I wonder if Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious are together somewhere in the afterlife singing duets? They were both self-affirmed punks, after all.

I took yesterday off as a vacation day - Jon and I spent most of it getting our house finally in order from the move. 3 months after the move we officially have everything out of the boxes.

I spent yesterday afternoon brewing beer - now that's a hobby of mine that displays the INTP nature of becoming competent (but not mastering) at a skill. I know just enough about beer brewing to brew up a decent batch of ale but that's as far as I got.

Just to bore you, Beer is composed of 4 main ingredients: water, malted barley, yeast, and hops. You also have adjuncts, which can be anything from corn syrup to jalepeno peppers. The water is self-explanatory. Barley is a type of grain - "malted" means it has been allowed to germinate then dried. If you chewed on some malted barley as opposed to unmalted, the malted tastes sweeter.

Malted barley (and malted wheat, sometimes) is lightly crushed and allowed to steep in hot water. This is called "mashing" and basically it's converting the starches in the malted grain into sugar. The sugar water is drained from the leftover husks, then allowed to boil for an hour or so. During the boil, hops are added at certain intervals to counteract the sweetness and provide flavors. Trust me. Without hops beer would be so gaggingly sweet no one but desperate alcoholics would drink it. And Southerners. Have you ever drank store-bought sweet tea? About the same in sweetness. At least kool-aid has citric acid.

I digress. After boiling the crap out if it, this sweet water is referred to as "wort". The wort is cooled, then yeast is introduced, and then it's all up to those little buggers to eat the sugar, and piss alcohol and fart CO2. Once they are done, the beer is removed from the dead yeast bed. At that point it can either be force-carbonated with CO2 (usually done if kegging), or a little more sugar can be re-introduced so that the more stubborn yeast remaining can carbonate the beer naturally (usually done if bottling). Note national breweries force-carbonate everything.

I buy pre-measured kits with malt extracts. It means someone else has mashed the grain - I buy the wort, essentially. I add water, boil the crap out of it, and hop it up then add yeast. I own a freezer dedicated to beermaking / beer kegging so I set my fermenter in the freezer for temperature control while the yeast eat themselves silly.

Most people don't know this, but there's only two types of beer: Ale and Lager. Ales are brewed at higher temperatures, and the yeast tend to hang around the top of the wort. They also ferment out pretty fast (5 -7 days) so are ready for drinking quicker. Lagers are fermented at lower temperatures and can take months to ferment out. Lager yeasts tend to hang around the bottom. Ales can taste sweeter; lagers taste crisper. Most popular American beers are Lagers.

Everything else is style. Ale styles include the sweeter Scotch, Irish and Brown ales, and the heavily hopped Pale Ales and the dark Porters and Stouts to the light Cream ales. Lagers include the light Pilsners to the dark German Bocks. Most American beers are modelled after the Czech Pilsners. I don't dislike American Beer; I was drinking Michelob Light during my brew session last night. I'm just glad that there's more variety available, thanks not only to imports, but regional brewers like Sam Adams and Anchor. I'm addicted to Anchor Porter almost as much as I love Guinness Stout. Mmmmmmm.

Styles are determined by recipe. When malt is dried, it can be roasted for a darker, richer flavor. This procedure is what gives the darker brews their color. Darker beers do not neccessarily have greater alcohol content; that is determined by how much sugar you start with and end with in the brew. American beers tend to use rice or corn which can give the beers a lighter flavor because the sugar from these grains tend to brew out more than those in barley (conversion to alcohol is more complete). You aren't going to hear me complain too loudly: you go mow the lawn then reach into your refrigerator for a Guinness! Blech.

I am brewing an Irish Red Ale. It's somewhat similar to Killian's Red; except that's a lager so mine tastes a little richer. Mmmm.

Right now I'm in that 24 - 48 hour period where I'm worried that I killed my yeast. If you exercise good sanitation techniques, once you introduce the yeast it should be the dominant bug in the brew so it will go forth and multiply so fast that no other bug will get a toe-hold. However if the yeast are quitters any other germ can have a field day. So far I have never had a batch of bad beer (except one bad attempt at lager. That wasn't bugs, though. It tasted like shoe. I think I let it ferment at too high a temp) due to non-yeasty bugs taking over.

We shall see.