Stout Month 2014

Every February the Mountain Sun and its satellite brewpubs have Stout Month. For those of us who like the black gold, this is a bright light during the dark days of winter. I am fortunate enough to live within a 10-minute walk of the Southern Sun (one of those satellites). This lets my wife and I eat a nice dinner at home and go over just for a brew.

 

Valentine's Day toast at Under the Sun

Bringing our new son along has actually been a lot of fun. In Boulder you are not out-of-place when you bring a kid to a brewpub. At one point, when my wife and I were waiting for a table, one of the nearby patrons remarked to her friend that this place was virtually a nursery with all of the toddlers walking around.

 

Family photo at Southern Sun

This year my wife came up with the brilliant idea of Stout Month Bingo. If you frequent one of the Suns during this month, print this out for some fun while you sip your stout and eat free fries while waiting for your table. We are still trying to fill in one or two more squares – suggestions welcome.

Need ideas for three more squares

 And finally, here are some of my personal favorites from this year:

Chocolate Dip Stout: This one came out great this year. On nitro its like a chocolate milkshake and a beer had a child.

Girl Scout Stout: A perennial favorite. A perfect balance of roast & mint.

Stoked Oak: Great mix of chocolate, roast and oaky vanilla. You get the oak with out the higher alcohol from some barrel-aged beers.

Nihilist: My favorite of their imperial beers. Followed by the oatamis prime and the megatron.

Coconut Stout: Nice subtle coconut flavor. Smooth velvety chocolate with light roast in the background. Kinda refreshing aftertaste.

Friends sharing stouts early on in the month

Searching for Fame and Glory – Sea Salt Caramel Stout and Stout Month 2014

I largely brew for my own enjoyment. I also just do not take the time to plan my brewing around homebrewing contests. But my wife, who is not a fan of stouts, suggested that I make a sea salt caramel stout for Stout Month this year. She even went online a looked up a couple of recipes. She is a keeper.

StoutMonth is the glorious month of February when the Mountain Sun breweries put out about a dozen taps per day of the black gold (which rotate virtually every day). Past winners have included an oaked stout and one that tastes like a Girl Scout thin mint cookie (it's good). While a sea salt caramel stout is brewed by a few places, I thought it was intriguing enough that it might have a chance. Game on.

Countdown on the window of Under the Sun

For the ingredients, I combined an errand to pick up a Bob stroller in Longmont with a chance to check out a different homebrew shop - The Bald Brewer. The guy was really cool and we had a good conversation as I went around getting my ingredients. I adapted the recipe off of one that I found on BrewToad. I picked up some caramels from King Soopers and went back home to make the starter.

The Yeast Starter – Sat. 19 Oct.

For yeast I went with the White Labs WLP 002 – Engish Ale Yeast. The flavor from this yeast turned out great, although like Engish Ale yeasts it did settle out rather quickly. If I had it to do over again I would have roused the yeast after about a week of primary fermentation. The starter followed my usual procedure of 100 g of DME boiled in a liter of water for 12 minutes.

Brew Day – Sun. 20 Oct.

I mostly followed the online recipe. I did a full wort boil (all 5 gallons) spread out over two pots that I staggered by 15 minutes. I split the specialty grains, hops, sea salt and caramel equally (roughly) between both pots. Given that a stout does not have that many hop additions this worked well and was not too much trouble.

 

Pot on the left: malt extract added, pot: steeping the specialty grains

I made a few small modifications to the recipe – I cut out about half of the lactose. I did not want a cloyingly sweet beer. I also threw in a whole oz of perle (instead of the 1/2 oz. called for) because, well, what am I going to do with an extra half ounce of hops? I put the caramels and sea salt in with about 15 minutes to go.

Fermentation started pretty quickly and went strong for about a day and a half before calming down a bit.

Bottling – Mon. 4 Nov.

I gave this one a little over two weeks – which was probably a mistake. My reasoning was that my wife was about a month out from our due date and I wanted to make sure this was bottled in time for the stout month entry date on 4 Jan.

Other logistical notes

The brew day started at 5:55 and was wrapped up by 9 pm – a little over 3 hours. Bottling took around 2 hours. The starter took around 30 minutes. Total time was around 6 hours.  Total costs were $52.78 plus probably a dollar or two for the caramels (I already had the salt). We will just call the total costs around $55. I got about 48 bottles out of the deal for a price of around $1.15 a brew.

