The Beer Tent

I hate to do this to you any of you Austrian beer lovers ...

I just had a Samiclaus 2007.

This is the biggest, maltiest helles in the world. Its a serious beer.

All of the 14% alcohol bite is gone, and its just a great big, sweet malty, beast.

I couldn't believe it when I saw it at the store. I bought a four pack and didn't think twice about the price. (I'm embarrassed to say that is was more that $20.) However, to me, this is beyond a fine wine. Its the holy grail of lagers.

I had an old bottle of it about 5 years ago. It is incredibly hard to find, and expensive when you do. My parents lived in Switzerland when I was in college, and I first had it there. Since those days, I've only had it three times. Once being tonight.

Wow ... three bottles left in the cabinet ... I can't wait to share it with my Dad at Christmas.

 

Had some time on my hands this week so I did the following. Took the 27 pounds of frozen sour cherries I had saved after we made cherry wine. Followed two of Charlie Papazians recipes and made ten gallons of "Cherries in the Snow" and five gallons of "Cherry fever stout". Had a kit laying around so I made five more gallons of "German Bock". It's all fermenting like crazy and I guess I'll be busy as hell bottling in a few weeks. had to bottle all the cherry, pear and concord grape wine we made earlier this year to free up the carboys for secondary when it comes. What a week!

 

Guilty. I had an autographed photo of the two gents back in the day, I loved their commercials. I lost that picture among other things during Hurricane Andrew.

 

Besides yeast the only thing with a short shelf life is the hops. Thought about growing my own. I have used blue spruce needles in the past instead of hops and it actually makes a nice tasting brew. I've read that is what the colonists used to flavor beer since they didn't have hops. I haven't looked into long term yeast production, but I probably should. It will last forever as long as you keep your beer production going non stop or with brief time outs. The wine yeast I am not sure about because I only make it once a year. But now you got me thinking Melbo. You know, One is none and two is one sorta thing.

 

Blue Spruce needles? Wow. I have two in my front yard and never had a clue

My favorite beers are organic German Hefeweitzen and Guinness. Add German and Irish girls and I'm set

 

Paulaner is good but there's another one I like better, with a Grolsch type built in ceramic seal/metal wires. It has a yellow label with an old type German farmer harvesting bundled wheat for the label. To die for, and I can only imagine how good it is on tap in Germany

Bottle like this but different brand that I cannot remember and it won't come up in a general search.. my supermarket no longer sells it (it was $4 per 22 oz bottle, up from $2, that's likely why) but I washed and saved all my bottles for home brewing

 

Melbo, that is heaven. A wort chiller? Been wanting to make one of those for a few years. I only brew in the Winter and pack ice around my brew pail to bring the wort temp down.

 

I need to stockpile raw honey so when I get fruit windfall I can make fruit mead. I have some blueberry mead aging nicely right now

I haven't brewed beer yet but I have 6 carbouys, capping tool if I run out of Grolsch type bottles. I'll need a serious starter kit. I have pulled out one of my bottles of the beer I mentioned and will post a pic. I promise it won't be a magnum beer like the one above

 

OK, here's one of my bottles where the label survived the dishwasher. I have about 200 empty bottles

 

NICE! Where do you get the bottles/labels?

 

Top Foods used to carry it.. I explained in a prior post. I drank it!

They are cleaned and empty, waiting for my future projects. The remaining labels will come off in the final wash