And I'm back

Welcome Bremigos and Brewmigettes, it has been quite some time.

I have been slaving away at work, and unfortunately did not have time to fill you guys in on my home brew and beard talk.

Well, yesterday I brewed my Guinness clone, a little late for St. Patty's day, but still, it will be damn good. So the day started off with a nice little hike, and when I got home, the Guinness gods were calling my name! Never one to put a god on hold, I answered the call, and the result is a delicious beer that will be drunk like the sweet nectar of life! Alas, though the beer will be glorious, I feel this blog may be more appropriately designated to one of my beard heroes, Grizzly Adams.

Grizzly Adams not only goes down in history as owning one of the coolest names known to man, but he had a beard like a bear... Grizzly's beard was so ferocious that the good people at NBC ordered him to shave it. Now, Grizzly was a man of principles, but he was also a smart business man. When faced with loosing his show, he did what any sensible man would have done, he went to the barbers to get his glorious beard removed. When he arrived the barber refused to remove the master piece sitting on Grizzly's face. Three tries at three different barbers later, he finally decided to do the job himself. He went to the store and bought four cans of shaving cream, six razors, and three bottles of after shave. In his attempt to shave, used all of the supplies at his disposal to end up with a beard like this.

Though he lost 1/2 of his beard in the attempt, he emerged a renewed man and vowed never to let the NBC executives walk over him again. He went back to NBC and told them that he would not shave his beard entirely off. When they threatened to cancel his show, he ripped off his shirt exposing the wild mane of chest hear beneath, and their hearts were melted. Because of his natural gift to grow hair like a grizzly, Mr. Adams prevailed.

Moral of the story, use you natural gifts to your advantage.

Until next time!

What time is it? Beard time!

By popular demand, I have decided to push into the world of beard blogging. I originally wanted to do a top 10 beards of all time, but that would really set the bar high, so instead you will get the beard of the week, which will debut on beard Mondays, which is when I usually have to shave my stubble and enter back into the working world (a sad day, for sure).

So, this week I salute you Al Borland from Tool Time. You made tools, beards, flannel, and having emotions cool.

While flipping through the Internet for TV shows to legally download (I know your watching big brother), I came across an old favorite, "Home Improvement." Who says Jonathan Taylor Thomas was the Amercia's heart-throb? not I. I have always maintained that Big Al was the reason for the success of the show. So thank you Mr. Borland for making plaid flannel cool for us normal guys who have never cut down a tree in our lives. Thank you for showing us that a well groomed thick beard kicks a lot of ass. You were ahead of your time, but I know you led the way for many beards to come.

On deck for next week: A very special crew member of the Millennium falcon!!

The second day...

Last night before I tucked my first brew into bed, I took a quick look at the air lock. I was more than a little dissapointed. I was hoping for that sucker to be going off like crazy, signaling the start of a magical beer process... FERMENTATION!!!! I was a little worried that I totaly screwed the pooch on my first attempt at brewing, but I managed to slip into a deep sleep anyway.

I awoke this morning to a wonderful scent perfuming my room... IPA! Yes, the fermentation had begun, and with it, the wonderful smell of beer. Oh boy, that was a good moment. My sludge is beginning its journey into the world of beer'hood. I was sooo happy that I even began my quest to learn everything brew-related by joining one of the top home brew forums on the net, http://www.homebrewtalk.com. Within hours of signing up, I was welcomed to the community with a big Prost!

Anyway, I have begun toying around the idea of creating a mexican style beer. I shall call it Beer'migos. (beer amigos, get it?) Well, that is copy righted by me, so don't tread on my freedom and try to steal that.

Ah, the joys of the first....

Ah the joys of home brewing. I have been thinking about beginning my journey into the art for a few years now, but it took the birthday present of my wonderful girlfriend to bring the dream to fruition. There are no doubt hundreds (if not thousands) of blogs on home brewing, so it is not here that I will bog you down with specifics of the process, but instead I plan on sharing my joy of the brew with you.

Wait a second, way is there a "d" at the end of beer? Good question, I have a couple great passions in life, one is beer. The other is beards. Yes, I said it. Beards. They are wonderful. I have attempted to grow several in my life time, and have done an "OK" job during a couple of these forays, but I have never mastered the craft as well as Gerard Butler did in the movie 300 or Brad Pitt in 7 Years in Tibet. But here on this very blog, I will share the joy of Beers and Beards, Beer'd's if you will. (Props to Melissa for coming up with the name).

OK, now that the introduction is out of the way, I will present you with my very first beer'isode.

Yesterday I received an early Birthday present from the girlfriend, all the equipment needed to brew my first batch of beer. I chose an IPA not only due to my fondness of this particular type of beer, but because the employees at SF Brewcraft recommended it as a great starter beer.

Today I brewed my first batch and it is currently in the primary fermentation bucket. I feel like a proud parent awaiting my child's very first day at school. With a little bit of waiting (2 months) and a lot of bottles, I will bottle my first batch of Beer'd IPA. I am in the process of designing a kick ass label (any input is welcome), but I am sure that will come with time...

On to the brewing process. I began the brewing process by sanitizing all of the equipment that I was to be using. Not that I don't enjoy drinking a whole lot of bacteria with my brew, but I figured better safe than sorry on the first batch. After a whole lot of sanitizing, I was ready to begin. Beer is made from a few key ingredients, grains, hops, water, and yeast. The first step is to mash the the grains in water. This is done in a similar way as steeping tea. I gathered all the grains and put them into a giant tea bag (cheese cloth), then put them into a giant pot of boiling water. I let it "steep" for about 40 minutes before removing the bag. Now its time for the fun part. Boiling the wort, as its called, and adding the hops. The hops are added to the boiling wort at timed intervals. This part is boring, so I will tell you about the hops. There were two different types of hops. Both had a very distinct smell. One smelled just like an IPA, which is good because that is what the brew will eventually be. The other smelled like a pretty bad cross of marijuana and ass. I guess this is OK, and it probably means that I have not acquired the requisite nose for hops yet. I was slightly disappointed that the hops did not look like they do in the Samuel Adam commercials. You know, full nuggets of green hoppy goodness... Instead they look like animal feed in a pellet form. I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what they look like, as long as they produce the desired result.

After finishing the cooking process, I placed the wort inside a primary fermentation bucket where it will stay for about 2 weeks before I transfer it to the primary glass carboy, which is the secondary fermentation bucket. There it will stay until it is ready for bottling around Christmas time (talk about a great Christmas present).