RRBC Lincoln Bus Tour and Hats off to Homebrewers

NBC Hats off to Homebrewers Event

The last week has been insanely full of great Homebrewing events and beer related greatness.  Last Wednesday was the "Hats off to Homebrewers" event at Nebraska Brewing Company.  Hordes of homebrewers from the Omaha area crowded into NBC for the release of Deschutes Brewing Company beer for the first time in Omaha.  I love Deschutes beer and it's one of my favorites from Oregon.  When the wife and I went on our honeymoon a couple years ago the Deschutes Mirror Pond was one of my favorite beers to enjoy, and to this day is tied for my favorite pale ale with Nebraska Brewing Company's Cardinal Pale Ale.  The event kicked off with speeches from Deschutes and NBC brewers.  Then Chad talked about his food pairings.  He had to do a pairing with two different beers (one Deschutes and one NBC) for each food item.  There were three seperate stations to try new beers and consume really excellently prepared food by Chef Chad.  From the veal sliders to the prime rib, each entree included NBC beer in the recipe and complimented your beverage well.  I was very impressed by the food and loved the beer.  After the meal each brewer answered questions from homebrewers and Matt from the new Patriot Homebrew Supply store in Elkhorn gave away a $100 gift certificate.  Pretty cool of him to do.  I didn't win, but I still decided that I'd stop by as soon as possible because a new homebrew shop in Omaha sounds like a good thing.  Especially since it's closer to my house than the other homebrewing shops in town.  Highlights of the evening were the great showing we had from the Railroaders brew club, we had a great amount of people show up.  And the custom glassware they provided for the event.  It was really cool to have a nice beer glass provided that was one of a kind.

Custom Deschutes/NBC glasses!

The best beers of the evening went to the "Jubilale" winter beer by Deschutes.  The Deschutes/NBC collaboration ale which was very excellent.  And of course my favorite beer NBC makes.  Now called "The beer formally known as Hop God."  Hop God has always been my favorite.  It bums me out that some brewery who used to make a beer called Hop God at one point decided to steal the name back after NBC has been using it for so long on a great beer.  That's okay though.  Whatever mediocre beer this other brewery comes up with will not hold a candle to the one true Hop God beer.  I just wonder how they're going to get a new name for a beer that truly deserves the name Hop God!  Now don't go getting too crazy, lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks.  I admit I don't know much about the situation, and I don't want to go too overboard.  It could be a very civil dispute that will get figured out.  But I am a person who likes to take sides.  And I usually side with awesome.  Because awesome is awesome.  Hopefully this other brewery will come to their senses and let NBC have the name.  Because a world without Hop God is a world I don't want to live in.  (I know.... a little dramatic.)

Bus capacity, 37 midgets

Next on my list of topics for this week is the Railroaders Brew Club bus tour.  This tour had it's ups and downs.  But mostly ups.  In fact there weren't but a few moments that I wish could have gone better.  For the most part though the bus tour went incredibly well for a first time taking 37 people to a different city and to four breweries!  We loaded the bus at 11:30AM and everyone was early or on time, which is amazing.  I have just about never seen a group of people so eager to get on the road and drink some amazing beers!  The bus was a really nice party bus we rented in town.  It had two coolers built in where we were able to hook up 3 kegs of beer and keep them cool with ice.  The only problem was the seating capacity.  We were told it had room for 37 people.  The bus ended up being alright but they must have meant 37 midgets....because we got real friendly on the bus that day!

Blue Blood Brewing Company

The kegs tapped and beer flowing we started to Lincoln and headed out to Blue Blood Brewing Company for our first stop of the day.  Blue Blood is a brewery in Lincoln that was founded by Lincoln Police officers.  The beers there are all created in honor of a policeman or friend of the force.  So each beer has a great story behind it.  Pretty cool, hopefully one day I'll have a beer in my honor.  Ha!  The tour there went great.  We asked plenty of questions and the guys there took their time to answer them.

Blue Blood Barrels and RRs

Next we stopped at Zipline Brewing Company.  Zipline had some of the best beers I have had all day.  I have to say their NZ IPA is a big favorite of mine.  They also had a casked porter on tap that blew me away.  During the tour we found out that their capacity is surpassing Empyrean for the top spot in Lincoln and that all of their beers are based on Pilsner malt.  Pretty neat!  We enjoyed some great beers and chatted with Marcus and Tom.  Super cool guys who treated us well.  I only wish I had remembered to pick up a t-shirt because I really wanted one.  Oh well, next time!

RRBC at Zipline Brewing Company

One thing I will note, is after we left Zipline.  I started to realize that the intake of great craft beer was beginning to effect me in fantastic ways.  That's my nice way of saying I was starting to feel it pretty good.  Luckily I was able to take a roll call and get everyone back on the bus.  I have to say that Chad made the day extremely entertaining because I could tell my good buddy was having about as much fun as you can have. He was very helpful being loud enough to keep the club's attention and direct us when we needed to "roll out" but also you could definitely tell he was nearly three sheets to the wind.  Well, by the end of the day, we were all there.  That's why we had a bus driver.  He took care of us.  I have to say, our bus driver Dennis.  Was the man.  He was really kind and polite.  We tipped him and treated him well.  Good dude.

