If ever there was a recipe for a better Brew Day, I don't know what it is. Had a couple of friends over (could have had more--you know who you are!), BBQ'ed some chicken, brewed up a batch of stout (to become Blackberry Stout, when all is said & done), and generally had a good time. The weather has been decent, so we spent the day outside. The yard is dirtscaped (no grass to speak of), and it's a tad hot with no shade out there, but we all endured--copious amounts of homebrew helped, especially the wit. I'd say that a good time was had by all.
Next month will quite possibly be my last brew day until late September or early October--I'll be off on a business trip for about two months. Much experimentation and tasting will be in order while I'm out. I'll try to manage a brew in early July, but there's no telling. Hopefully, I can have the majority of the HERMs system put together by then.
My Lady Wife assisted with a tasting/judging at Sapphire Joust yesterday; she's now even more eager to bring general A&S standards to the brewing community. We (they?) have been a bit lax, or so it seems to me. I mean, the reason I didn't enter the most recent Kingdom Brewer is that I don't/didn't have anything that I would enter into an SCA event--even though a couple of my brews at the time were fantastic--just not documentable. Between that and the cognitive dissonance with the standards for containers, I'm not keen on doing SCA brewing competitions, generally. Maybe in future; we'll see.Labels: brew day, HERMS, news