We're Going Public

This is the week Lara and I officially drag our beer into the public square. BrewDurham 3 is this Saturday in Durham, and we’ll be pouring two beers---an imperial Belgian IPA and a smoked rye saison---in public for the first time.

Sure, we entered three beers in the NC State Fair (and we did pretty well!), but Saturday will be the first time we pour beer for strangers and watch them drink it right in front of us. Maybe I’ll be nervous when the day arrives, but I like what we’re bringing, so I’m really just looking forward to hanging out with so many other homebrewers.

Naturally, we geeked out over equipment for the festival. Earlier this year, we bought a trash can kegerator from seasoned homebrewer and State Fair overlord Chris Creech, and we rolled it into our favorite homebrew shop this past weekend for its official outfitting.

Of course, we had to hook it up for a few test pours once we got it back home. To no surprise at all, it works really well.

Come see us, along with a fleet of other excellent brewers, this weekend at The Scrap Exchange if you can. We’ll also be pouring at Homebrew for Hunger, which is November 17 in Chapel Hill, if you want to try still more beer from our front-porch brewery in the woods. We’re going Belgian for BrewDurham, but it’s all malt for Homebrew for Hunger---a big breakfast stout and a classic English bitter.

Let’s do this.

Please to add fittings, lines and CO2

Rigged for a test run pouring the dregs of our chamomile pale ale

And we have beer

We are so doing this

I'm both excited and nervous, because Brew Durham is our first homebrew festival! And it is breathing down the very neck of the NC Brewer's Cup--the results of which will be posted at the fair on October 11-21.

There is a lot to do in the meantime. Chris Creech of NC Homebrewing very kindly offered to sell us his trashcan kegerator since he now has a jockey box and I didn't want to build one quite so soon after the keezer.

Doesn't it totally tie the whole room together? I really love it and I can't wait to serve beer out of it.

I will build a jockey box at some point, but I want to learn to weld a steel frame and build a kind of modern wood slat box to go around a cooler because I am crazy. 

Since we kind of hated our lavender/coriander wit (which I have not posted tasting notes on, because everytime I sip it I want to not have sipped it), that is the beer we will test-serve in the trashcan this week sometime--this way we won't get too precious about spills.

I love lists, so other items on the to-do list include: 

• Clean & paint the trashcan black
• Make taphandles, paint them white
• Have paintball CO2 tanks filled at Dick's Sporting Goods
• Get more gas & liquid lines for 2 kegs
• Buy new drip tray or retrofit our own 
• Obtain all other hardware/connectors/gaskets
• Figure out what to do for signs/chalkboard for the actual festival
• Oh yeah, and brew two 5 gallon batches of beer or what-have-you

This Sunday we'll get started by brewing a Tripel IPA that will hopefully be able to hold its own with the kind of company we'll be pouring alongside on October 20th. I'm pumped about the recipe and cannot wait to talk about it some more.

Better yet, come visit us at Brew Durham and you'll be able to taste it! It's for a wonderful cause.