Homebrewing: It's stupidly simple... until it's not

I remember walking into the kitchen as a kid and this pungent smell smacking me in the face. At the time I feared that a soup had gone terribly wrong. I watched as my dad stood over the stove and stirred a pot dropping what appeared to be fish food in to this steaming mixture.

Knowing I had to eat whatever was put in front of me for dinner, I asked, "What are you cooking, Dad?"

I was bracing for a vegetable filled death march with my spoon at the dinner table, when he broke this image with a simple word, "Beer."

I remember thinking to myself that my father was a silly man. You don't cook beer! You go to the fridge and open a bottle. DUH!! What was he thinking?!

My dad did this many more times over the years, but I can tell you that I didn't really have an appreciation for it until I lost my craft beer virginity in college. I gained an appreciation for good beer and the hard work that goes into making it. This was amplified when C got me a gift a few years ago. A Northern Brewer Starter Kit**! I felt like I was that kid getting his first Chemistry set and being uber excited about it! C got me an American Wheat to start off with.

Before we get started if you need a refresher take a look at my beer glossary.

Brew day!

We had read the instructions with the brewing kit and watched a lot of YouTube videos to give us a feeling that we kinda sorta knew what was going on. I found out that if you know how to boil water and dump things in, then you can make beer. A really good beer at that. NOTE: Kits usually give you enough ingredients to make a five gallon batch of beer.

1. Sanitize - This is THE most important rule and procedural step in brewing a beer at any level. Clean everything that could touch the beer. Clean everything that could touch the beer after the boil a second time.
2. Make sure you have all of your ingredients and equipment.
• In the interest of keeping this post from being long I will write about equipment and ingredients soon in a different post.
3. Turn on your heat source with around 2.5 to 3 gallons of water in a brew kettle, bringing the water to a boil.
4. Pour your malt extract into the water.
• Malt extract is a syrup that will be the main source of sugar in your wort
• Sugars are what yeast eats to make alcohol and carbon dioxide
5. At specific intervals add hops to your boiling brew.
• These times will be called out in any instructions you get with a kit
6. The boil will usually go on for 60 minutes. Your boil time will be listed on the instructions. 
7. Remember to sanitize everything! The beer you are making is very vulnerable at this point!
8. After the boil is done, the liquid in the pot is now called wort. You will now want to cool the wort as quickly as possible.
• This can be done with:
1. Ice baths
2. Using blocks of ice. 8 pounds of ice = 1 gallon of water... ish.
3. A copper coil with cool water passing through it (called a wort chiller**... clever right?)
• You need to cool the wort from around 212 degrees F to around 70 degrees F.
9. Once you get the wort to the cooler temperature, you can transfer it to a carboy or fermentation container. 
10. Pitch the yeast. This is a fancy way of saying put the yeast in the wort. I will cover activating the yeast in post soon.
11. Cap the fermentation container with an airlock. This is a rubber piece with a hole filled with a funny looking plastic thing with a liquid in it.
12. Now you wait for fermentation to take place. Depending on the beer this could take a couple weeks or a few months, but that is something you will see before you order your ingredient kit.
13. Once fermentation is done, you will transfer the wort to a bucket with a spicket(or spigot whichever you prefer) and some sugar water
14. From the bucket, you put the wort in bottles.
15. You will wait a couple weeks for bottle conditioning to complete.
16. Now you can enjoy the beer you made!

That is it to brewing a simple kit. Boil, add ingredients, cool, ferment, bottle, and drink!

But wait these are the simple steps. Like any activity or hobby, brewing beer CAN (doesn't have to) become expensive and complex. Adding intricate equipment, ingredients, calculations, and terminology can really seem overwhelming at first but if you take your time and realize that you are drinking a good beer, the learning comes easy and fun!

In the next few posts I will be talking about why it is inexpensive to brew with the basics, the variety of equipment compared to essentials for brewing, and the role each ingredient plays on a beer. 

**These products are not the ones I used just examples. I got my wort chiller from a local store and Northern Brewer has changed the packages up since I got my equipment kit.

Am I a beer snob?! Are you?

Am I a beer snob?!?!?!

