The Poo, The Haine & The Scare 31Jan18

The issue with organic fertilizing is I had to scoop up probably 200 pounds of deer poop from my lawn. Imagine piles like this in the yard literally every foot or so - many embedded deeper in the grass making extraction tough. After 4 hours of work I also "invested" in a deer deterrant material and sprayed a perimeter around the property - I think it's working as deer are now walking right around our lot - woohoo.

After all the shit we convened a team of microbrew-hoppers to party with Rob Haine, who was in town for some work. The hearty team included BK, Yoho, Scott Brantley, Gregger, Haine, me and special guest Chris Labac, who just joined Viavi. It was a fine night rolling from Cerberus to Oskar Blues to Iron Bird. Here are some pretty bad selfies. We missed our mate DD; he was off spinning out some business.

At the start of the evening I scared Kala pretty good with an image of a 2008 (2nd gen facelift) Boxter S. It's a cherry, low mileage (22K), well priced ($30K) 290hp version with tan interior. I have two searches on AutoTrader, one for Land Cruiser and one for older Boxster S - this one just happened to be in Colo Spgs so I went to check it out - very sweet & so impractical.

Snow & Hops & Beer 29Jan18

We are exiting Jan18 with continued significantly below average snowpack and an early Feb18 outlook which is not very snowy. Bummer. Summit's big resorts are all ~80% of average snowpack - which is actually good for the state whose southwest resorts are dry as has been the whole southern half of CO... the South Platte basin in the northeast is doing a bit better. Let's hope this improves.

The price of hops has doubled in the last 13 years and is currently on an even more accelerated increase. Root causes are several but supply & demand is obviously the core where "bigger" IPAs and higher volumes of beer are driving up use and where production has not quite kept pace. Still hops are nowhere near being one of the more profitable crops per acre like bamboo, ginseng, flowers & mushrooms. Perhaps this will force use of other ingredients or production of other styles.

But in Colorado, the brewing industry is a big economic contributor, despite our importing hops rather than growing them. Hops require lots of water but when given it, the vines grow like weeds almost... the NorthWET is a top hop-producing region as a result. We only use unseeded female buds for brewing - though males are in the fields to make the ladies happy.

In 2016 Colorado led all states in economic impact of brewing (per potential consumer) and was 6th overall in scale of the brewing industry in each state. Perhaps the impact per consumer was high due to our high recreational visitation from interstate drinkers or our central location for distribution to many western states... dunno but other "outdoors" states are high on the per capita list too.

Colorado ranks 4th as to the number of breweries currently open in the state... and that's an absolute number, not even per capita. Though in craft breweries (from a different dataset) we are 2nd with 334.

Total beer production from Colorado was 20M barrels (equivalent including kegs, cans and bottles produced for whatever outlet of consumption) in 2016 which is ranked 1st in the country, but closely followed by CA, TX and OH. This is from a tax collected perspective from the Feds and is a bit surprising but attributed to craft output surges. Perhaps though too the big brewers in Wisconsin have been under-reporting for tax purposes - some don't even crack the Top 10. Here's the choropleth map of state-wise beer production in the US in barrels - our craft beer production is just <10% of this though.

Overall alcohol consumption in CO per capita is ranked 15th - northern states are the biggest consumers. Consuming beer only (not just craft beer) we are much lower at 29th.

I conclude that beer is very important to Colorado - per capita we are a relatively low consumer, though I am doing my part, yet we produce a lot and employ a lot in the industry. While the datasets are from mixed sources again - Colorado's GDP is $322B in 2016; craft beer is 1% of this and all beer contributes about 6% I assess.

New Brewer Annual Craft Beer Report

So who are the players in Colorado? The New Brewer does an annual with lots of data - click the image above to grab the most recent full report. It's amazing the share of #1 AM InBev nationwide and as we know each is starting to buy craft brewers as that's where the growth is.

The craft segment includes Regionals, MicroBrews, BrewPubs and ContractBrewers. The Regionals have the biggest share but microbreweries are the faster growing recently.

In the mountains, Colorado dominates with its Regionals and is strong in distribution as well. I am surprised Melvyn is not on the list but I do expect them next year. Have you been to the top BrewPubs? Pikes Peak rated as a BrewPub is weird - their only food is from a Panini press or crock pot.

To see the complete lists as well as openings & closings in the past year in each category, get the report. The volume is enlightening and reinforces how important beer is to Colorado and who are the movers & shakers here. Too, it is widely acknowledged that the GABF in Denver is THE beerfest at which to be seen and to serve. I'd hope to go again sometime after seeing the scale in 2017 - mark September 21st, 2018... I'll be in Utah so I'll have to go in 2019.

Catchin' Some Quick 26Jan18

I headed to Summit Thu PM for a quick 15K on Fri AM in the newfallen 5" or so. Sure I worked hard on the Nest on Fri updating home controls, attending to plumbing and cleaning too. But, it was the trees and newfallen @ Keystone that made the trip.

Weekend Of Summit Fun 19Jan18-21Jan18

I had the pleasure of hosting and skiing and enjoying other frivolity in the mountains this weekend. First off Yoho arrived Friday and we caught a nice dinner at the Bighorn in Keystone and The Motet in concert at Warren Station. Decent venue and a decent funk band... I was the oldest guy in the place.

