The thing I miss most about my native New York is our mountains. I’m an avid hiker/backpacker and while Illinois has sundry riches, challenging hikes are not among them. Still, I am always on the lookout for a pleasant hike. So on Friday, when Luke suggested we walk the Bloomingdale Trail—an old, abandoned railway bed running clear across the city—I was game. Luke has, on occasion, joined me on my woodland adventures, and each time has sworn it would be the last. A little more than a year ago I cajoled him into a three day trek into the Adirondacks. I’d nearly killed him, to hear him tell it. When we got back to civilization he made me swear that our next hike would last no more than a day and would end at a bar, or, better yet, several bars. On Friday, I made good.
Continue reading ‘The Bloomingdale Trail’
Monthly Archive for June, 2010
It is my pleasure to formally announce the naming of the Cream Ale made in collaboration with my friend Luke (who designed the elegant label displayed above) several weeks ago. As I mentioned back then, this brew was undertaken to glorify Rochester, NY, just one of the many cities in my beloved Empire State to have fallen on hard times as the result of the death of American industry. What better way to pay tribute to this fine town than by brewing a version of a classic American beer that is almost exclusively made by one of Rochester’s last thriving industrial concerns: Genesee Brewing Co.‘s beloved Genny Cream.
Continue reading ‘Old Man Eastman’s Why Wait? Cream Ale’
As the witching hour descended upon Chicago on Saturday night, a lone figure toiled over a bubbling cauldron in a dimly lit cell, high above the city’s labyrinthine byways. The brew within was culled from an arcane mixture of grains; grains devised by the ancients; grains that were already ancient when Rome was naught but a wee hamlet. And to this heady tincture, the hunched acolyte measured doses of rare and pungent botanicals that set the weird compound to roiling. But what could this desperate, shrouded specter be concocting in the bitter watches of the night? A dark and eldritch brew, to be sure, to call up dreaming Cthulhu from his watery sleep in R’lyeh!
Dare I utter its name?
The middle way is no way at all.
-John Adams
It’s been a transformative week. I’ve seen things that have galvanized my resolve to become a great brewer, not just because I love it, but because it’s important work.
On Wednesday, the good folks at Metropolitan Brewing, pleased that I didn’t break anything when I came over to lend a hand bottling a week ago, invited me to come by for brew day. I helped Doug and Tracy brew 30+ barrels of Flywheel that will go out into the city in a few weeks. There is something very powerful about knowing that hundreds, even thousands of people will be enjoying the product of your labor. Perhaps, a few weeks from now, some guy, just off work after a hard day, will sit at a bar sipping a cool pint of Flywheel and, finding it so delicious, will say something like, “Thank whoever made this.” That’s me. Well, I lifted a lot of heavy sacks of grain, anyway.
Continue reading ‘Brew, or Die’
Yesterday, I was invited to come lend a hand with bottling at Metropolitan Brewing. One-hundred twenty cases of their Krankshaft Kölsch were due for pickup by the distributor that afternoon. If all went well, at the end of the day a case of fresh beer would be mine.
Continue reading ‘Bottling Krankshaft at Metropolitan’
Invoke