All posts by grub

brewing day

yeast growth made easy

this was sort of a “starter” brewday. both of these batches were certainly interesting in their own way, but we really wanted to use them to grow some big fat yeast cakes for our pair of year-end brews: this year’s old ale and a russian imperial stout. we wanted a nice english yeast strain for the old ale, and decided to go with good ol’ chico for the RIS. as a result, we figured we’d want a nice light english ale and a lighter american themed beer that could be fairly dark.

for the american side, we ended up taking a stab at something similar to kuhnhenn‘s creme brulee java stout – a sweet stout around 5-6% using vanilla beans, coffee, and some seriously caramelized wort. this was our Creme Brulee Java Stout.

for the english side, an ESB seemed like a good choice. i found a good looking recipe online and tweaked it until we were happy with it.

me checking the mash temperature.

our guest for this brewday was don. he wanted to get the full all-grain experience and is looking to move into this too. always nice to share our love of brewing with someone new, and have an extra pair of hands to help out on a brewday.

one of the batches mashing.

magic elixer for the CBJS. we wanted to really burn/caramelize it to get that nice “brulee” character. it was getting a little angry in the second photo.

brewday lunch! pulled pork sandwiches and homemade coleslaw. there was something tasty in my sweet surly darkness glass, i just can’t remember what it was now…

you can sort of see how much the elixer had boiled down, and the trail of carnage on the sides of the pot from when it got angry.

the elixer and i think the ESB beside it.

don keeping an eye on things.

it started to rain, so we had to pull the burners just under the edge of the garage. i was doing a hop addition to one of the two.

this shot shows some of the carnage that is my basement, but the real focus here should be on all those corked and caged bottles. we decided to get a corker and finish off some of our special batches this way. in october we bottled three batches this way: my killa gorilla super saison, eric’s frostbitten moongoat of the north braggot, and his calvados-oak-aged monk’s elixer. we eventually got around to putting labels on them all too. a little expensive and time consuming, but damn do they look cool!

brewing day

pumpkin and hops

this brewday was all about two things: pumpkin and hops.

first, we had eric brewing up his favourite fall seasonal, Pumpkin Ale 2008.

at the same time, i wanted to brew a beer that would showcase my homegrown hops. my first year crop was so small that it became a footnote on another beer. the second year i used non-homegrown hops for bittering and my homegrown hops for the rest of the casc imperial porter that was featured at volo cask days 2007. this year i used my homegrown centennial to bitter and homegrown centennial and cascade the rest of the way. the result was my Homegrown Hop Pale Ale.

me transferring the mash from the keggle to the tun for sparging.

the hops for the pale ale – my full harvest of cascade and centennial.

a hop addition, boulevard saison, and eric’s spice concoction for the pumpkin ale.

me skimmin’ the scum.

this is me trying to use the chiller to stir in the flameout hop addition. this thing was crazy full of hops.

the hops left in the keg after transferring the beer out. the false bottom worked like a charm and didn’t stop until we reached the bottom. of course, with that much hops they held a fair amount of liquid so our yield was a little low.

eric squeezing out the hops.

the wort left in the bottom after wringing out the hops. probably lost a couple gallons as a result. ah well, the beer was still good!

brewing day

the moongoat, the gorilla, and the georgia peach

after our previous saison brewday i really wanted to reuse the yeast cake for a big saison. the idea was to have an “imperial” or “super saison”, the big brother to the dirty ape saison. i pretty much took that 10 gallon recipe, darkened and tweaked it a little and brewed it up as a 5 gallon batch. and thus the killa gorilla was born.

eric had been talking about making a braggot for a while. he put together a recipe for the frostbitten moongoat of the north, a big ass beer with a whole bunch of honey.

jan wanted to make something lighter and belgian. we decided to use some of the dirty ape yeast cake, slim down and lighten the recipe, then throw in some peaches. the georgia saison was the result. a bunch of amarillo was used as it tends to have a nice light peachy/apricot character that we thought would work well.

the black saison in the carboy on the left and the dirty ape saison in the fermenter on the right. saison yeast likes it warm, so they were fermented in my garage where they’d be happy.

janno milling the grain for his saison…

…and stirring the mash while we were bringing the temperature up a short while later.

this is one of my new ported keggles. for mashing, i don’t want to worry about the false bottom and all that, and i don’t want grain getting into the valve, so i just got a plug that i can swap in for times like this to turn it into a “standard” keggle.

teflon and the parts for the external side of the keggle bulkhead.

jan’s peaches getting diced and ready for some time in the oven. also pictured is the pork that would become our pulled pork lunch.

sparge water on the burners and two beers mashing away.

first runnings on jan’s saison.

eric stirring his braggot mash.

first wort hops waiting for the collection of the braggot to begin.

jan and i emptying the braggot mash from the cooler so i could get the killa gorilla going.

jan adding his peaches at flameout.

the braggot…

jan’s saison cooling and the killa gorilla and braggot boiling. weather turned crappy and rainy, so we pulled the burners just inside the garage to keep the beer rain-free.

jan’s saison going into the fermenter.

the first dose of honey for the braggot: 1.5kg/3.3# of oak honey.

the chunky bottom of jan’s beer. peaches, hops, and trub clogged up the can and made siphoning a bit of a pain…

rain washing away the gunk.

i harvested yeast from the dirty ape saison for use in the saisons that jan and i brewed. here i was using a sanitized measuring cup to scoop out some yeast for jan’s saison. the killa gorilla was transferred straight onto the rest of the yeast cake.

the yeast slowly dispersing throuhg jan’s saison.

the killa gorilla and georgia saison, pitched and waiting for aeration.

brewing day, equipment, tasting

saison time + new gear

saison is a style that i’ve been interested in brewing ever since the first time i tried one. it’s an interesting and very broad style. after reading farmhouse ales i was even more interested.

