Weekend Update

We took the weekend off from brewing, unless you count dropping in on Big Al and King Ben Friday night while they were brewing Al's famous Winter Warmer.

I attended the Aler's November meeting before dropping by. Tim and Micah handed out some pretty cool prizes for the winners of Novembeerfest. Rodney and I scored a way cool blue ribbon for our Russian Imperial Stout and a gift certificate to Islands restaurant down at Pike on 1st Ave. I brought some beer with me to share with some of the guys as I was told Larry was out of beer except for some kegs of the now defunct Pacific Crest Widow Maker barley wine. It was in vain as this meeting was the annual Winter Warmer tasting. I'm going to guess about 15 different winter strong ales from around the world. I held out as I had tried most of them,and saved myself till the end until a magnum of 2002 Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws was popped. Incredible!


Saturday night was spent at good old Uber Tavern, the whole gang was there and got to split some pretty awesome stuff including 2007 Doggie Claws on tap.

Our new immersion chiller for our boil pot was finished today, and I headed over to Bob's to pick it up and drop off a couple of beers for him to try. A little more welding and we'll be ready for some serious whirlpool action. I'm really looking forward to making some nice crisp lagers(drinking them too!)

We took some gravity readings of some of the stuff we have fermenting. Everything is doing well. Rodney's late hop addition IPA is awesome. The Biere De Noel has a few points to go, but is developing some really great esters and fruit notes. New batches of stuff on the way soon!