I am a big ale person and love my dark, bold, thick beers.  Since most of the American popular beers are lagers, I have built up a large amount of hate for this type of beer.  I should have opened up sooner.  These beers at Gordon Biersch were quite good!  They are not as heavy or as bold as the stouts that I typically like, but they were still quite tasty smooth and flavorfull.  I am a fan and will be sure to give more lagers a shot when out drinking at Taco Mac or similar bars.  I will certainly look for ales first, but I will not turn my head to the lagers anymore.  Well most of them that is.  I still dont care for the typical American Lager, but the darker more complex styles were good. 

The food there was also very good.  We had some hiccups with our order but they were polite and very quick to resolve them with no questions asked.  The management staff came by to make sure all was corrected as well which was nice.  Without a doubt, I would return to Gordon Biersch.  I really enjoyed it!

I would certainly recommend you give them a shot!  We loved it!

After brewing Bobby came over and we headed to dinner at Bucca di Beppo.  We had a great time catching up on events from the week as well as enjoying some good food.  I will say that I was very shocked by the new pricing.  It costs quite a bit more than Maggianos and the food is NOWHERE near as good.  That may be my last trip to that place for me.  Great atmosphere but those prices are kinda ridiculous even though you are supposed to share. 

After dinner we headed to Cold Stone for some ice cream and then to Taco Mac so that Bobby and I could have the limited beer from He’Brew called Jewbilation 13.  It is a 13% alcohol beer and is made with 13 hops and 13 grains.  It was pretty damn smooth for that kind of alcohol content and was a perfect way to wrap up the night.

notes:  The cider (Graff) has an OG of 1.064 (expected an OG of about 1.060).

The yeast are working so hard so quickly that the beer is being pushed through the blowoff tube and into the bucket LOL.  This is a sign of a huge fermentation which is good to see.  If I had used an airlock instead of a blow off tube (like many do) it would have clogged it and sent a stream of beer so high that it would easily hit the ceiling and continue to spray like a geyser… fermentations are pretty cool.

RAIN!

Unfortunately it was POURING!  Since I have graduated to all grain brewing, I have to brew outside due to 6 or 7 gallons of water that must be brought to a boil.  The stove could never do that and finding a pot that would fit on a stove would be nearly impossible.  I then decided to redo my brewing space and brought everything into the garage.  I kept the garage door open and brewed right at the end of the garage.  I was making a winter spiced coffee milk stout based on a recipe that I found online.  This method of brewing is literally exactly how breweries brew their beer (except that theirs is all basically automated and they have bigger and more fancy vessels LOL)

The brewing setup

So the process is simple (well…. kinda).  You heat water in a beer keg with the top cut out (which then becomes a boil kettle) to an exact temperature and dump it into the cooler (called a mash tun).  You then add your crushed grains and let sit for about an hour.  You then drain the cooler of the liquid into the  boil kettle leaving behind the grains.  You then add more water heated to a higher exact temperature to “rinse” the grains.  Let that sit for about 10 minutes and then drain the cooler again into the boil kettle.  You then boil the liquid and add hops at a set schedule (for bitterness, taste, and smell) as stated in the recipe.  You then cool the boiled liquid down as quickly as possible by pumping freezing cold water through copper tubing placed in the boil kettle.  After cooling the “beer” you drain the kettle into a fermenter, add yeast, shake away to aerate, and let it ferment out for at least 3 weeks.  This process takes about 5 – 6 hours from start to finish – well at least for me it does LOL.  Some get it done much quicker, but I need to work on my process to get that time down. 

mash tun and mash paddle

So after brewing I took a shower and headed over to my parents house.  We had not been over there in a while and we were overdue.  We hung out and relaxed, had dinner and headed home. 

All in all it was a great day.  Can’t wait to taste this one!

My notes:  this beer’s efficiency was not quite so great.  Expected OG was 1.067 and i ended up with a 1.050.  Beersmith’s strike temperature for the mash was dead on.  Best to bring water higher, put into the mash tun to cool to strike water temperature.  The sparge I think was off.  Use 2 quarts per pound of grain next time at 170 instead of the instructed strike temperature.  Fermentation took off in less than 24 hours with a huge amount of blowoff.  Tested the gravity today (12/3/09) and it was at 1.024.  Estimated FG is 1.024 but that is with lactose.  I may need to skip the addition …. I roused the yeast today now that it is above the 60’s.  Hopefully this kicks fermentation up a little bit if there is anything left in there to ferment.

