Ybor Centro Beerfest!

Well it was a great beerfest over at Ybor Centro yesterday and I managed to survive and drive home safely too! This beer fest is put on by the Florida Brewers Guild and was a great success!
Among the listing of craft brew attendees were Spanish Springs Brewers, Orlando Brewing Partners, Tampa Bay Brewing Co. (they have a brand new location and were in the center of the festival!!) Shipyard Brewing Co., and many other's from around the state of Florida. Also participating were several of the local and not so local brew clubs from around the state one of which I belong to (Central Florida Home Brewers).

I started my day waking up at 6:30 AM, having my 2 morning coffee's, then started to load the suv up with a couple of chairs and a 3 gallon keg of my English Summer Ale that I donated to the cause. (it lasted 20 minutes!)

Seeing that I was the Designated Driver, I had to make a few stops to pick a couple members up. The first stop I had to make was to the club's president's home (Preston Hoover) (40 minutes away) to pick the club's banner. After I successfully navigated there (via gps) and loaded the banner, I was off to get our head meister and great homebrewer Ed Measom. Ed took Best of Show this year at the Best Florida Beer Competion for his wonderful Bock Beer! Congrats Ed!

That drive took another 45 minutes. We loaded up the suv with all of Ed's beer ( a peach wit, an apricot wit, a traditional wit, and a very awesome barleywine that was made over a year ago) and other equipment such as Co2, booth setup items etc.

Once the suv was loaded 1 more stop was in order! So off we went to pick up Don and Bob across town. After that, we were off to Ybor Centro which was another hour and 15 minute drive. We arrived about 12:45 and unloaded the suv of all the stuff and proceded to locate our booth and get set up. Our booth was located right in front of Tampa Bay Brewing Co's front window, so Don, Bob and I took advantage of that and went in for lunch! We each ordered a sandwich and of course had to try some of their wonderful craft brews! We each ordered their Porter and it was just perfect asides from being served a little too cold. We just let the little beauties sit on the table for about 15 - 20 minutes to warm up a bit then the food was served. The Cuban sandwiches there were awesome and we made them disappear promptly!
After lunch it was time to go to work and man the booth! The festival starting time came, and the beer began to flow, the band began to play, and the rest is history!


Below are a few pics of this wonderful event and next week I'll be going over Brad's house to lend a hand when he brew's a Copper APA! I'll have pic's for that as well!

See ya next week!
Cheers!



What a crowd and a perfect day!



Looking up at the stairway.


Old Time Box Office.


Inside the open air covered area.


Ahhh...Stogies and Handcrafted Stout!


Here's Scott servin it up! Can I get 2 of them??


Outside view and a couple of homebrew fans!


Looking towards Tampa Bay Brewing Co!


The live music was great! Thanks guy's!


The action outside.

New Pics!

Hey...!!
Here they are as I promised, a few new pics and a peek of my newly updated brewery. I brewed a Northern English Brown Ale last Sunday and the session went great! It was a 10 gallon batch and it is fermenting like crazy at 67 degF. I really love my new conical and the cooling coil that I installed to make it happen. It sure beats spending hundreds of dollars for an externally cooled version from any one of the online brewshops that are around, and to my knowledge I have not seen or heard of anyone with a FerminChiller like mine. It works perfectly and holds the temp to a +/- 1 degF! Just perfect! I can even brew lagers in it! I house the conical in the home built insulated fermentation chamber (the big blue box) on the left side, and keep my kegs on the right side for storage. Its very handy for me and a great place to store a bunch of brew! If anyone has any questions at all about any of my brew items, please feel free to ask! Here's some pics of the recent brew day. In future writings, I'll be explaining in detail each vessel and step that I use to make my beer along with a few recipies and some reviews of some great brewpubs and breweries that I have visited and the beers that I love to drink. Enjoy the shots!

Cooling and whirlpooling the wort.

Transferring the cooled wort to the fermenter

Another satisfied customer!
The fermenter ready to do its thing!
Here's where the ice bath goes. it is circulated by an aquarium pump!
The transportable Boil Kettle!

Fill her up!
Shot of the fill tube.
The sparge setup using a pump. It works great!
Boiling the wort.
My trusty Barley Crusher.

Full view of the brewery.
And a full frontal view as well! Oh BABY!!! LOL!
This mash tun ROCKS. Holds temps forever!
Holding the mash at 153 degF




L8R! Cheers!

I'm Back!!!

Hi everyone...1 million apologies for the huge delay in my postings. Please forgive me!

A LOT has happened in my life during this time of absence and I hope that all of you will understand. We had our house up for sale a while back..but the market came to a sudden stop, so we cancelled our plans. This was after fixing up the homestead and packing up the stuff...brewery included. Very sad. Anyways, we did not move as planned and have decided to stay here in FL for a while more.

I have decommissioned the old 5 gallon brew setup and have been spending most of my time [and $$$] on putting together a new and improved 10 - 20 gallon capacity brewery! I have finally finished and have actually used it for the first time 3 weeks ago too. I calculated efficiency at 80% which made me very happy to say the least. I have not taken any photos of the new setup, but I will do that this weekend when I brew one of my favorite styles, a Northern English Brown Ale. I will have all kinds of photos for everyone to gawk at sometime next week.

My wife was so tired of looking at and tripping over carboys in the tub and shower, that I had to build a fermentation chamber and host it in the garage. More on this in future postings, but it did take a while to build. I also broke down and purchased a stainless conical fermenter to house my 10 gallon sessions. Its full of pale ale right now, but I am going to keg that tomorrow! Pics are coming...i promise!

I also helped my friend and fellow brewer Brad to configure his brewery after a long period of non-brewing for him. We get together often for brew talk sessions and real brewing sessions. He's a great guy and a lot of fun too! More pics of his brewery setup coming soon too.

I must say that it is real good to be back in the saddle again! Please put this blog on your active list as it will be updated on a more regular basis from now on.

I have all kinds of stories and pic's and brewpub reviews to write about, and a few articles on a gadget or two that I have made for my brewery.

That's it for now though...I'll post some pics real soon as I will be kegging tomorrow and brewing on Sunday!

Cheers!

Ron S