Tonight I popped the cap on a bottle that’s been sitting in my beer ‘fridge for far too long. Time to break out the Rogue Shakespear Stout. I’ve heard good things about this beer, so I was looking forward to trying it. Why I waited so long, I have no idea.

PHOTO WILL GO HERE

I let the bottle sit out on the counter while I attempted to stack some donkeys on the poker tables. I like my dark beers to be cool to the touch, but not too cold. I just find the flavors don’t pop very well if the beer is too cold. Same it true to an extent with the lighter beers, but warming is mandatory for the dark ones.

The pour yields a very attractive dark brown body with a nice mocha head atop. Light barely forces its way through just enough to give off a bit of a ruby hint around the edges. Looks good enough to drink!

The scents on this puppy are classic stout. Coffee, chocolate and rich roasty scents abound. It smells great.

And now the taste test. Wowzers, is this ever a tasty beer! The first sip convinced me that this is the finest stout I’ve ever tasted.

The flavors are a perfect blend of smooth earthy toasted grains and a bit of espresso with a dark chocolate finish. I cannot get over how smooth this puppy is. It’s just perfect. Absolutely perfect in every way. I can’t imagine tasting a better stout. I really can’t. I wish I had another. I want nothing more than to screw up tomorrow’s work day right now.

The mouth feel is right on the money. It is nice and medium thick on the tongue with perfect carbonation. The hops on the back end compliment the grains so well I can’t stand it. You know how you just want to smush a golden retriever puppy? That’s how I feel about this beer.

Overall, A++++++++++++++. I don’t know what else to say. Now go get you some!

Enjoy your beer,

BrewBrain

The big disappointment is the 100NL tables. I played four different levels during April. In 1,223 hands of 25NL I won $8.15. In 2,704 hands of 30NL I won $278.80. In 13,013 hands of 50NL I won $771.45. In 14,990 hands of 100NL I lost $211.25.

I just can’t seem to get anything going at the $1NL tables. I’ve been coolered every which way, and if I have one more person tell me in the chat window “good call, got lucky” after they nail their 3- or 5-outer, I am going to have to puke on my keyboard.

That said, I’m not running so bad that I’m losing my shirt. I’m in the midst of a modest break-even streak, so I shouldn’t complain too loud.

So, clearly, I’ve got what I need to buy all the equipment I need for a kick-ass kegging system. However, I’ve decided to shoot for bigger things. I have a goal of working my way up to the 5/10 NL tables - the $1,000 max buy-in tables - by the end of the year. I need $25K before I take shots at those tables. Along the way, I have to start beating 1NL, then I have to beat, in order, 2NL, 4NL and 6NL. Each will likely be tougher than the last. It is a tall order, but I believe I’ll make it.

Rakeback is just awesome. I made an extra $500 in essentially free money. It will be a much larger number in May as I’ll be playing $1NL and higher. In April I played $.25 - $1NL. Don’t play poker on the internet without it. Click the banner in the upper right of the screen or at the bottom of this page and sign up to play through RakeTheRake if you want to play. You can read more about rakeback in this post.

They seem to have the right team shape now as far as I’m concerned.  The names may ultimately have to change, but I think the style of play is headed in the right direction.  In that ballpark, speed will be very important.  They definitely have that.  In fact, they set a new April team record for stolen bases.  If they can get these young speedsters on base more consistently and find a way to drive them in more often, they’ll be golden.  They won’t have to score seven runs a game to win, but getting four or five with some regularity would be nice.  I love the effort I’ve seen every game so far.  This has turned out to be a fun team to watch.

With any luck, some of these old farts will play well enough to be of some value to contending teams.  It would be nice to get something for Aurilia and Durham.  I would love for there to be some payoff for having them take playing time away from the young guys.  We’ll see. 

Barry Zito was moved to the bullpen.  I wonder if most fans are like me.  I went from very pissed off at him to feeling badly for him.  This has got to feel horrible.  I hope he can pull it together.

I love college football, but I am done with it.  I know lots and lots of sports fans.  I know precisely zero who like the current structure for deciding a champion. 

