Is Homer Simpson a home brewer?

I don't think so! Doh! Here's some info about Duff Beer. Homer's favorite!

I'll be dressing up as our favorite macro swilling Duff drinker for Halloween this year. I was considering carrying a bottle of Rochefort with this costume on. You know denouncing Duff Beer, but, I'd probably be the only one who got it. Well except for you.

(warning...loaded question) I wonder. Is Homer good for the image of beer? I'm gonna try this poll thing out. Look for it on the right and please vote.

NOTE: Updated! Looks like Homer may have had a hand in brewing. Found this tid bit Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment.

Happy Halloween :-)

Cheers!

Digging around for that Thanksgiving recipe...

Ok...Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. That means I need to get brewin'. Hmmm...where is that recipe I brew every year? Ok...here it is. Boy did I take poor notes. I guess I got most of it.

• German Ale Yeast White Labs
• 1lb Briess 10L Crystal Malt 6 row
• 1lb Briess 2L White Wheat Malt 6 row
• 1 oz. Tettnang pellet hops 3.9%
• 1 oz. Hallertau pellet hops 4.6%
• 5.5 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract

Ok...well I'll need to change this up a bit. I don't think I have the Malted Wheat Grain. Not sure if I have the Tettnang. I'll have to substitute some liquid malt extract for the dry. I don't want to mess with it too much, because I know they liked it before. Looks like a trip to the home brew store is in order. Hmmm...I wonder if they would notice if I changed it. I hope they're not reading ;-)

Cheers!

Quiet around here, isn't it? Bringing you up to date.

Thanks for stopping by. I've been kinda quiet here lately. I was looking back at the past three months and I've managed to post 1.3 times a day on average. Not bad. Hey anything to rationalize not posting for a couple days :-)

Right...back to catching you up...

• Tom & Lori's party over the weekend - Yeah, I think the term I used to describe my experience there was "bewildering". As in, "There was a bewildering array of beer here tonight!" Wine, beer, mead, braggot, sour beer, hoppy beer, sweet beer, funky beer, beer with worm wood, bourbon barrel aged beer. etc. Oh and that was just the home brew ;-) Other interesting stuff was Russian River Damnation, Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu, Jolly Pumpkin La Roja, Atlantic Brewing Company Brother Adam's braggot...well you get the point. Couple that with a wonderful bonfire and awesome people and you just can beat it. Thanks Tom & Lori. I hope I'll be invited back again next year.
• Oh and maybe you saw Alan of A Good Beer Blog inciting people to heated and healthy discussion when he blogged about "Are Craft Beer Prices Too Low? No, They Are Not Too Low." 76 replies to his post and a followup post to boot.
• A request to brew some holiday beer for a family party coming up. Ok..ok..my Mom asked me to brew my "famous Thanksgiving brew". Yeah...my mom ;-) Gotta get movin' on that.
• The dry hopped strong ale doesn't suck as much as it did. I think I'm going to rack it into another keg and let it settle out now.
• I have three new (new to me) soda kegs. That makes nine. This should be enough. I'll use three for secondaries, three for conditioning and three to serve from. We'll see.
• Hunting season is coming up just after Thanksgiving and I'm sure I'll need to bring a brew or two with me to share with my Dad's family.
• Oh yeah, and Bryan over at The Brew Lounge conquered the Marine Corps Marathon...again yesterday! :-) Congrats on a job well done! Bryan, does this mean you'll be having a party and breaking out all that crazy good beer you've been hiding?

Ok...that ought to bring us up to date. Perhaps more than you bargained for. More importantly I have ingredients so I should be able to get brewin' again soon.

Cheers!

Dry Hopped Strong Ale

You know what? Time helps beer. This was that beer that tasted all weird right after the dry hopping. Well...when in doubt, wait! This beer will be good. It is getting better :-)

Mmmm! I shall call it Hop Juice.




What does it taste like? Here are the stats 7.7% abv. Dry hopped in the keg. Pressure carbonated. My nose is a bit closed up right now.

