DARE...To stand up and say something!

I sat on this for a few months now, but I have to say something. The recent scuttlebutt about lowing the drinking age has opened the door to an important conversation about alcohol and the youth. As a homebrewer and as a relatively recent graduate of college, I have a unique perspective on this issue. I would like to take few minutes to let you know how I feel and open this up to response.



First off, what happens at 21 that makes someone so different? In this country, an “underage” person who is 20 years old is treated the same way as an underage person that is 17 years old. Both can drive and both are under the required age of 21 years. However, one of them is going to be giving free reign to buy and consume alcohol in 12 months where the other is still four years away from that important date.



It’s my opinion that we are creating young adults, that are going to be exposed to alcohol on a regular basis after their 21st birthday, that are not prepared to socially consume alcohol. These kids one day are hiding from police at house parties, binge drinking for a buzz, and treating alcohol like a drug used by junkies. The next day we open the flood gates and they can go out to a liquor store and buy any kind of booze or beer their heart desires.



Furthermore, everyone these new legal adults know people that are still under age. If a 21 year old buys alcohol for their 20 year old friend, they are serving alcohol to a minor. Besides not preparing these new adults for their professional careers, we’re setting them up to be criminals by the very system we perpetuate.



Now somewhere along the line, owning an establishment that serves alcohol became a despicable drug dealer instead of a go-getter entrepreneur. These business owners are presumed guilty if an underage person enters their establishment and buys alcohol with a fake ID. Never mind that when an underage person enters a bar under false pretense they are trespassing, it’s still the fault of the bar owner. This is just crazy. To take it a step further, if a bar is closed down due to under age alcohol violations in NYS, the next bar owner has to deal with the fines and violations as if it happened while they owned the property…but I digress.



Sadly bar owners are treated like drug dealers and thugs, while they instead create a safe, monitored alcohol consuming environment. Not like house parties, keggers, field shindigs and boat parties that are havens for alcohol related death, rape and just general tomfoolery. A bar has groups of adults, bouncers and the bar owner, that are all there with the job of keeping things in order. This compared to a house party where there is no one to limit access to alcohol or monitor someone who has had too much to drink.



Finally, I don’t think that the drinking age is the problem. To me, the demonization of alcohol is the real problem. We take kids, tell them it’s bad and horrible for 20 years, 11 months and then bang…suddenly its everywhere and it’s your right to drink as much or as little as you want. I’ve seen it at the colleges; I’ve seen it in the high schools. We’re not preparing young people to be adults. They treat alcohol as a drug where the only intent is to get fucked up. If an adult wanted to teach their child about alcohol consumption in a controlled environment, they would be labeled a horrible, irresponsible parent.



The treatment of alcohol in our current society (in regards to underage drinking) is eerily similar to the conditions that led to prohibition. Mothers fueled with righteous indignation screaming louder than the masses calling for further and further control of alcohol because it’s ruining our society and killing young people. MADD, SADD and every other ADD related group was always focused on fighting drinking and driving. The laws are now incredibly strict and police take the offense very seriously. So why are they continuing to push for further punishment of alcohol related offenses? Perhaps they should shorten things up from Against Drunk Driving to Against Drinking.



This is not a healthy balance and we are not preparing young adults for adulthood (in fact I would go so far as to call it a hypocrisy, but that’s just me). The key is not to keep them from alcohol, it’s to teach them to say no. If we can’t do that, we’re never going to be able to keep them from wanting it.



Ah, glad I got that off my chest. Cheers.





For more information, check out David Hanson Ph.D

A quick note on football

First off, sorry I have been lagging on my brewing. It's been a slow going since the fourth, but things will get better. I am getting ready to bottle my Christmas Ale and I may have found a great name for the brew. More to come on that...