Saturday there was no new snow and it was 50° in Silverthorne. We hit Breck for some skiing with Jim's friend Joel Rauser. Not much skiing with him really as we "passed in the night" and he left early. Yoho and I enjoyed a good pizza & beer at Sevens before checking out the Yurt at Outer Range. There was a problem at OR though as I had the last IPA on the board, and got one of the last pours of it - a tasty DIPA, so we switched to blacks, which also ran out. Dinner at Pho nearby wouldn't happen so we dined at the Nest from good Whole Foods buys.

The storm ultimately rolled in at mid-night on Sat and dropped 8" or so on Keystone by the time we arrived to meet BK & DD for a day of powder runs. Traffic was awful headed to KS and we ultimately used the shuttle lot to stop the agony. It was a very good ski day followed by an evening at the Nest with my mates. DD's mules were stellar and my apps and pizza was decent despite the Vikings not putting up a fight. Wilks even rolled in and we had five in the spa along with his nasty sandals - sheesh.

We hiked out from Outback chair into North Bowl - just before the ski patrol closed the hike. Here DD caught BK & me right before the descent. It was the best run of the day.

Simplified Ski Tuning 19Jan18

I've been neglecting a tune on my Liberty Helix 105s. Here I describe my simplified tuning scheme. Always work tip to tail - try not to "scrub" but use single tailbound strokes in almost all tools/steps. I do one ski at a time through to complete like I learned at DHR with "one piece flow."

1. Get stuff ready - vices attached, iron out, brushes out, clean rag available, diamond stones in water, tools handy, etc.
2. Do the base stone grind first because this might touch the base edge. Here the work is to get off the larger high points in the base. A metal sheet tool can be used too. Wipe with rag when done.
    
   
3. For the edges do the base edge first. Start with a file ensuring it's in the base edge tool tightly you set the angle where you want it. Do a couple of passes in the correct direction (file is one way). Wipe off the shavings as you don't want that stuff in your base.
   
   
4. Switch to the diamond stones for the base edges and make several passes with each of 100, 200 and 400 (I usually go no finer than this). Wipe frequently. Stones don't have a direction and a scrubbing motion is more tolerable with these. Make sure the stones are cleaned on each change.
   
   
5. Put skis tight in the vises and move on to do the side edges. Again use the file first, the progressively move to diamond stones from 100 to 400. Wipe frequently.
   
   
6. Clean the bases moving from metal to nylon or hair with brushes and finish with scrubber pad . Wipe. Base should now be clean, pretty smooth, and ready to accept wax.
   
7. Drip hot wax along the base of the ski by holding it to a 120° iron. Then go back and work the wax completely flat into/onto base with the iron. Let the ski cool and grab a beer.
   
8. Scrape the wax off with a plastic edge tool. Clean this mess up with a vacuum quickly - it's icky.
   
9. Brush with nylon and buff with a softish scrubber pad and your done; finish the beer and get ready for the other ski.
   

Peregrine Facts & Trellis Buster Jan18

A cool visitor stopped by the Blodgett spot and I dove on their factoids. I mean the Peregrine falcon which I caught in some shit photos from the phone, through a window - live was way cooler. Ok... two "best ofs" for this keen raptor are 1) that they are the fastest animals on earth and can dive at prey at 240mph (you likely knew this Front Range factoid) and (less likely understood) 2) that they have the widest natural range of any animal on earth - they are nearly everywhere!

They are bigger than many birds but a smaller raptor. Big enough to break down the trellis of nearly any vine... but not this one. A tasty DIPA from our own Denver-based Crooked Stave - Trellis Buster is really good.

The Desperate Bookends 17Jan18

Kala and I saw The Darkest Hour and Dunkirk within one day. Gary Oldman was spectacular but while neither movie was truly outstanding in our opinions, both together were. The viewing could not have been scripted better (and probably was by Hollywood) - seeing the political Churchill side in London in one film and then the exact same situation from the field in Durkirk in another was remarkable. How brutally grim the situation was, and evil the enemy - the fact we rose up was amazing and the foretelling that the "new world" would vanquish enemies sublime in the face of disaster - Churchill was controversial no doubt, but an orator great.

Can You Hear That? 17Jan18

Being an audio snob I've oft asserted my hearing was good. So, to test the theory I could go to see Dr Yoho or I could do it myself for free - probably not as accurate, but cheaper. Went cheaper and used FreeHearingTest on mac. I discovered basically what I felt - I can hear bass well but begin to roll off @ ~12.8KHz and can't hear well at all above 14.8KHz - not bad for an old dude. I tested a couple of times and did both ears individually without much difference - the chart from Google Sheets is a decent summary. So, I can hear the adjustments being made by my SonarWorks software to flatten my headphones below 100Hz and from 12K-16K a bit - though too, to compensate for the hearing loss I do have, I should amplify these upper frequencies a bit - "age adjustments." I also tested way low and can hear well down even to ~10Hz. I found the "average" person's age-related hearing loss (see last chart) and I seem much better off thus far. Cool. I retested, with Kala too - whom Yoho has measured for modest hearing loss... the graphs are not what the average sexagenarians face - I can hear lower and higher than Kala but we both can hear humans well. I do have tinnitus and have for 5 years or more probably - weird they are not more related.

I did just score on the fabulously priced Massdrop Sennheiser HD650s and a set of custom balanced cables for them. Shipping is in March via this scheme but the price is worth the wait.