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.

Memorialize THIS, Mr. Raincloud

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! If you live in the Atlanta area, you’re most likely enjoying the overcast skies and the impending threat of rain.

We pay no heed to such things as weather. We will be brewing tonight, rain or shine. What will we be brewing? Jeff has informed us that it will be a surprise, which is a code word for “I’m tired of brewing the same beers and I want to experiment.” Be afraid. Though this will undoubtedly turn out better than our Casserole Ale.

UPDATE: We are brewing an India Brown Ale… i.e. a hoppy porter. Made famous by Dogfish Head and Terrapin. I for one am excited.

While we may have a small amount of our beer on tap tonight (depending on the carbonation levels), I would strongly suggest bringing your own beer, as there will only be enough for a tasting. That’s right. Another BYOB. That’s only if you want to be guaranteed a delicious alcoholic beverage, of course.

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.

BYOB

Unfortunately tonight we’re a little light on the beer at the moment. As in, we don’t have any. We take full responsibility for this and are working frantically to brew for the future. Case in point: tonight we’ll be brewing another [slightly] revised batch of our Eye Patch Ale. And we’ll be drinking whatever you bring, so make it good. Joel likes strawberry kiwi wine coolers, so someone make sure to pick up a 4-pack. Or two 4-packs. Sometimes Joel goes a little crazy when he gets that strawberry kiwi in him.

8pm, Casa de Jeff. See you there? What was that? You’re not coming because the only beer you drink is Monday Night beer? I’m not even mad. Not even a little bit.

To receive text message updates on brewing each week, text “MNB” to 68398.

Image source: tolief

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.

A tale that needs telling

This weekend Jeff was at Phipps Mall (I don’t know why… you’ll have to bring that up with him) and noticed a harp player playing “Everything I Do” by the patron saint of Monday Night Brewery, Bryan Adams. A harp player. Bryan. Adams. Why is this significant? It’s not, really. But it’s something you need to know.

In more news that you need to know, we are brewing our stout tonight at Jeff’s house. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve actually brewed, so we’re looking forward to getting back to it. Hope to see some of you at 8pm tonight. Be aware that there is a 40% 20% chance of precipitation, but we will be brewing regardless.

We should also have our long-awaited double IPA on tap. It probably won’t last too long because, as Joel says,

“It puts the ‘ish’ in delishous.”

Monday Night recap (Excited hops edition)

Monday was pretty much awesome. Some new folks, some old folks, and just enough rain to keep it interesting. We had some stellar beers on tap, including the Eye Patch Ale and Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale. We also tasted our 1-week-old double IPA. Gravity was down to 1.021 from 1.070 in a week, which is great news. And initial taste tests indicate that this could be a very nice beer. Well-balanced and hoppy in all the right ways.

Not to be outdone, our homegrown hops have been busy growing. Like this 3-year-old Cascade:

Cute little bugger. We also learned a valuable lesson on Monday. People will do stuff for you if you give them free beer. The key is to say everything with a straight face. That’s how we suckered Colin into digging a hole for us.

Note: upper body not shown to keep this blog PG. Despite the rain, Colin dug a post hole for our new hop trellis. I do believe we could have asked Colin to wax Joel’s back and he would have said yes. We’re excited about this new double IPA, which should be ready to drink in 3-4 weeks. We’re more excited about our Eye Patch Ale and Drafty Kilt. Only a few more tweaks to the Eye Patch and we should have it where we want it (that’s what she said?).

In other news, our friends Cigar City and Metropolitan Brewing got written up in a little thing called the Wall Street Journal!