Eddie The Wonderdog

We've been asking Eddie to make a blog appearance for a while now, but he has wanted no part of the internet. A few years ago, he was burned pretty badly by an online mail-order bitch service, and has some lingering reservations about putting himself out there like that again. Well, after much reassurance that nothing like that will happen again, he is ready for his blog intro. He's been working out very hard lately trying to get in shape for his blog pictorial. I must say, he's looking pretty fit.

Hops are climbing!

As some of you know, I (Sam) have been brewing my own beer for a while now. So far, each batch I have produced has been pretty good, but something has been missing . I have been buying all the ingredients from my favorite homebrew shop (Bacchus & Barleycorn, http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/). They have a nice selection, and are always very helpful, but I decided that I needed a little more "home" in my homebrew. The solution? Grow my own hops!



I will spare you the details
(if you are interested in growing your own hops, you can find a nice tutorial here - www.freshops.com/gardening.html). In a nutshell, I planted several sections of hop roots back in April, and I now have hop vines climbing ropes attached to my house. In August, I will harvest the hops, dry them out, and freeze them until I need them for a batch of brew.