Beer: Christmas Was Good to Me

Christmas this year was amazing. I can't even describe how appreciative and grateful I am for all the amazing people in my life. I did not expect to get even half the stuff I got and the whole day was full of family, food, and friends. 

I cannot wait to use the Draft Brewer Dual CO2 Regulated Keg System. I still need to get a freezer before using it, which I might already have squared away due to having awesome friends. It seems there was a theme this year. Most people who know me know that homebrewing has taken over most of my free time. It's an addiction. The science behind it is so interesting. I've never been a reader in my life. I could never, EVER finish a book. I read a 600 page book in a couple of weeks a little while ago. I couldn't put it down. My wife also got me some awesome power tools so I can finally finish some of the house projects we have going on.

So have I mentioned how awesome my wife is? She took a total of 6 hours to get me 4 bottles of beer from one of my all-time favorite breweries Tree House Brewing Company. They opened on the Tuesday before Christmas to release some pretty amazing beers. Harmony is an absolutely delicious IPA and Bear is an amazing hoppy brown. More to come about the future endeavors with the new equipment!

Food: Chicken Thanksgiving Pre-Game

This year, we are hosting Thanksgiving. We hosted it a couple of years ago and were pretty successful. My wife blogged about it and you can read it here. We looked around for the recipe we used and we could not find it anywhere. Oh no. So what do I do? I bought a chicken to practice a random recipe that I came up with and I can say it came out extremely delicious.

I did a nice brine for a little over 24 hours. Pretty simple. Salt, sugar, olive oil and water. It definitely helped in the juiciness of the chicken. I would've liked to do it for a little longer but didn't have enough time. Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to do it for Thanksgiving because the thought of leaving a turkey in a bucket in our basement brining freaks my wife out. We won't have enough room in the refrigerator.

With it I also cut up some fingerling potatoes with some salt, pepper, paprika, garlic and olive oil. They came out extremely delicious as well!

I'm not 100% sure the measurements for the chicken as far as seasoning, but I can tell you what I put on it! I call it the Duffy mixture because I pretty much use it on everything. It is a mixture of salt, pepper, paprika, adobo, sazon, and garlic. I can't wait to make the turkey for Thanksgiving! Next year I got approval to actually go to a farm and pick out my turkey. 

After the delicious meal I went to my buddies house for a beer tasting. It was a night filled with extremely weird beers. We had: 

• Lagunitas Brewing Company - A Little Sumpin' Wild Ale 
• De Proefbrouwerij - Long of Tooth
• Two Roads Brewing Company - Route of All Evil
• Freigeist Bierkultur - Abraxxxas
• Tröegs Brewing Company - Blizzard of Hops
• Freigeist Bierkultur - Geisterzug Gose Rhubarb
• Nikenjayamochi Kadoya Honten Co. - Ise Kadoya Genmai (Brown Rice)
• Maine Beer Company / Half Acre Beer Company - Sapping Mammoth IPA
• Tree House Brewing Company - Good Morning
• Ourbeer Brewing Company - Hoppy Brown (Disaster)

Some were gross, some were okay, and some were just mind blowing. Two that stood out the most to me were Good Morning (American Imperial/Double Stout) by Tree House and Abraxxxas (Smoked Lichtenhainer Weisse) by Freigeist Bierkultur.