Beer Draft Kits

New Beer Technology

This is some awesome new beer technology.  Thought I’d share.

If you have some awesome beer technology to share, join us at the Pub for Beer Enthusiasts, Beertaps.com Pub.

Don’t Make These Mistakes With Your Kegerator Conversion

You can’t just go in blindly when you are converting your old refrigerator into a kegerator.  I’ve seen some horrible mistakes.  I’ve seen mistakes that have caused the refrigerator to be no longer usable in any capacity.  You don’t want your refrigerator conversion to turn into any of these catastrophes:

One day, a few friends of mine were enjoying their draft beers out of their freshly converted kegerator when all of a sudden they heard a pop.  They didn’t think anything of it because they had been hearing different sounds all day.  One of the beer enthusiasts decided to pour another drink and got a half glass with a lot of foam.  After closer observation, the beer line had popped off the regulator and was damaged.  The beer drinking fun was over until the beer line was replaced.  A good bit of beer was on the bottom of the refrigerator too.  A nice mess to clean up when you have a CO2 tank pumping air through a line to make sure the beer keeps flowing.

I have actually witnessed the next mistake go both ways.  The CO2 regulator needs to be set to the right psi.  Not over and not under.  Can you imagine walking up to the kegerator and not getting anything out of it?  Or worse yet, can you imagine damaging a beer line because you had the psi too high?  Great ways to ruin a party.

But, the one that takes the cake is the amateur who decided to just drill the hole through the door without knowing what he was doing.  The hole was too big for the shank because this guy wanted to drill the hole as big as the nuts.  Enough said about that!  Scrap the refrigerator and go find another one.

So before you make any of these mistakes, make sure that you know everything you need to know before you get started:

Converting a Refrigerator into a Kegerator

Putting Some Good Use to Your Beer Draft Kits

There are beer enthusiasts who are deeply enriched in the beer making world, who own their own home breweries and who take advantage of all the benefits. Then, there are beer enthusiasts who have never even thought of making their own. I can’t imagine why a beer enthusiast wouldn’t at least be interested in giving it a try, but I’m going to try to change that now.

There are many benefits to brewing your own beer and I’m going to take it one step at a time. When you are ready to get off this wild ride, take stage coach left and no one will think any less of you for it. But I bet once this journey begins, you will want to ride it until the wheels fall off.

First, brewing your own beer is a way of putting a mark on your own home bar. You can even get online and design yourself a label and then place it on your bottles, glasses and beer taps even. When company comes over, you can have them all try it. It might just become their favorite beer meaning you might just get company more often if that seems like something you would like to have.

Then, you can start marketing your beer to the local bars. Give them a taste and see if they like it. There are different ways to make this happen. You can get in touch with a local bar owner and tell them you would like to have a tasting at their bar. You offer some of your beer for free and then when people say they like the taste, the bar owner will most likely want to stock it. Make a thing of it. It’s supposed to be a fun time. So, have fun!

The next logical level is to enter into some beer events. Start locally, but again have fun. Go across the country if you want. The more exposure you get, the more buyers you get. Don’t be surprised when someone approaches you to see if you want a sponsor. Sponsorship can take you to levels you have never imagined. Nationwide distribution. Export. International attention.

By this time of course, you have expanded your enterprise to include so much more than a bucket and a kegerator. You have built your brewery into a high powered system that produces enough beer to satisfy all your orders. You’ve moved your operation to a local location that houses your brewery and invites the neighbors to wander in and have a beer. You’ve had to apply for your beer license so that you can start selling your beer and you’ve had to build a bar so that your neighbors have a comfortable place to sit. You’ve got a sign on the front of your place with your name on it and you’ve been highlighted in the paper as the local beer expert.

With a few different flavors now in your inventory, you can have a seat. Take a breath. You’re finished the first phase of Operation Your Brew. The rest of the ride goes anywhere you want it to go.

Happy Thanksgiving Beer

This year when we’re drinking your home brew for Thanksgiving…

What?  You’re not making beer for Thanksgiving?  You don’t have a home brew that you make special for Thanksgiving?

Well, how weird is that?

It must not be a tradition everyone shares.  But, see if you can relate to any of these:

• Sitting on the couch and eating Thanksgiving while watching football.
• Same thing…sitting on the recliner with a food tray.
• Saying, “It’s not worth it.  We’re going to a restaurant.”
• I ordered Pizza and Wings one year…

That was the year I had just finished my home bar and I made my first home brew for our New Happy Thanksgiving Tradition. 

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoys their own traditions, whatever they may be!

Fort Worth Examiner Announces Death of Microbrewer and Author Greg Noonan

From Fort Worth Examiner Debbie Cerda

Microbrewer Greg Noonan has been reported to have died in his sleep at home early Sunday morning, according to this Beer Advocate forum. Visitors to the Vermont Pub and Brewery on Sunday found the pub closed, with a sign posted: "Greg Noonan  March — 1951 – Oct. 11th 2009."  What does the death of a craft brewer in Vermont have to do with craft beer in Austin? Plenty.

Greg was one of the best known craft brewers in America, having pioneered the craft beer industry for microbreweries and brewpubs. His books on brewing are mandatory reading for both home and microbrewers, including "New Brewing Lager: The Most Comprehensive Book for Home and Microbrewers" published in 1986 and re-issued in 2003. His sour-mashing techniques were featured in this homebrewing article which appeared in the October 2008 edition of Brew Your Own magazine.

