Oktoberfest

Well, back on September 6th (and 10th), I brewed up a couple beers...a Weizenbock and a Hefeweizen.  They are both finished fermenting and were kegged on Sunday night (October 3rd).  They are both carbonating as we speak...along with 5 gallons of possibly the best cider I have made to date.  Both of these beers will be getting tapped on Saturday night at the Soulard Oktoberfest!!  The Weizenbock makes it's debut at 9:00pm, followed by the Hefeweizen an hour later.

It's late in the evening, but I have friends that are coming down specifically to taste my beers...man, I hope I don't disappoint them.  They tasted good going into the keg...I can only hope that the carbonation was kind to them!

Cheers!

Homebrew Hiatus...

Well, as you can tell by my lack of posts...I haven't done anything homebrew related since January 25.  I have been on a self-imposed hiatus due to laziness and just a lack of desire to brew.  But yesterday, the bug jumped up and kind of bit again...I am thinking about getting some things bottled (ciders and meads) and then maybe...wait for it...BREW!  I have four days off coming up this weekend, so I may just do it!

Not sure what I'll brew yet, but I am thinking about something different...

Lazy Winter Evenings...

So, I need to get off my butt one of these nights soon...all three of the beers that I brewed over my vacation are ready for the next step.  Fermenting at 60 degrees made things take a little longer, apparently.  The krausen has dropped on all three of them finally and I can now rack to secondary or bottle / keg.

The Middernacht Belgian Strong Ale will get it's dose of Brett Claussenii and Pinot Noir soaked French Oak chips and sit for another (yet to be determined) amount of time.  The other two will probably just get put in clarifying for a week before I bottle them...yes, I said bottle.  Decided that I am only going to keg certain beers and still bottle a lot of them (for now).

I also have two ciders and four meads that need to have something done with them too!  I am going to bottle up one cider (the one gallon batch) and probably keg the 5 gallon batch.  The meads will be bottled, but they may not be clear enough yet, so I may just have to rack them again...

Okay, that's enough rambling from me for now. 

Vacation Brewing

While I did not get all of my brewing done, I did make a dent!  I brewed up 5 gallons of the following:

Wicked Winter Warmer
Ebenezer Ale
Middernacht Dark Strong Ale

All are fermenting away nicely...in fact a couple are almost finished!  Will be moving them to clarifying / secondary in the next 5 or so days.

I still have more to brew, but the windy weather and a touch of a cold sidelined me after Thursday (12/30/10).  Friday was NOT a good day to be outside brewing...with all the Tornado Warnings and such.  Windy on Saturday as well, and then Sunday I felt like garbage (thanks, sinuses) for over half the day.

Will finish up those last 10 gallons sometime soon...just need to free up carboy space now.

Cheers!