We have started the boil on Old #1 Pale Ale… I don’t know what you see but I think things are getting a little R rated.
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The thing about Google Analytics is the more you use it, the more you use need to use it. Thank you @katybug0205. I am still amazed that people will even visit this site let alone search Google for it. I am even more amazed when Google Analytics shows visitors from any state other than New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. I’ll let you extrapolate how I feel when I see visitors came from other countries (Hint: I think they are all spam — that means you London, England!). One thing that Google Analytics does is shows you, for all the people who come to your site via Google, the search strings they used. For your consideration, here are the top five search strings that have led wary web surfers to this site.
Hmmmmmmm. Which one of these does not belong? For anyone who guessed “2nd floor brewering” you are technically correct because of the misspelling but you must have started at the bottom. “Pop a squat”, eh? I just did that search. I am on results page 20 and I am yet to see a link to SFB. What the flip, Google? I understand why we came up on this search (thank you Michael Deller and your groupie Jess post) but has our site since lost pop a squat relevance according to Google? I hope not. But if so, this post should fix that – pop a squat, pop a squat, pop a squat! So I created my first recipe last week. Or maybe “!”. I am enjoying the Designing Great Beers book, even if I left it at home this week. I like the histories of each style as well as the step-by-step instructions on how to design your own beer. I’m thinking these steps need to go into an excel spreadsheet so I can just plug in the required information and output a formula. The beer I designed is currently called Old #1 Pale Ale. I am accepting suggestions for better, funnier, or more ironic names. It is a simple pale ale with plenty of 2-row and just the tip of specialty malts. I picked some American hops to go with it so I guess that makes it an American Pale Ale. I wonder if I should be measuring the grain before or after milling. I weighed out all the grain as specified by my recipe but after Tom milled it the total weight was less than before. Does that mean some of it was eaten by Tom’s miller monster? Does that mean some of the weight was lost as dust into the air? I don’t know. We (Ryan) decided that we should not rush the stroke brewing last weekend. In retrospect, that was the smart move. We did bottle Still Oh! So Delicious Pumpkin Ale. And it was oh! so delicious. It will go well with some after Thanksgiving sittin around, hand half-in-pant Al Bundy style. SFB hopes they can get back on track and brew up some Old #1 Pale Ale this weekend. I think it will work out however I don’t know about the yeast. We bought it last Saturday with intentions to use it that day so I broke the nutrition pack and shook the hockey sticks out of it. When we (Ryan) decided not to brew, we (me) put it in the fridge. I don’t know its current status but I think we should either get more yeast or try to put it in a wort starter before pitching it into the entire wort. We met the winner of Oliver’s homebrew contest and Oliver’s Dirty Hippy Ale at Max’s last weekend. His name is Bruce and I bugged him until he left the bar. I like the idea of a random meeting with a homebrewer that has more experience that I do. I’m glad I took advantage of the situation. He and his brewing partner make 20 gallons at a time! They all-grain brew and it sounds like they have a pretty money lautering system. He was there to drink and collect large bottles. They also keg a lot of their beer. I would like to see this setup. Is it in his house? Do they have a whole basement for brewing? He doesn’t buy into the legend of the munchkin that allegedly hung himself during the filming of The Wizard of Oz (and who’s swinging shadow is visible in a certain scene) so you can tell he is a level-headed guy. Who could believe a thing like that? Oh, and we dumped the red. It sucked.
There are many memorable Jess drinking story. Her first beer experience was with the borough peeps in Towson Run….she learned alot that night. Most importantly how to pop a squat on he side of the road. Flash forward to Ryan and Heathers wedding…where I proceeded to get Jess piss ass drunk. Very fun. Then there are the many beer pong nights, the most memorable being the time we watched Along Came Polly. The many laughs that have occurred from that are too many to mention. Avoiding Jamel while drinking….haha!!! Getting messed up at her parents house!! Of course there is so much more to the legend that is Jess the SFB groupie….but I only have so much time to write. So here’s to Crazy Girl…. Blicket!!!!! PKB Pumpkin Ale is almost upon us…
All true SFBers (and anyone reading the blog) will know what PKB stands for. All others can ask Mike. I can only think of two things to talk about. They are The-Red-who-must-Not-Be-Named and Prodigal Son Pumpkin Ale. Here’s the deal: We all drank Satan’s Red at various times this Saturday past and we all thought, shortly after drinking it, that it was awful. This is definitely the worst beer we have made so far. It did not clear, it barely fermented, and it tasted like wort. It’s easy to blame the yeast (because they are so tiny!)… and it is 100% correct that we blame the yeast (because they are so tiny). Now that we have seen how proper yeast behaves (see: I Heart You Pumpkin Ale), I can say with certainty that our yeast was not ready to be pitched. Maybe it was a bad batch, maybe we did not fully break the nutrient pack, maybe we needed to create a starter before pitching, maybe we needed more yeast or a lower starting gravity. I don’t know and may not ever know. So, what are we going to do with the four or so gallons of God-Awful Red that we have left? Depending on our supplies, we are planning to go against everything CeeeeeeePeeeeeeeeZeeeeeee has taught us. Our plan is to pour the I Hate Your Guts Red from the individual bottles back into the fermenter and then repitch the lot of it with good and healthy yeast. Do I care about contamination? No. Do I care about the effects of the priming sugar added during bottling and of another full fermentation cycle? No, but I am kinda curious about what will happen. Do I care, at all, about the outcome Forget Me ASAP Red? Yes, of course. She is our creation and I want to see her reach her potential, i.e. become a good beer. To this end, rest assured, we at SFB are sure to do whatever it takes. Cue the Students-Looking-at-Harrison-Ford-in-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark googly eyes — Lets talk about our pumpkin ale. Did I mention that it’s wort smelled and tasted absolutely delightful? I wouldn’t care if this beer still tasted like wort after it has been bottle conditioned. I would warm it up, drink it in the morning, and dunk my donuts in it. I would rub it in my pits like it is cologne. I would splash it onto my face after I finished shaving. I may enter it in a homemade Chai Tea competition. This weekend we are going to bottle it and try not to drink all of it. I may hug a few of the bottles. I just don’t know. As for a next beer, well I just can’t think about. I’ve got pumpkin on the brain. Impressions for the ADD set: Good beer, good smells, good culture, inexperienced tour guide. I visited Ommegang Brewery on Sunday! Below are some of my thoughts and horrible camera phone pictures (sorry).
