Teaching others

Teaching others to brew is something I love doing. Now, it appears that I will get to teach a class for Chandler Parks and Rec in fall! Now I will develop the program. Hopefully I'll have some guest speakers too. So excited!

Triple brew day

My friend Travis and I started a beer blog a couple of years ago.  It was short lived, but when I sent Travis some of my beers, I asked him to review them.  Here is his first review:

http://yeastofyourproblems.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-new-belgian-blonde-girlfriend.html

On Tuesday, I bottled the most Recent Cake and a Card Porter.

Then I brewed a Mierpoix Brown Ale (the base recipe was Arc Squirrel)

Then I brewed a Grilled Lemon Cream Ale

Then I brewed a Pallisade Pale Ale

Then I drank a bunch of beer.

You know, not a bad day for working from home :)

Really, I am so fortunate to have a spouse who supports my hobby.  It takes a lot of time and effort and money to be this obsessed over something.  Of course, in return I share delicious homebrew with her, and we have a great time socializing with like minded people.  So- thanks Honay!

Also, our friend Becca suggested that the brewery name could be Flintlock Brewing.  I really like that name, it's the name of our street so it makes sense, too... Hmmm...

Pinterest? Yes, that.

OK, You've probably heard of Pinterest.  It's a place where essentially you post "bookmarks" to web pages, and choose a picture to represent the bookmark.  It's easier to remember something with a picture, right?

Well, you can make these categories for your bookmarks (just like if you use bookmarks in your web browser) and then other people can look at your categories (Boards) and bookmarks (Pins)

Here is my Beer Board. Enjoy!

http://pinterest.com/azbauman/beer/

Apparently I talk a LOT

Here is a link to an article about me, by The Brew Bros.  They are a national organization of beer writers who review and promote all sorts of beer related things.

http://www.thebrewbros.com/the-road-to-the-national-homebrewers-conference-interview-with-a-homebrewer/

Thanks Patrick!

More Press. Sure, why not...

James Swann, the local GOD of beer, interviewed me about homebrewing.  I'm the first of a series of 4 homebrewers he is interviewing.

He positioned me as the "CRAZY guy of homebrewing" which I (already discussed with him) don't really think I am. I mean, yes it's possible to look at my brews and say "WOAH!  HE'S CRAZY!" but I am just using ingredients which interest me and which I am familiar with.

I come from a food background, so naturally I like incorporating food items into my beer.  Grilled Lemons, Popcorn, Rosemary- these are delicious and great flavors.  Why not find a beer to carry the flavor?  I don't do it to be CRAZY, I do it because that's what I know.

The article, which is very good, and I appreciate James' offer to interview me, can be found here: http://azweeklymagazine.com/beer/home-brew-is-for-sharing/

Cheers!

So many beers!

Eeks!  Looking at my cellar, I have SO many beers!

I think I need to give some of these away again.  Also funny how I have few of certain other ones.  I guess that goes to show that there are some "crowd favorites"

4 more batches in the fermenter, 2 of them ready to bottle right now.

I am also saving 6 of each batch for competitions.  I think I may actually have 30 in the NCH next year, if I decide to.  At least my goal is to have 30 AVAILABLE to enter, if the spirit moves me.  At $10 per entry this year and likely more $ next year, it's probably not worth it, since several are not what I would consider "world class".  This competition is TOUGH! I got 3 through to the mini-BOS of the San Diego regional, but none won medals, and none advanced to the second round.

I'd like to say, and I know that it's a level playing field since all beers are treated the same... The process for NHC sucks.  They get one bottle to judge.  So, the first 2 judges get the bottle and taste it.  Say... 3 ounces each to "judge".  The other half of the bottle is reserved for the mini-BOS.  It's open (or re-capped, but re-capping a half-full bottle is pointless) for up to 2 days?  It seems that they would have a better and not drastically more beer-consuming process if there were 2 bottles per entry.  Of course, at 800 entries the storage space needed for 1600 bottles is... significant.  That's a hell of a cellar.

Sunday Fun-Day!

It was my birthday on Friday and I worked like an animal Friday and Saturday.  It's part of the "deal" with catering.  The sporadic nature of catering is also what allows me flexible time to brew a LOT, which I really do appreciate.

Sunday was brew day, I re-brewed the Sorachi Ace Belgian Blonde.  NOW- since I only bottled it on Wednesday, and haven't tasted the final product, WHY would I brew it again right away?  Well, for one thing it tasted DELICIOUS at bottling time, and 2- I wanted to re-use the yeast cake.  I kept it in the fermentation cooler at 65 degrees for those 3 days, and racked my batch Sunday, right into the same carboy.  This is not the "recommended" method.  The "right" way to do it, is to siphon the yeast out, clean it by letting it settle and striate, and taking only the living best cells.  However I have re-pitched in the past and it works just fine.  It will have dead cells and trub from the prior brew which could (and most likely does, in some fashion) affect the new batch.  It is also impossible, using my method, to exactly replicate the beer.  In 3 days though, and using the same recipe, the affect will be minimal.

I also brewed the Cake and A Card again, albeit card-free.  People keep beating me up, wanting to taste it, so - I did it again.

The homebrew club asked if I could brew a "calibration beer".  This is a beer where everyone at the meeting tastes it, and determines the style that the beer is, and compares it to the BJCP guidelines for that style.  I am going to supply 8, 1-liter bottles of the Belgian Blonde.  It should be fairly easy to determine the style, and the "flaw" would be the Sorachi Ace hops.

One of the BEST things about brewing yesterday was that my Dad came over for 4 or 5 hours, Bret and Kim and their sons dropped by for a couple of hours, and Bryan and Krista stopped by for 3 or 4 hours. We all drank homebrew and some delicious commercial beers, and bingo!  Magic Sunday Fun-Day.

Pop gave me a new immersion chiller which is critical.  It took 90 minutes to bring my beers down to 68 degrees and that SUCKS for brew-day.  Instead of being done by 9:30, it was 10:30.  Too late.

So be it.. The check on the babies this morning showed a nice start to fermentation, and they look good to go!