Y is for Yak and Yeti Restaurant and Brewpub

Big Y little y. What begins with Y? Yak and Yeti Restaurant and Brewpub. Y. Y. Y.

Yes. I am finally down to the second to last letter in my A to Z Denver Breweries series.

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, way back in February of 2015, I composed a list of Denver Breweries that I had never visited. I was embarrassed by the large number of breweries I had never been to, and decided to try to make an effort to get to more.

It struck me that most of the letters of the alphabet were covered by the beginning letters of the brewery names. I thought a fun way to get through a bunch of un-visited breweries was to start with A and work my way through Z.

I started with A is for Alpine Dog Brewing Company

By the end of 2015, I had worked my way through G is for Great Frontier Brewing

I made great progress in 2016, getting to T is for TRVE Brewing Company before 2017 began.

2017 brought U is for Ursula Brewery, V is for Vine Street Pub and Brewery, and W is for Wits End Brewing Company.

Then I got lazy for over a year.

SheppyBrew 2018 Year-End Brewing Stats

The 2018 is over.

As you may know, the Brewery likes to post quarterly updates on how much we have brewed. You can see all these updates (including the one you are reading right now) by following this link: Sheppy's Blog: Brew Stats.

The forth quarter was light. We only brewed 3 beers.

• X-Mas Ale 2018
• Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale
• Resilience IPA Clone(ish)

Those 3 batches totaled 16 gallons of beer, bringing my 2018 total to 18 batches and 93 gallons brewed. Hooray ... I'm a legal homebrewer this year!

2018 X-Mas Ale

2019 Arctic Vortex Winter Saison

Here it is. Winter again.

Among other things, winter means that it is time to brew Arctic Vortex Winter Saison.

Yum!

As you probably know if you follow SheppyBrew Brewery, we brew at least 4 saisons every year.

Winter Spring Summer Autumn.

I call them my Seasonal Saison series of beers.

The Arctic Vortex Winter Saison happens to be a black saison, because winter is generally dark ... and it would be boring to make all my saisons look the same.

This weekend, I brewed this year's Arctic Vortex Winter Saison.

Christmas Ribeye Roast

As I mentioned in Double Smoked Ham, I had a couple of Christmas dinners to make this year. The first was the Sunday before Christmas with some family. I cooked that ham on my smoker.

The second was our family Christmas dinner. This one was a 6 lb Ribeye Roast that our local super market had on sale for Christmas.

I had never made a Ribeye Roast before this year. It really isn't difficult at all.

Pretty simple, really.

The night before, I trimmed a bit of the hard fat on the roast and applied Montreal Steak Seasoning over the whole thing. I let it sit in the fridge overnight.

Around 10 the next morning, I started up the smoker with charcoal and hickory chunks. I put the roast on the smoker in a roasting pan around 10:40.

Double Smoked Ham

Happy New Year!

Recently, we had a couple of Christmas Dinners that had to be prepared.

We had some family over to the house on the 23rd, and decided to do a Christmas dinner for them.

The kids wanted a ham.

We decided to cook it on the smoker. I had never done a ham before, and it provided extra oven space for other things.

To make things easier, we decided that I might as well just do a pre-cooked spiral cut ham.

As luck would have it, I had come across a recipe ... How To Smoke A Honeybaked Ham.

Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I didn't brew last weekend, but I did Barbecue.

Last time I got Pork Butt, they were on sale for 99 cents per pound. I got two and froze one of them for later.

I decided to cook it up last Sunday (12/16/2018).

As you may know, last Sunday was the big Bears vs. Packers game. The Bears won the game and the division.

I love to see the Packers lose. It is even better when the Bears do the beating. Of course, it has been a loooong time since that happened.

Hurray for the Bears!

Anyway ... I decided to smoke pork shoulder. Since it was frozen, I had to thaw it over the week before, so I was committed by the time Sunday got here.

Resilience IPA

As a general rule, I don't brew clone beers.

However, late in the year, the "Camp Fire" devastated Northern California and it hit close to home for Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. While the brewery was spared, many of Sierra Nevada’s employees, patrons and neighbors lost everything as the Camp Fire ravaged northern Californian.

To help raise much needed support for the recovery efforts, Sierra Nevada created a beer called Resilience IPA. Sierra Nevada, along with many of its professional brewing peers, brewed and sold Resilience IPA with all proceeds donated to the Sierra Nevada Camp Fire Relief Fund through Golden Valley Community Bank Foundation.

On the AHA Website, they posted a clone recipe for Sierra Nevada Resilience IPA, and wrote:

"It is our hope that homebrewers will make a batch of Resilience IPA in solidarity with Sierra Nevada and pro breweries across the country. While we can’t sell our creations and donate the proceeds, please consider donating to the Golden Valley Community Bank Foundation if you are able."