We have returned! There’s going to be quite a few posts about our trip to Fort Wayne to visit Ross, Liz and Jack; our trip to the Indiana Dunes; Colorado pictures and anything else we’ve forgotten about this fall!
This morning I made cinnamon apple oats for Rod and I using one and a half golden delicious apples, copious amounts of cinnamon and just a regular serving of oats. I topped mine with a little sugar-free maple syrup and he used poplar syrup.
I think Mario really wanted some of our oats! 
Caroline just wanted to get to the park! 
Before heading to the park with the dogs we also started a batch of chili to warm up the cool evening. We use bloody mary mix for the soup base and then we’re going to pair the chili with a nice hearty, multigrain roll. YUM!
When we got back from the park Rod and I started assembling our new bookcase and entry table from IKEA. We decided to go yesterday and finally pick up our first anniversary present to each other - new furniture for the bedroom and a few things for the first floor!
I’m loving the MALM dressing table as our new entry table complete with the clay pot that we won at a silent auction supporting the East 10th Street Children’s Center!
I also love how the EXPEDIT bookcase separates our living room from our dining room much better now - it also gives us SO much storage! Plus we can display some of the unique beer we picked up in Colorado (until we drink it that is)!
Here’s our new bed and nightstands - it’s low enough so that Caroline can jump on the bed plus there’s all kinds of storage in the nightstands!
I hope everyone has been doing well and apologies again for being SO far behind on our blogging! How has everyone been? 
Jess and I just got back from this year’s Brewer’s Cup awards ceremony. We won another first place ribbon! This year we won in the BJCP category of English Brown with our Dark Mild. Dark Mild is a dark beer that is very light in flavor and alcohol - ours weighs in around 3.5%. We received good marks all around on all the beers we entered and really didn’t have any significant complaints about our beers, which is great. Typically it was noted how clear the body of our beer was (which is a good thing for the styles we entered), how good the head retention was and that there were no traces of any adverse flavors or aromas.
Jess with our blue ribbon
If you didn’t already know, last year our third batch of beer ever, a Chile Beer, won first place in the category of Vegetable, Herb, Spice and Christmas beer. The Brewer’s Cup is the Indiana State Fair’s beer competition, in which there are a large number of categories for both homebrewers and professional brewers to compete in. With over 700 beers submitted this year, it’s a great honor to receive yet another first place ribbon! We might even pursue brewing this one up for the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am competition next year.
This past weekend was great, I was off starting at 11:30 on the 2nd and won’t be going back until this afternoon!
We started off the weekend with a tapping at Rock Bottom and drinks at both Buffalo Wild Wings and Scotty’s Brewhouse in downtown Indy on Thursday night. On Friday we had lunch at Creation Cafe and picked up a few items at Goose the Market for a delicious dinner of steamed mussels, crusty bread and beers.
A few pictures of the start of the weekend:
Three Floyds Apocalypse Cow on Tap at BW3
Scotty’s Brewhouse has a great Outdoor Patio
The patio has a great view of downtown and Chase Tower!
We started the mussels by sweating the vegetables.
We cleaned the mussels and discarded any open ones.
Caroline was completely bored with the process.
Mario was just tired and wanted a nap!
We steamed everything together for the sauce.
To thicken the sauce and avoid using heavy cream we pureed a few mussels to make the dipping sauce.
Why hello there - what is this?
We topped with the sauce and served with crusty bread. A TOTAL success!
It was a great weekend including a stop in Cincinnati to pour beer for the City of Montgomery’s Fourth of July Festival. I hope everyone had a safe July 4th and a great long weekend!
Yesterday was a pretty great Saturday, we started early with coffee from Mo’Joe Coffee House and ran the 2009 Susan G Komen Race for the Cure. We joined the 42,000 participants and started running at 9am. I finished the 3.1 miles in 36 minutes and 9 seconds (that gives me a pace of 11:39 overall, but I know I did the first mile in 10 minutes 20 seconds)! Rod did an excellent job for not training and getting a time of 37 minutes 30 seconds!
Since I didn’t register as competitive we don’t have official times - those are just from my Polar F6!
After we came home and showered, we took advantage of the free car washes at Dreyer and Reinbold for the Outback and headed off for an adventure. We hit up three wineries on our way to Bloomington (Mallow Run, Oliver and Butler Wineries) and finished up with dinner at Upland Brewing Company.
We came home with 11 bottles of wine - two of which are Port style!
We had a lot of fun at the wineries and we tasted some wines that we would have never tried if it wasn’t for the tasting. It also happened to be the “Taste of Spring” so two of the wineries had cheeses to try with the wines which was pretty neat. All in all it was a pretty great Saturday and a pretty great time for my “practice” 5k!
Guess where we went for Valentine’s Day!”
After a great Valentine’s Eve dinner in the basement of a library we packed up the dogs on Saturday morning and shipped them off to Becky’s. We were then off to Chicago by way of our now standard trail through Munster and Flossmoor. After stops at Three Floyds and Flossmoor Station we checked into the Homewood Suites downtown and made our way to dinner at Tsuki. Tsuki was a nice little modern sushi place and all the rolls we had were great. When I say “modern” sushi place I mean it’s dimly lit and they play electronic music. We also had a few cups of green tea at the most perfect temperature I have ever drank tea at (which means Jess thought it was too hot, and you probably would too). We then made our ritualistic stop by Goose Island and spent the rest of the evening with Nate and Heather.
