Hello, Goodbye.

December 16, 2008 marked the first post of this site. One year later I am closing the site down or at least not posting anymore to focus more on my family and career. I figured I'd end it with a top 10 list of happenings during the year of the blog.

10. Growing Hops

As a homebrewer and a do-it-yourself'er I wanted to get into beer gardening. I started out with hops in the spring and got 3 full grown hop bines. I only produced a dozen or so hops but that is typical when you're not using miracle grow for the first year. Next year should bring me quite a few more and I should be able to start brewing with them.

9. Kegerator Project

I decided that kegging my brew was much, much easier than bottling. I tore apart an old fridge to build a custom kegerator into my cabinets. I continue to make it more efficient and better looking but it is pouring like a champ right now.

8. Collection

I started my beer bottle collection in 2007, but added the most bottles during the period of this blog. I have roughly 800 bottles and will probably stop it right around there. One of these days I'll probably donate or sell them. I was able to try some of the best beer in the world and drank 44 out of beeradvocate.com top 100 list.

7. Motorcycle trips

Motorcycle's have always been a part of my life and it was great to make trips to visit breweries and sample beers from far away. Whether it was dirtbiking or road trips I am always able to incorporate some great beers into the trips.

6. Tripel

One of my favorite beers is Schlafly's Tripel, and not because it's too style so much as the wow-factor with the sweetness. I got a hold of brewer Stephen Hale and he guided me to making a great tripel, or triple. Although some of the bottles had a little off flavor, I thought the kegged version was great.

5. Brew Days

The Worthog and I were able to coordinate some great monthly get-togethers that formed the name of 'brew days'. The idea started out with helping people learn to brew and grew into tastings of home brew and commercial brew. Gallons and gallons of beer had been brewed. Great food and great beer were consumed and I hope that the events carry on with everyone as the winter melts away.

4. Boulevard Brewing

My interaction with Boulevard has been a big surprise to me. They have been very responsive to me and they really pay attention to the fan base and keep up with the latest gossip or news. Everyone I've met there has been very friendly and open. A typical business wouldn't be as inviting and sharing of their knowledge and products. During my blog Boulevard released a huge range of beers (Single Wide, Bourbon Barrel Quad, Imperial Stout, Pilsner, Two Jokers, Seeyoulator, Harvest Dance, and the Collaboration Imperial Pilsner). Great job guys and thank you for the great times down at the brewery.

3. Followers

I have to give a big thank you to my followers. 38 of you follow me publicly but it was a blast to meet someone at a bar or even at work that had been following my blog and I had never known. Kyle, one of my followers, is in the military and stationed overseas. He once asked kcbeerblog and I to post something about the beer summit with Obama. I thought it was fun to get a post request.

2. Bloggers

Pictured in no particular order is the list of bloggers that kept up with their blogs and I enjoyed to read. Some of them are the reason for starting mine and some of them started theirs because of my blog. It was great to meet all of them and learn from them. I met Bull, Chimp, Worthog, Muddy Mo, Jennifer, Drunk Monkey, Sara, and Hop Frog. Also trading beers with bloggers is great. Thanks for keep eachother on our toes.

1. Homebrewing

Something that I will keep doing is brewing, just not so publicly. My blog pretty much started with my first home brew and I wound up brewing close to 50 gallons. So far I've made a blonde, wheat, double IPA that exploded, milk stout, oatmeal stout, tripel, another double IPA, and a hefeweizen. I've learned some great techniques from pro's and home brewers. I have also talked several people into starting the hobby so I feel pretty successful.

Thanks again to everyone for making the last year my "Beer Year". Feel free to drop me a note through a comment or email.

Worlds Strongest Beer

Hey have you readers ever done this as an expirement at home? You can freeze a few of your favorite beers and pull out the liquid into a glass to get a stronger beer. Fun expirements!

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.

Damn Sam

Samuel Adams has released a couple news items recently. One is about teaming up with the oldest brewery still open, Weihenstephan Brewery, to make a collaboration beer. The most recent press release is about their limited release Barrel-Aged beers. A lot of beer enthusiasts are annoyed at all of the barrel-aged fad, but for me it is just some more bottles to add to my obsessed collection. They are coming up with a Tripel, a Kriek and a Red. These will only be sold in 4 states (3 in the Northeast and also Denver, CO). Who knows if I'll get any of these but figured I'd show my ever-growing Sam Adams collection where each of those pictured is Sam Adams:

Winter is Here!

So what is your favorite winter beer?

Anyone want to go in half on a Sam Adams Utopias with me? It's only $200 a bottle. Gomer's Midtown just got some in, not sure how many. Oh and I'm only joking about buying one. I already have an empty bottle of it and the smell alone will get you drunk. Utopias is 27% abv and barely a beer. The bottle is shaped as a brew tank. Pretty cool.

I really like Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale. Great stuff. Also you should buy some Nutcracker that I got to help dry hop this year!

Big Brew Day 5

If you follow my blog then you'll have seen that we have been organizing brew day get-togethers for a few months now. They really are a great time if you like good beer. This go around I hosted for the first time as we took the brewing North of the River with a theme that was across the pond. Our theme this time was British style beer. I did not brew this time because of hosting but we did get a couple of first timers to brew and it was great to just help out and get people into the hobby. Matt brewed a Coffee Porter. He had ground his own coffee beans to give the recipe his own twist and it made my garage smell heavenly. Drunk Monkey brewed up an English Special Bitter (ESB) using his friends home grown hops to add his own special touch as well. Jason was going to brew but we were running short of time.
There were about 30 people throughout the day to sample beer and learn about the brewing process. I had my Hop Retarded double IPA on tap and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We got through about 5 gallons or so. Then everyone brought some great English styled ales but mostly imperial stouts were being drank. The Worthogs brought an English Bitter and a Roggenbier they brewed. Jake brought his first lager. So we had plenty of homebrew along with an entire fridge stuffed full of commercial brews.

Probably the two top beers of the night for myself was the Imperial Stout Trooper from 2006 that Matt brought and then the Alaskan Baltic Porter was incredible. Something I'm not proud of is 14 hours of straight drinking with no food. It was a rough Sunday morning to say the least. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it! I'm happy to say both brews are fermenting away. Thanks everyone for making the day rock!

Float Fail

So I had heard of Guinness ice cream floats before and it sounded delicious. I have tried a bite of this once or twice before with other stouts and thought it to be fairly good. So I figured I'd take it to the next level... FAIL.

The other day I had a Péché Mortel and loved it. It's rated very high on ratebeer and beeradvocate and finally found it in KC. It's now at 3 stores that I know of. It's an imperial stout with coffee. The coffee isn't quite as overwhelming as a Founders Breakfast Stout because of the bold malt backbone. As this warms to room temperature it tastes magnificent. So I poured some in with some frozen yogurt, hey it's all we had. It tasted terrible. Why did it fail? Tasted the yogurt by itself and it was fine. Drank the rest of the beer and it was awesome. But the two went together like cheese and dirt. Oh well, it looks good.

Beer Geek Tuesday

Want to see what beer geeks look like? Remember when I was trying to coax someone in LA to get me a bottle? Check out this great video from the Black Tuesday release party. This kind of thing happens all over the country and I think it's a great way for breweries to make money and build hype. Black Tuesday now stands at #3 on beeradvocate.

The Bruery - Black Tuesday from benjamin weiss on Vimeo.