Snow day Beer

I heard the snow was coming to my town. Everyone was going out to buy milk and bread , I went out to get a local NC beer. Here are some pictures of what I bought.  HighLand brewing company's  Kashmir English India Pale Ale.

Recent Beers

Some of the recent beers I drank this week.

Brewing with the Catholic Church

The miracle of beer.

Monk with Beer Mug (Eduard Grutzner)

          Lets go to the Middle Ages of Europe and talk about beer. In the Middle Ages Beer was looked at as a miracle. People would mix their ingredients (brewing) and it would just turn in to beer. That is a miracle because in that time water was not safe. Even in some of the towns the water was pure poisonous. But brewing beer with it would almost purify it and the alcohol would kill most of the germs and bacteria. In that time they did not know about yeast eating the sugars and making alcohol yet, so when a brew came out right it was Divine Intervention. On the other hand when it came out bad it was Demonic Intervention.

The Catholic Church comes in to play here. In order to have a consistent good brew the people would turn to the Catholic Church. They would hang a Crucifix in their brew house or a six-pointed star or the sign of Solomon. These icons would help protect their beer from any demons.

Priest were often called to bless kettles of brew and often you would give the priest 3 pints of safe drinking beer for coming to bless your brew.    

St. Arnold the patron saint of Belgian brewers played a large roll in beer history. He earned his saint hood because of beer. His beer was able to heal the peasants from their sickness caused by the water. He would encourage them to  drink his beer he brewed at the abbey instead of the local water.  His beer was said to have the gift of health.

To this day breweries in Belgium will still have a Crucifix or a statue of St Arnold in their brew house.

The Blessing of Beer.

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, + O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

     

Down the Rabbit-Hole We Go

                 Oh my ears and whiskers! The White Rabbit.

Today I visited a brewery right in my home town, White Rabbit Brewery. 

White Rabbit Brewing Company

219 Fish Drive

Angier, NC 27501

(919) 527-2739 (BREW)

They invited me over to help them brew and they would pay me too! Pay me in Beer! That's like taking a kid to a candy store and letting them try all the candy.

'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.


White Rabbit Brewing Company is a brewery that bases all their beers on the book "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland." . All their beers names come from the book, like: Tea Party Porter, Dunkin Dormouse Octoberfest, Cheshires Pumpkin Ale, Jabberwocky Tripel, and Drink Me Cream Ale just to name a few.
 

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”  Lewis Carroll

I had a chance to talk with Owner and Brewmaster Kenneth Ostraco while I drank one of their Tea Party Porters, Which was amazing.  It being a Vanilla Bourbon Porter, It was strong on vanilla and bourbon flavor in the best way possible. But to focus on the quote above, Kenneth told me the brewery's story from the beginning to where he is looking to go with it in the future. He started off like most all other Masterbrewers, As a home brewer. White Rabbit has a nice size space with a tap house in the front and the brew house in the back.  The tap house has eight beers on tap at any given time and the brew houses air is full of malt and hops about twice a week.  Kenneth went on to tell me he is right where he wants to be. He has a good clientele and a list of clients waiting for beer. From our conversation, it appears that Kenneth didn't want his brewery to be like fire works, shoot to the top and fizzle out. " I want to take small steps and stick to my grassroots" said Kenneth.  He had told me he has had some big offers to help him go full size and become a full size brewery.  He went on to say "I do not want to jump into the deep end and have someone hand me two cinder blocks and see how long I can tread water".

   

 





I'm late / I'm late / For a very important date. / No time to say "Hello, Goodbye". / I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. The White Rabbit


Time to start Brewing.  We brewed three barrels of beer. Gryphon’s California Common, Rabbit's Nutbrown Ale and Pale in the Park.  Good times hanging out with Kenneth from White Rabbit and Adam from Homesteaders Brew Supply.

Brew today, See you tomorrow

Better Late than Never

Friday was Bottling day

The second best part of brewing, Bottling day. The first being the day you crack one open and drink it. I bottled up all of my 1610 Brown Ale. I primed the beer for bottling with honey. Now the honey should not play any part in the final flavor of the beer, Due to the yeast eating it all up. Yeast loves honey. I use a ratio of 3 TBSP of honey per gallon of brew. Hopefully it turns out good. One of my brewing friends told me it will turn out carbonated like Pepsi. But that's what I am here to find out.  Put weird stuff in your beer and see what happens.    

