johnlittle.com

When will we ever be spared from having this ignorance spewed into our living rooms during the Super Bowl? In this one, Budweiser tries to get a laugh out of a bunch of idiots preferring to die drinking piss over calling for a rescue. Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be a Lost parody, but when you begin to understand what real craft beer is and when you begin to realize what kind of company InBevAB is, and the tactics it and its distributors use to control market share, none of the commercials are funny anymore (except the ones that try to seriously tout how good the beer is… those are laughable). All the other commercials are nothing but branding and make budweiser drinkers look like idiots.

One thing Anat Baron does a pretty good job of in Beer Wars is to try to expose this company for what it is. Stream the film and see for yourself.

Then, for some encouragement from the craft beer segment (only 5% of the current market), take a look at I Am a Craft Brewer, which features up and coming successful craft brewers more interested in pursuing the noble craft than in gaining/retaining marketshare through anticompetitive efforts and brainwash. ABI sales were down 12% this January over last January. Let’s hope they continue to decline.

This audio is from the Alabama House Tourism and Travel committee hearing yesterday. I didn’t do such a good job with my audio recorder. The first one is ok because I had the recorder with me at the podium, but I was 2 rows back on the others, so the quality varies based on how loud and clear the person talking was (and how much I was shifting the paper in my hands). I don’t know the names of a couple of folks who spoke, but if you do, leave a comment and I’ll edit. I also missed the opening intro to the bill by Representative Robinson because I pushed the wrong button, but he spoke again at the end.

ws110071.mp3 – me
ws110072.mp3 – Joe Godfrey
ws110073.mp3 – Stuart Carter
ws110074.mp3 – Dan Ireland
ws110075.mp3 – Dan Roberts
ws110076.mp3 – ?
ws110077.mp3 – ?
ws110078.mp3 – Oliver Robinson

Have I ever mentioned how little I know about gas plumbing and electrical wiring? Well, I know very, very little. Priscilla has always been the one in our family that knew about electricity, and I’ve always relied on her. Sad, I know. But I’m determined to learn. Getting to the point where I could run this relatively simple test took me a month!!! It’s not that I worked on it all the time, but I had to let everything slowly sink in.

So over the past month, among other things, I read all the manuals involved 10 times, read lots of info on web pages, asked my friends a bunch of questions, visited a propane business in Beuregard and an electrical contractor business in Auburn, and Priscilla and I visited Home Depot and Lowes several times to get little bits and pieces of information from whatever electrical or plumbing experts were working. Setting up this test was a big accomplishment for someone so unskilled at such things as myself, and Priscilla was a big help throughout the entire process.

Here’s a list of the major components:

• Honeywell VR8300A4516 Continuous Pilot Gas Control (supplier) (manual)
• Honeywell Q314A4586 Pilot Burner (supplier) (manual)
• Honeywell Q340 “Bulls Eye” Thermocouple (manual)
• 32 jet Propane Burner (supplier)
• Rego LV404B96 Twin State Regulator (manual)
• 120v to 24v Transformer (supplier)
• 3 wire 14 gauge power cord (supplier)
• 14 gauge black and white wires
• on/off switch

The pics and videos below show the results so far, and it’s obvious to me that my next step is to learn how to make valve adjustments to get the flame just right.

The first video is simply the pilot burner. Blue flame. No yellow. Very clean.

The second video shows the burner being turned on and off. The Honeywell gas valve is set to the standard, out of the box settings, which are going to need adjustment, as you can see from the height of the flames, and the amount of yellow flame. My understanding is that the higher percentage of blue in the flame, the better.

Just a short clip of the burner turned on in the dark.

And this video shows what can happen if there’s nothing (like a kettle) above the flame. Sometimes only part of the burner will light. In this video, only the left half of the burner lit initially, and Priscilla blew on the flame like a candle to get the flame to spread to the right half. If the burner had been placed appropriately beneath a kettle, the flame on the left would have spread across the bottom of the kettle to the right and ensured that the right side of the burner let.

Here’s some scenes I found attractive while driving from The Bottle, just north of Auburn, up 147 and 431 to Lafayette and a little beyond. Read about the history of The Bottle here. If you zoom in on a google map of the area, you can see it’s still labelled as “The Bottle.”