But first a quick thought on football. I have been and always will be a die-hard 49ers fan. I grew up wanting to be Joe Montana. Last night I saw my niners come two yards shy of beating the 6-3 Cardinals. It sucked. But one thing I will take away from that game is that they believed that they could and should win. For the first time in a long time, they played with some heart and some dignity.

It's been a long road for the 49ers and we're far from out of the woods, but Singletary has brought some old school values to the team. I hope they make the right decision and hire him.

Now to bring this back to beer, here is a lesson to all you kids; don't do interviews on national television when you are hammered.

Now I know that Joe has a legitimate drinking problem and has since been through treatment, but it does not lessen the hilarity of this clip one bit IMO.

Cheers!

Vote 4 Beer

I know it's a bit geeky for the beer medium, but be sure to get out and vote. We as homebrewers need to become a voting block, vote for your rights and your freedoms. There were times when homebrew was illegal, we need to become a united voice to make sure that that or prohibition never happens again.

Cheers!

Breaking the top 100, CNYBrew has arrived!

Just a quick note, in case you missed it, the Culinary School Guide came out with it's 100 Best Beer and Wine Blogs and CNYBrew is on there! Ahead of Monday Night Brewery I might add.

Great props for A good Beer Blog and Ted for proper recognition. I noticed that Bearded Brewer was on there as well.

It's good stuff.

I'll be back full time here in 5 days!

Cheers

I am still alive...will be back to brewing soon

If there is anyone still out there, I just wanted to drop a line and let you know I am still alive and I will be back to brewing in a few short weeks(15 days to be exact). This is my busy season so I have been doing more drinking than brewing (not always a bad thing).

I've been fortunate to try some cool new brews. Here are some thoughts on some of the brews I've tried:

Southern Tier Imperial Pumpkin - Awful. This stuff was really way over the top. So much so that it was not enjoyable. If you think that you would enjoy drinking pumpkin pie concentrate, this is right up your alley, otherwise I would pass (however the other imperials from Southern Tier are all great, it was too bad about the pumpkin).

Lake Placid Brewing Ubu Ale - This might be my favorite beer of all time. It's a great beer with an even better cause. It's named after brew-dog "Ubu" that died. Every year a portion of the sales of Ubu are donated to the local SPCA. I am sure it's not a small donation because Ubu is definitely the flagship. The style is a doppelbock (I think anyway) and has a really great balance of hops and malt.

AB Bud Ale - I had this at a sports bar and was pleasantly surprised. I say that because there are a lot of times that I find myself in bars that have nothing by Bud, Bud Light, Labatts, L-Lite ext. the prospect of having a decent ale at a bar like this is nice. Plus getting people over the "I don't like dark beer" hump with an AB product can only help craft brewing. This brew is a very basic ale with a light malt profile, copper color and some hints of hops. Nothing to write home about, but if you were stranded at a bar with no other options, things could be worse.

There have been more, so I am going to have to update this as they come to me. I will be back in commission ASAP.

Cheers and remember to vote on November 4th.

New drinking anthem

I got an email out of the blue from someone named "Drunker than Satan" with a free mp3. The song is "Drunker than Satan" by none other than Mr. Horatio Lee Jenkins, for those of you that are so inclined, he has a MySpace page.

The video helps illustrate what's going on in the song in case it's not clear enough




I know what you're thinking, 'what the hell does this have to do with anything?'. It doesn't. It was one of the rare unsolicited emails I get to my cnybrew.com email address and I decided to listen to the song. Since then, I have been humming and singing it so they must have done something right.

It's funny, but it's actually not a bad song at all. I was a big Bloodhound Gang, Southern Culture on the Skids, Reverend Horton Heat fan so this was right in line with all those classics.

Anyway, I enjoyed and thought you might too. Cheers!

A real blogger party!

