Monday Night recap: “Jonathan didn’t do much” edition

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t really do a whole lot last night. I showed up late, milled around and cleaned a couple things. I “pulled a Jeff,” as we say in the industry. So I apologize in advance if this isn’t the most insightful Monday Night recap.

I do know that we brewed a slightly revised version of our Belgian-style wheat beer, this time with some fresh ginger. Hopefully this will be a great edition to our summer line-up.

I also asked Joel to give me some indication as to how brewing went last night. He responded with this:

I nailed the mash out….and it didn’t take 2 hours like it did when you guys did it last week.

Ah Joel. Always humble, never accusatory. It’s so great to work with someone who is always trying to build you up instead of tear you down. I know I’m not the first to refer to Joel as the “Mother Theresa” of Monday Night Brewery, but the comparison is striking. Especially in the facial features.

Monday Means Brewing

First, three pieces of good news. One, we’re brewing tonight. Two, next week we will have a full supply of Monday Night beers. Three, DNA tests have confirmed that Jonathan is NOT the father of my son.

Ok, you knew it was coming – one bit of bad news. Remember how I said that next week we’ll have a full supply of beers? Tonight is a little different. While we have a modest amount of our IPA on tap for this evening, we will most likely not have enough to get us through the night. So you have two options – either come early or bring a little beer for yourself. We suggest the latter.

That said, in a brave and dedicated effort to replenish our beer stock, we will be brewing our Belgian Wheat beer this evening. There are even rumors that fresh ginger may be added, which I can neither confirm nor deny. But considering that Joel grew up in Japan and has always had a strange fixation on ginger, this would not be a tremendous surprise.

Monday Night recap: “Cool that wort” edition

Despite a 2.5 hour long sparging debacle (our first attempt at a mashout), we ended the night at about 10pm. Thanks to Melvin. Melvin, avid homebrewer and self-proclaimed super genius, was kind enough to let us demo his chilling system as we think about upgrading our current setup. Blah blah blah, submersion pump in ice water, blah blah blah, recirculating wort over immersion chiller, blah blah blah. Let’s skip to the good stuff. From boiling wort to 70 degrees in 12 minutes.

That. Just. Happened. In case you’re interested in the details, the setup is essentially this. Thanks again to Melvin for the link.

We brewed an original India Brown Ale recipe (not a clone like some other brewers we know and do not respect). This was a first for us, so we’re excited to see how it turns out. Heavy on the hops and medium-bodied. (Don’t tell Jeff, but even though the recipe called for .15 lbs of Chocolate Malt, I added .18 lbs).

In other, perhaps more important news, Joel revealed his true colors last night after Andrew brought him one of his favorite adult beverages, Bacardi Silver Mojito. Witness the presentation ceremony. Note: No Bacardi Silver Mojitos were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Monday Night recap: “No one drank the Bud Light Lime” edition

Another successful Monday night, albeit without Monday night beer. We brewed up our Eye Patch Ale with slightly fewer bittering hops and hit our target gravity on the nose. The only potential issue is that we were supposed to repitch our yeast from last week but I accidentally drained it into a non-sanitized non-sanctioned container. Oops. Instead we pitched from some fresh smack packs.

We had a good crowd last night, despite the BYOB stipulation. Which leads me to believe that Monday truly is the new Friday. Joel spent some time making a cool canopy for our hops instead of doing real work. No surprise there. Melvin picked up our beer slack and brought some of his homebrew to share. We were also blessed with a visit from Glenn of JailHouse Brewing, another soon-to-be Georgia microbrewery. More on that later in the week.

And finally, we are proud to announce that no one drank the Bud Light Lime. It was given to Jeff as a joke (at least that’s what he’s claiming) and it was sitting in plain view the entire night. We’re so proud of you guys.

Monday Night recap: “A stout turnout for a stout brew” edition

The story is all too familiar. You’re getting ready to brew a stout when your CEO calls and says he’s not going to make it because he got free court side tickets to the Atlanta Hawks playoff game. It has happened to the best of us, and even Joel and I are not impervious. What do you do in such a situation? You brew that stout anyway. And then the next day you burn your CEO publicly on the internet.

We had a great turnout last night. I think we also might have registered our highest female attendance on record. The word is definitely getting out: Monday night is ladies’ night. The beer was flowing (until we drank it all). The double IPA and the bourbon oak stout were fan favorites. I’ve been thinking about names for the double IPA… right now I like “Blind Pirate.” On the label would be a pirate with double the amount of eye patches as a normal pirate. Thoughts?

We haven’t made a final decision on what type of stout this latest batch will ultimately be. We are leaning towards another bourbon oak since it’s so durn tasty. If you’ve got some other kind of hankering, let us know. [Note: licorice stout WILL NOT be considered.]

In other news, Joel spent some time last night refilling our adjunct grain jars. A thankless task, for which I do not thank him. Thanks to all who came last night, hope you enjoyed yourselves. Fair warning: not brewing over the last few weeks has cut into our beer stock significantly, so there may come a time in the near future when we’ll have to institute a BYOB policy. This does not mean that we don’t love you. It means that we love you too much.

Think about it.

Let the whining commence

We’re going to have to cancel brewing on Monday. I know, I know. In the last month or so we have become incredibly lame. Suffice to say that we do not wish this trend of lameness to continue. But absences (Joel) and illness (myself) don’t give us much of an option this week.

We trust that you will be mature about all of this and open up some craft beers without us tomorrow night.

Monday Night recap: “It’s about time” Edition

After one of the longest weeks in existence off, we “Monday-nighted it” for real last night. We had 5 beers on tap, and even though it was an abbreviated evening since we didn’t actually brew, it was a fun evening. I would like to take a moment to share this photo that Jeanine took. Why is it special? Because this is probably the only shot of all three owners socializing on a Monday night. Usually at least one of us is working (and complaining about how Jeff isn’t working), but the duties were lighter last night.

One thing we did do last night was dry hop the latest [experimental] batch of our Eye Patch Ale. We’re curious to see how it turns out, since we tried some first-wort hopping on this batch. First indications are that it is definitely more hoppy than its predecessors, but potentially in a good way. We’ll see how it tastes once it has been dry hopped and carbonated.

Thanks to everyone who came last night, we hope to be actually brewing next week. And a little bird told me that Joel will be out of town, so maybe we’ll actually be productive!