A lazy Saturday, filled with memories of EBC the night before where a few of us gathered to embarrass Matt Ebling. Something about a birthday.
But February is around the corner, and on the second Wednesday (that's February 10 - see Hoppenings) the Northern Chautauqua Homebrewers club will meet. It's the annual chili contest, one of the favorite events of the year. One of the club beers for this meeting, brewed by yours truly on January 1, will be a Kolsch, which should go nicely with chili. So on this lazy Saturday, time to mosey on down to the homebrew shoppe and rack the beer into the keg, where it will chill, clarify, and condition over the next week and a half.
So I head that way, taking with me a six gallon carboy which has been gathering dust and who knows what else for a few ... ahem ... years. No longer! I'd be racking my half of a Russian River Hop Father IPA (a 10-gallon all-grain batch brewed with Aaron Tecroney and split into 5-gallon primaries) into this carboy after cleansing it for its return to a life of productive service.
I'm thinking I'd get to the shoppe, chat, rack the Kolsch, clean my carboy and head back out into the cold January Saturday. Taking my time, an hour's chore.
But when I got to the shoppe, I saw that the parking lot was surprisingly populated with familiar vehicles. Upon entry, a bustle of activity. A all-grain batch of Red Ale was being brewed by Doug Rector for the club's St Patty's Day party in March. Matt Ebling and Steve Spears were racking an all-grain Baltic Porter, brewed 8 days earier, to secondary - another club beer, and also slated for St Patty's Day. Dan Astry (club President) and Lenny Kupkowski (club VP) were also racking a Brewer's Best kit Amber Cerveza from primary to secondary. Like the Kolsch I was there to rack, this Amber Cerveza is a club beer, for February's meeting. (Yes, we've outgrown the days when 5 gallons of beer was enough!)
Steve had also brewed a Kolsch on New Years day, using a different grain bill and different yeast than I used for the club beer. This beer, too, would find its way from primary fermentation to a secondary vessel before this "lazy" Saturday ripened into evening.
Al Liedke and Cody Britton were there, sipping and supervising. Erica Snow showed up to help Doug with the brewing of the Red, and with the important task of sampling beers - both those which are finished and on tap (a wonderful dry Stout with lots of flavor!) and those being racked.
A word about racking. Racking a beer is important work. First of all, the vessels into which the beer is being racked must be both clean and sanitary. The racking cane - the tubes through which the beer will pass - must likewise be sanitary so as not to introduce any infections into the beer. When racking, you might want to leave behind some of the trub at the bottom of the primary vessel. Generally, you do. And, most importantly, the beer must be tasted. At every stage of a beer's life, tasting is the most important testing tool. As important as are thermometer and hydrometer, the pallette tells more - from a taste of the sweet wort to beer just fermented, to beer which has had time to drop clean, to beer which has been kegged or bottled and finally achieved it's proper conditioning. And even then, sometimes, depending on the style, there is improvement over time. So yes, we taste the beer. It's a required pleasure.
On Saturday, January 30, 2010, there was hardly room for excitement. It is becoming commonplace and expected. Excellent beers are coming to be. The Northern Chautauqua Homebrewer's Club has some skillful and inventive brewers! Meeting after meeting, we are being treated to a wide variety of wonderful hombrew - in addition to the beers specially brewed for the meetings.
Those of you who are familiar with Dunkirk Homebrew Supply know that space is limited. It's a small shoppe that packs a lot of punch in terms of inventory, expertise and activity. But this Saturday, the level of productive activity was at a new high. The shop was bursting at the seams with the serious, joyful activities that surround the making and nurturing of beer.
One of the good things about a day like Saturday ... it stands as a promise of above-average beer in the glass in the near future. A variety of beers. That's what it's all about!