Run For The Porter

Saturday night was Cycle Works second Bikers Love Brews/Pedaling for Porters home brew contest, to call it an annual event would be a bit of a misnomer as the last one was held in July of 2013 but plans are in the works to make it so. I was at that event, back when I was a mere fellow customer and ThNNDDR participant; if you'd like to read up on that first event you can find it here.

The concept was originally cooked up by Nathan after several customers brought in some of their home brews and would stick around to talk about the ins and outs of home brewing. From that the idea was born, find a group of home brewers that were also active in Lincoln's cycling community and try to make a fun event for brewers and judges alike with a little friendly competition thrown in for good measure. Nathan was in town for the event but unfortunately had to leave before Saturday due to unexpected circumstances, it's a shame he wasn't around to see the second rendition of his idea come to life. Especially with all the work he put into the event remotely, guy can still work his magic even from hundreds of miles away.


Getting things ready for the big event, showed up about 4:30 to help setup tables and clear out enough floor space for 100+ people. Rick and I were sort of stuck with the setup but Debe's and Michaela's help was totally voluntary and very much appreciated and it allowed us to get things set in no time at all.


Can't forget the raffle prizes, had lots of great sponsors for the event; Northern Brewer, Modern Monks, Zipline, QBP, Boiler Brewing (Lincoln's newest brewery), Ploughshare, Blue Blood Brewing Company and of course Cycle Works and The Moose's Tooth. Blue Blood Brewing really stepped up to the plate and offered to allow the winning team the opportunity to brew their beer at the Blue Blood facilities and have it as a featured tap when they open their new Robber's Cave taproom. I'm not even a home brewer and I was pretty excited about that, can't imagine how stoked the winning team must be.





The only thing that might go better with beer than bicycles is pizza and thanks to the great folks at Spokes Mobile Wood Fire Pizza we had delicious food for the event as well. If you've never had a pizza from them, get on Facebook and find a location where they will be and go there. You won't regret it but get there early or expect to wait a little bit because once they fire up that oven and start making the pies the smell is amazing and draws a crowd.





Right around 6 o'clock the brewers started showing up so that they could get things set and ready for the crowds that would show up at 7.


With a bit of time to spare, the brewers got a chance to walk around and sample everyone else's beer so that they could size up the competition.






In no particular order, a few of the beers that were brewed for the competition. Unfortunately I was pulling double duty for this so I didn't get around to everyone's booth for the tasting or the pictures. All of the ones that I did try were absolutely amazing.



Right at 7 the doors opened for those who had one of the magic tickets, after grabbing their raffle tickets, scorecards and pencils they were unleashed on the 14 brew teams and the judging began. Each score card was numbered 1-16 (room for expansion) and it was the judges job was to taste each Porter and rate them 14-1, with 14 being the favorite and 1 being the least favorite. As you can imagine the tallying of 85+ scorecards can take awhile so there was already talk about narrowing that down for next time and just having everyone vote for their personal top 3.





Had a pretty amazing group of judges for the event, huge thanks to everyone who came out to help determine the winner. With the beer flowing and the pizza cooking, each judge had about an hour and 15 minutes to walk around and talk to each brew team while sampling and rating their beer. I don't know about the judges or the brewers but as the emcee for the night, that hour and a quarter just flew by.


With the time up and the scorecards all turned in it was time to tally the votes and give out the schwag via the raffle while the totals were tallied. A lot of rad prizes given away, I personally would have loved to have gone home with any of them, a big thanks again to all of our sponsors who contributed some truly amazing prizes.

As I said I was on double duty for the night and I dropped the ball on the picture side of things and didn't get any of the raffle winners or ,even sadder yet, didn't get a picture of the winners either. Total and complete failure on that end of things... however I can tell you who did win. The 2nd runner up or 3rd place was the team with the Baltic Porter (affectionately also dubbed the Caucus beer due to the fact that the brewers dropped the beer off and then left to attend the Caucus before returning near the end), runner up was a Chocolate Chipotle Porter and the winning beer, with the opportunity to brew their beer at the Blue Blood Brewing Company's new Robber's Cave taproom, was an absolutely delicious Peanut Butter Porter made with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! It smelled ridiculously like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and tasted just as good as it smelled, I'd definitely pony up $5 to have a full pint of this beer when it's featured at Blue Bloods.

As I said, we aren't sure if this is going to be a semi-annual event or an annual one but we will be back for sure either way. Thank you one final time to all the sponsors, brewers, pizza crew and judges for helping to make this a really rad event. You guys all rock!

