all like the fruity complicated flavor thing.  They acknowledge that it's flat but seem to echo my sentiments about good beer-no bubbles as the bettern option.

While we drink our way through the 22 12oz and 9 22oz bottles that were the Weizenbier, we brewed again.  Our second is an English Pale Ale.  She was from a kit as well and she's made of Fuggles and Goldings hop pellets, LME plus some Dry Malt Extract and even Caramel Malt to steep. EPA was bottled last week Wednesday.  It should be roughly the same ABV.  Slightly darker in color and a tiny bit less cloudy. She still need another week of bottle aging before we open a test bottle. We were more efficient and drew 25 12oz and 10 22oz bottles.

Batch three is an Irish Stout we've named Mick, after a character in Hell on Wheels. He's still in secondary fermentation and will probably be bottled next week, then three plus weeks of bottle conditioning.  He was some LME, roasted barley, flaked barley, Northern Brewer hops (not pellets a first for us), two packets of liquid yeast (another first).  He's pristine and the last of the yeast is settling out now.

Like any proud creator, photos to follow. The biggest question at the moment is what to brew next?

What a Difference Eighteen Months Makes

It occurred to me, while driving, as all the most important and inane things occur to me then, that I've been home roughly eighteen months now.

I wasn't the first of our brave band of Jakarta sisters to go.  La Rus went first.  She make the jump back to California.  I've been down to visit and reminisce. She's one of the few I still talk and text with on a regular basis.  Last week she was awed that her daughter is starting eighth grade.  I just saw her last year and I swear she wasn't nearly that old then. Guess that means age is probably sneaking up on us too.

I was the next to go, last February, landing more permanently in Seattle in March. Since then I started a new career and worked very successfully in it.  I've traveled both for work and fun. I'm in a relationship (gasp!).

I'm not even close to the one with the most news. The kiwi got engaged several months ago. She is posting out save the dates for her wedding in Bali next year.  What a great excuse to go back and help her kick off married life right.

There is yet another member of the tribe with even more news.  UK, my former sushi companion and life line for many a night in JKT, has not only been engaged, and been married, but she's become an incubator.  I'm secretly hoping for baby chicks but I doubt I'll get my wish. She's flown the coop and headed back to England while her hubby sails the seven seas.

That's a year and a half for ya. Who'd have thunk we'd all come so far in such a sort time?  And yet, it feels as though my days in Jakarta were ages ago.

In a mere year and a half, I've settled in to coupledom.  We prefer to be home, cooking, relaxing.  Gone are the clubbing days of staying out until 7am in the most random places in Jakarta. Instead of going to the pubs and clubs, I host beer and cocktail "parties" at my house, party being best described as a simple gathering of people. We enjoy a beerfest on occasion, a backpacking trip, a recent pursuit of vegetable gardening and such. Though I'd hoped for this, even yearned for it, I'd also kibitzed friends who had become "boring" in the coupledom.  Who never came out any more. Now, the kidding has come full circle.  25 and I went to a birthday party for his friend.  It was in Seattle.  She is several years younger than me so the gathering was in Capitol Hill, in a series of bars and clubs. 25 has never been a wild partier and drinker in the time I've known him. After a couple hours of awkward small talk with people we didn't know, and some quality time with his friend and her bf, we hastily make our retreat.  We still didn't get home until 1am and we were both knackered. The friend's bf said he knew we'd be the first to go, that it wouldn't be our scene.

I'm happy to admit, both to him and here, that he was right.