Archive for September, 2009

* Homebrewering: Stage Beer!

Posted on September 16th, 2009 by Mike Shriver. Filed under Craft.


I got a little impatient and cracked a bottle open on Monday. Inside I found a liquid not unlike beer! Success!

Opening the first bottle

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* Homebrewering: Stage Two

Posted on September 7th, 2009 by Mike Shriver. Filed under Craft.


I am now just a few weeks away from playing out this scene:

The setting is a dark, unfinished basement in an old house in Ballard. Indie music blares lethargically from the speakers of an old boom box. A dense cloud of 20-something hipsters mills around, their motions mirroring the mundane cycles of their lives; A weather system of humanity fueled by the dreary indie music and a fridge full of watery beer. It leads them outside for a cigarette, back inside for a beer, back outside to vomit in a bush, and take it from the top.

But who is this tall, handsome stranger? And what does he carry in his hand, but a case of homemade beer! Instantly faces light up, attitudes change and the party’s death flow reverses. Hipsters find new meaning in their lives as they crack open a bottle of a flavorful home brewed ale. Someone changes the music to a lively dance song, people begin to congregate on the dance floor and move their bodies in ways that are new and lifegiving. Another dreary party saved from the cusp of collapsing under it’s own angst. A hundred hipsters turn their eyes to me and ‘Prost!’ and I am regarded as hero.

I put my first batch of home brew in bottles yesterday. This is the final leg of the journey.

Bottling

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