Vancouver Brewfest 2012

Today I volunteered at the first annual Vancouver Brewfest!  It was a blast!
I served for 3 hours from noon to 3 pm.  I chose to pour for Oakshire Brewing Co. out of Eugene, Oregon.  As chance would have it, I ended up pouring next to Haley and Sean Easton!  On my other side was another homebrewer.
One of the omissions of this first brewfest was a lack of information about the beers being served.  So I used what I knew about Line Dry Rye and Overcast Espresso Stout (Oakshire's offerings for this festival) along with information that Sean was able to pull up from his smart phone to answer peoples' questions about the beers we were serving.  Both are excellent beers and were top of my list to sample when my shift was over.
The perks for volunteering were great.  We got free admission, a free t-shirt and a cup and 8 tokens to use any time during the festival.  Cyndy joined me after my shift and we went around Esther Short Park sampling the offerings and enjoying the live music from the main stage.

The beers I tried and my scoring are:
Oakshire's Line Dry Rye *****
Oakshire's Overcast Espresso Stout *****
Stone's Arrogant Bastard *****
Walking Man's Belgian Session *****
Mt. Tabor's Hudson's Bay CDA *****
McMennamin's What's Wheating Gilbert Grapefruit ****
Dick's Brewing's Dick Danger Ale ****
West Highland's Mango Ale *

Growing my own hops

Tired of always paying good money for ingredients I can grow myself, I decided after much consideration to plant my own hops.
Armed with information on how to grow them (especially how to give them enough space to grow), I headed over to Bader Brewing and bought 3 rhizomes in April when they arrived.  I decided to grow the 3 varieties that I've used most:  Northern Brewer (English), Hallertau (German) and of course Cascade (US).
I planted each rhizome about 3 feet apart on the South side of our house.  I strung 2 strings of twine for each plant up to the roofline (about 30 feet) and fertilized the plants well and kept them watered.

Brewing on a budget

Now that funds are tight for affording this great hobby I'm glad that I've stocked up on supplies.
It's always a good idea to buy the 50 lb. bag of your basic base malts such as American 2-row and now I'm glad I did.
Also stocking up on the old standby hops like Cascade or Northern Brewer or E.K. Goldings when you find them at a good price is smart.  They keep a long time in your freezer if kept in the oxygen barrier bags they come in.
I'm so glad that I canned starter wort too since now I have starters available for my next 6 brews.  It's also practical and economical to save the yeast from the fermenter from your last brew to use in future brews.  Stored correctly they can be kept viable for a couple of months.
So, now if I can come up with a good recipe for the yeast, hops and grain I have on hand, I can brew the next batch or two without ANY outlay of cash!

MacTarnahan's Spring Sling Shot

I just tried MacTarnahan's spring release today.  This is an excellent beer that I would gladly brew!
It's quite malt-forward with a slightly sweet finish.  Lightly hopped, just enough to balance the considerable malt presence.  With the light caramel note as well as the very pale color, I'd guess at 1 pound of Crystal 15L and to get to 6.2% ABV it probably uses 12 lbs. of American 2-row Pale Ale Malt.  A very pleasant beer indeed.
Get it while you can!

This is what they say are its ingredients:

Sling Shot Pale Ale

Malts: 2 Row Pale, and Caramel

Hops: Nugget and Cascade

Bitternes: 27 IBU

Alcohol By Volume: 6.2%

Tubing Tip

It's a small thing but I found something else useful for my aeration aquarium pump.  I found that pumping air through the tubing I cleaned helped to dry them out so I didn't get water spots.  Notice in the first picture that the tube attached to the pump was clean and nearly dry in 15 minutes and the other was still wet and attracting bacteria after 12 hours.

Best Stout Yet

Today I bottled the clone of Rogue's Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout that Donny and I made.  This one tastes so good that I wanted to drink it right from the bottling bucket!
I used all stubby bottles this time with black caps.  Either this was a really good recipe and/or the improvements I implemented on this brew really paid off.
This batch yielded 53 bottles at a cost of only 65 cents per bottle! (Including the labels yet to be created.)

Homebrewer's reflection:  If the beer is really good, you want to share it and have little left for yourself.  If the beer didn't turn out well, you've got the whole batch to yourself!