Of Shrimp and Beer...

Well, damn, it's been rather heavy around here lately. Thought maybe it was time for something a bit more light-hearted.

My homebrewing activity has been rather high lately. I entered five beers into the National Homebrew Competition, and should have results from the first round back tomorrow. The top three finishers in each category from each region advance to the finals in June. I don't really expect this year's entries to advance, but you never know.

I also applied for the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation scholarship to the Siebel Institute, and will have results from that on May 18. Both of these opportunities are great, and have been fun even if I don't win.

In other homebrew news, the Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR is hosting a contest for all-grain homebrewers. The winner will get to brew their recipe at the Deschutes Brewery Pub, have their beer served there, and have their beer entered into the Pro-Am category at this year's Great American Beer Festival in Denver (which is THE event of the year for professional brewers). Talk about great exposure, and one HELL of a lot of fun! It's all a long-shot, but I suppose I have as good a chance as any. I brewed one of my favorite oatmeal stouts for entry, and it's in primary fermentation at the moment. It will be ready in about three weeks, and the entry deadline is June 15th.

Moving on to the Jimmy Buffett portion of this entry... (smell those shrimp, they're beginning to boil...)

Washington has a very short season each year for spotted shrimp. The season was open in Puget Sound this past Saturday from 7-3, and will be open again tomorrow from 7-3. After that, it will be closed in the Sound, but will remain open another day or two elsewhere. In any case, we went out Saturday and pulled three limits (240 shrimp), and had an absolute shrimp feast that night. Four of us ate 130 of them, and could have eaten more. They were fabulous, with lots of fat/omega3, just like you'd see on a top-notch piece of sockeye or similar. They are quite beautiful to look at. Method for catching them is to drop pots in about 300' of water, baited with canned cat food (whitefish and tuna flavors). My last pull of the day yielded 129 shrimp in two pots, which is an excellent pull. Other guys were happy to get 160 shrimp in four pots. It was great fun in any case, and I can't wait to get out again tomorrow. Hood Canal will be open still on Saturday, so I may head over there as well, though the opening times are only 9-1. I guess they typically have something like 1,600 boats on opening day, so a lot of pressure. Where I was fishing, there were only about 5 boats, which was more my speed.

Guess that's about it from the land of hops, barley and shellfish. Guess I'd better go start "wasting away again..."