Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale (Batch 342)

If you follow along on this blog, you might have caught that I try to have the Beer Model (aka my wife) brew from time to time.

In the United States, an individual homebrewer is allowed to brew 100 gallons of beer a year. A household with two or more adults over 21 years of age is allowed a maximum of 200 gallons.

The SheppyBrew "Brewery" brews significantly over 100 gallons most years, and we're on track to get over 100 again this year. 

So ... mostly jokingly, I say that the Beer Model has to brew in order to keep me out of jail.

I'm honestly not sure who is supposed to enforce this 100 (or 200) gallon limit. I suspect that no one actually does, so I don't think I'm in any real danger of going to jail for brewing too much beer.

More Tri-tip photos

As I mentioned in Tri-tip photos, I got buy-one-get-one-free Tri-tips last time I bought tri-tip.

So ... I had another tri-tip in the freezer to make.

This past Sunday after my #MetricCenturyEveryMonth ride ... I made the second tri-tip from that purchase.

Yum!

As usual, I Reverse Seared it on one of my Weber Kettles.

Hickory smoked tri-tips are delicious.

I got started around 4:30 pm, which is about an hour and a half before dinner time.

2023 Tribute Day Photos

We're getting close!! In September, I'll be cycling 1000 miles in September to help raise awareness and money to fight childhood cancer.

It is called the Great Cycle Challenge.

If you'd like to help out, head to my "Rider Page" at 

https://greatcyclechallenge.com/Riders/EricShepard

 

#MetricCenturyEveryMonth

If you follow this blog at all (or the SheppyBrew Facebook page or the SheppyBrew Instagram page), you know that I try to raise money every year to try to fight childhood cancer.

The Great Cycle Challenge. Feel free to follow that link and donate.

This is my 8th year doing The Great Cycle Challenge.

My goal is to ride 1000 miles over the month of September, which honestly is not an easy thing to do, so I have stay in cycling shape to have any chance of accomplishing this goal.

Honestly, part of the reason I do this every year is to force myself to stay in shape.

Anyway, I cycle year-round, and part of what I do to stay in shape is to make sure I ride at least one "Metric Century" every month. 100 km or 62.14 miles in one ride. 

This past Sunday, I did my "Metric Century" for August.

Pork Butt and Kumbucha

Summer is almost over!

My youngest son is heading off to college this week. How did this happen so fast?

One of the things he requested before heading off to school was to have pulled pork for dinner some night.

So, this past Sunday I smoked a pork butt.

Generally, I use Kombucha to spray my bbq. My spray bottle was empty, but I've had a batch fermenting for quite awhile.

So, I had to bottle up that batch.

I got started around 6am, applying rub to the butt, getting the kettle ready, and getting the kombucha ready to bottle.

A is for AC Golden Tank Room

Ok ... well I guess ... here we go again ...

In A to Z Denver Breweries Round 4, I mentioned that I wasn't sure if we'd do a 5th round of the A to Z Denver Breweries series of posts.

We certainly have a bunch more breweries to visit on the Colorado Brewery Map & List, but there are several letters in the alphabet that are not straight forward to fill in.

However, The SheppyBrew Beer Model (aka my wife) wanted to ride her Pedego to a brewery last Saturday for lunch.

There was an "A brewery" that is a pretty nice ride and that I've been interested in visiting, so we decided to go for it ...

A is for AC Golden Tank Room

Steamacularly Common (Batch 341)

R.I.P. Anchor Brewing company. 

After 127 years in business, Anchor Brewing has closed.

It is sad.

Back in the Spring of 2019, the family visited San Francisco, and shortly after, I brewed a California Common beer in honor of Anchor Steam, their iconic classic beer. (see Bridge Fog California Common (Batch 231)).

Upon hearing about the closing of Anchor Brewing, I decided to brew another beer inspired by Anchor Steam.

The American Homebrew Association published a Clone Recipe of the beer, which I used as a base to my recipe ...

Steamacularly Common

Gypsy Magic, Wings and Corn

So.... I sort of had a weird issue with Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde, but I seem to have gotten past it.

The issue was that the beer was quite cloudy when I kegged it.

I'm really not sure why. It attenuated fully and I thought I had given enough time to clear up.

I thought that once it was chilled it would take a day or two to clear up, but it really stayed cloudy for longer than I expected. Eventually, I added gelatin to help settle out the "crud", and a couple days after, that seems to have done the trick.

But, I probably had almost a whole gallon of beer before it was where I thought it was finally good to drink.

I guess the good news is that the beer is exactly what I think it should be now. 

Smooth and malty with clean yeast character. Fairly strong, but dangerously drinkable. Not much hop character. Nice and dry. Beautiful dark amber / brown.

A to Z Denver Breweries Round 4

The SheppyBrew Beer Model and I are done with Round 4 of our A to Z Denver Breweries series of posts.

We started this round in June of 2022 with A is for A Bit Twisted Brewpub. We posted Z is for CraZy Mountain Brewery just a few days ago.

This means we made it all the way through the alphabet in just over 13 months, which is much faster than any of the previous rounds.

I'm actually pretty surprised how far we got down that alphabet before we started having to "take artistic license" with names in this round. I'm also a little surprised how few we had to do that with.

We made it all the way to Q (Q is for Six Capital Brewing and BBQ) before having to use a brewery that didn't actually start with the target letter. If I'm counting correctly, we only had to do this with a total of 5 in this round.

First Century Ride of 2023

This past Saturday, I did my first Century ride of 2023.

Yep, 100 miles.

That's right ... On my bicycle.

Yep, in one day.

No, my butt is fine.

Nope, I'm not crazy.

Yes, I know you don't like to drive that far.