Jim Engelbart and the Empyrean System

After Zipline was Empyrean Brewing Company.  Empyrean makes my favorite ESB.  The Luna Sea ESB.  They greeted us with our own Empyrean pint glasses to keep, and poured us pints of IPA and Winter Seasonal.  We listened as Jim told us about their brewing system, and toured the brewhouse, fermenter rooms and even got to have some fresh beer straight off the fermenter.  Which was really cool!  The guys at Empyrean really treated us great.  They had plenty of beer throughout the tour and went above and beyond for us.  Really excellent of them!  After we had our tour we went up to the private event room at Lazlo's.  There we had dinner and drank more Empyrean beers.  What a great place to have a craft beer event!  Excellent food and craft beers with great people!

Tom and Nick listening intently

Russ, and beer.

The crew at Empyrean

Beer from the fermenter

After Empyrean and dinner.  The group was pretty well lubricated.  We boarded the bus to Modern Monks/ Misty's and headed to our final brewery destination.  I was glad we were able to go enjoy a tour there.  But I was not happy that we weren't able to be as attentive as we could have been for our final stop.  The beer there was pretty good.  But I don't think I was able to fully enjoy it as I should have.  Most of the club was in the same boat.  If we ever return I will make sure that Modern Monks is one of our first stops instead of our last.  That way we can fully invest ourselves in the tour and have a fresh understanding of the beers.

Everyone made it home from the trip and home safely.  It was a success for a first time taking a club on a "big bus trip" and everyone had positive things to say.  I know that everyone had smiles on their faces and I didn't hear a single person speak of a bad beer all day.  I'd call that a win!

Sunfest Recap, Bottling Hop God at NBC, Brewing a Saison, Hop Garden, Lucky Bucket BBQ!

Last weekend at Sunfest was a heatwave of fun.  Well at least most of it was.  I love the Beer Corner USA area and the vibe of "we have worldly good beer" that I get when I walk into Beertopia.  Getting there early around 2:15ish we setup at the Railroaders tent.  I tapped my keg of Honey Ale and started making my rounds to go check out what I'd like to drink later.  It was H-O-T outside!  It made things a little rough for a larger man like myself throughout the day, and the perspiration showing through my shirt was proof of how much I must love brewing and beer in general.  I admit I switched to water after about the first 4 hours and even before that I only really sampled beers that truly captured my attention. Overall we were treated very well by the staff and the crew hosting the event.  They put a lot of effort into ensuring entertainment, food, and plenty of good beer was on hand.  The crowd seemed a bit thinner than usual for a big beer event.  I would definitely say that was because of the heat.  Luckily there were plenty of die hard beer lovers there to make the day still feel like a festival.  I noticed that many of the population wandered inside and filled up Huber-Haus and Crescent Moon to get away from the heat.  Which can't be a terrible thing since there was plenty of great beer inside and good food.  I know a couple of us went in to have food and took shifts manning the tent.  This made the day go by easier.

The club is thriving right now and I think it really showed at this event.  We had so many members there that there were more than enough Railroaders to man the taps we had.  I was able to go sample the beers from the S.O.B.s (I always make it a point to do so because Phil and the crew always make excellent beers) and various other commercial brewers.  I think that the public is really responding to the homebrew clubs at these events more and more.  While I saw plenty of people trying out the commercial beer, there was always a healthy line of beer enthusiasts at the homebrew club tents.  We make some crazy and fun beers that people may not get to try elsewhere, and many times will never get to try again.  Small batch beers make a unique and fun draw to the homebrew club tents, like our "Pink Cosmo" which was a beer flavored with purees to match the flavor of a "cosmo" or the "Beat it Nerd" Citra Pilsner.  Which Chris and Kyle made to side with a ring of Nerds Candy powder stuck to your glass to imitate the salt on a Margarita glass.  We even had a Watermelon IPA there that was run through a randall full of sliced watermelon.  It was very tasty and just the type of summer beer you would hope to find at an event like this.  My point is:  I think that the event coordinators are noticing that we are doing a great job and we have become something for the public to look forward to just as much as the commercial beer companies.  It's pretty cool to have the opportunity to share too because the best way (in my opinion) to find out if your beer is any good, is to let the public drink it.  The reactions, ideas, and descriptions you'll get from beer fans is always a great resource to have as a homebrewer.  I think we're lucky to have the cooperation and welcoming attitude we do from events like Sunfest.

