SheppyBrew 2009 Stats

So, I went through my SheppyBrew nano-brewery records.

Last year:

• I made 29 batches of beer.
• Of that 29 batches, there were 18 completely different recipes (note... most of my repeat recipes had significant changes, but I still considered them the same recipe ... see Eric's Red, Phat & Tyred, and Girly Berry).
• That comes to approximately 65 gallons of home brew.
• All of my beers were ales.
• 26 of the batches were SheppyBrew recipes. (meaning I came up with the recipe myself. lots of them were based on other recipes, but I made enough of a change to each of these that I can consider them SheppyBrew recipes). These were of 15 different recipes.
• 27 of my batches were good, very good, great, or oh-my-god fantastic. If you cannot do the math, that means 2 were not good (the yucky ones were Maple Brown and Girly Berry batch #1).
• 0% of the beers were so bad that they could not be drunk.
• 100% of the beers were consumed (0% thrown away).
• 5 of my batches were partial mashes (2 recipes ... Phat & Tyred and Blackhawk Black)
• 6 of my batches had no Mr. Beer ingredients in them (3 recipes ... Phat & Tyred and Blackhawk Black and Fools Gold Ale)
• 3 of the batches were started in 2009, but not finished conditioning until 2010 (Wetta Blonde , Phat & Tyred and Blackhawk Black)
• The favorite beer of all the people who drank SheppyBrew seems to be Wetta Blonde.
• My favorite beer is Phat & Tyred.... or maybe Blackhawk Black ... or maybe Eric's Red.
• My sexy beer model's favorite beer seems to be Girly Berry (batch #2 , batch #1 was one of the two yucky beers).
• The SheppyBrew brewing assistants have never had any of the SheppyBrew beers.
• The person who has consumed the most beer of anyone (other than the Brew Master) is Tracy Shepard.

Most (if not all) of these stats are pretty impressive for a first year home-brewer.

I expect that in 2010:

• SheppyBrew nano-brewery will brew more beer.
• A higher percentage of SheppyBrew beers will be completely formulated from non-Mr. Beer ingredients.
• All the recipes will be SheppyBrew original.
• SheppyBrew nano-brewery will brew a couple of lagers.
• SheppyBrew nano-brewery will either do start doing 5 gallon batches or some all-grain batches (or maybe both).
• I'll do more dark beers.
• More people will drink SheppyBrew beers.

So far in 2010:

• I have mixed up 3 batches, 3 different recipes (this puts me on pace for more beer than last year).
• 2 of the 3 batches have been completely non-Mr. Beer ingredients (Tweedle Beetle Stout, Fools Gold)
• All 3 batches have been SheppyBrew original recipes.
• No lagers yet, but I have purchased some lager yeast.
• 2 of the 3 batches have been Stouts (Tweedle Beetle Stout and Leprechaun Stout)
• Tracy still drinks more SheppyBrew beers than anyone in the world (except the Brew Master).

Anyway, the only one who is interested by any of this is the Brew Master at the SheppyBrew nano-brewery ... and maybe my sister who was nice enough to get me started ... and perhaps my wife who drinks the most SheppyBrew of anyone in the world (except for the Brew Master). And just quite possibly you (but probably not).

Laughing Baby

I cannot help it. This video had to be one of the best I've ever seen. Of course, I've lived through scenes like this several times when my boys were babies. Even now sometimes they go into hysterical belly-laugh modes, but I've never really captured a video like this one.

Connor was being just a cranky-pants pain in the neck at the dinner table a couple of nights ago. I got on the smart-phone, and brought up this video. The boys were in good moods the rest of the night.

hi

Nothing hotter than a woman drinking a SheppyBrew.

Boys' Weekend

My wife left us again this weekend. She flew to Wisconsin to participate in a bachelorette party for her sister. While she was off doing God-Knows-What with a bunch of wild and crazy women, the Shepard boys were partying at home. No strippers for us. Most of us didn't even get to drink any alcohol.

But we did, go play basketball....

and ... hung out on the roof.

and went to the Colorado Mammoth game.

We also watched hockey and football on T.V. We watched Dawn of the Dinosaurs on DVD. We even put up a new garage door opener (after taking down the old one which died on us this past week).