You’d think they’d have learned their lesson two years ago when Boise State won the national championship.  If they had had a decent playoff structure, they may have been happier with their end of season trophy holder.  Oh, you didn’t know Boise State won?  Well, they did.  Following their win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, the most entertaining and exciting sporting event ever held and witnessed by me, I voted and they won, so there.

I need a good reason for picking Boise State?  Well, I have one.  They went undefeated during the season.  Oh, but BOO FREAKING HOO, they didn’t beat anyone, right?  Well, probably true.  Enter Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.  Boom!  BrewBrain National Champs.  Ship it!

To start with, the carbonation did finish too light.  I cut back the priming sugar in an effort to get more beer than foam in my glass when I pour.  Most of my beers, while tasty, are a bit heavy on carbonation, to the point that I actually stir them up a bit to release some carbonation.  This time, I cut back on the sugar and got a tad too little carbonation.  I’m not sure if that had more effect than letting the beer sit in the clearing tank for two months before priming, but I suspect it did.  Bring on the kegs!  Kegs solve all of life’s problems, do they not?

Second, I’m not thrilled with the hops.  The galena I used for bittering did not do much bittering.  I’m not sure if it’s galena in general, or just this particular package I had.  I’ll definitely give galena another shot just for the education.

In all, it is a pleasant, light pale ale that I do enjoy.  I think other people will enjoy it as well, but it just needs to be kicked up a notch.  The sweet needs a bitter to go along with it.  Twist my arm, I’ll give it another try, possibly next weekend.

In other news, those kegs are getting closer quickly.  As reported in my last post, I ended a miserable 20K hand breakeven stretch at 25NL with a bang.  Well, things haven’t slowed down yet.  I believe I’m running below average on the luck factor still, but not to the point where I can’t easily overcome the beats.  I tend to slowly chip my way up, take a bad beat, slowly chip my way up, take a bad beat, slowly chip my way up and then, finally, a hand holds up, or I hit my monster draw.  I believe I took an ohfer (however you spell that.  I mean zip, nadda, zero wins) when I got a miserable puke brained short stacker all in when I had the better hand yesterday.  My goal in life is to bust the short stackers off my tables so the rest of us can play poker.  They must just be terrified to play a hand past the flop.  They buy in for the table minimum and either fold before the flop or push all in.  Miserable.  How is that even fun for them?  Once they get lucky and double up their miserable little min-stack, they leave and find another table with an empty seat where they can plop down the minimum buy-in.

So, after my 20K stretch of making no money ended, I started playing the 30NL deep tables.  Instead of the usual 100 big blind stack maximum buy-in ($25 on the 25NL tables) the max is 200 big blinds, or $60 on the 30NL deep tables.  This leads to more poker after the flop as the stacks are deeper.  It was a ton of fun, and I thing the level of competition was worse than the 25NL games on average.  I did very well in that game, but it could definitely have been much, much better than it was.  Yesterday, I went over the $1,250 bankroll mark (I took into consideration the rakeback I’m due in a week or so) and moved to the 50NL tables for a 1K hand session last night.  Man, if I could have run even half decent and not been a wacko idiot on two hands, I would have put up a huge day. 

At the end of the day, I managed to come back from a 2 buy-in deficit and posted a small win on the day at my new level. 

My grand plan for the rest of the year is to run through the levels as quickly as possible until I reach 1000NL.  I’ll pause there and really work on my game for a good long time until I feel comfortable moving up to the truly high stakes and tangling with the best.  This all sounds great, but I also expect I’ll have some trouble along the way - both with the luck factor getting in the way and with the quality of my game.  I’m not sure where it will happen, but at some point, the competition will just be better than me and I’ll have to put some overtime in on the school side of the game before I’ll be able to move forward.  I can see it will not be at 50NL.  For all I know it will be 100NL though, which is up next.

In total, I made $120.90 playing NL Hold’em, which is my main game. I managed to dump $66.40 playing Pot Limit Bingo. I mean Pot Limit Omaha. That’s the game where you flop top set with no draws out there, get the money all in and watch a draw come in anyway. Bingo! I really need to stay away from that game, but it really is a lot of fun until I get so pissed off I can’t see straight any more. It’s best to have a spare mouse handy just in case.

