Advanced Purple May Reign, Killers New Album, Frisco Bonus Deal, Going Premium On OpenSnow & Digital Streaming Update 30Aug20

As August wanes we finally are receiving weather in the Rockies. WooHoo, the smoke and fires are getting knocked down a bit. We're in Summit through the LDWE and PM showers have allowed some advancements and investigations. In anticipation of fall BWO action on the rivers I have tried to advance the rudimentary Purple May Reign BWO used last spring. Fall BWOs are smaller, say #20-#24 vs #18-#20 of spring, and I have begun to see them hatching in small bits. The Advanced Purple May Reign enjoys a new colored tail and thorax which better match the coloration of the fly overall, purple baby. Here's the recipe, tied on a TMC 2488H - you know how to do the rest...

The Killers just dropped a new album called Imploding The Mirage. With having heard Vampire Weekend's new stuff and collaborations, the Killers retooled and this album is better than the last by far IMO. They may miss guitarist Keuning who's dropped out but they scored Lindsay Buckingham for tracks - and there's a number more collaborationists who make the album keen. I like Blowback - seems like classic Killers. Worth a listen for sure, especially if accompanied by some Toppling Goliath brew (little deference to my Iowa friends).

I just scored the "Love Frisco" discount cards - with ORB on the list of spots to use it, how can I not do a 25% discount.

With DD's help and knowing Vail's new policies requiring me to reserve my ski days, I invested in the All Access versions of OpenSnow & OpenSummit. I need the modest additional powder visibility and I appreciate the new layers for smoke and temps in OpenSummit.

Finally, in the digital streaming realm, I am trialing Google's new YouTube Premium and Music Premium. Sure I eliminate ads but more importantly I can access a higher quality audio feed (still just 256Kbps AAC though) than with regular YouTube. It's OK but not life changing and I sure wish it were even better. Yet, the boys auditing my Nest Theater house sound were very satisfied with it using regular YouTube feeds. Hard to know yet whether the $11/mo for the modest change is valuable enough for me. More importantly is that I found the price paid artists for each song streamed, by Google, Spotify or whomever - man it takes a lot of plays to make money at $.0004 per play.

Hops Sensory Training With ORB 27Aug20

Kala & I attended the special Outer Range Brewing Hops Sensory Training offered to the 250 Summit Club members. It was an online zoom meeting with the Cleghorns (Lee is an ORB co-founder and is the master brewer and Emily, his wife, did administration during the meeting). It was excellent and a lot more fun and informative than we'd imagined it could be. I'd received a packet of 7 packets of hops prior to the training, along with my Golden Ticket allowing me and a +1 to enjoy a day of drinking & dining at ORB.

ORB is acknowledged as one of the very best in the country. They are especially expert in hazy IPAs which some call New England IPAs. Folks from all over the world come to Frisco to work with Lee on collaborations, which are canned and kegged for transport to home turf, and of course offered right at ORB, till they are gone. We are lucky to have them in Summit. DD and I joined the fairly exclusive Summit Club last December, and have enjoyed its benefits since - this new event was in lieu of a big party we'd expected in the fall hops-harvesting season but Covid 19 dampened everyones' spirits for that and this was an innovative alternative. Hosting the show was Lee Cleghorn and his wife Emily (I forget the name of the music guy but he's from ORB too). We started by learning about hops farming, production and the supply chain and a lot more about how ORB specifically behaves on selecting, contracting and using hops. Fascinating stuff including that ORB:

• Buys 42.5K pounds of hops annually in producing 5K barrels of beer - much higher % than most other brewers (given the focus on hazy IPAs). He contracts years in advance and selects hops after visiting cultivators; if you don;t, you get what's left over.
• Doesn't use much hops in the boil but uses lots at lower temps in a whirlpool and during dry hopping - which they do relatively early.
• Ignores IBUs and alpha acid levels in hops for the most part (AA ranges from 2%-25% and somewhat helps determine bitterness of beer) and depends on taste.
• Uses pelletized hops exclusively (as do most brewers) except for fresh hop creation where the cones themselves are used.
• ORB uses a lot of oats in their hazies; ORB primarily use British pale malts in most of their beers; ORB mostly cultivates and uses their own yeasts from originally British and American strains 

We then moved on to the crux of the meeting - hops sensory training. We cracked open our special packets of pellets and partook of the smell (not taste) by crushing pellets in our hands and releasing the essential oils captured within. The music guy gave us 1 minute per hops variety (where Kala and I smelled and discussed) and then Lee led a reveal of his sensory perception of the variety and provided other details on the strain. What's remarkable is how many of the beers I drink employ hops only  recently cultivated. Here are my "tasting" notes coupled with Lee's primary observations as well as some emblematic beers he's made with the varietal - I must say, I have been fortunate to have tasted almost all of these.

• Mosaic (2012 US) - manky trees, pine shrubs, blueberry-mango [Blocks of Light & Two Pound Tent]
• Wai-Ti (2011 New Zealand) - dirt, ginger, apricot, lime [Steezy & Drenched]
• *Talus/Experimental HBC 692 (2020 US) - chocolate, dried roses, citrus, sage [Valley Views]
• *Citra Cryo (2008 US/Yakima) - citrus, tropical flowers, grapefruit [In The Steep] - cryo means immediate immersion of hops into deep freeze and allows more essential oil per pellet ~ so much so in fact that Lee uses 50% less hops if he gets the cryo version
• Hallertau-Mittlefruh (pre-history/Germany) - herbal, earthy, spicy [many hazy-juicy IPAs use this also thier Kicker pilsner]
• Nelson Sauvin (New Zealand) - white wine, papaya (very high thyols in fermentation) [Wheelie Nelson & Future Of Parties]
• *Strata (2009) - pine, dank, strawberry

Tomorrow we vote on the 3 hops to be brewed into a Summit Club DIPA. What a gr8 time. 

