MIchigan Brewery Updates for your Memorial Day

This weekend has a host of awesome events and news worthy beer stops for your memorial day celebrations.

For anyone heading to The traverse City area this fine memorial day, Jolly Pumpkin Artistry Ales will be hosting its grand opening in Mission Point on Friday the 22nd. Jolly Pumpkin is known for its routinely sour beers, which is a fermentation process of superior control. This expanse shows the popularity of these beers and also serves as a platform for more more experiments, both sour and non.

Also in the North Western is the 4th annual Beer and Brat festival at the Crystal Mountain Spa and Resort, Saturday the 23rd. Over 50 craft beers will be available from many Michigan breweries.

If your traveling to the Grand Rapids area, or anywhere South of that, you can stop by The Round Barn's "6 pack" release party on Saturday the 23rd. Another great crafter is making their mark in packaging and distribution. the Round Barn has grown extensively in their beer production process in the past few years. When I first visited, they only had a couple beers on tap. They are also a very good winery and produces of the popular DiVine Vodka.

If your stranded with a stay-cation this weekend, head over to your best Michigan craft beer supplier and look for two great new additions to the bottled arena. Dragonmead is now bottling its Armageddon Grand Cru in 750ml bottles. If your a fan of Final Absolution, which is a Belgian Triple, then you can up the game a bit with a Grand Cru, which is a Belgian quadruple. At 11.6% this is no joke. Also, Mount Pleasant Brewery is bottling. They are offering Railyard Raspberry Wheat, Coal Stokers Blackberry, Steam Engine Stout, Iron Horse IPA and the Cow Catcher Red Ale all in six packs.

A very exciting weekend indeed. I hope to find some of the bottled products for this weekends adventures!

Bombs in the Basement

A month or so ago I posted a blog on some fun of splitting batches into three gallon carboys for a little fun and curiosity. Here's a little update.

Well, I didn't do any preparatory sterilizing to the honey before adding to the carboy, I just put it in the microwave for a short bit to make it more viscus. That could have been a mistake since after a couple days I noticed what "appeared" to be the beginning of an infection. There were little white spots starting to form on the surface that were not anything related to fermentation. they might have been harmless, but I wasn't ready to risk it. Perhaps next time I experiment with honey ill dilute it in some water and boil it for a short amount of time.

So, with said infection on the way I thought it would be beneficial to bottle up and try to bypass any further harm. Mistake number two, I didn't take any preliminary hydrometer readings during the initial transfer or at bottling time. I made the priming solution on a bit of the high side with DME, bottled up and left everything in the basement in anticipation of bottling the other half and moving that portion upstairs (where it is warmer) and thus, having both beers ready to sample at the same time. Well, Saturday afternoon proved that wish wrong when Brittany had said "it smells like someone spilt beer all over the basement." Coming from the woman who has the best olfactory this side of the Mississippi, I didn't dispute that something could be amiss. Sure enough, there it was, the remnants of bottle, and a nice ring of sticky goodness surrounding all the others. A bottle Bomb. Glass was everywhere, and I could even pin point its direction of explosion from the mass in one direction. I knew this might have happened. All that unfermented honey (or partially) coupled with more sugar, equals more fermentation within the bottle and more pressure trying to escape. Give it enough juice, and it will. After cleaning up after this soldier I placed the remaining bottles in an empty case (hey, why didn't I think of that before hand?) and made my way upstairs.

Things were good until Sunday evening when Brittany and I heard a couple more explosions within an hour. The cat shot off the couch and made his way to investigate. In those 24 hours, I had lost three more.

The remaining tribe is holding well. Sampling one, it certainly was a tough pour. I bottled the remaining Weizen last week and am hoping to sample them side by side by Memorial Day weekend.

Bell's and Bayview

Being so close to lake Saint Clair, one of my longest regrets growing up and more now is that I dont take advantage of my backyard, so to speak. Plenty of my friends have sailed for years, but for some reason the sport has never completely hit my interest. All that might change now that Bell's Brewery is the newest sponsor to the Bayview Mackinaw race this July 25th. Rumor has it that Larry has had an interest in sponsoring in previous years, but ends never met up. That isn't surprising if you've at all passed through the gates of Bayview, you dont have to love sailing, hell, you dont even have to like it. But you do have to like booze. No. Love booze.

American Craft Beer Week

If there is one thing great about America, its that it seems every hobby, cause, movement and awareness has a week. Weeks appear to be reserved for the entertainment value of life, whilst months are reserved for the serious and prideful reflections of our nation. This week marks American Craft Beer week. For Seven glorious days we get to splurge (in even greater amounts) into the ounces of bliss we that defines our souls. Or, in other words, go drink some damn good Michigan beer.