John Carrier

For friends familiar with my many hobbies — and the short life expectancy of those hobbies — my year-long venture into amateur brewing must appear as a paradigm shift of stick-to-it-iveness.  I’ll have to check the spreadsheet, but I believe I just brewed my 13th batch of beer yesterday, a simple porter destined for great things. 

I gave an update a couple of days ago on all my current beers in various states of fermentation.  I plan to continue writing about beer and the process of brewing, but instead of make those with thirst for cereals wait to read the serials (sorry), I’m adding a couple of features to this blog to help keep you up-to-date at all times.

First, I’ve added the page “John’s Beer” for you to bookmark and check back whenever you what to know what I’m drinking, brewing, or planning to brew.  Check out John’s Beer here.

Second, I’ve given my beer (my delicious, sentient beer) its own Twitter feed to give regular reports on its bubbles, its troubles, and its make-it-a-doubles.  Follow John’s Beer’s Twitter feed here.

Thanks again for reading, and keep those empty bottles coming.

I’ve been sitting on this for more than a week, but I have leaked the news slowly to family and friends — which probably includes all eight subscribers to this blog — and I feel the time has come to put in into the ether. Perhaps then it will seem more real.

I have been accepted to the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California, USA.

I flew into Los Angeles right before my marathon in Vegas, had some great conversations with the rabbis on their faculty — great lights in the Conservative Movement and in Am Yisrael as a whole — and also with a really inspiring rabbinical student. Now I’ve been accepted into their program, and I could not be more grateful for or humbled by the application process or its outcome.

I’m still in the process of applying to the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. It will take a couple of months to know the outcome of that process and make a final decision about where I’ll be studying to become a rabbi.

The punchline (tachlis?) is that, God willing, as of next fall I will be a full-time student again, starting the path toward a life in the service of God and His people. Even though it’s still only a beginning, few moments in my life have made me happier than the phone call notifying me of my acceptance to Ziegler.  Many thanks to the many, many great people who helped make this happen.

Some people have asked what I’m brewing now. Over autumn I added additional fermenters (5-gallon buckets and carboys) to my productive capacity, which has allowed me to accelerate both production and experimentation with new recipes.

I also have a lot to celebrate soon — the holidays, my older son’s bar mitzvah, my younger son’s birthday, and a new child’s birth, God willing.

Long story short, I’ve been brewing a lot of beer lately, and it’s been hard for my friends (and me) to keep track of what will be on tap when.

Bottled and drinkable:

• Pumpkin ale
• Holiday ale
• Orange-spice hefeweizen

Conditioning in the bottle:

• Lemon-spice hefeweizen, drinkable New Year’s Eve

In the secondary fermenter:

• Ferocious — a Surly Furious clone that Midwest Supplies formulated with the help of the furious folks at Surly Brewing, drinkable early January
• Imperial stout — a thick, hoppy, high-alcohol substance to be bottled late January and best served after 1 month to 1 year in the bottle
• Mead — a kind of wine made from fermented honey, possibly the earliest known alcoholic beverage, favored by Beowulf and his chums, ready by Rosh Hashanah (next fall)

In the primary fermenter:

• Roggenbier (pronounced like bloggin’ beer, not like Seth Rogen beer) — “rye beer”, actually mostly a wheat beer with the addition of rye malt that supposedly gives it a crisp, tart finish, good on a hot day, but this batch will be drinkable mid-January

On deck:

• Another plain-Jane or possibly fruit-enhanced hefeweizen
•  Vanilla bourbon porter

…both hopefully ready for the bar mitzvah and birthdays in late January and early February.

If you’ve noticed a heavy emphasis on wheat beers, there are two reasons. First, wheat beers are easy to make and don’t take too long (4-6 weeks) from the brew pot to the glass. Second, my wheat beers to date have been wildly popular, appreciated by beer snobs and wine-preferrers alike, I think because of the dearth or absence of aromatic hops in the recipes. I like ferociously hoppy beers myself, and the imperial stout and Surly clone will fit the bill, but everyone likes a good hefeweizen, even people who usually hate the taste of beer (like my wife).

After all the high-volume celebrations are over, I plan to spend a few batches in a hoppier place — double IPA, anyone? — and experiment with more of my own recipes, including finding a good style to support the addition of garam masala to the brewpot and my first chili pepper beer.

