Now That's Fast Shooting

A Grand Master duel.

And I was thrilled just to get the gun out of the holster in .7 seconds.

Heritage Brewing

Who knew that Manassas was becoming such a hot bed of brewing? In addition to BadWolf Brewing, which we recently visited, there's another craft brewery setting up a Manassas, VA base.

Heritage Brewing Company is planning a Fall 2013 opening for their 20 barrel brewery. In order to raise additional startup funds, the brewery has launched a Kickstarter project.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did make a small contribution to the project. The world can always use another brewery. Besides, they have a great logo! I'm looking forward to trying the beers too.

Update: I gotten to try a few of the Heritage beers at a local pub. They are indeed quite tasty. Click the Heritage Brewing link in Related Topics below.

Face Plant Delight

As noted previously, we picked up a six pack of Lost Rhino Face Place IPA when we visited the brewery last weekend. I couldn't resist it long, so Colleen and I cracked a couple open the other evening.

The beer pours a hazy, dark amber color. It's a thick looking, but attractive beer. The off-white head is short-lived and leaves behind persistent lacing. The aroma is grainy with hints of apricot and caramel. The dominant flavor is that of citrus, like grapefruit rind, more bitter than citrus, with a caramel and bready malt base. Face Plant is not a hop bomb, and has a very palatable richness. It has a creamy, thick mouthfeel with lingering bitterness in the finish. To quote Colleen after her first sip, "I like this."

As I sipped my beer I enjoyed the rich, yet not overbearing flavor of this American IPA. As usual, I finished it much too quickly but resisted the urge to pour another. After all, it was a "school night."

No-Shoot Practice

Just for grins, this week's range session was devoted to "no-shoots." We often joke that the no-shoot targets are bullet magnets. And I seem to hit my fair share of them, so I decided to practice not hitting them. Stated more accurately, I decided to practice hitting the smaller scoring area, as opposed to missing the white no-shoots. As my friend Alex says, "What no-shoots? All I see are alphas ..."

The "before" picture.

Covering two targets as commonly seen in USPSA, I was able to work on a wide variety of scenarios to simulate situations I might encounter in matches. Even with this simple setup, there was practically an unlimited ways to shoot the targets, and I tried to change it up after each magazine. Draw and put 2 hits on each, alternating which target was shot first. Sometimes I would put just one shot on a target, and transition repeatedly back and forth. Changing whether I stood lined up on the left of right target, or stood in the middle added even more variety. And, of course, the drills were done from different distances as well. This gave me a good feel for sight alignment and speed of the shots required for the different scenarios. I learned my preferences, and my weaknesses.

All in all it was a good practice session. Hopefully it was 200 rounds well-spent. This weekend's match will be a classifier match, so I expect I'll see similar situations to what I just practiced. What would be great is for these lessons to stick with me until then! :-)

Lost Rhino Brewery

Despite the GPS in my car seemingly working against us, we found the Ashburn, VA industrial park where Lost Rhino Brewing calls home. As we pulled around the corner, I could see a steady stream of folks going in and out, most all carrying growlers. Lost Rhino was doing a brisk growler-filling business. Once inside I learned that Sunday means discounted growler fills — something I would take advantage of before our visit was over.

The giant chalk board listed a large selection of beers to choose from. To make it easy to try a variety of beers, the brewpub offers three different serving sizes of most brews. I was looking forward to trying the "historic" Lost Rhino New River Pale Ale, so I opted skip the smaller tasters for a full 16 ounce serving. The beer pours a bright orange color and has mild citrus aroma with a sweet malt background. The flavor is a refreshing blend of the citrusy hops, as well as piney sweet notes. Nothing overly complex, but refreshing and flavorful.

Colleen opted to try small glasses of Pretty in Pink Saison and Holy Brew Honey Blonde Belgian-style ale. The Saison was very well-done and much enjoyed by Colleen. I think only our time constraints prevented her from ordering another. The yeasty notes of the Saison were nicely complimented by the tartness of the added pomegranate. Another beer tried during our visit was the Lost Rhino Altbier, which was Checkered Flag's selection. I stole a couple sips of this one and would have liked to order one myself if we weren't on a tight schedule. The flavor was that of sweet, toasted malts with just a hint of citrus with a creamy body.

Lost Rhino has a limited, but interesting, food menu to go along with the wide range of beer available. For our food selection consisted of a Bavarian Pretzel basket, served with some very spicy mustard; a Charcuterie platter with a local sausage assortment; and BBQ chicken nachos made with Woody Stout BBQ sauce and Face Plant IPA cheese topping. We nibbled in delight as we enjoyed our beers.

I couldn't resist picking up a six-pack of Face Plant IPA, in cans, to take home. Seriously, could there there a better name for an IPA? Look for more on that beer in a future post. I also grabbed a growler of New River Pale Ale for my friend Greg. I knew the original New River beer was the beer that inspired him to get into home brewing. Of course, I had to deliver that to him right away, lest I'd be tempted to keep it for myself!