• straw to orange color, amber
  
• looks mostly clear with some particles in suspension (not cloudy)
  
• sweet floral nose, hop candy
  
• slightly oily mouthfeel
• not bitter
• on the sweet side
• soft hoppy taste (hey...I can't think of anything else!)
  
• still some vegetal tastes in there, but, 5% of what they were :-)
• lingering bitterness
• lingering mouth coated feeling
• as I get deeper into the keg the beer is drier and cleaner
  

Cheers!

Quick post about the home brew at the wedding :-)

The crowd favorite was the all barley Belgian style ale I have named The Mysterious One. I was a bit surprised by that one. The other two were a close second. Above you can see some marketing pieces I made up for fun. (Did I just say that?) Oh yeah, took a couple bottles of the barley wine too. Here are the names I gave them for fun; Rain River Ale, Dry Trail Ale, The Mysterious One Belgian Style Ale and Dead Reckoning Barley Wine



Hope everything is going well for you folks out there.

Cheers!

Back with only a few gallons of homebrew left :-)

The wedding was awesome! We all had a great time. The fall colors were amazing and the weather was favorable. As you may recall I took about three kegs worth of beer with me. I came back with about 3 or 4 gallons. One Belgian Style and two lighter session beers. One made with German Ale Yeast and the other with California Ale yeast. To prepare I printed some descriptions and small signs up and labeled each of the picnic taps.

I think I spent half the night talking about beer with people. This is a good thing. You may also be interested to hear that I saw Frank. He showed my Dad and I how to brew. Here is an excerpt from an early post of mine at The Brew Lounge.

I became involved in brewing when my Dad started making his own wine ... He
eventually suggested that I try it out, but, I'm not much of a wine drinker.

Then the conversation turned to making beer. His friend Frank had been
making wine and brewing beer for a long time. Eventually he offered to show us
how to make beer. I was so "into" microbrews back in 1996 that I
jumped at the opportunity. I think my favorite beer back then was...um let's
see...this is a hard one ;-)...anything from Sam Adams...heheh...oh except the
cranberry lambic (shudder).

The first beer we made was an awesome Octoberfest that Frank just knew how
to brew from memory. No instructions at all! I'm still amazed at that. I split
the batch with my Dad and I think it was gone in a matter of weeks. I shared it
with my friends saying, "Hey we made some beer. Wanna try it?". When they said
it tasted really good I was hooked. So there you go...I decided to get my own
equipment and read everything under the sun about it.

Wouldn't you know it. Frank was at the wedding and he brought some of his Octoberfest with him. Wow! What a treat. In some ways I've come a long way since that first batch. I can now brew without instructions for one thing. In other ways I feel like there is so much more to know :-)

More in my next post.

Cheers!

Check this out...remember the "Life Is Far Too Short To Drink Cheap Beer ..." article?

It seems like everybody and their brother is viewing this article. I'm getting 200 visits a day just from a link I put in the comments.

Life Is Far Too Short To Drink Cheap Beer - 10 Ways To Maximize Your Beer Value - Personal Finance Advice

So, a big thanks to Al over at Hop Talk for writing the article that is getting so much attention over there on Personal Finance Advice. Whodda thunk it?

Cheers!

Videos: Time-lapse Fermentation & Time-lapse Hops Growing

Over the last couple years I've created a few timelapse videos and put them up on Youtube for people to check out along with some other videos. Just click on one of the videos on the right to play.

My favorite is the hops time-lapse.

Cheers!

Dry Hopped Strong Ale Interesting Developments

Ok I'm finding this whole experience frustrating and enlightening at the same time. I gave it some thought the other day. I should have taken some pictures too...oh well. When I pour a sample of this into a glass I can see little pieces of stuff floating around. Most of it is little lupulin glands that haven't dissolved...that's right haven't dissolved yet. Hmmm....maybe the flavors I'm getting are more vegetable like from the petals of the hop cone. But why?