I taught Tyler how to make a frozen pizza this weekend, and he made the family dinner tonight.

Anyway, we had a fun time, but we are extremely glad that Mommy is now home with us.

Happy Brew Year

I am currently brewing my first Imperial Russian Stout. Basically, my first Imperial anything. Beersmith told me my OG (original gravity) would be 1.085 and with a decent attenuation, I would get about 8.25% alcohol by volume. That is quite a kick ... quite a bite, but I actually measured my OG at 1.089, which I believe should give me an ABV pretty close to 9%. I am sure there are homebrewers out there who laugh at a mere 9% alcohol content, but for my little brewing operation, that is very high. A couple of pints of that, and someone would be knocked silly. That is what they call a "stay at home" beer.
It is also hopped-up more than any beer I have done yet. Its bitterness is up over 80 IBU's (rager formula) and even with the high gravity malty character, its GU:BU is higher than I have ever done.
Its color is almost 45 srm, making it the blackest beer I have other done.

What do we know about Tweedle Beetles?

Tweedle Beetles battle in bottles. They kick and bite and swing those paddles with the intention of knocking you silly.

They are (or at least I suspect they are) heavily involved in the Summit County mob. They are mean and nasty .... dare we say bitter. Perhaps we can even call them dark hearted evil creatures. Their hearts are black.

So, I named my black, bitter, bold beer with an alcohol kick that could knock you down: Tweedle Beetle Stout. The association between the Tweedle Beetles and the Summit County Mob (which is probably in some way related to the Russian mob) just strengthens the tie between the Beetles and the Russian Imperial.

Tyler was kind enough to help me out with the label:

The yeast really went crazy for the first few days of fermentation. On day 4, they have calmed down a bit, but there is still quite a layer of krausen on the top of the fermenting beer. Overflow was inevitable, and I did a "top crop" of the krausen during the height of the craziness. I'll use that top crop harvest in my Leprechaun Stout which I'll be mixing up either tomorrow or this weekend in hopes to have it available for St. Patrick's day.

2009 was a successful brewing year. At this time last year, I had my Mr. Beer kit, but had not yet started using it (my first batch was brewed starting 01/10/2009). And if you compare that first Classic American Blonde Ale with what I have done lately, there has been light-years of improvement.

My beer inventory is pretty impressive (IMHO) and my pipeline shows no signs of slowing down. My biggest problem now is storage space for my beer, which just means I'll have to drink (or share if I have to) more.

SheppyBrew now has at least 6 established signature beers (Eric's Red, Wetta Blonde, Whisky Wife Wheat, Phat & Tyred Ale, Dragon Spit, Blackhawk Black), and a few others that are probably close to being in the regular lineup (Girly Berry, Tommy Hawk APA, Tweedle Beetle Stout, Fools' Gold). A little over half of these still have Mr. Beer ingredients in them, but I have already reformulated recipes for Eric's Red, Dragon Spit, Whisky Wife Wheat, and Tommy Hawk APA to be completely SheppyBrew recipes without any HMEs.

Of course on top of those regulars, my little nano-brewery also puts out several seasonal and / or experimental beers for most all the major beer drinking holidays.

You can read a lot about all these beers at http://beer.ericshepard.com if you so choose.

So, it will be interesting to see what new exciting SheppyBrew experiences will come up in 2010. At some point, I'm probably going to have to start moving to 5 gallon batches. I'm not sure if that is this year or not, but I'm sure eventually it will have to be done. I keep going back and forth on if I want to become an all-grain brewer. My Phat & Tyred and BlackHawk Black Ales are partial mashes, and I really like how those have turned out. I'm just not sure if taking the next step to complete mashes is worth the extra effort. I will probably try an all-grain batch sometime.

Happy Brew Year.

Fort

Ok ... Computer geek here again. Now I am trying a smaller resolution photo.

In case you are wondering, this picture is a fort my boys made in the living room while I was down trying to get my wife's Garmin updated with a 2010 map and my wife was at Target. Someone really should keep an eye on them. Maybe we need a nanny.

Ok ... Lets see what this one does.


