Archive for March, 2009

BE enters the world of home brewing

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Jason, Jeremy and I brewed our first batch of beer on Saturday. We brewed the London Porter kit from The Home Brewery. We made a few small mistakes, but nothing terrible. All in all we are pretty happy with how it went.

Last night I started de-labeling some bottles I had collected. My new favorite brewer is Schlafly. 10 minutes in hot water and the labels just slide off. O’Fallon, not so much. I don’t really want to mess with labels that don’t soak off in hot water. Of course, this is just with respect to label removal. They still brew great beer.

St. Patrick’s Day at Sycamore

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Wow! We had a great time visiting with Jeremy Cowan, founder of Shmaltz Brewing. Sycamore had many Shmaltz beers on tap for the dinner, as well as a wide selection of Shmaltz bottles. If you get a chance, head to Sycamore to try the Oak-aged RIPA. The aging mellows it nicely. It was definitely my favorite beer of the evening.

The next Sycamore beer dinner is scheduled for April 14th and will feature De Molen, a brewery in the Netherlands.