Too much beer (on hand)…
These days I seem to like brewing beer more than drinking beer. Right now in the basement I have the following on tap:
- A pale ale (fairly hoppy, actually a blend of three other beers that I made)
- A really fine Porter
- A nice Weizen
- Two kegs of Barleywine (what was I thinking, this is strong stuff and probably will last me two-three years)
- A keg of Oat Wine (this is a Barleywine that is primarily made with Oats)
- Some Ginger Mead
- A way too sweet ale (sort of a clone of Mac and Jacks’ African Amber but it was the first beer on our new system and efficiency was way higher than expected so it is too sweet. Oh, plus, we had less hops than we thought we did).
That is 8 corny kegs. I only own 8 corny kegs (and one or two of these probably really belong to my friend Peter).. Too much shouldn’t be a problem, but I need some empty kegs so I can try making something new (perhaps an Oatmeal Stout with the rest of the malted oats).
Yeah, there are much more reasonable things to complain about like the fact that Bush has 3 years and 1 day left in office, but this is more fun to think about.
I hope everyone is having a great Jan. I’ve been busy at work and haven’t done too much interesting at home so the blog has been taking a break. It should wake up in a month or two once we start on the kitchen remodel and I do some work on one of my woodworking projects and one or two bike projects.
alex
P.S. Here is some math because I am bored. A corny keg is 5 gallons or 640oz. The beer glasses that I use these days are only about 7oz (half a bottle’s worth) or about 90 glasses. If I have ten glasses a week that means a full keg should last about nine weeks. Not all of my kegs are full, but at this rate I might have 8-12 months worth of beer on hand. Overboard? I probably just need to have another party or two.
At the last party the ginger mead was a big hit and it is almost gone, so I need to make more of that too. Easy and good.
I like the new layout. I got a starter brewing kit for Christmas, but will be waiting for a bit to try my own. If I lived 3000 miles closer I”d pop over to help you out, but since I”m not I”ll keep to my self imposed abstenince for another couple of months.