Dearth of Posts

I have to apologize to everyone that actually reads this blog for the dearth of posts lately. It doesn't mean I haven't been busy or even beer busy (and hence having a wealth of beery material with which to regale). I have been immersed in beer over the past few weeks (there's a visual for you). I have been studying for the BJCP exam, judging beer at the World Expo of beer (both commercial beers and homebrews) and making beer pretty steadily, as well as entering my beers in competitions (which, sadly, has not yielded any hardware).

Recently the club (Lapeer Area Brewers) participated in Big Brew/National Homebrew Day at Replays Sports Tavern in Lapeer. We brewed thirty gallons of beer on that historic day! There were five brewers and we brewed several different kinds of beer, from Irish Stout to American Lager. A good time was had by all!

Today, I kegged the result of Big Brew, an American Pale Ale. Here are the details:
12 Lbs. 2-Row American Malt
4 Lbs. German Pilsner Malt
2 Lbs. English Crystal 45
1.5Oz. Nugget (60 Minutes)
1 Oz. Cascade (20 Minutes)
.5 Oz. Cascade (0 Minutes)

Mashed at 153 for 60 minutes. Boiled for 60 Minutes with above hop additions. Chilled and racked into Glass Carboys and pitched two Safale 05 yeast starters. Fermented for two weeks at 60 degrees. Racked today into two kegs, one with 1 ounce of Amarillo dry hops, the other without. Original Gravity was 1.048 and Final Gravity was 1.010.

Color is a light amber, IBUs at about 30, ABV around 4.5%.

Frankenmuth, chicken dinners and the World Expo of Beer awaits!

Too Busy to Blog?

Wow! I've been kind of busy lately. Since my last post, I've made several beers and assisted in the making of some more. I finished up my teaching gig in early March, so I thought I'd be busily blogging here and elsewhere but, instead I've just been busy doing other things, none of which seem important but just had to get done.

Here is a little bit of what's been going on in the life and times of Beerme, beer-wise:

The tweaked, second attempt at the perfect English Dark Mild came out a bit sweeter and a bit earthier, due to the Goldings hops. I am going to enter it as a Southern English Brown Ale. Cross your fingers! I like the first one better, though, so I will enter that as the perfect English Dark Mild!

I racked a Robust Porter onto the yeast in March and it finished a bit weaker than a US version of Robust Porter should be (less roasty and not as much mouthfeel), so I may enter it as a Brown Porter. Competitions simply do not respect historical (restrained) guidelines. Bolder beers (only just incrementally so) seem to do better, in my humble opinion. Here is the 10 gallon grainbill:

20 Lbs. 2-Row (US)
2 Lbs. Crisp Crystal 45
1 Lb. US Chocolate Malt
.5 Lbs. Roasted Barley
2 Oz. Nugget (Homegrown) 60 Minutes
1 Oz. Cascade (Homegrown) 20 Minutes
Irish Moss
Yeast cake of WLP 002 English Ale Yeast
OG: 1.054 FG: 1.012

On April 11, I brewed a big Barleywine. It finished at 1.091 and the additions of homemade caramel syrup and beet sugar brought it up to 1.106. I added these incrementally during the first week of fermentation. I just racked it to secondary and it is already a hefty 9% ABV! The gravity check yielded a still sweet 1.030. It has a ways to go but it tastes pretty darned good right now! Vinous and very sweet, there are heavy dark fruit notes and a spicy and hoppy counterbalance to the malt-heavy backbone. Here is the 5 gallon grainbill:

20 Lbs. 2-Row US
4 Lbs. German Pilsner Malt
2 Lbs. Crisp Crystal 45
1 Lb. Belgian Caramunich
1 Oz. Nugget (Homegrown) 60 Minutes
1 Oz. Cascade (Homegrown) 20 Minutes
Irish Moss 1.5 Teaspoons 15 Minutes
2 Lbs. Beet Sugar (prepared as equal additions of syrup, one of which was inverted and caramelized)
Yeast Cake of WLP 002 English Ale Yeast (Finally retired!)
OG: 1.106 FG: 1.026 (Expected) currently at 1.030.

I will leave it in secondary until mid-May and then rack to a keg and bottle in 7 oz. bottles for keeping. This one will not be ready for competition until Fall, at the least.

The Lapeer Area Brewers is a growing concern! We have a new member nearly every month and the brewers are getting better and better! We have a brewing demonstration scheduled for Big Brew-National Homebrew Day, on Saturday May 2, 2009 at Replays Sports Tavern just North of Lapeer. At least two beers will be brewed: one all-grain and one extract. We will have some samples on hand and a host of experienced brewers to answer questions and give advice on this great hobby. Anyone in the area is encouraged to come by and enjoy the fun! There may be some trivia games and even a Red Wings playoff game to watch, after the work is done! The bar beer menu is limited to BudMilCoors and Oberon, on tap...it'll have to do. Hey, Miller is "triple-hopped", ya know!

Until the next post, Prosit!

Tweaking the Mild

I made an excellent English Dark Mild a couple of months ago (it was my favorite beer for at least a month) and re-read the very good style series book, Mild Ales, by Dave Sutula. This created in me a strong desire to make the Mild even better. I took the original recipe and tweaked it thusly:

Original Lapeer Mild:
(King Henry V's Barley Broth)
14 Lbs US 2-row
1 Lb Crystal 45
1 Lb US Chocolate Malt
1 Oz HG Nugget-60 minutes
1 Oz HG Cascade-10 minutes
Mashed at 152 F
Boiled 60 minutes
OG: 1.038
FG: 1.010



New Lapeer Mild:
(Bigger Barley Broth)
12 Lbs US 2-row45
2 Lb Crystal
1 Lb US Chocolate Malt
1 Lb Flaked Oats
1 Oz HG Nugget-60 minutes
1 Oz HG US Goldings
Mashed at 155 F
Boiled 90 minutes
OG: 1.039
FG: 1.010


I was going for more mouthfeel, more body, as well as some more residual sweetness. I racked the first five gallons into a keg yesterday and tasted the hydrometer reading sample. It was good but I really couldn't judge it well with the small and un-carbonated sample. We'll see soon. The second five gallons will be bottled with priming sugar, I think. The final gravity of both was about the same, so I don't know what the difference will be. I might have kept the 2-row to 14 pounds but it would have made for a pretty big Mild.