Well, the first thing I did after I racked the beer onto the fresh hops was refrigerate. I think that was a mistake. The cold temperatures slow down the process of dissolving the lupilin into the beer. So, the night before last I decided to pull the keg out of the refrigerator and let it warm up for a few days. Last night I tasted it and well it actually tasted better! Or at least I think it did. I'll have to continue tasting it to make sure (seriously). Of course temperature makes a difference too, so I'm not really sure what I was or wasn't tasting. Only time will tell.

So I'm still confused, but, now I'm hopeful. In the end its these experiences/mistakes that will give me confidence down the road. Reminds me of some inspiration words from Tolstoy's War and Piece...er Batman Begins ;-)

Bruce Wayne: I wanted to save Gotham. I've failed.
Alfred: Why do we fall, Master Wayne? So that we can learn
to pick ourselves up.
Bruce: You still haven't given up on me, have you?
Alfred: Never.

I'll taste again tonight and report back.

Cheers!

Draft Beer Equipment Arrived!

I'm serving my beer at a wedding this weekend. There isn't a way for the reception hall to dispense the beer so I'll be takin' care of that. I needed to order a few things and they arrived today. I'm not getting too fancy here. Just picnic taps for three or four beers will be fine. Here's the setup I'm using for 3 soda kegs of beer.

• 5 lb CO2 tank
• regulator
• shut off valve
• 6 inches gas line
  
• 3 line gas manifold from Northern Brewer
• 3 x 3' gas lines 5/16 I.D.
  
• 3 soda keg gas side disconnects
• 3 soda keg liquid side disconnects
• 3 x 5 gallon soda kegs
• 3 x 5' beer line 3/16 I.D.
  
• 3 picnic taps
• 8 small hose clamps
• oh yeah...lotsa ice
  

That should do it. I have it all setup in my garage fridge right now. I think I'll set the kegs up in two large buckets of ice and put them under the table. Then I'll feed the lines to holders that are marked with the beer name and style. Yeah, that should do it :-)

Cheers!

Dry Hopped Strong Ale - Too Resinous/Sweet/Strange

Houston we have a problem. The Dry Hopped Strong Ale is just plain weird. It was fine to begin with and now the Cascade Hops that I put in the keg are really making it taste strange. I had something like a less bitter 90 minute IPA on my hands. Then came the 2 ounces of dry hops. Think sweet sticky clean motor oil. Now I love hops, but, this is almost gross :-(

I think the problem is that there isn't enough bittering hops in there to balance out the sweetness. I think I could save it by drying it out some with some high gravity yeast and perhaps adding some bitterness somehow. Maybe a bittering hops tea.

The other option is to mix it with another beer. I tried mixing it with the black messed up beer and I think it actually helped. Of course at that point my palate was shot so I could just be way off.

Aaaarrrrghhh!

Later tonight....a recap of using the Blichmann Beer Gun

I think I have a problem. This Beer Gun is taking over my life ;-) Seriously though, I'll try to do an overview of how to use including pictures and maybe even video.

That is if everything works out. Another great Autumn day! Goin' to get some pumpkins with the family.

Cheers!

UPDATE: Couldn't fit the second use of the beer gun in tonight. Gotta put it back on the list.

:-(

Dry Hopping with Homegrown Cascade

There they are...the homegrown vacuum sealed Cascade hops. There they go...into the keg.







Two ounces of dry Cascade in the bottom of the keg. The 7.7% German Strong Ale tasted good without them. I hope it tastes good with them too :-)

I jacked up the CO2 pressure to about 30 lbs, disconnected and shook the heck out of it. Should help those hops separate instead of staying in a clump and dissolve some of the CO2 into solution as well.

What a beautiful day today. Cool like an autumn day should be. Stopped down at Bryan's to see how his second batch is going. Everything was under control. Can't wait to see how this IPA turns out. Thanks for the New Glarus Red. Very cherry malty tart and tangy delicious! (Was that a sentence?)

Hey, I tasted the two session beers again. They both turned out very nice. Into the fridge with them and into the fridge with the dry hopped German strong ale too. One week of clearing time before the wedding.

Next comes my order of draft beer parts so I can serve three kegs at the wedding. Should be here on Tuesday.

Cheers!