UPDATE... The votes are in and my voting must've counted a lot as as you can see from the original post above, the 3 hops chosen were exactly my votes too!

 UPDATE 11Oct20... Tasting the Party Alone Together was awesome. One for the ages.

The Arkansas River Headwaters 27Aug20

I dropped into the Ark headwaters downstream from Leadville on a nice day, but after a storm yesterday that dirtied the water a bit. I fished upstream from the first big bridge crossing and was just the 2nd car there - the first car might've been there all night as it was covered in dew and he needed a jump. I caught a number of browns like those shown. I didn't see a lot of hopper sign or even other bug sign on the river and the floating top fly worked just once. I even decided to go nymphing exclusively late AM. Best flies were the BHDCEZWD40 in black and a peacock prince nymph. The area got pretty crowded around noon so I headed back to Summit for lunch and to meet up with Kala. A good, but not great, day... even Periodic Brewing in Leadville was closed - so a stop at ORB for a hazy & tuna poke with rice tots from Bird Cafe was in order; heck it's better anyway.

Tonnage @ Ten Mile Trashes Two Weight Tip 25Aug20

That's a lot of alliteration all. Smoke blew away by AM in Summit so I headed to 10 Mile Ck below Copper seeking another season triple. Didn't happen as I could not catch a brook or cutthroat and I even broke the tip off my 2 weight and had to hike back to the car. I did have a good morning of many fish @ both Copper and Officer's Gulch sections of 10 Mile. Chubbies brought 'em up and BH caddis and BHDCEZWD40s brought 'em in. I am awaiting some bigger water and bigger fish but Dog Days are tough so I'll take it. My new found rod making (and repairing) will be tested anew.

UPDATE 13Sep20... My now practiced rod building allowed me to repair my drc#1 with a new tip. No performance hit really - loving the 2 weight on smaller streams so I'm glad it's back in the quiver.

Nest Theater Part Fourteen - New Video Monitor Hoisted By The Boys 22Aug20

We bought a new Sony Bravia OLED 77" TV to finish out the Nest Theater. The Boys came over with pizza, after a couple of stout rides and stout beers, to help hoist it onto the wall. It is amazing. While I still need to decide whether to and how to best integrate the acoustical surface of the panel into my audio system as a center channel, simply playing my 2.1 with a keen picture is excellent. We had a fun time auditing some of "Dave's music" on the new system. I cleaned up the wiring after the boys were gone. I also redid all the IR code integration into the Harmony remote to yield a readily usable system.

UPDATE 26Sep20... Brother Brown helped me hoist the TV down and then back up as I decided to drop it 9.75 inches. It was too high, like being in the front row of a theater. Now the middle of the screen, still really big, is eye height as we sit - much better.

 

 

Fishing The Vail Valley 19Aug20

I headed over the pass to the Vail Valley to fish the Gore and Eagle today. I was late getting out but oh well. It got crowded pretty quickly on 1st Dawg Pk and then 2nd The Mouth of the Gore but I caught quite a few smaller browns like these on an new ice enticer BH PMD nymph, black #20 DCEZWD40 and olive/tan #14 chubbies. Chucked 'em all using the 2 wt - no 'bows, much less a triple... I left for lunch at VBC.

  

After lunch I hit the close-by Eagle River downstream of Minturn. I parked at the Holy Cross ranger station, crossed the street, and fished upstream for 1/2 mile. Fishing was meh but it was the height of warmth of the day. On the way home I caught the current state of the Williams Fk fire from the car.

We Are Hiking & Not On Fire 17Aug20

Wow August has been hot and dry. It's causing a number of fires that make Summit Co hazy - most notably the ones near Glenwood Spgs and Durango. But now we even have the Williams Fork fire right near Ute Pass NE of us - sheesh.

Undaunted Kala and I set out into the Eagles Nest Wild and went up Buffalo Pk (till we got the crab climbing @ the boulder field. Awesome hike in our back yard above Silverthorne.

Sealing The Driveway @ The Nest 14Aug20

Steve Brown, Richard Hubbs, Kala & I cleaned and resealed the entire driveway between 11 & 13 Eagles Nest Ct at the end of the cul de sac today. We had probably over 2750 sqft of asphalt left unattended for many years. We started with five 5 gallon cans of 7 yr asphalt sealant but Kala made multiple trips to Lowe's for more gallons of crack repair and eleven (11) more 5 gallon buckets of sealant! We started with my home pressure washer but I finished with a commercial rental from True Value (not shown - more effective & productive). We pressure washed the entire surface, cleaned up the edges, repaired all the cracks, "painted" the edges and then slurry sealed the entire thing with a finishing mindset. It came out great and should hold up to tough snowy winters here for some time. The team celebrated with dinner and brews at ORB of course - a big job well done - Thanks Steve & Richard for prompting a the DIY effort and providing the strength. We are pretty beat and tarred up from a full day on the job slinging 80 gallons of glop, but very satisfied.