What a weekend of brewing, and drinking!

Saturday we had a private Belgian Beer tasting, with some amazing brews I've never tried, A "new" Orval, an "aged" Orval, and even a Westvleteren 8! I brought a bottle of Brewer's Art Resurrection, along with a couple bottles of my attempt at cloning the Res, and many of the tasters actually preferred mine!

After falling asleep good and drunk a little early on Saturday, I ended my 7 week brewing hiatus with a batch of my house porter. Everything went as planned except for missing my strike temp by a couple degrees from an absent-minded mistake, and then it was off to a big BBQ of Homebrewers.
So many amazing beers at that party. A Farmhouse Brown, and a buddy's Dunkel were my favorites, though I brought along some of my house ESB which received a number of positive comments.
Again, home druck early and right to bed.

Today I woke up bright and early for a big RIS brew. I'd never done a high-gravity beer before, but I got through it with only a few minor problems. I had a hell of a time sparging, and the 90 minute boil was a test of my patience. I missed my OG by a few points, but easily compensated with some DME to make up for my loss in efficiency.
Before I could even finish cleaning up, SWMBO was on me to help her make her bizzaro Horehoney Brown she's been toying with. I figured it being a partial (2gal) batch that I shouldn't have much trouble but boy was I wrong. Apparently making a small batch in a large cooler comes with its own set of problems and we had a majorly stuck sparge that I just couldn't figure out. We bit the bullet and just poured it off, flour and all, into the kettle through a strainer. We got all of the grain, but I'm betting it's going to be a pretty cloudy beer. Also, Horehound is f-ing bitter. I don't know what the hell got this idea into her pretty little head, but I'm really curious to see what happens.

So now I have 3 fermenters in the basement. The porter is chugging away, the RIS took off within 3 hours of pitching (thank you, big honkin 2.5L starter!), and the small 3 gal. carboy of Horehoney is patiently waiting to explode...

So now I'm sitting here, drinking a homebrew, and appreciating my labors on this day. Cheers!

Oh yeah, Thanks a ton to Ed & BMW for getting my order out so fast that it arrived on Saturday so this whole weekend was possible!

Sounds like a dream weekend for a craft beer lover/homebrewer. Too bad the new work week always comes around again so soon huh?

Yeah, I really don't feel like going in.. feh.

Bah. I was going to brew while camping this weekend, but the wife put the lid on those plans. There was some good times, and plenty of boring time. The firewood they sold was not very dry. I got tired of sitting around a smoke pit for hours at a time.

Last time I brewed while camping I was done in 4 hours. Surely she could have factored that much time for my personal fun? Plus I know a few people who would have enjoyed BSing during the whole process.

Oh well, I guess I better get some stuff done around the house now so I can brownie point my way to my next brew day

Heh. Do you brew on the fire, or BYO burner?

I'm sure if you were brewing in a campground you'd get a whole bunch of looky-loos..

It's RV camping, so I just borrow a tank of gas from the camper and brew like normal on my turkey dryer. Bottled water and the grains were pre-crushed to save time and effort.

Last time there wasn't anybody asking what I was doing, sadly.

We went to the lake Saturday, ate BBQ and drank a lot of homebrew, Vienna Ale and Lemon Wheat. The 70qt cube cooler kegerator makes taking a couple of 3 gallon kegs along TOOOOO easy.

Got up and shot guns Sunday with my sons.

Was really going to brew my Tequiza Clone Monday, but it just didn't happen. Too hot and muggy, plus I have 8 kegs with beer in them and another getting filled later this week. The poor clone will just have to wait a couple of weeks. Did get a lot of brew gear cleaned and organized instead.