Half Acre Beer Company: kindred spirits? We’ll see…
Our friend (and fellow homebrewer) Ted has gotten himself hooked up to a real-life brewery: Half Acre Beer Company, based out of Chicago. Their story is an interesting one. Half Acre doesn’t yet have their own brewery, but they are working on it. In the meantime, they’re contract brewing with some friends farther North.
We’re going to try to snag an interview with Ted and/or Half Acre, but in the meantime, check out their site. Right now they only brew a lager. I’m not huge on lagers, but I’d be willing to give this mother a try.
Back to the basics
Thanks to all who came over to Jeff’s last night to brew with us. I think we had around 30 people ? which is close to a record. We had our hefeweizen and our scotch ale on tap. I was actually so busy running around that I didn’t have either. Except for the glass of combination hefe-scotch ale Joel poured for me. Thanks Joel.
Among those noticeably absent from Jeff’s house was Jeff, who was stuck at work. Fortunately, Joel and I were able to put on our brewmaster boots and pulled off what should become a nice IPA.
The IPA is one of the first beers we ever brewed (back in the extract days) and we’re still trying to get our recipe just right. To that end, we kept it pretty basic. Grain. Hops. I think there’s some water in there. Maybe some yeast. And Joel’s “special ingredient,” a huge hairball.
Troy invites us to his weekly rabbit/beer pairing
After making fun of Troy for being pretentious enough to talk about the virtues of pairing a Flemish sour with rabbit, he decided to make us eat crow rabbit. And eat rabbit we did. Troy served us up some tasty appetizers. I called it cheesy bread, but apparently it was a bit more complex. Something about Chimay cheeses.
We had 2 different Cantillons as our beers. The first was a lambic. The sour beer came into play when we were munching on some surprisingly delicious braised rabbit ? served over a bed of my famous mashed potatoes. What makes them famous? Heavy whipping cream. Lots of it.
Afterwards we played Settlers of Catan. It was my first time playing this true dork-fest of a game. Jeff was really good at it. If by “good at it” you mean “not able to build any settlements because of poor planning.” Cheers!
This is how we aerate
The “shake vigorously” method is well known to most homebrewers. Unfortunately, homebrewers comprise the minority in society. Society finds ways to make fun of us, even if it is because we “make love” to carboys full of brew. Whatever.
Presenting the Headless Horseman Imperial Pumpkin Ale label (v1)
Now accepting comments, suggestions, and high praises. Many many thanks to Dave who provided the name for us. The quote for this bad boy comes from Joseph Smith. Yes, THE Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism:
There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle.
The definition of a corn-dodger?
Corn Dodger
1. Noun. Small oval cake of corn bread baked or fried (chiefly southern).
The lines are officially open!