Portable Kegerator & An Awesome Summer

This Memorial Day weekend I'm heading to Ocean City, NJ (where the only oil in the water is from the cast of the Jersey Shore) to kick-off what's sure to prove a pretty awesome summer. I'll be renting a house with a few friends, relaxing, and of course, drinking lots of beer! In fact, I'll be debuting my portable kegerator (nicknamed "R2Beer2") to bring some homebrew with me. Once you have a kegerator in your home, it's really hard to go anywhere and not have fresh homebrew on tap. So, I decided I needed a kegerator for the road!

R2Beer2 is a converted IGLOO Ice Cube Maxcold 70-qt. Roller Cooler that I bought at Target. It can hold a 3 gallon corny keg and have room for a few bottles/cans as well. The cooler keeps ice for 5 days at an ambient temperature of 90F, which is perfect for the summer. I drilled a hole through the front for the shank and attached a faucet to one end and an elbowed tailpiece to the other (just to save a little room in the cooler) where the beer-out line is attached to. I got a 4" long MFL bulkhead from Austin Homebrew and drilled through the side of the cooler to install it. I'll hookup a small CO2 injector to the bulkhead on the outside of the cooler for serving and the gas-in line is connected on the inside. The whole project took about 45 minutes to assemble; I think I spent more time determining which parts I wanted/needed and ordering them online! I'll be serving the last of my Imperial Brown Ale in R2Beer2 this weekend, and when I return, I'll be filling the keg with some Irish Red Ale that I brewed last weekend for a camping trip at the end of June, where R2Beer2 will really be put to the test.

After my return from Ocean City, I'll be gearing up for the unofficial DC beer week leading up to SAVOR next Saturday. Tuesday night is ChurhKey's East Coast Craft Beer Cask Party. Wednesday night (if it rains and I skip playing tennis) is a Three Floyds tasting at the Brickskeller. Thursday night is an Odell's tasting, again at the Brickskeller. Friday night, at the Brickskeller once more, is their sold out Lupulin Reunuless featuring an all-star beer cast (Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada, Kim Jordan of New Belgium, Rob Tod of Allagash, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Greg Koch of Stone, Nick Matt of Saranac, Bob Pease of the Brewers Association, Bill Madden of Mad Fox, and possibly the great Charlie Papazian). Finally, Saturday night is the main event, SAVOR at the National Building Museum, featuring 70 breweries and food pairings. And on Sunday, I shall take a break, relax, and have a beer. Following SAVOR week, I'll be heading to Minneapolis in mid-June for the National Homebrewers Conference, which will be legendary if last year was any indication--more on that later!

Enjoy your holiday weekends! Cheers!

Scandinavian Beer & Award-Winning Homebrew

Last weekend, I entered three of my beers in the Spirit of Free Beer homebrew competition hosted by BURP (Brewers United for Real Potables), a local homebrew club that I recently joined. Although my Helles and Lambic didn't do that well, my IPA took second place in its category out of 29 entries! The beer was given a score of 42 (out of 50), which I was really excited about. In my judging experience, I rarely give scores in the 40s (I judged the American Amber/American Brown and Oatmeal Stout/Foreign Export Stout flights at the competition, and I think I only gave one beer above a 39), so this was really an honor for me. I'll pick up my medal/prize at BURP's next meeting in June. On the homebrew competition note, I just shipped my Sam Adams LongShot entries (Cinnabon Porter) at the beginning of this week, and thankfully the package arrived safely. I've mentioned it before, but I brewed a robust porter bottled with cinnamon & vanilla infused bourbon. It came out quite well and has been met with good reception from my friends; the judging starts at the beginning of June, and I have my fingers crossed!

Following a day of beer judging at the Spirit of Free Beer, I had a bunch of people over that night for a little homebrew tasting event. I served my Helles, IPA, Brown Ale, Lambic, and the Cinnabon Porter. Each beer was paired with a different cheese (Laura Chenel Chevre, Keen's Cheddar, Abbaye de Belloc, Mascarpone, and Pleasant Ridge Reserve respectively) recommended by Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery and beer author. I emailed Garrett on a whim, and he was nice enough to get back to me pretty quickly...and from Copenhagen at that. His suggestions were excellent and the pairings went over really well. I'm planning on another tasting event sometime in the fall, and I think I'm going to do a British ale series for that again with some sort of food pairing (maybe chocolate this time!).

After my tasting this past weekend, I actually had the chance to meet Garrett Oliver in person on Tuesday night at the National Geographic Society in DC where he hosted a talk/tasting entitled, "New Beers of Scandinavia." All the beers served were from Denmark, Finland, Norway, or Sweden, and there was really some winners on the list. My favorite was definitely the Nils Oscar Barleywine from Nils Oscar in Nykobing, Sweden. It had rich malty flavors (caramel, toffee, and some biscuit) with a light floral hop character. For a barleywine, it was incredibly smooth and very well-balanced. Runners-up would be the Huvila-X Porter from Malmgardin Panimo in Malmgard, Findland and the always tasty Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast from Denmark (though Mikkeller actually contract brews all their beer). In addition to the beers, some small plate appetizers were served including Alaskan Smoked Salmon, Swedish Meatballs, and Venison Sausage. The event was a lot of fun and proved to be a unique opportunity to try what are otherwise relatively rare brews. The event was co-sponsored by the Brickskeller and BURP members actually volunteered with serving the beers and running the event.

I'll be brewing an Irish Red Ale this weekend in anticipation of a camping trip at the end of June, and I'll also be putting together a little portable kegerator using a rolling Igloo cooler that can hold a 3 gallon corny keg (and keep ice for 5 days at 90F). Pictures of that to follow in the next few days. Also, SAVOR is coming up in DC in 2 weeks with all sorts of special pre-SAVOR events going on in the city. I'll be attending quite a few and reporting back! Cheers!