Beer Fridge Knocks Out Network

From the Melbourne Heritage Sun:

WANGARATTA'S backyard beer swillers are marvelling at the magic of their chillers after one man's fridge played havoc with Telstra's mobile network. 

The faulty unit shooting out freak electric signals was believed to have caused interference in the mobile data network across several neighbourhoods of the town. 

A team of the telco's crack black-spot cops tracked the rogue beer fridge to a garage in Wangaratta.

It seems that one beer lover's cooler was putting out electrical impulses that interfered the mobile phone system. Says the fridge's owner, "I'm amazed something like that could knock out part of the network."

Never underestimate the power of a well-stocked beer fridge.

See "Fridge fault causes Telstra mobile network blackouts" for the complete story.

Spring Opening For BadWolf Brewing

After our extended visit at Mad Fox in Falls Church, we headed west to Manassas to meet up with Jeremy Myers at BadWolf Brewing. (No, I didn't plan the canine theme.) BadWolf is Manassas' first brewery. Between the necessary lingering at Mad Fox, and the Northern VA traffic, we arrived at the brewery about 2 hours past our scheduled time. Fortunately Jeremy and Brian were still there working on the brewery.

BadWolf's ABC and business licenses were both granted last week and first "official" batch of BadWolf beer was being brewed. There was no beer yet available for tasting during our visit, but a Saison with Sorachi Ace hops was in the pot, so we were able to enjoy some deep breaths of the aromatic hops awaiting addition.

BadWolf Brewing is a classic nanobrewery, with a one-barrel brewhouse, but they expect to have a variety of beers served through six tap lines. Colleen and I visited for just a short time, and I can tell you, Jeremy is passionate and excited about what he's doing. He's planning to have at least four beers ready for opening day.

The grand opening is scheduled for June 19 at 4:00PM. Jeremy said he has been telling folks the brewery would be open "this Spring," and he is determined to keep that promise. (June 19 being the last day of Spring.) They will be putting in a popcorn machine for snacking while drinking, and there is a pizza shop nearby for those fans looking for more filling fare. The brewery will offer beer for onsite consumption and growler fills to go.

BadWolf Brewing is uniquely located. It sits in a small strip mall that also houses a homebrewing supply store, and to my delight, Virginia Arms. So when I visit, I'll be able to combine my two favorite subjects. First, some window shopping at the gun store, and then it'll be over to BadWolf to enjoy a pint or two of craft beer. It's the best of both worlds!

Mad Fox: Perfect For a "Non-Productive Afternoon"

While spending the weekend in NoVA, we headed out for an early lunch as Mad Fox Brewing in Falls Church. We arrived about 11:30 for an early lunch and got right to work on enjoying some of the house beers. (After all, it's noon somewhere.) I had received the Mad Fox email newsletter the day before so my choices planned already. My first selection was Oaked Leonidas Batch 300. The beer was a tribute to the brewery's 300th beer. Dry-hopped with Citra and Simcoe hops, this very dark beer was more Double IPA in taste than appearance. A nice piney aroma was followed by a citrus and malt flavor. The oak aging contributed some earthiness, but added minimal additional flavors. It was a tasty accompaniment to my menu perusal.

Colleen ordered a snifter of a lovely Saison. The beer had a spicy, bready aroma. The flavor with tart fruit, honey and cloves. A dry Belgian yeast finish rounded off the flavor. Our friend Checkered Flag ordered his usual, the Kölsch. Sharp, crisp hop and malt flavors, with a mildly bitter finish. After stealing a sip, I always consider a glass for myself, but there's always some other beer to try.

We all opted for house pizzas for our meals. Both the "Garlic Pig," with pepperoni, bacon, shaved garlic, and mozzarella, and five-meat "The Mob," made for flavorful meals.

It was now time for one of that "other beer." The email promotion mentioned an offering that was a barrel aged blend of Mad Fox's Wee Heavy and Crazy Ivan Russian Imperial Stout. That sounded just too good to pass up. When our server brought my drink he warned, "Be careful with that. It started out at 11.8%, and we don't know how much more was absorbed from the barrel." He then added, "You'll have a non-productive afternoon!" This was one of those beers that makes you say "Woo-hoo!" The aroma is deep, dark malt with some toffee and roasted coffee. And the aroma of the bourbon barrel was unmistakeable. The flavor followed suit with a very rich bourbon and oak flavors. The dark malts and roasted flavors came through as well.

While it didn't lead to a totally "non-productive" afternoon, we did linger at Mad Fox for a bit longer than we had originally planned — not that that's a bad thing! It was a very enjoyable lunch with some really tasty beers. But eventually all fun things must end, so we ventured out into the Saturday traffic to head to our next stop, a visit of the soon-to-be opened BadWolf Brewing Company. And that's a story for another post.