with such a broad style, there were so many places that i could have started. as luck would have it, i was browsing the homebrewing forum on beer advocate when i ran across this posting by SV650TN that caught my attention. i used his recipe as a base for what i later dubbed the Dirty Ape Saison in his honour.

eric had also been working on an idea for a “black saison”, basically a typical saison recipe but adding in dehusked carafa iii and special b malts to give it a darker colour without the roasty or astringent character typically found in stouts and porters. he dubbed the final recipe Saisons In The Abyss.

this is a style that usually needs to be fermented on the warm side, not really at the sort of temperature i can maintain in the house. i decided the best solution would be to ferment it in my garage. last year we didn’t manage to find a time that matched well with the weather (always was either too hot or too cold), so it was put on hold until this year.

i waited through the spring and knew that if i wanted to make them i needed to do it now (mid july) before it got too hot in august or too cool beyond. during the week leading up to the brewday i was a bit nervous as temps were in the 95F range, but i was hopeful that it wouldn’t last. as luck would have it, by saturday the temp was falling a little (though still very humid) and the forecast was for the humidity to break and for temps to ease off to about 80F, right where i wanted.

first up, some new equipment.

i’ve long wanted something larger and more durable than our existing glass carboys, at least for primary fermentation. years ago we considered putting a lid on our boil keggle and fermenting in it, but we never got it to a point where we were happy with the seal or lid. however, i recently found this page describing how to turn kegs into fermenters. i was convinced that i should be able to do something similar.

i got 4 50L/13gal kegs over the winter with intentions of turning two of them into fermenters and the other two into keggles. scott found them online and shared them with the rest of us. since he also works at a welding shop, he had a friend and coworker cut the tops off with a plasma cutter. i had the two fermenters cut with an 8″ hole – big enough to get inside and clean them yet small enough that i could put a lid on. i had the other two cut with a standard 12″ opening and also had a bulkhead welded in.

first up was the fermenters. i picked up a 2’x4′ sheet of 1/4″ acrylic and cut a pair of 10″ diameter lids. a 36″ piece of 3/4″ steel box tubing would be used for the brace on both lids. some washers, nuts, and o-bolts would hold it all together. some 1/8″ tubing would be used to make a rough seal.

i took the 1/8″ tubing and slit it open lengthwise. i then used that to cover the cut edge of the keg top. i initially tried to seal the two ends together with some silicone sealant, but it didn’t quite work. even without that it formed a fairly decent seal. here you can see the (still dirty) keg with the tubing in place.

these two show the brace that will hold the lid in place. i had to notch out the ends since i didn’t have clearance to slide the full bar under the handles along with the nut+washer+lid. this didn’t seem to change the strength in any noticeable way – it’s still much stronger than the acrylic would be if put to the test.

i chose a washer that sits on the end of the bolt, so the lid will be protected from the bolt. the O is purely for ease of tightening and a plain old bolt or wing nut would probably work just fine too. this was an easy and inexpensive option.

i didn’t bother with trying to tap the steel bar and just got a bolt that sits on the bottom. over time the threads on the bolt might get worn down, but i have a feeling it’ll last more than long enough.

here you can see the two lids with a 1 1/4″ hole cut for an airlock/blowoff. they still have the protective paper on both sides.

this shows how the lid would be assembled. the longer slotted end is inserted first, then slid over until the other end is in place. the nut and bolt are tightended until the lid is snug and secure. you’ll see this in action later…

you can’t quite tell with the glare, but i was trying to show how i protected the lid from the bottom of the washers. the link above suggested using a piece of rubber. i made it easy and just stuck on a piece of duct tape and cut around it. that should do the trick.

you can’t quite tell, but i was trying to show how i glued the two ends of the 1/8″ tubing together with silicone. alas, as soon as i tried to remove it from the keg it fell apart. i might try melting the ends together, and failing that i’ll just leave it unattached.

the shiny new bulkhead+valve on the keggle. 1″ long 1/2″ MTP brass nipple, 1/2″ FTP stainless ball valve, and 1/2″ MTP to 1/2″ brass hose barb.

fatal flaw that would become apparent later: not using teflon tape on the connections.

inside view of the keggle. the pickup tube is fairly standard. 1/2″ MTP to 1/2″ copper connector, a couple pieces of copper pipe, and an elbow. you can also see my atypical false bottom – more on that in a moment.

here you can see the bulkhead+valve on the second keggle. notice how i had to turn the valve upside down. the vent hole just to the left of the bulkhead would have had way too much heat going upwards and melted the handle on the valve, so i flipped it this way. ideally the vent would be nowhere near the valve, but in this case it was too late.

a closer look at my false bottom. usually these are flat, sometimes hinged, perforated steel plates that cover the whole bottom from wall to wall and sit fairly high. the other approach is to use something like a bazooka tee – a screen tube attached to the pickup.

scott had hooked me up with some perforated stainless steel plate, but it was only about 11″ wide, so if i wanted to cover teh whole bottom i’d definitely need to figure out a hinge. the other reason it’d need a hinge is that the opening on the keggle doesn’t go right to the edges. i thought a dome or cone shaped bottom with an 11″ diameter would work pretty well and also be small enough to fit through the 12″ opening.

i made a cardboard template 11″ across, then transferred it to the steel plate. i used the grinder with a stainless steel cutting wheel to cut out the circle, then made a slit to the center. this is pretty sturdy stuff, so i had to use the holes to pry the two edges together, holding them in place and then beding a little more. a couple of screws helped to hold it all together. i then a dremel with a fiberglass reinforced cutoff wheel to trim out the center hole just big enough for a copper pipe to fit through.