My yeast cakes are looking to be fed with some new wort and I am not sure what to make. Has anyone any good ideas? I'm looking to keep it in the family, so to speak. An English beer of higher gravity than a Mild. Perhaps a Brown Ale or a Bitter or even a Pale Ale.

I'm entertaining all suggestions at this time...

Dakota Inn: I revisit the Rathskeller after some forty years!

Sometime in the Sixties, I remember visiting this wonderful German restaurant in my old Detroit neighborhood, The Dakota Inn. What stood out most in my mind from that childhood visit, was the image of a roomful of people singing along to the words to old songs-German songs, as I remember-while they watched the words displayed by a slide projector on the wall. This was quite a long time before I ever heard the word, "karaoke"!

Well, I have long since moved out of the neighborhood and, in fact, most of the neighborhood has pretty much disappeared, having been destroyed by blight and crime and pretty much bulldozed into something resembling a farm field with sidewalks. But The Dakota Inn remains and I revisited the place last night with my wife and another couple. We had a wonderful time and look forward to going again (Karneval is every weekend in February!).

Check out the site for pics and history, as the visit is well worth it! We had dinner and a few good beers. We started with kartoffelpuffer, a kurtz stack and went on to have the following four entrees: Cheese Spaetzle (Kasespaetzle), Sauerbraten, Huhnerfleisch (chicken breast)and Rouladen. All was passable, authentic German fare. We all remarked that the food was generally more bland than we'd have liked but really quite good. The chicken breast was the only disappointment, being tough and somewhat dry.

The beer, however, was not the least bit disappointing. In fact it was sehr gut! We started with a 23 ounce draft Fraziskaner, Hefe-Weisse Dunkel which was dark, mysterious, delicious and a big beginning entry to the German bier fare we were about to experience. Next we tried the obvious, a Spaten Optimator, a slightly larger, more extreme German large lager(bottle). Finally, we ended the night with a big half liter of Aventinus Wheat Doppelbock (bottle), oh my! What a fine finish to a great evening!

The Craft Beer Explosion and Beer News Dot Org

OK. I have to say that the Craft Beer Scene is so large, so varied, so prolific and so terrific that I am officially overwhelmed by it. It's not just the numbers of excellent craft brewers that make the task of following them so nearly impossible but the quality and the variety which makes the task so much more essential, yet so much less probable. And that just takes into account the brewers in this country. Lately brewers across the pond have really been stirring up the competition by producing increasingly interesting and inventive beers. Nogne, Norrebro Bryghus, Mikkeller and De Proef, are just a few recently brought to my attention. Enough! I can't keep up!

I have usually focused on the Michigan brewers, here, along with the usual scratchings about my personal homebrewing, but I try to occasionally keep any readers up on what has recently caught my attention in craft brewing. I will continue to do that but in no way can I promise a good gauge of what is available to the craft beer consumer anymore. It is simply too overwhelming. I will offer a great resource, though, to those who love craft beer and want to try to keep up. It is called Beer News and you can add it to your google reader or other RSS service so you can get frequent updates on what's new. For instance today Beer News tells us about the new releases of Bells Hopslam, Founders Double Trouble and Troegs Nugget Nectar. How's that for some good news!

For a more in-depth treat, visit their RSS Info page for even more options for those interesting in getting the inside dope on new craft beer info, blogs, or just new beers. Go to the Craft Beer Index for a listing (and link to) every beer that has been discussed on the Beer News site over the past several months (It's huge!).

So leave the depressing news services alone and keep up with some optimistic news for a change: Beer News! It's delicious!

Session Roundup!

The 23rd edition of The Session is finished. I would like to thank Stan Heironymus, Jay Brooks, and all the others who created and developed the concept of a Beer Blogging Friday, for allowing me to participate. It was fun and, during the course of the last month's activities, I've become aware of a tiny portion of the great number of really good beer blogs out there!

If you have a beer blog and you haven't hosted a Session, yet, you really should do so. It has been a great learning experience for me! If you want to find out about the breadth and depth of the beer blogging universe, this is a very good start!

Here is the roundup (in no particular order):

Ron, at HopTalk tells us what five things he won't miss about 2008. I have to agree with him on most of them, too!

Stan at Appellation Beer, gives us a list of things he will miss about 2008 (hint: sleeping in a parking lot is one of them!) and a smaller list of the things he hopes to see in the coming year.

Rob, at Sophisticated Brews, lists some of the things he eagerly awaits in 2009 (having posted a year-in-review a few days ago...). One of these is more cask ales...hooray for session beers!

David, at Musings Over a Pint, puts a local spin on the topic, listing what he will miss in the Virginia beer scene and what might adequately replace it...

The Beer Nut gives us some of his plans for the coming year and a very simple, but eminently sensible, answer to what he'll miss about 2008.

Mario, at Brewed for Thought, makes his case for the Zappa series from Lagunitas and has big hopes for Pliny the Younger.

Steph at Beer and Food Love gives an exciting and lengthy list of personal "firsts" in 2008 and hopes for even more of the same in 2009. Go homebrewers!

Mark, at Beercraft, offers a couple of beers he will miss and some ambitious plans for the coming year.

Shaun, at 21st Amendment, gives us a review of the past year's financial difficulties in the brewing biz and a celebration of a new trend he hopes to see continue in the coming year: Collaboration Brews (Way to go, Melissa Myers!).

Jimmy, at Hopwild, says he doesn't miss much about 2008, but is looking forward to a better 2009. I'll second that!

Lew Bryson, at Seen Through a Glass, will miss a few very specific things from 2008 and has guarded hope for the new year.

Brewmaster Matt, from A World of Brews, thinks 2008 was pretty darn good and plans for more beery good times in the coming year!

Tom, from Yours for Good Fermentables, has a few regrets about 2008 and some great expectations for 2009!

Keith, at Brainard Brewing, tells us what he missed in 2008 and that he plans on rectifying that in 2009!

Joe, at The Thirsty Pilgrim, cries us a river over his missed Belgian beer opportunities and has a very special arrival to look forward to in 09!

Jon, at The Brew Site, says he misses one specific beer (a really good one!) and looks forward to "more Beer" in 2009.

couchand, at I'll Have a Beer, has some thoughts on the hop crisis and some sour predictions for 2009.

Thomas, at Geistbear Brewing Blog, misses some old haunts but looks forward to new ones, too.

Rob, at Pfiff!, examines the brewing extremes and, perhaps, the not so extreme in the coming year?

