Great Beer/Alcohol Thread

[Gooch]

I'm going to have to try a real, traditional lambic. Thanks!

[b*saint]

Traditional lambic will have miles of complexity from the different flavors the bacteria and wild yeast have, while the sweetened lambics will just taste like a sweet dessert drink.

Lindemanns is back sweetened with artificial sweetener (i.e. Equal/Splenda) that the yeast can't eat, so it's a lot sweeter than traditional lambic. If you find a nice Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus or a Drie Fontienen Hommage, it'll be dry and sour with a fruity tartness, not a sweet fruit flavor like Lindemanns will have.

Most people can't taste a lambic right. You cant go from a run of the mill micro right to a lambic.

[KenC]

Fuck I just remembered it's about that time again!

Starts in two weeks! I went last year for the 200th Anniversary. I'm pretty sure I'm headed over again in a month. It's a pretty epic party.

[delfin]

I'm in brussels for belgian beer weekend, going to bad durkheim wine fest next weekend, and then oktoberfest after that. Woo.

[klavender1]

Fuck I just remembered it's about that time again!

I thought this thread was about beer? I don't see any beer.

This tonight:

[freeride53]

I'm finna hop on that F34R hype with STELLA ARTOIS

[dreamchasin]

Just got some Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale, I like it.

[Chachi]

my girl took me to a place in rochester called beers of the world for part of my birthday. basically a supermarket of beer. i was overwhelmed. here's what i managed to take home, excited to try some new stuff.

[Nick_S]

^^ Nice selection! I luckily just moved near a store with an awesome selection of good beer. Been trying a new beer every weekend.

[Eecen]

I'm enjoying a right now, good beer.

[JasonC]

Has anyone tried this hard cider yet? I got some out of the tap and picked up a six pack later. pretty good if you ask me. I've only tryed the Crisp Apple so far.

[VANOS714]

Im drinking an Arrogant Bastard Ale at the moment, looks bad ass and tastes great has anyone had it?

I saw them on trader joes, the bottle does look badass and so does the label lol. If you say they're good I should give it a try.

[Peterkaczynski]

Defiantly give it a go

[Cabriolet]

one of my new favs:


during winter i also really like Anderson Valley Winter Ale.

killed a few of these the other night. really bold IPA taste.

[willworkfore30s]

Home brew

This seems like a legitimate place to put this.

Since it relates I thought you guys might be interested in something I have been building.

For the past couple of months I have been working on a home brew set up as my senior design project before I graduate from biological engineering. Since engineers with home brew systems are a dime a dozen I was required to add a little challenge into the project so we decided to build the poor man's automated small batch brewery. I am almost done with the project. Only thing left to do is some test runs and build my yeast dispenser and it will be ready to brew.

So this pot will be the boil kettle/fermenter.


The coil will run cold water through the system once the boil is done. When the wort reaches a temp below 70F the yeast will drop in through a port in the top.

I powder coated the lid which I cut out of a piece of aluminum on the band saw. It will be sealed with a food grade gasket to keep bad stuff from getting in there and killing the yeast.

I wrapped the pot with laminated cast vinyl with our "logo" making fun of the coffee maker Keurig since this system is meant to more or less do for beer what the Keurig does for coffee.

The pot on the right in this pic is the hot liquor tank. It has another coil in it. The wort will flow through this coil to be heated by the hot water surrounding it and then transfer it back into the mash tun it came out of.


This is a basic layout of the system. The cooler is the mash tun.


It will all be run off of sprinkler valves. I know these are not rated for high temp but they should last long enough at the temps I will be hitting for me to graduate. I got a huge peristaltic pump from my department and two hot plates to finish off the system.

All of this is run off an internet controlled sprinkler controller that I bought from a guy in Cali. It was not easy getting the pump and hot plates to run off of this little controller.

It is set up so you go on the internet and set up the cycle you want to run, fill all the pots, and hit go. The wort will recirculate through the mash tun and hot liquor tank for a given amount of time and then it will transfer to the boil kettle.

Once its boiled for long enough it will get cooled down and the yeast will drop in and the system will shut down. It will ferment for two weeks and be ready to be kegged.




Yes that is a pill bottle hooked to the pump. It contains the voltage regulator and the filters to run the pump off of the controllers 24VAC. The old guy that works in the department and helped me build it had a huge bag of pill bottles that he uses to house circuits like this.



All of the major parts are done. I will be running water through it tomorrow to check for any leaks. Hopefully it will brew its first batch with in the next two weeks.