What do we do on Sunday?

Quite simply, we eat good food, drink good beer, and enjoy good company. Every week we try to cook something new and exciting or an old favorite. Summertime means dinner on the deck at my house. Usually there's something good on the grill or the smoker, but after grilling almost every week it was time to utilize the turkey fryer for something besides brewing beer(more on that in a future post). Turkey is the obvious choice, and we'll be doing one later in the year, but this time around we tried out fish and chips. I never thought I'd be doing any deep frying after a 2 year stint at Burger King in high school. After 10 years though, I think I finally had the taste of fast food out of my mouth and all the memories had faded so it was time to get greasy one more time......

Ok, so I grossly underestimated the cost of enough oil to fry our F+C, 3 jugs of oil later, we were in business......



Beth models the first batch of fried potato deliciousness


Catherine gets a reeeeeal good whiff of the fish, fresh out the fryer


The finished meal, complete with a soda pairing by Randy. For beer drinkers, the choice was Brooklyn Lager


Ok, pretty standard fish and chips at this point. We were all full of fried food and pretty happy, but something was missing. Maybe I've watched too much food reality TV but something else had to go in the oil. Something for dessert. Luckily across town, while I was picking up fish and oil, Beth was making some cupcakes.....



Little did she know her baked goods would be defiled in a such manner. Smothered in a beer batter made with Beamish.....


And the finished product ready to clog some arteries.....


All in all a successful first crack at deep frying. I'm not sure if our stomachs and hearts can handle doing this again anytime soon, but watch this spot for more grease at some point. Next up though, Mexican night.

Words-Jake, Pics-Randy

Disconnected: One week on Louds Island, Maine..

Thanks to my wife to be and her awesome family, I've had the opportunity to spend many a Friday eve, Saturday and sometimes Sunday relaxing, hiking, swimming, sailing and just generally taking it all in on the quiet and quirky Louds Island in Muscongus harbor Maine.

This however, would be the first time in as long as I can remember that I actually took a full week off from work, so naturally, what better place to disconnect and unwind than Louds. No electricity, no cell phone service (with the iphone4 only a week old and fresh in my anxiously awaiting hands, this was admittedly, a bit of a struggle...) and no internet can be a hard pill to swallow at first for somebody as technology obsessed as myself.

Louds is different though, there's something about it. Something that makes me ok with playing scrabble on an actual board (not on my iphone, what!). Something that makes doing a puzzle on a rainy day fun again. Something that makes me feel like a child again, gives me that strong urge to explore for no reason other than exploring and somehow makes insignificant things seem significant.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but i'm not the only one who feels it and if you ever get a chance to spend some time out there, you'll see what I mean...

Do what's right

For the second time in their short brewing careers, Maine Beer Company took over The Great Lost Bear in Portland. The brothers Kleban were in attendance featuring their only two bottled beers Peeper, and Zoe. I had a chance to talk with David for a few minutes and he gave me the scoop on upcoming plans for the brewery. The bottling line will be up and running soon with a new 15 barrel brewhouse coming shortly. The brothers are currently brewing 1 barrel at a time so soon enough peeper and zoe will be in full supply at better beer stores around Maine. No more going to the store and praying they have Zoe in stock as you walk through the door. Ok, so no guarantees there, but as you can imagine, they will be pumping out much more beer than before. Oh and there might even be a new beer in the works......

See ya later, old brewing setup.......