Summer's Cauldron

Here are the Lyrics to "Summer's Cauldron", a song written by Andy Partridge of XTC and performed by XTC on the album "Skylarking":

Drowning here in Summer's Cauldron
Under mats of flower lava
Please don't pull me out this is how I would want to go
Breathing in the boiling butter
Fruit of sweating golden inca
Please don't heed my shout I'm relax in the undertow

When Miss Moon lays down
And Sir Sun stands up
Me I'm found floating round and round
Like a bug in brandy
In this big bronze cup
Drowning here in Summer's Cauldron

Trees are dancing drunk with nectar
Grass is waving underwater
Please don't pull me out this is how I would want to go
Insect bomber Buddhist droning
Copper chord of August's organ
Please don't heed my shout I'm relax in the undertow

When Miss Moon lays down
in her hilltop bed
And Sir Sun stands up
raise his regal head
Me I'm found floating round and round
Like a bug in brandy
In this big bronze cup
Drowning here in Summer's Cauldron

Now that's the way I feel on a lazy summer day, floating in my pool, with a cold homebrewed beer in my hand! Yup! And here's the beer I want to be drinking when I next do that:

Summer's Cauldron II (Kolsch)

22 Lbs. Belgian Pils
2 Lbs. German Wheat Malt
.5 Lbs. Belgian Biscuit
.5 Lbs. Flaked Maize
.5 Lbs. Rice Hulls

Mashed (single infusion) at 152 F, for 60 minutes.
Batch Sparged and drew off 11.5 gallons of 1.046 Wort
Boiled 60 Minutes with the following hop additions:
60 minutes-1.5 oz. Hallertau
45 minutes- 1 oz. Hallertau
15 minutes- 1 oz. Hallertau
5 minutes- .5 oz. Hallertau

Irish moss at 10 minutes left in boil.
OG-1.048 FG-1.009
4.7 SRM
5% ABV
23 IBUs

A nice summer-colored, summer-flavored brew!

Kolsch beer is a beer that was originally made to compete with the enormously popular lagers coming out in the late 19th century. It is a top-fermented beer (ale) with a straw color, light alcohol content, crisp and clean palate and a subtle fruity character. It is lightly hopped and fairly dry in finish. The appellation, Kolsch. is protected by the twenty or so breweries in Koln (Cologne) Germany, that make the style, and by the organization they formed, the Kolsch Konvention.

I have been homebrewing for seven years this month. I will be bottling a Belgian Trippel I made several weeks ago today as well as making this wonderful Kolsch described above. Look for more posts about beer as the Michigan Summer Beer Festival will be coming very soon (July 27 and 28th)...