On Sunday we wandered the town and killed time until the Meshuggah concert that evening. I know most people who read this aren’t really into our kind of music, but the concert was amazing. It was Jess’ first time seeing Meshuggah and she was astounded at how perfectly they pulled everything off. If you aren’t aware, Meshuggah is a band that specializes in polyrhythmic metal. After the concert we finally made our way out to the Map Room after many years of talking about it.
Monday was a mostly lazy day of hanging out in the city, drinking Intelligentsia coffee and eating sushi. Mary had work obligations so instead we met Nate for lunch and hung out with him for a bit. When we got back home Monday night, we picked up the dogs from Becky’s and it appeared that both of them had a wonderful time with Becky’s dog Finn.
Now to finish things up, I’m going to end the post with a healthy dose of beer porn from our Sunday afternoon lunch at Local Option. Enjoy!
Local Option’s beer menu
Ska Decadent and Christoffel Blond
DeRanke XX Bitter
Founder’s Porter
Kostritzer - literally fresh from Germany
Today Rod and I joined our neighbor, Eric, for a trip up to West Lafayette to watch Number 14 Purdue take on Wisconsin. We stopped off for lunch at Sgt. Prestons in Lafayette and took their shuttle bus over to the game. It was a pretty good idea, we were able to finish up our tasty Three Floyds Robert the Bruce on the bus, and get there just in time to cheer the Boilers to victory!
A few pictures:
Mackey Arena is a pretty great place to see a basketball game. We were in the upper deck and we still had a great view!
This picture is small, but on the Jumbotron - PURDUE WINS!
A close up on the final score.
Two happy Boilers fans!
It was a great Sunday and both of the games we saw this weekend we were rooting for the winning teams! :D Tomorrow I start at the NCAA and Rod is meeting with our contractor about the front door. Tonight is pretty low key, Rod and I are going to play some WiiSports and head to bed!
I hope my first day goes well, keep your fingers crossed for me!
Italian beers in glasses and a pink elephant Delirium Tremens tap in the background.
When is a restaurant worth driving 2 hours to get to? When they have some of the best pizza anywhere and the best beer selection in the state!
Rich O’s Public House is the home of the New Albanian beers, which are always a huge hit at beer festivals and yet they’re not bottled. Each year at the end of the year they collect a huge number of rare beers to put on tap for their Saturnalia festival. This year since we both have a considerable amount of time off for the holidays, we decided to make a day trip down there.
We shared an order of their spicy beer cheese dip and ordered a huge refrigerator pizza. The refrigerator is a thin crust pizza, prepared in a deep dish pizza pan. The pizza is then topped with a deep dish pizza’s worth of toppings. One piece will fill you up and two will leave you stuffed! We tried a couple Italian beers (Malthus Birolla and Shangrila) as well as a number of other great beers. At the end of the night we brought back a growler of New Albanian’s Bonfire of the Valkyries, a tasty smoked black lager.
If you ever find yourself near New Albany or Louisville, we highly recommend stopping in!
It has been a busy few weeks since the election with a lot going on around here. We’ve been so busy that posting on the blog has fallen to the side while we work on other things. I thought I’d finally update since Rod and I had our first married Thanksgiving yesterday!
A few pictures from our Thanksgiving:
Our table set with our Kate Spade June Lane china that we got for the wedding! The centerpiece is pumpkins and autumn leaves with a candle from IKEA.
Our paring beer for dinner, a french Bier de Garde that we picked up at Kahns.
All of our delicious food! We had turkey (Rod prepared it using the brine method), green bean casserole, mushroom and dried cherry stuffing, whole wheat challah bread, Pumpkin Soup with cranberry-chili relish, gravy, cranberries, sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie!
After we had our soup course we fed the dogs their Thanksgiving dinner. Here is Caroline and Mario with their Turkey and Pumpkin Puree!
Here are our Pumpkin and Sweet Potato pies. After dinner we rested a bit and had a piece of Pumpkin pie paired with Stone's Twelfth Anniversary Black Chocolate Oatmeal Stout! It was delicious.
All in all we had a great Thanksgiving at the Harbison Weaver household and it was a much needed restful holiday.
The oak aged brother of Great Divide’s Imperial Stout
This is a beer that Jess and I were able to try cask conditioned at GABF last year and we were big fans of it. I picked up a bottle at the Goose a few weeks back, curious how it would taste from a bottle.
The nose on this one at first spikes up as alcohol, but quickly melts into the surrounding aromas to create more of a bourbon and oak scent. Roasted malts, vanilla, a hint of espresso and chocolate milk all mix in to create the type of experience you would expect in an imperial stout.
At first taste, the alcohol definition sticks out in this one, making sure you are aware of the 9.5% ABV (perhaps even appearing stronger). A few years of age on the Oak Aged Yeti might mellow this out. Chocolate and bourbon are the predominate flavors, which are balanced fairly well. This is a very heavy beer that fills the mouth with a thick, creamy consistency. If anyone has every told you Guinness is so thick you could cut it with a fork and a knife, they’ve never had an Imperial Stout. Great Divide’s take on the style comes across a bit stronger on the hops than most other breweries. After the swallow, a bitter, piney hop flavor remains even after the roasted malts have cleared away.
Overall, I like the flavor of this beer but I think the alcohol is a bit too strong to drink it right away. A year in the basement would make this a very tasty stout.