---

Hmm... this one worked out just fine. Really not sure what happened before. Maybe it was a blogspot issue with the size of the first email. Although if that were the case, the forwarded email should not have been any better.

FW: Happy Zoo Year

Playing with the new phone. Note the huge photo below. Go ahead ... just click on it.

The first time I sent this from the phone, blogspot only got part of the message and did not include the picture. I figured this was a phone setting issue. Then, I forwarded it again and got the whole thing.... including this HUGE nice resolution photo. I need to ask my phone to reduce the resolution for these images if I am going to be emailing them like this.

Now, I'm not sure what the issue was before. I'll have to keep playing with the phone and blogging with it I guess.

---

From: Eric Shepard <eric@sheppytect.com>
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 2:43 PM
To: Esheppy BlogSpot <esheppy.jeremy@blogger.com>
Subject: Happy Zoo Year

Did you realize that we just had a rare new years eve blue moon? Well we did.

I just got a new smart phone. I have been wanting a new one for for some time, and verizon was willing to sell me one for about $25, so I went ahead and got a new one. It is nice and new. Mostly the functionality is about the same, but it is nice to have a battery that lasts more than a few hours.

We are at the zoo today. It is a good day to be at the zoo. The animals seem to be more active and available on cool days than they are in the hot of summer. Plus there were not very people here today crowding us.

Anyway, I am just making sure I can still phone blog.

Happy zoo year!

Happy Zoo Year

Did you realize that we just had a rare new years eve blue moon? Well we did.

I just got a new smart phone. I have been wanting a new one for for some time, and verizon was willing to sell me one for about $25, so I went ahead and got a new one. It is nice and new. Mostly the functionality is about

2010 Calendar Pictures

Well, we are late getting out the 2010 calendars. Nothing really unusual there.

For those of you who usually get a calendar, just be patient. It will be coming soon. If you want a sneak peek; or if you are one who does not get a calendar, but want to see the pictures, I have posted them to my public facebook page.

Follow this link

NOTE: some of the posted "small" pictures did not "make the cut" for the actual calendar, so you will not see every single one of them in the actual calendar.

Ringing the Bell

Thanksgiving Pictures

We had a good Thanksgiving. The boys and I were up early, getting them fed and then making a "yeast starter" for my Blackhawk Black Ale which I actually mixed up on Black Friday. Then, we did dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, living room, and family room. When Mommy finally got up, we did the vacuuming.

The boys played together (nicely most of the time) and I watched football most of the day. Tyler and I also got in a baseball game in the backyard snow. Mommy cooked a large part of that time, but watched football and played with the boys as well.

Dinner was wonderful (as my wife always makes wonderful dinners). Poor Daddy had to do the dishes again. Finally, we got to watch the Broncos actually win!
Here is a picture of us watching football:

Friday, since I refuse to ever participate in any of the Black Friday sales, we headed up to Echo lake.
Here is a picture of us on the way up:

Connor got to try snow-shoeing for the first time. He giggled pretty much the whole time, which is very cute.
Here is a picture of Connor in his (until Friday, Tyler's) snowshoes:

We spent some time slipping and sliding on the lake. Tyler and Connor also tried to use rocks to bust through the ice. It didn't work.
Here is a picture of Daddy and the Boys on the ice:

And then, we headed down to Idaho Springs to have lunch at TommyKnocker Brew Pub.
Here is a picture of the boys hugging Mommy. Not sure what she is drinking:

And, now here we are in December. Not sure where the entire year went. Time is definitely going faster than it used to.

Bottling Day

This past Sunday, my assistant brewers and I bottled our world-famous Dragon Spit Ale. In case you are interested, here are step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Sanitize the "Bottling Bucket" and the tubing using Star-San diluted in about a gallon of water. Also, pour a little sanitizer solution into a little bowl full of bottle caps and the tip of the bottling wand. Shake up the bucket to make sure every spot of the bucket is covered. Let everything sit in sanitizer for a few minutes.

Step 2: Sanitize bottling wand and bottles by pouring Star San from bottling bucket into the bottles. I always use a combination of 1 liter bottles and 12 ounce bottles. Usually I aim for 3 liters bottles and 15 12 ounce bottles, but results can vary.


