Im really pumped for the dudes at Thank Heaven For Beer. They are officially half way to meeting their Kickstarter goal of 40 grand. What are they going to do with FORTY THOUSAND dollars, you may ask? Start a kick ass brewery. Please go HERE and help them out if you can!

As I was doing my daily research of brewing, malting and beer in general, I found THIS AMAZING BOOK, by Anonymous (hackers like to brew too?... O wait, wrong Anonymous). It was published in the 1750's, and the first few paragraphs are what initially caught my eye. The author opens by comdemning commercial breweries for sacrificing good beer for good profit, and that this practice of brewing terrible beer just to make a buck is a detriment to beer drinkers and, more importantly, everyone's health!

I intend on finishing the whole thing, but if you have any interest in the history of beer at all, you should at least take a few minutes to read the preface. Kinda puts things into perspective. Its funny how we humans know that we should learn from our past mistakes, but when it comes to war, beer, and pretty much everything else...

We never do.

Yesterday I brewed. It was a great time, as usual, but I made an awesomely terrible mistake that I thought would be fun to share with everyone. What mistake? I boiled the yeast!

Now those of you that have brewed before might be trying figure out just where in the process this is even possible to do. I am here to tell you that it is indeed possible... for me anyways. I'm sure by the time I croak I will have committed every brewing crime there is, and I will be damn proud of it.

I have been trying to get into the habit of re-hydrating my yeast lately. I don't really know why, except that I know it helps the yeast survive better, but I have never had under-pitching  issues, so there isn't much of a reason for me to be doing it in the first place. But, alas, there I was, dumping my yeast into some extra wort, and I realized too late that I had let the wort cool off too much. So I thought to myself, "hey self, I have an easy solution... lets stick it on the stove!" Keep in mind that I had not much business re-hydrating at all, and furthermore it wasn't THAT big of a deal that the wort wasn't exactly 100 degrees. Nevertheless, the solution I came up with for my made up problems was to stick the pot onto the stove for a little bit.

Then I got sidetracked. S*&^.

As I was doing other stuff like sanitizing carboys and drinking scotch with Brandon, I smelled something burning. It didn't take long for it to hit me... "IM KILLIN' MAH YEST!!!" I took the yeast off the stove, but it was already too late. I had heated them up to around 150 degrees, and effectively committed mass murder on my undeserving yeast buddies. A perfectly good batch of S-33 went to waste. Bummer. Its a good thing I had a jar of freshly cleaned S-05 in my fridge, because my beer is now bubbling away as I write this.

In the end it wasn't such a big deal, and it will be a fun story to tell in the years to come. The main reason I kick myself over it is S33 the one yeast I use regularly that I don't have a jar of sitting in my fridge. I hate buying yeast, and now I'm just gonna have to buy another packet of it next time I brew. Like some frickin' noob. Which apparently I am, since, you know...

I BOILED MY EFFING YEAST.

So I was on the road AGAIN for about a month with my band A Billion Ernies. We had a great time, played some good shows and had some serious bro down time with our buddies in Caddywhompus and Greg and D Ray from Community Records. I miss them all dearly. The good news is that I GET TO BREW BEER AGAIN! Hurray!

The first day of tour was in SLC, where my parents live, and I brought two kegs of beer with me. Went through both of them in two nights. One had three gallons, the other had probably around two. So needless to say... tour got off to a great start. The only problem is it decimated my pipeline, so now I have three empty fermenters and only one full keg! I haven't been in this desperate of a beer situation for a long time. Time to get going on filling these bad boys back up.

Today Im brewing with my new pal Brandon, and we will be brewing an amber ale that started as a Mack n Jack's clone. This will be the 4th time Ive brewed it and the 4th variation on it, so now I think its safe to say that its my own recipe. Its a damn good beer, and every little tweak makes it a little bit better.

In other news, the guys from Thank Heaven For Beer are starting a real live actual brewery!!! They have a kickstarter up HERE that I would encourage everyone to donate to. They are going to be living the dream, and I know they are going to do amazing things. On a side note; if you're reading this, sorry it took so long for me to blog about it dudes! Tour is time consuming.

Thats it for now I think. I'm going to make a post in the next few days about my thoughts on the scourge of craft beer... BEER SNOBS. But for now, I'm out.

PEACE