AHA Teach a Friend to Brew Day - Need help? Need a friend ;-)

Heheh...seriously. If you want to learn how to brew I can help you out. Via email, instant message, video, etc. Just let me know. Here's the link to my last post on this topic.

I'll be unavailable on the official day, but, I'm available up until that day and after that day. Just let me know what you need :-)

Tonight, I'm kegging the Strong German Ale and putting the two session beer kegs in the fridge.

Cheers!

The Blichmann Beer Gun Works!

I borrowed this Blichmann Beer Gun from Del. It took me a few days to get things together, but, tonight it happened. I bottled 20 big bottles of Gavin's Strong IPA tonight with Jeremy and Jackie's help. This thing is cool.

This is not an advertisement. I just borrowed it and used it and it worked. No affiliation.

Cheers!

What's goin' on in your brewing/beer world this weekend?

Not sure if my readership is big enough to get a good response to this, but, eh what the hell.

Very quickly tell me...er all our readers what your up to this weekend. Here's what I'm doin'.

• Bottlin' Gavin's Strong IPA with the Blichmann beer gun
• perhaps going to The Flying Pig for a few beers
• waiting for my order of keg parts from Northern Brewer
• putting the German Strong Ale in the empty keg with some home grown hops
• enjoying the fall weather here in Eastern PA

What are you up to? Dreamin' of that next brew? Too busy for beer? (nah)

Cheers!

Beer Bits 2 mentioned @ Home Brew Beer - Bloggers of Note

Bryon over at Home Brew Beer posted a description of some "Bloggers of Note". I'm happy to say I made the list. Thanks Bryon. Much appreciated!

Bryon's style is candid and informative. He writes frequently about home brew, beer and some other interesting side-bars. I've been checking it out for a couple weeks on and off. Coincidently I recently moved his site to the top of the list of new link's I'm checkin' out.

Cheers!

Bottling Carbonated Beer & Exton Beverage

Now I have everything I need to use the Blichmann Beer Gun bottle filler. I stopped over at Exton Beverage to buy the beer & CO2 lines I need. Whoohoo! Thanks Greg ;-) I'll have a write up in the next day or so.

Cheers!

Bottling with the Blichmann Beer Gun Saga Continues

Ok, at least I got the first steps of this bottling experience completed. I'm splitting up the steps into smaller ones so I feel better about what I got done. (hey its my delusion) At the end you'll find an excuse for why I didn't get it done last night.

• gathered 24 large bottles from basement (sounds easy...it wasn't)
• soaked them in iodophor in a large cooler
• read directions for Blichmann Beer Gun
• realized I don't have 10' of 3/16" inside diameter beer line :-( (this helps prevent foaming during filling)
• an hour or so later removed large bottles from iodophor solution
• disassembled beer gun and cleaned it in iodophor solution
• put a 3" x 3" piece of aluminum foil on each bottle and placed them back in their cases
• cleared the beer fridge out to make more room for bottles (they should be same temp as beer in order to reduce foaming)
• researched bulk beverage hose costs and decided to buy local due to shipping and cost
• put order in for other draft equipment for upcoming wedding (unrelated, but, important)

All in all I made progress, but didn't get Gavin's IPA bottled yet. Here is the state of things.

• beer is chilled
• bottles are chilled
• beer gun is cleaned
• need to buy 5' - 10' of gas line 5/16" I.D. and 10' of beer line 3/16" I.D.

Here comes the excuse :-) Of course I would have finished all this had I not stopped over at Bryan's to sing a belated Happy Birthday to him. Ok...ok it wasn't all that bad. His wife made a delicious cake. I also got to taste some of his first home brew again as well as Damnation from Russian River. I think its a good excuse. I can always say it was "home brew related".

Cheers!

Homebrewing Resources @ Beer Bits 2

Sometimes a subject is just so core to this blog that it warrants some good old fashion manual TLC. I've been playing the role of the diligent librarian lately and collected links to some really good nuggets of homebrewing information. You can always find these in the sidebar to the right.