here you can see the pickup tube that i made. this sits flush with the bottom of the keggle, which is why i made some slots in the sides to allow wort in.

the extra piece is a 3/4″ couplr that i modified so it’ll slip over the end of the tube. this helps to hold the false bottom snug on the bottom of the kettle.

i’m going to solder the left hand end into the 1/2″ MTP adapter that screws into the bulkhead, and also the downward side of the elbow. the other connection will be left unsoldered for assembly. it’s common to leave this joint open and cut a notch in the elbow, using a clamp to make sure it’s snug. so far a friction fit has worked out well enough for me.

this shows it assembled as it’d look in the keggle. it fits pretty well to the bottom, with enough surface area to collect most of the hops and trub yet still allowing the wort through. i have all the parts and need to make one for the second keggle.

me figuring out strike volume/temp and taking photos of the new gear.

jenn and jan ran out to pick up propane, sugar for the saisons, and supplies for lunch. they also returned with this net+ball thing that eric were using here…

…and this inflatable centepede sprinkler.

jan stirring the mash on the dirty ape saison. it was pretty hot and humid, so it didn’t take long for jan+eric to lose their shirts.

me about to dough in the black saison.

the temp on the black saison was a bit low, so we threw it back on the heat. here you can see eric using the mini-paddle that scott made.

me and the boys. i’m rockin’ my new hop-and-crossbones shirt from homebrew tees. this might seem familiar, as i’ve been using it as my avatar on beer advocate and other sites and also as the unofficial logo for our hopocalypse ipa.

you may remember my homebrewer shirt from them being featured in past brewday blogs. after ordering it and talking with chris/oxmasterscream, we got to talking about other shirt designs. he has some other cool designs in the works. we talked about using my hop-and-crossbones design for a shirt, which seemed like a great idea. i had always thougth it’d make a great shirt, just hadn’t got around to having some printed. this meant that i wouldn’t have to bother and more people would get to enjoy them. so help out a fellow homebrewer and order one from chris today!

jan posing it up…

…and weight lifting with the keggle.

eric getting ready to sparge the black saison.

jan cleaning up the new ported keggle.

eric cleaning up the keggle and getting ready for collection of the black saison.

adjusting the flow rate on the black saison. this one started running pretty slow due to the dehusked carafa and the wheat, but we managed to collect the expected volume before it jammed right up.

vorlauf on the regular saison and the keggle assembled and ready for action.

the saison mash during vorlauf.

the black saison looking pretty black.

sparging the saison on the left. on the right is jays’ most recent edition of the pineapple ale. this time he fermented it with a kolsh yeast, which seems to have worked out really well. quite tasty!

both beers cooking away. the black saison on the left was already boiling, and the regular saison was almost there.

at this point you might notice that this is our old standard keggle and not the shiny new one with the false bottom and ball valve. remember that comment above about teflon tape? well when the keggle was about half full i noticed that there was a very slow leak from between the bulkhead and the ball valve. i tried tightening it up, but it actually seemed to make it leak worse. i left it alone until we were done collection and then transferred the wort into the old keggle.

the good news was that the pickup tube worked like a charm, leaving almost no wort in the bottom. i’ve since taken it back apart and will be reassembling it with some teflon tape this time…

one of the new fermenters (since we only needed one today) cleaned, sanitized, and ready for action. i dumped in some sanitizer and sealed it up, then rolled it around for a few minutes. i turned it upside down and let it drain out and covered the airlock opening with a piece of plastic wrap.

the black saison in the fermenter.

the dirty ape saison transferring into the new fermenter.

“you ain’t cool unless you pee your pants.”

jan popping into frame.

“i added dice and the disco ball”

jan posing again.

the beers already looking pretty happy, with blowoffs installed.

the end of another successful brew day. harviestoun ola dubh 12, 16, and 30 ready for sampling.

jan excited about the 12.

me playing with the foil wrapper and ready to open a beer.

brewing day

canada day belgian

this year we celebrated canada day by brewing up a belgian. after brewing the little monk to generate a fat yeast cake it was finally time to brew this year’s edition of the monk’s elixer, now 10gal instead of just 5. since it was a holiday we decided to keep it light and only brew a single batch.

start of the brewday. me getting the grains crushed and eric heating the strike water.

some shots of this year’s hop crop. looking good so far.

adding the crushed grains to the keggle.

me and eric.

eric rockin’ the biergotter tee.

me working on promash.

you want some of this?

the mash paddle is also handy for stirring up the water before taking temperature readings.

checking the temp on the strike water.

shot of the two mini-keggles.

doughing in the quad.

eric stirring the mash.

this was an all-metal brewday with a fine mix of early metallica and megadeth. her you see eric and i rocking out with some air guitars, which i think was while listening to battery from master of puppets. a kickass opening to a pretty edeadly album.

eric had also apparently decided it was time to lose his shirt. personally, i’d have chosen to get rid of jeans in favour of some shorts first.

eric having some eggs. jenn made a sweet omlet with chicken and some excellent cheese. eric said it was a pretty legendary omlet.

first runnings along with 4.4#/2kg of demerara sugar…

…and onto the boil it goes. we left this to boil while the rest of the wort was collected and until it came up to a boil. this “magic elixer” gives a great carmelized character that really makes the beer.

the elixer had come up to a boil and was starting to get angry. eric was quite excited.

me checking on the rest of the wort.

eric still fascinated by the magic elixer.

damn that shit looks sexy.

ok, i was excited about it too.

still sparging.

with the sparging done, it as time to get the main wort going. you can already see that the magic elixer on the left had boiled down a fair bit.

when it got down to about 1/3 of its original volume, it changed from small dense foam to these huge honeycomb-like bubbles that were threatening to boil over at any moment. this is about when we decided it was time to dump it back into the original wort.

