Sharing the Brew

I took down some beer to Gilligans and was completely shocked with the crowd that was down there. They sold all of their beer within an hour and I am very happy for them. After the crowd dispersed, we cracked some home brew. Greg was there as well and I am glad that he is getting to start a new position in the brewing field.

I will probably go down on Sunday to see what it takes to brew a large amount of beer and possibly get some pointers on making the brew, mashing, and getting better efficiency. Well, it is getting late and I need to get to sleep. I will update when I rack my Hef.

El Hefe is back

I am now trying to get my summer beer collection going. I know that I am not going to make too much this summer. I decided to make a Strawberry Hef. I absolutely love the simple grain bill for these types of beers. I also tried to do a 2 step infusion mash and I really dont like that process. I feel that the single infusion mash is definitely better. I am thinking of having another beer release party for my 47.7 Degree Pale. I a hope that Tweak wants to bring a mini keg of his Woodsman Coffee IPA so we can both have the release party together. I visited Gilligans on my way to the UW and he wants to try my latest beers so I am pretty excited about having a professional opinion of my brew.

I entered 2 beers into the pro am and hopefully I will do well at least on my Pale Ale.

Competitions and New Beers

This weekend was a busy beer weekend. I started the weekend by bottling a 5 gallon batch of my 47.7 Degree N Pale Ale, named for the . Then on Saturday, I bottled up another 5 gallon batch of my Mismatched Blonde. This is one beer that just would not clear up, I thought I would have to call it the Dirty Blonde, but I needed to get it bottled so I can get it entered into the Pro Am in a few weeks. Hopefully, I can get a beer selected by a brewery to be put into the Great American Beer Festival in the Pro Am Competition.

I also decided to make Sunday into a brew day after making a beer that I didn't get to keep last weekend. I decided to make an Irish Red which I think I may call the Firecrotch Red Ale, but it will probably be changed. I thought it was a funny name at the time, but probably not something great to enter if I entered a competition. This was the first time that I did a straight full body mash with no mash out. The color on this beer is a nice tone of red and has a few hop additions within the boil. It is now sitting in the primary and hasnt started bubbling yet, but it should start soon.

I cant wait to try my new beers I bottled and should be able to soon.

New Recruits

So I finally had a new recruit to the homebrew army. Tweak came up to make his first batch. I think that I may have spoiled him by doing an all grain batch, but it is my obsession now. We decided to make a coffee IPA which from the first tasting will be a good bitter brew. It was the first time that I had seen Columbus hops in leaf form. They were actually higher is alpha acid than the pellet variety. It was very sad to see those 5 gallons of wort leaving with someone else.

I am really excited to bottle my pale that is almost ready to be bottled. Not quite sure what the next batch will be but I am sure it will be something interesting.

Till next time.