Official Alcohol Discussion Thread!

[DaMexiRican]

Can we get a sticky for this?

What do ya'll prefer to drink? Beer, Wine, Hard Liquor, Wine Coolers? All of them?

I only drink Beer and Hard Liquor. Mint Mojito is about the only thing close to a wine cooler I'll drink though LOL

 

[Illiciter]

I just made the move to all grain, my orange wheat was the first one. You can get nearly perfect color with a full boil instead of using rice or sugar, I was very pleased with the color on my wheat. I'll see if I can post a pic soon. I'm itching to use my setup again, I've got ingredients for a pale ale coming in today. Probably won't get to brew until sunday though.

Have you ever tried to actually make a lager? I don't have a spare fridge to do any lagering in so I was thinking about using a swamp cooler to ferment at about 50-55 degrees and then keg it and lager inside my kegerator for about 8 weeks. I'll be bottling this next batch in order to make due without one of my keg lines for 8 weeks *sniffle* I really want to make a dopplebock next and an oktoberfest towards the end of the summer.

Side Note: Saturday is the first US game in the world cup, beers at 1:30! After that, we are going to the "world beer fest". It's a beer festival on Brown's island here in richmond and it is going to have beers from over 200 breweries Tickets include a tasting glass, commemorative pint glass, all you and drink and a meal as well. The brew day on sunday may get delayed depending on how much "sampling" I do at the world beer fest

I do full boils, but the rice and sugar are for the alcohol boost since my mash is about 50-60% smaller than an all-grain batch. I've got a full sanke that I've cut the top off of but I haven't fitted it with the valves to use it yet.. I figure with my 10 gallon megapot and 15 gallon sanke I can easily run all grain 5 gallon batches.. I just want the 15 gallons to ensure I can make some tall beers if I want. Those picnic cooler setups look nice and everything, but I want to be able to heat my mash and have more control over the temp.

I do have a moderately successful lawnmower ale that I'll churn out when I'm lazy that is all extract. I like it for its convenience in that my brew day takes as long as boiling water for an hour. Extract isn't inferior to all-grain, just that all-grain gives you a little more control over the profile. My cousin has one gold after gold medal in competitions and most all of those were all-extract beers.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

I have had plenty of excellent extract beers as well. I'm currently boiling in an old sanke too, it made a huge difference over the stove top pot. You don't need to have valves in it though, I just cool the wort down with my wort chiller and then syphon it out. I put a small nylon bag over the end of the syphon to keep the trub and hop sludge out and it works like a charm.

 

[Illiciter]

I have had plenty of excellent extract beers as well. I'm currently boiling in an old sanke too, it made a huge difference over the stove top pot. You don't need to have valves in it though, I just cool the wort down with my wort chiller and then syphon it out. I put a small nylon bag over the end of the syphon to keep the trub and hop sludge out and it works like a charm.

Thought about doing that, too. I got a Shirron plate chiller though that I'm getting ready to try out. Looking at getting a march pump to pump hot wort through the plate chiller back into the pot to chill the whole batch down super fast, then just run the wort into a carboy and pitch. I read that the process is quite a bit faster than a copper coil setup and I like the idea of using a couple sankes as mash and boiling kettles.. just need to get another sanke and then I could use my 10 gallon megapot for a hot liquor tank.

Soooo many things I wanna make for a brew setup to make all-grain an almost turn-key process. There's even a LP gas thermostat you can buy to regulate the gas flow to your burner. I think it was like $40 or so at the banjo burner site. Have the mash run off the temp I set it at, permanently fix the thermostat to the mash tun and all I have to do is stir once in awhile.
Almost sounds like a christmas song, "3 Beer Kettles, Two march pumps, and a beer in each of my hands!"

 

[Horhay]

I went to two different liquor stores and didn't find your beer splax. Will go to another on Sunday.

 

[splax23]

Its been quite over here whats everyone been drinking?

Recently for me

Short's Anniversary Ale (Blood Orange Wheatwine)
Short's Black Licorice Lager
Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout (AMAZING!!!)

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

It's been mainly homebrew for me, except for last friday when the US was playing Slovenia. We went downtown to a british pub and I had 4 pints of Fuller's ESB at 7:45AM

I really want to make something similar for my next beer.

 

[Off_contstantly]

Nothing crazy here for me either. Just regular store stuff:

Sam Adams Summer Ale
Guinness
KBS

I'll try some new East Coast stuff here in about two weeks though.

 

[Illiciter]

At home I've been drinking on my peach wheat and apfelwein.

At band practice I find myself picking up Tallgrass' Kold Lager and Shlafly's Kolsch pretty regularly.

At the studio I've been drinking on 75th street brewery's Golden Ale, Raspberry Wheat, and Optimator. The 75th street brewery is across the street from the studio - how 'bout them apples. Too bad I'm not absolutely in love with their beers...

