The Big Beer Fiasco

To all you homebrewers that keg your beer, I have some advice: CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CONNECTIONS!!!

I lost basically a whole 5 gallon keg of Johann Sebastian Bock because I had a bad connection on my beer line. This was a beer that had no discernable flaws, that had lagered for 6 weeks, and was one that I had planned to enter and win numerous competitions with. And it's gone, all gone. I think the problem started when I was trying to hook up the CO2 to the keg. It was in the bottom of the kegerator, so I didn't see right away that I was attempting to hook the CO2 to the "beer out" connector. Once I realized my mistake, I hooked the gas up correctly, to the "gas in", and then hooked the beer line to the "beer out". Apparently, it wasn't secure, possibly because of my attempt to force the gas on it earlier, so overnight, all the delicious malty bock was pushed out of the keg and into the bottom of my kegerator. Wasted. I don't have any photos of the damage because I was too pissed off to even think about taking any. In fact, I couldn't even write about this incident until almost a month later. (It happened early March).

I ended up pumping the beer out of the kegerator with a fountain pump and watering my newly planted hop rhizomes with it. I hope the alcohol in the beer didn't have an adverse effect on them. So I'll write it again, "CHECK YOUR CONNECTIONS! TWICE!"

Bosworth the Wonder Dog and his Beer Wagon

As you can see from the above video, Bosworth got a wagon for his second birthday. He loves to pull it. The next time we go down to the LHBS to buy bulk grain, Bosworth will be pulling it home in his wagon. Also, I measured the wagon and it will hold 3 five gallon kegs of homebrew, and a CO2 cannister. Their combined weight with the wagon will be just under the maximum Bosworth should pull--3 times his body weight. Coincidence? I think not.

Yes, I'm still here

I realize I haven't posted in awhile, and I intend to remedy that. The best way for me to do that is to post a list of what I'm going to post, so here it is:

Update on Your Mother's Mustache
Why I've been scoring low in competitions
The Big Beer Fiasco
Why one Portuguese Water Dog is better than a team of Clydesdales
Plus more photos of Megan Fox!

0-fered again?

The results of the 2009 Babble Brew Off are in, and somehow, I didn't place in any of my 3 entries. I wonder what is going on--last year about half the beers I entered at least placed in their category, and this year I'm 0-for-7. Maybe I'm spending too much time writing about brewing, and not enough time on the brewing itself?

There's another contest I was planning to enter, The Drunk Monk Challenge. I was going to drop my entries off at the Chicago Beer Society meeting this Thursday, but now I think I'm going to skip this one. I want to see my score sheets from Babble, and I don't think I'll get them in time.

Oh yeah, the photo of Megan Fox had nothing to do with this post, I just liked the picture.