"Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew"

On July 1st, thanks to the tireless efforts of the grassroots organization Raise Your Pints, it's countless members and other Mississippians, and with the support and lobbying of the American Homebrew Association, the homebrewing of beer by Mississippians officially becomes legal. The bills to earn these rights for Mississippians were authored and championed by various Representatives and Senators through the last several years, and after passing in this year's legislative session, were signed into law by our Governor Phil Bryant.


The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacting prohibition in 1919, made homebrewing in the U.S. illegal. The 21st Amendment repealed prohibition in 1933, however, the implementing legislation that went with the repeal of prohibition mistakenly left out the legalization of home beer making (home wine making was legalized at that time).

On October 14, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, which contained an amendment sponsored by Senator Alan Cranston creating an exemption from taxation for beer brewed at home for personal or family use. This exemption went into effect in February 1979.

The 21st Amendment predominantly leaves regulation of alcohol to the states. Therefore, even though homebrewing is federally legal, it is still up to individual states to legalize homebrewing in state codes. Prior to the bill being passed and signed into law, Mississippi and Alabama were the only two states that did not allow homebrewing. Now, all 50 states have legalized homebrewing.

The list of folks that have helped achieve this victory are far too numerous to list, and I wouldn't want to do a disservice of not properly recognizing someone.

Thanks from the bottom of my pea-pickin' heart.

Cheers!, and in the words of Charlie Papazian, founder of the American Homebrew Association, "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew."

As good a time as any for a blog ressurection

To quote Everlast from a House of Pain song, "I'm back from the dead, with a shaved head." Man, I loved me some House of Pain.


But let me get back on track. I looked at this blog and realized that it'd been well over 2 years since I've posted on here. I can't even qualify as a part time blogger with that kind of record. I had the best of intentions when I started this thing, I really did. Maybe 2013 will be a better year for blogging about beer and homebrewing and just random stuff in general. We'll see... Keep your fingers crossed just as a precaution though.

A lot has happenend in my life since those last posts. Seems like ages ago. There's been babies born to family and to friends and there are babies on the way. There's been loss; my grandmother and one of my oldest friends. Our house flooded (again) and we've begun a fairly massive renovation of the place. We bounced around ideas of moving and finally made the jump. Life happened.

But, through it all, I've stayed busy with brewing. It has progressed way beyond a quirky little hobby that I picked up and tinkered with, much to Jessica's personal displeasure... Brewing has become a passion to me. Actually, it's become more of an obsession to me. And secretly, Jessica does everything she can to support me in my hobby. She feigns interest, pats me on the back, hell, she even knows that I love IPAs. Not to shabby for a gal who's not a beer drinker.

Everyone close to me knows how I get with a hobby. I tend to invest myself fully into it. Once I decide I'm going to do something, I take it as far as I can manage. Always have, always will. Brewing is no different. Actually, it is different. I've been steady at it since late 2008 and it shows no sign of slowing. Those close to me seem to think that this brewing thing isn't going away. I don't either.

With all that brewing came success and failure. There were contests, awards, bitter defeat, ruined batches, epic wins, anger, high fives, excitment, comraderie, and most of all, good beer.

I'll keep this post short. My intention is to try and update this blog at least once a week. I make no promises. I tend to overload myself with projects, home life, and all things in between. Hopefully, the more I do this, the easier it will get, and then it'll be an unconscious effort to update. We'll see...

In the meantime, cheers. Hope to have a beer with you all soon.



Kris

An Update...

Well, as evidenced by the last post I made, I do in fact suck at blogging. I have good intentions, but I'm just don't follow through like I should.
It's been busy for me the last few months. Nate (The Dude, The Great One, The Boy) started walking, and boy, lemme tell ya, that little guy is like a miniature tornado. He's fun but challenging. Kameron (the Monkey, his big sister) is a big help. Boys are definitely different raising than girls...
The Missus and I took our Anniversary Road Trip up the East Coast. It was quite an adventure. 10 days, 17 states, and just a hair shy of 4000 miles. Needless to say, we were both extremely exhausted and ready to be home by the time it was over. We saw lots of scenic views and touristy spots and landmarks and such, and we visited several breweries. I'll go over each of them in a seperate post.
Again, just an update. I'll try and do better...

Man, I suck at this blogging thing...

The title speaks for itself. It's been like 2 months or something... ugh. Anyway, the prophecy of my last post didn't pan out so good. I was home in late April and most of May, and I didn't brew anything. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I had to defer to the judgement of SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) and pack up, haul away and clean out my Man Cave / Nerd Den / Brew House for some much needed remodeling. It sucked, and didn't leave any time for brewing.
I am a nerd of the highest degree, and all my friends well know how much crap I have. You really never know yourself until you have to pack it all in boxes and haul it away, load by load to a 10X10 storage unit across town. That was a major undertaking. But, at the end of the day, once the Wife and her brother finish with my office, it will have all been worth it. The room will look one million percent better than it did. The rustic barn wood on the walls had outlived their appeal.
The room is looking great, and it should be finished in the next 2 weeks.
I made the decision before I left not to bring back all my stuff and place it all as it was before the remodeling. One, you wouldn't be able to see all the effort Jessica and Jerrid pored into the room, and two... I have a lot of shit. I really don't want to haul it all back in again... call me lazy if you will, but I call it practical. I'm just gonna bring back the essentials and keep it bare minimum. This may come as a shock to some people, but they've never had to lug 32 boxes of comic books anywhere before.
Thirdly, by keeping things to a minimum, this will give me more working room for the Brew House. I'm hoping for me and Jerrid to start working on a 5 cubic foot keezer pretty soon, and it will need a home.
Everone needs their own space. I'm just thankful that the Missus is fixing mine up... Cheers!

