Weekend Beer Tasting with Friends

The crew joined together over the past weekend to do a bit of work on some of the homebrews, as well as taste some new beers in on trades. A short synopsis of the festivities are as follows:
1) Go to homebrew store and get bags for hops
2) Transfer Rick-n-Keven IPA into two different secondaries
3) Toss 2 oz of cascade hops in one secondary
4) Toss 2 oz of columbus hops in other secondary
5) Clean up brewing stuff
6) Taste green sample of Rob's Sour Bret Bier De Guarde fermenting with fresh Raspberries and Oak.
7) Taste Russian River Blind Pig (wow- serious hops here...)
8) Taste Russian River Supplication (amazing, sour, amazingly sour!)
9) Taste Russian River Redemption
10) Taste Avery Maharaja
11) Continue tasting Ricks beers
12) Smoke a pipe with Rick, Kevin, and Neil
13) Grill hamburgers
14) Continue putting a hurting on Ricks beer stash
15) Have Rick administer a wedgie strong enough to allow Rob to go commando without removing his shorts

The debachery, drinking, and good times continued on until the wee hours of the morning. Fun time for all, and some homebrewing work even went down. SUCCESS!

Homebrew Updates

We brewed two different beers this weekend. I (Rob) brewed a Blanche De Chambly Clone (Belgian Wit), while Rick and our buddy Kevin, brewed an IPA. Its looking like both beers will be ready to transfer to secondary this weekend.

Another homebrew note- my sour Bier De Guarde is coming along nicely. I primed the beer and pitched Whitelabs Bret. A quick sample after 2 weeks of bret fermentation displayed a solid sour taste begining to appear. To up the ante, I dropped in about 1 pound of frozen raspberries. I am thinking that this beer will get transfered this weekend as well.

120 Minutes of Luck?

Monday night, all of us tucked away on the upper Texas Gulf Coast kept an eye on Tropical Storm Edouard. This storm happened to be zeroing in on us the very same week that Dad and Rob flew out of the country. I spent all day Monday preparing all three of our houses for the storm. That evening we (Steph, Mom and I) had a hurricane party on the bay. While the ladies sipped champagne I drowned my fears in the depths of Dogfish Head's 120 Minute IPA. For those unfamiliar with 120 Minute, this is a 21% ABV beer unlike any other. Even as vigorously hopped as this beer is, the fermentables required to help this beer reach 21% ABV subdue what should be a very bitter beer. I wasn't concerned with a formal review as I had other things on my mind, but what really stuck out was a very prominent alcohol note, crisp apples, some tropical flavors I tend to associate to champagne and a very full mouthfeel. The photograph attached shows the 120 minute along with the calm before the storm. Well, that is sort of an exaggeration. The storm ended up hitting a bit north of us. The bay looked like a lake all day, there was no major flooding, none of our houses had any damage and we never saw any winds greater than about 35 knots max. All said and done, we lucked out. Did this extraordinary beer have anything to do with the storm's sudden change of position? I can't say for certain, but all signs point to yes.