Our new home appliance

A kegerator & a freezer....but more importantly a kegerator.

We popped the cherry with a quarter barrel of Sprecher Pub Brown Ale (homebrewed summer ale in the bottles).

Yes, they do make good beer here in Milwaukee.

 Soon it will be dispensing our homebrew.

Cheers!

We are now homebrewers!

I know what you are thinking...Beer?! Homebrewed BEER?! Not wine?!
Well, as you have read, we have been enjoying some great micro-brews lately & since it has been summer, the grape has taken a back seat the grain.  Another reason is that I am extremely impatient & beer is ready in 6 weeks as opposed to 6 months.

We have brewed four batches of homebrew so far since May & all have turned out fantastic.  We are drinking a Summer Ale we brewed with orange peel, corriander & grains of paradise that is drinking great right now, before that it was a brown ale & then a bock before that.  This past weekend we brewed a holiday ale that should be ready for Thanksgiving.

If you are curious as to the goings on in our makeshift brewery (our kitchen/closet/basement) here is a quick visual guide.

 

Ingredients.

 

Grains steeping. 

 

Wort Boiling (after hops & malt extract added).

 

After wort has boiled it is cooled & placed in 6.5 gal carboy for about a week.

 

After a day or so krausen forms & fermentation becomes violent.

 

After primary fermentation stops the beer is then racked for clarity into another, smaller carboy.

 

Our (blury) brewery on racking day.

 

Once in secondary the beer ages for at least 2 more weeks.

 

After 2 weeks or so in secondary it is time to bottle.  The bottles are primed with a little bit of sugar to induce another round of fermentation that will cause carbonation. After 3 weeks the homebrew is ready to enjoy.

PROST!

                                        

What have we been up too?

Howdy.

Long time no blog. Let me fill everyone it. We are still living & loving Milwaukee.
So yeah Milwaukee. Brew City.
Been drinking lots of beer.
Some of our favorites from Wisconsin...
Anything by Furthermore. Especially their Three Feet Deep their peat smoked stou.
New Glarus has some great offerings.
Lakefront Brewery is our neighborhood brewery & they make some damn fine beer & do a helluva Friday Fish Fry.

We have also fallen in love with a couple of local wine merchants where we quickly got on a first name basis with everyone. We are a couple of lushes I tell ya.

Waterford Wine Company is our main stop for vino & is just right down the street from us on lovely Brady Street.

Also we frequent these crazy Californians chasing their wine dreams in Milwaukee, of all places, at Thief a wine bar & shop in the Milwaukee Public Market. Phil & Aimee left their wine careers in Cali to open this place & let me say their passion for the juice is infectious & we are glad they packed up & moved to the Midwest not long after we did.

There really is a ton of food & wine stuff in this city to blog about.

We have been doing great & part of the reason you haven't heard from us is we are super busy & chasing our dream of living off the grid (not conducive to blogging). We haven't had a TV in over 3 years (funny since I work in the business) & we gave Time Warner a big F.U. & canceled Road Runner. Which brings me to where I am right now....The Garage, a bar/restaurant right around the corner from Chez CoLa, where I am enjoying a litre of Summit Winter Ale from St. Paul Minnesota.

So, yeah. We are embracing this Midwestern thing.

Aside from the whole food & drink thing we been doing lots. Skiing (cross country & downhill), playing with Jack & Roxi, trying to stay warm, shoveling snow, sewing, reading lots, & well....drinking & eating....LOTS.

We will be in from time to time. So keep checking back.

Prost!