A problem with Consumption Vs. Production

I pride my self in using some decent equations in order to hit my numbers on my beers. Science is a big part of being able to produce the same product (or know what you did wrong) in each batch. While I don't feel I've compromised any batch of beer, my Dirty Snowman Ale was prepped for this weekend for consumption.   The next beer I started was my Choco-de-Bock-Ale which I projected at about 6-7 weeks fermentation. Then I recently started an ESB that had about a 3-4 week ferment time. Of course when I planed them out I didn't have the foresight to plan when the two would be done. With several bottles in use with my ale, two ales ago, I guess I have no option but to drink up and free up some bottles! That and maybe recycle a few more from the Christmas Cheer.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah or any thing else you celebrate! Just be safe and enjoy! 

Growing Hops At Home

I always think about this around mid summer which is way to late to plant around here. But this year, I want to grow my own hops. As you can find very quickly, there are countless articles on this subject all over the net. I'm going to link the one from BeerSmith just because it is a easy to read, simple place to start. http://www.beersmith.com/  I'll add more to this if I get the ability to do this in the spring and will get you some pics of how it goes!

Smiles All Around

Today was the day that I took my Dirty Snowman Ale to the select Masses for a taste of an idea. And the over all was it was great! out of the 20 people I had taste this young beer. 50% said they would buy it out of a store, 20% said it wasn't too bad but not great, and the final 30 % said it wasn't to their liking.  I'll take this as a HUGE success! I had three people ask me when they could buy it in the market which is the highest compliment you can receive!  It really needs another week to mellow then I'll post another update :)

Beer of the night!

Tonight I'm trying Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale. 8% ABV and a ridiculous 102 IBU or International Bitterness Unit (i.e. Hops) The top of the stale of IBU is technically 100 making this beer "technically" impossibly Hoppy. Tasting it would make you believe the above statement. From the aroma, the beginning, end, and the mouth feel, pretty much all you get is hops. All of this said, I'm really enjoying it, and Bamforth says hops are good for you. just be prepared. It has a bite! 

A Quick Review on a Great Beer Book

Just finished this book and highly recommend it. It shows Charles Bamforth on only as the scientific brewer but also the philosopher of malted barley and hops. It was a refreshing look of the spirit of what beer is, and isn't. My next book I'm reading of his is Beer, Taping Into The Art And Science Of Brewing then I'm reading Grape vs Grain. I'll let you know how those turn out but if they're anything like what I've read so far. I'm sure I'll love them.

I'm hopefully starting an ESB on Friday, I'll post the progress on here as soon as I have any!

Cheers 

Copper Run Distillery, Bringing Moonshine Back To The Ozarks

I had the privilege of meeting Jim Blansit, the Owner and Distiller at Copper Run Distillery yesterday. I won a prize from US97 (a local radio station) from the distillery and ran down too Walnut Shade MO to check it out. What I won? The grand prize, a 1 gallon cask and 5 bottles of moonshine (corn whiskey). But really so much more. It was wonderful seeing a micro-distillery first hand and to taste corn whiskey on it's first run dripping straight out of the still. Being an old brewer himself it was great to talk about the difference between between brewing a mash of beer and mash for whiskey. After a full tour we went to the tasting room to taste the difference between an unaged whiskey and a one year whiskey. I also got to try some of the rum he makes there, it was delicious! Then, my prize.... I brought everything home along with a gallon of  filtered water, and filled the cask with the water for the past 24 hours to "condition" the cask. Then this evening, I drained it and the moonshine. If your from the area or happen to be passing through the Ozarks, defiantly go check out these folks. Just make sure you bring a DD if you plan on spending too much time in the tasting room!

IBallz to the Rescue!

