My beer was a HUGE hit!

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motleybrews

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Very year my parents have a big party at there house thanking both employees and our company's suppliers (we are a promotional products/logo merchandise distributor) for all the hard work. It was last night and I provide a case and 2 tap a drafts, and a couple bombers (had my Irish red, nut brown, and my cream ale). They provided a case each of corona, bud light, and Sam Adams Oktoberfest and also a bunch of wine.

ALL my homebrew is gone, there is 19 coronas left, 6 buds left, and all the Oktoberfest is gone. I got rave reviews all night. Only one person didn't like it (he had the Irish red), but he hardly ever drinks beer and when he does it's a bud product.

When I left the party, there was a good bit of my brew left. When I went before our show today (mainly to grab the empties), both "kegs" were floated, and all the bottles were gone.

At the show, all the suppliers have been raving about it. It really gives you a good feeling when people prefer your beer over commercial beers. And it's an awesome feeling knowing all your hard work, time, research, and dedication was appreciated by others (unrelated to you). Man, I'm on cloud 9, even though I'm moving a little slow today thanks to several homebrews and a few more drinks afterwards.
 
Congrats! Sounds like you made a staple :)

Question though, how do you like the tap-a-draft system? I've been thinking about buying one but reviews are up and down. Any recommendations or suggestions? Not trying to hijack your topic, if you want to PM me or whatever, just curious of your thoughts..
 
Very well done! It's quite a gratifying feeling isn't it? Congrats! I too am curious about the success of the "tap a draft." plastic equipment still scares me, but maybe these are worth it.

[email protected]. on tap: homemade sarsaparilla and easy virtue blonde. primary: heffewitzen, blow your top steam. conditioning: fruity monk Belgian wit
 
congrats!! sounds like you enjoy what you brew but you can't beat having positive feedback.
 
Congrats. I don't know if I will be so generous with my beer when it's done. If mine is that good I may have to keep it all for myself.
 
Congratulations! It's always gratifying to know that so many people really enjoyed the fruits of your labors.
 
Re: tap a drafts. This was my first time using them, and have mixed reviews. Great concept. Needs a little better execution.

Before I invested in the tapadraft, I bought a coors light version, took it apart and dumped the beer. Then got a TAD. I like them, but the true tap a draft systems come with 3 bottles and 1 tap, and uses 2 8 gram co2 cartridges and is $60. If I were you, I would go to your supermarket, and get 3 miller or coors lite home drafts. Here in Memphis they are 17.99 each plus tax so with that same $60, you get 3 bottles and 3 taps. They use one 16gram cartridge and most HBS are stocking them (at least here). You can bottle condition with the taps on instead of the caps that come with the TAD. That way if you have 3 beers ready, you don't have to wait to float it before tapping the other.

I went that route instead of kegs because I don't have a kegerator or a fridge I can dedicate to kegs yet. It's a nice "almost there" stop on the way to kegging.

The bad: can't force carb, only 1 tap.
The good: draft beer, easier to take to parties, fairly inexpensive (especially if you get the miller/coors setup, less bottles to fill

If you just want to try the system, get one miller for 20 and drink/dump and you've got one! There are several threads on it, but I just unscrewed the co2 without puncturing, and dumped it. Prime just like you do for bottles, sit a couple weeks, and reinsert the co2 and put in fridge for a day or 2. First pint will be foam/yeast. All the rest was delicious draft beer. Worth it if you do the miller route. Not so much for the actual TAD system
 
Congrats. I don't know if I will be so generous with my beer when it's done. If mine is that good I may have to keep it all for myself.

we all say that at the start, but later on, many of us start sharing with others. it'll make you feel good to give others your beer, and have their eyes open wide and say "did you make this?!?!?" :mug:
 
Cheers Motley! Good information to know, I've seen the miller minis at the supermarket, I'll pick one up for sure.
 
that is an awesome idea with the miller setup over TAD. i can wait for people to try my first batch as soon as it is ready i have a few people lined up to give it a whirl. for now i am using bottles untill i decide which route i want to go wich ultimately seems like kegging is it. now to convince the wife i need kegs/fridge haha
 
Shawnylocks said:
that is an awesome idea with the miller setup over TAD. i can wait for people to try my first batch as soon as it is ready i have a few people lined up to give it a whirl. for now i am using bottles untill i decide which route i want to go wich ultimately seems like kegging is it. now to convince the wife i need kegs/fridge haha

Yea, kegs are on my to do list, just can't justify it at this point. I LOVE homebrewing and it will be a life long hobby, but $250+ for a decent keg setup plus the fridge and everything is a little rich for my blood right now. I might pull the trigger soon, but not sure. A keg setup is on my Christmas list if I haven't gotten one by then. Just found a deep freezer on craigslist that I'm going to pick up this weekend for $25 plus a 12 pack of bud lite for my buddy that's helping me grab it. Going to use it as a fermentation chamber until I get setup with kegs.

I'd HIGHLY recommend grabbing a miller/coors homedraft in the interim while waiting on approval. You'll have draft beer for less than $20, and it may help convince the lady that you need a keg setup. Once she sees how good it is on draft, I'd bet you get approval. Plus, it's about 17-20 less bottles you'll need to fill. I left a little more headspace than I needed to, and I got 17 full pints out of each, plus all my few ounce samples, and the first yeast/foam glass
 
Jsmith82 said:
Cheers Motley! Good information to know, I've seen the miller minis at the supermarket, I'll pick one up for sure.

Yea man, if I had to do it over, I'd get 3 of them and bypass the TAD altogether. In fact, I'm thinking about putting my TAD system on craigslist and getting several more miller homedrafts.

I'm on my phone right now. When I get to a computer I'll dig up the links to the homedraft threads I found. But it's super easy. If you want, I'll post up some pics of the process, but basically, if you don't mind dumping the beer, just unscrew the co2 holder thing and save the cartridge. Some people used vice grips, but I just used a little force. There's 2 tabs that "prevent" it from being taken apart. That's where the added effort goes. But once you get it unscrewed the first time, it's not an issue anymore. then just unscrew the tap and dump it. I cleaned mine a few times with hot water and dish soap, then filled it with starsan, put the tap back on, shook the hell out of it, and was able to get some starsan to go thru the tap. Filled just like you would a bottle. Then put the tap back on, let it sit a few weeks. I opened the tap to let some of the pressure out, and put the co2 back in and threw it in the fridge and was drinking the next night
 
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