awesome!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything on the blog and I have the greatest excuse...I am now an official employee at Intuition Ale Works here in my hometown of Jacksonville, FL. I will primarily just be helping out on the canning runs....for now, I love my job at Intuition!

bottling and more bottling

Later today I will be bottling three different beers into 12 oz bottles for this weekend's celebration of my grandfather's 90th birthday. The three beers to be bottled are an American Amber Ale, a Belgian Christmas Ale (sort of a clone of Affligem Noel) and a Sweet Stout. All of which will be labeled with the label I got made especially for the celebration of his 90th birthday. I'll mark the crowns with a marker so they guests will know what beer is in what bottle. A = American Amber, X= Christmas Ale, S = Stout. I'll upload an image of the bottling and the label as soon as I get a chance. I should mention the original intention was to just bottle the American Amber Ale, but I decided it might be nice to provide my guests with a choice, which makes it a good thing I didn't but a style on the label.

Prost!

UPDATE 1/26/2012: Added picture of beer label, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during bottling, but from the picture above you get the general idea.

STOP SOPA

I removed the SOPA image I had created for the 24 hour blackout of the blog.
Luckily for now, SOPA and PIPA have been blocked for now.

beer labels arrived!

About 2 months ago I brewed an American Amber Ale for the celebration of my grandfather's 90th birthday coming up at the end of this month. The beer labels that I got from an Australian beer label company, arrived the other day and boy do they look great! I plan on bottling forty-eight 12 oz bottles, I'll use my Blichmann beer gun..which I love by the way, and will label and give out to the guests. What remains in the keg after the bottling will be served in my four tap home built kegerator. Also available for the party will be the Belgian Christmas Ale and hopefully the Milk Stout should I think it's ready..although if guests ask to try it, I may let them take a sample even if I think the beer is still a little green. "green" is a term us brewers use to describe young beer that still needs to mature.

UPDATE 1/16/2011: I got the bright idea to take one of the beer labels and stick it on a square of cardstock that I cut to the size of my tap handle then taped that to the tap itself. So now I have a tap handle with the specialized label that I made for this batch of beer that I especially made for my grandfather's 90th birthday which is at the end of the month

Sweet Stout brew day is on!

In an earlier post I mentioned I planned to brew a Sweet Stout sometimes referred to as a "Milk" Stout because of the lactose in this beer. Well I will be brewing this beer this Sunday.

UPDATE 01/14/2012: Measured the FG at 1020...perfect! Kegged the beer and pressurized with C02 to force carbonate. Took a small taste when I took a sample to measure the gravity, it tasted good but it seems to be missing some complexity, hopefully once it's fully carbonated, some of the flavors will come out.

American Amber Ale

Going to be brewing an American Amber Ale tomorrow. This is sort of a special beer, as I will be brewing this for my grandfather's 90th birthday bash at the end of January. Still trying to come up with a name for this beer. I originally planned on brewing a Belgian style ale, but time got away from me, so I'm brewing this instead. I plan on serving this from the keg and bottling a few to give to guests to take home.

UPDATE: 11/15/2011 - Has been Fermenting well for four days, it is about time to move into the secondary.

Thanksgiving Beer

Well tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to drinking a bottle of 2010 Southern Tier Pumking that I got at the brewery last year with my Thanksgiving Dinner and family.