Step 3: All the bottles are filled, covered with a cap and shaken. Let them sit for awhile while placing the bottling wand and tubing onto the spigot of the full fermenter.


Step 4: Measure out priming sugar. In this case, we are going with 2 1/4 ounces.


Step 5: Boil the sugar in about 1 cup of water. Take off the heat and let cool. While the sugar water solution is cooling, pour the sanitizer from the bottles back into the gallon container to be used again.

Step 6: After the sugar / water solution has cooled, put the solution into the bottling bucket and let the beer from the fermenter drain through the bottling wand with tubing attached into the bottling bucket. IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THE spigot of the bottling bucket is CLOSED before doing this. Don't ask how I know this is a potential issue. Let's just say that thanks to alert assistant brewers, the loss was minimal.

Step 7: Wash and re-sanitize wand. Not sure this is 100% necessary, but certainly doesn't hurt.

Step 8: Place the bottling tip on the wand and fill all the bottles. Let liquid get to the top of the bottle, and the displacement from the wand will leave the exact perfect amount of head space.


You have to let the smaller brewing assistant get his turn too. As each bottle is filled, place a top on it, but do use bottle capper until the very end.


Step 9: Attach the bottle caps to the 12 oz bottles with bottle capper.

Step 10: Place all the bottles in a Styrofoam cooler and move to the basement. Let the bottles carbonate for 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks, the bottles will move to a conditioning cooler for 2 to 4 weeks and then to the beer fridge. I should be able to drink this beer around mid-December, but will probably keep some on hand for several months.

Cowboy Playground

We rode our bikes yesterday to the "Cowboy Playground". It actually took me a little while to figure out what Tyler and Connor were talking about when they suggested that be our destination. I am not 100% sure I know how to get to this place by car. Its right along a bike path that I use a bunch, but I have never driven here. If I had to drive here for some reason, I could probably figure it out, but it would probably take me awhile.
So, in the picture above, the red thing behind Tyler is a slide that looks like a cowboy hat. The two blue mounds are knees covered in blue jeans and the brown thing sticking up on the very right hand side of the picture is a huge cowboy boot. A giant cowboy is taking a nap and he has been sleeping so long beside the Bear Creek that he is partially buried. In the picture below, we are sliding down his hat. It is a pretty cool playground.

There were apparently a lot of guys named "Daddy" there yesterday. Very confusing. When I hear "Daddy", I almost always assume someone is talking to me. I even pushed one little kid on a tire swing for 5 or 10 minutes before we realized I was the wrong "Daddy".

Usually at the playground, I am the biggest kid on the playground equipment. Yesterday was no exception, but this time there were kids (most of them seemed to be the ones with MY name) that were almost as big as me playing up there as well.

Homebrew Fool

So, this is sort of exciting: esheppy (me) is Mr. Beer's "Brewer of the Month" for November.

EricG (Mr. Beer's Señor Brewmaster and BJCP Certified Beer Judge and member of the American Brewer's Guild Alumnus and the moderator of the Mr. Beer discussion forums) wrote in his email to me, "I would personally like to thank you for all you contribute to the forum-- from your solid advice and insightful questions to your great sense of humor and passion for brewing good beer. Of course, it's nice to see that you're almost always trying something new, whether it be using grain or yeast starters! When you share these experiments, it always adds to the conversation... Anyways, the community surely wouldn't be the same without you."

When I got to EricG's email, I was shocked. Most of the Brewer's of the Month have been just completely impressive people when it come to their brewing knowledge and what great insights they share on a consistent basis. And, there are several people on the forum who I could think of off the top of my head who I think are more deserving of the honor than I. I do agree with EricG that I ask good questions and my readily apparent addiction to home brewing certainly might indicate a "passion for brewing". I do experiment quite a bit, and usually share these experiences (mostly to get advice from the experts). But, honestly, I did not expect to ever be Brewer of the Month, and certainly not this month.

If you are interested in reading the writeup, you can see it by following this link.

