From brew street to oblivion

New Belgium happens to be a great brewery. Clutch happens to be a great band. When they get together for a collaborative project I wonder if the marketing team incepted my dreams and created this just for me. the brew is a perplexing Dark Sour Ale. I can't wait to get my hands on this stuff.

Read about it in more detail here Beer tyrant.

Kick start my wort!

My friend and owner of Austin Homebrew Supply Mr. Forrest Rogness is opening a microbrewery here in Austin.The focus is one high quality small batches. With rye, porter, kolsch, and esb styles all in the works. Like with all new businesses capital is necessary to get things off and running. This is where you can help.

Kickstarter is a website that allows start up company to aquire capital through pledges by interested parties.

An explation from the Kickstater website:  " You may pledge any dollar amount (a minimum of $1) to our campaign, although we have specified rewards for different levels of giving, which may be found on the right-hand side of the page. If we receive at least $60,000 in pledges by October 21, 2011, we will receive the amount of donations ($60,000 or above) at that time, and we can purchase more equipment such as a steam generator, more kegs, a bottling line, etc.


In order to pledge, all you need is an Amazon account (it's free!). You will not be charged for your donation until October 21, if we meet our goal; otherwise, you will not be charged anything."

The rewards are proportionate to level of the pledge (think PBS pledge campagins but instead of a VHS tape of River Dance for a pledge of $50 you'll receive a Rogness t-shirt, pint glass, tasting glass, and sticker).

Here is the link to the Kickstarter page. So belly up for as little as $1and support craft beer!

Harvest

Aaron recently harvested the Cascade hops that I planted last year. It was an impressive crop. He has already brewed a fresh hop ale with some of them, the rest he plans dry and save for later use. Some are headed my way and I can't wait to get my mitts on them. Here are a few photos.

Cheers,

 - Jay

My new(ish) conical fermenter

This summer has been insanely hot here in Austin, with tempatures reaching into the triple digits nealry every day. This kind of heat makes it difficult to brew so I haven't produced a batch since May. Cooling Wort quickly when the water coming out of the tap is nearly 80 degrees is not exactly easy. Hopefully it will cool down within a month and I can get back at it. In the mean time I've been doing alot of reading and formulating recipies. I've also been able to pick up a few pieces of equipment that I'm very excited about.

Roughly a month ago AHS aquired the inventory of a homebrew store that had gone out of business. The bulk of the items were used. Amongst them was an 8 gallon minibrew conical fermenter. It was in good shape and I was able to pick it up for an excellent price.

It cleaned up easily. I replaced the 1" ball valve with a plastic one and the half inch valve with a stainless steel one. I also added a dial thermometer and used EcoFoil to insulate it.

I can't wait to get some brew in it and watch the airlock bubble away.

Before

After