Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
Friday was the big day… yes… the day that we were finally able to try our Pumpkin Ale for the first time, fully carbonated & ready for drinking… and it certainly did not disappoint. That night we were invited to a Halloween party by one of Dizzy’s coworkers… and after driving around the neighborhood trying to find a parking spot for about a half-hour, we decided to just get some grub (Subway) and head home to watch movies… and of course, drink our beer.
Basically it tastes like liquid pumpkin pie… only obviously not as sweet… and I loves me some pumpkin pie… so this stuff was dangerous. Because it was aged the full six weeks as well, it had a better aftertaste than our original Red Ale tasting two weeks ago… so yeah, it was pretty fantastic. I highly recommend that you find a way to try it.
Summary
Pumpkin Ale
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Malt Extract Kit
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5 gallons
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Ingredients
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Fermentables
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3.15 lbs
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Amber Malt Syrup (60 mins)
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1.0 lb
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Pilsen dried malt extract (60 mins)
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3.15 lbs
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Amber Malt Syrup (15 mins)
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Specialty Grains
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0.5 lbs
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Briess Caramel 40
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Hops
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1 oz
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Cluster (60 mins)
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1 tsp
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Pumpkin Pie Spice (0 mins)
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Yeast
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Safale US-05 Ale Yeast
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Cook Date/Primary Ferm
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9/14/2013
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Secondary Ferm
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9/28/2013
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2 weeks
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Bottled
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10/12/2013
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4 weeks
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First Taste
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10/27/2013
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6 weeks
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Reaction
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FANTASTIC!!!
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Like liquid pumpkin pie
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Adjustments?
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Make MORE!!!
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So when Sunday rolled around for football watching… this ale called for… DAS BOOT!!!
Some things that also made me smile this week...
Racist figurine at a thrift shop...
Dizzy & her cat with the stare of death...
Something I drew when I was bored one night...
Great sandwich that Dizzy made me...
What I made at work with 30 minutes &
three sheets of construction paper...
take that 3rd grade crafts!!!
Friday night, we watched “World War Z” starring Brad Pitt. Dizzy is a big fan of the book that the movie is based on by author Max Brooks (son of Mel) and I’ve attended one of his seminars a few years back on how to survive a zombie apocalypse… but we also know that this movie is basically just using the badass title& naming rights… and that’s cool… it IS a pretty badass title. Where the book is more of a compilation of first person accounts taken during the post-apocalyptic survival stages by those who made it, which would be a pretty interesting format in it’s own right (probably some kind of found footage thing if they could get past the whole lack of electricity & time-space rift so that you can see it), that format doesn’t really make for a big budget zombie flick starring The Brad. As for the movie that was made… I had a few major problems with it. First off, the zombies. What the hell? These zombies basically run around like f**king cheetahs with superhuman strength, agility & senses (THEY’RE DEAD!!!) and their preferred method of attacking or doing anything? Flying head butts! Is that a door? Flying head butt! Bulletproof glass? Cement walls? Flying head butt… and apparently their skulls are made out of unobtainium as well since they never crack or break despite a lack of integrity from BEING DEAD!!! Sigh… okay… regardless of that… they also attack in waves… literally WAVES of flying head butt bodies… and are attracted to sound… as all DEAD things are. I could say something like the waving masses of zombies is metaphorical to the natural disaster that it’s portrayal… like a tsunami or pandemic or something… but it’s really just so some guys with a new CGI program can jerk off all over themselves… at least that’s my opinion. As for the other parts of the movie, the plot had some major holes… the acting was okay, but definitely not great… the whole subplot with the wife & daughters wanting to be in constant contact and all of that is sweet but… let’s face it, you have bigger f**king problems than him answering the phone every few hours. Some of the action scenes were pretty intense in the way they were shot, though the zombie stuff kind of distracted me from really enjoying a lot of it… but yeah, an okay movie I guess… it was intriguing at some spots & frustrating at others… so maybe see it if zombies are your thing. It’s Halloween time.
Also, because it’s Halloween time, we searched Netflix for something to watch & Dizzy suggested a nugget from her childhood called “Pumpkinhead” starring Lance Henriksen& directed by special effects superguru Stan Winston (“Terminator”, “Aliens, “Predator”, etc). Set in a late 80’s rural area, the story is about a group of six young friends & lovers (typical horror setup) who go to the boonies to drive some motorcycles & stay in a friend’s cabin in the woods. Well, they stop to get some gas at a station… and then take the bikes out for a little ride before sundown since they’re near the cabin. Well, the shopkeep (Henriksen) and his son are there… and while the shopkeep goes to town for… what I assume is booze, the son chases after their dog & get accidentally ran over by one of the guys on the motorcycle… or course he’s not going to jail for an accident & he’s on probation, so he runs off to the cabin & basically holds the rest of them hostage once they get there. Well, the shopkeep comes home… finds “the nice one” next to the corpse of his son… he tries to explain that it was an accident… but VENGEANCE has taken over. He takes his son to a witch in the woods… and wants his son back, but she can’t bring back the dead… but she can unleash a powerful demon of vengeance whom the locals have deemed… PUMPKINHEAD!!! So that’s the setting… and then the demon goes after kids… but then the shopkeep has a change of heart… so he tries to stop it or die trying. Now, Pumpkinhead… looks basically like there was a spare prototype costume like if Stan Winston was trying to make the great Alien-Predator hybrid (Alienator?) and you know when it’s about to attack… because apparently it brings its own gale-force winds, strobe lights & loud hissing sounds before he pulls off your head & sucks the juices out (by the way, not really that R-rated violent by today’s standards so don’t worry, that’s just the legends). Basically it was a pretty good little horror flick that wasn’t too long, but some scenes just seemed a little awkward by today’s standard… but I think it was mainly so that they could show off how awesome their puppetry & bodysuit was for the main baddy… and in the 80’s, what’s the point of spending all that money on the suit & special effects if you’re not going to show it off? Check it out! Why not?
We then followed it up with the sequel six years later “Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings” starring… absolutely nobody of interest except Soleil Moon Frey (Punky Brewster) who was goth chick & directed by Jeff Burr who seems to have made a career of other straight-to-video horror flicks like “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III”, “Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter” & “Frankenstein & the Werewolf Reborn!” Now, this story starts off back in the 50’s in the small town of Ferren Woods. A group of “cool kid” greasers basically hang a deformed child & drop him down a deep well… yeah… that’s basically the long story of it. Fast forward to almost 40 years later, they’re all cats in their late 50’s… and a NYC detective has moved back home to Ferren Woods with his family including a teenage daughter. Well, she gets in with the “cool kids” circa 1994 (including Punky all grown up) & they go out to the old well… and find a house filled with witchcraft stuff… and then there’s obviously a witch that lives there… and long story short, one of them knocks her out & the place gets started on fire. Well, this unleashes her demon friend… PUMPKINHEAD 2.0!!! Who basically takes over the spirit of the deformed boy killed back in the 50’s… and then goes on a killing spree of his killers first… and then the newer “cool kids” including the sheriff’s daughter. So yeah, it really is kinda separate in every way from the first one… but they use the exact same costume, so it all works out. It’s exactly what you would expect from a B-movie that went straight to video in the early 90’s… but yeah, it’s free-ish on Netflix. If you like the first one, go ahead & watch the second one. We did and it… we had a few beers by that time.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for this entry. Hope you enjoyed it… next time… we’ll probably be talking about Halloween antics, tasting Hefeweizen, bottling Nut Brown Ale, possibly making Mead… and whatever else happens along the way. Have a great day everybody!!!
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