20080811: Finally caught up

I've finally caught up my brewing notes for the batches in the pipeline. I'm quickly coming up on batch number 100. I want to do something special but I'm not sure what. I may venture out into making my own recipe from scratch. I need only read up on the malts, pick the ones that sound interesting and try to balance them out enough to make a beer. It may mean I have a batch that isn't worth drinking. I don't like that thought. Instead, I'll likely pick a favorite batch or something with a very high gravity.

A weekend ago (on the 2nd), I went on Lee Nichol's #3 Bus Pub Crawl. Go to his blog for his take on it ( http://i-love-beer.blogspot.com/ ). My video link of the crawl is on the right. Fun stuff!

This past weekend, the Austin Zealots had the yearly picnic out at Emma Long Park. Consensus was that we had 29-30 corny kegs. Two of them floated the night before with all the campers. I know a number floated on the day of the picnic. I was trying to get to all the flavors, but only got to about 18 or 19. A few that I went to try later on were just spewing gas. I've also heard that whatever beer stayed with the campers on Saturday night didn't make it until morning. I took a few pictures and shot a little video. I'll have to see if it is worth cutting to one that I'd post to YouTube. One thing I noted: we had a table full of food, and the kegs at/around another table. There were two people getting food but 14 getting beer. Yup, I'll have to agree that Austin is one of the hardest drinking cities in the USA.


Time to toot my own horn. I had 9 entries in the Zealot's Inquisition and I won a first place for my Raspberry Double Chocolate Stout. Woohoo! While I'd like to win a few more ribbons or medals, the immediate goal is to try to get feedback on all the brews and see if there is a consistent item or two. It will point to some flaw in the process. If I can fix the flaw(s), I'll start nailing the beers and getting the accolades to stroke my ego, etc. Instead, I'll just drink my mistakes. They are still good beers.

Some fun from the Inquisition though, there are a bunch of beers that weren't needed by the judging and so I'll be able to get these three cases of unopened beers and serve them in the HomeBrewer's Corner at the Black Star Social this coming Saturday. It means that we'll have more beer to serve and we will likely last past 8:45pm this time and we don't waste any of the entries.