Beer, baseball, and technology are pretty much my life. Granted there's a little more to me than that but... And they all go pretty well together, I can watch a game while taking notes on my iPad and enjoying a frosty beverage. The only problem I've ran into with my iPad has been in transportation. I have been known to be pretty hard on my gadgets so I'm always looking for the best way to protect my little investments from, well, myself. I also use the iPad for brewing and keeping all my brewing information with iBrewMaster. So being that the iPad goes with me everywhere, my picking of a proper case was extremely important. After being totally unsatisfied with three cases I have purchased over the past 6 months, I ran across the iBallz page. It looked to solve some of the issues that I was having with the other cases I didn't like. I think what really sold me was the modular feel of it. You can use just the "ballz" to protect the edges and incase of dropping or spillage around it (very handy when brewing). Then for an extra layer of protection they sell cases that work with the ballz and are made to where there's no fumbling and taking everything apart just to use it. I was extremely impressed of the quality of the case. It far exceeded any other case I have purchased at a fraction of the price. If you have an iPad you really need to try this system. The picture above was from the coffee house yesterday with the iLid case folded behind it. And I just went to the website and they have everything on the site on sale which means everyone I know will be getting them for Christmas. Great job of a high quality product at a very reasonable price.

Paradigm shifts and randomness

Watch out, this is going to be random. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, my life gets uprooted, I'm not my self, my environment changes, and the fan on my laptop is SO loud! But simple things like a glass of water taste sooo good. I find this is the best time to contemplate major situations and decisions. I always have a chance to take a totally different look at things I've been thinking about. Like deciding I might want to change my direction and become a microbiologist or almost putting a $400.00 brew pot on my card at 3am under the influence of NyQuil. I'm pretty sure I was looking at the air at one point wondering how my breathing was affecting all of the millions of particles surrounding me. Kinda analyzing my carbon foot print on a microscopic level.

Now granted, that alone didn't change my life, but it did flag a few questions on how I can make my beer better. So decided to start with the very basics, air and water. At our local Mama Jeans I can buy some pretty decently filtered water for 35 cents a gallon, a small price to pay to get away from chlorinated tap water. The whole air think might be a little trickier but I've heard something as simple as a "mini-max" system can make a big differen. I'm going to do a bit more research into the whole air and water before I make a final decision but I think I'm headed in the right direction.

And Now, What Not To Do.... Kinda

Every once in a while, things don't go as planned. Every once in a while equipment fails you. If you are a home brewer or a major distributor, something, sometime, will go wrong. It is your fundamental understanding of the process of brewing that will save a batch or wash one down the drain. I say all of this because such a problem with equipment did indeed happen last night.


For those that don't know the reason why you use a bucket style container as your primary fermenter and a carboy as your secondary is all simply about headroom and air. A primary fermentation is very active and produces a lot of Co2 and a lot of foam in the process. Up to 3 or 4 inches of foam on top of the brew and even more than that in some situations. You need room for this and you aren't as concerned about the air that could be in the bucket, since the Co2 is going to continue to keep positive pressure on the "Primary". WELL.... when your Primary doesn't keep a good seal and you have a young brew in it, you worry about any contaminates possibly getting into the batch, so I made the executive decision to move it to a secondary "Better Brew" container. So like I explained earlier, not nearly as much room in the top of a carboy which means not as much room for your brew head. so it can come out the trap, as long as you keep the trap clear of debris, not really a problem, Makes a little mess but the gas still escapes and you still keep everything good.

Here's the FYI... IF you are making a Chocolate Bock and you have roasted Chocolate Nibs that are floating in the top of the brew, those nibs MAY float on the foam and into the tiny neck of the of the fermentation trap and clog the escape route for all the gas produced. If and when this happens, duck, you have two possible outcomes. One. the nib is forced into the first chamber of the trap and the brew goes on. Two the Co2 pressurizes the carboy and you have a possible fermentation trap missile on your hands. The second of the two happened. It missed me but it popped had enough that it dug a grove in the ceiling. The picture above is actually what you hope for if you ever have to make this call. As long as it's still bubbling and foaming, it may not be ideal but its better than the alternative. Just make sure you keep the trap clean and it should be just fine in this stage. Right now that's about every 6 hours. Make sure you put a towel underneath it because it will make a mess!

