Welcome to my yearly (or almost yearly) attemp
t at being arty and shit. For your viewing pleasure, these are the photos I entered into Alan McLeod’s Xmas Hogmanay 2015 Photo Contest. Bit 
last minute, really, but that is how things go around these here parts. Anyway, if you’d like to see all the photos from this year, go here and here and here. Oh, and maybe here too.
I missed entering last year because, well, I don’t rightly recall. I just did. Things happen around the holidays. See above. But here are the photos I sent in, along with a quick run down of each. The first picture came on the way to a early morning beer judging competition in Zanesville. Some one forgot to fill up the tank before we left, so we got to hoof it for gas part way through the trip. Nothing says good times like early morning walking along I-70. I thought the YSB sweatshirt was a nice touch, so I took a picture to entertain myself on our walk. Even with running out of gas, we were only ten minutes late. Yes, there might have been some speeding involved.
The next picture is from Brugge Brasserie in Indianapolis; we stop in at Brugge pretty regularly after 
cyclocross races for beer and fries before driving home. I took the picture from underneath the table through the hole for french fries. I love the Christmas lights in the background, the matching colors between beer, copper, and wood, and the warm light on the glass reflecting the slightly hazy beer.
The third picture is an old wall advertisement from a local Dayton brewery, Sachs-Prudens’ Brewing Company, featuring Diamond Brand Pale Ale, amongst other things. The mural is on the side of a 
house at 101 McClure in the Saint Anne’s Hill neighborhood in downtown Dayton (it was formerly a saloon and grocery store). For more on the house and the neighborhood, see here. Sachs-Prudens’ opened in 1881; in 1895, Sachs-Prudens’ was sold to the Dayton Brewing Company. The building that originally housed the brewery on Wyandot was for a long time the Hauer Music building, and now houses the Dayton Metro Library Operation Center.
The fourth picture was from a beer tasting in my kitchen with long time friend of the blog Jeff Fortney. I believe this was the night I tricked 
him into drinking through a complete run of the beers from the Great Brett Yeast Experiment on a work night. I’m not sure how old the beers were at that point, but I think it was something like a little over a year in the bottle, and I had been hankering to see where everything was at. So Jeff was willing to help out. You know, for science and all. For the record, custersianus is still the best single strain to work work, although the claussenii performed well this night. There are notes somewhere. But not here. The light through the glasses with the bottles and Jeff in the background creates a nice overall image.
The final picture is from Blue Stallion Brewing Company in Lexington, KY. They were a 
very pleasant discovery when I was in Lexington for the Craft Writing: Beer, the Digital, and Craft Culture conference in February 2014. They focus mainly on lagers, and do an excellent job at it. and their brewery is gorgeous: almost all copper. Anyway, this was from a later visit after another cyclocross race, where lunch and a couple of crisp clean beers were in order. The open doorway behind the glass helps illuminate the light, and I was happy that I actually successfully made the glass the focus so that the background was blurry—I love the contrast between the beads of condensation on the bright, in-focus glass, and the gloomier, darker, hazy background.
So there you have it: a quick rundown of my entries for this year’s Xmas Hogmanay!
(12/15/2015)
year run, so I can’t really complain. Plus, less to be in charge of, honestly. Anywhoo, I decided on taking a stab at a tripel using honey instead of table sugar to dry out the body. Yes, the late hopping is a bit aggressive, but, well, too bad. Felt like it. Here’s to honey. I’m coming for you, Joe Harrington. 