Jay, from Brookston Beer Bulletin, describes the past year as a "miserly little year that took more than it gave" (well-said!) and waxes philosophical in his offering.

Peter, from Better Beer Blog, compares last year to a trip to the Magic Kingdom and "hopes" for more and better next year.

Beckel, at Legal Beer, will miss growlers at Surly's and is looking forward to a special collaboration beer with a twist!

Brad, at La Petite Brasserie, identifies his travels and the great real ales he discovered as the thing he'll miss most from '08, and brewing more of those great English Milds in the coming year is what he's excited about. I'm down with that!

Next month's Session will be hosted at Musing Over a Pint, by Dave Turley. Look for a topic to be announced soon, there.

Old and New

This post is my effort toward the global beer blogging community's collective Friday Session, hosted by yours truly this month. I picked this unwieldy subject and will endeavor to make something of sense out of it (no small task).

What will I miss from 2008 and what will I excitedly await in 2009?

I will miss many things, not the least of which is the time that's passed (as I get older, I treasure that so very much more!). I miss the time that passed during which I failed to brew as much as I wanted and so failed to improve on my brewing skills with the effort. As trite as it sounds, it is missed opportunities that I most regret. I missed the chance to brew the stepped set of increasingly alcoholic, increasingly dark lagers that I had planned on building this Winter. I had wanted to brew three or four lagers, starting with a light colored, light lager and finishing with a Doppelbock, with a couple of others in between. Didn't get it done (yet). I miss the fact that there were opportunities to improve my homebrewing club, The Lapeer Area Brewers, that were not acted upon.

In this year that has shown the world the tenuous nature of the economic situation that we all held as so sound, not so many months ago, I feel particularly sorry that the United States has lost its last remaining big brewer. There is no longer an American beer in the big three (B-M-C). Inbev has purchased the Anheuser-Busch (now ABInBev)powerhouse and changed the landscape of corporate beer in the world forever. A-B has been the top brewer in the States since the year I was born (1957). That's a long time! Sure they make corporate swill but it was our corporate swill! Let's not forget the good things that A-B did for beer and brewing here in the US and in the world, either. Many hop varieties owe their existence to A-B, since the demand for newer and better hops came directly from the bigger brewers and was answered by the world's hop growers. Never mind the fact that you could never taste the Cascade, Willamette, Liberty, Mt. Hood and Sterling hops in their beer, all of these hop varieties came about due to Anheuser-Busch-sponsored research (to be fair, all of the big brewers sponsor such research). Since all of these hops were developed here, in the US, the entire brewing world that uses them (yes, most of our hops are exported), should also be thankful for A-B!

I guess I should say here that A-B is not gone, but merely changed into a more "global" entity. That in itself is sad, as we-so near Detroit-see much of our manufacturing base outsourced and our automobile industry slide into possible receivership. It is a false sadness, though. This is more of the creative destruction that the market and the global economy indulges in to make things better for all of us. I will celebrate it as a change and not as something bad. This is the year of change, no?

As for something I will be excited about in 2009, I can say that it is that change that I most embrace. Change in the sense that all of the good in the world that happens is an improvement upon what has gone before. I see the world of Craft Beer as improving on a daily basis. New brewers and breweries are popping up every day, even in a world that is experiencing a great deal of financial hardship. More importantly the brewers and breweries are making better and better beer!

I visit as many breweries, brewpubs and beer festivals as I can and I am always surprised at the ingenuity, inventiveness and excellence-in-craft that I find. I am excited about the local brewers that interest me, such as Doug Beedy at Fort Street Brewery and Joe Short at Short's Brewery, to name a couple. I see them creatively stretching the boundaries of the Michigan beer world, in their efforts. I anxiously await the next delicious offerings from all of our great craft brewers as well as the craft brewers around the world. I can't wait to be surprised at the ingredient combinations and unusual results these artisans produce and I can't wait to take their inspirations and work my own magic with them in my basement brewery.

In the coming year, I want to experience more of the world's beers. I have been reading about beers from Czechoslovakia that make me drool (thanks to Velky Al and others) and angry that I can't find most of them, here in Michigan. I have gained a greater appreciation for British beers and can't wait to further educate my palate in that country's offerings. German beer also awaits a further exploration in the coming year, as I have sadly neglected this font of beer knowledge. So many countries, so many beers, so little time! There's that time theme, again!

I want to see my homebrewing club expand and gain new members. This past year we saw an influx of new members that has truly enriched our club and our members! New members bring with them new beers, new methods, new equipment and ideas and new friendships! I hope to see more and more of that.

I wish for all my readers and friends that the coming year is a better one for them, that the changes that occur make their lives richer with new experiences and better circumstances and that their lives are further enriched by the beers they drink and the company they keep. Beer is a wonderful drink and a great social lubricant, but it is the people we meet, talk with, drink with and befriend that make us richer. I wish for all of you that your circle of friends grows along with your beer drinking experience!

Reminder...

This post is simply a reminder that next Friday is the 23rd Session. On January 2, 2009, the beer bloggers of the world (those that care to, anyway) can mass blog on the same topic. It's like a beer version of the Borg: resistance is futile! This Session will be hosted by Beer and Firkins and the topic is the contrast between old and new that dominates the end of the year news and entertainment programs every late December. Only this time it relates to beer. Quite simply, what will you miss most in the beer world from the past year and what excites you most about the beer world in 2009? Again, the chosen items may be specific beers or simply beery events, people or breweries.

Those Blogs who will be contributing should post their links on Friday as a comment on this blog or as an email to Brewmiker[@]charter.net.

Have fun and tune in on next Friday for all the links to beer blogs around the world!

Extreme Brewing

A friend wanted to brew a beer. We decided to do it at my house. A week or so later the temperature had dropped to single digits with a biting wind and over a foot of new snow was on the ground. Oh well. That's Winter brewing in Michigan!

Art and I brewed ten gallons of beer on Monday night. The temp really was 9 degrees Fahrenheit! We started at about 5 PM and finished around 1130 PM. It was an unusual brewday...

We ran out of propane and Art had to go pick up some more. While he was gone I transferred the strike water into his mash tun and started the mash. When he returned with propane (and a couple of beers!) we got right to work...on trying the new beers he brought. One was a Scottish IPA (Belhaven's Twisted Thistle) and the other St. Peter's Old-Style Porter. We tried the IPA first. It was surprisingly good and surprisingly hoppy! It poured a dark golden color with a fine white head. The aroma was hoppy and floral with earthy notes. The taste was sweet caramel and biscuity with a strong floral, spicy hop finish and aftertaste. It was very drinkable at the surprising 6.1% and well-balanced. I really liked it and so did Art.

