Friday night musings…

So, I’m sitting here on a Friday night.  The kids are all in bed (finally, some quiet!!!), I have a decent Cascade IPA from Stevens Point Brewery ( http://www.pointbeer.com/ ) in front of me, and I am at my computer alone with my own thoughts.

Again.

Nothing good can come of this…

Actually, Good things are in the works.  On the brewery side of things, I am looking at some properties that have potential.  Yes, they are rough around the edges, and would all require some extensive upgrades/tear-outs, but this really is all about building up the Rock Your World Brewing Co. from scratch.  I’m just looking for now, no hard plans to put in an offer or anything obscenely crazy like that at the moment.

Second, I am thinking that Spring is here (even though the weather does not indicate such), and I need to get some brewing done!  The downside of this realization is that all of the beers in my immediate pipeline are long-term brews.  Last weekend, we brewed the Flander’s style red… that won’t be ready for at least 18 months under the best of circumstances.

I also have to brew the annual Barleywine/Ole Ale type thing.  I really, really like how last year’s Old Ale came out using the specialty strain from Wyeast.  This yeast strain is available starting this month (April), so I think I will have to buy a pack of that soon.  This beer stood exactly 12 months inside fermenters last time we brewed it.  That is a long time to be tying up yet another secondary fermenter.

July is when we brew the Imperial Stout (Romanov Family Portrait, f.k.a Vlad and Joe’s Rockin’ Imperial Stout), as well as Sanglant Pouces (our Belgian Strong Ale).  Each of these only stays in fermenters for 6 months total before bottling, but we are now up to 4 batches that will need extended aging.

Being Spring, it is just about time to think about the Dandelion Mead again.  I have 3 brewslaves ….brewmonkeys …. helpers this year that are more than capable of picking a few gallon sized bags of blossoms for me.  This wouldn’t be ready for at least 12 months as well, again, tying up fermenter space.

I still have to bottle the Irish Red I brewed in the end of February/early part of March… yeah, it’s a bit out of season…  I still have most of the last batch of Blonde from last summer, so that one is out to brew in the near term. What does this leave to brew?

I am thinking that a batch of Hippy Bro or Cleveland Steamer might be in order.  Both of these recipes are fairly quick-turn.  They won’t tie up fermenter space for long, and they will be ready to drink on the inside of 1 month for Hippy Bro and 2 months for Cleveland Steamer.  Maybe we will follow both of those up with another stab at a Dry stout.

Oh just to continue with the stream of consciousness here… Joel, Tony and myself are brewing a Chocolate-coconut Porter for the brew club that will be using Cocoa nibs for all of the chocolate flavor.  I suppose I should reserve a carboy for that one as well.  I have high hopes for this beer.  We are using the base recipe for our Tasti Sparrow Porter, only we are substituting the 1-1/2 pounds of chocolate malt out and putting the cocoa nibs in its place…. the coconut idea came to me when I was trying to figure out how much of the nibs would be needed.  I thought “Self, you need to add toasted coconut to this beer.”

When Self talks to me, I tend to listen.  He has good ideas….

Most of the time.

The one idea involving a donkey, hot wax and midgets didn’t really work out quite as planned……

Anyway, we’ve got some beer to bottle, some vehicles to repair, and hops to string up (Nugget and Willamettes are already 2+ feet tall!!!) this weekend.  I raise my glass of the quickly disappearing unicorn that is Genny Bock to each of you that suffer yourselves through my ramblings.

Have a good weekend, brew well, drink better, and don’t let the drink get the better of you.

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