Hop Planting Day!

Today was a wonderfully exciting day in brewing progress for me! I made a visit to a new (new to me, anyway) homebrewing store in Woburn and stocked up on ingredients for my recipe that I plan to enter into the Sam Adams Longshot competition...more to come on that soon. I was pleased to see the selection at this place. They seem to have lots of stuff, especially in the equipment department. They have loads of ingredients and seem to be slightly more all-grain friendly than Jasper's but didn't necessarily have the yeast selection that I would prefer. It was definitely acceptable, but Jasper's is definitely much better, particularly in their Wyeast selection. Nonetheless, I modified my original and picked up a White Labs California Ale culture, which I think will go very well with my current plan for a "Pacific" Ale (I'll explain my methodology on the name and style later). Once again, the people that owned the store were wonderfully helpful and friendly, and I will definitely be back.

After my trip to Beer & Wine Hobby, I ventured to the hardware store for some pots and hyper-nutritious soil with which to get my hop rhizomes started growing. Once they have developed their root systems and I have fully planned and plotted my hop garden and trellis system for the vines, I will transplant them into the ground. This Saturday, I am meeting up with Peter to discuss hop growing and see his own system. Can't wait for all of this to happen! It is really very exciting.

A sad bit of news came today when I visited a restaurant that has no tap system and therefore goes through bottles extensively to inquire as to whether they would be willing to sell me some of their bottles. The manager who dealt with me was REALLY weird about it and had no good explanation to offer me other than that they had a contract with the recycling company. Would the recycling company realize it if this week, the restaurant had a couple dozen fewer bottles? Methinks not. Whatever, they're assholes, and it's more incentive for me to go draught with my homebrew sometime this summer. I'm trying to think positively. Meanwhile, everyone should SEND ME BROWN BOTTLES WITH PAPER LABELS THAT DON'T HAVE SCREW CAPS!!!

Love,
The Ever-Obsessed Brewer