that was right around when chris dropped by to visit. unfortunately, kyoko was stuck at work.

adding the magic elixer into the main wort. you probably can’t tell from the photos, bit it was thick and syrupy. and looked delicious. maybe i should bottle this stuff to put on pancakes…

eric skimming the scum.

since we were using mostly noble hops, we needed a ton (5oz) for the bittering addition. i really needed to take my time adding them as the beer was getting pretty angry. here you can see it threatening to boil over, and i still had another 2oz to add.

finally managed to get the last of the hops in.

talking beer with chris.

eric cleaning out the cooler tun at the end of the day.

jenn somehow managed not to end up in any of the brewday photos (usually because she’s busy taking most of them and making sure we’re fed+hydrated).

brewing day, tasting

dubbel+houblon

time to make up more belgians. the quad and tripel we made last year turned really well, and i knew i wanted to make the monk’s elixer again – partially because i didn’t get to drink nearly enough of it and also because jenn loved it and requested more. however, before i could make the quad, i’d need to do a smaller beer to generate a yeast cake up to the task of fermenting that giant beast. the simplest solution, and one i’d been contemplating anyway, was to create it’s little brother – a dubbel. i took the original monk’s elixer recipe and scaled it down to get the little monk.

rather than brewing the same (big) tripel we did last time, jan suggested that we do something like a belgian IPA along the lines of the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel from Achouffe. jan and i did a little research and came up with this houblon-ish recipe. similar to some clones we found, but with our own twist to keep it interesting.

on to the photos!

me, jan, and eric at the start of the brewday.

eric.

me and jan.

jan

eric working on grinding the grain.

keggles cleaned and ready for use.

eric cleaning out a pot.

jan cleaning and reassembling the manifold for our cooler tun.

the grain mill only has one (foldable) leg, with the bucket holding up the other end. works great while grinding, but when you need to remove the bucket either someone has to stand there and hold it (annoying) or you need a replacement leg. in this case we use our bucket tun. on eof these days i’m going to replace this with a second foldable leg so that we can still store it easily and yet have it stand on its own without a bucket.

me topping up the mill with grain. when buying a barley crusher people often ask whether they should get the model with the 7# or 15# hopper. the reality is, we’re almost always using more than 15# of grain in a batch, so we’d always have to refill the mill periodically. filling it up more often with the 7# model is really no big deal, so i say save the extra $24 and just go with the 7# model. if you find yourself wanting a larger hopper you can always build one.

grains for the dubbel, ground and ready for the mash.

on brewdays we’re always trying to find somewhere to prop up the mash paddle so it’s not sitting on the ground. usually that is a keggle or balanced on top of a propane tank, but that can be messy. so i just hammered a nail into the outside frame of the garage so it can hang. easy enough to rinse this off later if necessary. sometimes it’s the simple things that make brewdays easy.

jan stirring the mash for the dubbel. the mash temp was a little shy, so we had to bump it up a bit. good luck doing that if you don’t mash in a kettle!

jan cleaning and prepping the cooler tun.

me starting the vorlauf on the dubbel and eric looking on.

jan finishing up with the cooler tun.

with the vorlauf done, we had just started collection.

it was a warm day, so jenn made sure we all drank lots of water.

me hooking up the hose to the bulkhead valve.

eric doing the danse la poutine dance while the runoff on the houblon started.

boom goes the dynamite.

morning snacks and a beer, some homebrew that jan brought over from his friend rudy in buffalo.

another invention for this brew day is on the table between the bottle and bte blue cups. the thermometer is always on the table, rolling around or getting stuck. so i grabbed a scrap of wood and put a notch in it so that we can rest the thermometer on it. now it doesn’t roll around or get stuck to the table.

fastforward to the end of the brewday. the dubbel in the carboy and eric and i talking about how much we’d got and whether to dillute it a little. we got higher than expected boil-off, so there was lower volume at a higher gravity than expected. we added a half gallon of water to bring it up to 5gal at 1.067.

with the dubbel in the fermenter and the houblon boiling, it was finally time to sit down for a few minutes.

houblon boiling away.

houblon going into the fermenters.

me firing up the compressor. at the end of the brewday i use the compressor to blow out any water that’s left in our immersion chiller. works pretty well.

with the brewday done it was time to relax on the patio with a beer and some euchre!

a short while later chirs and kyoko arrived for dinner and an evening of sampling. here we see kyoko, aka “pregasaurus”, hiding behind her purse. that is a massive purse.

she came out of hiding, but with some sunglasses.

chirs, eric, kyoko, jan, and me. jenn taking some expert photos, which unfortunately means she’s not seen.

a couple of the beverages we sampled on the patio. flying dog wild dog colorado saison and victory v-saison.

me working the grill.

kyoko and jan.

eric doing the “very hairy jake gyllenhaal”

eric and kyoko.

jan and jenn.

jan rockin’ that shoelace headband.

eric and jenn after we moved things inside.

kyoko and jenn.

kyoko, jenn, eric, chris, and me.

biergotter represent, biotch!

the almighty skweek.

jenn and kyoko.

getting setup for more beer + euchre.

eric torturing the cats.

time for some beer!

here we were all enjoying the baird brewing co midnight oil export stout that chris and kyoko brought back from a recent trip to japan. it was some good stuff!

skweek being an attention hog.

jenn and kyoko.

i’ve been waiting for a while to do this one. partially because i knew it’d be exciting, and partially because i knew i’d need help to get through 4 bombers at over 10%. a four year vertical (2005-2008) of stone imperial russian stout.

jan was clearly excited about it.

everyone finishing off the baird’s and waiting to crack the first stone.

metal baby.

the 2005 was gone and we were on to the 2006…

the 2005 was pure heaven, definitely the best of the bunch.

