Still More @Untappd Badges 19

From time to time, I share the untappd badges that I've earned. I can't imagine why you would want to, but you can look at all the posts (including this one) by going to the "untappd" label on this blog.

After Still More @Untappd Badges 18.5, I went quite awhile without posting any, and so I accumulated enough to be overwhelming. I tried to catch up by posting less information about the badges in Untappd Badge Catch up and More Untappd Badge Catch up. It worked, and now I am ready to proceed with the regular format of these untappd posts.

Since Still More @Untappd Badges 18.5, I've earned the following badges:

B is for Baere Brewing Company

You may remember that as I was composing the list of Denver breweries that I had not visited, it struck me that most of the letters of the alphabet were covered by the beginning letters of the brewery names.

I started with A ... A is for Alpine Dog Brewing Company

Next up was B. My List actually had 3 breweries whose names began with the letter B.

No one gave a suggestion in the comments, so I just randomly picked one.

I decided to go with...

Baere Brewing Company 

They are located in a little strip mall at 320 Broadway, Suite E, Denver, CO 80203. Baere is fairly new (opened July 2014). Somebody told me something good about it at some point. I don't remember who and I don't remember what they said, but I do remember it was something positive.

Summer Lovin' Wheat Brew Day

The SheppyBrew Gnomes and I brewed Summer Lovin' American Wheat Sunday.

The recipe for Summer Lovin' has been around for quite some time, and I use it as a base for a few fruit beers. Most notably, Apricot Lovin' American Wheat and Boo Berry American Wheat.

The beer was originally created because The Beer Model wanted something like New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat. You know ... light and refreshing with coriander and orange peal. It is a wheat beer without the banana and clove of the German Weizen. Just a nice summer beer to sip or chug or whatever you prefer.

Feel free to inspect the recipe at

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

Orlando Trip: Gators

If you follow the blog, you may recall that we spent "Spring Break" in Orlando Florida.

I've already posted that we went to Universal Studios Theme Parks (see Orlando Trip: Universal Studios) and Kennedy Space Center (see Orlando Trip: Kennedy Space Center).

Another thing we did was to seek out alligators.

We even found some. Oh boy did we.

Super Simple Yogurt?

If you follow the SheppyBrew Facebook Page, or my twitter feed, you may have noticed that I posted another article to The Homebrew Academy. If you haven't seen it, go take a look. Leave a comment.

Simple Crock Pot Yogurt

Well, I thought "my" method of Crock Pot Yogurt was simple, but the very first comment on the article told me that I "may be making yoghurt more complicated than it needs to be".

More Untappd Badge Catch up

The untappd badges continue to accumulate. I caught up some a couple weeks ago with the post Untappd Badge Catch up. I am still way behind, though, and feel I need another catch up post where I don't include the detail for each badge. If you want that detail,feel free to follow the hyperlink.

Melting Stream Spring Saison

Do you remember about SheppyBrew's Seasonal Saison series of beers?

It all began in the winter of 2014 with Arctic Vortex Winter Saison.

It includes a Summer Saison (Hail Storm Summer Saison) and an Autumn Saison (Falling Leaves Harvest Saison).

But, I skipped Spring. As obvious as it should have been, I didn't think of doing a Saison for every season until that first Spring was over.

But, Spring is back, and now I was finally able to add a Spring Saison to the series. I brewed it Saturday.

Melting Stream Spring Saison

Orlando Trip: Kennedy Space Center

I mentioned a few days ago that we spent last week in Orlando Florida (see Orlando Trip: Universal Studios).

Of course, as I mentioned, we spent a couple days at at Universal Studios Theme Parks, and we had loads of fun there.

Even more cool, though was visiting the Kennedy Space Center. 

I wasn't sure what to expect at the  Kennedy Space Center, but it was completely awesome. If you are ever in the area, I totally suggest you make the drive.

It takes a whole day. We were there close to the opening and didn't leave until close to closing. We didn't come close to seeing everything there was to see.

2015 Q1 SheppyBrew Stats

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:http://blog.ericshepard.com/search/label/Brew%20Stats .

Q1 of 2015 was actually pretty busy at the SheppyBrew Brewery. I  brewed six batches.

• Arctic Vortex Winter Saison
• Snowball's Chance (in) Helles
• Gruntled Berry Weiße
• One Hundred Hoppy Brown Ale
• Ale to the Chief: Honey Ale
• Sasquatch Hunter German Altbier

SheppyBrew Going Professional

SheppyBrew Brewery is going Professional! Yes, we have decided that we are going to sell our beer ... for money.

The Brew Master has decided to quit his day-job and raise the capital for a brand-new 7 barrel brew-house. If you have a couple million dollars you wish to invest, we are open to discuss how you can help get this shiny new brewery open.

At this time, we have not decided on a location, but we are fielding offers from multiple municipalities who want us.

We will continue to employ gnomes to do most of the day-to-day brewing. Gnaughty and Gnasty will be promoted to co-head brewers and we will be hiring a small army of other gnomes to assist in the brewing and packaging process.

