Holy cow friends, I haven’t filled you in since July 5th! A bunch of stuff has happened, but I just haven’t had the chance to write about it. That stops NOW! So, what has been going on? I’ve got some pictures to satisfy your curiosity!

Let’s start with the Red Rye-der. This tasty brew was ready to sample and bottle on July 8th, and that’s exactly what we did! Here’s the first pour of the Red Rye-der, my personal favorite beer that we brew. 

This is Seth admiring that first pour. Notice the smile on his face, could you guess that this is his favorite beer as well? Looks like a proud papa! 

After tasting a few pints, we get to the arduous task of bottling all 15 gallons of this beautiful beer.

Brian is the cap master!

That’s a lot of bottles! I’m not complaining by any means, they look very nice on the shelf in my basement! 

Our next scheduled task was to filter and keg our oatmeal raisin brown ale and that took place on July 15th. July 15th was also the day I was in Minnesota visiting some friends. Brian and Seth took over the picture taking duties while I was gone. Here’s their handiwork. 

Inside the fermentation buckets. The raisins are all plump and full of beer!

Brian transferring to the conical before filling the kegs.

Filtering and kegging the oatmeal raisin brown.

The keg filling up!

This is by far my favorite picture that was sent to me while out of town. The text read, “Brian hates it when you’re not here!” I usually do the majority of the cleaning and Brian had to take over in my absence. 

The last thing I have to report is this past Friday the oatmeal raisin brown was carbonated and ready for a taste. I did not take any pictures. Why? We are going to let it sit in the keg for a while. First impressions were good, it’s a very tasty brew. We’re just going to let it mature a little, taste it each week and bottle it when we’re ready. No big rush on this one, we’ve got a little brewing break coming up over the next couple of weeks. 

Well, I guess that’s about it. You’re officially up to speed. After our brewing break we start brewing for the Breese Fall Festival, we’ve got a couple of surprises planned, so stay tuned!

Until next time…