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Last night I finagled an invite to help some friends bottle some of their home brews. I’m bummed I missed the initial brewing process that took place about 3 weeks ago, but the bottling certainly was fun. After a few false starts getting the siphon to work, we had a nice little production line going (this picture is Eric and Mark filling the bottles – Jen thinks it looks a bit like a meth lab, but I assure you it’s beer).
I had “Lavern’s” job of inspecting the bottles to make sure they were capped properly and packing them in their case – an important role for sure (or at least one in which I couldn’t screw anything up). From what I understand, home brewing is a bit tricky and takes some patience. The key apparently is to keep everything super clean, which results in getting a bit wet during the process. But I think it’s well worth it. We tried a few sips of the brew, and it was scrumptious, and will certainly even be better after a few weeks in the bottle so the carbonation can occur. I can’t wait to try the final product.
If you’re interested in learning more about home brewing, our friends at Beer Beer & More Beer and help you get up and running in a snap.
With BeerSmarts coming out in the next month, I’m getting inundated with opportunities to taste yummy beer and learn more about beer and beer making, which has been pretty eye opening. I’ll admit, for quite some time, I’ve had a slight aversion to beer. I suppose it all started during my grad school years in St. Louis where the beverage selection at bars and restaurants was less than enticing. To quote a typical waitress response to my query on what type of beer they had: “Oh, we have all types: Bud, Bud Light, Michelob, Michelob Light, Busch, Busch Light. All types.” And a potable glass of wine certainly was not an option. Which makes sense, Anheuser-Busch rules that town. After moving back home to SF, I steered clear of beer altogether since I had so many great options in the wine area.
But I now admit this attitude was rather short-sited of me. There are some absolutely wonderful microbrews out there doing really cool stuff (21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat beer is my current summer fav), and I’m finding quite often beer is as good if not better complement for certain foods than wine (consider beer with your cheese selection next time – yum!). I’m even told from a trusted authority that the image of beer having many more calories than wine per serving is a myth (I’m still going to do some more research on this one and will let you know).
In the meantime, bottoms up.
