Well, well, well, it seems Nick and I have finally jumped on the home brewing bandwagon. Or, if truth be told, jumped back up on it after a botched attempt about 10 years ago where Nick created a very light and refreshing celery flavored beer in his Madison apartment. For his birthday, I got Nick the *Deluxe* Brewing Starter Kit with Glass Carboys from Northern Brewer, since he had failed to win the one offered as the grand prize drawing at the Northern Brewer kiosk at Snowgrade. Armed with his super-fancy starter kit, excellent advice from his brother Greg (an experienced home brewer), a 'Smashing Pumpkin Ale' kit, and me as his "sous brew," he got to work on Saturday.
Why the decidedly not seasonal pumpkin ale? Because Nick lovingly and nostalgically speaks of a pumpkin ale we enjoyed, sitting out in the sun, at Elysian's Tangletown Pub in Rima's Seattle neighborhood a couple of autumns ago. And, because for your birthday you should get whatever the hell you want, no questions asked. That said, I'd like to thank the guys at Northern Brewer for making this kit up for me specially, since, understandably, it wasn't currently stocked on their shelves.
After the initial flurry of work, the beer is now sitting in it's first carboy, happily fermenting away. It will remain here for about two more weeks before we transfer it to carboy number two for secondary fermentation, which should take about another two weeks. After that we will bottle it, where it will condition for one to two more weeks. Then, assuming all goes well, we will raise chilled glasses of pumpkin ale in a toast to spring!
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