Bottling our EPA, with pictures!

28 Monday Jul 2014

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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…

Update time, with pictures!

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Justin in Our Brews

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ale, beer, blonde, blotting, brewing, craft, craft beer, dry hop, extra, extra pale ale, fermentation, filtered, filtering, guy, hop, hops, hot blonde, jalapeño, kegging, pale, pale ale, regular, regular guy brewing, secondary fermentation

It seems just as we say hello to the weekend, we sadly have to say goodbye. The Regular Guys had a pretty productive Friday night. We got together and bottled our Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale and kegged our EPA. Then we had a well deserved night out for research and development of course!

Let’s start with the Hot Blonde. Lately we’ve been tinkering with our recipes, taking everyone’s comments and suggestions to heart and combining them with our own ideas and meeting somewhere in the middle. We then make minor adjustments to our recipes and see how it turns out. The Hot Blonde may have been a little too spicy and we’ve been trying to figure out exactly at what point all that spiciness comes in. Well, we figured it out and an incredibly delicious beer was born!

How about some pictures? Ok!

We know this isn’t a “proper” glass for a blonde ale, but we aren’t picky. This is hand model extraordinaire Brian showing off the color and clarity of our brew. She’s a pretty beer!

This is also Brian enjoying the Hot Blonde. You can tell he approves by his eyebrow.

Let the bottling commence!

Seth is a pro. He’s the only one we trust to fill our bottles. I’ve tried, and was really bad at it.

Up next is the unnamed EPA. We’ve brewed this beer three times now and we’re hoping this version will be the recipe we can stick with.

Let’s picture shall we? We shall!

Secondary is complete and by the aroma, the dry hop went splendidly!

Brewmaster Seth is overseeing the transfer of the EPA to keg number one.

Brian is keeping a close eye on the filters.

Here’s a closer look at the filters. There’s some ridiculously good looking beer in there!

And finally, the filtered EPA is being transferred into keg number two. It is now being carbonated and we’ll get to test it out on Friday!

I hope you all have a fantastic week or at least a tolerable one!

Until next time…

Late update time!

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Justin in Brewing

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ale, beer, Beer porn, brewing, craft, craft beer, extra, extra pale ale, fermentation, guy, hot blonde, kegging, pale, regular, regular guy brewing, secondary fermentation, update

Wow it’s already Wednesday! This update was supposed to be posted on Monday. Where did the time go? Anyway, last Friday 2/3 of the Regular Guys got together to get some work done. Brian was out of town, but that didn’t stop me and Seth from breaking into Brian’s garage to dry hop our EPA and keg our Hot Blonde. We were like ninjas sneaking through the shadows and entering the garage unnoticed. Actually we know Brian’s code so it was pretty easy.

Ready for some pictures?

Our EPA had a VERY healthy fermentation!

Here’s the Simcoe and Columbus hops patiently awaiting the EPA. Last time we dry hopped with leaf hops which look way more impressive than the pellet. Oh well, they do the same thing.

The EPA being transferred on the hops.

The secondary is complete for the Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale.

Hot Blonde transferring into keg number one.

The Hot Blonde being filtered and transferred to keg number two.

Here’s a closer look at the filters.

Here’s the filtered Hot Blonde filling up keg number two.

Well, that’s my update from last Friday. This Friday we get to bottle the Hot Blonde and keg the EPA. I think we are also taking a field trip to one of our favorite micros!

More to come, until next time…

EPA brew session, take three!

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Justin in Brewing

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ale, beer, brewing, cleaning corny kegs, corny keg, craft, craft beer, diaper rash, dough in, extra, extra pale ale, guy, keg, mash tun, pale, regular, regular guy brewing

Friday night we got together to brew our EPA for the third time. To recap our first two sessions, the first had perfect bitterness, but was lacking the intense hop aroma and flavor we were looking for. Not bad for our first time brewing a new recipe. The second had a sweetness that masked pretty much all flavors and aroma. We pinned it down to our new/used corny keg that I didn’t properly clean. I solved this problem right away.

There’s two of our kegs soaking, the third which is also soaking is not pictured. All components were disassembled, scrubbed and soaked in Oxyclean Free. A thorough rinse and sanitize and I surely will redeem myself!
Anyway, here is a pictorial of our evening. I know how much you like pictures!

A big ol bag of grain ready to be crushed.

Brian and “El Crushinator” crushing the grain.

Doughing in.

Reverse angle, close up shot doughing in.

Dough in complete. Let’s give it 60 minutes.

The first runnings. Because of the movie Cool Runnings, when I say first runnings I have to say it with a Jamaican accent.

Check the first runnings once…

Twice…

Three times the laaaadaaaay! Sorry.

TIM doing what TIM does best. On a side note, Seth’s latest add on to TIM, the one that involves diaper rash cream, worked beautifully.

A closer shot of TIM’s handy work.

The boiled and chilled wort filling the fermentation bucket. She’s pretty!

Check the temperature, aerate, pitch the yeast and call it a night!

All in all it was another successful brew night. We hit all of our expected numbers and our efficiency was 85%. Not too shabby!

Until next time…

Monster EPA dry hop

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Justin in Brewing, Our Brews

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ale, aroma, beer, brewing, Columbus, Columbus hops, craft, craft beer, dry, dry hop, extra, extra pale ale, guy, hop, hopping, krausen, pale, regular, regular guy brewing, Simcoe, Simcoe hops

Oh my god, you guys, oh my god. Friday night the Regular Guys got together and got some work done. I’m talking about a ton of work. Most of the work was brew tech related and Seth is going to fill you in on that. What I’m going to tell you about is our yet-to-be-named EPA.

First of all, the EPA had a VERY active fermentation. Brian said that it was so active that the top actually blew off twice! Not just once, TWICE! Luckily he was home both times and barring a mild heart attack, he was able to get the lid back on quickly. Here’s a picture of the EPA in primary.

The remnants of the krausen show just how active the fermentation was. This beautiful beverage isn’t even ready yet and I’ve gotta tell ya, the aroma was quite possibly the best smell that has ever entered my nose. No harsh fumes, no hot alcohol tones, this is going to be a beast. Especially after you see the amount of hops that went into secondary!

Holy cow that’s a lot of hops! We went with a glorious mixture of Columbus and Simcoe hops. Next picture!

This is the Columbus and Simcoe hops welcoming our EPA into their home. Remember how I said up there how our EPA’s aroma was the “best smell that has even entered my nose?” I lied. Our EPA mixed with the Columbus and Simcoe is the best smell that has ever entered my nose!

And here we have the final product. The hops are soaking up the EPA and are going to do their magic. It will bathe in the hop addition in secondary until Friday where we’ll transfer to the keg for carbonation and soon after, we’ll be able to enjoy.

I really can’t wait to try this version of the EPA. Seth did a lot of hard work recalculating and reworking the recipe to make it just right and I have full confidence that it’ll turn out great.

Until next time…