What are you doing with all that beer?

Rule: A good brewer should have more refrigerators than televisions.

This is one of many rules I will be throwing in your direction as I contribute to this blog. It will make things easier on both of us if you accept that these rules are non-debatable, as I have often put little thought into them and thus have no real basis to defend them.

Still, if you are a brewer, you'd certainly want to have more refrigeration in your life and less Dancing with the Idols, right? Right!

On to the point of this post. What's in all those fridges?

What are you doing with all that beer?

Well, it's not all that much really; all of it is there for a reason. The reason is: If there was no reason, all that beer would already have been consumed. And that is why it is still here.

In order to continue this circular delusion, I took a quick inventory and I mean quick. Even this photo is strategically under representative of what I have. I mean if I was to go bottle-by-bottle then you'd see a whole array of reason why it's still there and not gone and that would be wordy and dull.

Rule: A good brewer has hand-crafted beer.

• 5 kegs of delicious homebrew- Apfelwein, Honey Wheat, APA featuring Simcoe and Amarillo, Mild, Irish Stout. These are all being consumed. NO Problems here!
• Oops. Got some beer of other homebrewers that I am supposed to review. I make sure that I give them my full attention and so there is a bit of a backlog here. Manangable.

Rule: A good brewer is a good beer host and has beer on hand for non-beer folks.

Because clearly these folks have no concept of anything good and so you have to trick them into drinking some good beer. Among these:

• Deus for when there is a special occasion with someone that is not a beer person.
• La Folie, NG Rasberry Tart, Lindemans Pomme, which are among my wife's favorites. She is a beer person, so these could serve double duty, but nah. These are beers for us and those beers... well... they need to be savored... as romance beers (Implied Rule).
• One or two ciders, perry.
• moving on- some other stuff. Save. Save. Save.

Rule: A good brewer has research beers and beers to enjoy with other aficionados.

And realistically these aficionados aren't here every day. I'm just not on the aficionado circuit, but you have to be prepared. Research takes time. It demands your full attention. Among these:

• Armageddon with Brett, LaChouffe Dobbelen IPA, Sprecher Tripel, a couple of Cantillons, Fantome, a 2004 Three Philosophers, Damnation, Brooklyn Local One, Allagash Black, Rodenbach Grand Cru... clearly meant to be shared with another beer aficionado or used as style examples for future brews.
• 5 Bud American Ales as a curiosity (everyone wants to try, but not buy), 2 or 3 gluten free beers in case I want to brew it and it also qualifies under the good beer host rule.
• A number of Stouts that were to be part of my SOS- Summer of Stout concept. Drinking stout on the hottest Phoenix Day possible. Avery Czar, Rogue Imperial, Sprecher Imperial... oh that was going to be some day. Better save them for the coldest day in Phoenix and a new acronym.
• moving on- some other stuff. Save. Save. Save.

I am taking positive steps. I have 2 RR Plineys and 2 Blind Pigs in the Civilian Fridge (the one with food) because the label says, "Age Your Cheese, Not Your Pliney," and how am I to argue that?

Oh and the closet. I think there's 3/4 of a case of 2007 Alaskan Smoked Porter... and shh... a good brewer breaks the rules.

Nice Jug!

I couldn't resist a risqué pun for the title of my first post to beerporn. I was inspired to write by a big little beer that's fermenting in a one-gallon jug in my studio. It's the product of a Friday morning brewing session and the beginnings of what I hope to be a nice holiday beer.

I love brewing in small batches, mainly for experimental purposes. If I've never brewed with an ingredient, or if I want to test the differences between various ingredients, I'll brew a small batch. It beats buying ingredients for a full batch, spending all day, then finding out the results are less than what I expected.

When I began the day, I didn't know what my recipe was going to be. I did know that I wanted to have a fairly high gravity beer - hopefully a barleywine. So, I started with four pounds of two-row barley and a couple of ounces of 90L crystal malt. The grain went into my little two-gallon drinking water cooler/mash tun to rest for an hour at 152˚F.

I had my base to build upon. Next, with thoughts of the fruitcake that Steve Wilkes baked this past year for our holiday editions of Basic Brewing Video, I chopped 2.5 ounces of raisins. These went into the boil after I collected the wort from the mash. Joining the raisins for 60 minutes was .7 ounces of Fuggles hop pellets. 

I wanted a bit of spice to fit the holiday theme, so I dug out a little jar of pumpkin pie spice and added a teaspoon to the boil five minutes before the end with another .4 ounces of Fuggles. At first, I was afraid the spice would clash with the hops, but those fears were dispelled by the aroma coming from the brewpot. The two mingled very well.

After chilling, I poured the wort into the jug and pitched around three grams of Safale US05 yeast. My starting gravity for the three quarts was 1.078 - a bit less than I expected. However, I'm sure there will be plenty of alcohol to warm the holiday table.

Now, a frothy head of kreusen tops the swirling beer as the yeast is going about its business of turning sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The scents coming out of the airlock offer a tantalizing hint of good things to come.