Dirty Little Snowman Ale is Bottled and ready to Carbonate!

 DLSA is in the bottle and awaiting it's fate around Christmas. The aroma is awesome and the flavor is Great! I'm the proud dad of 5 gallons of beer! It will probably mellow a little in the bottle but like an anxious father, I'm waiting to get the final grade card of their kid in the mail... Bottling took about an from cleaning out the first bottle to capping the last. I'm beginning to use more of the PET plastic bottles which I have has good success with so far. They are NOT dishwasher safe just in case you were curious. They turn shapes non-conducive to refilling with beer! I fill at least 1 bottle of each batch with them because they are a very easy great way to gauge how well a batch is conditioning once bottled. I also love my flip top bottles. They are easy to use and clean and they have a fun look to them. This will be the first batch that I've used my printable labels I mentioned in a previous blog. I'll post pictures and a review as soon as I have some bubbles!

I also had a primary fermenter malfunction and went ahead and moved the Choco-de-Bock-Ale into a Better Brew Bottle to insure that the seal is good. I look forward to buying a new Primary on Friday. Not sure where the air leak was but I'm confident that the amount of Co2 being produced in it's first days would have kept positive pressure in the primary until I moved it today. I went ahead and added 2 more ounces of the cocoa nibs since this is kinda sorta not really a secondary? But as far as color goes, it's chocolate through and through! And I just checked on it and it seems to be very happy with it's new home. It may blow out it's trap tonight....

Augmented Reality, the beer label?

I found this video on Facebook and it blew my mind! Being an aspiring brewer I would love to come out with the first beer label that incorporated this technology! But I probably wont have the resources to pull it off so I'll just say it here! Very cool Tech, watch for it coming to a beer bottle soon!

Here's to My Readers

My blog just went over 1000 page views! That's actually a pretty small number as far as blogs go but being only 2 months old, I'm thrilled. So I decided to list my favorite beers in the list of the most page views on the blog by the country..... Pageviews by Countries United States -917 There's too many craft breweries to list here Canada- 21-Fosters! HAHA it's an old joke, actually Unibroue Australia -14-We don't get too many of yours here, VB? United Kingdom- 14-Fullers, but there's a lot more great beers Spain -12-San Miguel maybe, not sure German- 7-Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier look it up before you try this one! :) Singapore -6-I would like to try Tiger Beer Denmark -4-Carlsberg is about the only one I've tried Italy -4-Birra Moretti Russia -4-Not sure but I want to find out the brand if this Beer can if you might know(sexy beer cans)   Thanks to everyone who stops by to read!  If you need my mailing send me a six pack of your favorite beer to try, email me at itskeeton@gmail.com  and I'll make sure you get it!  Cheers!

The Choco-de-bock-ale Is Fermenting Away.

My latest beer creation went into it's primary fermentation yesterday after about 3 hours of cooking and prep. I went with a partial mash on this one per Todd's recommendation from the Home Brewery in Ozark. Todd is the only guy I have ever bought ingredients form and there's one simple reason, customer service. I didn't have my recipe for this beer at all nailed down before I got there yesterday. I knew what I wanted to make, just not real sure how to get there. Todd took my ideas and turned them into something real, had everything in stock that I needed, and went through  the steps that I needed to follow which were slightly more technical than the brew style I've done in the past. If I'm buying a plastic case for my iPad, I usually shop on the net. but when I'm buying ingredients for a brew I buy local from a brewer that knows whats going on! That's Todd...


After I mashed in and got the the DME dissolved,  (note to self, need a much larger brew kettle to dissolve 10 pounds of dry malt)... I brought the sweet wort up to a boil and immediately boiled over for 1 brief second but I got it under control. Everything else went like clockwork. I also racked all the other brews, The Snowman Ale is in it's secondary and is about a week away from bottling. The two meads have about 7 more months to go. Now to come up with my next brew idea... 

The Night Before Brew Day, And All Through The Brew House...

