I had a humbling and learning moment a while ago with an online interaction on one of the forums I frequent. I have absolutely no idea why it popped into my head the weekend before Christmas. Even less a clue why I was reminded of it while doing dishes.

I referenced what I thought to be a well known “fact” about hop poisoning in dogs. There were two anecdotal accounts of dogs eating a sizable amount of hop cones. The animals both had elevated temperatures and started to seize. One story ended in the dogs death while another was able to be saved.

It had always been gospel truth in my head that hop plants were bad news around dogs. Why? Well, my brother told me very early on when we both just started getting into brewing, and I read and re-read it on the Internet.

Yup, there’s a great quote for you, “it must be true, I read it on the Internet.”

So I referenced this well known “truth” in an online discussion. Another member of the forum corrected me, saying my information is wrong and he had never heard of that. I replied with an “almost common knowledge among brewers”, meaning, of course, HOMEbrewers.

This is where it gets interesting. Turns out the fellow who replied correcting me just happens to be a brewer and distiller. No, not a HOMEbrewer, someone who went to school specifically to create a product for sale.

Oh, and from what I have since learned, one of his accomplishments places him as one of three in the US. So here I am, a rank amateur spouting what I thought was the truth being corrected by a professional. Someone whose product I have consumed quite a bit! Humble pie for one, please.

There are two things that stick out really well here. First, I learned to question a lot of what I “know” to be true. Particularly when it comes to brewing and wine making. I hear myself telling my students years ago to verify what they read on the Internet. They couldn’t just cite a website for a reference without having a name to go along with it.

Second, no matter how much I think I know, someone always knows more. Definitely incentive to keep striving for greater knowledge!

Cheers,
Tony

I wrote about Google’s Beer Goggles for Gmail a while ago. I even installed it on my gmail account thinking I would give it a tour around the block. After trying it out, I left it installed and forgot all about it.

It was set up for late Friday and Saturday nights, and I never bothered with disabling it, how often would I be emailing that late at night?!?

Turns out I did send an email on Saturday night about 12:30 am. My wife and I fell asleep on the couch watching Food Network, and when I woke up, there was no getting back to sleep any time soon. So I went to send a friend a question about telescopes. Much to my surprise, after hitting “send” I was greeted by the Beer Goggles pop up with math questions!

Having climbed aboard a proverbial wagon a few weeks ago, mastering those questions were easy, but it made me laugh hard enough to wake my wife in the other room!

Cheers!
Tony

I am blessed to have three local homebrew stores that I have visited in the last few years. There is definitely my favorite shop about twenty minutes away, and only minutes from where my wife works. Yes, that means I can go visit her with my daughter who isn’t in school yet, and then go a little further and visit the homebrew shop!

The point of this though, is unwelcoming homebrew shops. Since I have the blessing of several shops to go to I can pick and choose which one I go to spend my money at. This is for the one that I don’t like, and the great news is the one I don’t like is the furthest! Isn’t that great?!?

There is a vibe in that shop that I am barely worth the trouble to greet or help when I walk in. I am not cool enough to be there. I have been in that shop two or three times in the last couple of years and each time I walked in it was the same thing. It felt like I was walking into a party that I wasn’t invited to! Folks, it is home brewed beer, how can you be so snobby?!?

What do I like about the shop by my wife’s work? I walk in, and even when an employee is elbow deep in something else I get a smile and greeting. Folks scooting around with kits and gear to be packaged and sent out when I walk in still pause, arms over flowing with stuff, to ask if I need help with something! That is what customer service is about.

Three folks at the front counter talking about the last beer judging and not even looking at me when I open the door is definitely not a good customer service model.

So be it, the great place and the good place have gotten all of my brewing money in the last few years and they will continue to get it. Vote with your dollars, says BrewDad!

Cheers!
Tony

I have a quick tip for folks who are thinking about dry hopping in the keg. Use a heavy shot glass to weigh down the muslin bag with the hops in. It’ll pull the dry hops down into the beer and get those great aromas into the beer quickly.

Just be sure to dunk the shot glass and bag through some no rinse sanitizer first so you don’t introduce contamination to the beer!

Good luck and CHEERS!
Tony

I am so completely entirely SICK of those two beers in my kegerator. There is a Pumpkin Ale and an Apple Ale that I brewed months ago. For the past three weeks (after I got the carbonation issues solved) they both were pouring clear as a bell with nice head and incredible lacing. I should have taken pictures of it, nice lacing is a beautiful thing!

Yesterday afternoon I pulled a crystal clear pint out of both kegs and enjoyed a nice quiet nap time working on some leather projects. For dinner, I went to pour another pint. Recall, I liked to blend the two for an entirely different beer, so the first half poured in, starting to get cloudy. Oh man. I dumped that half pint and tried the other keg. Same thing! Cloudy beer, no good unless its a wheat. Yeast clouded beer isn’t good in any style. I knew it was the yeast by swirling the glass and seeing that … schmutz? can I call it schmutz? on the side of the glass.

These beers were already dangerous in quantity because I forgot the whilrflock tablets. Full of yeast? Whoah, no way no how will I drink that!

So what happened? They are in a fridge, they do not get moved, I don’t change the pressure, the temperature has been steady.

What happened?

I’ve not dumped very many kegs in the well over one hundred I’ve brewed, but after all the pain in the butts these two batches have caused me, thier time is severly limited.

Cheers,
Tony

I hope everyone survived the holiday weekend with out too much unwanted excitement. I spent most of my time helping my brother in law moving. We had turkey dinner here on Thursday. All in all it was pretty good and I got the dishwasher running before our guests left.

Some good information came from the weekend too. It turns out my Mother in law doesn’t want the little fridge back after all and I am free to drill out the holes on the side and put my faucets in! I get to use my tall tap handles again! That will open up a whole new set of issues, will the faucets freeze in the garage? I’ll risk it.

I made it out shopping on Saturday morning. Doesn’t sound like me, does it? I went to Tandy Leather and took advantage of a really good coupon to replenish my leather supply. There was a huge crowd there… no, actually I was the only customer. My kind of shopping trip.

I hope everyone else had a good weekend, had some good beer and are happily ending the first day of a full week at work. (Haha!)

Cheers,
Tony