My Thanksgiving Beer Lineup

If you subscribe to as many beer blog RSS feeds as I do, you have probably seen a bunch of blog posts about pairing beer with Thanksgiving dinner. For example, there is a Denver Post "First Drafts" article called Thanksgiving dinner is a perfect time to try a pairing with Colorado beers. There is a post at BeerChow called Thanksgiving Craft Beer style.

There are tons of other articles out there. It is becoming more and more popular to pair beer with food, and Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday meal of them all. Beer has an advantage over wine in that there is such a wide variety of flavors that make it fun to pick and choose to match up with the food.

To be honest, I am not great at picking and choosing my beer based on what food I am having. I tend to like all kinds of beers with all kinds of foods. Sometimes I think about and choose my beer based on what I am eating, but it is not something I really try too hard at.

I don't really drink wine, so my adult beverage of choice for any meal is beer, and over the past several years, especially, it has always been local craft beer with my Thanksgiving meals. Last year, I was at my sister's house in Wisconsin, so I had some midwest regional beers. This year, I am in Colorado, so I am drinking (mostly) Colorado Beers.

Minor SheppyBrew updates

I didn't brew this past weekend. Last week I thought I would like to, but as you may have heard, there was something going on in Denver that kept me pretty busy.

There were some SheppyBrew related activities, though.  

Last week, I decided that my Boo Berry American Wheat did not taste enough like blueberry, so I purchased some blueberry flavoring from my local home brew shop. Sunday, I popped open the keg and added in a small amount of the flavoring. The beer is now tasting like blueberry. I think it is the right amount of blueberry.

Now, I still have most of the little bottle of blueberry flavoring I need to figure out what to do with. I still have some apricot I need to do something with also.

Eric the Awful

You may remember that a couple weeks ago I asked my blog readers "What should I #HomeBrew Next?" Boo Berry Wheat won the vote, and Eric the Awful came in 2nd. I kegged and bottled the Boo Berry yesterday and today I brewed  Eric the Awful. Interestingly enough, I didn't actually close down the poll, and since that time, there have been quite a few votes for Ale to the Chief: Honey Porter.

 

Not really on topic, but my boys made cookies this weekend.

My kids and I have a game we play called "Eric the Awful" named after Ray Steven's song (see the video at the end of this post if you are unfamiliar with the song). The kids ride around on their bikes and I chase them. It is even more fun when friends of the boys join in. The game is hard work, but at least everyone gets pretty good exercise.

What should I #HomeBrew Next?

I can't decide what to brew next. From time to time, when I have come across such dilemmas, I've called for votes on facebook and twitter to help me decide. Usually I get pretty good feedback, and am able to decide from the votes what to brew. This time I thought I would post an "official" on-line poll like I did in Help Me pick my #IPADay Beer.

So, here we go ... vote as early and often as you would like. If you don't like what I put in the poll, tell me what style you think I should brew in the "Other" choice.