beer makes you crazy!

stay tuned for the big monk’s elixer brewday in a couple of weeks.

tasting

saison tasting 2008

may 24th saw the return of jan’s successful summer saison tasting. we all had a blast last year and were looking forward to it again.

as always, jan had assembled a huge pile of food and snacks to compliment the excellent lineup of saisons and other fine beers, most pulled directly from his own cellar.

first bottle of the day. brooklyn local 1.

a few shots of the tasty food and snacks that jan had on hand. a little something for everyone.

the growing pile of bottles…

everybody and some desserts.

more bottles…

still growing…

towards the end of the day most folks started leaving to head back into the city.

one of jan’s cats. it was pretty much hanging out with us for most of the afternoon.

jan and eric

me

georgia, jan and eric.

badger badger badger badger.

jan’s dad ron and i.

once the sun went down it got a little cooler, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying more beer!

georgia and jan. georgia was enjoying some new glarus wisconsin belgian red.

more shots of everyone.

the bottles for the day…many fine brews…

we eventually moved inside for more sampling and euchre. i was also pretty excited to watch the celtics knocking the pistons around in game 3 of the nba eastern conference finals.

me enjoying the game.

eric looking a little tired.

jan busting out one of the last beers of the night.

when the day was done we’d gone through a great assortment of excellent beers:

thanks jan for another great year!

festivals

Dark Lord Day 2008

after the fun that eric and i had last year, it was pretty much definite that we’d be heading back to three floyds for dark lord day 2008. we also convinced jan to come along for the fun.

this year we decided to skip heading into chicago and instead stayed right in munster. the hampton inn is less than a mile from three floyds, making it incredibly convenient and a favourite among DLD attendees. we even managed to score a giant room with two beds plus a pullout and a nice kitchen area. free hot breakfast and internet were also a bonus.

with the hotel secured, the next order of business was transportation. last year we drove my little mazda 3, which barely managed to hold all the beer that eric and i had. this year we knew we’d probably be bringing more beer down with us and with a third person we’d definitely be bringing more home. i managed to get a pretty good rate and unlimited mileage on a pacifica, which we figured would be cozy and have more than enough room.

the next thing we needed to decide on was our route. as with last year, we knew our first stop would be kuhnhenn, since it’s just too great to pass up. since we weren’t going into chicago, we figured we’d add an extra stop or two along the way. our first choice was to visit jolly pumpkin, but for the second year in a row they were going to be closed to attend a beer festival. dark horse is just a little farther down I94, so we figured that was also a good option. a little farther along the highway was bell’s. from there we figured we’d check in to the hotel and head over to the three floyds brewpub for dinner and drinks to cap off the night.

the thursday evening before DLD jan and eric came up to my place. we did some final prep and gathered up all the beer we were bringing down for trades and sharing. i also made sure to bring along some homebrew for everyone i was trading with and for sharing at the hotel+DLD (including our 2006 old ale [brewday blog], award winning 2005 imperial stout [brewday blog], fred [brewday blog], and 2007 old ale [brewday blog]).

friday morning began bright and early. jenn and i woke up at 7am, grabbed some breakfast, and headed out to pick up the rental car. picked up the car at about 8am and headed back home to load up. by about 9:15am we were on the road heading for my in-laws just outside windsor. jenn was nice enough to handle this leg of the driving since i’d be doing a good chunk after we dropped her off.

we arrived in beautiful stoney point at 12:30pm, grabbed some lunch and relaxed for a bit before heading back out on the road. by 3pm we’d made it over the border and made the short drive to kuhnhenn. as it turned out they had a bunch of great stuff on tap and available in bottles. after an hour and a couple of samples we walked out with 8 growlers and 2 cases of bottles.

from there we continued our journey towards munster. around 6pm we rolled up to dark horse. we sat at the bar for a bit and enjoyed some crooked tree ipa. the food smelled and looked awesome, but none of us were quite hungry enough to eat yet, so we just enjoyed a pint and headed out. after a quick stop next door to grab some double crooked tree and some snacks for the road we crossed the parking lot and grabbed some sweet tshirts and swag. shortly after that we were back on the road.

we rolled into munster at around 8pm. as we came into indiana, the rain was alternating between a gentle spit and a near-blinding downpour. before heading to the hotel we made a quick stop at the liquor stop, and the rain let up long enough for us to get out of the car. we scoped out the three floyds offerings (broodoo in particular), but ultimately decided to wait and see what the prices were at the brewery on saturday. we grabbed cold sixpacks of pride+joy and founders centennial ipa for hotel consumption and headed out. between the liquor stop and the hotel the rain really started to come down. traffic slowed to a crawl.

it was about 9pm when we made it to the hotel. eric ran inside to check us in and we drove around back hoping to find a close parking spot. the rain was still coming down pretty good and we got thoroughly drenched running between the car and the doors. we quickly found more DLD attendees wandering the halls. michael/SPLITGRIN and scott/EliteDigger were the first we encountered, which worked out well since both eric and i had trades lined up with scott and michael had lots of extras up for grabs.

we finished off a couple quick trades and ran for the brewpub. at that point it was about 10:30pm and we were all tired and hungry and we didn’t want to miss out on some tasty food+beer at FFF before they closed. i started off with some twisted wytch and ordered a carnivore pizza. the pizza was pretty damn awesome. a glass of behemoth was a great closer and we headed back to the hotel.

arriving back at the hotel around 11:30pm i was feeling pretty tired from the long day, but i figured i’d make a couple calls and see if i could resolve any more trades before crashing for the night. i managed to reach ben/WankerWeasel, who let me know that he and matt/mully had checked in. i had decided to send the Brews N Tunes BIF 3 on to matt, and since he was attending DLD i figured an in-person exchange would be easy and allow me to hook him up with a few extra brews. after talking with them for far too long i wandered back upstairs and hit the bed around 1am, finally falling asleep at about 2am.