A final note: I’m always looking for empty beer bottles. I’ll be bottling 8-12 cases of beer over the next six weeks, and even with the holidays coming, I can’t drink that much myself. If you can set aside for me any pop-top (not twist-off) beer bottles you “generate” I will be much obliged.

It has been just over a week since I ran the Las Vegas Marathon.  Though I’ve long since emptied my suitcase and washed my running clothes, I’m still “unpacking” the experience mentally and emotionally.  I had several incredible experiences leading up to the race and met many great people on my brief trip out West, both related and incidental to the race itself.  For now I just want to recount my experience of the race itself while it’s fresh in my mind.  I’ll continue to “upack” other aspects of the trip as my reflections unfold.

My run: I finished in 5 hours, 35 minutes, and 18 seconds.  I had set my goal time initially at 4:45, following my 5:06 run of the Twin Cities Marathon in October.  After coming down with a chest cold during my training for Las Vegas, I revised my expectations and just hoped to beat my Twin Cities time.  In the end I fell far short of that goal, due to a variety of factors.  First, the whole race is in a high desert climate, with altitudes ranging from around 1,400 feet to around 1,800 feet above sea level.  Consequently there were twice as many water stops (one every mile) as there were in the Twin Cities Maration.  I erred by not adjusting my scheduled walk breaks — 1 minute walking for every 10 minutes running — to account for these extra water breaks, and I wound up walking more than I think I needed to.  Since I have a hard time taking in water, sports drink, and energy gels without walking for 30 to 60 seconds, in future races I’ll be more diligent to deduct my “refueling” walk time from my 10-and-1 walk time.

 The weather: Perfect.  Started in the high 40’s, finished in the low 60’s, and dry but overcast all day.  Only the barren wastes that stretched out beside the road far in the northern suburbs reminded me that I was running in a desert.

The course:  Despite the noted variation in elevation, I didn’t notice any remarkably daunting hills on the course.  It felt really flat, except for a couple of dips under some overpasses.  The whole course was on asphalt-paved roads — easier on the knees than concrete sidewalks — but it was occasionally wise to stick to the middle of the road, as desert roads often are built to be convex so that flash-flood-causing rains will wash down to the sides rather than washing out the road.

The organization:  It was pretty clear that this is only the fourth year of the marathon and the third year of the concurrent half-marathon, compared to this years 27th running of the Twin Cities marathon.  Water stops, while welcome and greatly appreciated, could have been organized better.  By mile four, when runners were starting to get thirsty and before the half-marathon runners split off from the full-marathon runners, water stops brought everyone to a screeching halt while volunteers poured water in to cups for waiting participants, rather than just grabbing cups from great pyramidal stacks.  The relative youth of the race was also apparent in the relative dearth of spectators along the course.  The fans and the volunteers who came out were great, as were the police who did a great job keeping the course clear, but there were a lot more and a lot longer stretches with no cheering fans than you might see in a race of longer standing.

The punchline:  At the end of the 26.2-mile day, I highly recommend the Las Vegas Marathon, especially for first-timers.  It looks like I’ve got a lot of complaints about this race, from my own performace to the organization of the race itself, but all criticism here is to help me learn from my mistakes and help you prepare for the course.  All the dings can be fixed by experience — mine, as well as that of the Las Vegas race organizers.  There’s lots of water along the course, the first few miles are run under fireworks along the famous Las Vegas Strip, and there’s no other marathon on earth where you can take advantage of a run-through wedding chapel or see literally hundreds of Elvis impersonators running along side you.

I’m really glad I did it, and I’d like to run it again next year, only much, much faster.

Last night I bottled my fourth batch of hefeweizen.  Hefeweizen has been my most popular concoction to date; it has a broad appeal for beer-drinkers and non-beer-drinkers alike.  I believe it’s the lack of aromatic hops that does it.  People who like the flavor and aroma of hops really, really like hoppy beers, whereas those who don’t care for it find hops repellently bitter.  Traditionally, hefeweizen only contains a small amount of bittering hops in the beginning of the boil and no aromatic hops at all.

