Another Double Brew Weekend

It was another big weekend brewing. Took me a week to post this, but we ended up brewing two, bottling two, and racking one (would have bottled three but someone forgot to dry hop the Son of Simcoe). We decided to push back bottling the Son of Simcoe a couple weeks and dry hopped it this weekend.  This also means that we will be bottling four beers on May 4 for AHA's Big Brew instead of the three we had planned.  No big deal though, just more bottles for Brian to sanitize.  By the way, he is the one who forgot to dry hop the Son of Simcoe beer so don't feel bad for him.

Finished racking the Dawson's Red Ale and getting ready to bottle the SS Minnow Mild

The two beers we brewed were two recipe kits from Northern Brewer.  We did their Cascade Mountain West Coast Imperial IPA kit and their T-Can & Bearcat's Wheaten Beatdown kit.  The imperial IPA kit is pretty self-explanatory from the title.  It is an imperial IPA that uses a good amount of Summit and Cascade hops (dry hopped with 4 oz. of Cascade hops!).  The Wheaten Beatdown on the other hand isn't as discernible from the title.  This beer can basically be described as a hopped up wheat beer.  I am personally excited to see how it turns out.

Now many of us have heard the saying April showers bring May flowers, but we haven't had many of those types of showers.  Rather we have had a few snow showers this April and apparently April snow showers bring yeast starters.  Don't believe me?  See the picture Brian took of his patio when it was snowing in the middle of April.

Yeast starters for the two beers brewed this past weekend 

Well at least the weather won't be this bad next weekend for Big Brew.  The forecast is in the 40's so it is not a whole lot better.  Too bad Big Brew couldn't have been this weekend with the upper 70's and lower 80's we had.  Regardless of temperature though it will be a great time and we are all looking forward to brewing!