After work on Wednesday Bobby, Lindsay, and I headed down to the city to go to Sweetwater Brewery.  Lindsay had some free tickets to a tour so it worked out well. 

We took her car down there but after a few drinks at Sweetwater, I quickly offered to drive.  She doesn’t like to drive at night much and didn’t know where she was going so it worked out well.  Sweetwater had their Festive on tap which was awesome and they even had a cask version of festive with additional hops added to it.  MMMMM!  It was tasty!

Love this picture

After Sweetwater we headed to my favorite bar / restaurant in the city, Brick Store.  Lindsay had never been there but had heard about it so it was a prefect place to go.  When we got there they were fairly busy and were on a 45 minute wait.  We decided to just grab some drinks at the bar and eventually we decided to just eat there.  We had some excellent beers and some excellent food.  That place is just flat out excellent.

Mint Chocolate Cake

It was a great time and the perfect way to keep a great week going.

So in the morning we woke up, got ready, and headed out the door to meet Hector, Reagan, and Geni and the ultrasound studio on Marketplace blvd to do their gender confirmation.  This was the same place that helped us out when we were in need and I highly recommend them to EVERYONE trying to get a 3d /4d ultrasound done.  See the bottom of this post for a full shout out.  We went back and confirmed…. ITS A BOY!!!  Looks like Preston is going to have another partner in crime to hang out with just like I did with Hector when we were young.  It is going to be great for these two to grow up with another family member their age.  I know it was huge for me.  After the ultrasound we headed over to ihop for breakfast with Hector, Reagan, and Geni.  We had a delicious start to the day and then headed off to go shopping at the outlet malls while they headed up to North Point Mall to do some shopping of their own.

After brekfast we headed up to the Dawsonville Outlet Mall to check out Baby Gap and pick up a few things for Preston.  I have fallen in love with that store and before anyone gives any lectures, I’ll be sure to mention that we buy things when they are on sale and they are no cheaper than any other place we look for clothes and they are much cuter and nicer.  We use coupons and watch the sale racks and love every bit of it.  I can’t wait to dress Preston!!!  We then grabbed lunch and headed back towards the house to meet up with Kara and Lin before the UGA Auburn game.

As you know I am a UGA fan and Lin is an Auburn alumni and huge fan as well.  Well… today was the day.  UGA was playing Auburn in Athens and it was bound to be a great game.  Before it all got started Lin and I headed out to Home Depot to pick up some double sided sticky tape and then over to Taco Mac to grab a few beers and watch a little bit of the games on the tvs there.  We had a some good guy time and then headed back to the house to meet up with the ladies.  We caught some shit about disappearing for a while, but hey… we had some bonding time right?  When we got to the house Jason Lucas had come buy on his way home from work to drill a hole in a keg for me before having to head back up to his house to get things done preparing for his move back to MD… damn you Jason…. we will miss ya buddy!  Courtney was also there as she was in the area to work for the night and stopped by.  I did not get to see her much but it is always great to see her.

We had Bobby, Danny, Kelly, Kara, and Lin over to watch the game and had a blast doing so.  Auburn took an early lead and then after the half it was a battle to the end.  UGA pulled off a HUGE win over the Auburn Tigers making my weekend!!!  GOOO DAWGS!  It was a great day full of things to do and excitement.  Congratulations to Hector and Reagan!  We are so happy for you two!

I want to recognize A Window to the Womb on Marketplace Boulevard in Cumming GA for helping us out when we were in need and providing such a great service to people.  It was a beautiful studio with a huge screen and amazing technicians.  If you are in the market for this type of ultrasound, please support them!  Window to the Womb

Racking the Banana cream ale

After transferring the beer to the carboy it was placed in my kegerator (which has no beers on tap ) to crash cool.  During this time any additional yeast and other sediment from the bananas of brewing process falls to the bottom of the carboy.  After two days of being in the kegerator I pulled it out, sanitized a keg, racked it to the keg, and began carbonating it with co2. 

Fermented Bananas

It will take about two weeks to be fully carbed and actually may need a few more weeks of aging to ensure that there are no off tastes from the recently fermented bananas.  Hopefully within a few weeks this thing will be ready and tasting great!

