Learn 2 Brew – The wrap-up

So, if you’ve been following along, you’ll remember I was planning to attend an event this past weekend at the Amsterdam Brewery, a brew-day hosted by the Southern Ontario Brewers.  The day was an opportunity for a bunch of the SOBs to come into the brewery, set-up their brewing systems, and brew a batch or two, allowing public to come wander through, watch, ask questions, and get bitten by the brewing bug.  My attendance was part of an idea dreamed up, to get some bloggers, who regularly critique beer, to brew a batch of their own.  This served two purposes, in that we had to put our money where our mouths were, and also demonstrated that pretty well anybody can brew.  No matter how hopeless they might seem.

Jordan St John (of saintjohnswort.ca) organized us, and brought myself, Matt Caldwell (onebeeratatime.wordpress.com), and Andrew “The Ringer” Bartle (sometimes blogger and brewing employee at Amsterdam) together into a team of such magnitude, it would be hard to imagine us loosing.  Wait, is this a competition?  Oh no, we’re just that competitive.  Here’s why we couldn’t loose:  Jordan used a fancy online dealy to cook up the recipe, which was to be a sort of new-school hoppy Christmas ale.  Matt arrived before our grains.  I was wearing a killer pair of wellies, which made me look like a real live brewer.  And Andrew added a bit, in that he’s a BJCP judge, student in Niagara College’s Brewing programme, and regularly works in the brewhouse at Amsterdam.  So needless to say, we were shoe-ins.  Despite the total lack of any form of competition.  Actually, there was a draw for a brewing set-up from Homebrewer’s Retail, which was stiff competition.  And we totally lost that one.  But still…..

Southern Ontario Brewers Learn 2 Brew - Amsterdam Brewery - Toronto

Okay, so there we were, set-up, grains finally arrived, and ready to go.  It turns out, brewing your own batch of beer is actually really simple and straight-forward, when all you have to do is stand around in your wellies, stir a pot whenever Andrew said so, chat pleasantly to passers-by and order Thai food for lunch.  I was epic.

As the day progressed, the sweet aromas of dark roasty grains started emanating from our area, soon, this was joined by hops, which in turn was joined by a lot more hops, and finally cinnamon, cloves and orange peel.  A trip through the chiller and a gravity measurement, and we toasted ourselves with a sip of the sweet wort.  Note to self: this will be the hoppiest Christmas Ale I’ve ever had.  Like, crazy hoppy.  I’m so excited, I’m glad we’re fermenting at Amsterdam, because I think I would just sit and stare at the carboy until it was ready, I’m so excited.

Pics to follow, and (obviously) a full report of this epic ale.