Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Tapping New Kegs and Rochester Beer

The last few days have been pretty eventful in my world of beer.

Over this past weekend, the wife needed to go pick up some wine club packages down in the Fingerlakes. The sun was shining, even though it was brutally cold. Keuka Lake had even frozen over, the first time since 2004 according to our host at Ravines Wine Cellar. We grabbed our wine, and I made a quick dash to the closest brewery!

Our first stop was at Abandon Brewing, a place I've been many times now, but still stop at almost every trip down to the lakes. Something about their beers that I really like. They had a pretty good crowd of people there Saturday afternoon and I did a tasting flight of four beers; Harvest Saison, Grape Dubbel, Farmhouse IPA, and their Pale Ale.  

Afterwards, we were in need of some food, so we made the long drive over to CB Craft Brewers for another flight and some dinner. I went with the reuben (which I always do, anywhere a reuben is on the menu!) and four beers in my flight. 2 that I'd never had, and two that I really like. Poor Richard's Ale and the Night Owl Cream Porter were the new ones. Caged Alpha Monkey IPA and the Joe Latte Vanilla Coffee Stout were the ones I'd had before.  I was really impressed with the Poor Richard's and whats not to love about a vanilla coffee stout?

Sunday night was another day of mourning. I had the final pint of my American Amber Ale, which meant I got to put my new keg washer back to use. This was a sad occasion because this beer was a pretty big milestone for me in my brewing. This Amber Ale was my first all-grain batch! (Special thanks to my dad who was my assistant brewer that day!) But as beer goes, when a keg runs dry, another needs to be ready to take it's place. So that's what I did yesterday. I kegged up my Belgian Pale Ale and hooked it up to the CO2 so it should be ready to go by this coming weekend. 

As a reward for my hard work I enjoyed the first taste of the last keg I hooked up, my Belgian Dubbel I mentioned in a previous post. 


I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, filled with beers that helped keep you warm on these cold nights. Keep your spirits up, the days are slowly getting longer and the end of this winter is in sight....behind all those piles of snow!

Cheers!

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