Big Brew Vacation - Colorado August 2012 (day one)

The boys at our first official beer destination - Strange Brewing Co.

They had a very small operation, but the quality was impressive.

This place was way too hard to find, but a diamond in the rough, i guess

From there, we went further into downtown Denver, to the Falling Rock Taphouse.
We had Dogfish Head 90 min IPA and Russian River's Saison*

The Wynkoop Brewery was down the street,
so we stopped in for a sampler that included a spicy jalapeno wheat*

This place was nice, but it was our first night there,
and since we were looking forward to some favorites the next few days,
we laid low that night. 

There was a giant bronze gorilla too.

*Not sure if these are correct, its a little blurry.
Hope to add more pics to this day, just need to find more time.

perennial artisan ales + schlafly hop in the city

Our first visit to Perennial, delicious beer and great people.

Arm-wrestling match over who has to beer bong a Hommel.

We all had to.

This is during their soft-opening phase.

We took notes.

Inside the tent at Schlafly Hop in the City Festival.

Found a the last barrel to rest our tasting glasses on.

And delicious pretzels for Nicole.

Big Brew Vacation - Michigan July 2011

The last few weeks have included many great brews.  Trips to 3 Floyds, Founders, New Holland's, Right Brain, Jolly Pumpkin, North Peak, and Bells. Many great bottles and drafts. Here are some pictures.

This is Tim outside of 3 Floyds. One of the greatest places on earth.

3 Floyds take home

Founders brewing. Cashew Mountain Brown. Aged 287 days in Maple Bourbon Barrel.

Bells Eccentric Cafe. I believe that was the Honey wheat ale, which was incredible.

Jolly Pumpkin/North Peak Brewery, north of Traverse city, MI. That pizza is made with all fresh local ingredients and tasted delicious. That was a E.S. Bam - Extra Special Farmhouse Ale. 

Went to Right Brain brewery. That wads the owner Russell. 

This was the "spinal tapper", which was a very citrus, low bitterness pale ale. Loved it!

Last trip to Founders. Blushing Monk off the crew.

Home brewing the "Milknut Ipa" an homage to 2 great beers from 2 great breweries. The apacolyple cow and cashew mountain brown.  This homebrew includes 5 different hops that we bought at the bell's store. 3 different malts, 3 grains, 2lbs of lactose sugar added to primary along with 1lb of cashew nuts and 1/8th cup of oak chips. Picture below.

Not relate d to beer, went to see Fleet Foxes when they came to st. louis. Loved the show. Picture below

Stone in St. Louis

Ok, so this post is 2 months late by now, but the event was monumental enough for us to share for our blog.

Stone Brewery finally made its way to the Show Me State.

And here's what we have to show for it.

This picture is missing a few of the available year-round beers (Pale Ale, Levitation Ale), but this is how we spent our first days celebrating. We enjoyed the events that coincided with the release date. Below is a picture of Greg Koch visiting Cicero's Beer School during Stone's 20 event party celebrating their arrival.

"There's a fantastic craft beer scene in Missouri; of that, there is no doubt," explains Greg Koch, CEO & Co-Founder of Stone Brewing Co. "The St. Louis chapter of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas invited me out to speak to their group last year, and I made sure to stop by the Schlafly Tap Room afterward. Besides having some amazing beer, I got to meet some great people who were very passionate about getting Stone in their hometown."

We were excited.

Very excited.

After attending Ciceros, and buying our profuse amount of bottles, we ventured to the International Tap House (Itap) to attend to TOTAL TAP TAKEOVER. Stone provided over 24 taps of beautiful beer.

... I really cant remember what we had, waiting for steve to reference some of these photos.

I'm guessing the 14th anniv ale, double dry-hopped stone ipa, and the '08 imperial stout.

This is a blurry menu.mmm stout.

and scott.

Homebrew the Deschutes way

The new craft brew coming to st. Louis was announce in the Hip Hop's article in stltoday.

This prompted me to their website, which has a plethora of clone recipes for home brewers.

http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/brews/homebrew-recipes

I am going to do a few try clone brewing for a bit after I get a few more beers out of the way that I've been wanting to make. I've got the Bavarian wheat honey double IPA, the Huge stout, and the Belgian IPA down so far. Helped on a few. I've read sam calgione's book "Extreme Brewing" alone with some other books with good recipes for clones.

Either way, I'm excited to try their beer!

Imperial Stout and Belgian American IPA

This was 4 lbs of specialty malts:

Chocolate American Malt 350l

Chocolate German Malt

Roast British Barley unmalted 500l

Black Patent British 500l

Here is a link to a good grain chart for reference: http://www.onebeer.net/grainchart.html

This was at slowly brought up to 155-160 then taken off the heat. Total time: 65 mins

This receipe also include:

1lb of brown sugar

1lb of lactose sugar

6.6lbs of liquid malt extract

3lbs of dry malt extract

Magnum, Sterling, Willamette and Fruggles hops

2 cups of fair trade whole coffee beans

I just put this into secondary yesterday, no picture of that right now. 

Just brewed another IPA. 

It has 3787 Trappist High Gravity Wyeast

1lb brown sugar ( added after blowoff)

Gypsum

1lb 2 Row Malt

1lb Carapils barley

6.6lbs liquid light malt extract

3lbs dry malt extract

2 oz Amarillo hops: bittering (continuously for 2o mins)

1oz centennial pellet

1oz centennial leaf

Irish moss

1/4 lb Missouri honey and 5 packets of Chamomile Tea (usda organic)

Belgian American IPA in boil

Not pictured the Kolsh that Tim just bottled and threw 3 gallons into a secondary fermenting. Been doing a lot of brewing recently.  Learning some new twists and techniques. Very slowly getting better, but always having a lot of fun.

DrewPA

Our friend Drew's first homebrew. (pictured right)

26th Anniv. MyPA

I have a lot of pictures of breweries that I've been too around middle America. This was a picture from Bell's Brewery in February of 2011. Hops slam was on draft. That trip included stops at 3 Floyds, New Holland, and Founders Brewing.

I'm fermenting my 1st home brew. Just went put it into secondary fermentation yesterday. It's heavy on Bavarian wheat and American hops. Little bit of honey and some special ingredients... not sure how it will taste. I call it the 26th Anniversary MyPA: Hippiti Hoppity, Taste don't stoppiti double dry hopped IPA (pictured above: in primary with citra hops). Long title... its kind of a work in progress.

Either way, excited about brewing and the future of American craft beer. Cheers!

.

( pictured above: Sloth IPA )