Epilogue

The beer turned out really good. As my Boulder friends will be sad to see, it did not win – but there are some good homebrewers here, so I feel it’s like saying “I didn’t win the Bolder Boulder” – people understand that you can still have done well.

After about a month some of the bottles turned out a little overcarbonated. If I did this one again I would give it another month or so in a second carboy. I do not have precise temperature control at the house and so I think it may have just needed more fermentation time (It has been a cooler winter). It is also possible that rousing the yeast could have helped. Oh well, I may just have to brew it again.

Wildwood and Gravity Brewing Company

25-26 Jan. 2014

It is hard to keep up with new breweries in Boulder County – but that does not mean one should not to try. This weekend Alita and I checked out Wildwood Brewery and I wandered over to Gravity Brewing.

Wildwoods Brewing Company 

Alita got me a Groupon for this brewery for Christmas and we decided it was time to cash it. Wildwoods is located in east Boulder on Arapaho near Avery. The brewery is in a warehouse space and it’s a tasting room only. But it has space for a meal if you want to bring one.They have six beers in their regular line-up. The Groupon was for a sampler of these beers.

Alita shows off the Wildwoods line-up

My favorite was their Treeline IPA. I would call it an English-style IPA. It has a nice piney hop aroma and flavor with a balance and flavor that reminded me of an imperial IPA. Their Campfire Red was also very interesting. As the name could suggest – they put a subtle bit of smoke into the usual malty flavor. The Berry Patch Wheat was also really interesting. I am generally not a fan of fruit beers since they often come out cloying, but this one has the fruit flavor without the overbearing sweetness. The rest of the line-up was also really solid. I would go back to this place.

 

Toasting little man's second brewery

Gravity

This place had been on my radar for a while, but I had not found a good excuse to check it out. Putnam Smith, a folk musician from my home state of Maine, provided just such an excuse. Gavity's tasting room was a nice low-ceiling-but-open venue - perfect for some good folk music on a snowy winter's day.

Since it was winter I did not check out their beer garden – so a return visit may be needed. But the interior was spacious with a really nice bar design.

Photo from the Gravity website

As the name would imply their beers have some heft to them. Since I was driving I opted for a few of their 4-oz (maybe 3 oz) samplers. At $5 for three, it was a pretty good deal for high gravity beers - and about the right amount if you need to do something after. 

I tried the Jubelium Peppercorn Belgium Ale. As the name promised it has a just a bit of peppercorn in the light Belgium funk – a surprisingly good combination. Also worthy was the Ebb & Flow – Double Red Rye and the Tsar Bomba Russian Imperial Stout. My favorite sample of the night through was the Bourbon Barrel Aged Acceleration – Double India Pale Ale. Think Maharaja with a little oak. Amazing.

My Running Log

As an engineer I love numbers and tracking things. This naturally bled into running. I remember back in 2005 when someone showed me a GPS running watch. I got one the next day. It's not that I need to run a certain distance or pace - I just like to know what I did. 

As my education and job taught me how to use Excel I eventually put my running log and stats on a spreadsheet. On day I started plotting my races and paces. I was curious as to how my pace varied with distance. I was surprised to find not just a relationship, but a very strong relationship –a logarithmic one. In fact, when I plotted my personal bests I got an R squared value of 0.99. Logarithms show up in many neat places with our bodies from how we perceive light levels or sounds and even the amount of time it takes us to make choices (based on the number of choices) so I guess this should make sense.

My personal bests

I decided to see if this held for world records. Low-and-behold, it did – with an R squared of 0.99 again.

A small selection of world records

As you could guess these folks' coefficients are much smaller. (And perhaps the mile record is a bit soft - but probably because it is not raced as often as the 1500)

When I went back and looked at my races I could then see which ones were above average efforts and which ones I had slacked on. Well . . . to a point. This trend worked as long as the races were roughly comparable.  In other words, as long as the races were all road races with modest elevation gains. So a race with some intense elevation gain or on trails was always going to be a little slow..

So now my nerdy running goal is to figure out how to quantify these other variables so that I can tell is that trail marathon was a great effort or if I have a little more room to target a PR. Right now I think the most important (an reasonable easy to quantify) variables to look at would be:

-Age

-Elevation gain

-Elevation loss

-Terrain (not quite sure how to quantify other than giving a variable of 1 for road, 2 for dirt, 3 for technical trails)
-Altitude
-Wet bulb temp

So eventually I will have a part two once I have enough data. As we say at work, happy nerding.