Twas the night before brewing.... I'm not feeling quite that creative at the moment, or at least to finish the conversion of that whole story. Tonight I'm digging for the final details for the beer I'm brewing tomorrow. I know a few details... 1. It will not only be a Bock, it will be a Chocolate Bock, 2. it will be an ale not a lager yeast? "but you can't make an ale bock" you may say? why not? 3. I'm using cocoa nibs from Askinosie Chocolate to be the Choco in my Choco-de-bock-ale. I need to head to bed now so I can get over there when they open and get the nibs, then head to Ozark and get the rest of the ingredients form Todd at the Home Brewery then it's home to sanitize, and brew, and rack other brews, and clean all the equipment and clean myself, to go out and see my favorite local band tomorrow night! And I really need a haircut. SO, full schedule, I'll post picture tomorrow after I get everything kicked off...


Cheers

Finally, an easy way for Home Brewers to label their Beers!

Playing around the net on my lunch break today, I discovered two of the coolest things I didn't know I needed! One of them was an accessory for my iPad (iBallz) but the one relevant to this blog is the simple solution for labeling your home brewed beer. Onlinelabels.com makes all kinds of pre-cut label templates in any shape or size you need, along with the Word or Pdf template for you to design and print them out. Even if you're not a home brewer but were looking for foil Christmas tree labels, they have them. The one I'm buying is this one Beer Label Template .Their prices are very reasonable too, 100 sheets of 4 for 22.95! Imagine the possibilities!

Whipped Cream Might Become The Next Four Loco

As far as misleading titles to a story go, this one takes the cake, or maybe pie this time. First off, we're talking alcohol infused whipped cream. And I'm not saying it's going to be outlawed. I just wanted to shorten the title from it's original 28 word format. This was the only combination that still made sense.

Four Loco was outlawed in several places in the US "after a wave of negative press and public pressure surrounding the beverages unsafe consumption"  It's not for me to be the judge on this one. I'm sure there's thousands of college students that had their heat broken when they found out they couldn't blow their parents money chugging their favorite carbonated caffeinated alcoholic drink. On the flip side, I'm sure there's thousands more that are going to go grab their favorite non-alcoholic energy drink, take a big swig off the top, refill with cheap vodka, and not miss a blink of partying. If not they're buying a 4 pack of redbull and a bottle of vodka and doing the same thing.

While we're talking about unsafe consumption, I'm pretty sure there was a time in my life that I unsafely consumed an alcoholic beverage.  I'm pretty sure there was a day I unsafely  consumed too many Pixi Stix... I use to know a friend that would huff ready whip cans. I bet these new cans would add a whole new aspect to that fun past time. Watch the video here for more info about the Cream. I doubt it catches nearly the heat of the Four Loco but only time will say. I'm falling a seep so I'll proof this tomorrow. Enjoy

Here's to you Leslie Nielsen

I just received the news that the wonderful Leslie Nielsen Passed on today. It is a sad day but I will continue to celebrate his life and one of my all time favorite movies Airplane. He will be missed for sure but his work will live on forever.  Its too bad but theirs  not a lot you can do but remember . I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing airplane glue . Leslie, we will never forget!!! and this mug is here for you

Cheers, from all your fans, I tip my glass  Congrats on the huge success you had through the years

Reason to Brew your own Beer #127

127. Your local package store might be going upside down! Where I doubt that our great country is going to run out of liquor stores any time soon... The number of stores that has hit the Black List has doubled and tripled in some locations over the past year and a half. The "black list" is the individual states list form the department of alcohol and tobacco of stores that haven't paid their tabs. When they make the list, they get cut off, if you get the picture. Where I'm sure a few sober up and pay the bill, If the business's financial practices aren't pretty to begin with it may be the kiss of death.

So brew your own beer, it's cheaper in the long and it can be any flavor you want! And if you go out of business, it's your own fault!  I buy all my stuff here if your looking for a knowledgeable place to shop!

