I work with the distributors to set up print shops to create the banners, posters, beer menus, etc... that you see in all the bars. Interestingly enough, even though I live in Florida 99% of my customers are all over the rest of the country, which is great for building my $1 chip collection.

We'll figure something out. If you ain't in a rush to head back to Cocoa then we'll bump into each other somewhere.

so guys we have the first problem with our beer.i just was at my friends home to make sure the temperature in the cooler is really at 12°C.obviously enough the temperature wasnt at 12°C but at 3,3°c.........we dropped the yeast 60 hours ago.will this have any negative impact on the yeast and beer?were now trying to get the temperature up to 10-12 degrees.

.

how can i post pics without uploading them first to flickr or so?

nevermind ill just use imageshack

pics of the 25l winebottle we are using for fermentation



By fngshmstr at 2011-07-21


By fngshmstr at 2011-07-21

I don't think too low ferment temperatures will really have a flavor effect on the beer. It may take longer to ferment out now though.

is there supposed to be foam on top of the wort if the yeast kicks in?

Yeah - even a lager has somewhat of a krausen. You should also see the yeast swirling about in the beer with lots of movement.

You might need to gently swirl the fermentor a few times after bringing it up to temp. It's possible you crashed the yeast out of solution with the cold temps.

By fngshmstr at 2011-07-23


By fngshmstr at 2011-07-23

some good stuff just arrived

Beautiful. Almost enough to bring a man to tears.

Mr.o0 where are you located in germany? i havent ordered from www.bierzwerg.de but i went to the old shop in cologne a couple of times.
can somebody recommend me a good us beer from their selection http://www.bierzwerg.de/index.php?ca...s-den-USA.html ?

Pretty much all of those are outstanding, but if you want to know what American beer is about, definitely try Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I'd probably put the Great Divide stuff at the bottom of the list, but they're ok, it's just not as good as the rest imo.

^^the Victoria Prima Pils is the highest rated pilsener on beeradvocate.the shops seems pretty cool.i can confidenty recommend you the belgian bears: westmalle tripel and the duvel.both are awesome

Yeah, get the Sierra Pale and pick up the Sierra porter or stout as well. Get the Victory Hop Devil, skip the pils. Their pils is good, but you can probably get dozens of local/German ones that are just as good or better. US craft beer is, in large part, about twisting and pushing English styles, or reviving old styles that are largely forgotten or hardly produced. So get American pale ales and IPAs, barleywines, porters, etc, and leave the American-brewed German lagers behind.

It would be hard to find a more uniquely American beer on that list than Anchor Steam. The style was born of necessity during the California Gold Rush of 1849 and when the Anchor Brewery was going out of business in the early 1970's, Fritz Maytag bought it, firing the first shot in the US Craft Beer Revolution.

Went to the Summer Ale Festival at the Philadelphia Zoo on Saturday night. What an awesome venue for a beer festival, you just walk around and and look at the animals and drink good brews.

The star of the show, imo, was the Victory's Summer Love (Blonde) just fantastic. Very dry with a solid hop bite, I found myself going back many many times that night.

Kind of late on my TR but went to the Cask Expo on Saturday. There were around 200-300 people there, 35 breweries, and easily 70+ casks. There were also ~5 randals there which was my first time experiencing them. I tried a SMaSH recipe that was vienna/cascade randallized on citra which was probably my favorite there. Also had a pretty intense IIPA randallized on a cpl different types of hops.

Some of the randalls had herbs in them; one was a pale ale through rosemary which was super rosemary-y and not so great, the other was an ipa through thyme/basil which was also not so great.

Funky Buddha was there and they tapped a cask of their peanut butter and jelly brown ale which lived up to the name. Couldn't drink more than a bottle of it, and I think it's kind of gimmicky, but I'll be damned if it didn't taste just like PBJ.

A lot of the beers tasted overly sweet which I think may be a result of the casking process. Overall it was a great time, I got completely **** faced by the end of the night which was fun in a city where you can walk anywhere. I think I probably drank ~40-50 4oz samples, a few 12oz beers at bar afterwards, and then a bunch of crown/ginger. Needless to say the drive home the next day wasn't fantastic .

At the NHC there were several clubs with randalls. The cherry wheat that was randallized over cherries was good, but the berry wheat didn't seem to have much impact. One club had 6-8 randalls on their faucets, I took a phone pic, may try to post it. I also had an 18% beer called "Chicken Nuts" which was randallized over coffee beans and cocoa nibs. It was FANTASTIC and I kept going back for it. I need to email that particular club for that recipe.

Sounds awesome, Im surprised they dont have a Cask event during Philly Beer Week. It might be something I should throw out to the Homebrew Club....

I'll be going to Ommegang's: Belgium Comes to Cooperstown event this weekend. Anyone else going? Or has anyone else gone before that has some tips on what to bring etc, itll be my first time.

Step 1: Drink lots of Three Philosophers
Step 2: Get drunk.
Step 3: Walk around drunk enjoying yourself immensely.
Step 4: Eat a bomb meal that tastes 100x better in your inebriated state.
Step 5: Bang hooker.
Step 6: Pass out.

Solid Wednesday afternoon.

Sounds easy enough.

Pretty excited for this one.

wow what an awesome thread. didn't know there was one on 2+2.

i'm not a beer expert by any means but am getting into trying and discovering new ones now. this thread should give me lots of ideas.

but quick question anyway, if you could recommend one beer for me to go out and buy right now to try, what would it be? i perfer ales generally and don't really like stouts.

btw, i used to live on the same block as Monk's Cafe in Philly. terrific belgian beer selection. so i highly recommend it if anyone's is in the city. in nyc, where i live now, Markt, BXL, and Vol de Nuit are good plces for Belgian beer too, though none are as awesome in selection and atmosphere as Monk's Cafe imo.