I'm outta beer!

Cafe Society
1

Backstory.I brew my own beer. First helped make a batch in 1980 while a non-enology student at UC Davis. Have homebrewed in Davis, Phoenix, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and now the Seattle area. Got back into homebrewing a little more than 2 years ago when I realized I could make tasty, lower alcohol, low carb, “session” beers in the 2-4% alcohol range that is simply not available on the beer shelf. Generally I do English mild, bitters, PA, porters, etc

Checked my brew log and I’ve got batch 93 (cyser with Nottingham yeast - thanks Silenus) and 94 (2% ale) in fermenters while the keg just ran out of a 1958 Whitbread IPA. Given I generally do 5-6 gallon batches, and have had to pour out a few unfuckingdrinkable testers (looking at you sake yeast beer), this translates into about 500 gallons of beer. :cool:

I have a ton of swing top liter bottles, and one corny keg. I keep the keg with a low alcohol “summer beers”, and then more interesting/higher octane stuff in the bottles. I can go from brewpot to keg in a week with these lower alcohol beers. EXCEPT last weekend I realized my keg was out, had 2 experiments to bottle, and nothing for the keg. Went through the cases of swing tops at the bottom of the boxes, and didn’t find any forgotten beers. There were some failed meads that haven’t turned around a year+ later, a couple of different beers that didn’t age well (pour out bad), sake (came out fine but don’t want to drink those now), about a gallon of coconut chocolate porter and a whole bunch of empty bottles.

The last two months I’ve done the almost zero carb diet thing, and been drinking whiskey sodas instead of beer. I’m done with the zero carb and back to my low carb beer. Except, I took my eye off the ball, and haven’t been brewing.

Net net, I’m out of beer for the first time in about 2 years. :eek:

Hopefully I can keg the 2% ale on Friday. And make time to brew another English historic low alcohol beer and get that in the fermenter before I take my kids camping in Banff National Park for a week. That will get me back to a back up for the keg, the stuff I bottled last week will be getting bottle conditioned, and I’ll be back to a healthy beer pipeline.

(not sure if this is more appropriate for MPSIMS or Café Society?)

2

Neat stuff! I gave up on homebrewing a few years back and I miss being able to make something I can’t find in the stores. I’ve had a hankering for mead for a while now, but nobody carries it.

3

Quick, order an airlift! Plus the PNW is not well known for it’s beer, so can’t hit the stores :dubious:

I’m a very much newbie, and haven’t done any beer. But I’ve been doing mead and cider. Letting the second batch bottle condition for a bit before I crack it.

4

PNW is shock full of IPA’s - trouble is I dislike a majority of the IPA hops starting with cascade. Any of the new IPA’s (that is pretty much anything from whence IPA’s became hop head overdose) taste “catty”, which is very close to skunky to me.

IPA’s make up the vast majority of the craft brew shelf in local groceries. It can feel lik e dgtting a non IPA around here can be a challenge. My non IPA favs are Red Hook ESB (widely available) and Mac n Jack’s (draft only).

5

No Schlitz, huh?

(Catch the patron ordering the beer; you don’t get a clear shot of him until the end.)

6

My husband used to make a dark beer years ago, now there is plenty of it. We just buy Guiness now when we want stout or porter, but it was fun to make at one time.

7

Yeah, cascade appears to be the big one for the bold bitter taste. It seems less popular these days (or less of a selling point; I don’t regularly research what hops are used by commercial brewers). In the last year or so, the biggest trend has been NEIPAs, which can be very good.
I don’t know about Washington but Oregon had a lot of good non-IPA offerings.

8

Who is McLean Stevenson?

At least that’s who I think it is. I remember the Schlitz beer commercials and the “when you’re outta Schlitz, you’re outta beer” jingle

9

Mirror Pond is good, but I think Oregon as well is dominated by IPA’s.

NEIPA SNEIPA what’s the difference? I slay myself. I heard John Palmer on a Basic Brewing Radio podcast make a joke about a Sour NEIPA (aka SNEIPA). I just saw my first can of NEIPA in the local grocery but haven’t tried it yet.

10

Northeast IPA or New England IPA, depending on who you ask. Usually their cutesy name involves being juicy and/or hazy, foggy. They are cloudy and more floral/less bitter than traditional NW IPAs.

Deschutes’ Fresh Squeezed is one of the more established NEIPAs, I assume it’s available for you. I think Mirror Pond is a plain pale ale? Anyway, Deschutes makes a lot of IPAs, but I’ve appreciated that they weren’t ever dominated by that style like some breweries.

11

My Big-Ass fridge broke, so I had to discontinue pilsners and lagers, and haven’t been keeping up with production. That and my favorite supplier changed websites and the new format is horrible! A real pain to order stuff unless you just buy a clone kit.

I think I’m somewhere around just under 300 brews, or 1500 gallons!

Yeah, I got a beer guy. What of it? :wink:

12

I remembered the jingle and when I YouTubed it, up popped Colonel Henry Blake; what a surprise! The waiter is Geoff Edwards–Game Show Host.

13

I feel your pain. The pipeline worked so well for so long, and suddenly a drought.

No idea what my lifetime stats are, but prolly not your level. That said, nearly a hundred brews in a little over 2 years ain’t too sloppy…