So after several more hot hours I went and had a few more beers and special releases.  Empyrean had a really excellent version of their Watchman IPA that was brewed with Belgian Yeast to make a fruity and very tasty Belgian version of the beer.  The guys at Empyrean are always coming over to talk with us at the homebrew tents and try out a lot of our beers too.  Another good example of local brewers that really help support the homebrewers and give great advice.  Soaring Wings had a new stout there that was really great.  At first you might think "why would you want to drink a stout when it's 98 degrees outside?!"  And I agree, that's not the most appealing thing in the world.  But John (Brewer from Soaring Wings) made it appealing with a great idea, he had vanilla bean ice cream to put in your glass and made Stout Floats out of your sample.  It was a very tasty way to have a stout.  I tried the beer with and without ice cream.  The flavors were much different but the beer was outstanding.

Overall I would say that if the weather wasn't a factor this event was well put together and it should have been a top notch event.  Not to say that it wasn't, but I wouldn't blame anyone involved just the weather for my experience.  As a "not so slim guy" I melt under the sun and I always sweat a lot even at the gym.  So A+ for execution but C- for the heat!  Ah well it just makes me look forward to the fall events like Oktoberfest and Extreme Beerfest.  I know I'm supposed to have video for this event, and I do have some.  I'll see what I can do to get it edited in the next few days.  Maybe we'll have a surprise before the weekend.

Sunday I woke up really early to bottle beer at Nebraska Brewing Company.  I have been on their bottling volunteer list for a while and Tyson will send out emails when he needs volunteers.  I agreed the moment I found out we'd be bottling barrel aged Hop God.  Being that barrel aged Hop God is one of the best, if not the best beer I have ever had in my life.  I will usually never turn down the opportunity to go help.  You end up with a couple bottles for yourself once the batch comes out and they always end the day with a ton of food fresh from the kitchen for everyone to eat.  Not only that, but for the rest of the day while you are there you can have as much NBC beer on tap as you like.  After Sunfest I was very much beered out, but after having a "Hop God Memosa" (which is as heavenly as it sounds) I was ready to go.

We bottled up the Hop God and after over a thousand fills we were done.  All the beer from the next batch will have been filled by me.  Which is pretty cool if you think about it because everybody will have opened a bottle I filled somewhere in the United States.  We made our way out and had lunch.  Tons of great pizza, pasta, and plenty of Cardinal Pale Ale.  Which is my favorite pale ale on the planet.  The Nebraska Brewing Company crew always treat you well and are very thankful.  They are definitely my favorite brewery in Omaha and I can't say enough about how cool they are to anyone who asks questions, or wants to be a part of what they do.

Monday I brewed a Saison.  it was about the most tragically awful wort creation process I have ever had doing all grain yet.  I missed my temps and they were low, I sparged wrong, I overshot my gravity by 4 points.  Ah well.  At the end of the day I am not going to be satisfied unless I hit my gravity spot on or by one point.  But I hear from other brewers that I'm an idiot and 4 points is pretty good.  So, whatever.  I'm sure it'll turn out just fine.  I received a healthy pitch of yeast from my friend and fellow Railroader Tom Malowski.  The fermenter is still going like crazy and I just started raising the temps today.  Overall Tom said to me the other day "don't worry as much about wort creation as you do about a proper fermentation process, as long as you're clean and sanitary it will always still make beer."  Wise words from Tom I believe.

My hops in the back yard are finally starting to reach the top of my gazebo!  This spring I decided to build my own hop gardens in the back yard.  When Tiff and I bought the house we had acquired a nice big gazebo but it didn't have a canvas or roof on it.  It also had a broken leg on it.  I went to the hardware store and bought some supports and we bought some "hawaiian looking" reed fencing that we converted into a roof for it.  Now when we have people over and want to bust out the tiki torches it fits right in.  But the best part was when I started digging holes and cutting out grass.  MAN, was my wife stoked when I started doing that.  (hahaha.)  Anyway, the result was several small gardens separated by 2x4s and a bunch of small rhizomes were planted that I didn't think would amount to much.

As you can see, they have really taken off.  They're already up on the roof and I'm getting little hop cones forming on some of the branches.  Pretty exciting to me.  I am looking forward to making a wet hop beer with all my own homegrown hops in a few months.  I have Horizon, Columbus, Centennial, Cascade and Galena growing.  All of them are doing really good except for the Horizon which is just now waking up and starting to climb.

For my last portion today I want to bring up Lucky Buckets "Beer-B-Q" thing they're hosting on Friday.  I'm bringing some beer out for it and I am keeping an open mind about things.  I have heard that Lucky Bucket has begun working on improving their quality and I have also heard a lot of good things about some of their new seasonals.  I admit I haven't always been pro-LB and their lager, which used to be really great, has fallen short for me in recent attempts to enjoy it.  While their lager might not be my thing, I really want to give them a good shot this weekend and try as many of their new beers as possible.  It'd be great to be pleasantly surprised.  I guess we'll see.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far into my mass of thoughts.  Hope to see you all at the Lucky Bucket Barbecue this weekend.  Come out and hang with me at the Railroaders tent!