Beyond the Pale and Cult Recruiting

Okay, I love to brew all-grain but my rig dictates I either have a brew partner or do an extract batch. Extract brewing isn't as satisfyingly involved or as creatively flexible. It's also more expensive.

So I got to thinking, I need to make more friends. Then I said to myself, Self, What about the friends you already got?

And I thought about Derek, whether he'd be a willing grunt for the one lift I can't make, maybe come hang for part of a brew day. You never know, but maybe the novelty of seeing how beer is made from scratch, right?



Turns out, Derek is on the verge of buying a starter kit himself. He's done a bit of meadmaking in one gallon batches, so he's not entirely uninitiated either. He didn't just come to the brew session, he pounced on it with enthusiasm.

Derek and his lovely wife came and hung for the latter half of the brew day, assisting with the lift, asking questions that made me seem less of a bore on the subject of brewing, then insisted on popping for pizza for lunch, and even made an ice run for me when it was time to run the wort chiller. (When it's as hot as it's been lately, the tap water is about 80º, and the counterflow chiller will only get you about 10º warmer than the tap temperature. In the dead of winter, sometimes that means letting the wort warm up to 65º before pitching, as it comes out of the chiller at 55º. In August, if you start fermenting at 90º, there's a better chance that Elvis is still alive than that you'll avoid overwhelming phenolics. It's too warm, and once fermentation is generating heat to boot, you're screwed. Some people just won't brew this time of year, but if you'll convert your cedar closet to an ice house, it's doable.)



It was great to just hang with old friends anyway. I've known Kim since high school, and she's such a decent human being she'll still speak to me anyway.

Derek also made himself even more permanently welcome in Lobster Land by loving my homebrew. I presently have the full complement on tap: mead, cider and beer. Well, the full complement by today's standards. Ideally, I'd have a cider, a mead and three or four kinds of beer on tap at any given time.

What did I brew? Well, a lot of the comments I get (well, a lot as a proportion of the comments I get, I don't really get enough comments to call it 'a lot') on these brewing posts are along the lines of 'Do you make dark beer?'



Well, yeah, I do make dark beer. But this is like asking a winemaker if he makes red wine: he probably does. White wines too, most of the time. And I love all kinds of beer. Tangy-bitter Guinness Extra Stout, sure, but Boulevard Zön witbier, too; see also the deeply amber, big-malt-big-hops experience that is a glass of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (or it's big brother Big Foot Barleywine!!); see also a delicate and smooth Pilsner Urquell; see also a smoky-sweet peat smoked Scotch Ale; see also a fruity and potent Tripel; see also an assaultively acidic Lambic, see also a nicely balanced Ordinary Bitter; see also etc.

So just to be a contrary sort of Lobster, I decided to brew my idea of a light beer. I used 20 lbs of Golden Promise malt, a British pale malt with a very low Lovibond rating but a reputation for finishing quite malty and 3 lbs of Cara-Foam, basically an un-crystal crystal malt that ads body without adding much in the way of color. So I give you Beyond the Pale Ale.




I used the Thames Valley Wyeast strain and first-wort hopped 10 gallons with 2 oz. of Centennial (10.4%) and an ounce of Magnum (14%). Finishing hops were: 1 oz East Kent Goldings (6.9%) 20 minutes before the end of the boil; 1 oz Fuggle (6.0%) and 1 oz EKG's 10 minutes to go; Another ounce of EKG's and an ounce of Spalt (3.6%) at knockout. I only got 9 gallons pitched, and the initial gravity was only 1.042 (I thought it would be about 15 points higher), so we're looking at another Bitter Beer Face 96 IBUs.

I did recruit Em to help set up. I was kidding, told her 'carry this up to the head of the driveway.' I expected her to say, 'Dad! That's a beer keg!' Even though it's got the top cut out of it, it is what it is. Plus, it's got to be 30 lbs. Imagine my surprise when she just took it and carried it up there!



No, I don't have any illusions Em will just become my brewery slave. When she told me how she was going to get rich and famous the other day, and I said, 'So then you can outfit me with the brewery of my dreams?' she smilingly replied, 'No, but I'll pay your doctor bills.'



Which could come in handy, because I'm not as young as I once was, and my lower back really tells me about it when I do all the bending and lifting involved with a brew day. So my own pet chiropractor and massage therapist would be welcome additions to my personal Bear and the Big Brew House.



A good time was had by all, and with Derek & Kim's help, I even got shit put away more or less in time to take the honyocks to the Special Olympics swim party. Because I needed more sun and fresh air at this point, right? I'd only been out in the sun for ten hours at this point. But I did sunscreen the shit out of myself. Four applications by day's end, would have been five but I ran out. No desire to repeat my recent Darth Mall impersonation.