saturday morning i woke up somewhere around 7am. the hotel had complimentary hot breakfast, which was pretty sweet. we repacked what we needed to bring with us to the brewery and headed out.

we arrived at three floyds around 8:30am and there was a small crowd forming around the tasting tables and also a strange line that seemed to begin at the road and continue down the street. everyone who had been to DLD before was at the tables and equally baffled by the line. DLD was always about hanging out, sharing some great brews and meeting fellow beer lovers and a line never really formed until shortly before the doors opened at noon. however, this time the line was quickly growling and wandering down the street…

i had brought a growler of kuhnhenn‘s creme brulee java stout, and that seemed like the perfect thing to start the day with. i wandered around and found a group of minnesota BA’s (JeffKrenner, mully, WankerWeasel) and cracked open the growler and poured us all a sample. as it turned out, this was the last i’d see of the growler. a few minutes later i got a call from one of my trading partners and i left the growler and headed for the car.

after finishing a couple trades i wandered back towards the tables. i met up with dan/kkipple just in time for one of the guys at his table to open up a growler of dark knight. goddamn was that beer good!

that’s pretty much how the morning went, alternating between the tasting tables and trading. finally got to meet unclejedi. had several brief conversations with dyan as he ran past our car working out trades of his own. may other trades and BAs, too many to list…

i was standing near the car when i heard the roar of the crowd as the doors opened. i quickly ran back and found where eric was holding down our spot in line. before i knew it we were inside the (now expanded) brewery and slowly making our way towards the purchasing tables. while waiting in line an excellent BA and past trader Aprilluvsbeer ran up and gave me a sample of the vanilla bean dark lord, since the regular barrel aged dark lord had just run out and it didn’t seem like i’d make it over there before the VB was gone too. thanks april!

i grabbed a mixed case containing my 6 dark lord, 2 hvedegoop, 2 behemoth, and 2 rabbid rabbits. i rounded the corner and found that april was holding down a table along with her husband and parker/PHawk. parker is a crazy texan who made the long drive up, even wandering through wisconsin and minnesota before hitting munster. crazy for the drive and crazy for his generosity in sharing some fine brews with us. he was also a super nice guy that we ended up hanging out with for a good portion of the weekend.

this year’s DLD also featured a bunch of guest breweries. funniest beer of the day: piece camel toe (who’s logo sort of resembles the beer name…).

eventually i managed to finish the last of my trades and was able to kick back and relax for the rest of the day. i wandered around the tasting tables, talking to many BAs that i met last year and meeting some new ones. many great beers were had.

i was happy to catch up with Phatz again this year and swap some homebrew. we talked brewing a bunch last year, but as he’d just started brewing he didn’t have anything to bring along. this year we swapped a couple things and also opened a few bottles for sampling. i cracked my last bomber of the gold-medal winning 2005 imperial stout [brewday blog] and it was very well received by all.

i also met a giant texan named charles/thickerfreankess. apparently a friend of his had tried some of our homebrew via a trade with eric, and when he heard that i had brought a bunch of our stuff along he came looking for me. i hooked him up with a bomber of our 2006 old ale [brewday blog].

the food lineups were a little easier to manage this year, and the food was top notch. dark lord sausage loaded with carmelized onions kicked some serious ass. while hanging in line with Phatz, april handed us a bottle of goose island bourbon county stout. we quickly popped it open and shared some with the guys behind us in line. the two of them were locals who came to check out the event. they were amazed both by how good the beer was and also that it was available locally and they’d never tried it. we gave them the rest of the bottle and grabbed some food.

eric was definitely having a good day. between the tasting tables and the lineup of guest taps, it wasn’t hard to overdo it. by mid-afternoon he was stumbling a little and talking about how he’d been wrecked since about 10am. when i asked what he was drinking, he said devil dancer. i have a feeling that a 13% beer might not have been the best choice at that time. especially when he said he’d downed a glass of behemoth just before…

by about 4pm things were winding down, so we loaded eric into the car and left. we made another run by the liquor stop, hoping to grab some broodoo since there hadn’t been any at the brewery. unfortunately, i think everyone else had the same idea. the several cases we’d seen on friday night were now all gone.

back at the hotel, eric basically passed out as soon as we got there. parker dropped by to see if we wanted to grab some dinner at the restaurant next door, so jan and i joined him. great food, great conversation, and a few glasses of alpha king. hard to beat that.

back at the hotel, eric was still passed out. i caught up with a couple more BAs to finish off my trading. steve/nflmvp and tom/MuenchenerKindl were staying directly below our room, so i went down and talked with them for a while. while down there i got a call from april, her husband, and aaron/leftmindedrighty. they were standing outside our room and nobody was answering. i ran upstairs and let everyone in, only to find that eric had risen from his bed and was somewhat coherent. he certainly did provide some entertainment. eric insisted that we watch danse la poutine far too many times, with some SNL digital shorts thrown in for good measure. i opened up a growler of pisgah valdez and shared it around.

after a bit the PA crew left in search of food and i went wandering looking for folks to share the growler with. we hung out with parker for a while and got to hear him reading some excellent sammyisms. i went wandering and hung out with the SC crew (dan, joe/khiasmus and friends) for a while. they thought it was hilarious that a bunch of canadians were sharing some of their best locals with them.

after killing the growler i headed back up to our room. we watched some sweet walken on saturday night live (“a giant invisible bird!”) and had more fine brews. parker was generous enough to share a bottle of alesmith barrel-aged old numbskull with us, a truly excellent beer. other people kind of came and went from the room throughout the evening. around 2am i was finally able to get everyone out so i could sleep for a bit, since i wanted to be on the road by 8am the next morning.