We will not discriminate against leprechauns, tommyknockers, elves, or any other kind of small, mythical woodland creatures, but there will be absolutely no consideration to any creature who is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings and we will certainly not be hiring ANY Green Bay Packers fans.

Orlando Trip: Universal Studios

We just got from a family vacation in Orlando, FL. We spent a couple days at Universal Studios Theme Parks, which was lots of fun.

The kids especially enjoyed the Harry Potter areas of the two parks. Unfortunately, we had camera issues and lost almost a whole day of photos, but here are some from our first day:

Untappd Badge Catch up

Well, I've accumulated a bunch of new untappd badges since Still More @Untappd Badges 18.5, and I need to catch up a bit.

Since I have so many, I'm not going to go through the usual detail. If you want more information, click on the hyperlink on the badge descriptions.

Without further ado .... 

Here you are some badges I've earned since 18.5:

A is for Alpine Dog Brewing Company

As I was composing the list of Denver breweries that I had not visited, it struck me that most of the letters of the alphabet were covered by the beginning letters of the brewery names.

I thought that going through the alphabet would be a fun way to start organizing a plan to visit more of my local Denver Breweries. As the alphabet begins with "A", and there being only one brewery on the list that starts with "A", my first choice is clear.

Alpine Dog Brewing Company

Sasquatch Hunter Altbier --- Batch 3

Perhaps you remember my first award-winning homebrew was Sasquatch Hunter German Altbier. I just reminded you a couple weeks ago that this beer won a blue ribbon in the 2013 Denver Regional of the National Homebrew Competition. It came as a complete surprise that this beer won a ribbon. In fact, winning was so far away from my expectations that I didn't even think of saving any to send to the nationals that year.

So, I had to brew batch 2 to have something to send to the National Competition. It didn't win a medal, but I was so excited to get to the Nationals that I didn't really care.

Not only did Sasquatch Hunter win an award, but I also really liked the beer. It is shocking that I have not brewed the recipe again until two Sundays ago. Not sure exactly why other than I just never got around to it.

Snowshoeing in the Mt. Evans Wilderness

 We went snowshoeing in the Mt. Evans wilderness last weekend.

I love snowshoeing. It is so peaceful to be out in the wilderness and there is something about the pure white snow that makes it even more amazing to me. I also really like the opportunity to get exercise. As a bonus, dragging the kids along gets them exercise too.

Reinheitsgebot Smeinheitsgebot

If you follow the SheppyBrew Facebook Page, or my twitter feed, you may have noticed that I posted another article to The Homebrew Academy. If you haven't seen it, go take a look. Leave a comment.

Is Reinheitsgebot really a four letter word?

Honey Yogurt

Recently, I've been making my own yogurt in my crock pot. If you are a regular on this blog or follow me on FaceBook, you probably know this. If you need a refresher, feel free to look through Sheppy's Blog: Yogurt to see what I've typed about it.

Behind the scenes, ie... not documented on the blog, I've been doing some experimentation. 

I've added fruit or fruit jam to the fermentation. I've added vanilla extract. I've added sugar. I've tried adding other things. I've also tried mixing those sorts of things in after the yogurt has been finished.

I've come to the conclusion that my ideal yogurt recipe and process is the plain Mrs. Bluefield Recipe

Except ...

Quinzee!

You may remember my birthday weekend stay in a yurt.  If you look at the comments, Mrs. Bluefield wrote that I should stay in a quinzee sometime. You may not know what a quinzee is. Basically it is simply a temporary shelter made by hollowing out a pile of settled snow.

I like the idea of sleeping in a quinzee. I'm not sure it is a good idea to bring my wife and kids into the wilderness to sleep in the cold wintery snow. At the very least I thought I should try making one in a safer, controlled environment such as my yard.

Brewing Ale to the Chief Honey Ale

It has been quite awhile since the White House published its two #HomeBrew recipes. If I have my timeline correct, they released the recipes in September of 2012. I converted the porter a couple weeks later. I converted the Honey Ale to an all-grain recipe in November of 2012.

Recently, I decided to do a smaller batch of this recipe.

This Saturday, I brewed the small batch. If you pay attention to my brew-day blog posts, you probably realize that a Saturday brew is pretty unusual. Not only was it a strange day for me, but as you may be able to tell from the picture below, I didn't get started until after 10:30AM. This is practically unheard of.

Ale to the Chief: Honey Ale

Ireland Craft Beer Infographic

As I mentioned before, usually when people send me a request to share some sort of link via my Contact Me form, I am pretty accommodating.

A couple days ago I got an email from the Managing Director of a company called Home Brew West in Ireland. He has created an infographic "The top Irish Craft Beers you should be drinking in 2015".

"The Craft beer industry in Ireland has taken off and has in size since 2011. In the last quarter of 2014, sales in the industry were on course for more than €15 million. From home brewing to professional micro-breweries this infographic celebrates Irish beer, and outlines some of the finest Irish beers on the market today."

I don't give much thought to craft beer or home-brewing in Ireland. It is interesting to me how much the Craft Beer Scene in the United States seems to be a big influence on other countries. Notice how many big IPAs are in this infographic?

This was not the case only a few years ago.

Fascinating really.

Check out the Home Brew West website:

Home Brew West