We just added another beer activity to the list. I picked up a new (to us) pop up tent camper trailer thing. Its 25 years old. I figured I could set it up next to the kids inflated ring pop up pool and call it the “pool house” until we take it to camp. I was stunned how much storage room is in this thing, there are cupboards and drawers for all sorts of beer stuff. I bet there is enough room to pull out the ice box and put in a minikegerator!

All I would need is a couple of smaller kegs and I’d be golden! Oh, but if we go camping we’ll have the kids along. Probably not a good idea to have beer faucets at ankle biter level, is it? Back to the planning stages on that one.

It does need a very small amount of work. We have to replace the security chains because they are too short and rusted pretty well. One of the corner lifts is in need of repair, but that sure wasn’t a deal breaker. I have to get it through the fence and into the back yard to see if I can set it up by myself. I know my wife will want to go in as soon as she gets home!

I realize I’m stretching the beer topic to another past time, but seriously, how much fun will it be to set it up, put the kids to bed and sit around a fire sipping beer!

Cheers!

According to a recent Gallup Poll, Beer takes 64% of the preference among people who drink alcohol. That has to mean beer is as American as apple pie!

It would have been interesting to see a more detailed breakdown of the types or styles of beer those suds swillers prefer. Macro vs Micro? Homebrew vs Micro? The most obvious information to my mind was the split between the sexes!

Thank you people at Gallup for pointing this out. Quantifiable information is much better than asking the local beer dude.

What about folks like me, though? Frankly, it depends on the time of year, time of day and what I have been doing up to the point that I pour.  If asked right after mowing the lawn, I’d go for light beer and a lot of water. If I was at a nice quiet restaurant without the kids, yet with my wife, probably a deep dry red, cab sav or the like. If I was hanging out on the deck slaving over the grill on a hot summer evening, G&T all the way!

There just isn’t ever the “depends” option on polls like that, is there?

Cheers!

I have absolutely NO idea what made me think of this beer recipe. A nice sunny warm Friday afternoon of course brings winter beers to mind, doesn’t it?!?

This was a lighter colored, dry and nicely spiced winter ale that really benefited from a long secondary. Enjoy!

9.5lbs Muntons Extra Light LME

0.5lbs Crystal 40L

2.1oz Cascade 5.7%AA 45min

1oz Hallertau 4.2%AA 5min

3 cinnamon sticks 10min

0.5oz Ginger Root, fresh grated 10min

~1oz bitter orange peel 5min

1lb Honey 5min

Any clean fermenting yeast is fine, I think I used American Ale

OG= 1.068

FG= 1.011

I know, I know, I already reviewed the Tommyknocker six pack, and thought it wasn’t all that impressive. I only tried five of the six beers in that review. Thing is, I left the wheat in the fridge because I just couldn’t wrap my head around a wheat with that same pervasive flavor found in all the other beers.

Today at lunch I thought I’d give it a go. Just to be rid of the bottle in the fridge and make it official that I tried the whole six beers, I drank the entire bottle.

Here comes the shocker. It was surprisingly good! Absolutely none of that burned malt sweet flavor, just a slight hint of lemon/citrus and a very light wheaty mouthfeel. It reminded me of a number of other summer ales on the market, but it was very subtle. A very good beer to go with a lunch on a hot day and two cranky kids.

If Tommyknocker offered a twelve pack of their wheat, I would pass over Leinie’s Sunset Wheat for it. Really! The lemon overtone was much more subtle, and tasted much more like a beer with a hint of lemon than lemonade with a hint of beer. (Leinie’s Summer Shandy, for example.)

Overall, it is the shining star in that six pack but not worth buying the other five beers to try it.  Good recovery and I’m glad I tried it.

Cheers!

Three days ago marked the one year point for Hop Talk, Happy Belated Birthday!

It was the first active beer related blog I found and Al made the first comment on my blog. I’m sorry I missed the post on the 22nd, but I can safely say I raised a glass on Sunday, and so I will re-cheers it to a great blog!

Here’s hoping it continues for many years to come, and I can stay as fresh and interesting as you guys have been.

Cheers!

If you decide to go with a through the wall type style for serving beer, we need to look at the shank for the job. Get the longest you can afford. Not only does the shank hold the faucet to the outside of the kegerator or jockey box, it also helps Keep the faucet head cold!

I seem to remember hearing its best to have four inches on the inside of the chamber to help conduct the cold to the faucet, or technically, pull the heat out of the faucet. I never did well in physics, so I’ll stop there.

But why? Who cares?

One of the reasons the first pint poured comes out foamy is because the faucet is warm. If the kegerator is otherwise in balance, a warm faucet will give you a foamy first cup. Is that temperature variable on the whole balance issue. Warm beer can hold less gas than cold beer. Warm facet makes instant warm beer= can’t hold all that CO2, poof, foam.

