Been a Long Time...

With no experience in blogging, I did not know what to expect when I began posting a few months ago. My initial fear of being completely irrelevant has been assuaged some as a small group of readers has developed and interacting with random people that have discovered the blog on their own has been very fun. Also becoming apparent to me is the amount of time one must dedicate to updating a blog (on any subject) in a timely manner. Between work, beer education and the rest of my interests, it is not always easy to find the time to document what has been happening in my beer world, let alone be witty about it. However, it is a labor I undertake with much joy and passion, if only to satisfy the incredibly large geek inside of me.

Although it has been over a week since my last post, it has been far from uneventful. Carl and I have been hard at work as our brew days are filling up with more than just brewing. Monitoring fermentation, racking, kegging, bottling and the ever-important quality control tastings have filled up our time and the brew days are far from lazy days in the sun, sipping our previous batches. Due to our diligent pre-planning and attention to detail as the day progresses, the brew days have been more or less going smoothly (when our equipment cooperates) and we have been enjoying our work.

We brewed a big hoppy IPA that is a departure from the Bagombo recipe as a “one-off” in honor of a pretty big life event happening for some friends later this summer (it is supposed to be a surprise). Using a mix of Perle, Magnum, Chinook and Cascade hops is going to make this one very complex but satisfying in the warm waning days of the summer and with a huge dry hop bill, the aroma is going to be intense. A little inspiration and a trip to the hardware store finally solved our wind problems in the form of cinder blocks and a more powerful stove borrowed from the Budge Brothers (thanks, guys!) made the brew day move quickly, but the added work of racking the Thieving Bastard evened us out.

A few days before, we had kegged the Mother Night American-style India Black Ale. I wanted to also get some into 22oz bottles to share and to lay down for cellaring and that provided some head scratching as I worked out how much priming sugar to use and how to divide it amongst the bottles. That big lump on my shoulders finally kicked on and the problem became a memory. Moving forward, bottling a small amount and kegging the rest of a batch will be routine for us and that particular comedy of errors will not need to repeat itself.

Last week, before heading into the woods for some camping, Carl and I took on our first full bottling session. The second batch of Bagombo IPA was ready and as it is the most popular beer I make, putting it into bottles to share just makes more sense than kegging. I warned Carl that bottling makes for the longest work day of making your own beer and to be prepared for more hours than brewing. Turns out we are a very efficient team and the day went faster than any other bottling day I have taken part in.

We now have the Pool-Pah Pale and the Mother Night ASIBA in kegs and the Bagombo IPA in bottles with the Thieving Bastard getting bottled this week, all of which is accompanied by the few remaining bottles of the Granfalloons Belgian Tripel I had brewed previously with Brian. Stay tuned for a review post of the beers that are carbonated and ready to drink by week’s end.