On Friday I purchased 5 lbs of bananas to add to my banana beer that I am brewing along with 2 ounces of pure vanilla extract.  MMMM 

Once home, I sanitized a plastic container and cut up all 5 lbs of bananas (about 23 bananas) and placed them into the container.  I then took the glass fermenter and transferred the fermented beer into another fermenter.  This new fermenter had the 5 lbs of bananas and the vanilla extract in it.  The finished beer was then “racked” on top of the bananas to mix with them and the vanilla.  This will create another fermentation while the yeast eat up all the sugar that is in the bananas (AKA a lot ).  The fermenter is then sealed and an airlock is placed on it to make sure that it remains air tight to prevent infections.  Becuase the temperatures in the house result in the beer being higher than 68 degrees, the fermenters are are placed in a plastic container.  Water is added to the container to surround the fermenter.  Water bottles with ice in them are then placed in the container to chill the water around the fermenter.  A shirt is then draped over the fermenter to act like a wick to pull the water onto it, cooling the fermenter.  Almost 6 days later the air lock is still releasing air from the fermenter which are signs that the yeast are still fermenting the sugars in the bananas.  Unfortunately, I will still need to wait about two more weeks to be sure that this has completed before I can keg it.  Then the dreaded two weeks of carbonation before I can drink it

While I was out I also picked up 4 gallons of apple juice to use for a hard cider.  The last one that I brewed was terrible as wild yeast must have lived through the flash pasteurization that the apple orchard did resulting in a TERRIBLE apple cider.  We had to dump them all .  This time I used pure Apple Juice some grains (for taste) and yeast.  I did the normal with the grains, combined the liquid with the apple juice in the fermenter and added the yeast.  It fermented away like crazy and is now beginning to calm down.  Making sweet cider at home is tricky because yeast will eat sugars until there is none left, or until it consumes its maximum amount.  Well in this case it will take it until the cider is dry.  Some like it that way – I cant imagine that I would.  Since I am kegging, I can chill the cider down very quickly in the kegerator (which makes the yeast “sleep” and drop to the bottom.  Then I can transfer the cider to another fermenter with the hopes that I removed enough yeast to stop the fermentation.  This is what I plan to do.  Then I can keg the cider and carbonate it with CO2.

I cant wait for both of these to be done!  I will most likely carbonate the cider and then bottle it up so that I can free up the tap for the banana cream ale.  Either way it will be a while before that happens.

Note:  The cider started out at 1.052 and finished at 1.010 on 11/6/09.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed.
Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery
and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they
might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say
to myself, ‘It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams
come true than to be selfish and worry about my liver.

- Jack Handy-

A great quote… so great, that it is my facebook status.

So, I keep up with the Taco Mac blog which is kept up to date by a guy named Fred.  He is the beverage director for Tappan Street Restaurant Group and keeps everyone ramped up about new beers that are being poured all over the Metro Atlanta area.  His blog can be found in my blogroll on the right hand side of the page or here.  Because I like to keep up with new beers and what my local Taco Mac is serving, I read his blog site often.  Well the other day I was reading and came across a post in which he was offering tickets to the first 20 people to ask for a free brewery tour (with samples) for Atlanta Brewing Company (the brewers of Red Brick – an Atlanta based beer).  I tired to reach him by email but was confused where to go about finding him so I called Tappan and they transferred me to him. 

We spent several minutes talking about beer and the local breweries and he told me that he would send me a bunch of tickets so that I can bring some friends along with me as well.  It was really cool of him to offer out tickets to people (plus the real reason is that it will support our awesome local breweries) and even cooler of him to take some time out to BS with me.  He seems like a great guy.

If you have never been to a Taco Mac and you live in GA, you are missing out big time.  They offer about 150 beers on tap and about 200 in bottles at most of their locations.  They also do a passport club in which you are rewarded from trying different beers.  Eventually you are given a larger mug (for the same price people pay for the smaller servings), name on a plaque on the wall, and eventually some gear.  As you should know, it is our local bar of choice.  We go to the location here in Cumming because of their awesome employees and we recommend you do the same.

We are going to Sweetwater this weekend and cant wait to go to Atlanta Brewing Company soon!