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

Siebel Institute Announces Brewery Start-up Course

Thinking of starting your own brewpub or brewery? You may want to check out this three-day course at Siebel Institute's Chicago campus. The course was designed by Ray Daniels, runs from May 2-4, 2007 and tuition is $1075.

Find out more at: http://www.siebelinstitute.com/course_desc/start_brewery.html

Ex-Heavyweight's Brewpub

Picked up this story from the Beer Yard:

Tom Baker, formerly of Heavyweight Brewing Company in NJ, has announced plans for a brewpub/beer bar in Nyack, NY. The former Heavyweight owner/brewer had promised fans that this would be the next step in his career. However it was widely speculated that the new venture would be located somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania.

The announcement of the brewpub's home in New York comes as a bit of a surprise and disappointment for me personally, as I was hoping it would pop up somewhere in my "day-trip" area. But I guess NY isn't that far away for those of us in the Susquehanna Valley, just not as close as we had hoped.

We wish Tom and his wife Peggy the best of luck and I will try to make my stash of Heavyweight beers last until the brewpub opens.

Cheers!

Olde Frothingslosh

While at the North Museum in Lancaster this weekend with my daughter, I came across a peculiar looking can in the black-light room. It was a can of Olde Frothingslosh beer from Pittsburgh Brewing Company. The brightly-glowing label looked like this:

Having never heard of “Olde Frothingslosh” before I decided to do a little investigating.

It turns out, Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale, started out as joke on a radio morning show called “Cordic & Co.” on KDKA in Pittsburgh. Rege Cordic ran series of phony commercials on his show for fake products invented by the show’s staff. This fictional beer which was "so light the foam is on the bottom” was one of the more popular sketches on Cordic’s show.

In 1954 the president of Pittsburgh Brewing Company, S. E. Cowelt, approached Cordic about using the Frothingslosh name for a joke of his own. Cowelt’s plan was to package his regular beer under the Frothingslosh label to be given away as Christmas holiday gifts. About 500 cases were made and handed out. The response was overwhelmingly positive and in 1955 Pitt brewing produced more “Olde Frothingslosh” made it available for sale to the public.

In Rege Cordic’s words:

It came about this way. A certain Mr. S. E. Cowelt was a regular listener to our show. This imaginative gentleman also happened to be president of one of Pittsburgh’s largest breweries. He suggested that we actually put the product on the market. Until he explained his scheme, I thought the poor man was suffering from an attack of “The Vapors.” The plan, however, was a clean strike of salesmanship: for the Christmas Holidays he would package his regular brand of beer under the Olde Frothing-slosh label as a special party item. The sales success of that product in the Pittsburgh area is a tribute to his wisdom.

This beer's lighthearted beginnings paved the way for numerous comedic gimmicks in its packaging and marketing. The can that I saw in the museum was adorned with day-glo ink and touted Olde Frothingslosh as "the only brew you can find in the dark."

A later packaging campaign featured a large woman in a bathing suit named “Fatima Yechbergh” who was the made-up winner of a phony beauty contest.

Victor J Tremblay in his book The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis, tells us that Olde Frothingslosh was packaged and sold by Pitt Brewing through the 1970s.

For further history and pictures check out:

http://www.rustycans.com/oldfroth.html

http://cordic-and-co.com/oldefrothingdex.htm

On an interesting side note, Pittsburgh Brewing Co. is making another go at glowing packaging with their aluminum-bottled Augustiner lager. The contoured aluminum bottles are printed with an ink that glows under UV lights like those often found in bars and clubs.

Read more about the new Pitt bottles here.

Old Salty Vertical Tasting

I participated in a vertical tasting of Heavyweight Brewing Company’s English Barley Wine style ale, Old Salty, over the weekend. A small group of us got together and opened cellared bottles of all six vintages of Old Salty (2000-2005).

We took notes on the flavors and characteristics of each vintage beer and rated them on quality and status based on the following specifications.

Quality:

0 = undrinkable
1 = seriously flawed but drinkable
2 = slightly flawed
3 = acceptable
4 = good
5 = very good
6 = excellent

Status as an estimate of future changes:

Decline = drink it now
Near peak = drink it within the next year
Improve = it might be worth saving this beer

Click here to see the chart showing the averaged scores and some tasting notes for each beer.

The 2002 version was by far the overall favorite with its viscous mouthfeel and woody dark fruits and brown sugar/maple overtones. The 2000 vintage was the only one the group scored as being past its prime and was also our lowest score (2.66) on quality.

This was an enjoyable tasting and a nice way to revisit some quality beers from the great Heavyweight Brewing Co. which closed for business mid-way through last year.