Brewin' down the haus in Newport

We brewed two batches at Tom's of Newport: KPA - a Kentucky Pale Ale with a touch of Knob Creek bourbon, and Kentucky Hot Brown - an American brown ale with local honey and habanero chiles...

Lulu does her best impression of a weisswurst

Beer swap: Chico and the Man & Keating Red

Secret local ingredients for the two brews

Tom's backyard setup

Rob assures Greg he knows what he's doing

The one-eyed dog likes the one-eyed beer

I think this was her fifth

Looking for more

Nummy!

And then she retires early

Hudy Von Beethoven

Rob stirs amidst thunder and lightning

Jesus diverts the tornado to our north

Never used 'em. Have now.

Tom's baby hops

The Sea Shanty --- High Life & OJ!

Cheers!

Rob mixes up more with a brussels sprout garnish

Beer & food pairing at its finest

First hop addition: pleasantly buzzed

Second hop addition: lovingly belligerent

Third hop addition: snockered

Main course: Elk burgers & veggie-stuffed portobellos

Dessert: Blood sausage & trio of mustards

Our visit to the Creation Museum!

It's got its own exit! YAY!!

Keep that hood on kid. It's gonna rain INSANITY!!!

Gazelle...check, cougar...check, lamb...check, penguin...CHECK!!

Hot, naked, Biblical coitus!!

She was made from his bone. Now she receives another one.

Washin' off that sex stink!

Uh oh. SATAN!!!

The forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge was in fact Skittles.

A toothsome theropod tells terrified tourists about God.

See what you get for sinning? PREGNANCY!!!

Robert learns some secrets from the Bible's oldest fart.

Rob's distant relative scoping out Noah's hot daughters...

A dark-skinned drunken naysayer taunts Noah!

Noah's hot daughter #1 makes a basket for wombat feed.

Hot daughter #2

Hot on the tails of the giraffes...diplodocus!!

Oviraptors snuggle in their ark pen.

_

A resounding YES!

And a little imagination doesn't hurt.

Dinosaurs & humans...together at last.

A baby tricerotops does my hideous bidding!

You have no idea how bad we need beer after that.

National Homebrewers Conference 2008

Acting completely professional on Pro Night

More Marylanders

Me & Randy Mosher

Mouthfulls

Eyefulls

Tom's updated packaging

Whatever that was was good

Non-stop pouring

Tom's updated credentials

My anti-Tom-smell nose-guard

Cincinnati bound!

Beer vacation!!

We're off to stay with our dear friend Thermos who lives as a recluse in uncharted northern Kentucky. When we're not making beer and/or bad smells at his country cottage, we'll be attending the 30th annual AHA Conference across the river in Cincinnati. The tentative agenda includes, but is not limited to: brewing, stewing, p.u.-ing, a visit to the Creation Museum, gorging ourselves on Goetta, a cheap beer taste-off, and completing the training of one insanely brutal one-eyed crippled pitbull for her return to the doggy octagon vs. the neighbor's elderly, gravy-soaked Pomeranian.

A full and tedious photo retrospective is pending our return home.

Secret Ingredients: Dragonfruit

This is the first of many short posts which shall document our secret brewing ingredients.

Enter the Dragonfruit.

Its debut was in Venom. 5 gallons from a DuClaw group brew were treated with Dragonfruit in the secondary.

The results: An amazingly fuchsia version of one of our favorite local beers.

New Brew: taIPAn

Taipans are large, venomous snakes endemic to Australia. The IPA is a style of beer endemic to our refrigerators. Plus, we're dangerously low on 71. As I am not yet brave enough to put vegemite into a brew, I settled on kiwi fruit. No Simcoe was spared for this one. It did all the work for bittering and flavor. At knockout, an ounce of Cascades went in to steep for twenty minutes along with sixteen kiwis which were brutally flayed alive and roughly chopped. A taste of the sweet wort set our anticipation levels to high. The current state of fermentation is one of most violent we've seen.

Okay, now let's get down to brass tacks. We've eaten a lot of weird things over the years, but sometimes the line of decency is crossed and all decorum vanishes. Yes, even I gave pause and nearly fell ill upon witnessing one of the most repulsive feats of gastronomic criminality to date.

SOMEONE PUT MAYONNAISE ON AN ITALIAN SAUSAGE

I can't even type it without gagging a little. And to make matters worse, a Janis Joplin song came on about mid-sausage. I contemplated getting down on all fours in the yard and eating grass in hopes of a cathartic vomit session. Sometimes great institutions arise from trauma, so check your mail for the first ever Porch Demerit.

OG=1.065 IBU=65 SRM=10

New Brew: Chico and the Mandarin

This time last year, we brewed Orangina Galena -- a hoppy pale ale with a goodly amount of Orangina added at bottling. Chicks dug it. This year's orange offering is Chico & The Mandarin. It's very pale (The Man) with a nod to witbier via some coriander and wheat, then finally fermented on some mandarin oranges. Chico, of course, makes his contribution as the tireless workhorse yeast of which we're so unabashedly fond. There are now unconfirmed reports of the mandarins actually turning the beer a very bright orange. Creepy!

