Come Join Us at the Party of the Year!

By this time next week, we'll be deep, deep in the midst of the AHA's annual homebrew party - HomebrewCon. This year's edition is a return to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for four (ok, three official, but c'mon!) days and nights of beery goodness. Here's our quick guide about what we're doing - what we want to check out and more!

TLDR - Lord You Talk Too Much Drew - Executive Summary

It looks like no, Steel cut oats don't necessarily need to be pre-cooked to use in a mash, but judging by the results I saw - it still helps.

For Those Who Like To Read

After Van Havig of Gigantic Brewing mentioned his love of Gin, we talked about some favorite preparations. You can hear him describe in Episode 29 the Pegu Club Cocktail - the house cocktail of the British gentlemen's club in Rangoon. It's super dangerous and really easy to drink

Here's what I've been making:

A quick note before we begin - we will always tell you when a manufacturer has provided us with goods to test. In this case, Monster Brewing Hardware did not provide Drew the mill. This is his review of his purchase.

It's funny the little things that conspire to keep you from doing a thing you love. Time, family, work, obligations are all a part of it, but sometimes it's also just a small pain point that's enough to prevent you from building up the head of steam to overcome the joyful inertia of sitting on your butt (particularly when it's hot and there's A/C inside)

This past weekend Denny and I were invited to roam around the Bay Area by one of our podcast sponsors, Craftmeister. Craftmeister was in town to demonstrate their cleaning line to customers and employees at the Bay Area More Beer retail locations and brought us along to autograph copies of B3's latest catalog offering - Experimental Homebrewing!

Just a quick pointer to a simple guide I threw together from the Everything Hard Cider book. Maltose Falcons' Cider Brewing Cheat Sheet Enjoy your apples in an adult fashion! Want the book? Everything Hard Cider Book

Did you know there's a North American Guild of Beer Writers? We didn't either until last year when we saw the announcement of their 2014 National Awards presented at the Great American Beer Festival.

You know - I totally forgot to talk about this after the NHC - but y'all remember the Clam Chowdah Saison? The stuff of legend and trepidatious responses from brewers across the world? Well, we poured it at the AHA NHC Club Night and it was a hit. All five gallons went away in a hurry! Between the CC Saison, Annie's Chicken Ale and the Austin Zealots Spam Mead - I think the AHA needs to have a meat themed bar at one of these events. :) A Glass Full of Fear

The AHA is definitely speeding up their turnaround times! Just a few weeks ago we were all chilling in San Diego - now we're able to catch up on the things we missed! All of the seminars and speeches are recorded by the AHA and offered as a member perk. That's right, you have to be a member to access all the talks, but look, why aren't you?

N.B. - Craftmeister (aka National Chemicals) sent me a sample kit to try out. After Denny broke away from his usual cheap ways and gave the Craftmeister products his thumbs up, I had to get my hands on a kit to test out as well. In the kit - 3 lb tubs of the Alkaline Brewery Wash, Oxygen Brewery Wash, a jar of Keg & Carboy Tablets and a jar of Growler Tablets. In this test, we'll look at one of the most common tasks facing homebrewers - the carboy yeast ring of crud - aka a wonderful amalgamation of protein and yeast detritus.