Kegerator Construction Update

I have been (not really) working on building a six tap kegerator out of an old chest freezer that I picked up on eBay. When it is completed it will have four CO2 beer taps for dispensing either homebrew or commercial beer from kegs. There will also be one nitro-mix stout dispensing faucet and one dedicated soda faucet for homemade rootbeer and such.

Since my spending money is low and building a kegerator is really expensive, I am installing just two taps for now and will continue expanding this project later on as time and funding permit.

I just finished wiring up my Ranco digital temperature controller. I plugged in the freezer and set the controller temp and listened to the triumphant sound of the compressor kicking on.

Now I'm off to Westy's to buy some beer to put in this thing!

Cheers.

Surprise Bottle of Alpha Attack APA Pleases Palates

At today's holiday dinner at my wife's parents' house, my father-in-law shocked me by producing a bottle of my very first batch of homebrewed beer from his basement refrigerator.

Inside this unassuming brown glass bottle, marked on the cap simply as "#1", lay my very first attempt at brewing: an all-grain American-style Pale Ale with Cascade and Chinook hops.

This beer was brewed in October of 2005. I used this beer as sort of a trial run since I had no practical experience with either my equipment or the brewing process at the time.

When fermentation and packaging was complete back at the end of 2005, we actually ended up with a fairly decent beer. On the malt side it was lightly sweet with a crisp dry finish but the bitterness from the hops was overstated with a lingering harshness much more suited to a crazy-assed DIPA.

The beer became known as "Alpha Attack" both because it was my first ever batch and because of the onslaught of hop alpha acid that came from drinking it.

I had until today believed that there were no more bottles of Alpha Attack in existence. To my knowledge the final bottles had been consumed at my birthday party almost an entire year ago.

My first thought on seeing that bottle today was how completely horrible the beer inside was going to be. I would expect a homebrewed Pale Ale that was over a year-and-a-half-old to be completely ruined.

What I found instead was a very pleasing beer, still heavy on the bitter and with a more subdued hop nose, but the flavor was spot-on for the style. And the presentation was excellent, with clear, bright color, no hazing, and the intact carbonation fueling a nice white head.

This was a very nice surprise. I was proud to see that this humble beer had survived its journey and in some ways even improved with time.

Happy Easter, Cheers!

Follow this link for more information on Alpha Attack including the original ProMash recipe.

Seis de Miah Invitations Going to Press This Week

Watch your mailboxes. Invites should begin arriving sometime next week.

This year the party will be held on Saturday, May 5th.

No featured homebrew this year due to events beyond my control. But we will be pouring PLENTY of quality suds of the commercial variety.

More info here: bluewaterbeer.com/party.html