I finally got time to do some serious yard work, and to spare the rest of the details, I have the extra manure and mulch on the hops now. This should hopefully kill off the multitude of weeds that were quite obvious in previous pictures. The bines are still short, but look way better with the mulching done. Here they are, left and right again:

I also made a Witbier over the weekend from the Brewers’ Best Kits from LD Carlson. The Wit was their spring seasonal kit, and I’ve always wanted to try making one, so I started with the kit to see how it goes. As I opened the package, I noticed that there was a pound of base malt included with the kit. The directions said to steep the grains as usual at around 160-170 degrees F. I was not too thrilled about this prospect, so I did a partial mash instead. One pound of 2-row with half a pound each of flaked oats and flaked wheat went into my mash. I did a simple step mash with a protein rest and a single sacchrification rest. My big quandary was how to lauter this as I do not have any kind of gear for this. I ended up coming up with my own method, which has probably been done before, but I dubbed it teabag sparging. Because I mashed in a huge grain bag, I just lifted the whole thing onto my mash paddle and dunked it into the sparge water rather than pouring the water over it. I tasted my “second runnings” and definitely detected sugar coming off of it, so it seemed to work pretty well. If the name teabag sparging does not make you laugh, this picture will:

After a good five minute soak in the sparge water, I discarded the grain bag, poured it all together, and went on with my boil. I got bubbles in the fermenter only 12 hours after pitching, so I think this one will get through primary quickly.

I was fortunate enough to be able to get tickets and head down to DC for the first SAVOR event put on by the Brewers’ Association. It was held in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in downtown DC. Being two blocks from the White House is an excellent landmark. It was held in three different sessions: Friday Evening, Saturday Afternoon, and Saturday Evening. Because of my long drive time from Cleveland Heights, OH to Washington, DC, I was only able to attend the Saturday Evening session.

The event included forty-eight brewers from across the country. Different from a beerfest, though, each beer was paired with food prepared by Federal City Catering. It was more like a wine/food reception I have been to before. The actual brewers were present in many cases. The only one I talked to for any length of time was Peter Bouckaert from New Belgium Brewing Company. I begged and pleaded with him to bring NB beers to Ohio, but he said it would likely be a couple years before they made it quite that far.

In addition to the main floor where the beers were presented, there were also informative seminars put on for the event. I attended Crossdrinking without Social Stigma, which was discussing the new trend in Food/Wine magazines to start including information about craft beer. The hour-long salon also included a three blind beer/food pairings put together by the presenters. The winner ended up being Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Marron with parmesan cheese. Sam Caligione from Dogfish Head was a couple rows behind me and seemed quite pleased with the results.

It was a fantastic event, and I hope the BA decides to do it again next year. The only thing I would do differently would be to make the space a little bit bigger. All of those people packed into that auditorium became a little claustrophobic about an hour into it. I also got to meet Jeff Bearer from Craft Beer Radio. He sat in front of me during the salon, so I stopped up to say hi. I have never emailed the show, which I told him, and he mentioned that he was glad that there were actual people behind his 2,500 downloads of each show.

The hops are still coming along, and everything is looking quite green in the bed right now. This is mainly because of all the maple tree and other seeds that have landed on top of the dirt. Fortunately, the bines are tall enough to be seen separately. The underdog left side is growing taller and perhaps in a few weeks it will be on equal ground with the right. Here is the right side, then the left:

I also started listening to Basic Brewing Radio’s May 8th episode about Dandelion Wine. Like Don Osborn said on the show, I have memories of my grandmother making this and storing it in Ball jars on the basement stairs. I am thinking about going over his website and checking into making this. Unfortunately, my grandmother is long gone, and I cannot get her recipe, but hopefully Don’s information will make a fine substitute. It is doubly sad that I was listening to this driving home in the rain, and all of the dandelions in my neighborhood have turned white. Can you buy dandelion flowers? Perhaps Whole Paycheck will have them.

Unfortunately, I found out about the first Saturday of May a little too late, so I was unprepared for brewing, but I did finally get my latest batch, dubbed the Swaggering Braggot, into the secondary fermenter. Those of you following along at home will notice I have been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally made it.

Also, through the negligence of a co-worker, I got a rare treat just in time for today. I had given him a bottle of my very first batch, but he never drank it. It sat lonely in his refrigerator for almost a year. He finally brought it back to me at the end of this week, so I could not think of a better occasion to open it up and enjoy alongside the sample vial of my latest batch.

The Irish Red was far better than I imagined it would be. There is a little taste of oxidation, especially because I was not as confident with bottling as I am now and left quite a bit of head space. The new beer is definitely green still, but another month in the carboy and bottles, and it will be wonderful.

I also had the pleasure of meeting three homebrewers who work at a customer of mine. I only noticed because one of them was using an EZ-Cap Bottle box as a foot rest under his desk. I would recognize that logo anywhere. If you guys are reading this, Happy Homebrewing Day!