6:45am on sunday came far too early. i grabbed a quick shower and started packing the car. we managed to sort things out and pack it in fairly well, using pretty much the entire trunk space of the car. we grabbed some breakfast and hit the road at about 8:30am, a little behind schedule, but not too bad. i pretty much drove non-stop back to detroit, crossing the bridge and getting to customs at about 1:30pm.

arriving at customs, i was sure we were going to be paying duty. we had in excess of 12 cases of beer in the car, and even split between three people with a 48 hour stay in the states, that’s still a lot of beer. i told the customs agent that we had about 12 cases of beer, but had only purchased about 3 cases. i explained how we’d brought a bunch of beer down with us and traded it for a similar volume/price in american micros and didn’t have receipts for anything as a result. she was fascinated by a beer festival that would allow people to bring in their own beer for trading and sharing, so i probably spent about 5 minutes explaining dark lord day and the whole weekend of fun. she suggested that in the future we might want to at least keep receipts for the things we’d purchased in canada to bring down with us and told us to have a nice day. we pulled away from the booth and all started jumping for joy that we had managed to get through with over 12 cases of beer and not pay any duty.

from there it was a short drive back to my in-laws place on the lake. we arrived at about 2pm, had some lunch, and relaxed for a while. there was a little more rearranging to fit jenn’s stuff back in the car, but we managed to get everything in. at about 3:30pm we said goodbye and headed out.

we dropped eric off at about 7:15pm, jan at about 7:45pm, and pulled into our driveway at about 8:15. since we didn’t want to deal with the car in the morning, we unpacked and brought it back to the rental place at about 8:45pm. by 9pm we were home and i collapsed into bed somewhere around 10:30pm

when it was all done we’d travelled 1822km/1132miles in the rental car in the span of about 60 hours. a whirlwind tour, but one heck of a good time. already looking forward to next year.

on to the photos!

the back of the rental before leaving friday morning. somewhere around 8 cases of beer, empty cooler, and our bags.

the second stop of the day: dark horse.

the tap list at dark horse. lots of great options, but all three of us went with the crooked tree. you can also see some of their cool tap handles.

closer shot of the taps.

the back of eric’s head and the side of mine. you can also see the mugs hanging from the ceiling and walls. pretty neat, as each one is just a little different than the next. they’re also made by an artist in michigan too.

the menu and the end of my crooked tree. “good grub!!!”.

liked this bumper sticker. you can see some mugs there too.

right next door to the pub is wacky’s, a convenience/liquor store that sells most of the dark horse product line. here you can see jan walking toward the door. we all grabbed some double crooked tree and snacks for the road.

after stopping at dark horse we drove on to munster indiana and checked into our hotel. here you can see some of the room and the beer we brought up for trades at the hotel. we were told it’s the biggest room in the hotel, with two queen beds and a sofabed. it also had a fridge, microwave, and tons of space.

once we got settled in and took care of a few trades we headed over to the three floyds brewpub for a late dinner and some beer before they closed. the carnivore pizza was just so damn good that i had to snap a photo. “Andouille Sausage, Pepperoni, Bacon And Roasted Garlic.” what’s not to love?

jan and alexa

eric

jan trying to look pensive, contemplating how delicious the behemoth was. we also enjoyed some twisted wytch and a few other things i can’t quite remember.

the menu at the pub.

fast forward to saturday. we arrived at three floyds right around 9am and started hanging around the tasting tables and taking care of some trades. the first thing i did was open up my growler of kuhnhenn creme brulee java stout and start passing it around. coffee stout seemed like the right thing if you’re going to start drinking at 9am.

at this point it was around noon and i was nearly to the end of the line for dark lord. i’d gone through the old brewery and was moving through the new half towards the purchase tables. i took a few photos looking out over the end of the line and across the blockade towards the area where they were selling the various guest casks and where the band was starting to play.

looking back down the line into the “old” part of the brewery.

after getting outside i found that the crews were back trying to put up the tents. apparently they’d been there the night before, but the intense winds and thunderstorm had meant they just couldn’t get it up. i was told they came back early in the morning and tried again, but it was still too windy. they seemed to manage ok this time though.

this was the exit after purchasing your dark lord and beer from the guest breweries. the steps of doom, aka “litigation stairs”. higher than you’d expect, squishy since the top was fairly thin, and the front plate came up over the edge posing a bit of a tripping hazard. fortunately everyone seemed to take them fairly slowly and i didn’t see anyone fall.

cask beer: three floyds dreadnaught, surly bitter brewer, goose island pub belgian blonde, piece camel toe, two brothers, and flossmoor station really big ipa?

“did you fall asleep or did you pass out?”

this is the tent they were working on before, seen from the opposite side. they were selling beer at one end and there were some tables at the other. you can also see the wall of porta johns (much more than last year, though still a little risky by the end of the day) and the munster water tower in the distance.

turning slightly to the left you can see the brewpub entrance and the neverending line heading inside for dark lord as well as people everywhere just hanging out and sampling beer. someone down in front clearly having a good time.

here i was trying to get a view of the lineup. the line began far in the distance, coming toward the camera and then turning and heading to the right.

this is me and charles/thickerfreankess on BA. this giant texan tracked me down after a friend of his told him about our homebrew. he was raving about it and really wanted to try some of our stuff. i hooked him up with one of the last bombers of our 2006 old ale [brewday blog]. apparently he’s an avid reader of the blog and has even done some brewing inspired by our recipes. cool!