Last weekend we brewed our tardy pumpkin ale. I think this might be the best job we have done so far. Everything seemed to work out well. For brew three (the red) we used a Wyeast liquid Irish Ale Yeast Activator Pack (or whatever fancy name they have for it). This was the first time we used liquid yeast. Tom (and the back of the yeast bag) told me that once breaking the nutrient pack inside, the bag should begin to swell. I broke the nutrient pack but the yeast bag did not swell as much as I thought it would. We did everything else we normally do but it, as you might have read, we did not see desired results. The samples we drank were good but with an unusual trailing taste. The alcohol content is somewhere around 3.5%. I brought my woes and my problems to Tom at his Beerporium. He suggested aerating the wort before pitching the yeast but could not finger, with any certainty, the cause for the yeast bag not inflating. DAMN YOU WYEAST (shaking fist at the heavens)!!! For our pumpkin ale we used real pumpkin, real pumpkin pie spices, and, for the first time, just the tip of wheat. The wort tasted delicious! There may be some pictures of us drinking it straight. I will stop short of calling it Chai but that s the best way to describe how it tasted. This time around we used an American Ale yeast in the same type of package. And this time around the package filled with carbon dioxide (or whatever) to the point I though it might explode. We areated the wort and pitched the yeast and within 12 hours observed a furious bubbling atop the brew! Ah yes… it feels so good. Here is what we need going forward: Those are my requirements. Lets get to work. I feel like SFB needs the perspective of a non-beer drinker, comparing the two brews. Rank: Observations: * PP had no carbonation. Drinking a flat beer is not ideal. Overall, both brews were very good. I would definitely drink both again. I am extremely excited for brew #3, as it smelled delicious!!!
Ok ok, I know its been a while since I posted last. As Dan has told me, I need to commit to a weekly post on top of all the other less important blurbs. So here it is… 1) After two tastings of our beers (JTT and Parkers Porter) SFB can be deemed an early success. With maybe the toughest alcohol critic there is, Papa Deller, fully on board I feel SFB has only scratched the surface. 2) The initial mud butt that proceeded the tasting of JTT seems to be an isolated incident…..for now. 3) JTT seems to have gotten better with age, so this weekends second tasting of Parkers Porter will be crucial in our decision to whether or not to let the bottle sit two weeks until consumption. 4) In relation to #3, if two weeks is required until consumption then another carboy is a must. Why you ask??? Cause we need to brew every weekend!!! 5) I find it completely ridiculous that Dan will use twitter to promote our brewery while his belief that he is above the use of Facebook still exists within his complicated mind. Just saying… 6) The need to resurrect the yeasties in our third edition to the SFB collection has led to its name. Back from the Dead Amber. 7) There are mixed opinions on whether our beer has an extreme APV. Based on my experiences, JTT was prob 5-6% while Parkers Porter was 8-11%. All I know is it messed me up before Halloween and that is good enough for me. 8) Papa Deller has requested a seasonal brew for Thanksgiving so this weekend we’ll brew up a pumpkin ale….name requests start now. 9) Liquid yeast is a bitch. 10) Damn, coming up with ten is hard…..so I’ll quote a line from a fav movie of SFB…..Meow!!!! |
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The life of Jess began in the year 1988, on the 28th day of November. Her screaming facing face made its appearance, weighing in at a whopping 9lbs (woooh). The first day of her life her family thought she was clinically retarded, brought on by her constant sleeping, but alas….she turned out fine. Later on in life Jess was known to rip out hair of other females in her life….this is a life skill all should have. Her lovely sister Heather, once decided to nascar crash her out of her stroller and split open her chin. Jess still has the scar.
Like the Jack Daniel’s Distillery (the last place I visited), Brewery Ommegang is an hour or more from any “city” (Albany or Syracuse). Also like JD, they blame nature for their choice of their out-of-the-way location. The brewery is in the middle of what used to be known as “hop city,” according to our tour guide. This area was once one of the nation’s largest producer of hops. There was scant mention of hops during the rest of the tour. I even asked what variety of hops they use in their beers (Rare Vos is the only of their year-round beers with any hop aroma) but the tour guide could not tell me. The brewery building itself is beautiful. It is long, white, and in the style of a barn with white diamond patterns in the otherwise black roof shingles. It is flanked by several silos, one of which is painted like a Holstein Cow. Kinda cool. To enter you pass under an archway spanned by two dates and the words “Brewery Ommegang.” The two dates represent the date of the first Ommegang (which means “walk about” or something close to that in Dutch) and the date in which the Brewery opened. I’ll let you decide which is which. Our guide talked for a bit about the tradition of Ommegang in Europe. There’s not much more than she told us on Wikipedia but it sounds like a good time to me… 