| Adventures in Homebrewing Part 4 | |
This post is part 4 of our recent homebrewing adventures. You can view part 3 here.It's been awhile since I've updated our homebrewing progress on the site. There's some reasons for that and they aren't all that we've been really busy with other things. The first time we tried the beer we thought we had a critical failure on our hands. It was very disheartening but I will get to that in a bit. When I ended our part 3 post we had just transferred the beer to the carboy for secondary fermentation. There it sat for about two months. This time span was relatively uneventful. We had to top off the water in the airlock several times due to evaporation and a layer of sediment formed at the bottom of the carboy. That's about it. We were very excited when it finally came time for bottling day. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer homebrewing | |
| By Mike on May 12, 2013 at 9:44am EDT | Add Comment |
| Rochester Real Beer Week, 2013 | |
We are really getting the outdoor itch as spring is finally coming into it's own here in western New York. As we excitedly look forward to the summer, one of the great local beer events is on the horizon: Rochester Real Beer Week! It's probably more accurately described as a theme than it is a singular event as great craft beer establishments set up their own events between June 14th and June 23rd.The Rochester Real Beer Expo is the centerpiece event, happening on Saturday the 15th. They close down Gregory Street outside the Tap and Mallet, set up a bunch of tents, and a bunch of breweries serve great beers. Each brewery in attendance is encouraged to bring as many casks as possible to embrace the real beer portion of the title. This year's event is the third incarnation. We skipped last year's after being disappointed with the first one. It was overly crowded, there weren't enough bathrooms, and food options were lacking, but the beer was great! We decided to grab tickets again this year and see if they made any improvements. We are hopeful! Read more... |
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| Topic(s): beer events rochester real beer week | |
| By Mike on April 29, 2013 at 6:15pm EDT | Add Comment |
| Adventures in Homebrewing Part 3 | |
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This post is part 3 of our recent homebrewing adventures. You can view part 2 here. The morning after we put our beer in the primary fermenting bucket we started to notice bubbles coming through the air lock. This was very exciting as it was a true sign that we did something right in the process. The bubbles were quite constant at times, as a series of 3-5 bubbles would come out in bursts every 5-15 seconds. This went on for a full week. At the end of that week we noticed that the bubbling had stopped. We took this as a sign that the sugars were consumed and fermentation had halted. The instructions for the recipe said that this would occur after 1-2 weeks and then it was to be transferred to our glass carboy for secondary fermentation. Seeing that the bubbles had stopped we went for it. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer homebrewing | |
| By Mike on March 24, 2013 at 3:00pm EDT | Add Comment |
| Adventures in Homebrewing Part 2 | |
This post is part 2 of our recent homebrewing adventures. You can view part 1 here.Now that we finally had everything together to brew our Belgian tripel, we took in the instructions that came with our recipe kit. Sadly, they weren't written that well for beginners like us and it took several times through to begin making sense of them. With all of those re-reads, we still made one significant mistake that I will get to later. The first step of the process was fairly simple. We put two and a half gallons of water in our new pot and put it on the stove. The instructions really focused on temperature in different phases so we clipped our digital thermometer on the side. This was hugely helpful as it allowed us to easily monitor the temperature throughout the entire process. While the water's temperature was rising toward 170 degrees, we took the small amount of dry grains that our kit came with and put them in the provided cloth pouch as instructed. These dry grains were to be steeped in the water as the temperature rose from 170 degrees to boiling. We clipped the pouch to the side to achieve this. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer homebrewing | |
| By Mike on March 11, 2013 at 6:45pm EDT | Add Comment |
| Adventures in Homebrewing Part 1 | |
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I think a lot of craft beer drinkers out there routinely have the thought, "I should be homebrewing." It's something that Heather and I have wanted to do for a long time. It's kind of a scary proposition though. You buy a lot of equipment, put in a lot of effort, wait for quite a while, and if you screw up and the results aren't drinkable, then what? Several years ago we received one of those Mr. Beer kits everyone has seen at one point or another. We dove into that imagining that it would be a ton easier than actual homebrewing. We were freaked out a bit by all the sterilization that was necessary but in the end our first home brewed beer was complete. We called it West Canal Ginger Cheat. It was the pale ale ingredients that the kit came with and we added some ginger to the mix. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer homebrewing | |
| By Mike on March 3, 2013 at 5:43pm EST | Add Comment |
| Gluten-Free Products (Beers) | |
