This Week in Beer - Ale-Induced Anecdotals Part Four

Every now and again RealManTravels.com pauses to bring you the latest from the world of beer. For beer is not boring, nor idle; indeed, beer is dynamic, ever-changing, free (in a non-monetary, hippy kinda-way! So without further adieu, here are the latest and greatest beer stories the internet has to offer.

Have Sewage, Will Beer

Kinda gross, in principle. The state of Oregon is running a competition on who can make treated sewage water into the best beer. The contest is actually a fun way to promote the state's filtered water, which they claim is as clean as clean can be.

Crappy Beer? Teabag it!

Not your Queen mum's teabag. A student in Maryland has created tea bags that make any run-of-the-mill beer as delicious as their higher-caliber craft cousins. Currently a campaign on Kickstarter, the sachets contain hops, fruit peels and natural ingredients that improve beer's flavour and aroma.

Beer Pong Meets Tech

In another Kickstarter campaign, a creative Saskatoon man created a crazy beer pong table that incorporates LED lights, a touch screen score keeper and a ball washer. Who knew college could actually lead to success!

Space Yeast!

Just for giggles, a beer company in Oregon (all these stories from Oregon, go Beaver State go)  sent yeast into space. Fortunately, it survived, and now they've brewed beer with it. Good for them!

A Bottle Opener, in Your Mouth

In a hilarious campaign from Argentinian beer brand Salta, rugby players who lost teeth on the field were offered implanted beer openers to replaced their cast away cuspids. Check out the video:

And finally, check out these guys playing Johnny Cash's greatest hits on beer bottles!

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5 Tips For Starting a Succesful Homebrew

Our kettle, home made wort chiller and a couple frothy glasses of Lower Thompsonville Rouge (LTR).

The line between passion and obsession is often blurred. Never has that been more true than when I dove into homebrewing. What started as a weekend hobby to brew a couple of cases has occupied most of my down time this past few weeks. Now that things in the Real Man Travels brewery are operating smoothly, its time to drop some knowledge on the would-be brewmasters amoung the Real Man Travels faithful.

But first, a short quiz to see if homebrewing is for you:

1: Do you like beer?
YES - you should brew beer!
NO- see question 2

2: Do you you like cooking/baking?
YES - you should brew beer!
NO- see question 3

3: Do you enjoy science experiments?
YES- you should brew beer!
NO- see question 4

4: What the hell is wrong is wrong with you? In truth, I should have asked this after you said NO to question 1.

Taking a gravity reading before fermentation can help determine alcohol content.

Now that we've weeded out those who cannot be trusted, I'm going to be using some brew lingo in these tips (yes, brewing has its own special language to make things more complicated fun.) Luckily, the internet is smarter than us all. I recommend John Palmer's How To Brew to help you make sense of it all. Now that we are all ready, here's my five tips for starting a successful homebrew

Tip 1: Do yourself a favour and buy a starter kit. The fine people over at Toronto Brewing and Ontario Beer Kegs have several packages to choose from ranging from a simple extract brewing set up to the more advanced "all grain" set ups. Basically you wind up with everything you need to get your new obsession rolling.

A cold water bath is a primitive way to bring the wort down to "pitching" temperature.

Tip 2: Buy the biggest brew kettle you can find/afford. Fact: you can boil five gallons of water in a 10 gallon pot, but you cant boil 10 gallons of water in a five gallon pot. The last thing you want to do is out grow your kettle (its really just a big pot) shortly after your purchase. That said, you also don't need to drop a g-note on a 55 gallon kettle when you are only making five gallons of beer. If you decide five gallon extract brewing is for you, then get a six gallon kettle (20% extra to prevent boil over).

The wort chiller at work in Sir Fredericks' Ale.

Tip 3: Clean like your life depends on it. If there's one thing that will crush your homebrew dreams it will be poor sanitation. Everything needs to be cleaned and sanitized to hospital standards to ensure your beer's success. I can't stress this enough. no cutting corners. Use a high quality sanitizer like Star San.

Tip 4: Know your yeast. Yeast plays a very important roll in your beer's journey from boiling water to delicious nectar of the gods. Each variety of yeast may shape your beer's flavour differently, but it will also require a certain optimal condition to "get things moving." Temperature is an important factor to take into consideration. Some yeasts require 55 -71 degrees Fahrenheit where others can be happy right up to 100 degrees. You can "start" your yeast to ensure everything is alive and kicking before adding it to your wort. To do this add a table spoon of sugar to a cup of water and boil it. When it has cooled to "pitching" temperature (65F-100F depending on the yeast you've chosen) add half of your yeast package and cover. in 5-10 minutes you should see some activity. three days into fermentation add the remainder of the yeast. This will help prevent coming home to an awful mess, as well as ensure you have plenty of active yeast for bottle carbonation.

Fermenting a batch. A blow off tube can prevent an awful mess.

Tip 5: Patience, young grasshopper. After you brew you will want to try your beer - that's only natural. However, make sure your fermentation has finished before moving onto bottling (or kegging!). Then of course you will want to pop a top on one of your creations as soon as you feel its ready to go. This will again test your patience as every day of carbonation adds more flavour to your beer. As a rule of thumb give your beer a minimum of two weeks from bottling day you sample it. This should allow for adequate carbonation. If it doesn't taste quite right, leave it for another week.

There you have it. Just enough information to make you dangerous at your local home brew supply shop. If you have any questions please feel free to ask; if you've got some tips for us, we'd love to hear from you!

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This Week in Beer - Ale-Induced Anecdotals

A post by Scott F 

Beer is awesome, but you knew that. But did you know that beer could get... awesomer (not a real word)? Some very cool stories of people doing awesome things with beer have crept up in the last couple of weeks that we thought our readers would find interesting. Enjoy!

Beer brewed from prehistoric whale fossils

What? It’s true. These folks found yeast in the bones of some long dead whale and said: “Hey, yeast makes beer, let’s use this prehistoric whale bone yeast to make beer.” To be fair that is exactly what I would be thinking. The Lost Rhino Brewing Company is behind the new Bone Dusters Paleo Ale (get it, paleo, har har). They teamed up with a non-profit called Paleo Quest to pull of this feat of brewing magic. Finally, a practical use for old bones. Check out the story.

On the topic of odd beer ingredients, how about smoked goat brains?

The newest in a long line of TV promo beers (including the Ommegang Brewery Game of Thrones-inspired brews), the AMC’s The Walking Dead now has a beer of its own. If you’re going to make a beer for zombie fanatics you don’t go half way, so these guys threw in some brains, you know, for authenticity sake. Story here.

Beer fasting.

Most people give up trifles for lent like watch Ellen or their daily Oreo indulgence. Chris Schryer, like few others before him, is giving up food. Yes, food. He’s subsiding of only beer during his observance. Follow his exploration on his blog (great reads).

Baseball and beer. Enough said.

Thrillist.com took it upon themselves to match every Major League Baseball team with a beer that they felt fit best. I’ll say nothing about them matching up the Toronto Blue Jays with Labatt’s Blue, other than it’s a lazy travesty. Still a good read. 

Beer your meat, if you know what’s good for you.

Scientists have found that marinating your meat in beer can prevent the formation of crazy compounds from the grill that can cause cancer. That’s right, beer beats cancer. 

Rob Ford announces the Ford Nation Brewing Company.

Seriously! Okay, not seriously. A well-played April Fools’ Day article by Mom ‘n’ Hops declared that Toronto’s embattled mayor was setting out to create the best beer the city’s ever had. They noted that a gravy-flavoured beer was also on the way. Nicely done, Mom 'n' Hops.

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