Hurricane Ike took out the power on Sunday, and Worst Energy has not yet been able to bring it back. I think I might try to use the free time to do some old school brewing. Who needs lights anyhow?

I did manage to get to East End in Pittsburgh for growler hours on Saturday. They have a nice harvest ale on right now.

I am nearing time to bottle both my Oak-Aged Märzen and the Rye Pale Ale. I am pretty sure I can do that with no power. Fortunately, I have a gas stove.

I got the opportunity a couple weeks ago to teach a quick introduction to brewing to a group of my wife’s friends during a birthday party. I’ve never brewed anywhere except my own kitchen, so it was certainly a different experience. The house was on a small farm, and thanks to the industrious nature of our hosts, there was a kitchen built on the back porch complete with stove and sink. I went through the demonstration of making an all-extract with steeping grain kit, which makes a good beer. I did not quite get other people up to help with any of the process, but I did have someone take a large number of pictures of the process, so hopefully I can get a hold of those and put something a little more interesting together than this little description.

Also while in Ithaca and the surrounding area, I got to try the Rooster Fish Brewpub and beer from the Ithaca Brewing Company. Rooster Fish did not please me too much. They were out of much of their beer, and the beer they did have did not quite taste right to me. Next time I am in town, I will definitely give them another try. Ithaca on the other hand made fantastic beer, and I sacrificed a lot of trunk space to bring a lot home.

I also finally got Wordpress, the blogging software I use, up to date so that I can use some of the newer features. Hopefully, I can have more frequent and less novel-like posts in the future.

The hops project has to be officially called a failure. My plants are about a foot tall still and have no side shoots of any kind. I guess urban backyards with lots of fences and other buildings just are not cut out for hops growing. I believe the problem to be a lack of direct sunlight. The only location in my yard that gets sunlight over the course of the entire day is the middle of the front yard, which is not quite suitable for growing plants. This point sunk home completely while I was visiting Weasel Boy Brewing in Zanesville, OH. They are a relatively new brewery having only been in business for a year. The taproom itself was only opened in February. Unfortunately, my timing was off, and I did not get to meet the brewers as they were down in Athens, OH for Ohio Brew Week. I did, however, get to sample many of their beers and was quite impressed. The Ornery Otter Blonde was my wife’s favorite, and I chose the Blackfooted Porter. I have seen them on draft over in Columbus, OH at Barley’s Brew House, so hopefully their expansion continues into the Cleveland/Akron area. Here is a shot of their taproom bar:

I was visiting the area for the annual family reunion, which is held at Salt Fork State Park. Happily, Salt Fork’s Lodge Bar has Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold on draft, so between the lodge and Zanesville, you can get a good beer even in Southeastern Ohio. Is that progress or what? A beer is great after roaming the hills in the State Park Forest as well:

In addition to new beer in remote parts of Ohio, my wife has also taken more of an interest in brewing. Tonight we made batches 4009 and 4010, which prove to be quite interesting. The gravities were on spec and the temperature good, so I am looking forward to the yeast getting to work quickly. We are doing the primary fermentation in three-gallon Better Bottles, which I have never used before. I also purchased a Thief for taking gravity readings from the Bottles, and I am completely unsure how I ever homebrewed without one. I am not normally a gearhead, so believe me when I say that you should purchase a Thief before you make your next batch of beer. You will thank yourself immediately after using it.

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.