I recently brewed a Saison with Malted Sunflower seeds, I am excited to try it in a few days.

http://riverwards.blogspot.com/2013/...er-saison.html

That's a pretty clever idea Coff. My wife and I just bought our first house and are moving in late this month, so I'm excited to get back into the brewing game. I have 5 lbs of hops that have been sitting in fridge since Jan and ~60lbs of grains in storage as well. I'd like to grab/build a kegerator but I probably need to save for a new fermentation chamber before that.

Also going to get into gardening a lot more. We grew ~5lbs of produce this year in a 3x5 garden but the new place has a raised bed that looks ~4x6 or so. The yards big enough for another bed and a couple fruit trees as well which I'm excited about. Does anyone here grow peppers and ferment their own sauces?

Brewed my first batch about a month ago at a storefront in NYC that has all the equipment set up, where they kind of guide you through the process. Was awesome and I bottle in a few weeks.

I'm going to get a home brew kit for Christmas. What should I have for Year 1 of home brewing? Any kit recommendations? If it takes, I figure I'd upgrade after the first year.

Interesting idea, curious to see how it turns out. Thanks for the link, didn't know you had a blog, it looks good. A lot of familiar links on the left side haha.

Similar situation as we were in a little over a year ago.

Didn't get to setup the garden until August, so it was only herbs this year, but I really look forward to peppers, tomatoes and of course wonderful things to put in beer.

Made a chili stout with arbol chilies recently. Unfortunately, it was my smallest volume (took 5g of stout, 2g was bourbon oak chip aged, 2g normal, 1g chili stout), because man that tasted good.

Regular or extract? Midwest and Austin Brewing Supply both have some good kits. I haven't used any of them, but you can see the ingredients on Midwest's, which I really prefer, and there's some good kits there.

Guess I need to learn more before answering that question - the batch I did used a malt extract, is that what you are referring to? Definitely not grain.

He thanks! I learned alot from reading homebrewing blog over the years, Its also a great way to track my beers and express my thought process behind some of them.

I would definitely look at Austin Homebrew Supply or Midwest Brewing Supplies for good recipe kits then. I lean towards Midwest since they publish their ingredients. There's no need to hide ingredients in kits with brewing imo, but to each their own.

Just make sure you buy the extract kit and not all grain. I'd lean towards picking out something 6-7% and maybe a bit on the hoppier side if you're into hops... it's far easier to make a good hoppy 6-7% beer than a 4-5% malty beer (or even a 9%er) when you're new. Don't consider that a hard instruction, above all in brewing, just go for it. Perceived limitations are what kept so many good beers from being made for so many years.

Homebrewtalk.com has a good recipe section too. Be careful on sites like brewmonkey and those, where it's just anyone being able to post any recipe without feedback. You can get some bad stuff that is hard to recognize why it might not work if you haven't been brewing awhile. Especially on the clones. I've seen so many clones of beers that I'm familiar with and no it can taste nothing like the real beer just on the ingredients used... those recipes just float around sites, so definitely make sure there's feedback for any recipe you make online.

I agree. Brewing books are actually pretty darn good too (most fields I think books are hit or miss, and often miss... look at poker, 2p2 probably makes 50% of the good books and there are millions of crap ones), but online information is really the king.

Thanks for the feedback. I figure I'll start making a few "standard kit" batches of IPA or pale ale using extract, then once comfortable, start working with recipes.

Current tap offerings where I frequent in MN, plus there is an upcoming Samuel Smith's beer dinner in January. The breakfast stout is so enjoyable on tap, especially in this terrible climate. I missed out on Surly Darkness this year but on the bright side of things Hopslam should be on tap in a few months.

Surly-- Cynic

Great Lakes -- Christmas Ale

Founder's-- Breakfast Stout

Lakefront-- IPA

Fulton-- Lonely Blonde

any of u Californians like Green Flash Brewing company? picked up their imperial IPA the other day on a whim and gotta say its very good. Fits the definition of one of my damn near perfect beers, just a pleasant IPA and while it is 9.4% by volume, it is not overly powerful at all.

brewed in San Diego

Green Flash is pretty widely distributed. It's a solid brewery in my opinion, and I think many echo that view.

Their IPA and IIPA are both pretty popular among good beer drinkers.

Going back to Chicago for a few days tomorrow, can't wait to try some of the stuff I haven't had in awhile (Founders, Three Floyds, Metropolitan, Revolution) and maybe some of the new breweries. Been drinking nothing but local beer out here and I can't even get around to enough of the breweries here that I like... it's overwhelming (in a good way).

Ry, you definitely need to hit up the Half Acre tap room. I would also highly recommend doing your milwaukee ave eating at the Radler. It's a new German beer hall with a slew of local taps that aren't as widely in the city as many other breweries.

I would say that Spiteful is the new brewery to keep your eyes on the most. They are more in the IPA and Stout category, but they are definitely the best of the new batch (well, outside of pipeworks and you definitely need to buy bombers of pipeworks brews)

There's still some bottle shops selling Darkness.

Surly distributes in Chicago as of a few week ago so check them out.

Man, thanks for all these tips, Unfortunately, I had like no time the four days I was there (one day was gf's birthday, other two were family stuff each day... and the 4th day was a half day).

I did make it to Banger's and Lace on Xmas Eve for a nightcap (or four), got to enjoy my Three Floyd's fix, among others.

