Brew Day II

4 23 2011

We wobbled into The Ranch at 7pm. Indio met us with a welcomed embrace. We connected eyes and smiled. At that very moment we realized our Brew Day had arrived. It was our second go. We were happy little clams with hops, malt, and wort written across the face.

This was round two and we were going hard and generous with the Colombus, Northern, Warrior, Simcoe, Centennial, and Amarillo. We chose the hop saturated direction and finished the evening understanding its sheer enormity. She was a strong bull to tame. A stubborn bitch to break.

We greeted each other, paid our pleasantries and then got focused. I accompanied El Zurdo and Indio on an inspection of The Stable (brewing kitchen). It was sparklin clean and ready to participate! Our carboy, airlock, stirring spoon, and hydrometer were all lounging and sanitizing. We looked at each other and smiled, "Strong preparation, sturdy execution, precise sanitization-well done brothers!". The night was young and prepared, she was quiet but brilliant. I could hear her purr and feel her hand resting on my back. She said yes. She told me this was it. She had the final say and made it clear.

"Give us a strong beast with an iron mind and a deranged soul!", I screamed to the sky. "Chisel our children and force the weak into rubble!"

I felt her approval.

The brewing process took pace. We boiled the malt extract and hops, added more hops, added even more hops, and stirred, stirred, stirred. We allowed the boil to work. We submerged the stockpot into an ice bath that included popsicles, frozen peas, and some sort of frozen ocean snails. It was a glorious stew. It did the trick. We added the Amarillos to the cooled wort and quickly began to pour our batch into the carboy. It didn't work. We had a clog, a jam. Our dry hopping technique needed some work. We effectively prevented ourselves from using our newly introduced carboy by dry hopping before transferring. The clump and chunk disallowed us. We had to make a split second and improvised decision. We ran to fetch the fermenter of old! We filled her seamlessly, aggressively and without issue. She seemed to smile and feel full. I think we made her day. We vigorously shook our liquid yeast and poured it over. The lid was secured, the airlock full of sanitized water was put into place, and our beautiful stew was carefully placed into the closet. She was laid to rest in her nest. Good night sweet stew.

Another moment of focus had come. We shifted our minds to cookery and pulled on our culinary pants. We stepped in. The aged steaks snarled, mushrooms, asparagus, and purple potatoes looked on, and our shell-on prawns looked devilish in their bath of chili paste and peppers. The steaks got a heavy hand of sea salt and fresh cracked pepper and hit the screaming hot cast iron. We let it ride only minutes and then flipped, transfered to an aluminum tent and gave them a rest. As the potatoes roasted with olive oil in the oven we sauteed the shrooms with bright red peppers and finished them with freshly foraged rosemary. The potatoes got their share of rosemary and salt and went ahead and finished up. The asparagus somehow found the oven. The red prawns slammed into a wok and scorched to perfect succulence with peppers, spice, and aggression. We plated family style and ate with bare hand and no plate. We shared a meal as men, as conquerers, as victory stained mad men.

It was 2:56am and the time to unhinge the precision had come. The handcrafted arts were over and now drinking, smoking, and bullshitting was of superior status. Indio introduced hand knotted "brewer's bands" to the troupe and his forehead to the pavement, Zurds built an epic fire, and yours truly didn't do shit except drink copious amounts of beer and spit venom. Leave it to beaver to poison a party. What a wonderful party it was. Sparklers, cigarettes, smoke and char, and mad conversations took over. Indio took it to the guitar and Johnny tore into the sax with focus. It was a perfect finish to a screaming evening of stout hearted heroics and red-blooded beer making.

Again, this was just the awakening.

-Gaucho