The St. Peter's Porter was next. I didn't expect much because I'd had their IPA and, probably due more to its age and being lightstruck (green bottle), it was not enjoyable at all. The porter was another story altogether. It poured a dark brown and had a beautiful tan head on it. The aroma was chocolate with roasty notes. Tasted a delicious chocolaty coffee with roast and some very slight hop character. the mouthfeel was not too heavy for a porter but full enough to respect. I found it an altogether enjoyable porter and would drink it anytime I wanted a good English porter.

Now, by this time we were about ready to sparge so sparge we did. We got a little less than 11 gallons from the sparge, so we added a little sparge water and resparged. After all this was over we had enough beer and began to heat to boil. No problems so far. We had enjoyed some new beers were playing pinball in between the little jobs requiring our attention and listening to a nice shuffle on my computer.

After the boil we went to turn on the (outside) hose to chill. Now, I keep my white RV water hose inside until it's time to chill just because I know Michigan Winters. Still, I didn't expect the faucet to be frozen. It was. I took my Mapp torch out and started to gently heat the faucet so that I could turn it. After I got to that point, I had to heat the faucet further back to unclog the ice that was keeping it from releasing any water. After a few chilly minutes working gently on this job we were able to get the chiller going! Pheww!

Then it was time to drop the wort into the fermenters. The wort had chilled to just under 80 degrees and we were anxious to end this long brewday in such extreme conditions. We got everything situated and turned the handle on the ballcock...Nothing! Back to the torch. A few moments of gentle heat supplied the answer and we were racking!

Long story short, we got a good ten gallons of 1.067 wort in the two fermenters and pitched starters of Scottish Ale and Belgian Dubbel yeast into each. Should result in a nice Strong Scottish Ale and a Belgian Dubbel. I'll try to remember to supply tasting notes, here.

Merry Christmas, all!

A-B Normal

Permit me a bit of a rant, here. I am really tired of the carping about the big commercial brewers by craft beer snobs. Oh sure, I'm one of them but I try not to act so "above the station" of the masses and their preferred drinks. Of course I recognize the fact that most of the B-M-C (Budweiser-Miller-Coors, the American Light Lager triumvirate) offerings (insert the appropriate Molson, Warsteiner, Fosters, etc. for countries outside the U.S.) are less adventurous and more concerned with selling volumes of their product than with producing small batches of handcrafted beer but that doesn't make their product "bad" or "undrinkable" as is commonly asserted by my beer snob buddies out there. In fact, if truth be told, it makes their products extremely "drinkable".

I've recently seen some activity on a couple of the craft beer forums and talk groups to which I subscribe, concerning the merits (or lack thereof) of Anheuser-Busch's American Ale. Now, I'm not saying A-B's American Ale is a great beer or that it should be praised for being more flavorful than A-B's normal offerings, merely that some of the criticisms hurled at it are unfair and mislabeled. I've read-on one of these forums-that it tastes like Bud Light. That's absurd. I've read that it was brewed with "drinkability" in mind. That is probably true but the writer was using the term derisively, as though "drinkability" was an invented, marketing term that meant little or nothing (think "fahrvergnugen"). The term does have some meaning and the truth is that (I'm sure many craft beer drinkers will agree with me, here) American Ale isn't exactly all that "drinkable".

What exactly is "drinkability"? Of course, at its very heart the word means consumability, right? If an item is drinkable, it possesses the qualities that allow the item to be drank. Of course, that would mean liquidity, potability, temperature appropriateness, etc. It is not that definition that is being used in the Bud ads and it is not that definition that we tend to use when describing beer. Drinkability refers to the different aspects of a beer that make it easier to drink. This is also what A-B is talking about when they describe their beers as "drinkable".

I like to view this quality as displayed in a continuum of different beers. A Bud Light is very drinkable. It's light, refreshing and not too filling or chewy. Of course a good English Mild is similarly drinkable, while supplying something the Bud Light doesn't: flavor. At the other end of the continuum, a good English Barleywine is certainly delicious, chewy, intensely flavorful and filling. It is certainly not a session beer, though it may invite another (but not many). I hate to say it but this type of beer does not have "drinkability". Do I prefer them to their more drinkable cousins? Usually, but not always. If my bar had the recent Mild I brewed, that would be my regular beer!

Is this simply a marketing term invented by A-B for their ad campaign? No, it isn't. I have seen the term used by beer writers as knowledgeable as Gordon Strong, in the newest issue of Brew Your Own, for example. To further illustrate this, I'll let you in on a little secret: the bar I frequent most often is a beer desert. I mean by this that they sell only the most common B-M-C offerings, for the most part. The exception to this is the summer offering of Bell's Oberon. I go to this bar because it is close to my home, it offers the NTN trivia game I love to play and there are many of my friends there to meet (OK, the owners and serving staff are real cool, too). I don't go there for the beer (There! I said it!). I say this to explain that their replacement for Oberon this Fall was "American Ale". They thought this would make the beer geek (that's me) happy. Well, I was underwhelmed, even though I hadn't tried it, yet. So I got a glass and it wasn't a bad beer. It had some residual sweetness and definitely a more chewy mouthfeel than most B-M-C offerings (I really don't notice any hops, though)...you could say it had an ale character. I had a few over the course of the evening and didn't mind it at all.

I have tried to make this beer my regular beer when at this bar but I really can't because it is too "strong" for that purpose. It is less drinkable than B-M-C and is too flavorful, heavy and has too much alcohol to drink it as if it were a session beer. Now, I would drink the Oberon that way, even though it is stronger, but that's because Oberon tastes better and is more "drinkable" (due to its enjoyability, not it's gravity or mouthfeel). I switch to Bud or Bud Light if I'm going to have more than a couple.

American Ale is not a bad beer but it is far down the list of even the big brewers' beers for me. I would greatly prefer an Amber Bock to it and perhaps even a Killian's, too. Both of these beers are more enjoyable for me to drink. Given my druthers I'd have a good craft-brewed beer but that is usually not available to me in the beer desert (I need an oasis!). Both of these beers is also more "drinkable", as well. I mean this both in the sense that they are less filling, less chewy and "lighter" but also in the sense that they invite another, which is an even more important aspect of drinkability.

