Beer...It's What's For Breakfast!

I know it must be getting close to wintertime because I'm organizing my head to start brewing beer. The steps that precede any project for me are:

1) Think about it.

2) Imagine what that project will look like.

3) Drive by it once or twice, and see if it looks scary.

4) Do it.

So I'm planning to brew beer soon. I've been in Step 1 for a couple of weeks, and I've recently progressed to Step 2. I'm planning to start with my two favorites: An oatmeal stout with a bit of coffee and chocolate added, and a lighter honey ale.

The stout is super rich and creamy, and ends up with some ungodly amount of alcohol in it...something like 9 or 10%. Really, it's more like dessert than beer. But it's the kind of dessert that knocks you on your ass and makes the rest of the family roll their eyes in disgust and embarrassment at your pathetic drunken antics.

The honey ale uses about about quart of honey as a fermentable sugar for the yeasts to metabolize into their life-sustaining alcohol. Combined with a ton of Willamette hops to bitter it up, it's the kind of beer you can drink all day long (especially if you have this handy and stylish hand-free beer dispensing device) and not notice it's effect until you cut off your leg with the chainsaw. And if you've brewed it in kegs, there'll be plenty to share with the EMTs when they come to pick you up!

So now I'm moving on to step 3. I'm going to drive by the plan, and see if it's more of a commitment than I'm willing to make. I'm going to go root around in the shed and see if I can track down all the tools and vessels and bottles that go into this project. If that doesn't break my spirit, the next step will be to track down the ingredients from an online brewing supply house like Northern Brewer. After a couple of weeks of fermenting and then the bottling phase, there'll be nothing left to do but kick back and watch my liver enzymes go through the roof between now and springtime!