It's Been Too Long

Well, A lot has happened over the past month. There was brewfest in Fort Collins, which was, despite the super long lines to get in, a ton of fun. My goal initially was to only drink beers that I had never had before...but that kind of went out the window. In fact, the opposite happened and I only drank beers that I like. Whatever, I'm open minded but it's hard to lay off beers you KNOW are good. So I had 808 from Greeley's own Pitcher's, 1554 from New Belgium, Compass IPA from Bristol, and a couple of other beers I normally enjoy. Overall, I'd say it was a blast and will be excited to do it again next year.

Ryan's Colorado Springs Pale Ale was a hit and is now gone. I didn't get one! That's how it goes though. I also helped friends Claire and Adam brew their first beer (an amber) which has since fermented and been bottled. After talking with Adam I fear that the wort may not have been stirred enough and burned a bit at the bottom. Alas, they've name their beer 'Burnt Children' (in a good way). I guess the slight burnt flavor is a positive.

I have the igredients in my fridge to attempt our 2nd all grain beer, just need to find a good day to do it. It'll be a belgian wit and contain a slurry of inappropriate ingredients. Speaking with Ryan I found that the hops' growth has remained pretty stagnant. I guess that was to be expected eventually and since neither of us know a ton about hop farming we're both telling ourselves this is normal.

The good news is that 4 of the plants have hops growing on them. Even though they're quite small, this is exciting stuff. In addition, the brewers gold plant (one of the 3 late additions) has been growing quite hardily.

Here's some pictures and I'm also going to put a link to Jake's Deck Blog over on the right hand side: