All posts by escowles

code4lib BrewUp (aka Beermaggeddon)

Beer, ,

One of the nice side effects of having people come from all over the country for a conference is that if everybody brings a bottle or two, you wind up with the beer tasting to end all tastings. In fact, we had so much beer we decided to do a pre-tasting last night (which was mostly dominated by stout).

Tonight was the main tasting, and we had a bathtub full of bottles on ice, a two-room suite packed with tasters, and a makeshift bar staffed by my boss and coworkers from UCSD. I started out with my favorite beer from last year in Asheville (French Broad Wee Heavy-est) and followed that up with some Lost Abbey Sinners 09, a Belgian-style sour fron San Marcos. There were some stouts and other interesting things in the middle (even a white chocolate ale), but I finished the night with the beer I brought: Cigar City‘s Sea Bass, also a sour, though Cigar City’s labels are so clever I wasn’t sure until I drank it.

The Sea Bass was a real hit, and I think I’m going to need to pick up a few bottles when I get back home. Though the tastings were all by the thimblefull, so we’ll see how I like it by the pint.

Boxing Day Brew In Bottles

Beer, ,

We bottled the scotch ale last night, after a nice day out at the zoo with the kids.  The gravity was still a few points higher than what the recipe asked for, but hadn’t changed in a week, so I figure it’s done one way or the other.

I did a quick search for the final gravity being too high, and found people suggesting problems with

  • the grain bill
  • inaccurate thermometers
  • mashing temperature
  • stale yeast
  • going to second fermentation too soon
  • temperature fluctuations during fermentation

So I’ve got a few ideas of what to do better next time, but I’m mostly confirmed in my paraphrase of Tolkien:

Go not to the tubes for counsel, for they will say both yes and no and RTFM!

Photo Shoot

Beer, knitting,

So it turns out the default header image was making it impossible to read the site header.  So we talked for a few minutes and came up with the idea of a glass of beer on a scarf.

So I got out the tripod, setup a nice shot, took several minutes to get a good glass of beer poured (from our last batch of over-carbonated homebrew), played with the exposure a bit, and generally took a bunch of pictures to make sure I got at least one good one.

Then I took the camera off the tripod and took one last picture by hand.  So of course that was the best one and the tripod and all that fiddling was a waste of time…

Boxing Day Brew

Beer, ,

Today was seeming quiet enough, so decided to brew a batch of beer.  This time around I wanted to make my new favorite type: a Scotch ale (also called “Wee Heavy”, strong and malty).  We have a mini-mash recipe that’s supposed to be like Pike’s Kilt Lifter, though I’ve never had it, so I’ll have to take their word for it.

The mash went fine, but I was using dry extract which gunked up because I couldn’t open four bags and stir at the same time.  If only I had three hands…  By the time I had that mostly sorted out, it nearly boiled over.  After that was taken care of and the last chunks of malt goo broken up, it was clear sailing.  Well, filtering out the hops was a pain, but it’s always a pain and I’m going to do a secondary fermentation anyway so what’s a little extra muck in the primary?

My wort chiller (which is worth it’s weight in, well, copper) brought the wort temp down pretty quickly, but I misjudged and stopped at 80° instead of 70°.  Luckily, it’s unusually cold today, so our walk-out freezer (the garage) got it cool enough to pitch the yeast in about an hour.

So assuming everything goes according to plan, it’ll be ready to bottle by the end of January and I can bring a few bottles with me to a conference in February to share.

Epic Beer Tasting

Beer, ,

Epic Beer Tasting posterI’m not much help with the knitting, so I’ll have to help keep the beer quotient up around here.

Luckily my boss took me out to an epic beer tasting, appropriately titled “Epic Beer Tasting”, with 67 bottles to pick from.  The list was dominated by porters and stouts (which I have to be in the mood for), but I found a dozen or so that looked good.  They ranged from pretty good (like Cigar City‘s Sea Bass) to basically undrinkable (Drake‘s Jolly Rodger).

Most of them were more “interesting” than enjoyable, but at least they got me motivated to start another batch of homebrew.  We’re going to make a strong Scotch Ale this time around, and I just stopped by our local homebrew shop for supplies this afternoon.