Happy Brew Day!

It's go time here at the brewery. We've had a coconut brown and an el dorado pale ale in the fermenters for 3 weeks, so it's time to do some kegging. The el dorado needs another day or two, but the coconut brown is as ready as it's going to get. Plus, we need a fermenter for the cream ale we're brewing today.

The coconut brown fermented in a traditional fermenter and thus lost some volume just due to the design of the vessel. So final kegging volume was probably around 4 gallons. It's got a beautiful color - dark brown like a Newcastle and clarity was probably the best we've produced so far. It'll chill in a keg for at least one week - maybe two - before being tapped. 

The cream ale brew session went well. Mash temp was great and sparge was like clockwork. About half way through the boil I realized we hadn't added any hops. Oops. Quickly threw in the 60 and 30 hop additions plus a little and hoped for the best. The 15 min addition went in as scheduled. Decided to add 5 min to the boil to make up for less hop time. Not sure if it was the extra 5 minutes or what, but the wort is darker than expected. It could still taste great...but it will be darker than normal for a cream ale. We'll know in a couple weeks! Fingers crossed. 

Feeling a little....Disgruntled?

Ever heard of Perham, MN? Apparently folks here don't like their jobs much. Except of course the folks that work at Disgruntled Brewing where they say "Grumpy is Good". I completely agree!  And their beer is really good too!  We had a sample flight of 6. A sour gose, a blonde, 2 IPAs, a DIPA and a wheat.  The sour gose was more sour than a regular gose - kind of similar to the sour bomb, but maybe not quite as sour. Terri really liked it. The blonde had a rich flavor...almost like a cream ale. The two IPAs were completely different. One was more piney, the other was more earthy/spicy. The wheat was very pale and light. The double IPA....hmmm...was the last one on the paddle and honestly can't remember! There was no bad beer here. Awesome place. 

Fargo Roundup

We just had breakfast and getting ready to head southeast to Perham, MN. It's a tiny town with what looks to be a really cool little brewery - Disgruntled Brewing. It's about an hour and fifteen minutes to Perham, so we're planning to be there at 11:00 when they open and then come back to Fargo to hit a meadery and a couple other craft beer bars. 

Of the four breweries in Fargo, Drekker, Kilstone, Junkyard & Fargo - Junkyard was our favorite...mostly because of the one of the employees we chatted with and cool taproom...and the beer was probably the best overall. Drekker was definitely the quietest and "most us" kind of place and they had several sours for Terri. 

Kilstone

So Kilstone's thing is games on Friday nights. Didn't know that and walked in on a family feud style game.  Yeah. Interesting. Didn't know I had to think while I drink!  We got a flight ...  A pale ale an IPA, a Belgian and a session I think. All the while we got to smell the smokey goodness of a pit bbq food truck parked outside. 

Interesting place...maybe a slight bit on the rough side. Kind of surprising that games like this work with this crowd. 

We just signed up for something like the newlywed game. Know you're buddy or something. We'll see how that goes. Stay tuned. 

Game results - WE WON! We got 5 of 12 answers correct, the next closest team was 3. I answered the questions beforehand and Terri had the same answers for these:

What sea creature would she say I am - shark

What Disney princess would Terri say she is - there isn't one

Something I do that makes her mad - tell her how to drive

What is her favorite teenage mutant ninja turtle - she doesn't know any of them

What dwarf is she most like - grumpy 

It was fun. It did get a little long because pretty much everyone played so ... Probably 8 teams. We got a "collectible" alien vs predator medallion of some kind. Lol. 

The beer wasn't great, but it was kind of a neat place. 

Fargo

The brewery, not the city or the movie. Sampling the session pale ale and the blood orange wood chipper IPA. Love the blood orange. Similar to the 515 OJ IPA. 

Fargo is definitely a production first brewery. They are in a large warehouse space with probably 8-10 large fermenters and a decent sized brew system. They had pallets of cans stacked 30 feet high. Their forklift must go up pretty high. 

Since it was just an old concrete structure with high ceilings, it was loud....really loud. So we had our pints and left for somewhere quieter. Who knew that would be family feud and newlywed game at Kilstone. Lol. 

Drekker

Stop #2 on the fun filled Fargo research trip is Drekker. Apparently Drekker is a made up word that's a combination of a Nordic word that means drink and a French word that describes Viking ships. Ok then. This is a cool place in downtown Fargo which is surprisingly not that busy for a Friday evening. Small brew system with 10 bbl fermenters. We started with a hoppy sour and their IPA. Guess which one of us got what 😉. We each got a grilled cheese sandwich and some chips. Very basic menu and minimal kitchen area. Just enough food to keep you here. Also offered menus for other places close by. Of all the places we've been, I could see this being ours. All the carbs...probably be asleep in an hour! Lol. Terri got a sampler of their kettle soured Berliner Weiss, sour saison, chamomile wit, whatever that is, and a milk stout for me. Guess I'll be driving next. 

Junkyard Dog

It's FRIDAY!  Friday April 15th. Tax day. Uugghh. Good thing there's a sufficient supply of awesome craft beer. Today we're in Fargo. Not the movie, eh....the city. Our first stop is Junkyard Brewing. We had a flight of four - a gose, hop habit pale ale, IPA and stout with coconut and cocoa nibs. All four were very good. The stout has a similar flavor to the coconut brown ale we have in the fermenter right now. The IPA tastes similar to our second pale ale - the "2 Cs". Definitely no shortage of customers for 4:00 on Friday!

We sampled several other brews including a stout with pecans and cocoa nibs - tasted a lot like a turtle candy! Very good. The simcoe double IPA was ok, sweet like a lot of doubles. Ended up having a half pint of the hop habit and Terri had a half pint of the gose.