On beer brewing and being frugal

In the year 2007 I had a pretty good June, I sold my first house… paid off a bunch of bills accumulated because I was selling a house…. bought my first MAC…. and bought my first home brew kit.

One of those three items is still with me today… go ahead guess… I’ll wait.

Jeopardy Theme plays in background

If you guessed the MAC, you would be close but after 5 years the old laptop couldn’t keep up. Almost all of that first beer brewing kit is still with me and still used in some shape or form. The only casualty has been a glass carboy that cracked when cleaning. For 10 years to still be using most all of the stuff is pretty impressive in my world. Which now 10 years on I’m to a point where I want to step up my brewing operations by don’t want to piecemeal the deal.

So here is the outline of what will become the brew setup 2.0

  • Overall the system will use a “HERMS” process https://youtu.be/PNKcQoGZOpQ though mine won’t be nearly that fancy.
  • Hot liquor heating will come from a second propane stove I have
  • One pump for the entire setup which means I’ll be moving hoses
  • which means quick connects for hoses
  • And I need to get a counter flow chiller

I do have a diagram someplace in one of my cloud drives, but it is not ready for prime time.

So in the mean time… I keep plotting and planning.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that….

Went to the Homebrew depot today and picked up a new kit. It’s a licensed kit from the Rouge brewery in Oregon. I also got a nice validation from the owner of Homebrew depot when we were talking about kits and what people have done with them.

Turns out that kits in Homebrew are much more forgiving then the cake and cookie mixes you get from Safeway (lets not talk about my experience with cake and cookie mixes). Actually it was just nice to chat with such a experienced person about brewing in general.

So tonight when the sun goes down I light up the 60,000 btu burner and do up a batch of beer. I’m starting a little early on the teach a friend to homebrew, hey you never know what will come out of it.

Oh and as for the project for the cooler… that is on hold for that moment since I can’t seem to get my stuff together to try pull it off. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of free time 🙂

Third Review… Shiner Bock Brown Ale

Shiner Brewery in Shiner Texas makes a full range of Ales (at least that is what they say on their website, www.shiner.com). Shiner Bock is one of the few brews that comes out of the third greatest state in the union (the first two being Arizona and Colorado) that is generally avalible here in Phoenix.

In general Shiner Bock is about how you would expect a Brown Ale to be. Full of flavor but not to much bite. It’s got a bit of sweetness to it, not like a fat tire but more subtle. It also has a hint of a smokey flavor like a porter again is very subtle to find it. Overall all a way above average beer that has come from much farther away then fat tire or the flying dog (~800 –> 900 miles to the Denver Ft Collins are as opposed to ~1100 miles for Shiner TX Ok it’s not that big of a diffrence but you get the idea)

Shiner loses points for having a twist off top.. I know it’s from Texas and all but come on even a good Texan in a dry county has to have access to a bottle opener (the whole dry county concept is the only reason I can come up with as to why a micro brew would even consider such a device acceptable). Also shave off a few more points for the beer being better out of a bottle then a glass, at the very minimum it should be equally good out of both if not better in a glass.

A good beer, just not the first one I would reach for.

The first review… Fat Tire Amber Ale

Brewery: New Belgium Fort Collins Colorado

Type: Ale

From the Website:Fat Tire’s depth of flavor, achieved with neither a disproportionate sway toward hops or malts, tandems well with a full spectrum of today’s engaging cuisines. Salmon, dry-aged cheeses, roasted chilies, omelets at midnight, sweet potato French fries and just about anything with grill marks or garlic are just a few of the edibles we like to partner up with our Amber Ale.

My Take: Fat Tire is one of my favorite beers. I’m starting with this beer since I know it better then I know most any other beer. It’s a Belgium Style influenced Ale, but it lacks the bite of other Belgian style ales. To someone who is not used to drinking Fat Tire they would probably be struck at how strong the flavor truly is.