Quick Reference
Home Brewing Starter Kit Resources
Dry & Late Hopping Resources
Kegerators Resources
Hops Growing Resources

If you have suggestions, I'm all ears...er eyes.

Cheers!

Broken Record: Bottling Using the Blichman Beer Gun

No really, I am going to do it! Just have to sanitize the bottles and chill them. Oh...and figure out how to use this beer gun thing. I'm serious this time. Really I'm gonna do it.

Tune in tomorrow when I make more excuses about why I didn't get my strong ale into a keg :-)

Cheers!

Homebrewing Equipment - Starter Kit Resources

The following is a list of links to homebrew starter kits resources on the internet. I'll continually add to this list as I find more resources. If you know of others please post a comment here with a link. If you are interested to see what other resource pages I have created click on the "resource posts" label link at the bottom of this post or over there in the sidebar.

If you don't know where to get started, this might be as good a place as any.

• Northern Brewer ------------- Basic Starter Kit
• More Beer -------------------- Standard Starter Kit
• Midwest Supply -------------- Brewing Basics Equipment Kit
• Keystone Homebrew Supply -- Maestro Beer Equipment Kit
• Your local homebrew shop :-) - American Homebrewers Association Shop List (not a complete list)
• Google Search ----------------- Google Map Business Search

I'm not affiliated with any of these companies. I have not used any of their kits.

Cheers!

Whew! Two days off again...

Lots of things happening in my non brewing life. Two weeks to the wedding and I have a ton of things to do.

• clear some beer in the fridge
• bottle beer
• keg beer and dry hop it

I really need to get started on this tomorrow night. Anybody wanna clean some bottles?

Cheers!

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - Nov, 3 2007

Are you a homebrewer? Do you have friends? (ok, don't answer that ;-) Well here's your chance to show somebody how to brew. Maybe you just want to learn how to brew, but, you don't have any friends....wait this is getting silly. Just follow the link and read. Come one come all to Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Sponsored by the American Homebrewer Association. Of which I am a member. And I like it. And they have a nice site. And...this is getting silly again...

I was hoping to participate this year however it isn't in the cards for November 3rd. I may attempt to do something on the preceding or following weekend. I was thinking of something along the lines of this....

• open invite
• brief intro about ingredients, equipment and process
• brew 1 or more extract batches
• some free literature from Brewers Association
• follow along on Beer Bits 2 blog during the days after the event for updates
• get a chance to taste what we brewed when its ready
• bring your ipod and queue up your own tunes
• there may be some food
• definately be some homebrew to taste (2 Belgian Styles, a dry hopped strong IPA and a 2 year old homebrewed barleywine if we're lucky)

Let me know if you would be interested of if there is anybody you know who might be interested. You bring the people and I'll conduct the session. (just not on Nov 3rd ;-)

Cheers!

Beer Bottling: Kegged Beer and the Blichmann Beer Gun

I just love to say it. "Blichmann Beer Gun!" A friend of mine, Del, loaned me this puppy so I could take my carbonated beer from a soda keg and put it into bottles. I guess I could have just tried to decarbonate ( is that a word ) the beer and then prime it and bottle it, but, this seems more fun :-) Here are some things that I have heard about this process from Del and Ted.

• chill the beer
• chill the bottles
• pull the beer trigger decisively so that it goes all the way open (less foaming)
• make sure you have a splitter for your C02 line to provide constant pressure to both the beer and the CO2 lead (as opposed to having to recharge the keg after so many bottles)

Those sound like good tips. I'll probably read the directions too. ( I know I know I'm not any fun. Hey this is beer we're talking about here.) I'll have a full report sometime next week.

The whole reason for doing this is so that I can free up a keg for the strong German ale that I'm going to dry hop in the keg and take to my Dad's wedding.

-Cheers!

Growing Hops: Dry Hops 2007 Yield

I collected, weighed and packaged the home grown Cascade hops that were drying in the basement. I started with 5.4 lbs green hops from our harvest the other day. So that's 86.4 oz of green hops. Once dried the yield is 20.9 oz of dry hops. This is approximately a 4 to 1 ratio. I'm a little curious as to why it wasn't more like a 6 to 1 ratio. Maybe its because some of the hops were already somewhat dry when I picked them. Oh well, I'm not complaining.

