Beer!

More than a year ago now Nate's Grandpa Pete told him if he came and got it, Nate could have all his old beer making supplies. It took several family events at the grandparents house before we finally said, ok, we'll come get the supplies. Finally after Russian Easter this year Nate took home a bunch of cool stuff for making beer. This summer while still out of work he began researching and we took a little of our stimulus money and bought our first beer kit and brewed a batch in July.

Since that time, Nate has really gotten into homebrewing, we have made several batches of beer and have so far gotten to sample three of our brews. It's alot of work, but it's also sort of fun.

We brew using his parents turkey fryer, it has to be able to boil in a large pot. When the weather was still nice Nate would just hook up the fryer to our propane tank on the deck. Now that it has been cold, he has done two brews out in the garage using an extra propane tank we have (with the garage door open so he does not spontaneously combust). The beer boils for something close to an hour with all the hops and malt and stuff that makes it alcoholic. Then it has to be cooled very quickly and then finally stored where it will ferment for somewhere close to three weeks. At the end of the three weeks we bottle the beer and then it needs to age another two to three weeks so it will carbonate.

So far we have made and tasted a Red Ale, a "Mocktoberfest" as Nate calls it, a Big River Brown Ale. Currently fermenting is a Chocolate Stout and today Nate just finished an English Bitter. I realize these names may not mean much to those who don't know much about beer - so let's see the Red Ale was rather light, Mocktoberfest was dark, Big River is pretty light, Chocolate Stout will be very heavy and dark and the English Bitter will be somewhat light. My personal favorite so far has been the Big River Brown Ale.

We had an Oktoberfest celebration with friends earlier this fall and we have been enjoying sharing our brews with friends and family. I think it's a neat hobby and I hope we'll be able to continue doing this for a long time to come.

I'll leave you with some pictures from our very first brew in July:

The only "accident" a little spilled malt powder, it did start a very small fire, no one was injured.

I make beer! :)


Beer boiling away

Nate stirring the beer