In other SheppyBrew news: Mr. Beer has recently updated the stats on most of their HME's and UME's. Mr. Beer's Señor Brewmaster actually told me that he had been recalculating for months and one of my posts (one of my insightful questions mentioned above) gave him the motivation to get it all done and updated. The updates for the most part went pretty far in making all my recipes much more balanced than they were before. Of course, it also pushed a couple of my more recent beers (ones I was making a concerted effort on making balanced) toward the hoppy/bitter side, so we will have to see how those turn out. Most notably, my newest version of Dragon Spit is pretty far to the hoppy side of balanced. Of course, it is still in the fermenter, so it will be awhile before I find out what it tastes like. The original version was very malty and needed bitterness, but I might have gone too far. Stay tuned for updates.

My Rocktoberfest Ale was a pretty big hit. I finished the last of them while watching game 2 of the world series. I plan to make this one of my seasonal beers and hope to have some on hand every October whether or not the Rockies are in the playoffs. The only changes I think I want for this beer are to make it a bit lighter on the color and get the carbonation up to a respectable level. Not sure exactly what I did wrong, but carbonation on this beer was pretty low and me being one of those American Beer Drinkers, I like my carbonation.

I actually tried one of my X-Mas Ales in October. I am well pleased with this beer. This is will be another seasonal regular for SheppyBrew. I think probably based on the taste test, next year I will not have to start brewing the beer so early in the year. I guess I'll have to see how these taste in December to know for sure. Other than possibly decreasing the conditioning time, I cannot think of a needed change to this beer. I do have to be extra careful on the pour of this one so that the cherries in the bottom of the bottle don't get mixed in. I wonder if I might want to try to filter some of those out from the bottling bucket next year. I wonder if I'll remember that a year from now.

I recently bottled Tommy Hawk APA. The taste test going into the bottle tells me that I added way too many flavoring hops. My intention was to recreate New Belgium Brewery's Mighty Arrow APA, but I certainly overdid the Amarillo and Cascade hops in the 20 minute boil range. Live and learn I guess (or should I say brew and learn?) I've already made changes to my recipe, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to fit this one into the schedule again.

Halloween

Last year, I mentioned "The Other Haunted House" in my blog entry "Haunted". The picture I had on that entry was taken from my phone, and really did not do the place justice, so I took another one this year with my "HD" resolution on my camera. Actually, it is two houses next door to each other, and even with my HD resolution, I had to take two pictures to get the whole thing in. The two HD-sized pictures still did not do the houses justice, so I deleted them. Sometime you will have to come and visit around Halloween and see for yourself.

But ... here are some Halloween pictures:

We spent a good part of the day around Red Rocks ... walking around ... taking pictures ... enjoying the sunshine ... looking around.


Connor with his "Mr. Pumpkin Head" jack-o-lantern. This, really, is the best way to decorate a pumpkin as far as I am concerned. It is especially nice if you have a child you do not want to let use a knife. Both Tyler's and Connor's pumpkins were grown in our garden this year. Unfortunately, a stupid fat squirrel ate our two best pumpkins. I hate that squirrel.

Tyler and Connor went Trick-Or-Treating with his friend Brian and Brian's sister Christine this year. The 2year old little girl across the street from us also came along. Brian is Tyler's age and Christine is a couple of years older. See how Tyler towers above these kids?

Snow Day

We are in the middle of our first snow storm of the year. It is rare to get this much this early. I'll bet the ski resorts love it. I actually like it too. I have had to shovel a bunch, but it is sort of nice to have something physical to do every couple hours since I am staring at the computer all day.

Tracy worked at home yesterday and her office is closed today to "non-essential" personnel, so between the two of us, we were able to take care of the snow-bound kids pretty well yesterday. Not that I ever have problems with the kids when it is just me. It is nice to be able to know you can play man-to-man rather than zone on the kids.

I think the Phillies are going to win the world series this year. Better them than the Yankees.

Some of my "Blogs I read" over on the right hand side (for those of you who read this as a blog instead of a facebook note) are not updating. Not sure why or how to fix it. Unfortunately, two of the blogs I want most to keep updated on (my Sister's and my Dad's) are ones that are not updating. I notice that they are also not updating on each others' whereas mine seems to be on both theirs. So, it appears to be something about the blogs ... not something about my subscription to them.