Adventures in Taylor (and Lincoln Park)

Lapeer Area Brewers made a road trip on Sunday to the Southwestern Detroit suburbs of Taylor and Lincoln Park. We visited Adventures in Homebrewing, where we bought several corny kegs and assorted other homebrewing products and Fort Street Brewery, where we sampled some great beers and fine food.

Adventures in Homebrewing has a great deal on Cornelius kegs. They sell used, pressurized, five gallon ball-lock kegs in decent shape for $17.99 apiece. That is about four or five dollars cheaper than the prices elsewhere. They also have a great selection of all the little items homebrewers need in their hobby and a whole bunch of the items we are all wishing for! Their prices for equipment were generally very good. Their prices for yeast and grain were beatable, however. Still, the overall experience was pretty darn good, as you can see from the shot of the club members leaving with their swag.



Fort Street Brewery was a great experience. Brewer Doug Beedy was present and as hospitable as any brewer I've ever met. He took the crew on a tour of the brewery and answered all questions with ease. We learned a lot about the brewery and it's short history, as well as the beer served there. We even got a chance to sample the newest of the Twelve Beers of Christmas, the 8th beer, "Hearth Ale". Doug described it as being brewed with eight different malts plus orange and lemon peels. It was a complex mouthful but not too heavy or harsh to have a few. We sampled it right out of the fermenter! It was a mahogany colored beer with excellent malty, bready flavors, with a hint of dark fruits and some hop spiciness. Yum!

I had two pints while there and sampled a few of the other available beers. There was not a bad beer ion the bunch. The first beer I tried was "Gentlemen, The Queen", an Imperial Engllish IPA. It was wonderful! If I didn't notice the glow I got after only about half the pint, I would never have known it weighed in at near eight percent ABV. The aroma was flowery and earthy hops. It poured with a slight, tight white head which dissipated quickly. The flavor was heavenly hop-charged, with a very flavorful, near perfumed hop presence. The sweetness was just enough to balance the 101 IBUs, and was bready and toasty in nature. Not exactly what one would think of when drinking an English IPA but it certainly was good! I can't remember the bittering hops used, but the flavor and aroma hops were E.K. Goldings and Fuggles. They were more pronounced and spicy than I would have guessed, though. All in all, a very fine beer!

The second beer was a lager brewed with Barley, Oat, Rye and Wheat malts, called "4X4". Interesting, to say the least! I love the spicy character, rye brings to beer and this one was no exception. The crisp, clean character of the lager beer only enhanced this effect. I liked this one a bunch, too.

Doug showed us his brewery and we saw many an interesting item that will soon be served to the lucky patrons at FSB. Two casks held highly hopped creations that were spiced with two different herbs. One was spiced with Astragula (i guess this is a root with some medicinal qualities)and the other with Angel-something or other. I do remember Doug say that he added hop additions every two minutes until he passed out, or something like that...Here's one of the firkins:



The food was interesting bar fare accentuated with such rare gems as Scotch Eggs, sauerkraut balls (check the menu)and pierogis. I didn't hear a bad comment from any of the ten diners there that night. In fact, while food was being eaten I didn't hear anything! Below is a pic of my pizza, Imperial IPA and Scotch Eggs on the right. YUM!



In short, good people, great service, great beer and a very nice location made this one of my favorite brewpubs to visit. If you are in the neighborhood, you MUST stop in! Check out Doug's Wall of Foam, if you do. It's a wall of posters created for the beers he makes. Very unique and creative.

The craft beer scene is certainly alive, here in Michigan! This is just one great example!

Road Trip!

The Lapeer Area Brewers are opting for a road trip in lieu of a meeting this month. We will be visiting a homebrew shop in Taylor called Adventures in Homebrewing and a Brewpub in Linclon Park called Fort Street Brewery. These businesses are a good hour and a half from Lapeer, so we don't get there often if at all.

AIH is building a great internet business and has attracted a lot of us by the great prices on items like reconditioned corny kegs and the like, while recently expanding into fabrication of brew keggles and sculptures. Check out their website for a good view of what they have to offer. They recently moved from a location in Dearborn to the current Taylor address. The site is big and promises to be a better venue for this thriving business. Currently, though they are trying to fit things into the new digs and straighten out the moving mess. I hope to post some pics and a review of the operation after our visit on Sunday (I was there a week ago to get a used corny, so I cheated).

Fort Street Brewery has about three years in the location, which once "was an empty lot that at one time or another had been a pharmacy, diner, farm, and the boyhood home of Preston Tucker", according to the FSB website. The brewer, Doug Beedy, has a great reputation in Michigan craft beer drinking circles. The establishment seems to be well-received for beer, food and atmosphere. To give you an idea of what type of brewpub this is, they are currently serving the Twelve Beers of Christmas, a specialty beer on the average of two per week leading up to the New Year's Day, 12th beer offering. Two of the most recent offerings thus far (as described by brewer Beedy)are
The 6th Beer of Christmas, "Garde jusqu a Noel" is a delicious French
biere de garde style. It's dark, mysterious, and deceptively strong.
The 7th Beer of Christmas, "Seven Elf Monks" is a little bit like the
legendary "When Monks Get Drunk" it's light, mysterious, and obviously
strong (clocking in at 8.8% ABV and 100 IBU's).
There is also a cask conditioned ale tapped (yeah, with a mallet!) every other Thursday!

It sounds like my kinda pub! Too bad it's 75 miles away! At least we'll get to sample it once a year or so. Stay tuned for the reviews of this establishment and their beers, coming soon!

The Session #23

It seems that change is a theme the entire world is dealing with at the moment. Hope for a better future seems also to be on the minds of many. The topic for the next edition of The Session, hosted by yours truly, will be a New Year theme. I would like to write about the yearly mix of the hope for the new rising out of the ashes of the old, as it relates to...beer. Specifically, what will you miss about 2008 (feel free to list your tasting notes, if that item is a particular beer) and what do you expect will excite you most in 2009 , in the "Beer World"?(again, if that is a beer, what about it is special and worthy of being excited about?)

As always the theme is a suggestion and is open to your interpretive manipulations. Your treatment can be a list of things, one of each, or a philosophical approach to whether or not there can be something "new" in the "Beer World". Predictions for the coming year are certainly not out of the realm of possibility, nor are elaborate treatments of the past year in beer.

