Our next beer will be called…
Fu Manbrew! Congratulations to Philip M for submitting the winning name! Fu Manbrew won with 42% of the total vote. Handlebar was a close second with 37% of the vote. And apparently only a minority of you guys wanted to order a Walrus at the bar. Thanks to everyone who voted, contributed, and shared. This was a lot of fun. But it’s not quite over! One of the challenges of the Fu Man Brew name is making the graphic look good on our labels. We’ve got three potential options, and we’d love it if you voted on your favorite. Vote in the poll below.
Loading ...Now begins the process of ordering tap handles, getting label approval, and trademarking names. It’s a fun process (not really). We’re hoping to get everything buttoned up, including one final test batch, in the next 2 months, so we’ll see how quickly we can launch this new mustachio’d beer!
Thanks to Philip M. for all of his creativity, and thanks to Scoutmob for indulging us in this new experiment in crowdsourcing our beer name. I’m pretty sure we shattered Scoutmob’s record for Facebook comments.
Monday Night crowdsourced beer naming contest in the final round!
We’re partnering with mustache-lovers Scoutmob to crowdsource the name our next beer, a Belgian wit brewed with a hint of ginger. With over 100 name entries from you guys, it was tough narrowing it down to our favorites. But after a few beers, we were able to struggle through it. The finalists?
- Fu Manbrew (submitted by Philip M.)
- Handlebar Wit (submitted by Greg L.)
- Walrus Wit (submitted by Larry S.)
Help name our next beer!
We’ve teamed up with Scoutmob to name our next beer, a 4.5% Belgian wit brewed with just a hint of ginger. If you’d like to submit a name idea, please follow the link and DO IT! We’ll be choosing a round of finalists, based on our proprietary set of internal criteria, which we will share openly with you here:
- Must be mustache-themed
- Must be awesome
- Must not be the name of another beer
Monday Night recap: “User error” edition
We decided to give our double IPA ? codenamed Blind Pirate ? another go last night. The Brew Gods were apparently not pleased with our choice. I think they are Drafty Kilt fans. We started the night by spilling approximately 200 tons of unmilled base malt on the garage floor. So that was fun to clean up. Also, by “we” I mean “I.”
Things started getting better, until we experienced a mysterious boil-over, despite adding Fermcap-S, our trusty anti-boil-over agent. Or should I make that EX-trusty anti-boil-over agent. This boil-over clogged up our burner, which we had to turn off, dismantle, clean, and reassemble. I’m not sure if the boil-over was due to user error, but given the events of the night, I wouldn’t put it past us.
Last, this happened:
Yes friends, it IS possible to melt a flashlight. Salvador Dalí, eat your heart out. Learning for the evening: If you leave a crappy flashlight next to a hot burner, it will melt. At least we weren’t trying to impress anyone. Like my fiance’s entire family, who came out to brew with us for the first time last night.
Despite the countless user errors, we ended up with what we think will be a great beer. Time will tell, if it doesn’t melt first. Thanks to all who came out ? it was cold. And we appreciate you.
Oh, I also burned my hand pretty badly. Stupid Brew Gods.
Monday Night recap: “Workhorse” edition
This special edition of “Monday Night recap” is dedicated to Scott Williams, showing his best side in the above picture. Scott does the work of three Joels combined (which isn’t saying a ton), freeing up the rest of us to do things like drink beer and talk to newcomers. Thanks for hopping, cleaning, popping, and locking.
We brewed a roasty toasty IPA last night ? a little bit of an experiment, and a tweak on a toasty IPA that will be served in coming weeks. There was some Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale on tap, though it went super fast. Which we take as a good sign. We also sold some t-shirts. They’re selling out, folks, so bring a crisp $10 bill next time you come. We also accept other denominations of bills, checks, and trades for web developing services.
OH OBLIGATORY ARTSY SHOT BOO YA. Consider yourself cultured. You’re welcome.
Monday Night recap: “Nothing more exciting than a new hose” edition
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is literally nothing more exciting than a new garden hose. The ice debacle of last week broke one of our old hoses, so we amped up the party with our new rubber baby from Ace Hardware. Fortunately last night was relatively warm. We brewed up a new porter recipe which we’ll be experimenting with a little bit in secondary fermentation.
Needless to say, we hit our target gravity on the nose. Which probably has something to do with the fact that Joel didn’t help at all.
Despite Joel’s insolence, it was good to get back in the swing of things. Last night was the first Monday we’ve met since 2009. Frankly, we’re still a little disappointed that the world didn’t end when we brewed on a Saturday.
We also had a bunch of homebrewers bring their wares last night. It’s always great to try new beers. And someone brought some amaaaaazing chocolate cookies. I don’t know who you were, but I ate one. It was like a thousand chocolate fairies were dancing on my tongue. I hope they didn’t have any roofies or razor blades in them.
No, seriously. Did those cookies have roofies in them? I don’t remember falling asleep last night.
Saturday Morning recap: “OMG IT’S FREEZING” edition
We won’t be brewing tonight because we brewed this past Saturday. The 10:30am start time coupled with the icy roads scared many people away from brewing. But “many” people is not “this” people:
Russ was the only one who came out. We’re not bitter about it. We’re just disappointed. Regardless, we choked back our tears and brewed an updated version of the fresh hop IPA we brewed in the late fall. This was a lighter-bodied IPA compared to the Eye Patch Ale, and it turned out quite nice. We wanted to see if we could replicate it without using fresh hops, since these aren’t available year-round.
Brewing took a little longer than anticipated due to developments such as:
- Having to thaw our hoses
- Only being able to clean things with hot water, which had to be carried from inside
- Jeff’s sprinkler pipes bursting mid-brew
- Joel being an idiot
In summary, thanks to all who came on Saturday. Namely, Russ.