Beer Flowchart

Married to the Sea sometimes has some pretty off-color stuff on it, but then it also has fantawesome stuff like this.

Bombay Red Ale

After a very hectic May and the last of the school year, I'm finally brewing again. This time it's a red ale--malty and hoppy. Red ales are not exactly a recognized beer style, but nonetheless you'll find many a brewpub and craft brewery on the West coast with a great beer by that title. They are normally malty like an amber ale, but have as much (or more) hop flavor and aroma as a pale ale. Here's my current version.

Bombay Red

5 gallons

6 lbs. Alexander's Pale LME

1 lb. Munich Malt

1 lb. British Crystal Malt 75L

2 oz. Pale Chocolate Malt

3/4 oz. Columbus hops (14.5% AA) boiled for 20 minutes

1/2 oz. Cascade hops (6.5% AA) boiled for 15 minutes

1/2 oz. Cascade hops (6.5% AA) boiled for 1 minutes

1/2 oz. Columbus hops (14.5% AA) boiled for 1 minutes

1 oz. Cascade hops (6.5% AA) steeped for 30 minutes during chilling.

Fermented with a packet of Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

OG: 1.047

FG: 1.01?

SRM: 14 (Reddish Orange)

ABV: ~5%

IBU: 32

Specialman is Working

To my 2-3 readers: sorry for the lack of recent posts. Specialman has been working hard lately (at my real job). Having not brewed for over a month, I foresee a dearth of ale in the future...

I've Got Class (Apparently Fighter/Paladin/Ranger)

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Sweet Hook-ups for the Bar

Last weekend my sister and brother-in-law, with their two sons, visited from Northern California. It was a great time, bbqing and visiting, trying to keep the boys from knocking each other out with oranges in the backyard.

As a donation to the bar, my bro-in-law gave me a beer sign from a very nice craft brewery, Firestone Ales. I was completely surprised and am very grateful. It will look amazing on the wall of the Brass Monkey. I believe he had said he picked it up at a silent auction fundraiser. Check it out!

My BIL and the awesome light:

My nephew and I, serving up some very weird tasting root beer.

(And yes...his brother IS playing Contra on the 'tendo in the background. You know you're jealous.)

Garage Bar is Fully Functional

The Brass Monkey is now fully functional! The keezer is working beautifully, as is the newly installed recycled draft tower and faucets. I even found a ledge boxed up in the corner of the garage that looks great on the wall. Now I must turn to aesthetics, because the TV and shelving unit it sits on is UGLY and the lighting is rather poor. (If you've been to visit lately, the Clapper experiment was a failure. My poor Clapper was much too eager to please, and was constantly registering anything from the blip of a nintendo game to my own voice as a clap. Therefore, throughout a conversation the lights would repeatedly turn off or on. I knew there had to be some defect in the genius of the Clap!)

Here are some pics to show off the new space.

The Book Bar: These Guys are Rad

Books = Rad; Bars = Rad; Bars made out of books = SUPER RAD OVERLOAD! This is what I'm talking about when I say, "Making stuff outta stuff". Props to these guys for displaying their awesomeness with both books and booze. Follow this link to see the whole play-by-play of construction.