Tailgating with Heady Topper...

Man I've been lost without 2+2.

Let's see, beer-wise I've had:
Hoptimum
75 Minute
Homebrew Gumballhead clone which is spot-on
Homebrew berliner weisse and some others that arent too noteworthy.

I've brewed once, another berliner batch which I should be bottling soon.

My berliner:

I built a workbench/fermentation chamber. I've got pics I'll put up later. As for drinking, this year's Hoptimum and Deviant Dale's. The Hoptimum is just about perfect imo, and the Deviant Dale's is ok. Its super piney and dank, which is a nice change from lots of the recent I/IPA's going the tropical citrus route. Unfortunately, its as expensive as the rest of Oskar Blues' lineup, so when I'm staring at Deviant Dale's for $13/4pack next to Torpedo at $8/4pack, its not going to win very often at all.

I've actually be a bit dry since 2p2 went down (due to gout). But, naturally I didn't listen to my body and had some of the deschutes hop henge that I got from the site RDH linked before everything went tits up

gout is the worst. first day i had it really bad i didnt even know what it was. so when i got out of work i went to have some beers and a steak to cure my foot from alll its hurting. WORST DECISION EVER!!!! it took me about 20 minutes to make a 5 minute walk from my car to my front door after that meal.

fresh squeezed lemon juice in about 3 oz of water is the homeopathic cure of champions

black cherry juice my friend. That **** works like no tomorrow. I'll always take the runs as the trade-off for the brutal pain gout brings. Thank god for black cherry extract pills

sadly beer is the worst thing for gout. I've had to almost completely cut out red meat from my diet as well as shellfish. Naturally I haven't stopped drinking


and with me saying all of that, I'm about to kill off a whole slew of bottles tonight with a couple of friends

I've got a bottle of Hoptimium and a can of Deviant Dale's in the fridge right now. Also got Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout and some Lagunitas Hop Stoopid. Gonna be a good mothers day!

I had the Deviant Dale's a week or two back and actually found it quite tropically and citrusy. The price is quite expensive which sucks, but I though it was one of the best IPAs I've had this year, definitely recommend it.

My friend and I are going to build an Arduino controlled steam mash system in the coming weeks which I'm pretty excited about. Will be able to dial in more accurate and complex mashes. Following the simple look of this: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/easy...-system-25974/ combined with the arduino temp controlled solenoid valve.

So Im brewing a batch of beer for a Philly Beer week event, its a homebrew festival of sorts at a local outdoor biergarten 12 brewers all bringing 1 keg. I am going back and forth on what to brew/bring. I am debating on trying something I have never brewed before or doing a tried and true recipe like my Blonde Ale or American Hefe.

What I want to try is a White IPA (basically a hopped up Wit Beer), anyone familiar with the style? Ive had the Saranac and the Sam Adams versions and really liked the Saranac, the SA was good but not exactly what Im going for.

Then I found this...

http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/reci...hite-ipa-clone

That looks exactly like what I was imaging, only change I might make is toss in a flameout addition of Citra. Here's what I worked up, how does it look? I am pretty well set on the grain bill, I may tweak the hop schedule a little even. My big question is the yeast, Im debating between the WLP400 Belgian Wit and WLP320 American Hefe.

Props to Firestone Walker for showing up the competition...

firestone-walker-union-jack-ipa 99 points

firestone-walker-double-jack-ipa 100 points

Coff-

Looks good to me. I brewed up a Three Floyd's Gumballhead clone, which is pretty much an over hopped wheat and it was fantastic. I like this style or substyle, whatever it is.

Well, good news and bad news with the honey ale.
Good news: no huge major problems with the fermentation and bottling , and the beer is clear. Like, crystal-clear. Bright golden orange/amber.
Bad news: I believe I calculated the hops wrong...went back and looked at the package and recalculated and I have a beer that is fairly dry and more hoppy than I wanted at about 33 IBUs (target was 20 for sort of a malty-sweet honey ale). It isn't bad, just not what I was looking for. I think it may have fermented a little warm too - slight off flavor, albeit one that is fading fast with time. Overall it is just decent, not spectacular. Live and learn...

No worries, just make sure you keep your notes so next time you brew that recipe you modify it to fit your tastes. The Blonde Ale I keep on tap took me 3-4 brews to perfect, each time it was good but just needed some tweaking, now I think it's perfect and won't change a thing.

i know absolutely nothing about home brewing but would love to start; where do I start? are there any recommended books?

roughly how expensive is it to start from scratch?

thanks

How to Brew - John Palmer is my bible for brewing. howtobrew.com has an old edition to read for free.

