Monday = Update Time!

18 Monday Aug 2014

Tags

Apple, beer, brewing, craft, craft beer, grain, Grove, guy, hops, mash, mash in, Porter, regular, regular guy brewing, smoked, Smokey, Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter

Good morning Monday! Said no one ever. At least I have a photo update to brighten your day! Friday night we got together and brewed our Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter. We changed the recipe slightly this time around, but only to lessen the amount of smoke flavor. As one random taster said, “it tastes like a campfire in your mouth!” Not necessarily a bad thing, but we collectively agreed that the smoke could be toned down a bit. So without further adieu, here’s our night in pictures!

The brew session is about to begin!

There’s the magical water correction ingredients to adjust the water to make a perfect porter!

Brewmaster Seth is manning the controls and regulating temperatures.

Here’s some of the grains that make up our Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter.

Almost time to mash in!

Brian and Seth pretending to do something important.

Brian and I mashing in. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

Brian loves the aroma of the grains as they mix with the water.

Here’s a closer look at the grain.

Seth checks the numbers of the first runnings.

This is the first runnings in the kettle. It’s a beautiful sight!

Brian takes a well deserved break!

The wort is starting to boil and we’re getting ready for the hot break.

Full on boil and hop additions.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any better, throw in some apples!

Aerate, pitch the yeast and call it a night!

There you have it, our Friday night brew session in pictures. This batch will go on to a competition, we’ll keep you posted on the results when we get them.

Hopefully the beer porn will ease you into your Monday! Until next time…

Let’s talk about stuff!

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Justin in Brewing, Business Stuff

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

alpha, alpha brewing company, Apple, beer, brewing, business, craft, craft beer, Grove, guy, Porter, regular, regular guy brewing, smoked, Smokey, Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter, Stolze, Stolze Style Brewing

Hi guys and one gal! How have you been? It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything so I’m going to bring you up to speed. The last time I posted I talked about the business meeting we were having on a Friday night and you complained and said we weren’t doing anything fun or exciting. Boy were you wrong! We lined up the rest of the year’s brewing schedule and drank beer! It doesn’t get much better than that.

Then last Friday we met up with Eric and Jennifer from Stolze Style Brewing at Alpha Brewing Company for a little home brewer meet and greet.

Alpha’s excellent beer was only topped by the excellent company. We shared many great stories and delicious beers and by the end of the night our conversation shifted to collaboration. Now, I can’t tell you all the details about our collaboration beer because it’s top secret, but I can tell you it’s going to be a “Storter.” You might be asking yourself, “what the hell is a Storter?” I will tell you. A “Storter” is a beautiful combination of a Stout and a Porter (thank you Alpha for the inspiration). Basically it takes all the best characteristics of both styles and gently and lovingly swirls them together. I can sense your excitement. This style mash – up is great, but it’s not even the best part. The best part is…TOP SECRET! Sorry I can’t spill the beans just yet. The only other thing I can tell you is this epic collaboration is taking place on Friday, September 19th and it will blow doors down.

Your socks will literally be knocked off your feet. Not unlike that picture up there. Smoke will come out and everything.

That brings us to today! It’s Friday and you know what that means, we’re brewing! We will be brewing our Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter for a competition that is taking place in October.

The smokey apple flavor of our porter will go wonderfully with the fall weather and more than likely win the best beer in the entire universe award. That’s a real award and we’re going to win it because I’m Bob Johnson, and I’m a winner! (Where did that Bob Johnson business come from and what does it mean?)

Until next time babies!

Friday night business meeting.

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Justin in Business Stuff

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

beer, brewing, briefcase, business, craft, craft beer, group hug, guy, handshake, legal pads, meeting, regular, regular guy brewing, schematics, suit

You: Friday night business meeting?

Me: Yes, Friday night business meeting.
You: Why aren’t you brewing or kegging or bottling or doing something fun?

Me: You don’t know fun until you’ve been to a Regular Guy business meeting!

You: Sounds boring and not fun.

Me: You’re wrong and I’m done with this conversation. I win.

You can be such a downer sometimes, you should try to be more positive.

