Friday, June 27, 2008

Fat Tire Clone

I got this Phat Tyre Amber Ale kit from the NB.

Specialty Grains
.50 lbs Victory Malt
.50 lbs Briess Caramel 60
(both mixed together in the same bag)

Fermentables
1 lbs Pilsen DME (boil for 60 min)
6 lbs Amber Malt Syrup (boil for 15 min)

Boil Additions
1 oz Willamette (60 min)
1 oz Hallertau Select (15 min)

Wyeast #1762 Belgian Abbey II. Floculation medium. Apparent attenuation 73-77%. Optimum temp 65-75.

"Our Phat Tyre kit is copper-red with a fruity, slightly spicy aroma and a flavor that comes from a combination of yeast and hops. A blend of caramel and Victory malts creates a sweat, toasty, bready character that lingers from the aroma through the finish. Make sure to stash a six-pack for yourself, because this one's a crowd pleaser."

We shall see!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Prickly Pear Ale


A tribute to the Sonoran Desert...my own demonic creation:

Fermentables
6 lbs Gold Malt Syrup
3 lbs Organic Wildflower Honey (30 min)

Additions
1 oz Cascade (60 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)

3 (lbs) Red Prickly Pear Fruit (Tuna Roja)

Wyeast #1056 American Ale

For this experiment, I am seeking to make a floral and mildly citrus ale sweetened with the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. I purchased the honey from the Wedge Co-op--where it comes wholesale in refillable containers. The fruit was difficult to find. Most restaurants and groceries carry a green version of the prickly pear fruit (simply, "tuna"). I found one little supermercado on 28th and Blaisdale that carries the red version (tuna rojo). The owner explained that he and his brother prefer the red kind. So, for this recipe I purchased 3 lbs of the fruit. Peeled fruit (making sure to take off all of the inner part of the skin so only the red inside remains). I processed the fruit through my juicer to produce about 8 oz of puree. I added the fruit puree after pitching the wort into the carboy.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Beer Drinkers of the World


Beer drinkers and big beer corporations have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as working people are forced to buy cheap disgusting excuses for beer, while the owners of the big beer corporations sip on the latest microbrew. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until beer drinkers organize as a class, take possession of the means of fermentation and establish worker-run breweries.

We find that the consolidation of breweries into fewer and fewer hands makes the brewer trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the big beer corporations. These trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of beer drinkers to be pitted against another set of beer drinkers, thereby helping defeat one another in the price wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the big beer corporations to mislead brewery workers into the belief that they have something in common with them.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all the drinkers of one beer, or all beers if necessary, cease beer drinking whenever a strike or lockout is in on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, “freeze beer prices,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “abolition of the big beer corporations.”

It is the historic mission of beer drinkers to do away with big beer corporations. The army of production and consumption must unite, not only for the everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By making our own beer, making it good, and drinking it ourselves, we are forming a new society within the shell of the old.