Made it to Binny's to buy some Founders and Metropolitan to share during a Christmas party. A friend had his end of a replicale project we did ready (well, by ready I mean he bottled a few bottles of 3 day carbonated from his keg so I could try it) and my mother pleasantly surprised me with a six pack of Firestone Walker Pale Ale.

Between that and two 2012 DarkLords my dad pulled out of nowhere (he drinks Boston Lager and someone he works with gave them to him as a gift), along with some Sam Adams, I was pretty much unavailable to drink anything else while in Chicago.

Luckily I've had a good bit of Surly in my lifetime (back when I lived in Chicago a lot of beer guys used to trade for it), but a great rec, I've always liked their beers a lot.

By the way, is anybody here watching Brew Dogs on the Esquire (wtf) Channel?

I caught an ep at my mother's house on Christmas (Boston episode) and it was really good. I had no idea about this show, just happened upon it. In fact, my girlfriend saw it and thought it was about actual dogs (we have a book called brew dogs, which features dogs from all sorts of different Colorado breweries). She was disappointed, I was pleasantly surprised. Seems a lot better than Brewmasters (The DFH show that got cancelled or muscled out by big beer business, guessing the former given the weak ratings...).

I'm not a fan of BrewDogs. Don't really care about brewing a beer with crawfish and shiitake mushrooms while jumping out a plane. Would prefer if they'd brew normal styles while concentrating on the culture of cities/breweries they're visiting.

___

Heading to MPLS and WI to wreck my liver today. Checking out a few brewpubs and bottle shops. Growlers of Topping Goliath, Three Floyds, and Alesmith? Yes please.

2nd brew of the weekend tonight.

Rebrewing this with some tweaks.

Replaced the crystal 40 with 8 oz of crystal 20 and 6 oz of cararye.

Unplanned changes in the hops.

Didn't have Amarillo. So flameout and dry hop will be 1 oz Simcoe 0.5 each of cascade and moteuka.

First brew is not going so well. Brewed a farmhouse mild basically a mild with special b instead of crystal 150. And 10% rye and 15% oats with half the oats in the sparge to creat some munchies for bacteria. Pitched wlp665 and a bottle of dregs. The dregs were some of the cake from a previous sour. No activity in a bit over 36 hours. Pitched another vial of wlp665.

I don't recognize it so I suspect this is somewhere in WI, right?

In MN you should be able to get Surly Abrasive and Surly Smoke right now if you go to the right liquor store, most decent ones have them. The former is a great DIPA, the latter is a good smoke if you're into those.

Yeah that's at Casanova's in Hudson, WI. (30 minutes east of MPLS) If you're in the area it's a must stop. New Glarus, Three Floyds, Toppling Goliath, Bruery, Alesmith, Oskar Blues, Dogfish Head. Between there and Ale Jail in MPLS, I spent $500+ in the first hour. Will post pics of haul later. Was unable to get any Smoke since I was planning on going to more bottle shops today but had to hit the road before the weather worsened. Had it on tap though.

Brewing an IPA today. Was supposed to be all NZ/Aus hops post bittering but dumped in my 10 minute addition as my FWH addition. So moved the columbus from FWH to flame out. Realized it when the wort started to smell fruity.

6 Gallons
OG 1.058
~69 IBU Target 6% ABV

Grain Bill - Mashed 75 minutes at 150
FWH - 0.5 oz each of Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, and Pacifica
Flame Out - 2 oz Galaxy, 1 oz Columbus, 0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin, and 0.5 Oz Pacifica
Dry Hop - 1.5 oz Galaxy, 1 oz Nelson Sauvin
Keg hop - 1 oz Pacifica

Forgot Grain Bill -
11.5lbs 2-Row
8oz Crystal 40
6oz CaraPils

While some of the antics can be silly (jumping out of planes as you say), I find building a brew setup so it can function on a boat out in the Boston harbor, and the use of exotic ingredients to compliment a beer pretty neat.

Granted, I doubt it has much practical use to boil a lobster in beer (at least they ate it after!), I do like to see alternative ingredients used in beer.

I don't do it myself all that often simply because information about reliable practices on alternative ingredients is not all that comprehensive.

If I could pick any topics for a brewing show to be about though, it would be purely about brewing beer. That's not realistic (good podcasts in the brewing world don't always survive) for a mainstream audience, but Brew Dogs looks to be something that non brewers can enjoy, giving it a chance to survive. With that in mind, I'm enjoying the show so far.

Please let us know how that hop combination ends up coming out.

I got back from Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp about a month ago. I won a trip through their video making contest and went out Dec 4-6. I wrote a long summary with pics on my blog if you want to read.

TL;DR version is that they rolled out the red carpet for us. In depth tour, visits with Steve Grossman, their head brewer Steve Dresler, tastes from their fermentation tanks of upcoming beers, sensory taste evaluation, and all the food and drink we could handle.

Oh yeah and we brewed 20 BBL of a beer. After much deliberation we decided on an 8% IPA, pretty light in color, ~30% wheat and hopped with summit, simcoe, amarillo and el dorado. Dry hopped with newmexicanus and aged on cedar wood spirals.

We were Beer Camp #118 and although the name is currently TBD, if you see it on tap get it and let me know!

Nice read, pretty awesome experience for you, thanks for sharing. Will keep an eye out for that beer, but I'd imagine it's pretty limited?

Yeah it is pretty limited I guess. They do re-brew some of the beer camp beers if they're popular/well received, but I'm thinking that since ours uses the cedar spirals, it'll will be a little too labor intensive to do that. We could make the best of beer camp 12 pack that they release, but for the same reasons, I'm not holding my breath.