02 Monday Mar 2015
Posted in Brewing
Tags
beer, brewing, craft, craft beer, Ferguson Brewing, guy, home brew, Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale, Recess Brewing, regular, regular guy brewing, Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter
When Brian, Seth and I get together and Ferguson Brewing Company AND Recess Brewing Company are involved, you know you’re in for a great beer weekend! Continue reading
22 Monday Dec 2014
Posted in Brewing
Tags
beer, brewing, Christmas, craft, craft beer, guy, holiday, holidays, IPA, red, Red Rye IPA, regular, regular guy brewing, rye, thanksgiving, wedding, weddings
Hey everybody in blog land, doing all the blog stuff you do. How are you? It’s been a while. Too long? Maybe, but hey, life is that way. What a great segue into the topic of this blog post! Brian, Seth and I would love to give you a blog post full of brewing pictures and beer porn every Monday, but sometimes when you’re trying to coordinate three very busy schedules, things just don’t work out.
Let’s put together a time line shall we?
October 24th, 2014 – we brewed our Red Rye IPA. We hit our target numbers, efficiency was great and the session went relatively smooth.
November 7th, 2014 – Brewmaster Seth was out of town and it was up to Brian and I to transfer the Red Rye IPA to secondary and do a little dry hopping.
November 14th, 2014 – dry hopping had gone long enough and we filtered and kegged our Red Rye IPA.
November 21st, 2014 – we bottled our Red Rye IPA and had our first taste of the carbonated masterpiece and have been enjoying it ever since.
November 28th, 2014 – we wanted to get a brew session in, but it was the weekend after Thanksgiving and our Brewmaster had family stuff going on. No big deal.
December 5th, 2014 – we wanted to get a brew session in, but Recess Brewing had just opened up and felt it was pretty important to pay them a visit on their opening week. Plus it’s beer, so…
December 12th, 2014 – Brian had a Christmas party to attend. When the brewery is in Brian’s garage, brewing becomes a little complicated.
December 19th, 2014 – I had a bachelor party to attend on Saturday and there was no way I could expect to spend Friday night brewing and all day Saturday drinking beer and playing golf and hanging out with friends until the wee hours of the morning.
December 22nd, 2014 – this is today. Now let’s chat about future brewing possibilities.
December 26th, 2014 – this is the Friday after Christmas. Probably not going to happen.
January 2nd, 2015 – I have a wedding rehearsal and dinner and a wedding the next day so count me out. Brian and Seth could possibly pull together a session without me though…nudge nudge, wink wink!
January 9th, 2015 – this is realistically the next possible day we can brew. That is if the weather cooperates and it’s not so cold our pumps will freeze up.
So we haven’t brewed a beer since October 24th, haven’t done anything brewing related since November 21st and probably won’t be able to brew until January 9th. Wow! Am I having brewing withdrawals? Yes I am!
Until next time…
11 Thursday Dec 2014
Posted in Brewing
Sometimes in life, you are just cruising along, thinking that everything is just fine and dandy. You haven’t a care in the world…until it hits you. You know that moment. That instantaneous feeling of self-loathing and general perturbation that strikes you like a load of bricks when you realize that you are an idiot. A complete frickin’ idiot.
I will fully admit, that I am more than well acquainted with this feeling. Such moments can be tough to take, because in said moments of complete cognizance, you are fully aware that you are not as bright as you previously thought you were. Or, to paraphrase one of my personal role models in life…one Lloyd Dobler…you suddenly know enough to know that you don’t know. And that’s something.
But here’s the good news. These moments of clarity provide us with a huge opportunity. Our newly achieved awareness presents a great challenge. We know of the problem…now what’s the solution? Continue reading
17 Monday Nov 2014
Posted in Brewing
Tags
beer, brewing, carbonation, cold, craft, craft beer, frozen, guy, ice, IPA, keg, kegging, red, Red Rye IPA, regular, regular guy brewing, rye, winter
Happy Monday! Said no one ever. I do, however, have some good news and pretty beer pictures to brighten your day! Friday we got together on a rather cold night to keg our Red Rye IPA. It was a brisk 20 degrees and we had two kegs to fill. Now I know our friends up in the Great White North would consider 20 degrees shorts weather, but after a few hours outside in the cold, playing with water we were ready to call it a night! Ok, no more crying about the weather, let’s see some pictures!
The bubbles from the sanitizer froze in the bucket and all over the driveway.
Can you see a face in the frozen sanitizer bubbles?
Brian is a trooper and true bad ass! He was the one who dipped his arm into the sanitizer to retrieve the sanitized parts we needed. Rumor has it, his arm had to be amputated on Saturday.
Seth rinsing one of the kegs. Note the ice on the driveway from spillage.
Red Rye IPA being transferred from secondary into a keg.
Filtering the Red Rye IPA. It goes from one keg through both filters and into its new home.
The filtered IPA filling up the keg.
Two full kegs being carbonated, it’s a beautiful sight! It’ll be ready to bottle on Friday.
Even though it was incredibly cold, we toughed it out, with a whole bunch of whining (mostly by me, “I’m freezing, I can’t feel my toes” blah blah blah) but the end result was well worth it!
Until next time…
10 Monday Nov 2014
Posted in Brewing
Tags
beer, brewing, craft, craft beer, guy, IPA, red, Red Rye IPA, regular, regular guy brewing, rye
When brewmaster Seth is away, Brian and Justin will play…the PS4! Yes we did get a video game session in, but we also proved that we can be an asset to Regular Guy Brewing. It was up to us to transfer the Red Rye IPA to secondary and dry hop that sucker, and we pulled it off! High fives and flying chest bumps and sprays of champagne filled the crisp night air. I was able to snap a few pictures if you’d like to see them.
After a VERY vigorous fermentation the Red Rye IPA is ready for secondary and a hearty dry hopping. According to the refractometer, we’re right on track for 6% ABV.
Brian really likes the Amarillo hops.
NO BRIAN THAT’S NOT WHAT WE DO! See what happens when Seth is out of town?!?
Filling the buckets. The Amarillo swirling around in that pretty red beer!
One more picture, just to rub it in! Beautiful!
Well, that’s it. I’ll spare you the details of the video game session, just know that many beers were drank, a good time was had and Seth was dearly missed.
Until next time…
Regular Guy Brewing 