Following what I believe is a Belgian tradition of using fruit or spice flavors in place of the aromatic hops, I’ve augmented the Hank’s Hefeweizen recipe from Midwest Supplies with citrus peel, coriander, and ginger.  I got the idea for the spices from Rogue’s Half-E-Weizen (they are kind enough to tout their ingredients on the label) and the fruit idea from the tradition of serving hefeweizen with a slice of lemon (Germany) or orange (America).

Last time I used the zest of one navel orange, a teaspoon of freshly ground coriander seeds, and a teaspoon of powdered ginger.  This time, I swapped the orange for the zest of two organic lemons, and I doubled the coriander.  The result as of bottling time is a smooth, disarmingly mild, refreshing yet potent ale.  Give it four weeks to condition in the bottle, and I expect it to be my best beer yet.

Right now it’s about 10pm Pacific time, and my roommate and I are getting up at 3:30am to prepare for our run tomorrow, the Las Vegas Marathon.  Bus leaves for the start line at Mandalay Bay at 4:30 (with bagels and bananas en route) and the race starts at 6:07.

When I signed up for this race, I had set a goal to finish in 4 hours, 45 minutes, but between a wicked chest cold during training and the high desert climate here, I’ll be psyched to finish in around 5 hours.

No worries, though.  With the help of more than 60 friends, colleagues, and family members, I exceeded my fundraising goal of $3,600.  Running with the other 71 runners here on behalf of Team Lifeline — together we raised about $350,000 for Chai lifeline — will be honor and privilege enough, however long it takes me.

Running with hundreds of Elvii will just be gravy.

“I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.”

–Barack Obama, in his victory speech in Chicago on Election Night

If you are reading this, it means you haven’t put me in your spam filter or your mental wastebasket just yet, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

This message may be my final request for sponsorship of my run in the Las Vegas Marathon this Sunday on behalf of Chai Lifeline, a phenomenal organization that brings great joy to the lives of seriously ill children and their families.  I depart for Las Vegas tomorrow, and I likely will have limited access to email before I get home after Sunday’s race.

At approximately 11pm on the eve of Thanksiving, one of my early sponsors made an additional contribution that pushed me over the finish line.  With the help of 63 sponsors, I met my fundraising commitment to Chai Lifeline of $3,600.  I have seldom been more proud of anything than I was at that moment, nor have I had the occasion to feel more grateful to so many people like I am now.

So why am I still blogging about this?  I’ve reached my goal; why don’t I just go run my race and stop bothering people?

Because it’s not about me.

Yes, I trained and prepared for this race.   I set $3,600 for Chai Lifeline as a personal goal.  I sent a lot of e-mails and collected a lot of money.  Blah, blah, blah, me, me, me.  All of that is meaningless without the work that Chai Lifeline is doing for sick kids and their families. 

I trained for a few weeks in order to run for just a few hours, but the real effort is being undertaken every day throughout the year to help these kids have a great summer at Camp Simcha or Camp Simcha Special and to provide many other programs to help these families year-round. 

$3,600 is an admirable start, and much appreciated by Chai Lifeline, to be sure.  But their needs are much bigger than my personal goal.  I recenly found out from another runner that it costs more than $4,500 to send one seriously ill child to Camp Simcha, and I think it would be awesome if together, you and I hit that number and send one kid to camp, all expenes paid.

So I’m asking you one more time, not for me, but for Chai Lifeline and the families they help.

Help Chai Lifeline Now.

Because at the end of the day, as President-Elect Obama said, this campaign has never been about me.  It’s been about you.  Chai Lifeline has given me something to run for, but more importantly, Chai Lifeline is giving you the opportunity to be a part of the work they do.  If you can, I really hope you take advantage of that opportunity.

If you’ve been considering sponsoring me to help Chai Lifeline, but you haven’t found the time to do so,  please click on this link:

Help Chai Lifeline Now.

I’ll bet you can get it done in 3 minutes or less, and this may be the last reminder I post, so please don’t put it off any longer.

Sometime after Sunday’s race, I’ll be sending a final email with my finishing time and maybe a couple of pictures to prove I survived, but I’ll only be sending that email to sponsors.  I really hope you get that e-mail.

Help Chai Lifeline Now.

Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Warmest regards,

John Carrier