Cameron Stokes’s Blog

After holding out on social networking for a few years now, I’ve finally signed up for Facebook.  I’m still figuring things out, but so far I’m most impressed with the site itself.  You can tell the team at Facebook has put a lot of effort into making the site easy to use and giving the site a clean and consistent look; a stark contrast to the cesspool that is MySpace (I never joined MySpace either).

Not much else to say at the moment since I’ve been using the site for only an hour or so.  My profile is here.

I can’t remember when I first had or heard of Fat Tire, all I know is its been a rare delicacy in my years as a beer drinker.  Not so anymore, New Beligum Brewing Company has finally come to Georgia.

Over the years I’ve only been been able to have New Belgium beers by importing through friends coming into town or taking trips myself, and that’s been few and far between.  I went so far as to email the company last year asking when they would be expanding their distribution area.  Not too long after, my prayers were answered as I read on Fred’s Beer Page that New Belgium was on its way and as of this week Fat Tire, Mothership Wit, and 1554 are now available in 22 oz “bomber” bottles.

I picked up a Fat Tire and Mothership Wit on the way home.  I was particular excited about the Mothership Wit as I had never had it before; it did not disappoint.

New Belgium Brewing Company Beers

The special shout-out to Georgia made it that much more special, “1st (Legal) Distribution Commemorative: Georgia on My Ride.”

Georgia on My Ride

Terrapin Beer Company recently brewed a special beer for Taco Mac for their 30th anniversary.  It’s named 30 Strong.  The name needs no explanation once you see the ingredient list and alcohol percentage.  Terrapin had the beer on tap at their 7th anniversary party last month, but unfortunately I didn’t know about it when I was there so didn’t get to have any.  When I heard Taco Mac was going to have it yesterday I made sure to be there.  I even called ahead to ask when the keg would be tapped.

All in all, it’s a good beer.  I won’t pretend to be able to describe or identify the various flavors or subtleties of the beer but it’s very enjoyable.  Fred, the Beverage Director for Taco Mac (a position I would kill for), describes it as a “very drinkable, high gravity beer” over at Fred’s Beer Page.  Very drinkable is true, my boss joined us at Taco Mac and was surprised when I told him it was high gravity after he had just finished a glass of it.  Given this, I have to say I was expecting more from the beer.  With 30 ingredients I was hoping for a more exotic beer than what I had.  It has nothing on Terrapin’s Gamma Ray, which has found a place in Terrapin’s Monster Beer Tour.  This I am excited about.

Here’s the description and ingredient list from from Terrapin’s site:

The Terrapin “30 Strong” is a high gravity (8.8% ABV) Ale. Brewed with 30 different ingredients and aged on American oak spirals, the “30 Strong” will leave your palate begging for more. This fun little experiment has really opened my eyes to a new style of brewing. I call it kitchen sink brewing! Hope you enjoy! Spike

Malt

• 2-row
• Flaked barley
• Wheat
• Rye
• Acidulated
• Caramel Piuls
• Vienna
• Munich I
• Munich II
• Honey malt
• Victory
• Special Roast
• Crystal 65′L
• Crystal 85′L
• Chocolate Rye
• Chocolate Malt
• DH Carafu I
• Black Malt
• Roasted Barley

Hops

• Columbus
• Centennial
• Amarillo
• Simcoe
• E.K.G.
• Cascade
• Magnum
• Glacier

Other

• Water
• Yeast
• Oak Spirals

I like that Spike calls it “kitchen sink brewing.”  It reminds me of my “pantry stew” which is basically whatever beans, veggies, spices, etc. that I can find in the pantry all tossed together indiscriminately.

Back in 2005, I took an Applications Development class at Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU) while working towards my Bachelor’s of Science in Information Technology (BSIT).  At the time the class was taught with Java (they’ve since switched to C# unfortunately) and having worked in Java at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) for a few years already I convinced the professor to let me skip the classes, show up for the exams, and work on the class project at my leisure.  The class project was to develop a computer simulation of osmosis.  This is what I put together:

Osmosis simulation in Java

I wrote the application using AWT and Swing and allowed the user to vary the size and number of molecules and the number of pores in the center membrane.  Upon hitting Start the molecules would start bouncing around the pane and pass through the membrane thus demonstrating osmosis.  For extra credit I internationalized the application with resource bundles for English and Spanish.  The teacher really got a kick out of that as I remember and I ended up getting an A in the class.  Looking back, the code doesn’t look too bad, though I’m sure there are better practices and design for Swing applications.  My forte has always been web applications.

Click here for the Java Web Start shortcut to try out the application.  You can download the full source code here.