Finless surfing

After our last visit to the beach we decided to get an 'Albacore' finless surfboard - kind of a hybrid between a bodyboard and a surfboard

It was only in the 30's that fins were attached to surfboards. The original Hawaiian surfboards (called Alaias) were shaped from wood into this 'ironing board' shape with a channelled hull and no fins. There's been a bit of a resurgence in Alaia surfing in the last few years and that's trickled down to commercially available boards like the Albacore, which offer the finless experience to people who aren't prepared to shape their own board or who don't have the skill or strength to paddle in to waves on a traditional wooden version.

We took it to the beach yesterday, and although conditions were terrible we had a great time playing around in the surf. There was 25mph+ winds gusting up across 20 miles or so of beach

 

which meant that you were constantly being abraded by sand and made it impossible to get any shelter from the sun      

It also messed up the waves and turned the surf into a choppy unpredictable mess with a huge side rip and no real shape - apart from a few kitesurfers there was nobody out

Both of us have only had limited surfing experience - we have both been able to occasionally get to our feet on green (unbroken) waves but that was many years ago. So I think the Albacore is going to be a challenge to get the hang of - it's pretty buoyant for its size but you still need to time your paddling correctly, and once it catches a wave it's hard to keep it pointing in a straight line. But it's fun. In cleaner surf I think we'd both be able to get up, although turning it will be another matter. Because the board is short (5'6) it fits into both cars, and because it is soft skinned and finless we can muck around in any conditions without fear of being concussed by the board or cut up by the fins after a wipeout - something we've both experienced in the past. So although it may be harder to learn on and it certainly lacks the coolness factor of a custom board, or even a longboard, I think we'll be using it more frequently and that has to be a good thing. If I find myself getting the surfing bug again then I can look at more traditional boards but for now this is a great alternative.  

Most importantly - Happy New Year! Hope you have a great night, and have fun in 2013!
 

For anyone that over-ate at Xmas

This is Die Antwoord. Needless to say there's swearing, shouting, rudeness, obscenity and just plain wierdness, so don't watch if any of that puts you off. Or if you like Lady Gaga - she asked them to open for her, and this was their response...

Just in case you're thinking 'what the hell did I just watch?', Die Antwoord put together a conveniant guide to answer any questions....

That clears it all up nicely.

Let me know what you think of my beer!

There are a few grab-bags of beer going out soon, and I'm always interested to hear what people think. Both good and bad! I've had a few verbal updates, some emails and the odd picture of somebody enjoying a beer (well, I hope that's what they were implying!) but it would be handy for me to keep everything in one spot. So what I'll do is every time I distribute a new batch I'll add it as a comment to this post. If you have any opinions on it then please reply to that comment, which should hopefully keep everything reasonaby ordered.

And don't be afraid to say negative things! Some of my recent brews are a little out there, and with the varied tastebuds around I'd be suprised if everyone likes everything that I make. I won't be offended, even if you try to sneakily pour a sage ale away behind a tree and get busted because of the smell! :)

A Bangin' Boxing Day Beetroot Brew

We were in two minds whether to stay at home or head down to the coast on Boxing Day, but the weather intervened and heavy rain in the morning kept us inside the house. Not so much because we were afraid of getting wet, more that once it had cleared the humidity was finally broken  and the flat was at a cool and comfortable 25 degrees or so. I even got the odd shiver laying on the couch as the wind below through - it was wonderful. And there was plenty to keep me entertained as Boxing Day in Australia is traditionally about two sporting events - the Boxing Day Test and the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. I'm not a cricket tragic but I take an interest, so I like watching both whilst I'm doing something else as well. It all added up to the perfect time to get another brew on.

The beetroot beer has just been bottled and it tastes surprisingly good. Very hoppy though - more of a beetroot IPA - so I decided I'd give it another go on a larger scale, back off the hops and use saison yeast to try to pull the fruity flavours out a bit more. Plus I had a saison already in the fermentor, so I could rack that off and pitch directly onto the old yeast cake. Less cleaning - hurrah!

This is the earlier beer

 This time around I'm brewing a 25l batch so my recipe was -

• 5 beetroots (I got 8 for $3!)
• 1kg pale malt extract
• 1kg raw sugar
• 1lg brown sugar
• 50g Amarillo hops (60 mins)
• 20g Cascade hops (30 mins)
• 20g Amarillo hops (5 mins)
• Saison yeast

Boil the sugars and bittering hops up first , and then add the chopped beetroot halfway through (ie with the Cascade hops).

I added a fair bit of filtered water to the fermentor before adding in the strained & cooled wort, then topped up to 25 l. Not sure if you can see it but the fermentor has a funky purple tone to it.

This next day the garage smelled strangely vegetable-y and the airlock was bubbling like crazy, so the yeast has taken well. This is last year's saison yeast which I used a few times and then kept in the fridge over winter, although I think after this brew I'm going to need to splash out on a new pack...