That has been one of the drawbacks of the tower I have now, I can’t work up the gumption to design a fan to blow cold air up the tower to help keep the faucet cold, so I get a first cup of foam.

When I used shanks through a collar and through a fridge side, I had no problem with that. I’m not complaining though. The first cup of foam sits under the faucet while I pour the second, then come back to drink the first. I’m not picky.

But, if you are going to do it, try and do it right!

Cheers!

I mentioned last week that my wife bought me a sampler six pack of Tommyknocker beers. I thought that was super cool, she bought me beer to review! As I wrote last week, the Maple Nut Brown Ale left something to be desired. Or more accurately, left me with a sweet cloying aftertaste and notes of over roasted barley or scorched wort.

I tried the Pick Axe Pale Ale hoping that it would be pleasantly hopped. It was hopped, but also had that dark sweet flavor. I figured that maybe it was just an attempt to balance the hop bitterness, but got out of control. So I gave the Alpine Glacier Lager a chance too, same sweet burnt flavor. Believe it or not, I held out hope! Butthead Doppelbock accompanied my lunch this afternoon. (One of the great benefits to being a stay home dad, I can have a beer with lunch and my boss doesn’t mind.)

Finally, I was able to place that darkly cloying sweet flavor! The doppelbock sang true to style. It tasted like a few other commercial doppels as well as two my own homebrewed batches. Frankly though, as happy as I was to place the flavor, I wasn’t overly impressed.

Rather than submit the blog to six separate reviews of Tommyknocker beer over a few weeks,  I will put it out of its misery. This sampler six pack would work really well in a cooler with a lot of BMC* beers, placed there for effect. “Look, I drink microbrew“. The beer would be good for folks that like sweet beer and want to broaden their scope away from Mich Amber Bock to something more syrupy.

Truly, I am trying to be nice! In the end, I won’t buy this beer again. A big mug down on this brewery, not my style.

Cheers!

*BMC = Bud Miller Coors, an easy way to write macrobrew without having to spell it out.

Tommyknocker’s Maple Nut Brown jumps out of the bottle with a sweet over current of maple on top of a standard brown. There is a surprising bit of bitter left in the end, mixed with some tangy tastes, too.

Overall, frankly, I wouldn’t buy this one again. It tastes novel in the first couple of sips but the thought of drinking a full twelve ounces was daunting. My wife and I together took our time finishing it. If I needed to choose between this and Miller Lite, I might take this. I just wasn’t overly impressed.

It was too sweet for me. Just like I prefer dry wines, I also prefer dry or at least perceived dry beers. This was neither. My wife picked up a Tommyknocker sampler six pack. Here’s for hoping the others are much better!

Cheers!

The second option for using a chest freezer as a kegerator is building a collar and passing shanks through it. My first kegerator was done this way, and it lasted for a few years. The great upside to this method is being able to have an unmarred chest freezer if its ever decided to be recommissioned as a food storage unit instead of a beer delivery tool.

The most simple collar is made from 2×4’s. Measure the opening and make a square of 2×4’s that can rest on the lip of the freezer. Add some weather stripping to the bottom of the collar. Take the lid off the body of the freezer and remount it to the collar. Tada, instant hight and sacrificial material for holes.

Drill the 7/8th inch holes for shanks to attach faucets too and away it goes. I’ve seen people get really worried about insulating the collar making sure that no heat can get in from outside. Really though, wood is a pretty decent insulator itself and cold air sinks. A line of weather stripping on the bottom of the collar and the weight of the lid should be sufficient. My taps were always cold and the wood was always room temp.

This option for kegerators works great where there are no children or pets that can knock open the faucets. I always kept the top of my kegerator full of junk so that cat wouldn’t get curious and open two taps. At least that was the justification for having all that junk on it.

As with option one, keep a lookout at DadCenter for a detailed description and instruction for the collar.

Cheers!

When I talk to new brewers about their first batch, I always recommend they use a secondary fermenter. The little bit of hassle to rack from primary to secondary is far outweighed by the benifits of a finished clear beer. I actually cringe when I hear about folks who go right from primary to bottle after one week!

Most five gallon glass carboys fit easily inside the plastic primary bucket, so storage isn’t an issue. It might be daunting to add that extra step to the beer. Look at it though, the beer will have to be racked into a bottling bucket or keg anyway. Adding one more racking will give a much more clear beer, with less yeast flavor.  Besides that, its easier to rack out of the secondary without stirring up all that crud off the bottom of the fermenter.

When I can wait, or when I already have a beer or two on tap, I like to leave the new beer in secondary for up to a month, just to get it nice and polished clean, letting gravity pull the yeast down.  Waiting that couple of extra weeks really makes a difference in the finished product.

I  can’t imagine going right from primary to bottle or keg any more. Its just not worth it to hurry. My condolences to the first batch though, as I still clearly remember my first batch and how anxious I was to get it carbonated and tasted.

Cheers!