The "I love beer" thread

I think that you should invite Alex Meixner to your official opening to play: I Like Beer!

Cheers!

P.S. I saw this performance a few days ago at Wurstfest in New Braunfels (I was drinking some draft Shiner Oktoberfest while listening to this song)

 

You're in Texas...so...a Chili Pale Ale?

 

I hope you had some great Bar b que and some Schlotsky's while you were in that area?

Schlotzskys
1037 South Walnut Ave.
New Braunfels, TX 78130
(830) 629-2811

 

Personally, I like to save the beer for after fishing, because it slows my reaction time. Fishing might be the only thing outside of friends and family that I'm more concerned about than beer.

For a dedication brew, I like JohnSnowNW's idea of a chili beer, but I'd maybe go with an amber. A bit of malty, caramelly sweetness would help to carry the heat.

Also, crank Municipal Waste's Art of Partying for a great metal beer drinking soundtrack.

For me beer just represents the rewards of life. From celebrating the big things (birth, marriage, promotion, etc.) to just getting through the day, spending time with friends, and remembering the good and the bad, beer is where it's at for me.

 

Since I started homebrewing 22 years ago beer has become an integral part of our lives, we vacation where beer is good, we hang out with other homebrewers and good beer fans, meals always include beer both as a beverage and an ingredient. My wife is not a big beer drinker but at fests or beer oriented vacations she'll try any beer I will. She's also very impressed with the homebrewing/beer community-we have friends across the country that we met through beer forums and beer centered vacations. And strangely I've doubled the size of the company I run with geologists I connected with through an internet friend on another homebrewing forum.
So a couple of weeks ago my daughter asked me to brew a batch for the National Speleological Society's board of directors meeting in Carlsbad last week. Not knowing a single person in this group and having a short time frame I brewed a moderately hoppy amber that really turned out delicious. It wasn't so hoppy that people grimaced, but it wasn't Plain Jane either.
10 gallons:
18 pounds 2 row pale
2 pounds wheat
1 pound each caraamber and caravienne
.5 pounds chocolate
Mash at 152F for about an hour
Hops:
1.5 oz Magnum 60 min
2 oz's Willamette at 20, 10 and and flameout
Nottingham yeast, fermented at 60F internal for 5 days, 63F internal for 5 days

 

You seem to have your mind almost made up on a chili beer. In my fledgling homebrewing career, my goal is to nail the 'simple' styles. Extrapolating to a dream, I'd love to open a brewpub that specializes in milds and session ales that are so damn tasty it blows people away - so maybe that's what I would do for a beer that I'd use to commemorate the completion of a structure dedicated largely to the creation of beer. Simply open it by brewing the best, cleanest, most flawless executed 'basic' beer I could pull off. I guess it leaves a lot up to the alchemy of brewing though - your special beer might just end up an average pale ale.

The reasons I love beer are always changing/evolving. It was a distraction during a stint of unemployment. It was a thrill to begin the exploration of styles and flavors. It was surprising when I started keeping a journal. I'm of the mind that the journey is the destination. Beer can be (has been/is for me) a journey. And to me, the point of traveling is to explore. There's a ton of beer to explore, but homebrewing offers so many more facets - and the journey continues further.

 

If you wind up with peppers - do an alcohol extraction first. That way you can add to taste after the beer is done to not make it mind-blowingly-hot. Just did one with 1oz of chipotles with enough alcohol to cover, let it sit for ~ 4 weeks. That shit cleaned out your sinuses with a quickness. You needed one drop out of an eyedropper in 2 oz of an imperial milk stout to get significant flavor and medium-high heat. Planning to let it sit for another month before cracking one open.

 

Al, I'm not sure I quoted the right damned post, but there is an american stout up here in denver called mexican chocolate stout that has guallio peppers in it along with some cocoa and cinnamon. Its amazing. Stouts and chilis go together like pb and j. If you can get yourr hands on a bottle you're in for a treat. Or shoot me a bm and I'll send you one.