Happy Xmas from down under

Christmas Eve, and in a nod to myself fourteen years ago I bought some beautiful fresh caught Australian tiger prawns. Who knows, an old crew mate could have been involved in bringing these in.

 They were shelled, de-veined and marinaded in a coriander & chilli marinade for an hour or so

For any readers in the cold, damp & gently flooding UK - I'm putting another shrimp on the barbie for you

 A touch overdone (I'm still struggling with the barbie & seafood), but tasty

 How else would you want to spend Xmas Eve?

Happy Christmas everyone, hope you have a great festive period!

Riding the cyclone

Cyclone Evan has recently been wreaking havoc on Fiji & Samoa and the resulting swell has now reached Queensland. So we thought it was time to get back to the beach and catch some waves...

A combination of onshore winds and heavy waves quickly persuaded my from trying to get out back - when you have head high cascades of white water that knock you off your feet, you don't want to tangle with a closeout on a green wave. But even the whitewater had enough push to give me a decent ride. I may be on a bodyboard, it's not 6' & glassy out there and I'm only catching whitewater but I'm still having an awesome time.

 



Look away now all my old surfer mates

It's still hard work though, and after a few hours of being beaten up by the ocean some fresh mango goes down a treat

Along with a leisurely coffee in the carpark. A little different to shiveringly gulping down a hot drink in the carpark at Woolacombe in a desperate attempt to avoid hypothermia

although the sunshine does take a toll - I was a bit careless with the suncream, and as Liz puts it "I've been Rhonda'd"

When can we go again? :)





Christmas Tune

Bit of a warning - you may not have noticed but Christmas is getting close.

It's always a bit of a wierd time of the year for me over here as the sweltering humid days, tropical storms and whooping storm birds still don't mean Christmas to me. I'm too used to long dark nights, sleet and a miserable chilliness. So although I'm going through the motions - buying presents, sending cards, stocking up on booze and food - there's part of me that's wondering why. There's always a tinge of sadness too as I'm buying gifts for people who I haven't seen for almost eight years, and I won't be around for the opening.

Anyway, Christmas tunes are generally pretty woeful (with the exception of The Pogue's "Fairytale of New York" and Half-Man-Half-Biscuit's "It's cliched to be cynical at Christmas" - any other decent ones that I've missed?). But this year the Dropkick Murphys have stepped up with this - good song, funny video.

Speaking of good video clips, has anyone else seen the Aldi advert with the surfing Santas?

How good is that? Although I'd be careful waving a ham around in the water, it's been a sharky year so far..... 

LTSTRSB

There are two opposing views when it comes to how bikes are perceived by riders. Some view any bike as a good thing, after all riding a bike is a fun thing to do and makes you smile and so anything that can do that to you has to be a good thing. That view is I think summarised by HG Wells, who famously said "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race".

The other view can be summarised by Andy White's slogan "Life's Too Short To Ride Shit Bikes". The bike needs to be a 'classic' bike - preferably steel, lugged, either pre-90's vintage or handmade in Australia and built with shiny period-correct componentry.A couple of years ago I would have added 'with minimal tyre / frame clearance' but times have moved on. Of course this is only a rough guide of what is considered acceptable, and the boundaries tend to be expanded to include any bikes built or owned by your mates.

I can be one of the cool kids as I was lucky enough score a classic the other day - an 'Indi' mountain bike from the early 90's. Isn't she a beauty? I think it was designed as a downhiller with a long stable wheelbase, a solid frame design and a strong rake on the forks

Alas it's not lugged steel, but I think the distinctively sleek & aerodynamic ovalised tubing makes up for it

 It's a proudly Australian brand

 (although we don't mention this sticker)

and it came with a period 5 speed cassette - sadly no rear mech so I'm running it as a singlespeed  (with 74" gear inches)

 and the original cantilever retarders - calling them brakes is a bit optimistic

*Mmmmm* - shiny....

The name is very 90's too

I think a ride on this baby is always going to have a happy ending. 

I love everyone but....

Bored with work angst and these guys always cheers me up - Frenzal Rhomb, one of Australia's finest punk bands......

and for Marin

 

Elizabeth Farm

Another two day, one night trip to Sydney. In some ways these short trips are worst because you don't get to settle - you get up stupidly early, do a hard days work, find your way to a hotel and by then it's 6pm or later. The next morning you check out, do another days work and catch an evening flight home. This doesn't give you much time in the trip to wander around. Longer trips are harder in some ways as I'm away from home for longer but it does mean it's easier to relax in the evening. Or maybe even go to the gym. Maybe.

Luckily I can easily stretch my legs as there are some local sites that are easy to walk to, like Elizabeth Farm

No, not the place where they harvest Elizabeths (there would be no need for me to visit as I am living with the best Elizabeth I could possibly ask for) but Australia's oldest building. It was built in 1793, which for this young country is pretty impressive as it was only 5 years after the first convict boats arrived. Paramatta sits at what was the furthest inland navigable point on the Paramatta river and is also where the water becomes fresh, and it was a source of rich farmland to feed the growing sister city of Sydney.

