Alright. Life is good.

We've concluding bottling on the CA Pale Ale aaaand the Bock.

Also concluded is brewing a batch of Double IPA.

Oh, we also just attacked the beer brats. We won.

Steeping has begin for the double IPA.

Unfortunately, the camera is dead.

Uh oh. The camera is seemingly out of batteries.

The photo bit may be ending. More soon.

New photos. The brats are coming along.

Oh, hello. I didn't see you come in here.

I want to tell you a little bit about a hero of mine. Chances are, he is not your hero.

His name is Art Gafowag, and he is a man who had his priorities straight.

A Bavarian during the late Renaissance period, the ideas he presented were so monumental, some scholars cite his deeds marked the end of the Renaissance. That is to say, he renaissanced the Renaissance, and thus drove the stake in the heart of a monolithic, cumbersome, stodgy beast.

Sort of like what happening to the New York Times.

Tonight we honor Art Gafowag (pronounced GAH-fvuh-vag) by partaking in his favored pastime: brewing.

Unfortunately, there will be little pleasing of the opposite sex, which was his other favored pastime.

One thing I forgot to mention: My Dad is here in DC helping us brew. Helps to have a BS in Chem and PhD in Physics in house.

Too bad he drinks wine and not beer.

First "batch" of photos. Right now we're cleaning bottles and getting ready.

Also trying not to drink too much such that we forget how to brew. This has been a problem.

Tonight the DC crew is brewing!!!

We're doing a batch of Double IPA (YES!) and bottling a previous batch of California Pale Ale.

We also may partially bottle some previously brewed Dobblebock.

For dinner, we're doing BEER brats. Yes, that's Johnsonville brats that have been boiled in Coors for over an hour.

We'll be live blogging the process tonight, with photos.

Hope you enjoy.

The Beer Lab is back!

More soon.

Well, the posting was a success. Some guy showed up within an hour to pick up all of the beer. The original post has since been deleted to prevent my inbox from being flodded by poor alcoholics, but I've copied and pasted it here for you're reading (dis)pleasure.

free organic beer! (really!)

ok, it's free, but it's also kind of gross. i've got a ton (60?) 12oz bottles of this lousy homebrew I made about a year ago i'm tired of looking at them. it doesn't taste very good, but it's alcoholic and tastes like what you'd expect old, mediocre homebrew beer to taste like. must show vaid ID. come by and pick up as many as you'd like. if you email me with enough warning, i'll stick one in the fridge for you to sample.

One of the Tickle Kitten Golden Happy Ale bottles exploded in my closet, so I posted them for free on Sacramento CraigsList for free.

Beer giant threatens boycott over 'medicinal' grain

According to this story on CNN, brewing giant Anheuser-Busch is threatening not to buy rice from Missouri if Sacramento based Ventria Biosciences plants a 200 acre plot of GM rice designed to produce human medicine. Seeing as AB is the nation's largest rice buyer, Missouri rice growers has cause for concern.

The sloppy and hastily-assembled Ventria website shows that their primary products are lactoferrin and lysozyme, pretty standard human proteins that have a variety of useful properties. By adding the genes to rice, Ventria can cheaply produce a pants-load of otherwise expensive proteins. Ostensibly, these proteins would then be used to create expensive drugs making Ventria's board of directors filthy stinking rich. CNN calls this process Biopharming, but I'm pretty sure they made that up.

A-B's concern is that the GM rice will cross-pollinate and contaminate other rice crops. Off hand, I don't know what effect lactoferrin and lysozyme would have on beer, but unwanted proteins are a legitimate concern. However, unlike maize which naturally cross-pollinates, rice and barley are self-pollinating crops that are highly unlikely to pollinate other crops.

I'll be honest here, I haven't read the USDA proposal [PDF] and I don't know that much about the pollination habits of rice. Normally, I'm in favor of GM foods which provide a tangible benefit, but in this case, I understand A-B's need to protect their product. Additionally, Vintria's interest is not the direct aide of humanity, but profit.

The powers at play here are the rice growers, Ventria and A-B. Judging by the Ventria website and the fact that they are not a publicly traded company, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that A-B will squash Ventria much like a rhinoceros squashes cockroach.

Well, to be honest, batch 4.0, the red ale from the Severn Bridges Brewing Co-op (also known as Tickle Kitten Golden Happy Ale) was a miserable failure.

What went wrong:

• During the boil, we had a second pot going to get us up to the 5 gallon mark because we did not have any sterile water. Unfortunatley, this exta pot put us up to the 7.5 gallon mark, diluting the beer. We tried to boost the alcohol content by adding sugar and boost the bitterness by adding some free hops courtesy of the Ag Effort co-op.
  
  
• The beer may have been saved if I didn't leave it outside (note that the carboy is clear glass) for a couple of months exposing the beer to massive ammounts of light and temperature variations. This killed a lot of the yeast inhibiting bottle conditioning -- the process where sugar is added immediatley prio to bottleing to give the yeast extra carbon to form carbon dioxide, thus carbonating the beer. The result? flat beer. After letting the beer sit for a couple more months, the beer finally carbonated itself, but there were still off flavors which were probably a result of leaving it ouside for a few months.

That didn't stop Sam from drinking a few bottles of it. At first he said it was "OK" but then decided not to like it anymore. Also, the bottles we used weren't exactly clean, as Tamar had an interesting experience with gushing. I've still got a good 60 beers or so sitting in my closet, so if anyone wants some old, mediocre beer, stop on by.

What I've learned from this batch:

1. Don't be sloppy
2. Using the wort chiller outside reduces the chances of flooding your kitchen
3. El Mariachi is the best place in Davis to get 12oz bottles, just raid their recycle. Make damn sure they're clean.
   

Those vigorous little fuckers did it again. This time, I couldn't find the other half of the airlock, which necessitated an emergency trip to ACE hardware to pick up some 7/16 OD tubing and making a ad-hoc blowoff tube. The beer is swirling and churning and producing CO₂ like there's no tomorrow.

Ok, situation somewhat remedied, the beer started coming out the airlock again. I tried to make a blowoff tube, but failed (wrong size tube). I ended up moving the carboy to the top of the washing machine and taking the "cap" off of the airlock, so it still functions as an airlock, but if it foams over, it can do so freely.

Batch 4.0 decided to explode all over my carpet and shoot half the airlock off sometime in between 3 and 10 am. The situation has been remedied as I have moved cleaned the mess and moved the beer to the linoleum floor of my kitchen.

Batch 3 is ready and it tastes great. Joseph and I are currently brewing some red ale from the Seven Bridges Brewing Co-Op. I'll try and get a camera and post pictures. Let me know if I owe you beer.