Sorry I'm late with this post, but like a good Brew Blogger, this weekend's brewing took precedence over blogging. Fermentation Friday has come and gone, but today I had a stop in by fellow blogger Ted from Ted's Homebrew Journal making this a real brew blogging shindig. Ted's band was out my way for a show near by and we met up at Galeville Country store. We had beer exchange and he was on his way. I have all sorts of cool brews to try out as a result and I gave Ted and the band a quick brew sampling. Fun stuff this brew blogging.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Have had a whole bunch of cool submissions for the Fermentation Friday so here we go!

Tony - Brew Dad - Sums up his attempt at a stout-rootbeer-ice cream hybrid
Matt - Sports Beer Wine Life Not in that order - I like the sounds of his "Blood Orange Hef"
Bill - The Panhandle Beer Snob - This is the first I have heard of using tree in your beer
Jon - The Brew Site - I brewed with pumpkin once too and I have to say it's not at all necessary, just use the spices.
Rob - Pfiff - mmmm brandied cherries
Bryon - Home Brew Beer - While I think Hard Root Beer is a bust, the maple syrup beer might be something
Muckney Brewing - I agree, 12 cinnamon sticks IS too much
Jim - Loot Corp 3.0 - Any brew project that can double as a marinade for chicken is crazy in my book
Keith - Brainard Brewing - Brewing with wormwood

And last but not least, the brains behind the day:

Adam :-) Beer Bits 2 - I feel your pain, trial and error is the only way to REALLY learn how not to brew

If I missed anyone, please feel free to email me and I will gladly add you to the lineup. I'm sorry this took so long to post up and I am glad so many people contributed. For anyone wondering if they were "in the spirit of the question" it's all good. I just like hearing about crazy crap brewers try.

Thanks again to Ted for stopping in and saying hi, I hope your show went well in spite of the rain.

Cheers!

Fermentation Friday is here!!!

OK, so here we go with the CNYBrew.com hosted Fermentation Friday. The subject for today kiddies is tell us about the craziest concoction you ever came up with (prepped or on the fly) for brewing. This can include ingredients, techniques and anything else you want to share.

For my fermentation Friday tale, I am going to talk about my "shower head sparge arm". It seems as though these types of project always seem to start with the best of intentions. In my case, I had wanted to make a nice sparge arm for my brewing operation and I was not into buying a fancy rotating head as I am a stingy man.

After several failed attempts at making a simple sparge arm, I was in Mr. Seconds looking for stuff for my house (and of course as always, perusing for potential brewing toys) when, in the bathroom section, I saw a shower head. Suddenly it all came together. It's versatile, mobile, easy to hang, and it will leave a nice evenly spread distribution of sparge water. It was all prefect, then came brew day.

As soon as I hooked it up and started to running the water for the sparge and everything went to hell. It leaked, parts melted, all the gaskets failed and the water ran out of it like it was coming out of a hose. Not the intended even trickling that I had imagined.

While this was not a disastrous problem to fix, I had totally pictured it as a perfect solution in mind. Like a kid who just got his sea monkeys in the mail, only to be disappointed when he adds them to the water, I had another failed sparge arm.

Tomorrow I am going to be posting a listing of all the other brew bloggers out there writing about their crazy ideas...

Fermentation Friday hosted in Syracuse

To follow up on Adam from Beer Bits 2 idea of fostering the beer blogging community by hosting events at our respective blogs, I am going to be hosting the June Fermentation Friday. For a quick review, the idea behind this virtual shindig is that I throw a topic out there and we all combine to lend our own thoughts to the topic on our blog. I will post up a list of everyone that participates on a post and thus the party is on!

So with my opportunity to host the subject, I am going to ask the following:

"What is the craziest concoction you ever came up with, on the fly or prepped, to brew with"

The date for this is going to be June 27th and everyone that blogs is invited (even if you decide to start a blog just to write about your wacky creation). Please email me at travis@cnybrew.com if you are interested in taking part. Even if you don't let me know, if you just write about it, I am going to keep my out on on the Internets for people to fill the tubes with beer projects.

I think I covered everything...Cheers!