Now, how should I store these? I just happened to have 20 foodsaver bags and a foodsaver machine to vacuum seal the bags. They were given to my wife and I as a gift a while back. About an hour later I ended up with 18 bags of dry hops with a little more than an ounce in each bag. I've heard that freezing them is the best thing to do. For now they are in my fridge.

The question is what should we do with them? Well I know at least two ounces will go to dry hopping a strong ale I just made. I wonder what Bryan will do with his?

Dry & Late Hopping Resources

The following is a list of links to dry hopping and late hopping resources on the internet. I'll continually add to this list as I find more resources. If you know of others please post a comment here with a link. If you are interested to see what other resource pages I have created click on the "resource posts" label link at the bottom of this post or over there in the sidebar.

If you are looking for books about home brewing...

Amazon: Home Brewing

Dry Hopping
Brew Your Own - Dry Hopping Techniques
http://byo.com/departments/1105.html

Main Street Homebrew Supply Co.
http://www.mainbrew.com/pages/infopages.html/dryhop.html

My first experience with dry hopping with hops that Bryan and I grew.
http://www.brewlounge.com/2006/11/brewing-beer-secondary-fermentation.html

Late Hopping
Ted over at Ted's Homebrew Journal passed along this link about late hopping.
http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

Aussie Homebrewer: filter out hops leaves before they get to the keg...
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=263&hl=GMK+inline

Cheers!

Brewing Supplies Arrived

Well I'm stocked up for a while now! Today my shipment from Northern Brewer arrived. Whoohoo! Here is what I ordered.

• Pilsen Malt Syrup 33 pound Jerrycan
• Grain Briess Caramel 120 L
• Grain Briess Caramel 60L
• Grain Briess Caramel 10 L
• Grain Dingemans Special B
• Grain Simpsons Chocolate
• Grain Simpsons Roasted Barley
• Surescreen for dip tube in keg when dry hopping
• Tube of CIP Film to lube keg parts
• Stainless Steel Tees: 3/16" - 1/4" to split gas lines on the cheap

I have no affiliation with Norther Brewer other than being a satisfied customer ;-)

Cheers!

BETHLEHEM HARVEST FESTIVAL & Keystone Homebrew

This looks like fun! I've never witnessed this event, but, who wouldn't want to sample home brew, stomp on grapes and see a home brew demo? :-) I'm not sure if it is in the cards for me due to some other commitments, so report back to us if you go.

Here is an excerpt from an email newsletter Keystone sent me today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BETHLEHEM HARVEST FESTIVAL
Saturday, 10/6, from 11am to 7pm

Beer & Wine tasting
1pm to 5pm

Keystone Homebrew will be participating in the 2nd annual Bethlehem Harvest Festival. Since it was such a huge hit last year, the Bethlehem crew will again be conducting a live brewing demonstration, offering homebrew samples (from the infamous Lehigh Valley Homebrewers), and an official grape stomp right on Main Street, Bethlehem, PA! That s right, it s a chance for you and/or your kids to stomp on some fresh wine grapes, taste some homebrew and to share brewing stories around the brew kettle. The Bethlehem Harvest Festival will also feature local wineries, beer tasting, music, food, and other entertainment. Tickets are sold for the beer & wine, -tastings ($20 on advance $25 day of the event), but the festival is free. If that's not enough incentive, this will be an official KisE event, so anyone we see wearing a Keystone shirt will be given $5 credit to be used at either of our stores. (You can join us for our wine tasting in Bethlehem the next day, and put it to immediate use!)

Festival Site
http://www.bethlehemharvestfestival.com/

Keystone Homebrew Supply Site
http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/

Making Beer Bits 2 more useful...

I've been cleaning up around here lately. In keeping with my goal to be a useful homebrewing site I thought it was about time I started organizing information around core topics.