SMNDFBR - Wide Open Spaces and Bar Stool Kinda Places

Who doesn't know what I'm talking about

Who's never left home, who's never struck out

To find a dream and a life of their own

A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow

A young girl's dream no longer hollow

It takes the shape of a place out west

But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed

She needs wide open spaces

Whenever you're feeling down or trapped in your own day to day struggle, like life is just getting too stressful or complicated; jump on a bicycle and find the nearest gravel road that seems to go nowhere and just ride. Gravel roads can take you places but what they are really good at is taking you away from places just as quick, everyone needs a little less closed in spaces and a lot more wide open spaces in their lives. A chance to get out, disconnect and go offline even if it's just for a few hours, your mental faculties will thank you for it. 

Saturday was another gift from Mother Nature, only a slight breeze and temps eventually getting into the 60 degree range. Add to that a great group of people and it was a perfect day for the Saturday Morning No Drop Fat Bike Ride. 

We tend to take these rides pretty serious, cycling in general really, as you can see here. 

Swanson was supposed to be here for this rendition of the ride but unfortunately circumstances changed and he was unable to make it. That could account for some of the new faces, and one might argue some of the who's who of Lincoln cycling, that we had for the ride but it was nice to have them regardless and hopefully we will see them again. 

We weaved our way through Lincoln and lost a few riders as we passed Wilderness Park, the call of dry single track was just too much of an allure for them to pass up on and I can't say as I blame them, when dry Wilderness is a heck of a good time. 

The majority of us decided to stick with the route that was planned and pushed on toward the gravel that awaited us. 

I'm not really sure why but when planning routes for the ride I seem to gravitate towards heading north or east out of town so this was a route I had never ridden before but it did mirror the Gravel Worlds route a little bit just not as far west as we were then. Yankee Hill lake was looking particularly spectacular on Saturday morning, might have to start looking south and west when planning future routes, some great views and great roads out this way. 

In addition to the wonderful new scenery, we also met a few new beautiful horse and donkey friends... with one miniature thrown in for good measure because what's a barn yard party without a miniature horse. I never think about taking something along on these rides for occasions when we run into our equine friends but maybe I should throw and apple or something in the pack. Even if I don't find horses I can always eat it myself, although I'm not sure what the stranger feeding my horse policy is around here... I think it might be a hangin offense in Texas. Kind of makes my neck itchy just thinking about it. 

After a slight break and regroup with the horses it was time for us to find some food of our own so we stopped at Traditions Pub in Sprague, which also happened to be a first for me as well. They had ice cold water, beer and some really good food; good chance a lot of the southern routes might have to include this in them during the planning phase, worth coming back to. 

The remaining crew, minus Kristin who took the photo, grabbing a cold one and some food. Just beat the usual crowd in as well, we weren't there very long before they got pretty busy. Always a good sign when the locals haunt an establishment, small town businesses don't have much room for error so when you find one still in business, chances are it's a good one. 

The ride home was pretty uneventful and a bit less scenic as we took a good portion of pavement to get back as it was getting late and everyone had places to be and things to do. Time sure can get away from you quickly when you're out riding and not really watching the clock but rather enjoying the scenery and the company. 

While not really an "event", I did demo the WTB Silverado saddle for the ride, the one that came on the Farley is good for shorter gravel rides, say up to about 60 miles, and for single track but as I learned on both Gravel Worlds and the Omaha Jackrabbit, the seat and my sit parts don't get along quite as well when the numbers start nearing or exceeding 100 miles. The Silverado was much more comfortable and almost seemed to disappear underneath me which is what a good saddle should do. When you're out riding endless hours of gravel the mind tends to focus on any little irritation, saddle irritation being high on the metal list of things that the brain wants to focus on needlessly. I might have to try a few more before I make the final determination but so far this one was a big improvement. If you're looking for a new saddle for your bike, Cycle Works does have the full range of WTB saddles available for demos so you can try it before you buy it. 

Speaking of trying things out, I'll try to post up an initial review here shortly on the Camelbak Skyline 10LR lumbar pack that I have been using for the last few rides. It won't be an in-depth review at this point but just a quick once over of my initial impressions and thoughts so far on the pack and a run down of some of the features I like and some I'm not quite sure about yet. After being a die hard Osprey fan for the last several years there were a few updates on the newer Camelbak packs that I found favorable but we will talk about that in the review. 

No ride next week because of the Run for the Bridges but we should be back in two weeks. Looks like it's going to be another warm and beautiful week once we get past the rain tomorrow (although that might have changed as well), get out and enjoy it.