Crazy Beer Criminals

A little secret about brewing beer, most of your time is spent waiting. Waiting to boil, waiting to ferment, waiting just to free up a piece of equipment so you can brew something new..... In all this waiting, I get bored, so I write here, read books on beer, and all the other fun hobbies I have. One of my hobbies is to type "beer" in to Google and hit the news tab and see what pops up on the first two pages. I bet you probably didn't know that at least 3-5 people make the first two pages just by robbing a convenience store for a six pack, mug a guy over a beer on the streets, some armed criminal action surrounding beer.   And you know they're not stealing a bottle Utopias (you can look that up here). By the way, if anyone would care to donate a bottle of Utopia to the Blog, I would be happy to review it and post my findings on here! Just shoot me an email and I'll send you the address to send it too. But my point is this, coming from a beer lover to everyone out there. It IS true, free beer is the best tasting beer, but obtain it legally! Or you might wind up as a shame in the news like these folks (this was my favorite of the day) Beer thieves caught trying to sell suds on Facebook    

I'm saying, stay thirsty, but not a year in jail thirsty..... 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving and a late Black Friday! Go shopping some other time,  unless you like standing out in the freezing rain for 8 hours like you will here. If your one of my international readers, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (another US holiday) that shoppers wait in line for hours, days, even sometimes weeks, just to get the possibility of chance for a great deal or sale at a store. If you're not familiar with it, it's an amazingly crazy tradition where people have actually been trampled to death over the sale of a small box store appliance. I'm not proud of my country for this tradition, I certainly don't participate, but I will offer you with a little humor on the subject with a top ten photos from Black Friday and a promise that I will sleep in late on Friday! Crazy Pics Here courtesy of the DC Trawler

Dolly and Larry inspire me to brew beer

While watching Larry King Live interview Dolly Parton …..

Larry and Dolly Beer

Larry- straight forward, dry, old, suspenders, frail body, strong soul = Doppleboch

Dolly- Vibrant, full of life, always doing new thing, open to new ideas = Citrus Wheat...

Mix the two together and I’d like to see what I get . The full nose of malt followed by all the tastebuds
focusing in the entry of smoke that’s cleaned up by Chrystal malt body and a citrus finish.
It’s like a roller-coaster of flavors with a happy ending. I’ll end the jokes here but I think I I’m
going to mash Larry and Dolly and see what I get!!

Goose Island Brewery is Celebrating Black Friday the way a Brewery should!

If you have the privilege of getting your hands on a pull of Goose Island's much anticipated Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout on Friday, your a lucky duck! The Beer will only be previewed at one Pub over the weekend in Chicago starting Friday morning before it's release to the public on Monday. Rather than just rewriting the story, I'll let you read it here  and just say I'm working on getting my hands on a bottle to "review" as we speak.

Brewing scientist Charles Bamforth probes soul of beer and brewing

Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of BrewingIn case you've never heard of Professor Charles Bamforth, he is today's modern living genius of beer. He is a historian, scientist, philosopher, author, and lover of beer. He has 9 books and a 7 CD listening set. He also has an amazing speech at Google's Mountain View Headquarters. If you like beer you will enjoy the readings of this man. His You Tube link is here And a great article on his latest book and all of his accomplishments is here at the UC Davis site. Basically, if you're reading my blog, you really should be reading from this man.

Sunday it happens, MY new favorite TV Show!!

Master Brewers on the Discovery channel will capture your attention through some new TV programing.  It should be great, I can't wait  Watch trailer

Four Loco, not really beer news worthy, but here's my take....

Alcohol + Man = Drunk....  Pretty simple equation. Granted it's not perfect math, there are a few that can have just one and be fine, and there are people that add the same two and you get smashed. When the math gets tricky is when you add caffeine. To Keep things VERY simple here I'll just say this, Caffeine is a very complicated, readily available,  psychoactive stimulant drug.  To see more about it read this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine You might need to grab a cup of coffee, it's not exciting stuff. But it does give you a little insight into the world of easy access stimulants.

