Brian has done it AGAIN!! This time, the war of the worts competition. Brian won best in show at the HOPS BOP last year, not quite the sweep again but a great showing. His ECPA II Placed Second in the IPA category and third in the same category. HUH?? Well– Brian entered it in 2 categories - the IPA and The CLONE category. The Clone category was special for this competition to see who could create a brew as close to the Victory HopDevil as possible. As it turns out, Brian was the only one with the chutzpa to enter the category - so he won that!

They lumped him into the IPA category since there was only one entrant and that is how he won 2nd and 3rd place. It will be interesting to see what the judges thought as this means 4 different people attempted to judge his brew.

Check out  Brian’s story and the full results here.

My Brother has done it again. Through his wizardry of homebrewing he has won 2 awards with one beer at the B3 Forum Homebrew Competition!! Check out his story. ALSO!! Check out the winning brew!

Thanks to my brother I got some very good info on making a Honey Stout. Should be a challenge but with some patience and some guidence from him I will pull this off. To help me along, I did make the label already. I know the text along the sides will change to something else, the alc % for example is from the last brew. But for now take a look and give me your thoughts.

It may seem that after my first Homebrewing attempt I have abandoned it, but fear not Zog-ites! I am currently plotting my next batch. The slow down? I am unemployeed which would suggest MORE time to homebrew. Problem is, no cash to BUY the ingredient kits. But when I do get a new job - and I will damnit! - I am planning a Honey Stout. The name - the all important factor - will be Uncle Tupelo Honey Stout. The name has a fun triple meaning. And I will fill you in (of course).

Uncle Tupelo - A band
Tupelo Honey - A Van Morrison Song
Uncle Tupelo - My Brother (and as it would also be, my son’s Uncle) lives on a street named Tupelo.

See how that all works out!

I am open to suggestions. Anyone have any advice? Recipes? Want to complain?

Here is the final label for Zog’s Grog Jester’s Kin Amber Ale. I am posting it sideways so I can make it small enough to fit without overrunning the column.

Ok - so I revised the label a little more. Just changed some of the text and added some info about it (size, alc., batch #) . Now you can see what I revised.

Here I am sampling the very first Zog’s Grog named Jester’s Kin Amber Ale.

AND……

It is quite good!!! Nice head, solid carbonation, smooth drinking. I only wish the hops taste was bigger. And this was even enhanced along the way by Brian adding some additional hops to my recipe kit.

Thanks especially goes to Brian for making this happen. I wish I had more space because I would do it more often. Next — I think a porter for winter.

Today came part 2 of the homebrewing process - bottling. This is tricky. You need to be cautious and “slow down”. That got me a couple times. Out of the original near 5 gallons about 4 and 1/4 were usable and bottled resulting 43 Zog’s Grog Jester’s Kin Amber Ale. Here is the label I am working on:

It was very tedious at parts and I agree with Brian, part way through I tell myself that I am never doing this again. Never. Of course after seeing nearly 2 cases of beer smiling back at me I think - well maybe once more. Check out these pics from today:

The cases - ready for 2 weeks of carbonation action

The first sample - tasted like orange-peeled flat slightly hoppy beer

And the “carboy of doom” - oh boy - I get to clean that!

This weekend mark one week into the fermentation process and I changed out the blow-off tube for an airlock along with dry-hopping. The brew looks healthy and smells nice. And yes - I will post the full process with time notes soon. It is gonna take like an hour to place that all up here but it will make it’s way up.

Today my brother came up to my home and helped and throughly guided me in my very frist home brew. We have about a week until the next stage.

I will post a very detailed account soon, but for now I wanted to say a massive THANKS to my brother Brian. He took a fair chunk of time and a distant drive to help make this happen.

This saturday is National Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. And as circumstances would dictate, my brother gave me an ingredient kit for my homebrew set up for my birthday. He is coming up in the morning and hopefully by the afternoon we will be on our way to the first Jester’s Kin brew. Who knows!!

I am very excited about it and more updates and picture will follow.

Catherine and I “inherited” a homebrew kit a few months ago and I have for some time wanted to give it a shot. I am a little hesitant because I have not done this before and my brother is a master of the homebrew. I have a spiffy name picked out: Jester’s Kin. You think, neat but what is the story behind that. I am glad you asked. My brother’s brew is called Fool Circle and as you can see the tie in there, I figured I would mooch off his success.

For my first brew I think I am going to attempt a simple Amber Ale. If I do it this weekend it will be ready in time for my birthday and Halloween. Won’t the kiddies be surprised to find that in their candy bag! (I am just kidding - I would give it directly to the Dads that are trooping around the neighborhood with them).

I will definitely give a steady blog of the process. My successes and failures, and ultimately (if all goes as planned) a full review of my brew.