Spoiler alert ... there are a lot of similarities between my First Century Ride of 2022 and this one. It was also done the last Saturday of July.

If you've been following me, on this blog, you know I'm "training" for September. 

In September, I'm riding 1,000 miles to help raise awareness and money for the Children's Cancer Research Fund with the Great Cycle Challenge.

If you can afford it and are against childhood cancer, you should donate some money to help with the cause. If you want to help my fundraising effort ... you can donate at

https://greatcyclechallenge.com/Riders/EricShepard

Tri-tip photos

My grocery store had tri-tips on sale again last week, and I picked some up.

As I've mentioned more than once on this blog, I really like making and eating tri-tips, but I don't see them that often.

Maybe that is changing as this is already the second time I've made them this summer (see Tri-tip). That would be awesome.

The sales was buy-one-get-one-free, so I actually have another nice-sized tri-tip in my freezer that I'll make sometime before the summer is over.

I'm quite certain this will be the only time I've made tri-tips so many times in a season.

Anyway ... If you've read any of my other tri-tip posts, you pretty much know how I make them ...

Z is for CraZy Mountain Brewery

Here we are ... we got through Round 4 of the A to Z series of posts.

If you're new to the blog, or just have not been paying attention ...

Way back in 2015, I was a little embarrassed at how few of the Denver area breweries I had visited.

As I was looking through a list of the breweries in the area, it struck me that there were breweries starting with (just about) every letter in the alphabet.

And ... staring with A is for Alpine Dog Brewing Company, I started working my way through the alphabet.

In fact, I was able to get through A to Z Denver Breweries Round 1, A to Z Denver Breweries Round 2, and A to Z Denver Breweries Round 3.

And ... here we are about to finish up Round 4 ... Big Z, Little Z, what begins with Z?

Z is for CraZy Mountain Brewery

Country Style Pork Ribs

Country Style Pork Ribs ... Aren't.

It's annoyingly misleading that these things are called "ribs", isn't it?

I honestly have no idea why they are labeled "ribs", and Google really has not been very helpful in answering this question for me. 

They are actually cut from the shoulder of the pig.

Regardless, though, they are delicious.

I made some on the Weber Kettle last weekend.

They are pretty easy to make. I put charcoal in the "vortex" in the middle of my kettle and placed the "ribs" around it.

Helles Won't Kellerbier (Batch 340)

Well, I brewed again this past Sunday.

This is already my 15th of batch of beer this year, and my 340th batch all-time.

I'm getting to a point where I might have to stop claiming that my 2023 brewing totals will be down from 2022.

I'm not quite there, yet, though. I still think my 2023 totals will be less than last year.

Sunday's batch was a new recipe and new style for me.

If you follow this blog at all, you can probably guess what I brewed after reading Roll-a-Style 10 ... Kellerbier.

Tryna get girls from a brand? Man, you hella won't

Man, you hella won't

Helles Won't Kellerbier

Roll-a-Style 10 ... Kellerbier

After Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde ... I thought I'd try another Roll-a-Style.

I rolled the Online 20 sided die and rolled ...

10 corresponds to Historical Beer: Kellerbier.

Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde (Batch 339)

Remember I said I am running low on beer?

Well ... because of that, I decided to brew on the 4th of July this year.

This is already my 14th batch of beer this year, and my 339th batch ever.

If I'm counting correctly, this would be my 218th unique recipe.

You'll remember I had decided to brew a "Bière de Garde" next on Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde.

Of course, Bière de Garde isn't a style of beer I see a bunch in breweries or liquor stores, so I probably won't get a chance to compare my batch to a commercial example ... but that's ok ...

Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde

2023 Hail Storm Summer Saison (batch 338)

It is summer, and that means it is time to brew my Summer Seasonal Saison.

We've had a lot of company and the over the last few weeks, and of course we had 2023 Fathers' Day Weekend.

This prevented me from brewing over most of June AND all these visiting people have been drinking my beer.

So .. my beer inventory is lower than usual.

I mentioned in 2023 Q2 Brewing Stats, that my Hail Storm Summer Saison would be the next beer I brewed.

Last Sunday, I did ...

Hail Storm Summer Saison

Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde

Ok ... after having people visiting and drinking a bunch of my beer, I need to brew to get my inventory back up.

In order to determine what to brew next, I decided to start the SheppyBrew Roll-a-Style.

So ... I used my online 20 sided die and rolled ...

On my list, 13 just happened to correspond with style 24C. Bière de Garde.

Y is for Black SkY BrewerY

We're getting close to the end of Round 4 of the A to Z series of posts.

It was almost a month ago that I posted X is for Los Dos Potrillos MeXican Restaurant and Brewery.

Of course, after "X" comes "Y" ... and shortly after that ... "Z".

As I mentioned, the Colorado Brewery Map & List doesn't really have anything in the "Y" section close enough that we could use.

We used Y is for Yak and Yeti Restaurant and Brewpub, Y is for Over Yonder Brewing Company, and Y is for Wild Blue Yonder Brewing Company in rounds 1 to 3.

We really had to take a little artistic license for this one ...

Y is for Black SkY BrewerY

2023 Q2 Brewing Stats

As I type this, there are still a few days left in Q2 of 2023, but I am not going to brew again this month, so I can actually get my SheppyBrew Brewing Stats for the quarter in.

You may remember that Q1 was a busy brewing quarter, and this quarter was basically just as busy.

I keep saying I'll slow down to get a more reasonable total in 2023, but so far I have not managed to slow down very much at all.

My excuse this quarter was that my youngest son graduated high school and I needed beer for various family members to consume for our celebrations.

Regardless of the reason, I brewed another 6 batches of beer in Q2, matching my Q1 total and bring my total for the year up to 12 batches of beer.

Melting Stream Spring Saison brew day