Come On Chemical-al-al-al-als! Or "Please Just Ferment".

Last night 2 AM: While trying to fall asleep, I listen to a soundtrack of the non-instrumental variety. I hear my cat crunching on kibble, my spaniel snoring, thunder rolling and my beer fermenting. I'm tired, if slightly wired, as the Belgian tripel I'm brewing tried to flood Sean's office about an hour before.

But let's start at the beginning, why am I brewing a Belgian tripel when I can go out and buy a bottle of Chimay or Golden Monkey? The answer is twofold: my love for cooking/baking and my "involvement" in chemistry ( I say "involvement" as chemistry and I aren't in love at the moment. As facebook would say "it's complicated").

Sean knew that I was yearning to brew, so for my birthday, he bought me the appropriate supplies and ingredients (a kit for beginners, so you don't have to worry about mis-measuring). Sean and I decide the only way to brew beer is to drink beer while brewing. We head to World of Beer on Gulf to Bay where I pick up some Victory Golden Monkey.

Brewing starts off with cleaning, lots of cleaning and sanitizing, as bacteria will contaminate and create off-flavors in your beer. Next you steep the grains. In my case crushed aromatic malt. These were allowed to steep for 2o minutes in a muslin bag from which a pleasant sour-doughy smell wafts. Sean thinks it stinks. Sean is so wrong so often.

The water is then brought to a rolling boil and the malt extracts, maltodextrin, and candi sugar are added. The hops are added according to a "Brew Day Schedule" and everything boils and fills Sean's apartment with a less pleasant scent, more sour but with a tinge of molasses.

All of this gives you a liquid known as "wort". My wort looks kinda like pond scum. Before adding the yeast, the wort must be cooled to about 75 degrees F (a decrease of about 125 degrees). The instructions suggest a sink of ice water...that lasts 2 minutes, as all the ice melts and the water heats up. Sean suggests a bathtub of ice water. That works but it takes a while. I'm a little worried about contamination...

Finally, the yeast is added...not much is happening. Come on yeast, eat that sugar! Nom nom nom... I attach the airlock and shove the carboy under desk so my yeast can eat in peace.

Fast forward to 24 hours later, and the yeast have definitely been gorging themselves. There is quite a head on my tripel, and now I'm a little worried about over-flow. Yup, thar she blows. A bucket is placed under the carboy, and sanitized foil covers the opening while I clean the air-lock and sean rigs up the blow-off tube. I think the doom is avoided, but I still worry about pesty bacteria. One good thing, Sean and I notice that the overflow smells like...beer.

So as I try to sleep, with my dog snoring and my cat crunching, I comfort myself with the the thought that, even though this beer may possess "off-flavors", at least I know it will contain ethanol. Which is pretty awesome.

It should also be noted that I woke up with the Willy Nelson/Toby Keith duet Whisky for My Men, Beer for My Horses stuck in my head...what does it MEAN?

"We Can Say That We Invented a Summer Lovin' Torture Party."

There is one thing you can always count on during summer, and that's record companies and iTunes releasing awful "summer soundtracks". Well, now that I have my own little blog that no one reads,

My official soundtrack for summer 2010 is The National's High Violet. Surely, I jest? "What a depressing summer soundtrack", you say. Well, you're right. The National is depressing, haunting even. But we already knew that. We knew that before we bought High Violet (and I'm assuming you did buy it), but we bought it anyway, obviously. I started my summer with a National concert and listened to High Violet pretty much every day for the rest of the season, and it's been awesome.

Matt Berninger might have the most depressing voice on my iPod, save for Stephin Merrit, but he's currently one of my favorite front-men. I love the way he wanders around on (and off ) stage while crooning and nursing a bottle of white wine. In my mind that bottle contains Pinot Grigio...

Anyway, let's ignore how "elegantly depressing" The National are for a moment; let's focus on why High Violet is the perfect summer soundtrack. You know what? Let's play it and go through song by song.

1. Terrible Love - Ah, summer lovin' is quite terrible isn't it? Especially if it's that song in Grease. Oh burn Olivia Newton! That's what you get for being annoying on Glee! But in all seriousness, that first stage of falling in love is pretty awful. That horrible feeling/obsession/nausea that keeps you from eating/sleeping/being normal sucks real bad. As Matt points out, "it takes an ocean not to break" , and though I would love to make another horrible Summer pun, I won't. I'll just point out how fucking true that lyric is. Being in love can be terrible, you feel like a crazy person.

2. Sorrow - Ok, this song is really depressing. This must be about the terrible break-up after the terrible love. But really, I think that this a great road-trip song. It's beautiful and contemplative and I find the high-pitched harmonies really dreamy. I also love Bryan Devendorf's drumming. I love that man.

3. Anyone's Ghost - Maybe I should mention that my summer doesn't involve much tanning or partying on yachts. My summer is more of a "drinking Belgian beer while watching fire-flies after a day of organometallic chemistry" sort of summer. This song seems to fit in with that. It has a muggy, almost apathetic sound but still makes me bob my head. Also, this song gets the "Best Lyric Award" for "You said it should tear a kid apart/ it does".

4. Little Faith - This song is about pyromania and pretty girls being sucked into the sky by storms.

5. Afraid of Everyone - This is actually my least favorite song on the album. Kinda whiny. But I do like that Matt doesn't "have the drugs to sort this out". Several people told me it's their favorite though, go figure.

6. Bloodbuzz Ohio - Oh hellz yes. This song rocks. This song is sexy. He lifts his shirt up. This song is catchy enough to play at your pool party, and when you do, it'll get you more indie cred than building a bookshelf out of cinder-blocks and plywood.

7. Lemonworld - Arguably the "summeriest" song on the album. Getting out of the city, drinking pricey liquor and watching sisters try on bathing suits is what I spend 87% of my summer doing. This song also contains the notable lyric featured in the title of this blarg.

8. Runaway - This quietly desperate song portrays a disarming scene from that "not-quite-a-fight" that's more emotionally draining than the real thing. The songs message does seem to be that of perseverance, but just barely. This song is fantastic all year long, both lyrically and musically.

9. Conversation 16 - There are ZOMBIES in this song! It's also pretty catchy, for how dark it is. It feels familiarly dark though, like the lyrics were something I wrote down and forgot about. I'm not sure how this relates to summer, and I was hoping you'd be distracted enough by the zombies to forget about that theme. But I've pointed it out now...

10. England - This song starts out slowly and and builds up to something grand. And it's about England, where I would much rather be during the summer months, because Florida sucks.

11. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks - I think the title should be enough for you. It's pretty awesome. This song is amazingly beautiful. I imagine it being sung around a campfire by those kids in the Walt Whitman Levi's commercials. It builds on itself exponentially (kinda like Fake Empire) and it shows that Matt Berninger has a wider (if slightly strained) vocal range than originally thought.

So there you have it, why The National's High Violet is my summer soundtrack of choice. Fuck Katie Perry and her California Gurls.