Heller

While I am pleased that SCOTUS found in favor of the Individual Rights interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, I'm not wholly happy with it either. My main concern is that Scalia pretty much wrote the decision for "Hunting and self defense in the home", and left lots of room for plenty of stupid licenses, permits and other constraints. Balderdash!! This gives the gun controllers far to much room to make owning a gun like running a obstacle course. Free people, who are other wise no danger to anyone, should not have to continue to prove they are not a danger. But, at least it said, at the end of the day, you can own guns. Also, I think that it allows for you to own pretty much any type of gun. Scalia gave a "common use" test to that which is allowable. I think it's pretty safe to say that Semi-auto hand guns are in common use as self defense weapons, if not the most common one. I guess we will have to wait a couple of years and see how this pans out.

IPA Done

Bottled the IPA with Brian last night. FG came in at 1020, which is a little on the high side, but maybe not off for the yeast strain we used. Man, those dry hops that Brian put in there on Sunday look GROSS! Hopefully it's worth it. The name we came up with for the beer is: Empress of India IPA, after VR herself. I kinda doubt she was a IPA drinker, but she was the first Empress of India. Here's to you Vicky!

Good luck to Brian with his car. Kinda sounds like a heater core. Those suck, ask me how I know.

Weekend Brewing Report

Went over to Brian's to brew on Saturday, along with Carl. Things went great, the only off thing was we came in a little low on gravity due to adding to much water. I think around 1055-1057. Not a big deal, for a English IPA that's still on style. Brian reported Monday that it was bubbling away. Basement temp is in the mid-60's to 70. I think I'll have him check the beer Sunday and see if it's still got krausen. If it does, we might wait till mid week to rack. Lesson from my Amber.

I'm pretty much set on getting a third Carboy, as Tyler's ginger ale is going to be in carboy 2 until doomsday.

So, next? Koelsch maybe. I don't see any extract recipes, but I think I could do a close approximation with the right yeast and hops. Dead on? No, but I find that a lot of how one defines a flavor in a given beer comes from the yeast. The difference between my wheat and Cody's first one was the yeast, I'm convinced. Plus, I think Carl would love to make a Koelsch.