The Session takes place on Friday January 2, 2009. Have fun and send your responses (or links to them) to me in an email (Brewmiker [@] charter.net)or a comment to this post.

Beer Freedom

It's The Session, beer blogging on a common topic, and this month it's "the repeal of Prohibition." See all the links soon here.

When I first thought about the topic for this month's Session, I thought about the eerie numerological aspects of the topic. The 18th Amendment being repealed by the 21st Amendment, the legal age of drinking being 18 and 21 in different States and countries, etc. Oooh! Scary! The beauty and symmetry of the concept was completely undermined by the fact that this is the 22nd Session, though. Oh well.

Then, I thought about celebrating the repeal of Prohibition and I got all giddy because...well, because I just happen to enjoy celebrations, in general. Of course my conscience wouldn't allow all that enjoyment without some thoughtful reflection (curse you, conscience!), so I began to wonder what exactly we were going to be celebrating, after all. Is it the end of Prohibition? The ability to drink beer? The revitalization of the brewing industry? I settled on something a bit more general: freedom, itself.

To this end, let's start with the absurdity of an Amendment to the Constitution that outlaws drinking alcohol. Talk about restricting freedom! It boggles the mind. Of course, the Constitution doesn't mention drinking but from what I've read, the development process involved more than a little of alcoholic fuel. I'm also willing to bet that if the Founders had ever imagined some dolt (or some great number of dolts, to be even more unbelievable) would even think of trying such an outlandish stunt, they would have enshrined the right to drink alongside some of our other enumerated rights in one of the first ten Amendments (My vote? Right after the right to bear arms...).

When the right to brew, sell and transport beer was revoked (drinking was actually not prohibited!), there was a very vibrant brewing scene in the United States. There were tens of thousands of breweries in this country before prohibition. Only a few dozen survived the 14 year prohibition. In fact there are probably less than twenty pre-prohibition breweries still in operation today. Almost all of those breweries made lagers, exclusively. Some produced ales. Some produced a range of lagers that would be considered interesting by today's standards but most of today's craft beer fans would consider the beer scene rather dull by comparison. Of course that was no reason to ban them!

After years of alcohol-fueled organized crime, which produced criminal elements that threatened our freedoms and livelihoods but also produced enhanced law enforcement entities and tactics which continue to threaten our freedoms and livelihoods, this farce of an Amendment was repealed. Yay! Interestingly, ten States never ratified the 21st Amendment! Michigan was the first State to do so on April 10, 1933. While I am proud of that fact, I would be much prouder if my State had been one of the two that did not vote for but repudiated the 18th Amendment (kudos, Rhode Island and Connecticut!). This act was something to celebrate more because of the wrongs it corrected than the rights it conferred. I like to think that we all had the right to brew, sell and drink beer as one of our unenumerated rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (hoppiness?).

As a homebrewer, there are actually reasons to celebrate Prohibition, rather than its repeal. Prohibition caused an explosion in the hobby of homebrewing. People brewed beer because they couldn't find any to buy. Like the homebrewing of old times, it became a necessity. The beer produced was often barely drinkable but did produce the desired effect. I imagine there were a few families who worked out pretty good brewing techniques and recipes, some of which may have become family-recipe-heirlooms, but I can't cite an example. Still, the homebrewing scene did not actually flourish under these conditions. Quantity did not equal quality, so to speak. If it had there would have been a variety of malted grains and hops available on a commercial basis, instead of the ubiquitous cans of Blue Ribbon and bags of sugar that everyone remembers hearing about. Given enough time, though, it probably would have grown much more sophisticated.

Fast forward to the future, after the 21st Amendment was passed and prohibition was repealed. Hooray! Breweries started up again and people began toasting their good cheer with the, now more consolidated and consistent, Light American Lagers being legally brewed in this country. Homebrewing went away for a long time. As a homebrewer and a craft beer lover, this was curiously a "dark age" of beer in America (why do we celebrate the Pre-Prohibition Pilsner, if it wasn't somehow better than the post-Prohibition Pilsner?). I'm all for celebrating the repeal of that onerous Amendment but we all need to realize that the repeal did not revitalize the industry as much as consolidate it. The few inventive breweries that existed before prohibition were largely wiped out by the 14 year hiatus. What survived was the thin watery light lagers that we know today. These beers competed for years and years with each other trying to carve out market share with clever ads, against nearly identical beers in different cans.

What I truly celebrate is the freedom produced by a vibrant society that enjoys the more refined and varied styles of beer that are being produced by the craft beer industry, today. Obviously, it is-at least partly-financial freedom that fuels this explosion in beer appreciation. Good beers are extremely expensive compared to mass market beer. Yet, even in these tough economic times, enough people are purchasing them to allow big expansion in the industry. Look at the dozens of 400 barrel fermenters laying outside the Bell's Brewery in Comstock, Michigan (one State recession, anyone?) being readied for installation if you don't think the industry is thriving. People have the time to enjoy good beer and the money to buy it, as well as the time to invest in learning about the subject to better appreciate it. A "nasty, brutish and short" existence this is not!

Homebrewers are no longer brewing out of necessity. They brew good beers because they enjoy the fruit of their labors. They enjoy the artistic elements in brewing and the pride in a job well done. They enjoy the fact that they can produce an excellent product that rivals any commercial example at home. They also would not be able to expend the time and efforts at such a trivial matter without financial and physical freedom. Oh, it's still true that beers brewed at home are cheaper than their counterparts purchased in a store but that's not the real reason homebrewers brew. The differential is not that great. Homebrewers brew because they enjoy the hobby and they want to become better brewers.

So, rather than simply celebrate the end of prohibition, which actually stifled artisinal brewing and homebrewing, I'd like to celebrate the freedom embodied in the act of ending so onerous a restriction on free individual expression. My celebration on December 5, 2008 will salute the flowering of free societies in the world which allows us all the freedom and leisure time to enjoy great craft beer and the homebrewing hobby as we now do. Now we have craft brewers that use the imagination and freedom that a vibrant and free society allows and encourages, to produce beers that continuously inspire and astound us. They are artists of fermentation and deserve all the wonderful rewards that such work receives. The craft beer industry and the homebrewing hobby have enjoyed such fantastic success that it seems impossible that it can continue to grow and expand as it does. Is there a craft beer/ homebrewing bubble that's about to burst? I hope not!

