Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale (Batch 398)

So ... remember in Brain Freeze Rauchbier (Batch 397), that my friend "Doc" had a plan to help us "catch up" a little on our low beer inventories?

Well, his plan was a "Quad Brew Day" at his home brewery. 

I would brew a batch. My wife would brew a batch. He would brew a batch. His wife would brew a batch.

As it turned out ... neither his nor my wife really planned on brewing a batch themselves, so really it would be Doc brewing two batches and Me brewing two batches.

And ... they ended up needing to babysit their new grand child later in the day, so they decided to just brew one batch.

Honestly, I had not been excited about having to transport (and set up and clean) both my brewing set ups. So, when they said they might be doing one batch, I told them "we" would only be doing the Beer Model's batch....

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale

When I do "travel brewing" ... I'll usually get a chuck roast started early on the grill. Before heading out, I'll put the chuck roast into the crock pot where it can continue to cook so that we'll have the meat ready to go at dinner time.

I'll also usually get the mash started at home, so by the time we get to our destination, the mash it done or almost done. 

Saturday, I did both those things.

We got to Doc's Brewery a little after 10am. I got things set up and told the Beer Model she was all set to get "her" batch brewed.

Well ... at the beginning, she did a bunch of "the things", but we got further and further into the process, I ended up doing more and more while she was "busy" talking with Mrs. Doc.

I'm really glad we didn't decided to bring a 2nd brewing set up. It would have been extremely frustrating trying to get two batches done.

Note to self ... don't agree to do a 2-batch day at Doc's house ever again.

The mash was drained, and the Beer Model had me heat up and add sparge water the the tun. We let it sit for awhile. She stirred and drained sparge.

Pre-boil gravity was pretty much right on. We actually don't have a good way to measure kettle volume in this setup, so we trusted that our calculations were good.

I started the boil kettle. She kept a timer and added the hops.

We designed this to be a short (half hour) boil to make it a little faster brew day.

And, we ended up getting the boil finished about 15 minutes before the other batch, so we were first up on the wort chiller.

Doc's wort chiller is not as efficient as ours, and the wort was probably close to 80 when they were ready to start chilling.

I had purchased a sealable HDP bucket that I intended to use for "no-chill" on the other planned batch.

The recipe design included diluting the wort in the fermenter. 

So, I figured 80 was ok. We'd let it cool down more over a few hours. 

Both batches finished sort of early as a thunderstorm was rolling through. We ended up hanging out a couple of hours catching up with our friends.

Doc did have a couple really good beers on tap. The one he thought would "blow" still had some left at the end of our time together.

We got home very early for a typical travel brew day. I put a gallon of water in our Fermonster, and placed it in our deep freeze.

I also rehydrated the yeast during this time.

After (maybe?) an hour, I got the Fermonster out, and poured the wort onto the cold water. Then, I pitched the yeast.

I'm actually not sure what temperature the wort was out. The yeast took off real fast, so the wort was probably still on the warm side. I'm sure it will turn out ok, but I wish I would have let everything cool a little more and/or paid attention.

Being a Belgium beer, it probably isn't as important. I guess we'll see how it turned out. I'm typing this on Monday after the Saturday brew day, and it has already stopped bubbling.

So ... it won't be long before I keg it (there is no way I can expect the wife to do that step).

I'm sure I'll share how this beer turns out.

Regardless, it is always fun to spend time with Mr. and Mrs. Doc.

Now, I have to figure out when to brew Khupacabra Kolorado Kolsch.

As always ...keep an eye on the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with beer, barbeque, biking and other things in my life: SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed; SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website.

Brain Freeze Rauchbier (Batch 397)

Even though I have 4 beers on tap, I feel like my beer inventory is pretty low. Every time I pour a beer, I think a keg is going to blow.

Apparently, my friend "Doc" hasn't brewed much this summer, and is in the same boat.

He proposed a plan to help with both our inventory issues, and it will allow us to catch up a little. We're planning on brewing together at Doc's Brewery soon-ish.

More on that later.

Still, I wanted to get a brew day in before we get together. I actually wanted to get an appropriate lager on tap for Oktoberfest season.

If you read, Roll-a-Style 10: 6B. Rauchbier, you knew this was coming .... on Sunday I brewed:

Brain Freeze Rauchbier

PBR vs. PBR

If you follow along on this blog, you likely remember that I screwed up the Potato Beer.

I won't go into details ... if you need a reminder you can check out the I screwed up the Potato Beer link. For now, I'll just say SheppyBrew's Potato Barley Rye (PBR) is a bit salty.

It isn't completely undrinkable, and I don't have a lot of HomeBrew "Inventory", so I still have the beer on tap.

K is for Steep Brewing LaKeside TiKi Bar

If you're following along on the A to Z Series of Posts, and read L is for Landlocked Ales, you know we skipped over "K".

It just so happened that there wasn't really anything close to our house on the Colorado Brewery Map & List that would really work for us.

But ... we had plans to stay up in the mountains over Labor Day weekend, and my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) came up with a fantastic idea.

We were staying up in Copper Mountain, which is a short down-hill bike ride down to Lake Dillon.

So, we brought our bikes, and on Saturday morning we headed down to visit ....

K is for Steep Brewing LaKeside TiKi Bar

3 Floyds Zombie Dust

So ... remember Zymurgy's Best Beers in America?

Zymurgy is the American Homebrewers Association's magazine. As a member, I continue to get it, but don't really get around to reading it much.

One of the issues I always looked forward to was their Best Beers in America lists. For awhile, I would look at the list, make my own list of beers I had never tried and then attempt to track them down to taste them.

I would share these on Sheppy's Blog: Zymurgy BBIA. The last time I posted an article mentioning the list was early 2015.

August Update on 2026 Fitness Goals

As you know if you follow this blog, I generally give a monthly update on my fitness / Strava goals. I'm sure no one besides myself really cares, but I figure sharing these publicly give me a little extra motivation because of the extra accountability.

Plus, from time to time I'll look at older updates just to see where I was in the past.

In previous years, my goals have been mostly around cycling, but starting this year, I've started running as well.

If you're interested, You can always track these workouts on Strava. 

So far, I'm tracking pretty well to my 2026 Fitness goals, although a couple of aches and pains (not quite injuries) do seem to be slowing me down a bit (at least on running).

L is for Landlocked Ales

If you've been paying attention to the A to Z Series of Posts, you might have noticed that we had to stretch a little for the past few letters.

The whole idea of A to Z is to help pick local breweries.

But ...

H is for Homegrown Tap and Dough is a pizza restaurant / tap room.

We just blatantly gave up and skipped the letter on I is for IDK.

We visited a beer bar on J is for Jake's Beer Bar.

My wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) came up with a great idea for "K", but we are actually going to come back to that one.

For now we're skipping ahead to "L". Big L. Little L. What begins with L?

L is for Landlocked Ales