Now add alcohol, a depressant, also very easy to get your hands on. After being in the bar business for several years what I know is this. As easily available as the two are, outlawing one drink because it is the current poster child of a huge growing problem is not going to stop anything. Ironically, it does the exact opposite in this situation. Cue Obvious News Article Here

The type of people that like to mix their redbulls and vodka's respectively are usually the same people that like to try the newest and latest "Mixed" drink. And the ONLY thing they here if you try and outlaw an over the counter can of punch is, must be great S#!+. And yes, they will buy out a supplier if they hear that they won't be able to get it.

And the there is this. Man Dies From Caffeine Overdose To my knowledge, this is the first ever recorded of it's kind. And no alcohol was in this instance.... So what's my point? If you want to "fix" the problem, a whole lot of education of how bad people are messing up their bodies would be a small start. Regulate coffee? Outlaw the two be mixed together? I don't have all the answers but I will say that they will find a new way to get what they want, and if you tell them no, all you're doing is promoting it.

Random Stuff I Post When Exciting Beer News Fails To Find Me.

These are pics from the top shelf of my bookcase. If you are a connoisseur of old fine books or collect old bartenders guides, you'll find I have a few fun toys but no "Holly Grails" of the collectors world. I've been collecting "Old Mr Boston Bartending Guides" for several years now and have 22 different editions,  because you have to have goals in life... Some are to fragile to open so I don't have print shots of all of them... Enjoy

Old shipwrecked beer to be replicated and bottled

How cool is this?! A 200 year old beer found in a shipwreck? I want a taste....

(AFP) – 13 hours ago

MARIEHAMN, Finland — Finnish authorities said Wednesday they plan to allow one or several modern breweries to replicate the recipe of beer discovered in a nearly 200-year-old shipwreck.
Divers discovered the beer in July, when they were salvaging champagne bottles from a wreck which sank in the early 19th century, which makes both the champagne and the beer the world's oldest.
"I don't care so much about the champagne," Christian Ekstroem, the diver who discovered the wreck's cargo, told AFP at a ceremony to uncork some of the bubbly on the Baltic island of Aaland.
"Champagne we can only sell or drink up, but... we can use the beer to produce something unique and local. It's historically meaningful," he added.
Ekstroem, in addition to being the province's foremost diver, is also the manager of a pub for a local microbrewery called Stallhagen.
He said that one of the beer bottles cracked open on the boat's deck, and the dark, ale-like liquid frothed up like any fresh brew, indicating that the yeast was incredibly still alive.
Some of the beer has been sent to the Technical Research Centre of Finland to probe the makeup of the beer's chemicals and microbes.
"We don't know if the yeast is alive, or sleeping, or dead," Rainer Juslin, a spokesman for Aaland's department of culture said during a presentation on the shipwreck's cargo on Wednesday.
Juslin added that several microbreweries, including Stallhagen but others from North America, were keen on the idea of using the shipwrecked beer to grow a root to produce more beer exactly like what was found.
Ekstroem, who tasted the beer, says he would be extremely disappointed if the authorities in the autonomous Finnish province did not give Stallhagen the opportunity to produce the beer locally.
He said that in the early 1800's, only the best beers were bottled, which makes this find even more exciting for connoisseurs.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

Free Beer For Everyone! (terms and conditions may apply)

(This article is being translated from Australian English to American English to simplify for my readers.)   VB (Victoria Bitter) in Australia is going to give every adult over the age of 18 (legal drinking age) a token (coupon??) for 1 free 375ml (12.6 fluid ounces) if Australia wins the Ashes (A cricket tournament between Australia and England). (You'll have to look up cricket on your own but it's kinda a combination of baseball and bowling on the middle of a big oval field) Cricket (see above) dates back to 16th century England and is a sport taken very seriously by both countries.  One thing is for sure, I would hate to be the Aussie Cricket Team if they loose, Beer means about as much to Aussies as cricket does! Good luck to all my Australian friends! I hope you get your free beer. Found in original article here http://www.triplem.com.au/ posted  by: Tyson Schubert 16 November, 2010 - 10:54 AM

From the Future!!

