Official Shmups.com Booze Thread

[CMoon]

Oh yeah, another thread with just me posting in it. FUCK YEAH, it's the CMOON FORUM!!! Get off my thread, bitches!!!

OK, no seriously, opened up a Mr. Beer yesterday and it was pretty decent. Time from beginning to end was 5 weeks. I've heard 6 is even better, but there was no hint of that 'green beer' taste. Another week I should be able to safely open my first real beer (not from a kit), but the Mr. Beer offerings are pretty encouraging.

[Devil Soundwave]

I tend to drink Pear Cider these days such as Magners or Koppaberg (gay I know); but I have a capacity for pretty much everything, save for whisky. Just the smell of Jack Daniels makes me puke on my shoes...

[Acid King]

Yeah the first batch, if you don't fuck up too bad, is really encouraging. It's figuring out what you did wrong when you mess up a subsequent batch that's painful.

I picked up a case of Troeg's Nugget Nectar when I was in PA a few weeks ago and it's pretty awesome. Great hoppy beer more akin to an IPA than an amber. I also scored a bottle of Allagash Interlude, which put a hurting on my wallet but I've been intrigued by wild/sour beers of late and figured, shit, when am I going to get another chance to get a bottle? It's first fermented with belgian farmhouse yeast then with their house brettanomyces yeast, aged in merlot and sirah barrels and bottle conditioned.

[captpain]

I've been drinking Dogfish 60 or 90, Duvel, and Two Hearted recently.

Right now, I'm drinking a High Life

[Acid King]

A friend of mine just picked me up a case of Weyerbacher's one-off, west coast style IPA. Awesome... awesome to the max.

[TLB]

i've got 11/12 keystones remaining. yay, shitty keystone. i like beer, though. so i drink whatever i have.

[CMoon]

Just opened my first REAL batch of beer (Fuck Mr. Beer) and it is BAD ASS! I made a Chico Ale, but didn't top off the batch to 5 gallons, so I basically ended up with a 6.5% alcohol content beer instead of 5%. It's good enough I'd buy it at a store, and I'm already sad about how quickly I'll run out. Fortunately I've got 10 more gallons brewing in the closet, and am starting another batch tomorrow (doing an Old Rasputin clone.) Also going down to the brewshop at the beginning of the month to join in a 'shop brew' co-op where everyone pitches in and you walk away with 5 gallons of beer. Apparently the cost is about zilch.

[themachinist]

I've been drinking Dogfish 60 or 90, Duvel, and Two Hearted recently.

Right now, I'm drinking a High Life

I like the 90. Haven't tried the 60 yet.

[themachinist]

Ok, I didn't notice you guys were brewing your own beer.

How much of an investment would one have to make to get started? (home personal drinking type, not on a commercial scale or anything)

[CMoon]

Ok, I didn't notice you guys were brewing your own beer.

How much of an investment would one have to make to get started? (home personal drinking type, not on a commercial scale or anything)

Something like this: http://monsterbrew.com/Prod_MaestroKit-AutoSiphon.cfm

plus a large pot/kettle (minimum 5 gallon) and bottle caps. Price of entry is somewhere under $150. If you purchase wisely, you might not need to invest much more than this except on ingredients.

The problem is, early on it isn't a LOT cheaper than buying beer (maybe 2/3rds or 1/2 price.) For instance, a 5 gallon batch makes roughly 27 24oz bottles. Let's say I spend $40 on ingredients for my beer, that's about $1.50 per bottle. Now mind you, craft beers in the 24 oz size run anywhere from $4-$6 (sometimes more), so there is some savings, but given the expense of equipment and time invested, saving money is hardly the reason to make your own beer.

Ideally, after a while one learns how to do all-grain brewing, so your ingredients cost less, but its more labor intensive. You also gain more control over what you can do with your beer, though I've heard of beers using the same method I'm currently using winning in big beer contests.

I'd say this is something to try if you are looking for a rather passive hobby (lots of waiting) and have a serious passion for beer. For me it's also been a way to meet up with a bunch of other brewers, which has been very cool.