So, when you celebrate the ratification of the 21st Amendment on December 5th, as we all should do, celebrate the slow and inexorable march to individual freedom that it exemplifies and not just the right to brew beer again. And realize that this march is far from over. We have a long way to go but at least we can enjoy great beer during the march!

Screwups

All homebrewers have a list of screwups they can recount. The dropped carboys, ingredients discovered "leftover" when the brew day is done, the timing issues, and many others may come to mind. These aren't the things we like to admit to, much less recount to others in a blog, but I feel compelled to mention one that just simply irritates the heck out of me and this one is a week old!

Last week I bottled five gallons of beer with beet sugar. I also assisted a fellow homebrewer with his ten gallon bottling day. I checked the recipe on Beertools (I love that program!), and discovered that the recipe called for some 8 ounces of sugar to prime the batch. Now, since I was only bottling half the batch, you would think I would be smart enough to actually split the amount of suggested sugar in half and use that amount to bottle my five gallons. Well, then, you would be WRONG!

I decided that, instead of measuring the sugar by volume, I would actually weigh it. This would offer a much more precise method of measurement so that the carbonation would be more precise. Or, so I thought. I marvelled at the large volume of the sugar, remarking at how it was a full cup of sugar or more. "Wow", I said, "that looks like a lot of sugar. Maybe it's too much. I don't want bottle bombs!" So I intelligently poured out a little before I put it into the pot of hot water. So much for precision! Never did the fact that this was much more sugar than I have ever used to bottle a five gallon batch of beer before-in over eight years of brewing -ever cross my feeble mind!

Then after actually bottling the beer, I went to Art's house and assisted him in bottling his. You guessed it. I weighed the seven and a half ounces of sugar and used that amount for EACH of the five gallon batches we bottled. I really don't have an excuse for this. I knew all along that this was more sugar than should be used but the fact that I had taken the data from Beertools, left me assured that it was correct. Of course it was. Even Beertools could not keep me from doubling the amount of sugar they prescribed!

Later in the day, I realized my error. I knew that not only was I in trouble but that I had made potential bottle bombs in Art's house as well. I told him what I had realized and suggested we pop the tops and recap. This might release enough pressure to save the bottles from blowing and the beer from being wasted. I advised Art to keep his relatively cold while I kept mine room temp and 'sperimented a bit. Over the next couple of days I did just that. In one case I had a gusher the second day after bottling. I recapped and checked it again a day later. Another gusher. The same bottle third day? Gusher. I thought I might need to put on my hockey helmet to open these beers! I realized the plan would NOT work.

I called Art and we decided we would just pour all the beer into fermenters and let it finish out, then re-bottle. I went and bought a fourth Corny keg and put mine in there! If I want to bottle, I'll bottle out of the keg. Art put his into two carboys. When he says he's ready, I'll go and assist him in bottling his with the correct amount of sugar, this time. It's only right for me to do my penance!

Slainte!

Update

I racked the latest beer-the Mild-into kegs today. For the first time, I used carboy caps and CO2 to force the beer out of the carboys and into the kegs, through the "beer out" connection of the kegs. This method results in a beer that has never encountered the air. I have noticed an irritating off flavor in some of my beers over the past couple of years and believe this flavor comes from molds or other wee beasties in the home. This racking method is meant to minimize any such effects. We'll see.

After racking the beer, which was supposed to finish at 1.009 specific gravity, I force carbonated one of the kegs and had a couple (of course!). I was pleasantly surprised. It is exactly what I was hoping for. A mild (in alcohol) beer with a lot of flavor! The beer pours a wonderful, clear mahogany color, with a fine beaded, tan head. The hops are barely noticeable, both in the nose and in flavor/bitterness. They are homegrown Nugget and Cascade, so they are not true to style, but they suit me just fine. There is an abundant grainy/toasty flavor, with a good dose of coffee and chocolate (I love this chocolate malt!). The beer, though carrying some dark fruitiness, is not sweet at all but stands up well to the hops in malt complexity. A roasty finish makes the beer seem drier than it is. It will be a bit better in a week or so but it is quite tasty right now!

While the working title of the beer was Lapeer Mild, I've decide to call it something a bit more exciting. Henceforth, this shall be known as King Henry V's Barley Broth, in honor of the great English King and title character of the Shakespeare play. Henry V was an heroic King who defeated the French at Agincourt and married the French princess, Catherine of Valois, uniting the crowns of England and France (The Hundred Years' War).

The play, famous-at least partly-for the St. Crispin's Day Speech, is the final part of a tetralogy of plays devoted to 15th Century English kings. The speech Henry V delivers before the battle of Agincourt to rally his troops against long odds has been mimicked and reflected in so many different theatrical and cinematic performances, it has become an archetype. Two more common modern examples would be the rallying speeches of the President (Bill Pullman) in the movie Independence Day and William Wallace's (Mel Gibson) rallying speech from Braveheart.

My beer's title is a more obscure reference to a speech by the Constable of France in Act III, Scene IV, where he laments the ferocity of the English warriors:

Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull;
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem so frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields,-
Poor we may call them in their native lords!

To which, the Dauphin replies:

By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth
To new-store France with bastard warriors.

Now, perhaps the French knight from Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail would have a thing or two more hopeful to say but Shakespeare hadn't invented him yet. I believe this passage refers to the virtues of beer versus wine, though I can't prove it.

Grain Bill:

14 Lbs US 2-row
1 Lb US Crystal 60 L
1 Lb US Chocolate Malt
1 ounce Nugget 60 minutes
1 ounce Cascade 10 minutes
2 teaspoons Irish Moss
White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast
OG: 1.036
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.55%
Color: 19.36 SRM
Bitterness: 21.8 IBUs

Cheers!

Teach A Friend To Homebrew Day 2008

Today is Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Bet you didn't know that! I registered my house as Official TAFTHBD site #130 and had a few friends over to brew. You see them relaxing around the brewing beer to the left. We brewed twenty gallons of beer today! Art brewed five gallons of an American Wheat Ale with coriander and orange peels and five gallons of a Belgian Wit with coriander, orange peels and Morrocan preserved lemons! You can see it filling the carboy in the second photo on the page. Two other Lapeer Area Brewers are brewing either today or tomorrow, as well.

