Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Summer in the City

July has come and nearly gone and not a post to speak of.

UNTIL NOW

I flew back from Milwaukee on Saturday morning (and boy are my arms tired) only to find the rest of the lads in the middle of a brewday in my kitchen, not to mention some fairly serious upgrades to our brewhouse, fermenting capacity and beer tent. Yes, we now support tap beer at the St. Francis Backyard Brewery. The Amber Ale is on and it's really quite nice - you should try it some time. The Doctor found a 24 qt. brewpot in chinatown for us and Craig found a chest freezer for us on his list.

Still trying to sort out a brewery name. Majority-rule equilibria are inherently unstable and it's pissing me off.

Spent some quality time at water taxi beach over the weekend (birthday extravaganza II) without a hint of sunburn and managed some good eats before checking out the new hotness in beer garden technology - Studio Square in Astoria - not LIC, sorry. Just sayin.

After the storms blew through yesterday we held our first (of hopefully many to come) tasting, where we shared the new amber ale (on tap! did I already say that?), our pale ale and hefeweizen. The crowd seemed pretty happy with all three, but the general consensus is that the Hefe is the best one yet. I reluctantly concur.

The Brewers are biting it prety hard right now. I'm not pleased.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Happy Brewday!

Too bad I was sick today, but brewday has been on the calendar for weeks and I'd already let it slip too long, so went ahead anyway. Dr. DJ provided his usual high level of technical assistance to the point where we knocked out two new batches this evening. This brings us to three (3!) concurrent batches here at the St. Francis brewing coop. It's a new record, and we're near capacity.

nb: still working out the brewery name. I kinda like "Heights Brewing", as it incorporates both the Crown and the Prospect, but I still need to try to incorporate the Slope. Suggestions?

In any case, I made my first solo batch  on Saturday morning. With the two this evening we've got a pale ale, hefeweizen, and amber ale in progress. July's gonna be a great month for beer over here in the Heights. Two new assistants made their debuts this evening, although their nommes de guerre (biere?)  are still in progress - their identities are tbd. 

Janey Law brought over spectacular beef teriyaki on sticks so I fired up the Weber so we could enjoy a post-brew feast. Not a bad way to spend an evening. Not bad at all.

Brewers now in 2nd place. Gah.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Brooklyn Beer Experiment: the Aftermath

What a great event. The Bell House was full to the gills and the beer flowed like wine - one ounce at a time. Plenty of great chefs and great food too. Too bad I only got to try about 5 things. Thanks to Nick and Theo for setting the whole thing up and to Cathy for looping me in.

The Voice sent a photograher. Check out the slideshow at:
http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/view/15559878

When all was said and done, we loaded out and retreated to Canal Bar's back yard to unwind.

The Brewers are in first place with only a hundred-plus games left to play!