Playing Catch up Again...

Hey there...

Once again I find myself playing catch up with my postings here. Here's what's been going on...

I brewed again last Sunday and brewed 2 batches of beer. The first batch is a low gravity sparkling ale that I formulated called Strawberry Wedding White Sparkling Ale. It had an OG of 1.030 and will come in right at 3.00% ABV. I made this for my daughter's wedding that's coming up in March and we are planning on serving it as the toast in place of the customary champagne that is usually served at these occasions. I'm planning on bottling it using champagne bottles and will use the plastic stoppers and wire cages too. Then the bottle decorations will be adorned on to the bottles complete with a personalized custom made label on the bottle to commemorate the event. Lets hope it comes out good! It's now on the downside of primary fermentation and should be ready to bottle next week. I'll let you all know how it comes out and will post the recipe once it passes my official taste test! I have my fingers crossed on this one.

After that, I decided to brew up an American Pale Ale and went to work on that. I started the brewing at around 11:30 AM that morning and finished with both sessions at around 9:30 PM. That was a nice brew day!

Did I tell you that I'm supplying the beer for the wedding? I need to make enough for around 50 people!
Here's what we're going to have for beer on tap:

American Pale Ale
Pale Blonde Lager
Dusseldorf Alt
Apricot Wit

And the Strawberry Wedding White Sparkling Ale. I'll have enough the sparkling ale to give a few bottles away to the bride and groom, and to whom ever wants one.

Now....guess who's brewing this coming Sunday?? LOL...you got it...me! I'll be brewing up the Dusseldorf Alt (for the wedding), and I'm thinking of brewing the Kentucky Common as well. I'll also be kegging and lagering the Pale Blonde Lager and will be reusing the yeast from that batch to ferment the Kentucky Common as planned. I'll try to get some pics, and will post the recipe sometime early next week after the sessions are completed.

Our brew club, the Volusia County Home Brewers Guild picked up a couple of new members during the week and we're looking forward to meeting them!

I also entered 2 of my homebrews into the Upper Mississippi Mashout Homebrew Competition which will be held at the end of this month. I entered an Irish Red and my newest example of a Weizenbock. Looking forward to getting the results. I really enjoy reading the score sheets as they sometimes provide valuable feedback for me to understand how others perceive my beers. They have a good amount of experienced judges up there too.

A friend of mine recommended a great online brew store and I checked them out and ordered from them 2 times so far. I'll be writing a separate article about these guys and I'll include my thoughts and experiences I've had with them.

Well.....I gotta get outta here for now...but I do have a LOT of stuff to write about of what's been going on around here lately....and I need to go pick my grapefruit as it's that time of year...and you know what I do with the grapefruit....right????

Come back soon...and feel free to leave your comments and questions too.

Keep Brewing!

(_)3