Brewing Demonstration

I'm not sure what was harder to handle at my recent brewing demonstration. The 102 degree weather or the sight of my hairy white legs.

In July I demonstrated how to make beer at Hometown Ace Hardware. I picked my all time favorite recipe, a clone of Mac-n-Jack's african amber. If you haven't had this beer yet you need to try it. Lots of body, great hop taste and nose that will nock your socks off. My clone is pretty close but I frequently jack up the hops and the alcohol content for a bit more bang!

The demo went well even with a small crowd. One guy who attended spent the entire day with me doing all of the tasks himself and learning as he went. It was his birthday and that was exactly what he wanted to do with his day. I couldn't argue, making beer is fun.

So everyone there learned about sparge water, making a mash, boiling, and finally about fermenting. It is a lot of information to take in but we had roughly five hours to cover it all.

Ace Hardware was demoing their treager grills by bbq'ing some pork. We made a delicious lunch out of it!

If you haven't used a treager yet, I encourage you to try one. They burn wood pellets for indirect heat and they can smoke at 120 degrees making for tasty meat that you cut with a fork.

So, is it easy to stand next to a 50,000 btu burner on a 103 degree day? No it isn't but it was worthwhile to introduce people to the wonderful world of beer.

Moxee Hop Festival

Once again the Yakima Brewers were at the Moxee Hop Festival to help pour beer. This is an annual event to raise money for various town projects and we were very happy to assist.

Our group volunteers every year to help in the beer garden. This is a vary large area roped off for drinking and dancing. There was a rock and roll band, dancing and lots of young people dancing and having a very good time.

Last year we saw a few fight break out which were quickly controlled by the overwhelming police presence. This year I didn't see any fights, just lots of people having fun.

We drew the 10-11:30pm shift and when I arrived I was told, "Do not shut off the faucet, never stop pouring" and that's pretty much how the night went. As fast as I could pour the beer it went out to thirsty dancers. Of course we were all dancing a bit trying to keep up with demand! Most of the beer served was Budweiser but there were a few microbrews to be sampled. The most common request was for "beer."

Overall this it was a great night to help a good cause and we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Party on!