What's in your wallet fridge?

Friday, May 16, 2008

If Smitty comes up with a Friday beer review, I am glad to see this post bumped down. If he's otherwise predisposed with the Wonder twins and Smitty Jr. then maybe this will suffice for a Friday beer discussion.

For this post, please let the 1.5 million ATK reads know what’s chilling in your fridge this weekend and what you think about it.

Because I work for the state of Michigan, I tend to stick to a Michigan beer theme for work-related functions. From a BBQ I held a week ago, I still have a variety of Michigan’s finest, drinkable beers. I kept to the basics for the variety of tastes of my guests, including buying Michigan Brewing Company’s variety 12 pack (a party favorite) and some of Bell’s regulars. Nothing fancy or adventurous here, just good quality beers for all for the guests, while sticking to the Michigan theme.

Your turn – What’s in your fridge?

14 comments:

the infamous roger 11:33 AM  

A boatload of Stone Vertical epic. Ain't touching 'em, though.

I've also got several Russian River Breweing belgians: Sanctification, Supplication, and Temptation. Probably a couple others. In the last couple of days I've had a bottle of Duvel and Westmalle Trippel that were just great.

Three years worth of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine.

Conditioning I've got a keg of my homemade Rye Barleywine sitting on a couple ounces of Chinook and columbus dryhops. That'll soon be racked to a clean keg for conditioning.

In the kegerator I've got an awesome Vienna lager, Imperial Porter, and Porter. All homebrewed.

Bob 12:26 PM  

Dang. If I had your supply of beer, I would need a 12-step program.

Sopor 2:10 PM  

Yea, serioulsy Roger, that's some incredible stuff you've got.

I've got some goodies in my cellar (details later), but I don't have anything as special as a vertical-3 set of Bigfoot, or all the Russian River, no to mention the Vertical Epic. What years ya got?

the infamous roger 2:23 PM  

Not to sound like a total cobag, but my beer supply is running rather low. Normally I have 4 kegs on draft with a couple waiting in the wings but I go on a big beer camping trip every year (~70 people, and well over one hundred gallons of beer) and that substantially drains the strategic beer reserve. As the fiancee is going to be out of town this weekend I was planning a marathon brew schedule, but it looks like it'll be in the 100s till Monday. Maybe just a single early-AM brew...

I've only got the last three years of VE, 2-3 bottles each. I hope they get better as I haven't really loved any of 'em fresh.

As far as a 12-step program, the Bear Republic is just a couple blocks away from the house.

The real addiction is all the beer gear and refrigerators. I should just turn my garage into a cold-room.

Do any of your local breweries make beers meant for cellaring? How about the homebrewers among us?

Anonymous,  4:24 PM  

House fridge: 1 bottle Bud Light, 1 bottle Sam Adams White Ale, 2 cans Busch Light.

Garage fridge: a few more bottles of Sam Adams and Bud Lites, I think, a handful of misc wine coolers, and 28 cans Busch Light.

We never did get the beer pong going a few weekends back, and now I have a fridge full of crap :-P

Sopor 9:34 PM  

OK, So since today was pay day, and I just happened to have been in Lansing, I stopped by Horrocks and grabbed a 4-pack of Rubaeus, the Magic Hat Spring Seasonal Sampler 12-pack (with 3 each of #9, Odd Notion, H.I.P.A., and Circus Boy) and a 750 of Delerium Tremens (interestingly, the label says 11.2 fl oz...)

Upstairs I've got 2xMad Hatter, 2xSt. Pauli Girl, 2x SA Longshot Weizenbock & 1 SA Longshot Grape Pale (blech), Olde Number 22, Roxy Rolles, SA Winter Lager, Best Brown, Edmund Fitzgerald, and a Cabin Fever.

Downstairs, I've got Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout, Founder's Blushing Monk, Stone 11th Anniversary, Old Guardian, Dragon's Milk, Existential, Pilgrim's Dole, and Aventinus (not 22oz, but 16+ or something?) Then I've got 4xHopslam, 2xred- and 1xblack-capped Dark Corner, Founder's Breakfast Stout, '07 Kentucky Breakfast Stout, '06 Pilgrim's Dole (Forgot about this one, SWEET!!!), Double Crooked Tree (could be '06 or '07, can't remember...), Old Heathen, Merry Monks, Mosnter Ale, Westmalle Trippel, Rochefort 10, Hell Hath No Fury (forgot about this one too!), 2xBatch 8000, and one Batch 7000.

I'm drinking a Magic Hat #9, an Apricot-infused American Pale Ale. Nothin' to shout about, but tasty and quenching. Rubaeus is better, and a good bit more expensive!