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We completed our gluten-free experiment last month to some mixed results. I think as a whole, both Heather and I felt healthier during it. It could have been the placebo effect, but I think there is something to be said for reducing gluten intake in your diet. It's in so many places where it isn't needed, adding unnecessary calories. Sadly, I don't think it resulted in any significant improvements to my digestive issues though besides inspiring me to try other possible solutions. I'm drinking peppermint tea now at times of high stress and I really think it's helping! Regardless, I wanted to put a summary post up here of some of the great gluten-free products we found during the month. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): diet gluten free health beer | |
| By Mike on February 20, 2013 at 9:19pm EST | Add Comment |
| Happy New Year! | |
It's 2013! That means we've been messing around with this blog for two years! We're excited to move into the new year continuing to enjoy great food and pursuing a healthier lifestyle. As posted earlier we're trying out a gluten-free diet for virtually the entire month of January. I hope it will lead to us finding a great balance that will make us both healthier. That said, we couldn't pass up a beer event at Tap and Mallet on New Years Eve. In case you didn't know, beer is not gluten free. A vintage beer social at our favorite pub was the perfect last hurrah before going into a beerless January.I knew we had family coming to town for the holidays so I had been searching for a good event for the New Year. Most in the area are significantly expensive, so walking in with a group of seven doesn't really work. I was happy when Tap announced a beer social. $18 a person for a great beer sampling and pay-to-play food from their regular menu is hard to pass up. They were even kind enough to give me a reservation, guaranteeing us a table! Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer holidays tap and mallet events restaurants | |
| By Mike on January 9, 2013 at 4:42pm EST | Add Comment |
| New Restaurant - John's Tex Mex | |
For years now, I had been hearing about a great place in the South Wedge of Rochester called John's Tex Mex. It wasn't until we started doing a lot of beer shopping at Nathaniel Square that we really gave it much thought as it is literally right next door to that great beer shop. Since I started my new job at the College at Brockport, we haven't had as many opportunities to do some shopping in Rochester. This past Saturday we decided to plan a little trip and it made sense to try out John's Tex Mex and look for some fun beer for the fridge at Nathaniel Square while we were at it.John's Tex Mex is pretty small but nice and inviting. When we walked in we were greeted and told we could sit anywhere we wanted. Once we picked a spot, we immediately had someone come over to the table to ask us what we wanted. We opted for some chips and salsa while we looked over the menu. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): restaurants new restaurants johns tex mex rochester mexican burrito tostada lunch beer | |
| By Mike on October 6, 2012 at 2:42pm EDT | Add Comment |
| Beer Off! State vs. State vs. State | |
Which state has the best breweries? With the onslaught of the craft beer movement and the fact that all of our friends and family seem to be into it an idea struck me this past spring. We are always arguing about which state has the best beers. Our friends Emily and Andrew are from Michigan so they are always claiming dominance. My sister Kelly recently moved to Pittsburgh so she's always singing the praises of her local breweries. Heather and I, of course, love all of our New York options. Being the nerd that I am, a party game seemed like the perfect solution.Here's how it worked. After some deliberation, I decided on four categories. They were session, IPA, stout/porter, and wild card. Session beers were defined as any beer at 5% ABV or less. The IPA and stout/porter categories were style specific. Finally, wild card could be anything at all. Heather and I had to choose the competitors for New York, my sister Kelly for Pennsylvania, and my friends Emily and Andrew for Michigan. We all met on our back deck along with some other impartial friends and the competition was on. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): beer events michigan pennsylvania | |
| By Mike on August 8, 2012 at 7:47pm EDT | Add Comment |
| Mike's Recipe, July 2012 - BBQ Sauce | |
When I started thinking about my July recipe, a homemade BBQ sauce came to mind. At first I wrote it off as too simple and boring. It's always tempting to find some difficult and fancy dish for these posts but sometimes I need to step back and ask myself, what would I have fun making?Too many times have I heard that you should never purchase a BBQ sauce because they are so easy to make. My problem with that sentiment is that there are so many good sauces to buy out there! One of our favorites comes from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. It's readily available at almost every Wegmans and it's really good! Another sauce I've had that I loved came from Colorado brewery, Oskar Blues. Their Old Chub Hot Sauce was really good and is just such a great idea. We love Old Chub so it isn't a hard sell. I used that inspiration to begin my web search for a recipe to run with. I found this. I've never heard of BBQPitBoys.com before but the recipe includes both jalapenos and beer so it caught my eye. I was somewhat hesitant because it uses so much ketchup. It gives the recipe a bit of a non-homemade feeling. I decided to go with it though and I wasn't disappointed. Read more... 
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| Topic(s): recipes new recipes home cooking bbq sauce chicken wings sweet corn beer old chub jalapeno oskar blues | |
| By Mike on July 13, 2012 at 4:42pm EDT | Add Comment |
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