The building itself is not that impressive - from the back it looks like a 1960's low-set brick house in a 2000m2 block

It's only open at weekends and I'd like to come back and have a more detailed nosy round instead of looking like a stalker.

The other joy of site visits are hire cars. I seem to be getting a run of plush hire cars - this time a Falcon GE6

If I get the chance I'll post a better pic tomorrow. It confirms what I was saying last week, for me the Ford is a better driving and more comfortable car. But the leather seats were a bit much after sitting in full sunlight for an afternoon..... 

Congratulations Liz!

My beautiful, talented girlfriend graduated from her social work degree today, with a first class honours no less. Congratulations Liz - you worked long and hard to get that, and it is very well deserved. Thank you for a great day today.

 

Just give it a go!

The recent heat has played hell with my brewing. Beers that seemed to be almost finished have kick started themselves back into life and resumed their bubbling, and with temperatures hitting 35 degrees who knows what flavours are being produced. I don't have the refrigeration options to chill the fermentors down to sensible temperatures, and although I could have taken steps to kill the yeast and stop the fermentation I'm not happy adding anything like that to my beers.

Anyway, who knows - maybe something interesting could be produced? I think that in these days of 'always on' internet it's too easy to look things up on line instead of just giving it a go. There are a whole host of instant experts out there telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing, and with all those professional views out there it's easy to think 'Unless you can do it perfectly, why do it at all?'.

I say 'Pah' to the experts. There's no harm in reading up on something but don't get freaked out by all the things that you 'should' be doing. Just follow your gut, work on getting the basics sorted first and then start playing with the finer variables. If you fancy making cheese, cider, bread, beer, kimchi, lime pickle, knitted beanies or your own portable yurt constructed entirely of plaited body hair - just give it a go! It may not turn out to be perfect, but it will almost certainly turn out to be interesting.

Following on in the spirit of experimentation, my lemonade may not have turned out as well as it could have done and is falling on the side of 'interesting'...my garage looks like a BYO party for US Postal riders ten years ago.

 

It tastes very dry with a slight back taste of hop. I think the cloudiness is due in part to the use of wheat malt, in part to the cloudiness of real lemons and also due to a fair amount of yeast in solution.  I'm hoping that over the next couple of weeks they will fizz up and then it will taste tart and refreshing when served ice cold. We'll see but I feel that further experimentation may be required, possibly with a smaller batch...

Think positive happy thoughts...

A motivational message this week, something I like to watch on the plane before visiting a client...

 

My Sydney local

I escaped the 39 degree heat in Brisbane with a two day, one night visit to Sydney. I was based in Parramatta but managed to escape the client at 5pm on the first day, so it was a perfect time to check out the Sydney Local Taphouse. I've been to the Melbourne branch before but not the Sydney one, and so just over an hour after leaving my hotel I'd walked up to the station, got a train into the CBD and then found the pub. Maybe not so local after all!

It may not have been the easiest trip but it was worth it. Walking to the pub meant that I explored some new parts of Sydney - a city I know less well than Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and even Perth - and with a cool breeze and low sun I even shivered every so often. I tried to take some stealth shots of the pub - they didn't come out too well but you get the idea. The piece of paper is the beer menu

A pint of 'Women of Beer' Hildegarde's Bier De Garde and a plate of Chipotle spice chicken wings with a blue cheese dressing. On the company. That makes up for the early start....

The pub has 20 taps. They use around 5 for lager, 1 for a cider and the rest for ales - including 3 saisons but surprisingly only one IPA. I could have spent a long time sampling their selections but after a  few beers the selection board started to look a bit like this

so it was time to head back to the hotel.

I woke up the next day in need of a big coffee, and luckily there was one to hand

My 7pm flight home got cancelled in the afternoon and I got bumped to an 8pm flight, so instead of sitting around at the airport I amused myself going for a quick hoon around Botany Bay in my Holden SV6 hire car.

The last time I was down I had a Falcon XR6, and personally I think that the Ford drove better and had a better design. I think that makes me a Ford man. But I still got to drive past my boss, wave out of the window, honk the horn and rev the engine as he was getting into his tatty hire Kia Sorrento. It's the little things.....

It's so hot!!!

There's an old joke about summer in Brisbane which seems to be appropriate right now. We've had a whole week of high 20's / early 30's midday temperatures - and then we had the first day of summer. Tomorrow looks to be even worse, with potential temperatures of 39 degrees in Brisbane and hotter further West. Pretty much every conversation you have will include the comment 'but it's sooo hot', although luckily I'm in Sydney for the next two days so I miss the worst of it.

It's also getting near Christmas, which is still a touch alien for those of use bought up with cold damp festive periods. This is Christmas Queensland style -

 You could go Christmas shopping, but the pool is much more appealing

 Although old traditions are still maintained with a Christmas tree in the city square

Just in case you're wondering, that frost effect is fake.....