Yesterday we brewed the last of 2 Great Fermentation kits we've got; we're finishing these up before moving on to the wild world of All Grain Brewing. During the process, Lizz had a food idea involving beer ingredients, and so she went and worked on that while I finished the brew. Her idea involved spent specialty grains and 2 kinds of hops.

I'm not sure if the project is out of "secret" status yet. I'll let her guest-blog on it if so. I will say though, that for a "beer ingredient dessert food," it is everything I'd even imagined such a thing could be. You can definitely taste the beer ingredients, and they work amazingly well with the dessert item too.

A couple of nights ago, we built our mash/lauter tun so that we can move onto all grain brewing - the next logical step in a homebrewer's evolution. We also bought a couple of things at Tuxedo Park Brewers over the weekend. Firstly, a used propane burner, so that we can brew outside, and get our water up to temp a lot faster. The second item was a stir plate, so that we can make yeast starters. It'll will be fun to play with yeast, for sure; we need the "Yeast book" soon.

Lately, during our walks, and dinners, and, well, a lot of the time, we've been theorizing and talking about various beers we want to make. It seems our "house style" is going to follow the motto of FFF ("It's not normal!") We like normal, beer flavored beers, of course, but every time we talk, we come up with new twists for beers.

A beer judge recently told us that during a competition, he judged IPAs and found all of them very uniform; nothing stood out. Well, when the emphasis is on near-slavish style adherence, with everyone aiming for dead-center of the style parameters, what can be expected? It seems people either do that, or go for the EXTREEEEEEEEEEEME hoppiness of the American IPA substyle.

So, with our beers, we will try to make good, balanced beers, that taste good, but have something a little different about them. Even if it's just slightly different malt or hop bills.

Our beer, Fucking Ball ov Sunshine, by the numbers, did not do well in the Brewer's Cup. By our reckoning though, it did perfect. ;) This beer came about by Lizz and I lying in bed, and her blurting out "we have to make a beer with lemon and basil!!!!!!!!!@@@!" Rather than, "let's brew an IPA, and add lemon." The latter is what the judges were wanting: a totally identifiable, normal beer, with a small addition of something. FBoS is not that. It literally a fucking ball of sunshine. It has a lot of lemon character. That's its raison d'etre. And that's what the judges found. It's just not what they wanted. Oh well. The notes were very constructive though, which I'm thankful for.

So soon it's onto all grain brewing and probably better beers!