I brewed ten gallons of a simple English Mild. I strayed from the guidelines a bit as I wanted to use my own homegrown hops. My US Kent Goldings would have been the best choice but there were too few of them again this year so I opted for the American favorite, Cascade. I bittered with Nugget and added a pound of light Crystal malt for malty balance. In a few weeks I'll do a tasting and record the results, here. The beer came in at 1.036 OG and is otherwise "down the middle" of the style guidelines. It should be about 3.5% alcohol by volume; a nice session beer.

We had a great time today brewing, swapping stories and drinking homebrewed beer and cider (Thanks Brandon!). My lovely wife made a tremendous pot of Texas Chili (made with Venison Stew Meat that I butchered last week). OMG! Some homemade pita chips and a bit of sour cream and the spicy chili made for an excellent meal to top off a great day. And since I started at 6 AM we didn't finish cleaning up until after 6 PM, we needed that extra pick-me-up! I think that's what TAFTHBD is all about, really.

Slainte!
The Mild is to the left, there...

Musings...

I just picked the last of my hops. These are the Nugget Hops, a high alpha acid hop, used mainly for bittering. They may have a future inside some big, bold beer lurking somewhere in my brew-brain. I figure I got over a pound of dry weight hops out of this one! The final tally will come after the drying process, but it looks like I finished with over fifty-five ounces of free hops this year! My freezer is full and I need to brew...soon!

I just checked out the winners announcement from the Great American Beer Festival in Denver this weekend. Once again, Michigan's fine breweries were scarcely mentioned. It seems pretty weird that only West Coast breweries seem capable of winning in any of the APA/IPA-type categories, when there are exceptional IPA-like beers produced by brewers all over this country (Hopslam, Two-Hearted, Hop Devil, Dogfish Head, Flying Dog, Magic Hat, etc.).

The good news is that, for some reason, Redwood Lodge is always well-received at the GABF. They won the best small brewpub award, as well as a couple of Gold Medals (for Sweet Stout and Dunkel). Congrats to Bill Wamby and his crew! Detroit Beer Company also won Gold for their Detroit Dwarf (Alt), Bastone won Silver for Dunkel and Jolly Pumpkin won Bronze for Saison.

What I want to know is, where are all of the other great breweries from Michigan? Do any of you readers actually think that those four breweries are the best that Michigan has to offer? I'm not dissing these four breweries (I'm a lifetime mug club member at Bastone's, and am a frequent customer of all of them), I'm just saying there are other breweries here that make beer as consistently good or better and never get any awards at this, the greatest of the beer festivals. That seems strange if not wrong.

Short's Brewery, Arcadia, Bell's, Founder's, and many, many other fine establishments in this Great Beer State seem to be up against the West Coast Bias.

Discuss...

AHA Rally At Bell's!

What do you think about an event that combines a great bunch of friendly, creative and fun-loving people, a really interesting and exciting venue and the best damned (commercial) beer in Michigan? Well the latest American Homebrewers Association membership rally was just that kind of an event! It took place in Kalamazoo, Michigan but started off with a tour of the Bell's Brewery in Comstock, Michigan, about six miles away from the site of the rally, Bell's Eccentric Cafe.

Fred (one of my Lapeer Area Brewers buddies) and I went to the rally together and we enjoyed the beer, the special guests and the camaraderie very much. We met Brandon, newest L.A.B. member, and his lovely wife Melissa, at the brewery tour, and hung out together the rest of the day. The tour was pretty cool. We saw the entire Bell's operation learned about the bhistory of the brewery and all the changes that are even now, still taking place. We were greated upon arrival by the sight of two dozen extremely large cylindro-conical stainless steel ferementers, piled all around the building. These, we were told during the tour, were 24 brand new 400 barrel fermenters! Each one of these fermenters will hold over 12000 gallons of delicious Bell's beer! They are to be installed in the next week or so. I forgot my camera but many others didn't and I believe you can see some one hundred photos or more of the tour and the rally at this website (courtesy of Mike Obrien at the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild-thanks for the link Mike!)

The Michigan Homebrewing community was well represented. I saw Fred Bonjour, Jeff Renner and Jeff Carlson and many, many other excellent homebrewers who contribute mightily to the homebrewing scene here in the Great Beer State. The host for the event was Larry Bell, the guy who started the craft-brewing revolution in Michigan and its most successful practicioner. The guests of honor were AHA founder and homebrewing Godfather, Charlie Papazian and his lovely wife Sandra. The fact that I forgot my camera or even that I forgot the tattered, dog-eared and wort-stained eight-year-old copy of The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian, that I was very excited to present to the author for a signature, won't surprise any of you that actually know me but that did indeed happen! I got my Pontiac Brew Tribe hat bill signed, instead, though, so no worries, mate!

Speaking of the Brew Tribe, when I met Larry Bell for a picture and to thank him for the party, he took one look at my hat and said, "I have one of those"! I calmly tipped up the brim and asked if his was signed by Charlie Papazian, and he said, sheepishly, that it was not. Noticing my cup was empty just before the photo was taken of Fred, Brandon, Larry and me, I asked Larry, who had a nearly full pale ale in his hand, for a little fill up. He happily obliged with a tip of his cup and we shared a Bell's beer together. Hey, I mooched a beer off of Larry Bell!


A good time was had by all and the AHA increased in numbers again, thanks to the generosity of Bell's Brewery, the founder of the AHA, Charlie Papazian, and the efforts of the Michigan homebrewing community!
I hope to get some photos of this event added to another post, soon. Until then, cheers!

Hops Harvest Begins!

Picking began the other day with the most ripe of my four hop varieties, the Hallertau. They were actually just a bit beyond optimum ripeness but should be just fine as they are not brown or crispy, yet. The harvest should yield a few ounces of this fine German hop for my next wohlschmeckend (Tasty) brew. The picture on the right is a full screen-door-sized screen which I suspended from the ceiling to dry the hops on. Looks loaded, don't it? I went into the garage yesterday and the smell is intoxicating!

The next variety that will be picked will be the U.S. Goldings, though there will be precious little of that. These just are not thriving. Maybe I'll get an ounce but I doubt it. The next variety after that will be the Cascade. That variety will make up for the lack of Goldings. I should get several ounces of Cascade hops. The final pickings will be the high Alpha acid hop, Nugget. Again, there should be plenty of these to go around! Fortunately, these varieties all mature at different times, so there is time to pick and dry one variety before the arduous picking begins again.

All told, this will be my best hop harvest ever. That's great because as many of you know, the hop shortage has made my farming hobby a near necessity!

Cheers!