[Acid King]

Brewing at home definitely doesn't offer much in the way of cost saving (though I've seen a few threads on beer advocate where people come up with the cheapest recipe possible, for example 5 gallons of an English mild for ~10 dollars) but it is fun and not very expensive to get into. My starter kit was $60 and I've probably spent another $100 or so on extraneous gadgetry to make it a little easier. The real advantages are that it will help sharpen your palate and help you understand how various ingredients and processes affect the beer and you can make whatever you want. Chocolate, fruit, vegetables, tea, whiskey... I've heard about people using coca cola and mountain dew in their beers... blending, barrel aging blah blah etc etc... It's cool to make stuff exactly how you want it and there's not a more satisfying drunk than homebrew drunk.

[captpain]

Spaten Optimator... drink it.

[CMoon]

Brewed an Old Rasputin clone today.

[Acid King]

Brewed an Old Rasputin clone today.

Are you still doing specialtry grain+extract? Did a do a side by side with the 90 minute clone?

[CMoon]

My first 90 min IPA clone will be ready to check out in a couple weeks (or I hope anyway.) I'm taking the stance of giving each beer a minimum of 6 weeks between brewing day and the day you open the bottle. The heavier the beer, the longer that period should be, so it might well be worth waiting longer.

Yeah, I'm still doing extract. Haven't built my way up to all-grain yet.

[Acid King]

You could do partial mash and halve the amount of extract you use. Are you just leaving it in primary the whole time? I've read mixed things about leaving it in the fermenter for so long but after my fucked up batch, I've erred on the side of leaving it in and not screwing with it.

[CMoon]

I've only been doing this since the new year, and have not bothered to learn how to do the mash yet (partial or otherwise)--but it would definitely cut down on my expense.

I've been transferring to a secondary fermenter mostly for the sake of reusing the yeast cake. Mmmmm cake. Anyway, yeah, this current beer is the third I've done from a single colony of yeast.

Although I've heard a few horror stories, the newest ideas regarding beer making often involve: 1) not even bothering with a secondary fermenter and 2) leave your beer in the fermenter a long time. I haven't done the first yet (might try it with the stout) but I do in general leave the beer in the fermenters for a month before bottling. Why rush this?

[Acid King]

Kate Day is coming tomorrow. I'm healthy this year so I think I may brave a few hours of New Hampshire winter to grab a couple of bottles and maybe a glass at the bar. If I do get some bottles, I have a feeling I'll be torn between selling them and cellaring them. People are nuts for that shit and I could use a few hundred dollars.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/ ... IZ-2230373

[CMoon]

Unfortunately there is no Kate Day in LA.

I bought a new batch of brewing ingredients and will be doing a 'double brew off' with a friend of mine next Saturday. I'm going to attempt a version of the Old Rasputin '12'--which includes both a touch of bourbon and chocolate malt. Should be exciting! My variation of Dogfishhead's 90 minute IPA is up, and I'm digging it, though it has some sharp notes and I'm thinking of aging it in the bottle a bit. It's very aggressive and of course, hoppy!

On the scotch side, I picked up a bottle of what I think I can say is my favorite scotch: It's Ardbeg's Uigeadail. $75 a bottle, but well worth it. Maybe I should post this in the 'cool things you just bought' thread...

Edit: Shit man, the Ardbeg is 54% as well...*coughs*

[Acid King]

Unfortunately there is no Kate Day in LA.

Yeah but you're only a short drive from a ton of good breweries. Portsmouth Brewery and Smuttynose are great but I think I'd rather have access to Stone and Lost Abbey. The only reason Kate the Great gets so much attention is because it's only available for one day, the pub only bottles like 900 of them and the hype generated by Beeradvocate. Weyerbacher put out a one off IPA that's quite tasty and it took them two weeks to sell a hundred cases of it. They just don't have the hype train behind them like Kate does.

Sounds like you're really digging into home brewing. I wish I had some more space and cash to brew. Maybe I'll just start forsaking cases and six packs and just focus on homebrewing for awhile.

[CMoon]

If you have a place near you with good/fresh ingredients and you also have the following: decent equipment, patients and time, well then of course you should brew. It's also good to have people who want to help you brew (and of course helping themselves to your beer stock at the same time.)