Here is one of the best things you can invest in for bottling. Its a spring loaded bottle filler. When you push the filler down to the bottom of the bottle and push down the spring is compressed and allows  the beer to flow and when you lift it up it stops the flow. When you pull the filler out of the bottle it leaves just the right amount of head space for the carbonation.  
Bottles all filled and done, Ready to sit for two weeks, If I can wait that long.

I even Filled up one of my Aviator Brewery growler. Can't wait to drink it and share with my friends and family. Because that's what brewing is all about.                                                                                        





































Brew today, See you Tomorrow

In to Secondary we Go.

Today we transferred the 1610 Brown Ale in to secondary. I also took a gravity reading and it was 1.018. Not bad, my FG I was looking for was 1.016 so we will hit that in secondary, I'm sure.  Also we did a tasting, You will not believe  what it tasted like. Go ahead and guess... Beer, well flat beer. It had a nice biscuity, roasted malt flavor with a little bitterness for the hops.  But hey the yeast did its job.  It did such a good job I am going to harvest some of it. But that will be for a later post.

Next

Now we wait again maybe a week or so, If I can wait that long before we bottle them up. I can't wait for them to carbonate.  They are going to be so good.

 That's it for now.

Brew today,  See you tomorrow. 

Would you like for me to pop your top?

New and Old all at the same time


Hey you need me to open your beer? No problem I have my old school bottle opener.

I made this from a wall mount bottle opener and a piece of fence panel.  I was going for a "just cut this out of the old bar" look.

Brew Day. I'm thinking 1610 Brown ale.

I got all my ingredients needed for my partial mash brew Brown ale, I got all my grains and DME from my local brew store, HomeSteaders Brew supply.  This being my third brew I wanted it to really work and taste like BEER.  My first batch was a Mr. BEER kit, Good to get my brewing passion going, but no good as far as beer. Next as you can see here  I brewed an all grain California Ale. I jumped right in to the deep end and could barely swim. My Cali. ale came out as beer, but was weak. It hardly fermented and tasted very young.

This time I...

This time I did a lot of watching youtube and after all of that I feel I have a good idea on how to brew.   I knew I wanted to brew a Brown Ale.  So I want to my local brew supply shop in town and picked up my LME, my barley grains, my hops, and my dry yeast.   My 1610 Brown Ale is ready to brew. I got the recipe from local brew supply shop, I told the owner what I was looking to brew and he helped me tweak the recipe to my liking. 

 

 After that...

After that it was time to brew .

Getting that right Temp. to pitch the yeast

That's it.

OG 1.065
Now it's in it's fermentation bucket and bubbling away.  

It's that time again. Beer Time.

Well it's that time again. Beer time. I am going to try my hand at brewing again. I just got done watching Brew Masters on Netflix. A documentary type show, Featuring Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales.  Watching it really got me pumped to start home brewing again. It has been almost three years since I have brewed any beer, Drank a lot of beer in the past three years but none brewed by me. The only thing I have brewed in the past three years is a lot of coffee. The last batch from almost three years ago I brewed came out  carbonated but tasted sweet, as if the yeast went dormant before it could consume all the sugars.  Also tasted of apples. Which I just learned from Brew Masters means the beer is a immature.

I want to try to harvest yeast from other beers, I don't know if that is possible, but it sounds like a good science experiment.  I think I will try it from both a lager and an ale. Lagers live and ferment  best from 45 to 55 deg. F and ales live and ferment best at 60 to 70 deg. F. Which makes me think that ales will be easier to harvest Yeast from at room temperature. You know since I do not have a refrigerated science lab to keep the lager yeast thriving.

Well that's it now .

Bearfootdaddy brewing beer

I brewed my second batch of beer today, An American all grain Amber Ale. I have my Barley, Ten pounds of it, Just to make five gallons of beer. Ten pounds of barley was more than I could fit in my five gallon pot. So I made two big "I said big right", Big "tea" bags of crushed barley. I boiled them at 153f for one hour and then took the barley out and boiled for ten minutes. After that It was time for the hops. Since I am making American Amber ale I used Cascade hops. I boiled the two ounces of hopes for one hour and with fifteen minutes left I put in one more ounce of the hops and a teaspoon of Irish moss. Irish moss (Shhhh its a brewers secret) helps with the clearity in the cooling process and a clearer final beer.

Bag of barley

Boiling the barley at 153f for one hour.

Cascade Hops

Irish moss

Wyeast Liquid yeast