Hey... little sis and father ... fix your blogs!

Don't really have anything interesting to say. Just sharing the photo.

Bike Ride: Correction

I said in my last post post:

"We rode a total of just over 15 miles which makes this Tyler's longest bike ride ever."
and
"but I think 15 miles for a 7-year-old is pretty impressive."

We actually rode just over 25 miles.
It was still Tyler's longest ride ever.
I still think it is an impressive distance for a 7 year old.

But, I was wrong (and way off) saying it was 15 miles when it was actually 25.

Bike Ride

This past Saturday, we went on a bike ride on the Platte River trail. At first, Tyler said he wanted to ride into Denver, but once we got on the path, he decided he wanted to go in the other direction.

It was really a nice day. We rode a total of just over 15 miles which makes this Tyler's longest bike ride ever. It is a pretty flat path, so it probably was not his most difficult ride, but I think 15 miles for a 7-year-old is pretty impressive.

Wild Yeasties

R.D.W.H.A.H.B.

For those of you who do not know, that means "Relax, Don't Worry. Have A Home Brew". Those of you who do know are probably home brewers yourself.

One thing that is fascinating about brewing beer is something so damn simple has become such a science over literally thousands of years.

Every home-brewer knows the acronym "R.D.W.H.A.H.B." and yet, every home-brewer (to varying degrees) obsesses about (literally) microscopic details. Every home-brewer will tell you that you must sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Anything that touches the beer or has a chance to touch the beer or might even be close to the same room has to be sanitized. Bacteria and wild yeasts are the enemy of beer and can produce off-tastes. There are countless other examples of ultra-precise time / temperature / and volumes that have to be just right if you pay attention to all the books and Internet forums out there.

But, quite frankly, beer is simply malted grain, water, hops, and yeast. According to Wikipedia's History of Beer article, beer dates back to 6,000 B.C. I find it hard to believe that home-brewers 8,000 years ago had any idea what micro-organisms were flying around and landing in their beer. It was not until the 1800s that Louis Pasteur discovered the role of microorganisms in the process of fermentation. In fact, on Beer Day, I mentioned the Reinheitsgebot (beer purity law). The original law did not mention yeast, because Germans in 1516 had no idea what micro-organisms were let alone what role they played in making beer.

Maybe I should mention in case you don't know that yeast is a micro-organism that eats sugars and poops alcohol. I do not think beer would be nearly as popular without the by-product created by those hungry little critters.

So, one of the most important pieces of the beer-puzzle was literally unknown for thousands and thousands of years, and amazingly, people were still able to brew beer. Amazing.

And do you know how beer brewing worked before humans knew about micro-organisms? Wild yeasts. There are millions and millions billions trillions wild yeasties flying all around us. Home brewers fear them because really, who knows what a wild yeast will do to you (and more importantly, your beer). But, truly, if these little creatures were not flying around trying to find something to ferment 8,000 years ago, no one would have discovered beer. NO ONE WOULD HAVE DISCOVERED BEER! Can you imagine? Can you?

And so, if people 8,000 years ago could brew beer without worrying about it, don't you think we should be able to? Why obsess?

R.D.W.H.A.H.B.

Tonight I brewed a beer I am calling Fools Gold. When I brewed SheppyBrew's Nugget Gold, I was hoping it would end up like Boulder Beer Company's Buffalo Gold, which I think is a very good beer. I know a couple of people with whom I've shared my home brews also like Buffalo Gold. Nugget Gold did not taste like Buffalo Gold. The HME used in Nugget Gold just seems hoppier than Buffalo Gold. Well, by going to the description of Boulder Beer Company's Buffalo Gold, I found the hops and grains that are used in the beer. So you can look on http://beer.ericshepard.com/foolsgold.htm to see how I tried to recreate the beer. It will be awhile before I am able to compare how I did. It will be fun to perfect this beer. You can be sure I sanitized and tried my very best to eliminate those wild yeasties.

