That’s right folks, the Spring Bliss is upon us! An email with all the necessary information just went out, so if you expressed an interest and don’t see it, let me know and I’ll pass it on pronto.
The Gods must know we’re doing something right, as it looks to be a perfect storm coming together – this week is the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, which means more craft beer events than one person can possibly attend, like this one – The Brewers of Brussels on the night of the Bliss. That’s right, mountain biking, homebrewed beer & picnic, followed by Belgium’s best sour beers on tap being served by the brewer himself. And to top it off…the weather guessers are hoping for 80°!
To all youse folks who homebrew, ride dirt, and don’t mind traveling to the Boston MetroWest area:
The Bootlegger’s Bliss will be held on Satyrday, April 25th, at an as yet undisclosed venue in MA. That’s right, the not yet famous “greatest-mountain-biking-homebrew-tasting-event-of-the-last-weekend-in-April-in-the-New-England-region-hosted-by-me-and-sponsored-by-no-one” is coming to MA for more homegrown hijinx.
For the uninitiated, the Bliss is an event that combines a mountain bike ride with a homebrew tasting and homecooking picnic. A few more details:
* this event is for homebrewing mountain bikers (or mountain biking homebrewers), and not the general public (see the third asterisk below re: guests). If you’ve never brewed before, but want to learn, just let me know – we can make that happen;
* the “price of admission” is one six-pack or equivalent (say, three bombers or a growler) of homebrew that you brewed, either at home or at a brewing facility.
* while the event is limited to homebrewers, each brewer may bring one guest who does not brew, but who rides and likes beer. Guests are encouraged to witness and help with the brewing process before attending.
* everyone participating in the beer tasting—including guests—must bring and ride a bike suitable for off-road use. This is a mountain biking event. Oh, and tasters should be of legal age.
* everyone who attends is asked to bring a HOMECOOKED dish to share with other attendees. This is a ride, followed by a picnic of sorts, where the finest homebrew in the region will be on display.
* non-participating (i.e., those who neither ride nor drink much) family members are always welcome. Bring your wife, husband, paramour, concubine, ex, kids, whatever, as long as you don’t get too sloppy.
More details (i.e., exact time, venue, etc.) will not be posted anywhere, but you can email me or leave a comment on the blog.
Well it won’t really be Winter, but pencil in the date:
April 25th, 2009 – Bootleggers Bliss comes to New England!
Gives you plenty of time to brew something up if you haven’t already and gives those of us stuck in perpetual Winter a chance to stretch our legs and lungs before the big show.
More details to follow, but you can check out Steve’s previous ponderings here!
I didn’t want you all to think I gave up biking for brewing, so I snapped a few pics on the commute today. My thumb is still bothering me from a few months ago, so mountain biking is being held to less than 2 hours.
Just starting out, riding along Rt.62, heading under Rt.3.
The snow started falling a little after 2:00 PM and being that most people didn’t come in to work today, I took the opportunity to head out at 3:20 PM. It’s always a good time riding in the snow when it’s coming down at a couple inches an hour.
Just riding along...
So the snow started at 2:00 PM on Friday and finally ended sometime Saturday night. Woke up this morning and we’re enjoying another storm with some white out conditions. They’re saying to expect another 6″ on top of the foot or so we already received. Guess we won’t be seeing the green grass again until Spring.
Just have to wait until the PR gets good and packed down to do some kick ass snow rides! I think we should get a set of snowshoes so we can help out with the packing, ha.
Buster and I were out for a little hike the other day around the reservoir. Early on in the hike we found a perfectly good cantine that was filled with frozen water. Sort of a pain in the ass to carry around frozen water, but hell, a cantine is a cantine.
Near the end of the hike I saw something that just didn’t look right. A closer inspection revealed the grip of a black handgun sticking out of the leaves. Thankfully, no hands were attached to it. It turned out to be an air gun, the orange muzzle tip was the give away, ha. Not being real keen on shooting myself, I removed the magazine (fully loaded) and cleared the ball loaded in the barrel. Hmm…maybe a good craigslist item!
Saturday morning found Kristin and I waking up early to get the house ready. We needed to clean the house from top to bottom, rake a 1/2 acre of leaves, get started on the cooking, and finally mill the grain. Kristin started on the leaves, while I started in on the vacuuming. After the house was clean, I headed out to help with the raking to find Kristin had already finished putting the front yard into piles and was already starting on the backyard. We switched it up and she went on to getting the mac & cheese and caramel cupcakes together…diabetics beware! Later in the afternoon, Mike, Chris, and Jeff popped by the house to help out. We put Chris and Jeff on grain milling duty while Mike and I finished off the leaves just a little after o’dark 30. Then we finished up the grain milling, before grabbing some pizza and a Wii Kart break, which Ron conveniently showed up for just in time. After everybody left, it was just a quick basement check and barrel prep, which needed a splash more rum – you know, to sanitize it a little more. Physical exhaustion had me in bed by midnight.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Woke up early to grab some coffee and do a few last minute things. Sloan and Albert show up around 8:15 AM, just as I’m finishing up some small details like putting fresh house numbers on the mailbox to make it easier for people to find. And it begins…
Brewers Brewing
From then until around 11:00 AM brewers arrived, setup, and started up their rigs. Everybody brewed all grain (some for their first time), but the equipment ranged from 5 gallon buckets/aluminum foil/tongs to computerized 15 gallon keggles on rolling brew carts. We had a dozen or so brewers and all completed their batches and pushed through any issues there might have been. I was scheduled to brew, but keeping things organized became a full time job. Thankfully Jeff took over measuring out three additions of hops for every batch.
