Beer Drinking

Don’t Just Drink Beer, Learn How To Make It

There are beer enthusiasts who are deeply enriched in the beer making world, who own their own home breweries and who take advantage of all the benefits. Then, there are beer enthusiasts who have never even thought of making their own. I can’t imagine why a beer enthusiast wouldn’t at least be interested in giving it a try, but I’m going to try to change that now.

There are many benefits to brewing your own beer and I’m going to take it one step at a time. When you are ready to get off this wild ride, take stage coach left and no one will think any less of you for it. But I bet once this journey begins, you will want to ride it until the wheels fall off.

First, brewing your own beer is a way of putting a mark on your own home bar. You can even get online and design yourself a label and then place it on your bottles, glasses and beer taps even. When company comes over, you can have them all try it. It might just become their favorite beer meaning you might just get company more often if that seems like something you would like to have.

Then, you can start marketing your beer to the local bars. Give them a taste and see if they like it. There are different ways to make this happen. You can get in touch with a local bar owner and tell them you would like to have a tasting at their bar. You offer some of your beer for free and then when people say they like the taste, the bar owner will most likely want to stock it. Make a thing of it. It’s supposed to be a fun time. So, have fun!

The next logical level is to enter into some beer events. Start locally, but again have fun. Go across the country if you want. The more exposure you get, the more buyers you get. Don’t be surprised when someone approaches you to see if you want a sponsor. Sponsorship can take you to levels you have never imagined. Nationwide distribution. Export. International attention.

By this time of course, you have expanded your enterprise to include so much more than a bucket and a kegerator. You have built your brewery into a high powered system that produces enough beer to satisfy all your orders. You’ve moved your operation to a local location that houses your brewery and invites the neighbors to wander in and have a beer. You’ve had to apply for your beer license so that you can start selling your beer and you’ve had to build a bar so that your neighbors have a comfortable place to sit. You’ve got a sign on the front of your place with your name on it and you’ve been highlighted in the paper as the local beer expert.

With a few different flavors now in your inventory, you can have a seat. Take a breath. You’re finished the first phase of Operation Your Brew. The rest of the ride goes anywhere you want it to go.

Build Your Own Tiki Bar

Discover How to Build Your Own High-Quality Tiki Bar

Turn your backyard into Party Central! …Or get creative in your basement, back porch or glass room. 

"Now you can build a high-quality, custom Tiki bar for a unique, fun, and relaxing party atmosphere right in your own back yard! I guarantee it!"

Immediate Download Delivery

Tiki Kev’s How To Build Your Own Tiki Bar product is an electronic book (e-book), which means it can be downloaded right to your Windows or Mac PC in just seconds.

So, you can get started building your own very signature Tiki Bar right away.

Start the Blenders!

Learn To Build Your Own Tiki Bar

Putting The Home Bar Together The Easy Way

When you have your bar and your cabinets built, you’ll want to get to drinking in it…Now.  But, I’ve seen some make shit jobs that aren’t really all that great.  Then, I’ve seen some expensive setups that are way out of the reach of most of us.

So, here’s the home bar the easy way:

The kegerator is the first thing you put in your bar.  It keeps your keg cool and it adds style in an inexpensive way.

This kegerator can actually make the entire bar.  If you choose to use a kegerator like this to hold your kegs, you can make it a part of the bar’s counter top.  Then, you only need counter space on each side.  That’s a setup made easy, as easy as it gets. 

Grab a tap handle of your favorite beer and now you’ve got something to really get you bragging.  There are tap handles of all kinds, from your favorite domestic to your favorite import.  As a promotional tool, every beer you can think of has a beer tap handle for commercial uses as well as the home bar enthusiast.

But, just in case you have a beer of your own or some other “unrecognizable” libation, get the beer tap handle you can write anything on that you want. 

Tell people, “Try Me!”  Give your concoction a name.  Have fun with it and write, “Make Your Own Beer…” or whatever else you might come up with to prank your friends.

You’ve got the bar.  Dress it up in style.  The kegerator and a beer tap handle can turn any room into a bar.  Your bedroom, your dorm room (oops), your garage, your basement, your tree house…

Anywhere!