I hope I'm not too late

Adam from Beer Bits 2 came up with this idea to have a blogging party on a mothly basis with other people hosting. We'll in true Travis fashion, I managed to be late. Better late than never I suppose. Here is how I got started with homebrewing:

While in college, I was a frat guy. My friends and I used to drink the Saranac 12 beers of Christmas and talk about what one we liked best. On one road trip out to meet a few alumni, I met this alum named Spike. The guys took us out to the 10 Ugly Men festival (which at the time was only like a year or two old and was nowhere near as big as it is now) to enjoy some of the craft beer Rochester has to offer.

Afterwards we went over to Spikes place and he showed us his basement. I was in awe, he had a pool table and a keggerator with two of his beers on tap! I had never seen anything like it! I remember leaving that place and thinking "this man has the world by the balls". From that point I decided that I was going to know I had made it in life when I had two of my beers on tap and a pool table (I currently have three on tap, but no pool table).

After graduating, while living in an apartment, I started reading about homebrewing and trying to learn all I could before actually taking the plunge. In hindsight I should have just jumped right in because I learned more from brewing than I have ever learned from reading about brewing (especially reading the Monday Night Brewery blog, they're busy playing with toxic bubbles while the big boys are brewing).

Anyway, after a Walmart brew kit that sucked, I decided to go ahead and buy a real brew kit when I discovered EJ Wren (that happened to be like 2 miles from where my now wife lived, coincidence? I think not). I was always pretty damn happy with my extract brews, even with the first couple. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, but I liked them.

As they say, the rest is history. Cheers!

Tragedy in the brewing world

Late this afternoon, flames were seen coming out of the FX Matt Brewery. While the details of what caused the fire are still unclear, the fire departments are still working to get the fire under control. The Observer Dispatch is reporting on the fire and updating as details become clear. One this that is obvious, this is the loss of a historic brewery and a real tragedy in the brewing world.

The Matt family still own and run the historic FX Matt Brewery that is most famous for Saranac Beer. Matt's Brewery is also responsible for many contract brews, one of the most famous of which is Brooklyn Brewery.

I am TOTALLY bummed out about this, I lived in Utica for three years and thoroughly enjoyed visiting the brewery on Thursday nights. Saranac sponsors the Boilermaker, one of the top rated 15k races in the country, and ends the race at the brewery for an all day party. I can't say enough about how much the Matt family and this brewery mean to the city of Utica and Central New York as a whole.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Matt family and all of the workers, fire fighters and people of Utica.

Looking forward to more ribbons

Per the request of the Bearded Brewer, here is the ribbon from my previous State Fair Home Brew competition submission. I am looking forward to five more of these bad boys!

Cheers!

The gelatin test - tasting

To follow up on my previous post about the benefits and drawbacks of using gelatin in your brew. For a quick recap, gelatin is a finings, meaning that it is used to remove proteins and some of the "stuff" that is floating in your brew. There is no doubt that it works to clear beer, but now the question is does it impact the flavor of the beer?

For this, I brewed up 10 gallons of ESB and added gelatin to one of the two five gallon carboys during the secondary fermentation. To test the flavor, I have two bottles of this ESB, one with gelatin and one without that I am going to taste head to head. This is what I got:

With gelatin - Clear, off white head, great retention. Aroma is very hoppy with a nice malt stench. There is a smell of rye bread in the nose. The flavor is crisp and intense. There is a lot of bitterness. the flavor leaves quickly and all I am left with is a bitter aftertaste. This is not very sweet at all.

Without gelatin - Color and head are very similar to the other brew, the brew is more cloudy, but it's not that bad. The flavor is a lot more full in the initial experience but the flavor ends very abruptly. There is a lot of hops, it has almost a grassy flavor. There is a little bit more sweetness in this brew compared to the other.