He was a well-known speaker at brewers’ conferences and author of numerous trade journal articles and books. Greg spoke in Texas at the 1998 Bluebonnet Brew-off Homebrew Competition about the beer style he’s authored a book on- Scotch Ales. He provided his expertise by consulting on the startup and design of several pubs and breweries, and helped legalize brewpubs in Vermont by lobbying the legislature for three years to allow pub brewing. His own Vermont Pub and Brewery which opened in 1988 is the third oldest brewpub on the East Coast. Five years later brewpubs became legal in Texas in June of 1993.

It was reported in a 2001 All About Beer article by Stan Hieronymus that Greg bought his malt for his two brewpubs in the Northeast from St. Patrick’s of Texas, an Austin homebrew supply store. The original storefront was located next to Billy Forrester’s Waterloo Brewing Company, the first brewpub in Texas. St. Patrick’s began importing undermodified Czech malt from Moravia in 1998, which was also bought by Austin microbrewery Live Oak Brewing for their Live Oak Pilz.

In 2005, Greg was presented with the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing at the Craft Brewers Conference from the Brewers Association (see "Past Winners"). More on Greg Noonan excerpted from an article in Business People-Vermont:

"Noonan was brewing beer as a hobby while working as a manufacturing manager for paper and wood products companies in Massachusetts. Microbreweries were just becoming trendy on the West Coast, and he decided to pursue the commercial possibilities for his craft.

He had managed restaurants in New Hampshire and Boston and wanted his own restaurant to feature his brew. He used the results of his research for Brewing Lager Beer to launch his brewpub in Burlington.

“I specifically sited my brewery in Burlington because it’s where I wanted to live. I admired the politics in Vermont,” says Noonan. “I had $175,000, which is a shoestring budget in the brewing industry; brewing equipment is very expensive.”

He applied to several banks for additional funds, but lenders were skeptical. “The banks all said, ‘What is a brewpub?’ But I plunged on anyway with the money I had.”"

Without craft brewing pioneers like Greg Noonan, the brewpub and microbrew industry in Austin as well as Texas may not exist as it does today. He will be sorely missed by all in the craft beer community everywhere.

Putting The Home Bar Together The Easy Way

When you have your bar and your cabinets built, you’ll want to get to drinking in it…Now.  But, I’ve seen some make shit jobs that aren’t really all that great.  Then, I’ve seen some expensive setups that are way out of the reach of most of us.

So, here’s the home bar the easy way:

The kegerator is the first thing you put in your bar.  It keeps your keg cool and it adds style in an inexpensive way.

This kegerator can actually make the entire bar.  If you choose to use a kegerator like this to hold your kegs, you can make it a part of the bar’s counter top.  Then, you only need counter space on each side.  That’s a setup made easy, as easy as it gets. 

Grab a tap handle of your favorite beer and now you’ve got something to really get you bragging.  There are tap handles of all kinds, from your favorite domestic to your favorite import.  As a promotional tool, every beer you can think of has a beer tap handle for commercial uses as well as the home bar enthusiast.

But, just in case you have a beer of your own or some other “unrecognizable” libation, get the beer tap handle you can write anything on that you want. 

Tell people, “Try Me!”  Give your concoction a name.  Have fun with it and write, “Make Your Own Beer…” or whatever else you might come up with to prank your friends.

You’ve got the bar.  Dress it up in style.  The kegerator and a beer tap handle can turn any room into a bar.  Your bedroom, your dorm room (oops), your garage, your basement, your tree house…

Anywhere!

How To Make Your Home Bar More Bar And Less Home

When you are trying to create a bar in your home, of course you begin with the taps and the handles, mirrors and signs.  You built a bar!  It has to look right.  Right?

But when the bar is in place and you think you have it all, what kind of lame bar serves draft beer in plastic cups?  And I’ll be willing to bet that’s what you have.  Red plastic cups that you bought at the grocery store.  Hmm…all that work and then you tap out at the end.

Well, you can add some specialty glasses so that your friends are drinking in style.  This is where it gets tricky, but you can manage.  You don’t just want to get mugs of any kind.  You need to stock up your cabinets with mugs of all kinds.

Vintage mugs from old fashioned beers add such a touch of class.  Especially when you have friends asking you where you got the mugs.  That’s when you realize saving money on those red plastic cups wasn’t worth it after all.

But, don’t stop there.  You should have Pilsners and Pints, Dimpled Mugs and Retro Pubs.  Get mugs with different logos like Coors, Molson, Blue Moon and Killian.  It’s a blast to make sure that you drink out of the right glass for the right kind of draft.

Logo Beer Glasses

George Washington – Beerthusiast

Posted by CarBoy Films

The Father of Our Country loved his beer.  English–style porter was George Washington’s drink of choice and whenever he could he would seek out the product of Robert Hare, a brewer in Philadelphia who was one of the first to make porter in the U.S. Washington was no stranger to homebrew either and this recipe from a personal notebook he kept will make 30 gallons of ale, enough for a large household like Mount Vernon.

"Take a large Sifter full of Bran, Hops to your Taste—Boil these 3 hours.  Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed."

"To Make Small Beer” is the title of this recipe. “Small beer” is normally brew made from the second runnings through the mash for strong ale and the beer that is created has very little alcohol (about 3%).  However, a note on the NPR website says that the above recipe produces a beer with an alcohol content of about 11 %.  If this was George’s “small beer” then consumption of his “large beer” must have somehow disrupted space-time for its imbiber. Compare that ABV to a popular modern American brew, say Sam Adams Boston Lager at 4.9%, and you realize that “Town Destroyer”, as the Iroquois nicknamed Washington, wasn’t effin around.   In fact, I think he might have been trying to kill himself and anyone around him.

So if you try this recipe use caution (or just less molasses) and for God’s sake send us pictures of the aftermath.

Image by cliff1066