I'm working on my orange pale ale recipe, I will have another oatmeal stout going, and currently have a fruit punch wine fermenting. It's made up of 14 cans of fruit juice concentrate and enough water to bring it to a hair over 5 gallons. The fruit is as follows:

1 can pineapple orange
1 can pineapple banana
1 can cranberry apple
2 cans blueberry pomegranate
2 cans cherry pomegranate
3 cans cherry apple
4 cans raspberry apple


I didn't add any sugar and the reading came out to just about 1.048 which means I'll be around 6% ABV after it's done. I'll probably backsweeten it a bit and maybe dry hop it to throw a curveball on it. Kinda workin' a poor man's brew angle as it only cost me $18 bucks or so for the concentrate and I get more variety in flavor. Tasted and smells great so far so we'll see how this works...

 

[Off_contstantly]

Glad you mentioned Schlafly. I've also got some of Schlafly's Pale Ale in the fridge too.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Nice alpha, I want to know how that turns out as well. I actually made a gallon of mead last night for the first time. I used 3 1/2 pounds of clover honey and I cut up and orange and threw in a handful of crazins too. It smelled delicious, unfortunately, I've got to wait about 6 months to do any drinking on this one

Oh, and my pale that is in the carboy now is waaaay overdone. It was only my second allgrain. The first I was under my desired gravity so I purposely bought an extra pound of grain this time. Well, I got higher than normal gravity this time and wound up with a OG of 1.060. I tossed in a packet of dry yeast, US-05, and it took it all the way down to 1.006

I'm bottling this batch to take to the beach later this summer, 7.5% pale ale anyone I was only going to dry hop with a half ounce but I'm considering going for a full ounce and making it an IPA. IBU's are already around 42 so it could work.

 

[Illiciter]

Nice alpha, I want to know how that turns out as well. I actually made a gallon of mead last night for the first time. I used 3 1/2 pounds of clover honey and I cut up and orange and threw in a handful of crazins too. It smelled delicious, unfortunately, I've got to wait about 6 months to do any drinking on this one

Oh, and my pale that is in the carboy now is waaaay overdone. It was only my second allgrain. The first I was under my desired gravity so I purposely bought an extra pound of grain this time. Well, I got higher than normal gravity this time and wound up with a OG of 1.060. I tossed in a packet of dry yeast, US-05, and it took it all the way down to 1.006

I'm bottling this batch to take to the beach later this summer, 7.5% pale ale anyone I was only going to dry hop with a half ounce but I'm considering going for a full ounce and making it an IPA. IBU's are already around 42 so it could work.

Sounds about right there good buddy! Mmmm I love a good cold pale ale in hot weather.

Unfortunately I just got my blood work done, they said I gotta lay off the booze a bit and start getting more exercise. I complained that lifting beers to my mouth was plenty of exercise especially after 14 or 15. They didn't get as much of a kick outta that joke as I did. Oh well, I was ramping up my exercise lately anyways so I'm wagering the numbers they gave me are lower than from a couple months ago.

Yay for sedentary lifestyles!

 

[splax23]

So i was watching Hung season premiere last night on HBO, and in the episode the one broad was like how about a microbrew and what does she have? a 4pk of Founders Double Trouble. Trueblood had turbodog as well.

Good to see craft beer on tv.

 

[DaMexiRican]

:thumbs up:

Microbrew is the best

 

[Off_contstantly]

:thumbs up:

Microbrew is the best

+1

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

So since we have monday off as a holiday for July 4th, I decided that I would take today off as well and get a 4 day weekend. Well I happened to get some more grain/ supplies for a new batch of beer yesterday so it only seemed logical that I brew today. It's not even 8 AM here and I'm already 30 mins into my mash

Some would say alcoholic, I say I'm just dedicated

 

[Illiciter]

So since we have monday off as a holiday for July 4th, I decided that I would take today off as well and get a 4 day weekend. Well I happened to get some more grain/ supplies for a new batch of beer yesterday so it only seemed logical that I brew today. It's not even 8 AM here and I'm already 30 mins into my mash

Some would say alcoholic, I say I'm just dedicated

you are drinking while you're brewing right?

I'm a firm believer in tradition.

when I was judging beer I woke up and started taste testing at 9am.. that's the earliest I've ever woken up, ate breakfast, and went right back to drinking, evar. I truly felt like I should go to meetings after that.

 

[splax23]

Couple new beers came out yesterday. Shorts Rich's RIPA and Founder Devil Dancer. Devil Dancer is a Triple IPA 112 IBU's and 12% abv. Delicious!!!

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

you are drinking while you're brewing right?

I'm a firm believer in tradition.

when I was judging beer I woke up and started taste testing at 9am.. that's the earliest I've ever woken up, ate breakfast, and went right back to drinking, evar. I truly felt like I should go to meetings after that.

I at least waited until the boil, so about 10:30

We used to wake up and start drinking/tailgating at about 8AM for the football games at noon when we were in school. I never felt bad then though, Blacksburg goes nuts on game day so there were always plenty of others drinking with us that early!

 

[mobius387]

i love days when my only worry is what beer im going to have...with lunch

my parents fridge holds 3 different types of beers right now:

lakefront brewery's riverwest stein (microbrew out of milwuakee)

stella

or samuel smith's oatmeal stout

which one should i have?

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Depends on how hot it is up there in Milwuakee today.... Sam Smiths oatmeal stout is delicious, and I havent had one of those in a while. But if it's like 85 or 90 degrees then forget that!

Never had that riverwest one, but I have had stella and it's just ok for me so I guess the riverwest would be my second.