Brushin' up on my ninja skillz...

Well, as evident in a couple posts back, I'm going home soon. I've got to be very crafty and dedicated to get any brewing done this time home. I promised the Missus I'd cut back due to a contruction project we have to undertake.

I do have some plans for some brews though...
I'll celebrate a Decade, introduce a new Saint, and dream of Ponchatoula. There will be something to do with roots, something untamed, and apples, apples, everywhere... oh so much to drink.

Cheers...

I apologize for a lack of visual aids in this blog. I am not at home so I can't get any pictures of my beer, or ingredients, or techniques or equipment and stuff. I will be remedying this situation soon. I have negotiated a trade off with a talented photographer to be my documentarian. It was pretty simple really, he asked me to teach him how to brew...

So, instead of pictures of my beer and whatnot, here's a slightly disturbing ad for another beer. I like how the one dude is holding balls as the other fella lurks behind him... man sized pleasure indeed.

Count down has commenced...

Well, I'm winding down my time at work. Five weeks is a long time when you think about it. I've been away from my family and my friends for a little better than 35 days. Sometimes it doesn't seem so long. Here towards the end of my trip though, it feels like forever. I'll be flying home come April 21st, Lord willing, and barring no disruptions from the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Keep your fingers crossed.

I'll be headed home to my family who I've been missing every day. There will be a lot going on when I get home, weddings, get togethers, work related courses, etc, etc, ad infintium...
I'll get to spend time with my children and the Missus. I'll get to see family and friends. I'm looking forward to reading some comic books, kicking back with some Netflix, and eating some good old Southern cuisine. And I'm ready to start brewing...

Due to the nature of my work and my schedule, I only get to brew about 6 months out of the year. I work for 5 weeks, then I get 5 weeks off. Not too shabby if you ask me. When I'm on my days off, I brew. My products get to either age in secondary, bottle condition, or age in a keg when I come back to work. I like to think that it adds a little roundness to my brews, helps smooth them out a bit. So needless to say, I stay busy when I come home. I love being able to step back, at the end of the day and say, "I made that".

My last days off were big and busy in regards to brewing, (and everything else). Several projects took off, and I'm ready to get home and check in on them.

The first was a spiced mead. Technically called a metheglin, this little number will hopefully age for the better part of the year before I bottle it. It started with a base of about 5 pounds of honey. To this honey, I added some nutmeg, a couple cloves, allspice, and some orange peels for spicing. I bulked up the sugar content by adding brown sugar, raisins and bananas. Fruit has naturally occuring sugar in it, and it affects the taste and feel of the end product. All this fermented with champagne yeast and I racked it over to a secondary to clear up and smooth out. It smelled very Christmas-y.

The next brew was a kind of a throw together. When I first started brewing, I started with kits. The results weren't bad. They weren't great either. I was never one for starting small and all that, so pretty soon after those first few brews, I started formulating my own recipes. This beer takes one of my last kit beers, and takes it to the hilt. I basically brewed up a simple wheat beer, but threw caution to the wind and souped it up. Once the base beer fermented for several days, I added over a pound of honey, a jar of orange marmalade, and two pounds of whole cranberry sauce. This restarted the fermentation in a big way. There was foam everywhere. I was not expecting too much out of this little experiment, but when I took my gravity readings, smelled and tasted my samples.... well, I'll just say that I can't wait for this beer to be bottle conditioned. It smelled and tasted superb.

The next project was simple in style and ingredients. I made a cyser. A cyser is a historical cross between a mead and a cider. Apple juice and honey. I used several pounds of local wildflower honey given to me by one of the coolest and craziest individuals I know, Richard Vance. (Rich and his dad have been beekeepers for the past 20 years. He gives away all his honey to friends and family. He does it for the love of it.) I was inspired by the Rabbit's Foot Meadery for this project... I made this one for my Vikings.

I also made up a braggot this time home. A braggot is a cross between a mead and a beer. This is the biggest thing I've tried to ferment to date. It's still chugging along. Massive amounts of honey, malt, hops and cherry juice. More on this one later.

And finally, my first kegged brew. 1534 Quito Abbey Ale. In the book Microbrewed Adventures, homebrew guru Charlie Papazian took a trip to Quito, Ecuador in the 1980's. He visited the Iglecias Monasteria de San Francisco. In the 1500's, a group of Franciscan Monks set up this monastery, and commenced to making their beer, as they were accustomed to back in Europe. This in effect made this monastery the oldest brewery in the Americas. Charlie formulated a recipe based on notes from the monks and brewed his beer. I took his notes and brewed mine. It is simple in it's ingredients, but complex in itself. I recultured yeast from a bottle of Chimay to complete the effect. The aromas from this beer when I kegged it were great. I'm ready to get home and have a taste of history.

Well, I got long winded again... sorry. Brewing does that to me. I'll report back with the status of these brews when I get home. I'll try and share some with ya if possible. Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Kris.