My impression is that even when the beer isn't perfect (none of mine has been so far) that unless you ruin it, it will have a fresh quality that will outshine any beer you buy at the store. The problem I see with would be homebrewers is that they skip steps, don't let their beer age long enough, or go the Mr. Beer route. Nothing, absolutely nothing makes up for quality ingredients and time. Now that I know more about brewing, I look back at what Mr. Beer is trying to do and laugh. There IS a reason it sucks.

[Acid King]

Yeah one of my problems I have is that the closest homebrew place is a little over an hour away. I usually have to order ingredients from Northern Brewer because of the drive. The next time I get ingredients, I'll probably just get enough for two batches so I don't have to go through two separate orders.

[CMoon]

How do they keep the yeast refrigerated or do you buy dry yeast?

If you need any advice or run down of stuff you should have, let me know. I think from what you've said you already have a lot of brewing experience, but you know, just in case...

[Acid King]

I got my ticket for my two bottles of Kate the Great. Portsmouth Brewery posted on their facebook page that all of the bottles are officially spoken for. Apparently, people started waiting in line at 12:30 at night and if you know what the weather is like in New Hampshire in February, you know exactly how fucking ridiculous that is.

How do they keep the yeast refrigerated or do you buy dry yeast?

If you need any advice or run down of stuff you should have, let me know. I think from what you've said you already have a lot of brewing experience, but you know, just in case...

Thanks for the offer. I've only brewed 4 batches but I've read a bit and am pretty familiar with the process. When I've gotten ingredients from Northern Brewer before I've gotten Wyeast smack packs, which they ship with freezer packs to keep cold. I haven't had a problem yet, my only issue with getting ingredients from them is having to have the grains pre crushed and the longer they're crushed the more oxidized they become and the less flavorful they are. I just try to use everything as soon as I get it.

[CMoon]

I just crushed some grains yesterday for a beer I'm making next Saturday. I think you'll be OK. Of course, I also refrigerate all my ingredients once I get them home (I have no clue if that helps.)

I guess I'm pretty excited about the homebrewing because so far, all my batches have been really good.

[Acid King]

Yeah my batches have all been pretty good except one that I took out too soon. My original recipe stout was probably my best one.

[AraraSPAMWitch]

You guys probably already know this, but ugh captain morgan tastes like SHIT

[CMoon]

There CAN be a huge difference between entry level booze and high end booze. The caveat is that some high end booze sucks too (probably a lot of it actually.) I think the best entry level whiskey are the Irish whiskeys. I've never been treated wrong by Bushmills or Jameson, and neither is terribly pricey.

That stout looks great Acid King. I'd drink one of those right now.

Doing my scotch+beer thing right now and have to say if I haven't said before, a big, smokey peaty scotch + a full bodied aggressive beer is KILLER. Currently it's Ardbeg's Uigeadail with a Lagunitas Brown Sugga' chaser. Definitely about as good as it gets in the drinking world.

[CMoon]

Transferred my Old Rasputin clone to reuse the yeast cake and managed to sample a bit of the embryonic beer. Holy shit! This has only been fermenting two weeks and it is already fucking great! I'll ferment it at least two more, bottle it, and then two more weeks. So there's at least another month of fermentation, but it tastes great RIGHT NOW! I can hardly wait! The amazing part is, I haven't yet bottled the beer before it (another 90 min IPA clone.) It's great to be sitting on top of all this beer! Tomorrow I'm going to try to brew a stout where I'm adding whiskey directly to the boil. I should be using oak chips, but I didn't have time, so this is definitely an experiment.

I gotta sneak back to this idea of homebrewing. It's taking me years to finally get into it, and now I feel like the homebrewing definitely gives you access to more unique beers than you'll ever have in the stores. The craft beers are great, mind you. But homebrews are fresher, and with company (other homebrewers) you'll get a broad sampling of lots of experiments. My own beers so far have all been pretty awesome, though each different than anything I could buy at the stores.

[gabe]

My girlfriend got me some Rogue Dead Guy whiskey for Valentine's day. I also just received a bottle of Rémy Martin V.S.O.P Cognac as a thank-you gift from some house guests.