I saw this picture recently and I was feeling pretty good as I made way down the list of signs. I thought to myself, "Surely, I am not a beer snob!" (I am serious and don't call me Shirley.) There has been a lot of discussion lately about beer snobs, beer geeks, and beer drinkers. I would consider myself a wanna be beer geek who hopes that he is not pretentious to be considered a beer snob. I am a wanna be because I have a lot to learn and I am very excited to learn/drink my way to become a true beer geek. We are all beer drinkers that are looking to have a good time despite any difference in the definition of a good time. I will make fun of my friends for drinking Miller Lite, but they are still my friends. I am trying to find a balance of showing people what is out there and celebrating people taking risks and finding new beers on their own. Even more than that, I don't want to be a jerkface and alienate others away from craft beer. **Steps off soap box** I kept a tally of which of these symptoms I display. My count is a soft 5. I am half a beer snob. Do you disagree? I know some of you have seen me in the act of some these signs. Call me out on it! Comment on this page or on the Scouting the Taps Facebook and Twitter! Tell me of a time where I am guilty of one of these signs. Which ones do you show, if any? I am sure there might be a time when you might have dabbled down the path to the snob side of beer. 

Cards Against Humanity Tournament at Bier Station! Thanks Central States and Mother's!

Tonight I am going to play in a Cards Against Humanity tournament at Bier Station and organized by Central States Beverage. If you don't know what this is, think Apples to Apples with a naughty and risque twist. If you don't know what Apples to Apples is... get out from under the rock you are living under and invite some friends over for a game night featuring either of these games. If you are wanting a family friendly setting go with Apples to Apples and a session ale. If you are brave go for a Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale and Cards Against Humanity. Here are the rules to the Cards Against Humanity game. The website even says "A free party game for horrible people." So lets get weird. The game pits players to choose cards that complete a sentence or answers a question with cards that each hold in their hand. This event also has a special guest of Mother's Brewing. I hope to have a MILF (the beer) and try some other special beers.

I want to take pictures of tonight's tournament, meet new people, and make all of you as jealous as possible. My plan for the night is to have a lot of fun, laugh until my sides hurt, and drink some amazing beer. This tournament would be dangerous on a Friday night. 

BD's Mongolian BQQ, A Craft Beer Haven?

With Mother's Day coming up and yesterday being my mother's birthday, I know that I need to find a place to find good beer. My mother really enjoys a good IPA or really just trying new beers. Now I just need to figure out where to take her for a birthday beer soon!

I could take her to Bier Station in the Waldo area. They have an ever changing yet amazing selection of on-tap beers, not to mention their wide selection of packaged beer. If you haven't been there you should definitely go! They have good food, good people, and even board games to play while you are trying the great beer.

I know my mother likes Martin City Brewery and I am going to go there to review it soon. I hear great things about the craft beer and the pizza.

Yet when people think about establishments to enjoy a good craft beer (and up until recently this was true for me), they seldom think of a place like BD's Mongolian BBQ. A while back I went to BD's Mongolian BBQ for dinner with C. We did as we normally do, picking out meats, veggies, spices, and sauces to be cooked on a huge cast iron heating surface and pushed around by long metal sticks by white guys who have been to one too many hibachi restaurants. What I failed to notice until it was too late was a bar section that was separated from the rest of the establishment by a row of booths and a floor to ceiling window wall with a weird web diagram with nothing on it. This was the view from the grill side. I then walked into the bar section. That web diagram above a few booths was a beer style guide splitting each style of beer so that someone could trace their beer back to the two overarching styles of Ale and Lagers.

My eyes then tracked right to find a chalkboard covered in writing and as I read the board I found it full of 50 different beers all on tap. I then found out they have an extensive bottle cooler as well. I obviously had to come back and try place out a couple weeks later. This was about the time that Boulevard came out with Foeder Projekt #1. C and I were able to get this beer without even a wait despite being a limited release. We also met Josh, a really cool bartender in the Taproom. You should check out Josh on Twitter and he will let you know whats going on at BDs.

Since my mother picked a different restaurant for her birthday dinner, I can take her to BDs for drinks in the very near future. I went last night after dinner to take these pictures and as you can see they have a very wide selection from Boulevard Wheat to little known beers or even hard to find beers. They get a lot of different breweries.

• Stone
• Southern Tier
• Deschutes
• Anchor
• Mothers
• Tallgrass
• Left Hand
• 4 Hand
• Founders
• Summit
• Avery
• New Belgium
• Flying Monkey
• Boulevard
• New Holland

And that is just what is on tap as of last night. Last I saw they have Boulevard Chocolate Ale on tap, so if you are looking for that you might want to head up there.

Here is a look at their bottle selection. When you go there, because lets face it now you kind of have to with this selection, feel free to walk back into the cooler and peruse the assortment of brews. Who knew that a place like BDs was a craft beer haven?

Treat your mother right this spring and take her to a nice place where she doesn't have to make sacrifices of taste because she has sacrificed a lot for you over the years! Happy Mother's Day to all the beautiful Moms out there and Happy Birthday my Mom!

PS Here is a book that I remember my mother reading to me as a child. It still gets me all verklempt.

Love You Forever by Robert Munsch