AB-Inbev Sues the MLB

I hate it when Mom and Dad fight. Granted, I don't drink Bud anymore, but I hate to see a prominent beer brewery I supported for years fight with the one sport I love. Even if AB is now owned buy another country. If the case is as the media is reporting it, the basics are that the MLB is trying to renegotiate their contract they signed in April after they found out how much AB paid the NFL in a new contract. I'm sure there's more to it than that. As long as they don't change the name of Busch Stadium to Inbev Stadium, I'll be happy. I guess it's not for me to judge but you know the MillersCoors Co. is watching very closely. Wall Street Journal Link

Beer Bread Super Easy!

                                                                   Ingredients: 3 Cups flour, 1/3 Cup of sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 beer, 1/3 Cup melted butter.


Mix everything listed above until the big lumps are out and it's a fairly sticky mess. Pour that mess into a pre-greased bread pan and brush the top with your melted butter. Pop the loaf in the oven and open a beer while you wait.

After I finish 1 beer I check on it, depending on the day I'm having, I might just set a timer for 30 minutes. Brush top with more butter and throw it back it. This is where common sense kicks in. Watch your loaf, if it's starting to brown all across the top, it's probably done. My recipe calls for an hour but I always bake it until it looks right so try which ever you like.

I added some brown sugar and honey to this one ans used a wheat beer on this one but once you realize how easy it is you'll be making all kinds of variations. Two words of  advise, take any rings off before you hand mix your dough and let the beer warm op to room temp or you'll freeze your hand off while mixing it!

A Christian Singles Group/Brewery! And A Shelter To Boot!

      This post came as an effort to look more into the news report about the Lancaster Church that is going to start brewing beer. First of all, I decided to do a little research, so I went to Google News with  "James Episcopal Church, in Lancaster" which was a copy and paste form another page. I apparently missed the "St." when I now look at my screen shot. Anyway, I read articles, typed up a few paragraphs, and went back to my Google page to find a picture to post with the blog and something distracted me. When I came back to the screen, this is what my brain put together. I laughed for about 5 minutes before I took the screen shot. Seems that not only are they in the beer business, but a singles site, and a county shelter! This is one Forward thinking church! I just hope they have a sense of humor too!

Weekly Brew Update

I just took samples from the four brews I have going to see how they're progressing, Both of the meads are still very young and even thought there's no real reason to taste them, it's still fun. And as the Master Brewer of my brewery, I deem it necessary to taste everything, often! The winter spice beer is coming along wonderfully and might get a bit more ginger and a second fermentation if it keeps maturing the way it is.  The cider has come up with a sour flavor I'm researching. I'm afraid I used too much orange peal for two long. Not positive it'll make the cut, I'm still researching a fix. I'm thinking I might do a Barleywine next, or at least that is the idea that the latest Zymurgy has plugged into my head. I've also been thinking about a Porter. Either way, I need to make up my mind soon, my spring baseball beer will take about two months, and if it's going to be bottled and ready by opening day, that leaves me the month of December to get one or MAYBE two more between now and then...

Until then,
Cheers!

The Stable Serving Up Founders Beer Brunch and IPA Month

Being a beer drinker, I've always been a fan of brunch. Basically, it means I don't have to get up as early as normal to still get breakfast. And it socially acceptable to boot, fancy sounding even! So when I heard about event, it was a no brainier! And a big thanks to STL Hops for covering all the important things in my life! The Stable Serving Up Founders Beer Brunch and IPA Month

Didn't Get The Memo....

Looking through Beernews.org I just read about the World's First Beer Bloggers Conference ! I guess my invite was lost in the mail but it looked like a huge success. I can only imagine that year 2 will be even bigger. Along with 108 bloggers the event also attracted Industry representatives. Speakers and tastings filled the time along with the networking of all that attended. Maybe next year I can make it to one of the two locations for 2011, Can't wait to see you all there!