And Then There Was A Keg
Thanks to a little extra summer work, I now have the means to keg beer. Which means I'll save super-ridiculous amounts of time that I would have spent bottling beer, and also I'll have my own kegged beer. Here's what it alls gets down to. Hardware: 5 gallon Cornelius keg (soda keg) 5 lb. CO2 tank dual gauge regulator Software: beer (obviously) So here's how I understand the process to work. (I who haven't actually kegged anything yet but have read about it.) 1. I'll clean and sanitize the keg. It used to hold soda, and it still smell like it when I open it up. This will not...
Top of the Hops Beer Festival in Jackson
Last weekend, my wife and I and some friends went to the Top of the Hops beer festival in Jackson, MS. The festival was indoors, which was nice considering it was hotter than two hells outside, and they had about 150 beers, according to the website and publicity. So how was it?
This is how it was.
This festival had several good beers to try. Rogue was there, Merchant Du Vin was there (the Samuel Smith beers), Abita, Lazy Magnolia, Sam Adams, Yazoo were all there as well. And I tried at least one beer from...
On Bartenders
I've written a fair amount about beer on this site. Obviously. But I haven't addressed many things that're just related to beer. Whether the relation is tangential, integral, or something like a by-product (which could also be tangential, I'm slightly less than good at math), you won't have found my indisputable and groundbreaking opinions of said topics in the posts before this one. Before this one. There are many ways to drink beer: from a 12 pack of cans while sitting on your couch watching [insert favorite sport]; through a rented picnic tap while being suspended upside down above a keg by...
Beer News: Calagione and Batali Open Brewpub in NYC
I recently (a day ago) found out that two people who I think are pretty damn kick-ass are opening a brewpub in New York City. While I don't live in NYC, it is possible for me (and you) to go there, so I am excited about the news. Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, and Mario Batali, who used to be on numerous Food Channel shows and is the owner of Otto (an awesome pizza place in NYC that you should definitely go to if you're in the city) among other restaurants, are part of a group of people about...
Drinking It All: #26 Rogue John John Ale
Drinking It All is a document of my attempt to try every beer in circulation. It’s a Herculean and tragic attempt at best. But it’s the means, not the end that counts here. – Before we left Atlanta last weekend (for you faithful readers of my humble serial), Steve sent us back with a big bottle of Rogue's John John Ale. Which said ale is a pale ale brewed with juniper berries (sound familiar?) and aged in spruce (wood) gin (liqour) barrels. I'll preface the rest of this post by saying that this beer may be the most complicated, in terms of...
Brewed Slowly: #7 American Pale Ale
So when I bought the stuff for the last beer I made (80 Shilling), I went ahead and got what I'd need to make a Pale Ale. I haven't made one in about six months, so I figured I was due for it. This time I wanted to try to make the beer more on the balanced side with regard to the malt/hops ratio than I would for, say, my attempts at an IPA. That said, I did buy the same hops that Sierra Nevada dry-hops their Torpedo IPA with with the intention of dry-hopping this pale ale similarly. The...
Drinking It All: #25 Lazy Magnolia Gulf Porter (cont.)
Drinking It All is a document of my attempt to try every beer in circulation. It’s a Herculean and tragic attempt at best. But it’s the means, not the end that counts here. – Before you read this entry, you should (if you haven't already) read the first part. Monday, my wife and I did a little experiment in which we tasted the Gulf Porter, Sierra Nevada's Porter, and Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan (which, on Sunday, I was afraid the Gulf Porter mimicked too much). I got her to taste all three beers blind and tell me what they tasted...
Updated/corrected Beer By-product: Bread
Note: I'm updating this recipe and posting it again because I've since been omitting the milk and extra cup of water. The result is a lighter bread, with more air holes inside. After I made the Scottish 80 Shilling beer, I had a pound of Simpsons Crystal grains to do something with. Normally, I toss all the grains and hops into the compost bowl, but I've read that these grains can be used for other interesting means. So I figured: We buy whole grain bread, and I make beer, which can't be all that different from making bread. Light bulbs, virtually and...
Drinking It All: #25 Lazy Magnolia Gulf Porter
Drinking It All is a document of my attempt to try every beer in circulation. It’s a Herculean and tragic attempt at best. But it’s the means, not the end that counts here. – I haven't posted a 'Drinking It All' in a while, and I've got a fair amount of beer piling up in our refrigerator (so much that I'm considering plugging in the beer refrigerator downstairs to catch the overflow). But I recently acquired a jug of Lazy Magnolia's Gulf Porter, which I opened yesterday, so I've got to write about it soon--as in now. Lazy Magnolia is the one,...
Brewed Slowly: #6 Scottish 80 Shilling
I've been watching a lot of golf this week (since The Players Championship is on tv), and I haven't yet posted about the last beer I've made. Now that I look at the date I brewed it on, I can't blame my tardiness solely on golf. In any case, here's the last beer I made. It's a Scottish 80 Shilling--a British session beer that's heavier on the malt than the hops. I got no pictures of the brewing process, but here's what I do got: an Ommegang Hennepin Belgian Saison to drink and Hollywood Town Hall on the stereo (Mostly, Jayhawks...
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