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Homebrew #99: Dubious Provenance

by Rob Friesel

Oh yeah… my first brew of the great Coronavirus SARS CoV-2 COVID-19 Quarantine Shelter-in-Place Lockdown of 2020. This was a beer that I had queued up before all the Washington state “Stay Home, Stay Safe” stuff went into effect but… then there was the whole matter with my kegerator needing a re-build to deal with the CO₂ leak and… Well, shit happens — right?

In any case, despite my 2020 goal to brew 6+ new-to-me styles, you also need to keep some reliable palate pleasers around. As a New England IPA, Dubious Provenance was just such a beer.

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Homebrew #98: Zondag Meisje

by Rob Friesel

In service of my 2020 goal to brew a few more new-to-me styles, I decided on a Belgian Blond early on in the year’s brew planning. It’s a style I don’t know too well, but I’ve historically enjoyed Leffe and… why not take a swing at it? And so one Sunday afternoon, Zondag Meisje1 was born:

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  1. Blondie’s got that song “Sunday Girl” and I brewed it on a Sunday so… “What’s Flemish for Sunday Girl??” [↩]

Homebrew #97: Murphy the Lucky Dog

by Rob Friesel

Two motivations at work here. The first, and probably more predictable of them: St. Patrick’s Day was imminent, and I wanted an Irish Stout on draft for the occasion. And the second? I wanted to round out the BJCP’s Category 15 beers.1 Thus was Murphy the Lucky Dog2 devised:

Murphy the Lucky Dog, an (attempted) Irish Stout
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  1. Having previously done 15A and 15C… [↩]
  2. The name here is a whole side story in and of itself. The “Murphy” part is clearly (clearly?) a reference to Murphy’s Irish Stout which was a favorite of ours back at St. Mary’s, Guinness being an acceptable substitute &c. But somewhere in the early 2000s, while out to lunch (dinner?) with my wife at a local diner, I noticed this paper placemat with an advertisement for the local animal shelter and some of the animals up for adoption. Anyway, there was a photo of this dog “Murphy” and I tore the photo off the placemat and stuck it in my pocket and then nicely cut him out and laminated him. And I carried him around in my wallet for years. I never met the real Murphy, but I imagine he found a good home. Godspeed, Muphy — you lucky dog. [↩]

Homebrew #96: Honestatis (Mk. IX)

by Rob Friesel

It had been too long. Mk. VIII was… summer of 2018!? Did all of 2019 slip by without a single batch of Honestatis? I suppose it’s possible — we were busy last year. But as 2019 closed out and I looked ahead to 2020, I committed to two seemingly opposed brew goals. The first? Brew at least six new-to-me styles. And the second? Start the year off strong with the triumphant return of Honestatis, the beer I’ve brewed more than any other:

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Homebrew #90: Ned

by Rob Friesel

Long-time readers know that most of my meads are “beer-strength” and carbonated — craft meads, to borrow a phrase. Oh sure, there was that pyment, and that 2017 batch that got split up several ways but … craft meads tend to be my wheelhouse. But this honey was special, so Ned isn’t a craft meads but something more … traditional.1

Ned, a still standard-strength traditional mead
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  1. Glossing over the fact that “traditional” is a super loaded word, especially when it comes to mead. But let’s just move past that, OK? [↩]

Homebrew #95: Hoarder Intervention #3

by Rob Friesel

Long time readers of this blog will know from the name what’s in store here. When I call a beer “Hoarder Intervention”, it’s because it’s a “junk drawer” beer — as in: me cleaning out whatever junk is leftover. “What the hell can I do with this?” But whereas #1 and #2 required some supplementation from the local HBS, Hoarder Intervention #3 was brewed simply with what I had on-hand.

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dream.20200117: horses, gaps

by Rob Friesel

We are driving to the grocery store. Dark (night?) and fog. Are the headlights on? No. She reaches to turn them on, twist the knob. And ahead maybe 50 yards are a bunch of horses. Hit the brakes, but they’re already started and galloping toward us. Most go around. One goes over, and we hear the hooves pound against the roof.

Cut.

We’re in the parking lot for the grocery store and hustle toward the entrance. The entrance is locked. But people are coming in and out. How? A few feet away is a greeter waving at us from about fifteen feet up. There’s a small ramp leading toward the entrance, but then we need to climb the rest of the way. He is helping people in and out of the door. He explains that there is a very specific set of movements required in order to safely enter or exit. We help E. up first, but he insists on doing it his own way. I try to climb up after him. The whole situation is precarious.

N.b. Looks like this is the first one of these in about 3 years that I could remember long enough to get it written down and post it.

Continued Meditation on Brew House Efficiency

by Rob Friesel

After posting Puzzling Out Brew House Efficiency, I shared the link with the local homebrew club, just to see what others might have to say on the subject. (Always tap into the collective wisdom, right?) One member shared a link that helped me think about “where to from here” with this on-going experiment. This post is a think-out-in-the-open style follow up to my previous post, in light of reading this research series posted on BrauKaiser.com.

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