Found Objects / II
An annual exhibition featuring works utilizing non-traditional art materials.
Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center Gallery
January 4 – 30

I just discovered this website for brewers.

Check it out.

Tons of great information.

After many, many months of having imagery in mind for Southern Farmhouse Ales, we finally have a logo. I’ve taken lots of pictures of structures in rural Alabama, particularly in Lee County, and spent a good bit of time down at Auburn University’s College of Architecture Library, trying to find examples to help me communicate with a graphic artist about what I was looking for. Many thanks to Jeff Cutrer down at Master Graphics in Auburn. I think he did an awesome job.

The font is based on a set of leathercraft tools my granddady left me when he passed away back in the early 80s. It has been over 25 years since he stood over my shoulder teaching me how to carve leather, and it was a real pleasure to find all those tools again recently and practice carving the text into a raw leather belt strip to show Jeff the type font I wanted to use.

I’ve finally been able to put something up other than a blank white page at http://www.southernfarmhouse.com, as well as to finally add the logo alongside other Alabama breweries and breweries-in-planning at http://www.alabamabrewersguild.org.

I’ve had a few friends ask me these past couple of months about what’s happening with me (I was always such a loudmouth I’ve even surprised myself by how quiet I’ve been lately), so I’ve been thinking about writing an update.

Nowadays I just can’t stand to be behind the computer much. And so many years of legal writing makes me sound so punctuated that I sometimes cringe when I read myself, even when its just informal message board stuff… So, I’m trying to change that… do different stuff.. like with the use of these ellipses… or mybe i shld typ evrythng like i wUd in chat). I don’t know. I guess the trick will be learning to write more readably and with less clauses.

My old about me page was last updated in June of 2008, and alot has happened since then, so I’ve known I need to come up with a new one… this is part of that effort.

Last December or so, I wrote about some health issues I’d experienced and how that had led to a change in career. The last time I read that account, I decided I’d shared Too Much Information. My sincere thanks to friends and former clients who left some very nice comments for me. I’m getting better, and I very recently had several “all clear” test results for blood clotting and pulmonary issues. Short story: While I remain a licensed attorney, I’m not practicing law right now. It really sucks to have health issues coupled with the misery of being shackled to a desk manufacturing a product called billable hours. So, I’m taking a break. Maybe I’ll muster the gumption (how’s that for more creative writing) to get back to practicing law one day, but it’ll be in a much different form. I used to be the General Counsel of a healthcare company that served special needs children and adolescents. I sometimes like to think that with my background, I’d be well suited to represent such a person in court. But I was never a courtroom attorney and don’t know much about civil procedure, so I’d need a good mentor.

In the meanwhile, I’ve been working on doing something in the field of brewing. Having been my hobby for the last 5 years, that’s really the only other thing I was any good at. I sure can’t cook. Besides homebrewing, pretty much all I’ve ever done is read and write. I can’t even wire a ceiling fan without being dumbfounded. But by golly I’m excited to be figuring out how to wire pumps, temperature gauges, float switches, and electronic ignition gas valves to a brewing system. I’m definitely needing someone to make sure everything is exactly right, but I’m enjoying the challenge of figuring out as much as I can.

It has been a little over a year now since I made the change, and I’ve stumbled through a few different possibilities on which direction to take. Read more…

I heard this the other night listening to a Brew Strong podcast. JZ and Chris White will have a new book this year, title I think “Everything You Need to Know about Yeast”.

This was taken at John Tipton’s house a couple years ago, and the pic has been on my fridge out in the garage getting wet and warped. Here’s a scan before it gets too messed up. From left to right is Vern Wolfe’s belly (Vern owned a small vineyard in California, is BJCP certified and is Alabama’s best meadmaker), Todd Swearingen (my sensei, but the student has become the masta), Adam Arnett (badass Marine Major.. don’t mess with him), John Doe (Brant doesn’t want the ABC Board to know that he is associated with law breakers, and since they are monitoring this website, I won’t provide his last name… It is definitely not Warren), me, and Scott Oberman (featured in the L.A. Times for his blatant Alabama law breaking).