Monday Randomness

I will be posting some beer reviews this week, as well as reflecting on a less than ideal brewing situation with my last beer, El Jefe. I have spring break coming up, so I'm excited to brew a couple more beers in the near future. One being my version of a Foreign Extra Stout. In my recent "study" of stouts, I discovered a new favorite, Lion Stout, a foreign stout from Sri Lanka. I remembered reading an article in BYO by Jamil Zainasheff about this style, and was interested. Then in my quest to open my mind to stouts, I came across Lion, and have since revisited this article. So next week I plan on brewing Irie Stout, my twist on the style, which at this time looks like its going to be an organic stout brewed with orange peels and molasses just to add some interesting flavors to it. Anyway, I found this article about fermenting sugars that I thought was interesting:

http://www.geocities.com/lesjudith/HomeBrewingTips/AlternativeBrewingSugars.html

Thanks to people for checking in on my last post, my organic brewing essay. A special thanks to Chris at Beer Activist for including me in the session. I think my hits tripled this weekend as a result of being part of the session. It was a cool thing to reflect on and really interesting reading other bloggers' posts about the same topic.

Also, a special thanks to Marcus at Final Gravity. A very good blog (and great name!) and another brewer contemplating making organic beers. Marcus and I exchanged some emails about some recipes, and I'm honored that he asked me if I'd be interested in participating in a new series of interviews called the "Brew Crew" in which he'll be interviewing beer bloggers. Great concept, I'm always interested in learning more about the bloggers who share this hobby. I look forward to his future interviews. I encourage people to check out his blog.

Also, this week I plan on reviewing another great beer Jeff brought back from his last trip to Iowa, yet another good offering from Mill Stream Brewing Company. Also...New Belgium has brought six and twelve packs to Minnesota!!! Including a Folly Pack (sampler) with their pale ale and their Spring seasonal: Springboard. I'll be reviewing those this week. Stay tuned.
Salud!

The Bearded Brewer