Brew Bash

It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining, birds are singing and later today I'll be making beer. Woot! Er...Wort! For those of you who care, me and my buddy Joe will be whipping up some oatmeal stout.

I've been brewing for about 15 years. I knew some people who made beer in college and it sucked. It wasn't until a friend of mine made some good beer that I tried making my own. I don't make my own wine because I've never had good homemade wine. I'd say outside of the china, I use the brewing equipment more than any other wedding present the wife and I got (we were married in 1993).

I won't go into the details of brewing (the classic book is Papazian's, even with it's cheesy 70's pictures), but it's like making a liquid cake to start a yeast farm. You want to give the yeast something good and (at first) sugary to eat so that they piss alcohol and fart carbon dioxide. Using different grains, yeast and hops affect the flavor. For examle, the darker the grain the richer the flavor. Some yeasts give off crisp, big bubbles (like in a pale ale) and others give off smaller, creamier bubbles (like in a Guinness). Hops give beer it's bitterness and floral aroma. I'm a "hop head" in that I like my beer the opposite of women: cold and bitter.

Originally for this extravaganza, Joe and his wife and kids were going to come over and we'd brew, grill and hang in the jacuzzi. But, true to how things tend to work with him, the family part went by the wayside, so it's just going to be him. This made my wife a bit, er, bitter. So, at this point I don't know if it's just going to be me and Joe with the wife and the HB at her mom's house or what.

On the work front, things are a bit slow but, uh, brewing. I have some good things in the pipeline and had a meeting to review a pilot project with a client and his boss on Wednesday. My client's boss's reaction was, "I wish we would have done this with all the groups instead of just a pilot." So, I think I'm in good shape on that one. I'm still going to have some time to catch up on a few things (like continuing education credits) before anything really kicks in.