Other than getting to blog daily and read comments from fellow beer lovers, friends and family? There are two things that really have my grateful for this hobby and this blog. Every once in a while I check the tracking website and see who is reading and where they are from. It absolutely floors me to see folks all over the world at least checking in to see what Brew Dad is up to.

The Australian hits are not surprising (thanks Eric ) but I do see folks from Japan, South America and all around Europe hitting my site as well as North America. Then to read comments from folks in the industry of brewing and the like is very humbling! Anne Sprecher left a comment on one review that made me think “wow, they’re reading this?!?”

The best part of the hobby itself is how it gives back. (No, not just a buzz if I have too many.) I get to watch my work turn into something wonderfully tasteful. I get to chat with other folks who brew and like beer, I get to answer brew and beer related questions and the best part? I get to pour a pint or two while the kids are napping! Thats the “dad” part, you see.

I think I’ve written about it before, but I like to imagine my girls when they are older and get invited to a party. One of those parties that parents aren’t supposed to know about. I imagine one of my girls being handed a plastic glass filled with some cheap “lite” beer and she’d look at it, maybe sniff it, and say “This isn’t beer!!” and leaves.

Or maybe when I’m long gone and one of my girls drives by a brewery or walks by a brewpub while they are brewing and thinks “dad”. Thats probably pretty sappy of me, but hey, what can I say?

Cheers!

Many thanks to Maddox at Bammer’s Pub for passing along this gem from NBC10.com. An all girls beer tasting club! How cool is that? I am all about breaking barriers and stepping out of the box. Look at what I do for a living!

Here is a universal sentiment for anyone who likes good beer:

“A lot of people don’t appreciate that beer can be as varied as wine or other things. There are a lot of different tastes. There are many different varieties. Sometimes it gets a bad wrap. I think in America we drink a lot of cheap, light beers that don’t have a lot of flavor, and a lot of people don’t ever explore all that beer has to offer,” said member Jennifer Hinkel.

Maybe once the kids are older, I should find a beer drinking… er, sampling club in the area and spend one night a month roaming the local brewpubs and German bars searching for good brews with folks who like good beer.

Maybe?

Cheers!

I’ve been asked for advice about drilling a kegerator and actually helped or done enough that I might almost consider myself “good” at it. I’ve written about making kegerators already, but thought it might be nice to have a little compilation of tips.

The biggest tip I cannot stress enough is use the right tools! Life is so much easier when you have the proper equipment. I tried with a spade bit for wood and see where that got me.

I actually was dumb enough to spend money on two more spade bits thinking it’d get through eventually, right? After accepting my own stupidity and coughing up for a nice bi-metal hole saw of the proper diameter I was back in business.

If the plan is to drill through a door of the fridge, go nuts. Consider taking out the plastic insert with the nifty shelves and slots and replace it with some 1/4 or 1/2 plywood for added support for the shanks. Removing that interior is pretty easy, just pealing back the gasket and yanking it off should do it. Take that and lay it on the plywood and trace it. No measuring needed.

If the plan is to go through a side or top, the schematics for the fridge or freezer have to be found. There is no point in drilling through a cooling line. It takes less than a second to make your new kegerator into a very bulky paperweight. Find out where the lines run. Check for a diagram on the back, behind the kick plate or under the fridge. Check online. If they just can’t be found, drill from the inside and just cut through the interior plastic, then carefully poke around to make sure its clear!

Get a little file to smooth the metal edges of the hole. It would not be good to cut your gas hose on it! I like to leave the cylinder in the fridge, but if its too small for that, there has to be smooth edges. Consider a little bead of caulk inside and outside for the gas hose, too. DON’T do it for the shanks though, thats just silly.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Thanks for the idea Adam!

The hardest thing about being a dad who brews, at least for this dad, is…

BREWING!

Seriously, finding the time to get away for a couple hours to light the fires, toss back some suds while cooking up a batch is the most difficult part of it. I like to set up in the garage in winter. Light the fire, heat the water for my steeping grains and start knocking back the tributes.

As an aside, if you don’t have a beer in hand while brewing, your batch is doomed to failure, contamination, and poor carbonation. It is written in the Book of All Truth and Knowledge. It takes beer to brew beer. A simple indisputable truth, at least in this house.

I’m very much looking forward to spring and summer when my kids are old enough to begin understanding the process and we can make it a science “experiment”. That will be the excuse I will present for going to doing all grain batch sparge brew days. How fun to explore things like enzymatic starch conversion, hop bittering and yeast contributions!

Sadly, though finding the time to set up the equipment, sanitize the carboys and all the other good stuff is difficult. Or, more specifically budgeting the time to brew with my other hobby, equally fun but definitely not mixable is the hard part.

Throw into the mix the fact that we are a single income family, I am an at home parent, and my two hobbies aren’t exactly cheap. That makes it hard to find a balance between sanity and frugality.

Just finding time to brew has been the biggest challenge. As the kids get older, I thought it would be easier but so far it hasn’t panned out. The best times were when the oldest was under three and her little sister was less than a year. The kids were in bed early and I had all evening to brew! Aaah, those were the days.

Now, as it crosses the threshold into 10pm, PlayHouse Disney dancing in their heads (live show tonight, cotton candy makes kids INSANE*!), and they are finally rolling over and going asleep. There is no way I’d brew after they’re in bed!