First addition of hops measured out
Throughout the day people showed up at the house. Some brought homebrew, some brought commercial brew, and still others brought much needed food to supply the troops. Kristin whipped up a big batch of mac & cheese and some caramel cupcakes. Kevin put together a spicy batch of jambalaya. There was homebrewed port and tons of cookies. A smoker was put to good use to churn out some ribs and we even had homemade bbq sauce that was super tasty!
As we wrapped things up, Allan setup his peristaltic pumps and counterflow chiller to directly chill the beer as it ran from the brew kettles into the barrel.
This chiller pretty much rocked and made the end of the brew day go really smooth. We filled the barrel with about 40 gallons of wort and put an extra 20 gallons in carboys. This way when the barrel reaches peak fermentation it doesn’t explode onto the walls of my basement (Kristin should be happy about that). The carboys were set to the side to ferment on their own and we should be racking those back into the barrel to bulk age with the rest of the batch.
Chilling beer into barrel
It was a phenomal day! The weather cooperated bringing sunny skies and warm temperatures. Everybody did their part and more to make the day a smashing success. We were shooting for a 1089 gravity and hit 1085 – not bad for how many batches we had to combine. I’d try to name everybody who took part, but I’m sure I’d screw it up. The Wort Processors homebrew club really out did themselves. When it was all said and done, Kristin and I were able to clean the house one more time and sit down for good right around 6:30 PM…can’t ask for more than that. Oh, and the beer…I’ll let you know how it turns out…in a year.
For additional stuff, check out Kristin’s photos here, David Bond’s photos here, Ron’s video here, and Ann Cortissoz’s article in the globe here.
Last week was mostly spent getting ready for the weekend. The Worts recently purchased a rum barrel from Newport Storm, a brewery in RI, who also happens to distill and makes Thomas Tew rum. The rum barrel was originally used to age Tennessee whiskey. The plan was for the Worts to get together for a day and brew 60 gallons of Strong Scotch Ale, aka Wee Heavy. I volunteered my basement to keep the barrel for the year it will be aging the beer, which means everybody would be coming over to our house for the brewing – Kristin was thrilled with this, ha!
In addition to hosting, I took on getting the ingredients for the massive grain bill since I’ve recently started doing bulk grain buys for the club. The clubs order came to 21 sacks of grain. The grain arrived on a pallet to my work (amazing what a little beer bribe can get your shipping department to allow). Next was loading all that grain into the Subaru to get it back to the house. This was the challenge:
Grain to be loaded
Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long to get it all in the wagon, only about 30ish minutes. The shipping department had the truck delivery guy drop right in the parking lot, so I wouldn’t have to carry it off the loading dock and could load it directly into the wagon. The tough part would come later…
Lowriding
So now I know, 21 sacks is pretty much the limit of a Subaru Outback…in case anybody was wondering. Once home, the rain really picked up, so I put off the inevitable until 10:00 PM that night. At that point I grabbed the rain jacket and headed out into the dark wet driveway. Opening up the back, I was greeted with this:
Ready to unload
An hour later, all 21 bags were safely down in the basement. Check done! Just a quick shower and then it was time for bed.
The hops proved to be a little daunting. If you brew beer at all, then you know there is/was a hop shortage. This can make something like buying 2 pounds of hops a little difficult. Luckily there is Fresh Hops, who just so happens to have a 2 pound limit per type of hop. Ordered on Monday, shipped on Tuesday, hope like hell it actually shows up on Friday. Friday evening, about 5:00 PM, I get the message from Kristin…the hops have landed! Buster was psyched!
Mmm...Buster approved!
2 pounds of Goldings delivered, not to mention a bunch of others!
Box o' hops!
Now the only thing left was to make sure the house was in order, but it would have to wait until Saturday.
A quick picture from walking the dog around the reservoir.
Smoke on the Water
Works been pretty crazy the last week or two. The leaves have been peaking all around us and I just haven’t been able to get out on the bike during the day, since it’s dark by 6:00 PM now. Things are going well though! Kristin has more freelance work than she ever has before and more keeps getting added every week. Buster is loving the New England Fall weather and all the animals that are in a flurry at this time of year…watch out squirrels and deer!
We all managed to get a quick hike in at the beautiful Blue Hills Reservation and Kristin took some fantastic photos. The hike was labeled moderate, but damn, it was pretty tough. Probably as tough as any of the sections I’ve hiked on the Appalachian Trail. A few sections resemble bouldering more than hiking, but it was definitely worth it -
Boston skyline from Blue Hills overlook (photo by Kristin)
I don’t know who had more fun, but I’d probably venture a guess that Buster had the best time…
Mike and I brewed up our annual batches of Pumpkin ale on Sunday. Mike picked up some small sugar pumpkins on Saturday (about 6 pounds worth), quartered them, and roasted them in the oven at around 400°. After letting them get nice and soft and letting a bunch of the sugars begin to caramelize, he scooped out the pulp, which we blended up in the food processor just before brewing. We added the pumpkin directly to the mash and it was super tasty going in. Pulled off the mash, which gave off a beautiful deep amber color. Brought to a boil and added our single hop addition. Pretty easy going brew day, as the only thing left was to add a mixture of spices a few minutes before the end of the boil. Chilled and poured into the fermentation buckets and pitched some rehydrated Safale S-04 dry yeast. Headed down to the basement Monday, only to see this -
Pumpkin Ale fermenting
Damn! Guess I forgot the one thing I always remember to do…put the buckets on a towel. Oh well, it’s all cleaned up now and fermenting vigorously. With such an easy brewing session, we took time during the boil to refurbish a few corny kegs (new poppets and o-rings all around). After the refurbish job, we ended up racking Mike’s IPA, my Oktoberfest and my Blonde ale into the fresh kegs. Good times.
Remember, beer and candy are supposedly recession proof…at least I got the first half covered.