It can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want.

Here's a sample of some kits you can buy: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homeb...ment-kits.html

If you're serious, I'd jump straight to the intermediate kits as they have just about everything you would need. The only thing else you would need is a pot and you can brew extract immediately. Pots range from $20-$150 for nice big ones.

Some of my freinds are recently getting into homebrewing and I have pointed them to howtobrew.com of course, as well as www.homebretalk.com

But I got my brother and a friend to jump right to brew in a bag stovetop batches and skip extract all together. With how easy Brew in a bag (aka BIAB) is it seems pointless to learn the ropes doing extract. Just my .2

Anybody have any breweries or bars doing anything exciting for American Craft Beer Week? My local brewery Swamp Head has a Florida tap takeover today and a Big Beer bash on Thursday that I'm planning on going to. Also a little brewpub has a bunch of their beers on tap and might go check them out.

I think BIAB is the next logical step after extract brewing (I am looking to transition soon). I am working on a PM recipe for Ommegang Witte that will be my first recipe formulation and first PM. Even with a handful of batches under my belt, I am intimidated. I totally understand why people start with extract brewing. You can focus on learning all the nuances of the rest of the process first.

Tried some of RDH's home brew last night. YH. I used to know what that was, but not anymore. Amber color, delicious and malty. Great brew.

craft beer week in chicago this year looks like it's gonna be miles better than last year. There's a bunch of events, but a cool one that I plan on going to is having a bunch of local stuff (and most it being special brews) on cask. Obviously since this is chicago, there'll be a lot of FFF as well. I plan on hitting up a couple of the jolly pumpkin specials too

This site, craigslist, and homebrewtalk.com classifieds are the best places to find your equipment. I'll second/third the recommendations on howtobrew.com and anything John Palmer.

Here is a pretty good price on a starter system: http://www.groupon.com/albany-capita...utm_source=rvs

I think with that kit all you need is a boil kettle to get started, and bottles for bottling. It includes a 25$ gift card which puts you $45 away from a 7.5gal stainless kettle from midwest. If you have bottles, this gets you the equipment you need and a kit for $110. Not a bad price to get started.

Seattle Beer Week is going on right now, with a bunch of very cool events. Last Thursday was Back in Black Stout Fest at Brouwer's Cafe, with 40+ stouts on tap. My wife and I planned to stay for a couple of hours and try a couple of stouts each. We left after about six hours, having shared eight.

The best:

Boneyard (Oregon) Suge Knite -- 14%, but you'd never know it. Very, very smooth.
Evil Twin (Denmark) Imperial Biscotti -- a little sweet, but an impressive beer. My wife loved this one.
Stone Elijah Craig 2009 IRS -- This was probably my favorite of the day. Plenty of bourbon flavor in this.

Sour Fest is on Thursday ... that should be a little easier for the liver, since I think most of them are lower-octane than the big stouts.

I moved into a house about a year ago, and something that I really wanted was to have a work bench/work area. I figured, why not make the space underneath it a fermentation area? I got the inspiration from a couple threads on homebrewtalk about under workbench fermentation chambers. Here's how it turned out:

Love it! How often do you jam out with that CD player? :P

http://www.spykman.com/simm/simm.html - Thoughts on something like this? The only drawbacks I can find thus far is the slightly dangerous nature of pressure, and how long it takes to get to temp. I'm also not entirely sold on that thing spinning around 100% of the time in a thick mash which would make it a pain to manually stir w/ steam.

Can you give some insights into how your brewery mashes/sparges/boils/whirlpools? Also, how often are you guys buying your fresh banks of yeast? Is 2 months the norm? How many strains are you using? 1 for most, 1 each for seasonals, or something else?

I'd love to see a TR on this

Even though that's a imperial stout, Boneyard has been making my favorite IPAs around for a while now...I can't recommend them enough. They should be showing up in cans soon, keep an eye out.

Last night I got a chance to try the Hair of the Dog/Deschutes collaboration Conflux #1 along with samples of each beer made for the blend individually - fun stuff.

Pinot aged Dissident, Rye Whiskey aged Stoic, Bourbon aged Fred, Fresh Oak aged Adam, then all four of those blended together and aged in a variety of barrels for the actual Conflux.