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While I’m at VMworld this year, I’m planning on heading over to BrewCraft. I’ve been to SFO to many times to have not visited this homebrew store. If you’re in the area for VMworld and want to head over there with me, find me, and let me know!

For those of you that made it down to Raccoon River, yesterday was a spectacular success. With a great flurry of activity, I setup my brewing rig inside the brewery at Raccoon River, and proceeded to get things started. It seems that my mash tun was damaged on the trip over, and began leaking profusely during my cleaning and testing of the system. Dave had a spare cooler available, and I quickly set to converting it into a mash tun. After that debacle the brew day went surprisingly well. Start to finish in under six hours. It’s a whole different brewday when you’ve 500 gallons of 200 degree water available to you. With the hop market the way it is, when Dave offered up some hops I gladly took him up on the offer. I went a little overboard, and used 5 ounces of Centennial in the brew. I wanted to really get a feel for this hop, and I suppose if you’re going to go, go big. I used the brown ale recipe below, and changed up the hop additions: 2 ounces and 60 min, 1 ounce at 30 min, 1 ounce at 15 min, and 1 ounce at 5 min.

Whenever I’ve traveled to a larger city, I’m always on the lookout for a good Irish pub. When I was in Budapest, I found Becketts. When I was in San Francisco, I found Johnny Foley’s Irish House. And there’s been a few in between. It’s always nice if I find one close to wherever I’m staying as well. New York City has no shortage of Irish pubs. I stumbled across O’Reilly’s Pub a few nights ago by chance, and it has a warm inviting atmosphere that can’t help but put a smile on your face. There are a couple of other pubs that I’d like to visit while I’m here, we’ll see if I can get to them before I go. A comprehensive list can be found here.

I initially brewed this Brown Ale for my Dad’s return from Iraq. This is by far my favorite brew. With 10 gallons on tap I invited some friends over to try it, and 10 gallons of this goes FAST. I did manage to save some for my Dad, and all parties agreed that this was one of the best that I’d brewed. I’m going to be brewing this again shortly, quite possibly the brew I’ll make down at Raccoon River.

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I’m going to stop by and see Mark, and see about getting a beer going that I’ve been thinking about for a while now. “Cause of Death” a recipe from Johnny Max of the Brewcrazy podcast. I’ll list the recipe below as well. I’m going to need a second mash tun to get this done, as well as a second boil pot. I’m going to change up the recipe a bit, but I’m sure no matter how this turns out, it’s going to be a monster. If you’re interested in helping out, let me know, and I’ll try and nail down the dates that this will take place.
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There’s a new brewing supply here and town, and it looks as though it’s going to do great. Beer Crazy is selling beers by the bottle from an assortment of hard to find breweries here in the states and they also have a pretty large walk-in cooler. If you’re in the Des Moines area, and are looking for some good beer, stop by the store. The prices for beer equipment are reasonable as well, I’m going to try and start using Beer Crazy for my ingredients.

During the last IBU meeting, one of the members, Mike, brought in a hard cider for a few of us to try. I’m not usually a fan of hard ciders, but I gave it a try. It was fantastic, and with a dead simple recipe, it’s easy for brewers (anyone really) of all skill levels to try. I started a batch of this today. So, without further ado, here’s the recipe:

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Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day is coming on Nov 3rd., and your’s truly will be down at Raccoon River Brewery, giving home brew classes. Here’s some additional info:

The American Homebrewers Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day
11 AM – 4 PM
Saturday, November 3rd
Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, samples from local pubs & homebrewers and souvenirs
American Homebrewers Attend for Free
Guests are welcome for $33.00

I’m really looking forward to hopefully help some people start homebrewing. I’ve had some great people help me learn what I’m doing, and I’m excited that I can showcase some of what the Iowa Homebrewers Union does so well.

It’s so good it’s gotta wear shades, oakleys to be specific. The brew on the 23rd of April went off without a hitch (If one ignores a wayward pair of sunglasses). Some coworkers, friends and general beer enthusiasts got together in a garage in Ankeny and brewed the day away. The recipe that was selected was the recipe mentioned earlier, with a few changes *need to get those changes from the DR*. The brew went well along with a demonstration of a pet project of our lead brewer, his reverse flow wort chiller. I took some other pictures as well, so take a few minutes if you’re interested and look around.

Update: fermented, kegged, and tasted. This is a great hefeweisen, and I think the final straw to get me to started doing all-grain brews myself. Amazing!

I had a horrible experience brewing beer a few months ago, and I think I’m ready to get back in the saddle. It helps that there’s a couple of brewers working with me at Rain & Hail. One of the guys, within earshot of my cubicle brews on a grand scale. Next week we’re going to run down to get some grains during lunch from Heartland Home Brew Supply to get some grains for a brew the weekend of the 22-23 Apr 05. Prior to that brew however, I’m GOING to get a brew going. For real. Seriously.