So, in March I cleared $39.70 after also taking into consideration a small loss from a few tournaments. This result is puke horrible, but that’s the way it goes over a smallish sample of hands. 20K may sound like a lot of hands, but it really is far too small for the luck factor to come anywhere near evening itself out.

Take for example my starting hand results. Can you guess what my most profitable starting hand was? Aces? Kings? Nope. QQ outpaced both of the bigger starters. That’s pure luck factor. Over a million hands, I’m sure AA will be my biggest winner. My second biggest winner? AQ suited. Still think 20K hands is a lot? I made more per occurrence with 65 suited than I did with AA.

Now, over 55K hands in my current database over all NL Hold’em games I’ve played in the database, AA KK QQ are my clear top three hands, so things start to even out at that point a little better.

Add to my $39.70 poker win around $160 of rakeback earned, and the numbers begin to add up. With any luck, I’ll have a better time of things at the tables in April. If so, I should be moving up to NL50 in short order. My plan is to move up to NL200 as quickly as possible and then hang out there and really work on things while making significant money. That’s where I hope to start taking money out for important things like……a kegging system! I’ll need to buy a nice big shed for the back yard to house all the crap that’s in the garage. Then I’ll have room for a keezer and extra cold space for spare kegs, etc. I think around $2grand should take care of everything, but I haven’t priced it all out carefully yet.

As you may have guessed from the tone of this post, I’m done for the month. I still have a full weekend available, but since I’ve surpassed my hands goal and I still have the urge to play, I’m going to take a little break. Well, sort of. I have a $20,000 tournament tomorrow at Full Tilt courtesy of RakeTheRake. You just can’t beat that deal. A $20K prize pool with no entry fee on top of the $160 in rakeback I’ll be paid for playing in March. I just signed up for an account at Full Tilt Poker through RakeTheRake. Each month they run a tournament for all RakeTheRake members who played on Full Tilt the prior month. Not bad. If you want in on the action, just click on the RakeTheRake banner in the upper right corner of the screen and follow the instructions to sign up for a Full Tilt account. Play the required number of hands during a month (I can’t remember how many it is, but it is very easy) and you too can be entered into the next tournament for free. They also have outstanding promotional deals at other poker rooms available if you’d like to check them out. Whatever you do, DO NOT PLAY AT A POKER ROOM WITHOUT RAKEBACK!!!! You’re just flushing money down the toilet if you do.  Even if you just want to play the free money tables for fun or to see how it all works, sign up for your account through RakeTheRake.  You can still get to the play money tables and if you ever decide to play for real money in the future, you’re all set.  If you sign up without a rakeback deal because you are only interested in play money, you are out of luck if you ever do decide to play the real money tables.  Sign up through RakeTheRake to be safe.

Next weekend, weather permitting, I’ll be brewing up another beer. I haven’t decided what to do yet. I may do another pale ale ingredient tester, or I may try to refine my IPA recipe. I’m leaning towards the IPA. A friend of mine and his wife will be visiting, and he wants to see the process. Should be a good weekend.

It could be tons and tons worse given the horrible luck I’ve had, so I can’t complain.  I’ve had enough weirdos dump stacks to me in very strange ways that it has come somewhat close to offsetting the unusual number of sets and goofy straights my big hands have run into this month. 

Whenever I’m running bad, I like to look back through my database and review hands where I either won a big pot or lost a big pot.  On the winning hands, I’m looking to see if I could have played the hand differently to try and get more of my opponent’s stack.  On the losing hands, I try to determine whether I could have avoided shipping chips.  This also tells me whether I am truly running bad or just playing bad.  Or, commonly, a combination of the two.  To some extent, it is usually a combo.  This time, while I could play better in spots, I am definitely on a goofy run of terrible luck.  I am happy to say, I can’t find too many tilt-related losses at all.  There are a couple hands where I picked awful times to play back at opponents who had  been giving me trouble.  Mostly, though, I’ve been running into an unusual number of sets.  Plus, very often, my big hands have become counterfeited by the river.  I’ve had quite a number of flopped sets get drawn out by gutshot straights, etc.  I’ve also gotten it in pre-flop with KK three times against AA, while not once having AA against KK.  One of these I was lucky enough to flop a K.  Queens I can get away from.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to fold Kings. 