Conclusion - There was not a lot of difference between the two. The color was a huge advantage to the gelatin as it makes the brew as clear as can be. If you like a commercial level of clarity in your brew and don't want to wait 6 months for it to clear out on it's own (it will given time and temp, get as clear as with gelatin), this is not a bad option.

It pretty good news. This is a cool way to make your brew look good and win over some non-believers in homebrew. There was a lot of traub at the bottom of the bottle that had the gelatin in it compared to the one that did not. It stuck to the bottom and didn't come out when I poured the beer.

Hope that helps anyone considering this method. Cheers!

State Fair Brew Competition

So this year I am putting in my second entry into the NYS Fair brew competition. Last time I entered something in, it was my California Common that scored well, but the advice was that it was a little too "common". Looking back at the recipe, it really was.

Now I know what you are thinking; "I'm not in this for competitions, I in it to make beer". While this is how I feel as well, the feedback that you get it REALLY valuable. Your brews are blind tasted versus other examples of the same style in an effort to decide:

1) Closest to style guidelines
2) Off flavors from brewing process
3) How your beer works as a whole

While most of the folks tasting your beer are generally more "beer geeky" than your average drinker, their also generally homebrews themselves. The feedback you get is generally geared towards constructive criticism. in some cases if you have a bunk beer, they'll let you know. I took a brew judging class for a while and one of the most important things you learn there is to give as complete of a review of the beer as possible to allow the brewer to improve.

It's fun and constructive.

This year, I decided to enter in five beers for review. Listed below are the styles and the beers that I entered (listings are based on the BJCP Guidelines):

Samuel L. Jackson - 3A Vienna Lager
Ongenaet Wheat - 16A Witbier
Sierra Nevada Clone - 14B American IPA
Oktoberfest - 3B Oktoberfest
Kaffir Lime Imperial Lager - 1C American Premium Lager

One of the things you'll hear from people about why not to enter brew competitions is "I don't brew in style". I usually base my beers on the style as the high-low for what I am looking to do. The one brew listed that doesn't fall into that is the Kaffir Lime. That brew has NOTHING in common with an American Premium Lager, other than the fact that it's a lager. However, it's a chance to see what people think about it and to get some judges all ripped up!

Seriously though, it's a great chance to get some unbiased feedback. Some judges suck and don't give you useful feedback, but others will leave you their email and phone number so you can contact them and ask questions.

Cheers!

Little help

So I'm looking for a little help in identifying this thing and trying to figure out what to do with it. A good friend of mine was garage hitting the local garage sale circuit when he came across this. now from the looks of it, it's a wine distributor. It's from a bar in Hamilton and has 8 plastic taps on it. The spurs are all plastic, bit the hammers and other parts on the taps are metal.

As you can see, there is a refrigerator built into the bottom half.

The taps go from the spur into a dip tube that runs through a bung. The bungs share a CO2 in that connects to a gas quick release valve (pretty bad ass to see quick release valves that small).

Each of the units has a mini Co2 regulator that seems to have the pressure regulated by a little turn thing on the bottom. There is a label on the front of both units that says "Premier Cru".

The bottom unit is built around a mini refrigerator, but this is not a home made project, it looks like the freezer in the unit is built much differently than I have seen before. I didn't get a picture, but it's built on it's side.

The door to the fridge has a glass from (double pane) and is totally sealed with refrigerator trim. The door itself seals tight and the fridge still works.

To be honest with you, the whole thing looks like it would work fine. I think the bungs need to be changed, but otherwise it's money. I am just deciding if it's something I can use for beer, or if it's wine only. The other thing I am wondering is if you leave wine on tap that is run with C02, does it go bad?

Batch or Fly?

A few nights back I had a great conversation with Ted to catch up on brewing. Ted was marveling at the massive new mashtun we were using and he had some practical questions about it. The one that stuck out to me was:

"Do you have something against batch sparging?"