2013 Running Review

It was not my most impressive year for personal records (PRs) or total mileage, but it will still go down as one of my most fulfilling years. I did a race / vacation with my wife, made some new running friends and discovered some fantastic trails. Here are some of the highlights.

Running Some Numbers

Total Mileage: 2,179 (3,506 km)

Average run: 7.8 miles

Hours spent running: 366

Average Miles / Week: 43

Average Pace on my normal runs*: 7:46

Running Shoes

Due to some support from the Boulder Track Club and winning a race, I got to try some new running shoes this year. I have pretty flexible feet and so I am fortunate to be able to run in most anything. With that said, I found some winners and one less impressive shoe this year.

I really wanted to like the New Balance 110’s. They are $50 which is pretty cheap for a retail price. They are a good shoe, but they are a little too minimalist to me (I prefer not to feel every rock that I step on) and other friends who used them found they fell apart a little sooner than most other shoes. I also found that running through the snow in these shoes froze my feet. I probably will not get this one again.

My favorite shoe of this year was the Asics Fuji Trainer II. It is lightweight, has good traction and has soles that protect my feet sufficiently from Bouder’s trails. I also like the pouch where you can tuck laces into. A close runner-up were the Montrail Fluid Flex shoes. Also lightweight and well padded. I sometimes had trouble keeping the laces tied although I think tucking them in has solved this. I give them a second to the Fuji Trainer II only because I like the traction on the Fuji Trainers better.

Races

I cut back on my racing a little this year. For the past few years I averaged a race a month. Parenthood and other priorities cut this down to seven races this year. However, what I lost in quantity I maintained in quality. I have already written about my favorite race, the CabotTrail Relay, but it also turned out to be my best race of the year**. A close second (in terms of how I ran) was the Keystone Half-Marathon – my one victory of the year (for which I got my favorite running shoes of the year).

Then there were races that will have a special place not because of my performance, but because of the experience. The Rockin’ K TrailMarathon was special because my wife came along and it was a great family trip. We found a gem of a dinner in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas (which won Small Brewpub of the Year at GABF) and visited a nearby state park. Then there was the WildWest Relay where I organized a team from my company (plus a few friends). While it was no Cabot, it was a great time.

Favorite New Trails

I also consider this the year that I discovered trail running. It’s strange that it took me so long to discover trails in Boulder – I guess I had always been a road runner by training and mindset. But I finally decided to explore this amazing trail system that was accessible a mere half-mile from my doorstep. I also joined the Boulder Track Club’s Mountain, Ultra and Trail (MUT) team which introduced me to a whole new mindset of running and a whole new set of friends.

My favorite runs (trails, loops, etc.) of 2013 were:

1. The Greenbriar Loop – while the Greenbriar Trail is less than half of this loop, it is, for me, the centerpiece. It has meadows, single track, views and an easy climb. I ran some variation of this loop more than any other. It is an everyday loop. It has some elevation gain – but not too much. It has a mix of single-track, bike paths, dirt roads and pavement. It can be done as a seven or eight-mile loop which meant it could either be an easy day or I could go for a short run after with my wife or our dog. It was a good loop to do after a hard tempo run, a long workout or when I just was just wanted to let my mind wander.

Greenbriar Loop (8-mile variation)

2. Shanahan Ridge Loop – this was my go-to medium-hard climb that I could do as a normal run. It is a steep enough climb to give a good workout, but not so steep that you cannot run it. It is flexible in that, from my house, it could be a 7.5, 8, 9.5 or 10-mile loop.

Shanahan Figure 8

3. Dowdy Draw Trails – my favorite long run by far was working over to the Dowdy Draw Trailhead and running the Spring Brook – Goshawk Ridge – Old Mesa Trail. You had stunning views, beautiful meadows and fun climbs. The section where you descend Goshawk Ridge and go into Eldorado Canyon is my favorite stretch of trail in Boulder.

2014

Starting our family will be an interesting variable to running in 2014. I suspect that my son, the Bob and the bike path that runs near our house will get to know each other well. I look forward to helping  my wife train for another half-marathon. I look forward to exploring new trails and doing new races. I look forward to many more good times.

*excluding speedworks, races and long runs

** I’ll get into how I determined that in a piece I am working on for next year.

Joy

At some point every runner tries to justify why they run. Sometimes the question is asked by friends or family. Sometimes you ask yourself this question when you find yourself cold and wet halfway through a 20-mile run.