here’s eric looking a little rough around the edges. behind him i can see the back of Phatz’s head. Phatz is a good guy from out in PA who is also a homebrewer. when i met him at last year’s DLD he had just started brewing and didn’t have anything in bottles yet. this year he brought a few things along. we swapped a couple bottles and sampled a few more. he opened a chocolate brown ale and i cracked my last bottle of our gold-medal winning 2005 imperial stout [brewday blog]. i thought the chocolate brown was really neat. the imperial stout was also well received by everyone who tried it.

the food tent. there was a ton of great stuff available, and the lines were much faster than last year. i decided to go with the dark lord sausage piled high with some badass caramelized onions. that shit was crazy good. while waiting in line with Phatz, Aprilluvsbeer handed us a bottle of goose island bourbon county stout. Phatz gave her his glass of alpha king and we popped open the BCS, sharing it with the two guys behind us in line. they were both locals and yet had never heard of it – and were totally blown away by how good it is. i think goose just got a couple of new customers!

another crowd shot. in the distance you can see the the lineup fading down the street.

the “sign” out front of three floyds. from one side it’s the calumet queen, and from the other it’s the alpha king.

more of the crowd. the lineup is still going strong.

more sampling. the little guy in the middle with the chicago bears hat is Jay23. jay is a great guy that i’ve traded with the last two years. he was also nice enough to help out with a trade i was doing with someone in cali. thanks jay!

more tasting. front left in the brown sweater we have the back of jan, and on his right we have the side of parker, aka PHawk. we hung out with parker a bunch. super great guy and very generous trader. we’ll try to let the part where he’s a mavericks fan slide. in the distance behind him we also have the back of Phatz again and SPLITGRIN on his right.

tragedy strikes. this gentleman was on his way out when he dropped his box, breaking at least one dark lord. you can still see the waxed top in tact.

we left somewhere around 4pm and headed back to the hotel. my pile of beer was growing on the right, and my tradeable box on the left is empty.

when we got back to the hotel, eric pretty much passed out. parker, jan, and i went to the restaurant across the parking lot from the hotel and grabbed some dinner. hard to go wrong with $4 pints of alpha king and good food.

here’s eric, now semi-conscious after a several hour nap. on the left you can see our aaron/leftmindedrighty, Aprilluvsbeer, and her husband john in the distance.

jan

john, april, and aaron again. we were sampling the growler of pisgah valdez i got in a trade with walter/ncvbc. he shipped it up to wisconsin and scott/EliteDigger was nice enough to bring it down with the other beers we were trading. thanks scott!

eric watching danse la poutine. i think he subjected us to this 3 or 4 times over the course of the night. anytime someone came in who hadn’t seen it (which was basically everyone), he’d put it on again. you can see my glass of valdez on the right. it was some darn good shit. reminded me a lot of one of our locals, mill street coffee porter.

one of the hits of the day, alesmith barrel aged old numbskull. the incredibly generous parker shared this one with us. truly and excellent beer that i look forward to trying again. bottle #70/208 too. two others in the background that are no slouches either: lost abbey bourbon barrel aged angel’s share and a 2002 hair of the dog doggie claws.

eventually we managed to get everyone out of our room so i could catch some sleep before leaving bright and early to head home…

the car on the drive home. the cooler now had a bunch of full growlers and the beer was piled higher and deeper, with some of our bags moved to the back seat. we needed to shuffle a little more and pack them in even tigher to fit jenn’s stuff in too.

the three of us posing with some dark lord.

after the first leg of the drive we ate some lunch and relaxed on the lake at my in-laws.

we then headed out for the last leg of the drive, back up to toronto. we dropped off eric and jan and headed home, unloading so that i could return the rental. by 9pm we were back home and it didn’t take very long before i collapsed into bed.

this year’s haul, nearly double what i brought home last year. 4 growlers and nearly 6 cases of beer.

brewing day

frozen again

after our sub-zero brew day on november 2005 i swore i’d never brew again when the temperature fell below zero. well, the final brew day of 2007 was planned and got postponed a couple of times, and it looked like december 1st was going to be our last chance. early-mid week leading up to the brew day the weather was looking ok, but by about thursday the forecast had chanced and things didn’t look as good…

when we started the day it was frigid. unlike the nov ’05 brew day which started out OK and slowly worked its way below freezing, this day started out well below freezing and wasn’t forecast to make it above. the hoses and everything else was frozen solid. this meant constantly running in and out of the house to get water, clean things, and everything else. we needed to bring the hose and chiller inside to thaw them out before they could be used to cool the wort. anytime we spilled water on the ground – even near boiling sparge water – it instantly turned the garage into a sheet of ice. needless to say, this kept things pretty interesting…

only one brew was on the schedule, thinking it would make things shorter and easier. the downside to this was there was lots of lag time when we had nothing to do and ended up standing around rather than keeping busy.

our final brew day of 2005 was a big imperial stout, well suited to aging – and a gold medal at the 2007 GCHC. to cap off 2006 eric and i brewed an old ale in the tradition of thomas hardy’s. we decided to continue the tradition of producing a “vintage ale” each year. for 2007 we reprised the grain bill from the old ale minus the parti-gyle and switched out the hops for west coast american style hops, including a bunch of amarillo and my homegrown centennials.

when the day was done we had 8 gallons of 1.090 american old ale in the fermenters. a little lower volume and gravity than we wanted, but we were just happy to be done.

with all the extra chaos the temperature added, i didn’t end up taking any photos through the brew day.

after warming up and eating some dinner we continued our usual routine of euchre and beer. also on hand for tasting and comparison were two very fine meads: jadwiga and kurpiowski. eric hooked me up with the jadwiga as part of BC2, and brought over the kurpiowski for comparison.

here you can see the three of us posing with the two bottles and six samples poured and ready. both were great, but i think we all picked the jadwiga as the winner. if only i could get this stuff on a regular basis!

another year of brewing done for us here in markham, but we’ll be back again soon.