Let the competition begin!!!

Ah yes, tis been a while since a post, and updates on TBR activities are in order.

First, the important stuff:

Empyrean Beer Quest registration opened on Wednesday, and I am happy to report that myself, Josh, and Scott are all registered participants for the session beer competition on May 20th. Josh is keeping with his roots and throwing down an irish ale, Scott is planning a bitter, and I will be producing a 60 or 70 Schilling version of my highland porridge scotch ale.

If you want the skinny, click here for the .pdf of the schedule off of the Empyrean site, and here for the registration info. This is an all-grain competition, so keep that in mind.

The brewing for these entries will likely take place over one massive weekend, details of this are sure to come.

As far as beers go, Scott has road dog on tap now, I am preparing to bottle mine, and everything else has been put on hold to prepare for Beer Quest.

because EBQ limits the entries to 21, the consensus among TBR is that we are pleased to be participating, and if we can make it to the second round to be in the 10 that participate in the public event, even better. The ultimate is of course if one of us wins and our beer is available on tap at Lazlo's. We shall see....

Storm's a Brewing....

Well, as the central committee of TBR is occupying different states and time zones this weekend, there are no official activities taking place, but updates are in order.

Scott FINALLY racked his Road Dog clones to secondary, and did a sweet stout yesterday which I'm fairly certain has crawled out of the fermentation buckets and taken his in-laws hostage. Gosh, I hope that works out for the best. Josh is planning something for the weekend following his return from Florida. Not sure what, it's a bit of a secret. I am currently doing some research for a German Alt, which pertains to the next topic.....

Empyrean BeerQuest! Empyrean ales in Lincoln will be announcing the next BeerQuest homebrew competition any day now. Only the first 21 to register can participate, a panel of judges narrows the field to 10, and then the winner is selected by the general public at an event on May 20th. Tickets to the public event go on sale on April 2nd, and they are limited. TBR hopes to field at least one entry, but we'll see how that pans out. At the very least TBR members will be in attendance for the judging event, regardless of entry status.

Oh, April 2nd is also Cask Night at Firebirds in Lincoln, and is the night of the monthly Empyrean tour, so mark your calendars.

Cartoons are great.

Especially when you should be doing something else.









Click the image to link to the archive if you so desire....

Notes from the first gathering/Lessons learned

Ah, so Saturday has come and gone, and with it the first all-grain batch performed by The Brewer's Rite. Josh and Justin made the trek to Scott's house and we knocked out a 10 gal. all grain batch on the rig that Scott is putting together and a 5 gal partial mash batch for comparison that Justin took home.

Here are a few nuggets of wisdom retained from Saturday's 10 or so hours of brewing madness:

1. When testing for starch conversion with iodine, you don't want anything to turn black.
2. Charlie Papazian describes the starch conversion test in his first edition REALLY BADLY.
3. John Palmer's website does a good job of describing the starch conversion test.
4. It takes a long-ass time to bring 13 gallons of wort to a boil when there are 30 mile an hour winds in February.
5. Scott has a really nice massaging chair thing.
6. Motorizing a malt mill is a really good idea.
7. Jager and whiskey shots are not the most effective component to the brewing process.
8. Josh is apparently not supposed to drink Jager.
9. There are good ways and bad ways to waking your wife up from a nap.
10. Hearing "honey, your beer is making a mess all over the kitchen" on Sunday morning means that the Rogue Pacman yeast is fermenting quite nicely.

All in all it was successful. We ended up with 18 or so gallons of Road Dog Scottish Porter clone fermenting with Rogue Pacman Yeast, Scott's house is still in one piece, Scott and Justin are still married, and Josh is still engaged. So all-in-all, a hat-trick of sorts. Oh, and I might add that the Rogue Pacman strain that Wyeast put out is the Chuck Norris of yeast strains.

Gentlemen Start Your Fermenters

I received an email from Empyrean today with respect to a request I had made to be included in the mailing for their next "Beer Quest" competition. This email also indicated that the next competition was likely to start in March. I have attempted to attach the link to Empyrean's page to this posting, we'll see how that works... This might be a great opportunity to get some notoriety for the club! The contests have limited availability (21 spots), so I'd advise going to the link and registering for an email when spots open up.

The innaugural meeting

While I know that I am the only person reading this page, the innaugural meeting of The Brewer's Rite will take place on Saturday, February 17th. It will be a day of firsts, as there will be a first attempt at all-grain (10 whole gallons!), and a partial mash version of an attempt to clone Flying Dog's Road Dog Scottish Porter. We didn't plan enough ahead to get the special yeast release for it from Wyeast, but a little (or a shitload :) ) of Rogue Pacman ought to do the job.

More to come, like directions and a time and stuff.

Sam Adam's Longshot Contest

If you're not aware, Sam Adam's had a homebrew competition last year, and they recently released a sampler pack of the 3 winning beers. I suggest you try it if you can find it. It's a blue box that says LONGSHOT really big on it.

They are also doing it again!, so follow the link if you want to register a profile so you can sign up.