Crying over spilled BEER!

Came home from vacation and went for a beer. Temperature controller on my keezer locked up and I had four and a half gallons of frozen beer! Cried for a little while and started the thaw, had a few bottles of porter to ease the pain and agony, worked the temp controller a few times.

Two days later the keg was thawed, placed it back in the keezer and kept checking the temp.

Had a batch ready for a friends birthday party that needed to be kegged and force carbonated so I did that but I only had one picnic tap. Took the tap off the keg in the keezer to use on the new batch. Checked the temperature again.

Got up the next morning and went to check the temp again….. apparently the o-ring on the beer post was damaged by the freeze! About 2 gallons of beer in the bottom of the keezer! (more crying)

Anyway, the beer still tastes GOOD! It’s an amber ale by the way. Going to have to invest in a good controller.

Heard the birthday beer was good, I couldn’t go, had the pager, (more crying). It was a toasted blonde with some honey malt. Had a bit of a sweet taste to it but very drinkable.

Cheers!

MAY DAY BEER!

Brewed a 'Toasted Blonde' for a friend of mine on May 1st. It's for his birthday and he is REAL OLD! Happy Birthday Mike!

Brewed it on my new rig I picked up on Friday. Should be done by his party.

Bought the rig thru the Green Bay Rackers brew club. (Thanks Randy) . The previous owner departed in March so thanks and condolences to the family. I will toast to Kelly with the first beer and use his system often and well.

Amber and something like a Porter?

Kegged an Amber Ale today. Maria said it smelled funny... tasted good though. After kegging I noticed some kind of scrunge in my auto-siphon, didn't notice it while sanitizing before use, hope it's not some kind of nasty growth....

Opened a bottle of what was supposed to be a Scotch Ale last week. Made it with a bunch of grain I needed to use up and when I put the recipe into TasteyBrew it seemed to fit a Scotch, too dark and roasty though, closer to a Porter, maybe even a Stout. Have to drink more and get some opinions to see what catagory it fits.


Next up is a kit from Midwest, haven't done a kit since my first beer. It was on sale in their newsletter, they call it 'Boundary Waters Ale'. I got the all grain version, have to see what it looks like when I get it, may modify it. :-)

Cheers!

BLUE RIBBON! 2011 BrewMasters

Won a blue ribbon for a Coffee Vanilla Stout at this years TriCounty Fermenters Brew Masters competition. This was a beer my wife "made me" brew. She normally does not care for beer but tasted this at a brew club meeting and loved it. Asked the girl who made it for the recipe and made that beer. Also entered an Oktoberfest but it did not score well, seems to have fermented too warm. Live and learn, and drink all the mistakes! :-)

Haven't posted in 9 months! Still making/drinking beer, just have not gotten around to posting....

I'll try to get an update this week to round up the year.
By the way..... Is there anybody out there?

Weisbier

Tried a German weisbier, hard time with the sparge, then the yeast did not take off so I had to add some dry yeast, not sure what this will do to the flavor. Been in the primary for a week and a half now.

The Toasted Blonde turned out GREAT, not much left, took a keg of it to a super bowl party and it was a hit. Bottled a 12 pack and have 3 left.

Next up will be either another blonde or a brown......

Toatsed Blonde

The beer I made on new years is now officially named 'Toasted Blonde' need to get it in the secondary, just can't seem to get around to it, if it's at the FG I may just keg it and skip the secondary as it has been fermenting for 2 1/2 weeks. Also sampled the 'Mort 910 Lager' a very good beer, nice and crystal clear. Could use a little more time to carbonate. I'll try some more this weekend. Cheers!