I carried the theme over to a couple t-bone pork chops thinking we'd be the only two on the porch. They were marinated for hours in Mandarin Orange soda, soy sauce, Chinese 5-spice and Sriracha. As luck would have it...interlopers encroached! Fortunately, they made restitution with BBQ shrimp & mango skewers. And so it was. We gorged on grilled shellfish, turkey, chicken and pig. Someone who had slightly more pig than others coined the day's top phrase: "Oh my god. That pork is RETARDED!"

Warning: There was frank talk of pig tails, brains, tongue, feet and ears gracing future menus. Recipes are in the works.

OG=1.06 IBU=30 SRM=6?

New Brew: Leroy Brown

A lot of brewers make a brown ale early in their portfolio because it’s considered easy. Not too much can go wrong, it can take a neutral & fast-acting yeast, and it can span a wide flavor gamut of hops and malt.

My first ever brew was a brown ale I made back in high school on my parents’ stovetop. Gleaned from Charlie Papazian’s earlier editions, it was a straight-up by-the-book extract affair. My mom later accused me of ruining her kitchen curtains with that “disgusting hop smell.” All in all, it turned out ok. It was drinkable (especially if you were my friends in high school). I remember a slightly cidery note to it, but hey – homebrewing ingredients have come a long way.

Anyhoo. When your several most recent brews have featured oddities like dandelions, passion fruit, Dominican herbs, agave nectar and grapefruit peel…why not get back to basics? This new one will be an American Brown Ale. Dark enough to carry some caramel flavor, but light enough to drink with summer burgers & steaks. We upped the hop IBUs to the forties to hopefully add some bite to the malt base.

Man, who am I kidding? With a name like Leroy Brown, I have to be prudent and throw some rice from Uncle Ben and some syrup from Aunt Jemima in there!! Much better. Some Victory, Melanoidin, Crystal 120 and a little Chocolate malt meet some Frankenstein leftover hops of Newport, Galena, Cascade and Fuggle.

And this one goes out to beer judges everywhere!

OG=1.06 IBU=41 SRM=19

Providing Needles for your Balloons

It is with great remorse and humility that we divulge our paltry scores from the 2008 National Homebrew Competition. One year ago, we were giddily basking in the glow of a silver certificate, taking third place in the eastern region with our sole entry IPA, Simcoexistence (scoring 37/50).

This year, we tripled our efforts and entered our American IPA, Passion fruit Blonde and Belgian Farmhouse. I had very high hopes for both the IPA and the Belgian, but sadly, a few of the IPA bottles have since been developing off-flavors and some acrid fizziness. Methinks the judges got one. What follows is a brief summary of their score sheet comments...

71-Minute IPA (25/50)

Thumbs up: Aroma is a strong, citrusy hop aroma / hint of alcohol. Some caramel aromatics. No off aromas. Slight yeasty & bready notes. Appearance is deep copper & heavy persistent head. Head is almost Guinness-thick. An amber pour with a tight, white head. Flavor is decidedly bitter w/ hops in the finish. Malt is there, but bitter dominates. Sweetness emerges on the last warmer sips. Finish is slick but clean. Overall, a hop-forward beer. A good base beer for an IPA.

Thumbs down: Aroma has some grassy harshness. No malt detected. Cooked vegetal notes suggest infection. Slight butter aroma as it warms. Appearance is slightly hazy. Highly carbonated. Flavor-wise, the malt is overpowered by hops. Balance is off. Vegetal and diacetyl override the hop. Some buttery notes hard to get past. Little malt base to support hops. Overall, harsh, but may improve with age. The off tastes may be from an infection. Diacetyl is a problem and detracts from the overall drinkability.

Passion Fruit Blonde Ale (26.7/50)

Thumbs up: Strong passion fruit aroma carries. Fruity, but not overbearing. Light malt aroma detectable. No diacetyl. Appearance is golden, with well-formed head & retention. Steady and very fine carbonation. Pale straw yellow, good head. Falls with some lace. Flavor is tart and malt. Interesting combination that works somewhat well. Hops are subtle. Finish is medium to dry. Passion fruit flavor is subtle in the middle. Finishes with residual tartness. Edgy. Hops become more noticeable. Overall, a well-made beer. There is a stickiness at the finish that may be a character of the fruit. Strange, yet drinkable. No serious technical flaws. Malt, hops and bitterness are appropriate.

Thumbs down: Aroma is fruity, but not distinct. A touch of acetaldehyde? Minor DMS (slight off-vegetable note). Appearance is hazy & stays when warm. Head falls fast. Flavor is indistinct. Fruit is not identifiable. Some diacetyl. Passion fruit fades at the end. Overall, well-made but not well-knitted. The fruit aroma doesn’t carry through to the taste, and there are some edges that are slightly distracting. Retain more fruit flavor next time, perhaps in secondary.

Belgian Farmhouse Ale with herbs (31.5/50)

Thumbs up: Aroma of fruit and soft phenolic spice with a malt background that increases as beer warms. Farmhouse goaty, spice and possibly St. John’s Wort. Spice dominates with some peppery heat. Appearance is gold with large, long-lasting head & fairly clear. Dark, gold, clear. Tight white standing head. Spice dominates flavor. Malt and fruit support. Medium hop bitterness is noticeable in the middle. Spice lingers through the middle and prominent in the finish. Sweet malt with spice predominance. Pepper bite builds. Overall, a very flavorful beer in which spice dominates. Well brewed. Very interesting beer dominated by spices. Almost a liquid heat.

Thumbs down: [Go to hell. We’re enjoying the 31.5 points for now.]