I have noticed that my table selection process needs polishing.  I am pretty good about selecting decent tables to start out, but I don’t leave often enough when a bunch of tight aggressive players are sitting around the table.  There isn’t much money to be made once the table degrades to six probable long-term winners in the game.  I’m pretty confident this is my major leak currently.  It is the easiest to fix.  Consider it done.

So, all told, so far in March I’ve played just shy of 19K hands and I’m down just over $100 playing 25NL, so just over four buy-ins.  With rakeback, though, I’m at about break even.  I have one last weekend to turn my numbers green. 

If the opportunity presents itself down the line, that’s what I’ll do with the next phase of my life.  I’m pretty locked in to what I’m doing now for the next several years, but my next gig will involve a change in profession.  I’d like that change to involve entrepreneurship for sure.  Why not brewing?

I’ve informally been calling my backyard brewing operation Almaden Valley Brewing.  I like the name, so there it is.  For now at least.  Assuming my future establishment opens in the general vicinity, the name will stick.

I’m also brewing beers with different ingredients in an attempt to figure out what each does to flavor/aroma, and how they play together.  The end result will be my standard offerings.  I’m planning four or five standard brews - a wheat, a pale ale, an IPA, an American Amber and a stout for sure, an ESB possibly added to the standard mix.

Progress so far is a mixed bag.  I’m pretty happy with the latest pale ale.  I won’t likely tinker with that recipe much from here on.  I’ve got a very good base recipe I developed for the IPA.  The others, not so much.  My major attempt at the amber failed to carbonate, and the favor was not what I envisioned anyway.  I have yet to brew a stout, but I do have a flavor mix in mind.  I have not brewed a wheat. 

I also have names in mind:

The pale ale:  Raccoon Trail Pale Ale in honor of the raccoon trail that is my back yard fence.  Where do they come from?  Where are they going?  I don’t know.  Except for the one that hung out on my diving board for a while, they all seem to be just passing through.

The IPA: Quicksilver IPA in honor of Quicksilver Park, which I can see from my living room window.  It just sounds like an IPA, doesn’t it?

The Amber:  Almaden Haus Amber.  For me, the Amber is a brewer’s signature, no matter what they think.  As the amber goes, so goes the brewer generally.  Not always, but generally, for my tastes, this is true.

The Stout:  Yellow Lantern Oatmeal Stout in honor of the yellow street light out on the curb in front of my house.  As light passes through no good stout, so too does the light from this yellow street light fail to pass through the darkness.  Taxpayer dollars at work, I think for the benefit of the local observatory if the story in my mind is true.

The wheat:  All Seasons Wheat.  I tend to think of wheat beers as seasonal summer offerings, but this one will always be on tap.  Lame?  You betcha!

I definitely wanted to get away from using cascade as my bittering hops.  I just don’t like the way it finishes quite enough to make it a part of my stock lineup.  Batch #2 in my pale ale experimentation line used galena hops for bittering.  I popped the cap on the first bottle last night to a nice strong hisssss. 

This beer needs a few more days to round off the carbonation, but I think I’ve found a real winner.  It isn’t perfect, but it is getting very close to what I’m looking for. 

My stock pale ale needs to be a beer any casual beer drinker can enjoy.  It should be an excellent “conversion” brew for BMC drinkers.  This one has a good caramel backbone and finishes light, refreshing and almost not bitter.  The flavors in the middle are caramel, light summer fruits and some grapefruit.  This is damn near exactly what I was going for.  I am actually hoping a little more hoppiness will show itself as the carbonation process completes.

What would I change?  Well, until I taste it again in a week, I won’t know for sure.  I suspect I may need to kick up the bittering hops just a notch.  While I want it to be a good “go to” beer for casual beer drinkers, I want to really love it myself.  Without a bit more hops character, I’ll like it, but I won’t love it.  I may also try to get the alcohol down a smidge - just a little less base malt, which will also increase the caramel flavor possibly a bit as well.  I could also possibly use a different yeast for this.  This beer clocked in at about 6%.  I’d like it closer to 5% for maximum sessionability.

Once I dial it in, I’ll post a recipe.  Then it’ll be on to a “stock” IPA.  I have an excellent starting point for that brew as well.  Mmmmmmmm beeeeeeerrrrrrr