It's brew time

I started brewing my own beer over a year ago. Since then I have made some interesting concoctions... some really good, some really bad. So I wanted to start listing my brewing adventures on here so I remember what I did well and what I should never do again. So for now, I'm going to list my best to worst brews.

1. Pumpkin Beer - This one turned out fantastic. Definitely my favorite so far and I'm planning on brewing it again soon so it will be ready for Thanksgiving. This brew had about 2 lbs of pumpkin so next time I'm bumping it up to 4 or 6 lbs.

2. Caramel Cream Ale - One of my more interesting receipes. Had a decent amount of lactose and vanilla added. Smelled and tasted great, but vanilla flavors lessened with age. Still very good.

3. Dark Wheat Ale (Dunkleweizen) - A nice change of pace from regular wheat beers. This was dark and lots of malty flavor. Since I like malty beers, I'm listing this one high on the list.

4. Golden Ale - My first beer that I ever brewed. I don't know how this turned out well because I had no idea what I was doing. It over carbonated with age because I added too much sugar at bottling time. Other than that, this was a pretty decent beer. Amber colored and had a Bass like flavor. Brown sugar was the secret to this beer.

5. Maple Cream Ale - Not sure why I did 2 cream ales, but so far they've turned out pretty good. This one was gross when it was young, however it aged very well. After 2 months this beer was very smooth, had a great head, and had a nice maple taste. Over 12 ounces of grade A maple syrup went into this brew.

6. Irish Stout - Started out pretty good, but was a fairly dry beer with a strange aftertaste that I could never quite put my finger on. Probably too heavy on the hops since most stouts don't us much hop additions. Got really bad after it had aged a couple of months. Not my worst beer, but close.

7. Summer Ale (Hefeweizen) - Tastes pretty good, but didn't carbonate well. Added lots of lemon and orange zest, which gives it a unique aftertaste and smell. Only problem is that it fermented at too high of a temperature. The particular yeast that I used with this beer creates a banana taste if fermenting at hot temperatures. If you like bananas, then you'd like this beer.

8. Oatmeal Stout - Just about everything went wrong with this beer. Too much hops, over carbonated, didn't boil the grains correctly. It's probably the smoothest beer I've every tasted, so it gets an A+ for mouthfeel. However, the hops and carbonation issues make it pretty much undrinkable. I'll take another shot at this in the future.

Coming soon:
Pumpkin beer #2
My first IPA
and an attempt at a Watermelon Ale.

First of all…

Yes, I am still alive. For the first time since I started this blog, I didn’t post for an entire month. I guess August just wasn’t that exciting. Anyway, here’s what’s been going on.

The injury plagued Sox have been sucking. Playoff hopes are long gone. Ortiz probably should win the MVP, but he won’t. He recently jinxed the hell out of himself by saying he deserved it more than Jeter. Big no no big papi.

I was recently the best man at my friend’s wedding (there were 2 best men actually), and my speech killed. I had no idea I could be funny. Who knew? The next weekend I went to another wedding near Rochester, NY. I would guess that there are approximately 1 billion wineries in the area. I actually got to try wine flavored ice-cream. Yum.

I saw Starsailor live in NYC. I liked this band before, but after seeing them perform live, it’s a whole new experience. I’m almost obsessed now. Such a great live band. They have lots of live clips and music videos and a cool video diary posted on YouTube. Just search for “starsailor diary” and you’ll find it.

Along with Starsailor, I’m adding Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s to my list of Kick ass bands. Their debut album “The Dust of Retreat” is probably my favorite album so far from 2006, narrowly edging out Keane’s “Under the Iron Sea”. Although Starsailor’s “On the Outside” is creeping up the list. I highly recommend all 3 albums.

I’m so pumped that football has started. I love this time of year. When I can spend all Sunday on the couch watching football and not feel like a lazy bastard. It also allows me time to perfect my hot wings sauce. My first week of football picks did not go well (due to Miami, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Denver, Dallas and Washington all sucking), but I ended up breaking even since I hit a 3-team parlay. Hopefully this week will be a little more productive.

Our softball season ended a while ago. My team ended up going 5 – 8. Much better than our 2 – 10 mark last season. Our league is holding an all-star game next week, which I got voted to, so that’s exciting. I’m going to miss softball this winter, but I’m looking forward to snowboarding and ice-fishing soon.

So I guess that’s about it for now. I’ll post again soon so I can talk about the recent beers that I’ve been brewing.