The Headless Horseman rides again!

For now, I’m going to refer to our Pumpkin Ale as the Headless Horseman. It doesn’t simplify things, but it keeps me happy.

We made some tweaks to our recipe this time. For one, we added pumpkin to the mash instead of the boil. See the pumpkin-infused wort trickling into our boil pot above. Notice the bazooka tube (that mesh wire thing) that Joel jerry-rigged to fit the threading. Silly Joel.

And, for good measure, here’s our sparging setup ? “in action” as the kids say. Rinse those grains!

The Headless Horseman turned out really well. We added a few less spices this time so it doesn’t end up tasting like liquid cloves. We also were ABOVE our target gravity, so this could end up being an imperial pumpkin ale. Schwing!

“I don’t drink any beer from Georgia except yours”

A direct quote from our illustrious friend Troy last night, and one that made us all happy.

Troy also dropped another nugget on us. We were talking about how we don’t like sour beers all that much. Troy chimed in, “Yeah, I appreciate a good Flemish sour with some nice rabbit.” Apparently Tuesdays and Thursdays are rabbit days in the Troy household. Troy is what we call a “tool.”

But let’s not detract from the real hero last night, Tubbs:

You’ll notice that I did not edit myself out of the picture. My butt just looked too good. I had an absolutely breathtaking hiney last night. Expect more substantial posts about last night later on… We just had to get this out of our system.

All Hands Monday

After taking a week off from brewing last week, we’re back in the saddle tonight. We have a full agenda, which includes a second batch of our pumpkin beer. We also have about 40 gallons beer that are ready for bottling or kegging, so if you’ve never come by a little early to learn a bit more or assist with kegging or bottling, tonight is your night.

Another consequence of having so much beer in the hopper is that very little of it is actually ready to drink. Next week, we’ll be good to go, but if you have a chance, this week would be the perfect week to bring by a six-pack of your favorite microbrew. And for the record, the following beers do NOT count as micros: Honey Brown, Newcastle, Corona, Bud Light, Ice House, Smirnoff Ice or vodka.

Back at it

It seems like it’s been forever since we’ve brewed… We actually did brew a second batch of our peach Belgian amber, Southern Monk, 8 days ago. But tomorrow will mark the return to Monday nights for us.

With Halloween just around the corner, it seems fitting that we brew another pumpkin beer. Plus, think our last batch turned out a little heavy on the cloves. This is not the first time we’ve overdone an ingredient.

To get you guys in the pumpkin beer mindset, here’s a great article on what the big guys (and by big guys I mean microbreweries) do with their pumpkin beers. There are a few things I found interesting 1) adding pumpkin to the mash, and 2) the use of Mt. Hood hops by multiple breweries.

See ya’ll tomorrow!

The Big Guys Go “Craft”

The Wall Street Journal published a recent article showing that the three major US breweries (Anheus r-Busch, SABMiller and Molson Coors) have grown their “craft” beer sales by nearly 45% in 2007, while independent craft brewery sales have only risen 16%. There are two lines of thinking in the craft beer world about this rapid growth. “Some beer aficionados and industry executives deride the brews made by big companies as “faux” crafts,” says the author. In general, these folks view the movement of the big 3 outside their core market as a threat to independents. The other perspective is to view this as a positive trend towards a whole new way of thinking about American beer. The folks at New Belgium in Colorado have taken this attitude, and actually see this as a sign that the American consumer is dissatisfied with the watery, flavorless, uninspired “beer” that has dominated the market for so long. I tend to agree with the latter position – a Blue Moon (owned by Coors) drinker is much more likely to try other craft beers than a Bud Light drinker. I’m optimistic that they are simply making the craft beer pie bigger for all of us. And I’m also still convinced that a macro-owned “craft” brand will never be able to displace the character and quality that has allowed independent breweries to expand so rapidly.
Any perspectives out there? Is this a good thing for beer dorks or not?

Best. Dream. Ever.

A friend of mine (Summer) just sent me a dandy surprise email. Apparently she has been having some pretty vivid dreams lately, and one of these dreams is about MNB. I think she’s a prophet. I present to you the twisted mind of Summer with minimal edits:

for some reason, i was in atlanta and was at intown church (but not really intown – you know how that works) on sunday morning for worship. i picked up a worship guide at the door and took a seat. as the music started i was utterly confused to find buster bluth leading worship with none other than the men of monday night brewery. puzzled, but playing along, i sang “lord, i lift your name on high” with you guys.

the next song was one i wasn’t familiar with, so i opened my worship guide to follow along. at that moment, i realized we weren’t really singing about jesus anymore. we were singing about beer. your (again, your) beer to be exact. in fact, as i flipped through the worship bulletin, i realized that all the songs were about your beer, each new song featuring another brew. again, i reiterate that these were not the actual products of mnb, only poor substitutes created by my subconscious. but each beer/song had a full-page design in the bulletin, and each song was a of a different genre that somehow captured the essence of each beer. literally, the entirely liturgy was about beer. i didn’t stay in dream land for the whole service – i think i only heard about 3 or 4 of your fine offerings. and while i’m not sure that jesus’ name was ever mentioned, i think he was pleased, or at least amused.

Shortages galore

Beer prices are on the rise. Hop shortages worldwide have already driven up the price of hops fourfold for some varieties. Our friends over at Yours for Good Fermentables have written a good piece, and more can be found here from Seattle P-I.

Unfortunately this isn’t the only crisis plaguing beer production in Georgia. Those who live here already know, but we’re also facing a pretty severe water shortage (ironic, since it’s raining today). We at MNB have actually discussed cutting back our brewing until the shortage is over, just to do our part. We have yet to come to any conclusions yet.

Personally, I think that if Jeff, Joel and I didn’t take showers for a week we could conserve enough water to brew guilt-free. Though I don’t think Joel takes showers now… Any volunteers to take his place in our water strike?