Character & Beer

"There can not be good living where there is not good drinking" - Benjamin Franklin
We were told by Seven Bridges that they would call the winners of their contests that night. We never received a call. We weren't really expecting to win - this was certainly a "learning beer" for us, it was our first organic beer and there were new varieties of things to acquire an understanding of. We will try again. Failure builds character.
Just because we didn't win though doesn't mean the days are dismal around here! "Decadence" has been bottled and is almost ready to drink. It needs some more time to mellow, not a bad thing. Our Imperial Porter was bottled this past Friday evening. It is truly a magnificent brew as well. And finally, our first batch of Pumpkin Ale was bottled last evening. Justin used fresh sugar pie pumpkins for flavoring, along with the various spices to really fill it out. And there are still many bottles of our organic "Rainy Day Pale Ale" around for consumption. They're a constant reminder to keep trying, to keep striving.
We may not have won, but we certainly have not lost. This holiday season there will truly be good drinking here at The Blue Nymph. Mr. Franklin, I believe, would be satisfied.

Green Packaging for Organic Competition Beer

Tomorrow we will mail off our first beer that we're entering into a competition. Proudly, it is also our first all-organic homebrew. We blogged about it before, it is our Organic Rainy Day Pale Ale, and we're entering it into the National Organic Homebrew Challenge, located in Santa Cruz, CA. (Yikes ... carbon footprint it takes to get the beer there ... need to do something to offset that!)
But, we CAN proudly say that our packaging of the beer was fairly green. The entry form and labels were printed on 100% recycled paper, the rubberbands were (I think) leftovers from tie-dye projects, and then there was what we used for cushioning.

Per a suggestion from Bryan S., our current SCBG president, we decided to use a poster-tube and stack the beers for sending. First, we needed to cushion the bottom. We decided to take advantage of some of the kids stained clothes (that we were going to use for rags). A pair of shorts was stuffed in the bottom first. Then, we had to wrap the beers. We cut the shirts in 1/2 and, as you can see in the photo above, wrapped the beers.

And then we stuffed it down into the tube! We also stuffed a shirt in between bottles for extra cushioning. Needless to say, this entire process had us laughing our asses off!! Once we got all three bottles in, we capped it all off with another 1/2 of an old kid t-shirt for padding. We wondered if we should've included a note "Beer is INSIDE clothing" --- should that be included in the tube or written under where we wrote "FRAGILE" on the outside of the tube?
Though we hope the recipients of our tube find humor in the packaging, we do take delight in the fact that not only is the beer green (obviously though not literally in color!), but so is the packaging: recycled, soft, cut up clothing!!

Harvesting Hops & Rainy Day Pale Ale

In part because of the hop shortage and in part because of our desire to be organic & self-sufficient, we grew hops this year. Or, rather, we tried. Dogs and puppies, when paired with an inexperience in growing hops, managed to leave us with only one vine that produced. We originally plants 2 fuggles, 1 kent golding, 1 magnum, & 1 cascade. The one we got anything from was the cascade, but it did manage to grow the full height of the trellis (with attempts to grow higher), so we were happy. After all, you learn best by trial and error.
On Wednesday the 20th we harvested our first round of cascade buds. We were able to get 1/2 an ounce (dried weight). Not too shabby, since this was from one rhizome and it's 1st year planted. We dried them in the dehydrator and froze them once they were nice and dry. They look good and we are eager to use them in a brew!
We also have decided to enter our 1st competition. This is something we're very excited about, as it is an organic beer competition. The 2008 National Organic Homebrew Challange is being put on by Seven Bridges Cooperative and is being hosted by Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant (http://www.gordonbiersch.com/) in San Jose, CA.
We had originally wanted to enter a couple different styles, but we all know how the economy is and so with limited finances and a heavy sigh, we settle on one. We decided upon a Pale Ale as our beer to enter. It has been given the name "Rainy Day Pale Ale" because, as you can see in the photo, as soon as we began brewing it began raining! One of the things you have to love about SW VA, late summer "mood swings": if they call for rain, we won't get any; if they call for sunshine, it will rain; if you put off brewing till Friday because there is a 90% chance of rain on Wednesday (& 0% on Friday), you will be hit with a quick-moving, clothes-soaking downpour!! Thankfully, as you can see as well, we have our super handy (albeit weather beaten) porch umbrella! TADA!

We haven't bottled the beer yet, and it finished with a lower O.G. than we had planned on, but it should still come out well. We'll let you know as soon as we do!