Flagon Slayer Brewery

Sorry, once again it’s been too long since we’ve posted anything.  The current plan for the intrepid Flagon Slayers is still the traveling party, brewing together a minimum of every two weeks.  Ross and I are trying hand at growing our own hops this year, as well: Fuggles and Cascade for me, and Wilamette, Cascade, and Tettnag for Ross.  Additionally, we’re attempting fruit gardening for more wine and melomel fodder, and I’ll even be making a lavender wine.  Homebrewing is amazing in that almost anything can become delicious boozeahol.  For inspiration, check Jack Keller’s wine recipes.  There’s a man to be proud of.

Brewing this often really adds up.  What we’ve got in carboys this week:

TheRussian has the experimental Atomic Porter (1.090 OG), black cherry wine, raspberry champagne, pomegranate mead,  Ripper Jack (High abv / high ginger applejack), Nepali Spiced Tea Mead, some sort of peachy white melomel that I made when I was drunk, and Thundertrain (I swear it’s not a bum wine…)

Chris is rocking out lately, with his now legendary Baconated Porter (it literally has a pound of bacon), raspberry melomel, a traditional plain mead, piesporter, a nut brown, and, in a first for our group, sake!

Ross is coming on strong with a nut brown, a crazy high hop IPA, and a volcanic (yes, it erupted) strawberry mead.  We just need to convince him to get more carboys, and it’s ON.

Finally, Fautz can’t brew.

I’ll be putting some of the more interesting recipes up after finals, but in the meantime, if there’s anything that looks interesting, leave a comment and we’ll try to post it.  That’s all for now, and may the party continue…

Well, Halloween’s coming up, and I haven’t updated in quite some time, for the simple reason that we haven’t been up to brewing anything lately.  There are two links that really need to be passed on, though, both involving pumpkins.  The first is actually brewing related: an interesting flickr photo stream about brewing in a pumpkin. The second is just plain cool, for those who are electrically inclined: Evil Mad Scientist’s Snap-O-Lantern. Very nice!

Stumbled across a link to a self-described, all-in-one beer brewing machine today on Gizmodo called simply The Device. The Device includes CO₂-pressurized hoses that move the liquid through each stage of the brewing process and temperature control to regulate the fermentation vessel. Keep checking back for more information about Flagon Slayer’s own, Linux controlled, fermentation temperature regulator.

First and foremost, if you haven’t been to http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bender/, you must. Simon is my new hero for building a real live Bender Fermenter. Words can not express.

I’ve been looking into growing my own hops, and it looks surprisingly cheap / easy / fun. Farms will ship you hop rhizomes for $3-$5, depending on the variety, so when they come back in stock early spring I’ll be picking some up. Odd to think about planning which hops you’ll need for brewing a beer a year or two from now, but I like the idea. It gives it a sort of permanence as well as adds pure homebrew points.

This Friday, as I’m sure you all know, is St. Bartholomew’s day, the patron saint of beekeeping, and in Cornwall the Blessing of the Mead is still celebrated every 24th of August. As such, I’ve decided on a Flagon Slayer party, where we’ll be showing Jeremy how to brew by making a Pomegranate Red Mead of my own devising, as well as sampling ample amounts, of course. A bottle of mead or some decent home/microbrew gets you in, and if you read this, you’ve probably already been invited.

Finally, since Kyle asked so nicely, I’m posting the recipe for Sima, a quick brewing Finnish lemon alcopop. It’s delicious, and costs about $2 / gallon to make.