State of the Brewery Address: April 2009

So I haven't posted anything about A Brewer's Life since ... (looking back) ... late February, it seems. So rather than catching up all the mundane details — and they have been mundane — I'll just provide the current state of the brewery and beers, and try to start again.

What's on tap? Seven beers, which is probably one too many.

• Bugeater Brown Ale (3 barrels)


• Uncle Ivan's Dunkelweizen (2 barrels)


• Impromptu Pale Ale (6½ barrels)


• Tin Lizzie Hefeweizen (7 barrels)


• All American Gold (6½ barrels)


• 1916 Irish Stout (5½ barrels)


• Papa Dale's Amber Ale (3½ barrels)

The Dunkelweizen is showing its age, and the Stout and Amber aren't moving at all.

What's in the tanks? Not a whole hell of a lot. Of the eleven fermenters, two of which are only used as holding tanks for root beer, ten are empty. The eleventh contains this year's Stüvenbräu Maibock, which didn't ferment out, and which is tasting pretty tart, and which I'll probably dump out early next week.

What's coming up? The problem with the Maibock seems to be that I underpitched the wort. So before I brew anything special again, I need to build up my yeast stocks. I figure that if I brew three beers on consecutive days, pitching each wort with kräusen beer from the previous day's batch, I can harvest one tank for future beers, and harvest the other two to pitch into a single strong beer. I'm leaning toward that strong beer being a Rauchbock. So next week, I'll probably brew a Gold, a Brown, and a (don't know yet), then brew the Rauchbock two weeks later. Which means I need to order the smoked malt, like, today.

What else is coming up? KJ gave me a list of beers he'd like me to brew.

• Altbier


• Amber/Red


• Brown


• Doppelbock


• Dubbel


• Dunkel


• Dunkelweizen


• German IPA


• Hefeweizen


• Helles/Gold


• Hopfenweisse


• Imperial Oktoberfest


• Imperial Porter


• Kellerbier


• Kölsch


• Maibock


• Oktoberfest/Märzen


• Pale Ale


• Porter


• Quad


• Rauchbier


• Roggenbier


• Ryebock


• Schwarz


• Stout/Cream


• Tripel


• Weihnachtsbier


• Weizenbock


• Wheatwine

So, yeah, that oughta keep me busy for a while. I'm just wondering who we're going to sell all this beer to.