Roger, your question about breweries making beers for aging, do you mean like in the way that Stone has made the vertical epic to be aged and tasted vertically and such? No, Not that I'm aware of. Though I know plenty of people beyond just myself who have vertical collections started of some certain Michigan beers. (even if it is only one beer and I didn't realize I had done it!) Fortunately, Pilgrim's Dole apparently stands up to some aging quite nicely, as New Holland is in the habit of serving verticals of it at special tastings at beer festivals and the like.

Oh yea, and there's a homebrewed Brown and Pale on tap... though I think I screwed something up, cause they both tasted GREAT when I put them on tap, and they both taste pretty crappy now... I don't think I drank them fast enough ;-)

the infamous roger 12:04 AM  

sopor, not necessarily series beers (like VE) but regularly brewing barleywines, RIS, or whatever that you can keep around for a while.

What is the flavor change you are noticing in your homebrew?

Sopor 8:59 AM  

Ahh yes, well in that case a lot of the breweries around here are brewin' stuff like that. Obvioulsy there was New Holland like I mentioned earlier, but the Founders of course is whipping out the Breakfast Stout, KBS, and Imperial Stout every year. Arcadia has had a big beer series with RIS and Barleywines, good stuff there. Then Dark Horse has the Double Crooked Tree, and Bell's has Batch 7000 and the like... Yea, it's gettin' pretty popular. Duh, forgot to mention Jolly Pumpkin!

I can't remember exactly what the flavor was, but they're still in the keg and I think today I will taste them again and get rid of them, assuming they're still bad. I think what I was tasting was medicinal, band-aid like... but according to BYO Mag, that is a result of contamination, which I don't understand b/c these were both GREAT just in the keg, and sanitized the crap out of my keg, and the beer has alcohol when it goes into the keg!

So I don't know... I think I want to start using Star-San rather than Iodophor (so I can get it to foam up in my keg and get all the corners). I may run to my LHBS today for some grain anyway, so maybe I'll grab some more sanitizer!

Mike 7:07 PM  

Drinking an Arcadia Cereal Killer (their Barleywine) as we speak. First time trying it . . . first time seeing it.

Damn tasty brew. They roasted the barley in a way you'd expect of a chocolate stout . . . but it's got that overall maltiness & gravity of a barleywine. Very nice.

Joel 7:58 AM  

Breat milk. Bags and bags of breast milk.

and one Celis Raspberry.

goddamnit.

B Mac 10:42 AM  

I envy the contents of all of your respective fridges. Even you, Joel. One Celis Rasberry is better than nothing (which is what I currently have; I'm moving in a couple of weeks, therefore I drained my beer supply).

In fact, a nursing mother means that you don't have to share your beer with your wife. Big victory.

the infamous roger 11:12 AM  

Sopor, are you disassembling your kegs to clean 'em? Any little bit of junk in the poppets and you have an infection in the making.

Sopor 2:19 PM  

Yea, I disassemble them, soak all the individual parts in Iodophor solutions, then fill the keg w/five gallons of Idophor (this is where the Star-San would really come in handy, could make much less solution...) and let that sit, then push that out through the tap (which should sanitize the whole tap line, while at the same time filling the keg w/CO2 to prevent oxidizing the beer!)... I don't feel like I'm missing any steps in my sanitization, and I've watched brewers with worse sanitization than me come out with great beer almost every time! It's really frustrating...

the infamous roger 11:59 PM  

Sounds like you are doing the sanitizing right, but how are you cleaning the kegs before sanitizing? The only think that I do differently is scrub the kegs and all parts with hot PBW (Oxy-Clean also works and is cheaper).

I tend to clean several kegs at a time, so I'll fill one with hot PBW solution, dismantle & soak parts, brush parts, scrub inside kegs, then push the solution into the next keg.

Another thing to do when you've got a few gallons of hot PBW is to soak any tubing you use for racking. Soak in the hot solution, then use a tubing brush to scrub 'em clean. It is amazing the grunge that will come out of tubing that appears to be clean.

Rinse extremely well then sanitize with starsan, push starsan into the next keg, etc. Pushing with CO2 is nice because you are pre-purging the kegs leaving them ready for the next beer. I cover the posts with bits of aluminum foil sprayed down with starsan.

Another nice thing about starsan vs. iodophor is that starsan can be reused if made up with distilled water and kept relatively clean of grunge. Pickup a cheap packet of pH strips (should be <$5) to test the solution. If it stays 3 or lower, it is good to go.

As you may have deduced, I am super anal about cleaning and sanitizing.

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