SheppyBrew Update

Most of you know that I have been brewing my own beer this year. My wonderful, generous sister is to thank as she is the one who got me a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas. To be honest, I got the kit and figured I would brew maybe a couple batches and probably go months before using it again. The only home-brew I had ever tried was a stout back in college, and I really did not like it. I'm not sure if it was a bad beer, or if I was simply so used to mass-produced watered down beer that I could not appreciate good beer at the time. But, based on that experience, I really did not think I would like home-brewed beer that much.

Boy, was I wrong. Of course, the nice thing about brewing your own beer is that you control what kind of beer you get. It takes a bit of trial and error, and you will most likely make mistakes (eg: Girly Berry; Maple Brown), but if you follow the process and stick to what you like, most likely you will end up with great beers (eg: Eric's Red; Wetta Blonde; Phat & Tyred; etc ... etc ... etc ... )

So far, if I just counted right, I have brewed 21 batches of beer. Those 21 batches have given me 16 distinctly different beers. Currently, I have 8 different types of SheppyBrew beers in my beer fridge which are theoretically drinkable right now, and 2 batches my fermentors which can be drinkable in the next couple of weeks. My batch sizes are smaller than most "real" home-brewers as the Mr. Beer fermentors hold just over 2 gallons, whereas most home-brewers do 5 gallon batches. Basically, every batch is a case of 12oz beers. But, even with my small - size batches, I have brewed over 45 gallons of beer this year, which I think is alot. Federal law allows and individual to home-brew 100 gallons a year and a household to brew 200 gallons a year. From my beer forums, I know some people who go over the 200 gallons a year limit (shhhh.... don't tell the feds) , so at least I'm not as obsessed as I could be.

My signature beer is Eric's Red, a deep- redish- amber beer with a heavenly malty, almost sweet flavor with very low bitterness. The thick creamy head on this beer is absolutely amazing. Even though this is my favorite (or at least in the top 2), it is also the one I have tinkered with the most. I have made 4 batches of Eric's Red, and each one has been a bit different. I have one that I have to bottle this weekend, which I am sure will be the best one yet. I also really like Phat & Tyred, which started out as a Fat Tire clone, but which I modified enough that it really isn't a clone anymore. It depends on my mood which one I like better and any particular day.

Out of the people with whom I have shared my beers, my Blonde beers have been the favorites. My very first beer was a simple beer recipe that came with the Christmas gift, Classic American Blonde Ale, which was a huge hit with everyone I shared it with. It was, of course, this beer that made me fall in love with the hobby, so obviously, I liked it as well, but it is not the kind of beer I want associated with SheppyBrew. It was a good beer, but not a great beer, so I followed up on a beer that beer drinkers could appreciate in which I added more body and hop flavor, Wetta Blonde, and it has been a big hit as well. Not only do others like it, but I think it is a great beer too.

My most recent beer is one I call Rocktoberfest Ale (in honor of the Rockies who just made the playoffs for only the third time in their history). This one is a deep-amber, almost dark brown with modest bitterness. It had a little higher alcohol content than most of my beers, and its dark malty flavor with the extra little alcohol kick serves well to warm you up on a cold October night while watching the baseball playoffs. Its carbonation is pretty low, which I will have to fix next year, but it is also a great beer. It is considerably darker than your typical oktoberfest lager, but I did not make it for the typical oktoberfest drinker.

So, out of my 16 different styles, I would say at least 4 will be part of my regular lineup (Eric's Red, Phat & Tyred Ale, Wetta Blonde, and Dragon Spit). I plan to always have bottles of each of these ready to drink (NOTE to self: Need to make some more Dragon Spit). At least 4 will definitely be repeated seasonable brews (Whisky Wife Wheat, Gringo Cervesa,X-Mas Ale, Rocktoberfest Ale). Whisky Wife Wheat has the potential of making the regular lineup. It is too soon to tell on Vanilla Porter and Tommy Hawk APA, but I need an APA and a Porter or Stout in the mix, so their chances are pretty good if I like them at all.

And of course, I will always be looking to try new recipes (if I can ever fit them into the schedule having just committed to at least 8 and probably 10 beers to regularly brew). I know I am going to try a DoppleBock and an Irish Stout.

If you made it this far in the blog entry without getting totally bored, you might be interested to see the artwork for my beer labels. You can check them out by going to my public facebook page.