Cheers

*(Yeah, the kids had fun, but man was it a knock down drag out battle getting the bedtime things done!)

Rather than respond to the great comments I got from yesterday’s post, I thought I’d run another to reply. To recapitulate (great college word) I wanted to find out what you the reader wanted to see more of, or less of, from my posts.

The general consensus appears to be what I feared; less reviews and more brewing related content. I’ve already thrown out one reason that I like the reviews, they’re easy and I get to drink, the other reasons involve ego and schwag. Imagine my utmost surprise when a representative from the brewery sporting the same name replies to one of my reviews! Frankly, thats heady stuff for this humble cat.

Then to get a Beer and Hop Appreciation Kit to review was just darn cool. I’m a novice blogger, doing this for fun. The thought of getting stuff to review, or even making a blip on a brewery’s radar is cool to me. So, rather than cut reviews altogether I will keep them to once a week. Even if I sample/review more than one in a day I’ll save it for later!

Travis thanks for the comment, brewing is huge for me too, yet my goal was for a “beer blog” and I don’t want to lose those that don’t brew.

Ted, I do track stats. My kegerator posts get the most hits off Google. I should be doing more of those, huh? I get lots of comments off the reviews and news and only scare up brewers when I screw up a beer.

Meltedeyes, you busy this weekend? I might light the fire on a kit or two…

eat, you’re biased and watch too many movies! To what were you referring too?

I value your comments folks! Thanks for reading and I hope I don’t scare anyone away.

Cheers!

When I post I try and write what I think others would find interesting. I also try and vary it throughout the week covering reviews, news, brewing and my own pithy thoughts. From the Hop Talk survey on the side, the majority of readers are also beer bloggers.

I put to my readers this question: What do you like reading about more? Should I focus more on brewing, reviews, news or pith?

Some of the feedback from friends and relatives points towards more brewing and less reviews. I love talking and writing about brewing but fully realize there are people who might read this who don’t brew. For obvious reasons the reviews are most fun for me, because I get to sample beers from everywhere, and usually its during nap time. A happy hoppy treat for this dad!

What say you?

Cheers!

Since I’m a glutton for punishment and so very much didn’t like the last beer I tried, I thought I’d go for another. I don’t know why I keep picking fruity beers to review, they are vastly disappointing. Yet here I go, trying another one.

This one is Sand Creek Cranberry Special Ale out of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. This is the brewery that also brews the magnificent Oscars Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, which judging by the last brew fest I was at has a cult following that borders on fanatical. I’m surprised I haven’t reviewed Oscars yet, maybe every bottle I have come across in recent history gets drank before I think to review it? Its a good beer though, I highly recommend it.

On to the Cranberry. Long ago, when I first started blogging I posted about my Cranberry Wheat and how many non-beer drinkers actually liked it and were asking for it. It had a distinctly tart cranberry presence in the slightly sweet wheat base, all in all one of the recipes I’m more proud of.

Sand Creek’s version comes across with more emphasis on the beer and less on the fruit. There is a faint hint of cranberry after the swallow and a slight sweetness hiding underneath. This one is worth the effort to open and pour. Unlike that last one I reviewed…

Over all I’d give this one a hearty frosty mug up, definitely not my first pick but certainly one of the best “fruit beers” that I’ve tried in a long while.

Cheers!

Oy, usually I give a play by play breakdown of the beer that I am reviewing. Going back and looking through the “Reviewing Beer” section shows that I do put some thought into the beers I review, even if it is from a blunt standpoint.

I don’t really pull my punches, right? Well, in fairness to this one, I’m going to just say…  Don’t.

I’m hoping next year they will try again with a little less spice and sweet, and a little more beer.  This is one I would actually refuse.

Lakefront Brewery, please reexamine your recipe for Holiday Spice. I am sincerely grateful that the grocery store by mom lets my buy a mixer six pack so I didn’t have six of these to pawn off on unwanted guests.

Cheers.

To all of you who read this, Happy Valentines day! Even if you don’t buy into the holiday because the greeting card industry needed something more for you to up the profit, cheers I say. Just because the marketing department has been harping on consumers for years to buy frilly heart and chocolate stuff, go ahead I say! Yes! I’ve found the greatest solution (Stop reading, hon).

The same store that I just mentioned in the previous post also sells little liquor filled confections at the checkout aisle. What great V-day plans, grab a bottle of $3 red, maybe a 6-er of an IPA and a hand full of choco-booze and away I go.

That should work, right?!?

HA!

Have a good one folks,

Cheers!

No, I’m not saying I’m defective just that I’ve been away from beer for a while. Lately my taste has been towards wine. It doesn’t help my cause that the local Liquor store sells Matties Perch for $3.00 a bottle. I like drier wines the same as drier beers, and the cab-shirraz and chard are both decent bottles of wine. My palate refinement in wine is about as honed as it is for beer so my “decent bottle” is somewhere in the $10 range.

Actually, I think its a very good thing to take a break from beer. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it? Once my keg is ready I’m certain to return to it with open arms, but for now I am enjoying a change of pace.

It is a very good thing my paycheck won’t cover a bottle of Shakers Rye Vodka, otherwise there might be no turning back!

Cheers