While I have saught for the fly sparge that actually works, I have never stopped and asked myself if it's really worth all the effort. Perhaps I am totally focused on doing it just so I can say that I do it. Maybe it's the trickling water and the crazy hoisting of scaulding hot water that attracts me to the fly sparge like a moth to a flame, who knows.

All I know that it's time for me to take a step back and review the benefits and drawbacks of fly versus batch sparging. There is a great artile in BYO about this, but I would like to hear what you have to say, please make a vote on the survay (right side) and leave a comment. I'll do a follow up to sum up the stances.

Cheers!

What the blog?

So here I am, two years and some change later, still writing on this brew blog. I constantly have to ask myself "why do this?" and after the last few weeks, I am reminded of the answer.

I started this blog in late 2005 after reading Blog! By David Kline (and a whole host of other authors) and wanting to understand what this whole "blogging" thing was all about. As I began to explore blogs, I was also really starting to enjoy homebrewing and was making some very good beer (extract). It suddenly dawned on me; what a perfect medium for a brew journal! A place where your readers can critique your methods, recipes and overall brewing. Because the author is accessible, the comments are conversation instead of static feedback and visitors can review the evolution and eventual conclusion of an issue. Brilliant!

In the processes of doing this, I have learned about many other bloggers out there, some of whom are the commenter's on this blog. I have exchanged beers with other bloggers and written about beers I have tried.

So why is this better than a BA forum? Well in short, it's community. While yes, you can get answers quickly in a forum, no one is following your body of work. No one can note long-term trends in your methods of why you brew how you brew. No one notices if you haven't posted in a long time (I noticed Grove had gone dark for a while and realized he's a Dad now). It's the quality and source of the feedback that makes the blogging community different.

I bring this up because this past weekend, things really came full circle for me in my original objective for this blog. I took a recipe for an ESB I had done previously and made adjustments that were suggested to me by Bad Ben, commenter and fellow blogger, to make a second iteration of my ESB. In the comments for this brew, I had some very good observations where Glibbidy and Kevin where they noted the process of running off my mash was potentially going to give me a hot aeration. This led me to revisit the question of hot aeration and decide to make a slight adjustment on my process to avoid this potentially problematic step. Simple and was made possible my blog.

Further, these past few weeks have allowed me to have my beer tasted internationally! Alan, Ted and Brad were all part of the first (and not last)beer blog off. This one was for the ages. The battle over the Mason Dixon line was had between yours truly and the fellas at Monday Night Brewery. While both Alan and Brad gave the edge to MNB, Ted gave me a glimmer of hope with a single win. The guys at MNB even made a video of the tasting:

The point of this post is to thank everyone that has made this blog work. It's been a pleasure getting comments and feedback. The exciting thing is that most of the comments have blogs themselves so I can in turn comment on what they do. I would also like to extend a big thank you to everyone that participated in the brew off, even the bane of my existence; MNB.

I hope you keep reading. Cheers!

What beer pairs with humble pie?

As many of you know, I have been at war with the guys at Monday Night Brewery (or MNB as they are now officially called) and like all wars, it hasn't been pretty. I would like to begin by putting to rest the rumor that Bryan Adams is a member of Hezbollah. While his lyrics certainly raise the question of his commitment to the United States and it's war on terror, there is no physical evidence that links him to the leadership of Hezbollah.

I've come to this bit of a humble ending to my war with MNB due to the taste off we had. While MNB tried to butter us up with beer glasses and an awesome stout to go with the Swashchuckler IPA they sent us, I have to admit that without a doubt, (gulp) their beer was better.

Nick and I started off with the Swashchuckler and poured it into a pint glass. It poured a deep gold color with an off white head. IT started with two fingers of head and kept it's head for a good amount of time. I got a nice smell of pine and citrus on the nose, the pine sets in before the citrus, but it rounds out to a great aroma.

Once the head settled, it left a healthy amount of lacing in the glass. The taste was really dominated by the bittering hops bite. It finished clean and didn't linger, which was nice, but the hops were a dominant player in the mix.