Any who, yes we are having a business meeting tonight. We are planning our future brews and reviewing recipes for those future brews. We’ll show up in our business suits.

With our briefcases.

And legal pads.

Schematics will be drawn.

Heated arguments will ensue.

An understanding will be met.

Followed by a group hug.

None of that will actually happen. We’ll drink beer and talk about our recipes. I’m hoping to get a little work done on our website as well. Now having wasted a few minutes of your precious time I’ll let you get back to pretending to work on this glorious Friday. Have a great weekend everybody!

Until next time…

Bottling our EPA, with pictures!

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Justin in Our Brews

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Tags

ale, beer, bottling, brewing, carbonation, craft, craft beer, extra, extra pale ale, guy, keg, kegging, pale, regular, regular guy brewing

Friday night, as usual, the Regular Guys got together to do something brew related. This time we had our EPA all carbonated and ready to be bottled. We’ve brewed this recipe three times now, and with minor adjustments along the way, I think we may have nailed it folks! She’s a gorgeous beer.

See I told you.

Here’s our night in pictures, enjoy!

Here’s our EPA all carbonated and ready to go. Seth had a “hand” in the bottling process, get it?!? I’m hilarious!

The bottles are eagerly awaiting the EPA. They’re so excited! You can tell if you look closely.

The EPA has a beautiful thick foamy head.

For all you Brian fans out there, he’s giving the eyebrow of approval. That’s how you know it’s good!

Seth, the bottling filling champion of the world. He has a trophy to prove it.

I AM THE CAP MASTER!!!

I was trying to look super manly, but I came off looking more like Garth Algar. It’s Wayne’s World!

Ahh yes! Freshly capped beer ready to share, or keep for ourselves if we feel like being stingy.

Well, that’s it. Go back to work.

Until next time…

Midnights are like a week of Mondays

24 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Justin in Random Stuff

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The midnight shift sucks.

I’ll repeat that in all caps so you will understand my disdain and also that I’m yelling.

THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT SUCKS!!!

I added three exclamation points to show the intensity of my boisterous clamor.

Yes, while most of the working world is nestled snug in their beds, I am working my hands to the bone. Well we’re forced to wear gloves so technically I’m just wearing out a pair of gloves, but you get the point.

Things I hate about the midnight shift:

1. I don’t get to sleep in my bed with my wife.

2. For some strange reason I miss my kids. If I was working a normal shift we would all be asleep and I wouldn’t see them anyway. Weird.

3. I don’t sleep well during the day. I’m a professional napper, I can fall asleep pretty much on command, but naps are short. I need a full block of sleep, like I get at night, but I generally wake up about once an hour.

4. My food schedule is thrown way off. I don’t eat at work when I’m on midnights. I don’t eat when I get home. I usually eat a protein bar when I first wake up and then dinner. That’s it. It’s weird to eat a full meal when I would normally be sleeping.

5. My bathroom routine is thrown way off. I won’t go into detail, probably already more information than you would like to have heard.

6. It’s really hard to get back on a normal schedule after the midnights are over. Plus, there’s only two days to get back to normalcy because Monday I’ll be back on day shift.

7. You miss out on fun stuff. Like, going to watch Brian and Seth play hockey. While the rest of the world is winding down from a long day’s work, I’m just getting ready to go in.

8. I could go on forever about why I hate midnights, but I’ll end my list with this. I haven’t had a beer since Saturday, today is Thursday. Also, I have this in the fridge.

I put it in black and white and added a vignette to intensify the seriousness of my predicament.

There’s also this in my fridge. You can’t go wrong with that!

There’s a lot of guys out here that don’t let midnights stop them from enjoying their beer. They get off work at 6:00 am and start drinking. I can’t do that. The only thing on my mind at 6:00 am is going to bed. I could have a beer after I wake up in the afternoon, but I have to pick up my daughter from daycare. I’m pretty sure her provider would call DCFS on me if I showed up smelling like beer. I could have one with dinner, but then I run the risk of smelling like beer when I get to work. It’s a vicious cycle.

All I know is I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I’ll get to drink my beer, hang with my bros and bottle our EPA.

Wish me luck getting through the dark, cold beerless days.

Until next time…