Monday Night Recap: “Not as funny since Jonathan is not writing it” edition

I’ll start with a disclaimer that this post will not be as funny as Jonathan’s recap, nor will you find any links to incredibly attractive pictures of me.  What you will find is a fact-based dissertation of yesterday evening’s events.  Finally.

1. Jeff was there the whole evening. For those of you who come on Mondays you’ll know that Jeff usually returns from his “day job” around 8pm, he strolls in, mumbles something about “attenuation, mash efficiency, blah blah blah” and then proceeds to mingle with people while Jonathan and I brew the beer.  Yesterday Jeff was actually the first one there and while our gravity did end up closer to where we needed it, he successfully violated every SOP (that’s Standard Operating Procedure for your artistic folks) we’ve ever had in place.  It was great to have you Jeff.

2. We fixed our chest freezer. OK, so since we didn’t find a chest freezer that fit our exact size requirement we had to go with the next best thing – which meant the new one was 6 inches too long.  But no worries, I had a plan all along and when recent MNB attendee Andrew showed up first he went to town on the knocking out modifications with me. Within about a half hour our new fermentation chamber was fully operational (although not quite symmetrical).  Basically we filled in the last 6 inches with some foam insulation and we’ll use the existing top for the time being.

3. We harvested our hops. I think we sat a new record for actual work being done by our Monday Night attendees (usually they just get in the way and drink our beer).  Rob, Justin, Andrew and David (albeit in a more “supervisory” role) did an amazing job pulling down vines and plucking the pure goodness from our organic hop vines.

Rob adds value by harvesting hops. Kurt adds value by talking and watching.

4. We did a marketing survey. Yeah, we figured the least we could ask in return for free beer would be some marketing insights.  So….we put our two versions of the Belgian Peach Dubbel on tap next to each other and asked for votes.  This pic is from an early tally but I think the final ended about about 3 to 1 preferred “B” which is less peachy.  We originally brewed something that was about 3x the “more” amount and it would have been called “too much” (although Jonathan and all the single ladies LOVED it…but I think Jonathan was lying to win the single ladies approval).

Who wrote "needs more body"? Our response: "So does your mom"

5.  We brewed beer. Shocking.  Who would have thunk we could do so much in an evening.  We brewed a batch of our drafty Kilt scotch ale – the last two that were in the fermenter had to be dumped because it died on us.  We used on our sweet new brewmagic and safely placed it into our new fermentation chamber.  It better be good.

Photo credits: Jeanine

Jonathan joins Facebook. The world stops turning.

I knew I was popular. I just had no idea HOW popular till I joined Facebook last night. And now I’ve got like a million friends. I’m pretty much the opposite of Travis, that’s how popular I am.

But enough about me, how was brewing last night? In two words, lonely and cold. Including Jeff, Joel and myself we had a grand total of 3 people. To your credit, it was frigid. But you guys missed us achieving 83% attenuation on our organic pale ale (that’s good). And you missed the roaring fire that Joel created in he driveway. You also missed us brewing our first post-Brewhaha IPA. We’re targeting a higher final gravity for this bad boy. More of an imperial IPA. Jeff claims to be in complete control of the fermentation process. I think he has a cousin that’s a yeast cell or something. It definitely wouldn’t surprise me.

MNB bites the stainless steel bullet

It takes a lot to get Jeff excited enough to crap himself. Well, he just crapped himself. Why? Because we have two (2) 14.5 gallon stainless steel conical fermenters from Blichmann Engineering arriving on Monday. We’ve been pinching our pennies to splurge on these bad boys, which offer a number of advantages:

• minimal handling of fermenting beer since we won’t have to transfer and can siphon the yeast off the bottom
• easy measurement via access to a ball valve
• no light
• easy cleaning compared to carboys
• badass

The plan is to pilot our first organic beer in one of these conicals. We’ll see if we can get all of the supplies in on time. If so, I do believe Jeff will crap himself AGAIN.

Interview with an organic brewer ? via Bearded Brewing

Bearded Brewing has started an interview series with organic brewers. He recently talked with Daniel of Bison Brewing Company, whose fine beers can be purchased at Ted’s Montana Grill, among other places, here in Atlanta. I encourage you to read the entire article, but here’s my favorite question/answer tandom:

What are some things you do at your brewery to be sustainable or minimize your environmental impact?

1. Every beer I make is certified organic and sports the nifty USDA logo. Every other ?organic? brewer that I know of ALSO brews non-organically because of convenience. My conviction is to go as far as possible.
2. Paperless office (I bought Adobe Professional to jockey documents on my laptop?.well worth the price).
3. Home office (short commute).
4. Instead of buying and building a resource intensive new brewery, I recently did a brewery co-op with a brewery. My idea is that it is more green to use an existing brewery and bring it closer to full capacity and optimal efficiency than to start a second, private location. It is like a newspaper printing press which can print many different newspapers using the same equipment and people, but the Bison beers has its own exclusive ?editor? and ?sales and marketing? staff and distribution network?.just like a different newspaper editorial board?..
5. Bought a VW Jetta TDI from Detroit so I could run biodiesel during my sales calls (and personal life).
6. Sold my old Isuzu Box Truck which was terrible on fuel efficiency. Now I rent a diesel truck about once per week (not biodiesel, but better mileage).
7. I use recycled paperboard and soy based ink for all my 6-pack carriers?..BTW, recycled cardboard boxes are the norm, so I can?t really take any credit for that.

Also, some general good advice from Daniel: “Brewing is 80% cleaning, 10% fermentation temperature control, and 10% recipe?..sometimes homebrewers mix that up.”

MNB goes organic (kind of)

We’ve resolved to start brewing organic. And up till now, we’ve been all talk. Technically, we’re still all talk, but we have managed to procure 100 lbs of organic 2-row base malt ? no easy feat in Georgia. And thanks to Joel’s wily dealings we have more organic grains and some organic hops on the way. We got enough to brew our Swashchuckler IPA and our stout to test the waters.

Our reasons for brewing organic are twofold. One, organic seems like the right thing to do. It’s better for the environment, better for people, better for communities… The Beer Activist does a great job detailing the numerous benefits of organic beer. Two, it’s different from the competition. No other Georgia breweries are brewing organic ? and precious few breweries in the South are. We’ll be a definite underdog in the years after opening our doors, but some great organic brews might give us a point of differentiation when marketing our beers. Not to mention they should taste better.

Come on by tomorrow! We won’t be brewing organic yet… but we will be brewing.