Overall this was a great experience and if I were to make any recommendations, I would say to dial down the hops a little to let the malt profile stand out a little more.

With our Lagunitas clone there was a melon smell on the nose, a lighter color, more of a straw than a gold, and a white head. The problem came in the taste. There was a distinct metallic flavor that we picked up in the brew.

Bottling has been a loosing battle with me as of late, but I hope that this is not the case with all of the beers I sent out. In the end, the metallic flavor died down a little bit, but never enough to make the beer really appealing.

The Swashchuckler IPA took us hands down. I am now looking for recommendations on what beer pairs with crow for the main course and humble pie for desert. I am guessing that a nice Double IPA might wash down the crow and perhaps a barley wine for the humble pie?

Seriously though, they have a great start to a beer there, it could use a little fine tuning, but the malt profile was great (when I got into the beer a little more) and the nose it awesome. Congratulations from the Nick and I go out to the MNB crew. Cheers!

CNYBrew Undercover - Bryan Adams leader of Hezbollah?

In this exclusive photo obtained by CNYBrew, it has been confirmed that Bryan Adams is an active member of Hezbollah. Pictured here with Hussan Nasrallah, Hezbollah head, Bryan Adams is clearly embracing the terrorist leader.

While little has been written of Adams connection to the terrorist organization, the evidence of his long standing relationship with Hezbollah is staggering.

As early as 1983 when Adams released "Cuts like a knife". In the same year, Hezbollah were responsible for a rash of bombings including the bombing of a US Embassy and attacks in Beirut. It became clear to CNYBrew that the song "Let him know" was a reference to Hezbollah letting Uncle Sam know they were going to destroy the US. This line in the song led CNYBrew to this shocking revelation:

"The news is out I guess you heard I shouldn't breathe a single word The bottom line is nothing's gonna stop you now You gotta let him know..."

Startling, I know. But there is more.

In 1992, the release of "Waking up the Neighbors" was eerily coupled with the Hezbollah attack on an Isaeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. The song in question is "Everything I do" which is an obvious pledge by Adams of his allegiance to Hezbollah:

"Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for You know it's true Everything I do - I do it for you"

While there was no direct correlation between the influence of Bryan Adams anti-American rhetoric and Monday Night Brewery, CNYBrew continues to search for the connection. While CNYBrew has in the past thought that the MNB crew were a group of harmless Civil War Reenactment buddies, it's now apparent that this might be a much larger and more deep rooted militia fueled by the rantings of Bryan Adams...

More to come as information becomes available...

$20 in brew bucks burning a hole in my pocket

So for Valentines Day, my brew wife got me an AWESOME gift certificate for my LHBS! This is $20 that HAS to be spent on brew supplies. While it's tempting to put it towards a brew session, I decided that I am going to spend it on a few odds and ends items I have been eying there at Ed's.


Since it's $20, I am looking for a little feedback on things that I am considering getting. Here are the contenders:

First up is this 12" funnel with a screen for my buckets (yea I am not rolling in a pre-civil war cotton fortune like the guys at MNB and I still use the modest bucket) - My thought on this is that I have not been crazy about the method that we use for our hops which is steeping them in the brew. With this I would like to filter the wort as it comes out to catch as much of the hops as possible and we could just dump the hops directly into the kettle.







Yea, I know, everyone has carboy handles. Well not me. Since I now have three 5 gallon glass carboys and one 3 gallon glass carboy, I was thinking about not tempting fate anymore and getting some decent handles for them.










The ever important brew spoon. My current brew spoon is plastic and I have been using is for a good 4 years and I think it may be time to retire it. Now on his website Ed only has plastic spoons, but I know he has stainless steal ones at the shop so I was thinking about a 18" stainless steal spoon as another option.









In the end, I am probably going to get all this stuff and just using the gift certificate towards it, why? Why not? I am still interested in hearing some arguments for or against any of the items listed.

Cheers!