Related Posts: Labels
I'm using a feature of Blogger called labels to organize my information for you. At the bottom of each post you will notice a list of label links. Click on one to find other posts with the same label.

Quick Access to Related Posts: Labels
In the right sidebar I have added a list of all the labels I have used here at Beer Bits 2. This should make it easy for you to find all the growing hops posts or all the kegging posts no matter what part of the site you are viewing.

Resource Posts: Quick Reference Posts
Labels are nice, but, sometimes a subject is just so core to this blog that it warrants some good old fashion manual TLC. Quick Reference posts will be more concise and easier to use than label searches.

Cheers!

Hops Growing Resources

The following is a list of links to hops growing resources on the internet. I'll continually add to this list as I find more resources. If you know of others please post a comment here with a link. If you are interested to see what other resource pages I have created click on the "resource posts" label link at the bottom of this post.

Quick Reference (not enough info, but, will give you the idea)

1. find place with lotsa sun, sandy soil and room to grow vertical
   
2. order rhizomes or get some from a friend
3. plant when ground is no longer frozen (spring)
   
4. make sure they have enough water
   
5. wait for the bines to come up
6. train them on something to get them off the ground
7. pick when they are ready harvest (usually not much first year) (late summer early fall)
   
8. cut back for next year
9. use and/or dry and store

Here's a book I bought to help me understand growing...

Amazon: The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs

My resource page about drying hops...
http://www.nonconfermist.com/2009/08/how-to-dry-hops-at-home.html

Maltose Falcons Homebrew Club
http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/growing-hops

Homebrew Talk Wiki
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Hop_cultivation

Brewing Techniques: Hops in the Backyard (Extensive)
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.3/montell.html

Zymurgy: In the Backyard: A gardner's guide to homegrown hops
http://home.netcom.com/~dluzanp/backyard.htm

Northern Brewer has a PDF of their instructions
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/HopRhizomes.pdf

Fresh Hops: Click on growing on the left...
http://www.freshops.com/

National Sustainable Agriculture Service
Hops: Organic Production
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=87

Yahoo Group about Growing Hops
The group even does rhizome exchanges through the mail. Lotsa good documents in their group too :-)

Crannóg Ales of British Columbia
Small Scale and Organic Hops Production
http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

The Brew Lounge: Two years of growing hops posts
From back when I was @ The Brew Lounge.

Brew Your Own has some stuff too..
http://byo.com/component/acesearch/search?query=growing%20hops

Oregonhops
http://oregonhops.org/culture2.html

Seven Bridges Coop
http://www.breworganic.com/tips/growing-hops.htm

Rate Beer: Homebrewer's Guide To Growing Your Own Hops
http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=186

Patrick's Hoppy Home Page
http://home.netcom.com/~dluzanp/

Norm Pyle's Hops FAQ
http://www.realbeer.com/hops/FAQ.html

Cheers!

Family, Friends, Great Beer, Road Trip and a Toast to a Beer Legend

Took a couple days off so it was slow on the brewing front, but I did get to taste some good beer. Here's a list of all that was offered over the weekend in various parts of Pennsylvania. Rogue Dead Guy, Rogue Glen Ale from the John's Locker Stock, Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA, Yeungling Lager, Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, Bell's IPA, Bell's Porter, Brooklyn Brewery Lager, Spaten Oktoberfest, Penn Oktoberfest, Victory, Dogfish Head and on and on.. As you can see there wasn't a shortage of good beer to choose from. The best part was that I hadn't planned on seeking it out. It just kept showing up :-)

Lots of driving involved this weekend and some incredible weather to do it in. What a great opportunity to take the RX-7 for a spin. I put a bunch of miles on this ol' car and it took it like a champ. Can you see the huge smile on my face cruising through the mountains down country roads, windows down and music flowing? I'm wishing I was still there.

The weekend came to a close with the Michael Jackson Memorial Toast over at The Drafting Room in Exton. Gavin and I headed over and grabbed a Rogue Glen Ale in preparation for the toast. Bryan from The Brew Lounge led it in the absense of Patrick the beer manager. It was low key and respectful and somehow very full of good energy.

Cheers!