George Washington – Beerthusiast

Posted by CarBoy Films

The Father of Our Country loved his beer.  English–style porter was George Washington’s drink of choice and whenever he could he would seek out the product of Robert Hare, a brewer in Philadelphia who was one of the first to make porter in the U.S. Washington was no stranger to homebrew either and this recipe from a personal notebook he kept will make 30 gallons of ale, enough for a large household like Mount Vernon.

"Take a large Sifter full of Bran, Hops to your Taste—Boil these 3 hours.  Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed."

"To Make Small Beer” is the title of this recipe. “Small beer” is normally brew made from the second runnings through the mash for strong ale and the beer that is created has very little alcohol (about 3%).  However, a note on the NPR website says that the above recipe produces a beer with an alcohol content of about 11 %.  If this was George’s “small beer” then consumption of his “large beer” must have somehow disrupted space-time for its imbiber. Compare that ABV to a popular modern American brew, say Sam Adams Boston Lager at 4.9%, and you realize that “Town Destroyer”, as the Iroquois nicknamed Washington, wasn’t effin around.   In fact, I think he might have been trying to kill himself and anyone around him.

So if you try this recipe use caution (or just less molasses) and for God’s sake send us pictures of the aftermath.

Image by cliff1066

Garrison Keillor – View of Cincinnati, Love of Beer

Cincinnati Poem

We’re in Cincinnati and it’s good to be here
In a city of pork and a city of beer.
Old beer signs everywhere you walk:
“Good Old” Brucks, Brenner’s XL Pilsener, John Hauck
Barbarossa, King Gambrinus, or Crown.
You eat you some Pork hocks with leeks and garlic cloves, you need beer to wash it down.
Similarly, to go along with a pint of beer, you need more than a pretzel
You need Pork Meatloaf with brown gravy and spaetzle.
A big pork sandwich and something to drink,
Geisbauer, Bierbrauer, Linck.
Nothing chintzy
Here in Cincy.
Like it or not, Cincinnati was not vegetarian.
It went for pork shanks with bread dumplings and a pitcher of Bavarian.
No lemonade, no cranberry juice, no apple cider,
But a big mug of Weber’s, Lackman, Jackson, Mohawk, Gerke, Burger, or Foss-Schneider.
And all of the pig was used, even the snout
To make Bierwurst, Mettwurst, Bratwurst, piled high with sauerkraut.

Beers with distinguished names like Butcher & Weidmann and Windisch-Muhlhauser
To give a sense of dignity to the drunken carouser
City of suds and city of swine,
Some greasy goetta sausage and a glass of Christian Moerlein,
Or Little Kings cream ale

Beer by the bottle, the barrel, the hogshead, and the pail,
Golden brown glasses of beer with nice big heads
And Hudepohl-Schoenling, Cincinnati’s finest, hu-dey “Hu dey think gonna beat them Reds”
It was the national capital of beer.
In 1890, they produced a million barrels a year.
Old breweries along McMicken Avenue on the hill north of Liberty Street,
Making beer out of water, yeast, sugar, plenty of hops, and wheat.
Oh in Cincinnati there was lots to do:
You had a Hudy and a Pork cordon bleu.
Cincinnati was a regular culinary riot.
How sad to be on a diet.
What a terrible loss.
To miss out on the roast pork loin with beer sauce.
And it is politically incorrect
And you may object
To my saying so, but I suspect
Something joyful and boisterous and profane
Was lost when we decided to abstain.
A man sitting down to pork braised, roasted, fried, boiled, battered, with a glass upraised,
A man who is a little fried himself and his eyes are glazed.
That may have been the night he became your daddy
Here in Cincinnati.

_____

If you ever find a place that you want to call home

and you can name off the reasons why,

then you’ll be as lucky as this guy!

Can’t Beat An Event Planned With Beer Drinkers In Mind

Who better to throw a party that has beer enthusiasts in mind than a brewing company?  Over the weekend, Saint Arnold Brewing Company threw a party to celebrate 15 years in the beer business.  I heard it was a pretty great time.

One highlight of the event was the fact that a new and special beer was introduced.  The tap just had a hand printed label on it and the bad part is that the beer will not be distributed or sold in any way.  It was just made for the event.

Another highlight were the drinking games.  Two Guys One Cup took the prize by winning the drinking games that started with a beer keg obstacle course and ended with a beer pong / skee ball type beer game.

It’s times like that bring beer enthusiasts like ourselves together.  Next time I’ll try to keep you posted before the event.