Sorry, I was unconscious most of the weekend. Apparently I downed a Pliny, then another, ate an entire bowl of salsa fresca, then a Ruination, went online and ordered a chainmail shirt and passed out on the floor next to the coffee table. Have not really felt right since, but I think I am okay today. PHEW. So yeah Friday, sounds like a plan. Technically I am on call but I vow to make it this time.

 

Matt - you may remember some collaboration projects being talked about before the IPA began to take hold at the Superb Owl party a while ago.. Well, we are planning the first one right now. Want to get started ASAP because this one involves aging, and as we all know that is difficult to rush... Heh.

So.. The next oak cask from Wesolek (family vintners) is ours. This could be a 30gal or as huge as a 60gal, most likely Italian oak, cask that has been used for Cabernet. Our thought was to get together a group of "sensible" brewers, agree on a grain profile and hop addition, collect a large amount of snack to bbq during the process, and we all brew up our batches and mix it into the cask, then let it age in Rob's garage through the summer - which has shown to hold a constant 48-52 degrees year round.

Toss some ideas around, see what sounds fun. Rob also wanted to do a Hef collaboration based on the American Hef I have been making and using as a base for the Lilikoi Wheat. Another blend of ideas, where half will get the Lilikoi at bottling, and half will remain fruitless or possibly be infused with a different thing altogether. This one will not take too much aging - a month at the most to let the passionfruit calm the fork down a little.

 

opinions wanted: showshoe brewing...
... our potential wedding caterer gets kegs from them.

 

OH MAN the memories.. When I lived in Sunnyvale we would have 2 kegs at every party and they would always be RB kegs. I had a friend who was a server there and they would HOOK us up. She would always hook us up with free snacks too when we were there and we always said she shouldn't do that because she would get fired and then one day she got fired for giving us free snacks. We would always add in the amount of money for whatever she gave us, but we missed some pretzels and I guess they were watching her... Dumb on her part. LOVE that place tho, pretty bummed that it looks like we won't be living in walking distance from that now... Possibly walking to HMB Brewing instead which will be killer for evenings w/ puppy. Funny how whenever my wife tells me about a new place I know it's close to a brewery...

 

Jacob, collaboration sounds good, we can talk about it on Friday.

I've never heard of them, but kegs are available from pretty much any brewer. If you have people that really like/know beer, I'd suggest going for something local that you know everyone likes.

 

Boulder Creek Brewery: Newcastle Brown Ale. Delicious. Could pass for a porter or stout.

 

yeah, it was more a matter of this being their exclusive provider of beer. ends up we're not going with this venue and caterer so we can have more control over our day and spend less money.

now i get to decide what i really want people to drink on my wedding day.

 

http://www.stonebrew.com/og/

If anyone sees this round the South Bay, please let me know. If anyone sees it outside of the South Bay, please pick up a bottle and I'll pay you back. I really want to try this!

 

dude that stuffs all over the place, i seem to remember a barley wine with a green label too...

 

OMFP!!!!!!



Didn't expect to get this so quick, but here's our collaboration cask. 13g French Oak, smells soooo awesome. Had cabernet in it for about a year and a half total. Dude said to Star San it, and store it with a 10% sulfide mixture. So step 1 is figuring out what a sulfide mixture is.

 

Weird the pics looked a lot smaller on my phone...

I will resize them later.. Sorry about that!

 

^LOL dude we musta missed each other by MINUTES at WF this morning. I picked up 3 more meself

 

Hmm, 13g is only going to do a 3-way (hehe) collaboration, and even at that one person is only going to do 3 gallons.

 

Well our plan was at least 4-5 people doing brews along an agreed-upon grain profile. Now that we have such a teeny cask (was expecting a 50gal LOL) we can size it down, but this is so much better because my goal was to be able to do this mixture collaboration and be able to do some in only glass to compare JUST the oak/cabernet flavors added. So far I have arranged enough gear to do 3 simultaneous FULL BOIL brews for this adventure... I am envisioning a BBQ/Brew party, say... BarBeBrew Fest.. Sounds a little "on the softer side of Sears" I know so don't be hatin' just yet. Remember the EPA brewing lady (uhhhh well first off I am not Matt...)? Well she may be loaning us some of her equipment. My bro-in-law has a 2x chef cooker so with mine we can do 3x full boils. That's at least 15-18 gallons right there..

Tossing around some ideas for the base... Gotten like 5 mails from Rob already so he is clearly excited as well. So far we are thinking a blonde ale, brown ale or even something like that English IPA since it had such a sweet yeast profile..

 

Ahhh I see what you mean.... There will be PLENTY of chances to get in on this, this is only round 1.

I am sort of expecting that this cask will be me, you and Rob making the beer this round BTW. If that's cool.