Why I run was recently brought into focus by two events that wrecked my December training schedule. The first was, as best the doctors could tell, some form of walking pneumonia. I have been hit harder for shorter periods of time by a good flu or cold, but this one made the idea of running laughable for more than a week. I was fortunate in that it was not very contagious and that I recovered in time for the second big training disruptor – the birth of our first child. Now, having a child has not meant no running, but I have been running less as I try to balance my runs with doing my share of diaper changing and keeping up the house (and not even to a particularly high standard). I will be forgoing my favorite race, the Cabot Trail Relay, this year and it is hard to make group tempo runs and speedworks that start at 6:45 A.M. on five cumulative hours of interrupted sleep (I know this does not sound bad to some people, but I have gotten used to seven or eight hours).

And yet, in spite of not doing a speedwork for over a month and knowing that my leg-speed is a few notches off my peak, I am thoroughly enjoying my six-mile runs. So on one of my runs this week I contemplated what is it that makes my runs so rewarding.

I feel that it is first important to look at the secondary reasons. First, I enjoy being in shape. It’s fun to see the look on the nurse’s face when I go in for a check-up and they see that my resting pulse is below 50. Second, I like beating people in races. If you and I are toe-to-toe with a half-mile to go, I am going to try to out-kick you and expect the same from you. I like not having to worry about what I eat. I try to eat less meat, more vegetables and choose less processed foods. But I also do not worry about having the occasional burger or beer(s).

As near as I can pinpoint, I run because I feel immense joy. If you want to look at this on a purely scientific basis, you could chalk it up to endorphins, vitamin D (from the 300 days of sun that we get here on Colorado’s Front Range) and other internal reward mechanisms. I prefer to call it joy.

Admittedly, I do not always feel this joy immediately when I first get out of bed, but it gets me out of bed because I know that it will be there a mile into the run. And there are some days when things just do not click or it is 35 °F, windy and raining and I find myself under-dressed halfway into the run. But when I get back and think of what I made it through the joy is there.

I feel this joy throughout the run and often throughout the day when I look back on the run. I think of seeing the sun light up Green and Bear peak a bright pink-red. I think of running through the trees of the Mesa Trail. I am a better person when I run. My wife has come to recognize this and will now tell me to go on a run if I miss a few days and am getting cranky.

 So there you have it. Perhaps I got a bit deep in my cup with this one, but if I cannot discuss joy around the holidays I do not know when I could. It is time to rest up for tomorrow’s run.      

        

Welcome to Boulder - Grab Your Running Shoes

Whenever you move somewhere you tell all of your friends to visit. They never do. Until one day one of them did. Adam Goode, one of my running friends from Maine (and the Cabot Trail Relay) said he was coming by in November. I was excited not just because someone was coming to visit, but because I had a chance to show off this running Mecca to someone who would appreciate it.

For our first run I wanted to do a tour of Boulder. I wanted to get in a climb on the trails, a view, part of the bike paths and maybe a brew (okay, definitely a brew). Since Adam is a stronger runner than me a sea-level, I figured he could handle a bit of a climb so we first did a partial climb of Flagstaff Mountain to Realization Point. After a nice climb to get the blood flowing, we were rewarded with great views of Boulder. I gave him an overview of the town before we descended to Eben G. Fine Park.

 

Adam at Realization Point on Flagstaff Mountain

I had not seen Eben G. Fine and the upper portion of Boulder Creek since the flood and the damage was amazing. Adam and I were both seeing this for the first time – even though I have run this section many times. I wanted to show Adam the Boulder Creek Path to show off the Boulder’s bike path system. We made a mandatory  diversion from the Boulder Creek Path to get a photo at the Frank Shorter Statue.

I decided to end that day’s run at Avery Brewing. Avery has always been a great supporter of the running community in Boulder. Adam Avery himself often wins his age group in the local race scene. Alita graciously agreed to pick us up to keep the run at 11 miles.

 The next day I took Adam on one of my favorite easy runs – the Greenbriar / South Campus Loop. This is a great run at this time of year because you can almost always have great views when the sunrise lights up the flatirons. This morning we got a special treat as the full moon set behind the Bear Mountain just as it was in full sunrise red.

Finally, I got to introduce Adam to the Boulder running community. We did an out-and-back tempo run on the newly re-opened Mesa Trail with the Boulder Track Club’s Mountain and Ultra Trail Team. We got a stroke of good luck when the Boulder Trail Runners joined us for a solid crew of 13 runners. Adam graciously hung back with me and took in the views. We were also treated to one of the best sunrises of the year. 

If anyone else want to come see me in Boulder - bring your running shoes and I'll show you a good time.