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The Society of Barley Engineers designed and built a 24 keg dispensing system for use ot festivals and club events. Ray DiGangi, Andy Gamelin, Charlie Brass, and Bill Sobieski prepare the bar to serve their first sampler.
At the Southern California Homebrewers Festival in Temecula, Calif., Iast May I saw one of the most amazing things.
It was a beer bar designed and built exclusively for homebrewed beers and capable of cooling, storing and pouring 24 Cornelius kegs simultaneously. Built by the Society of Barley Engineers homebrew club, the bar included a wooden top that you could lean your elbows on while contemplating what you wanted from their homebrewed beer menu. The sides of the bar were beautiful, with peeled logs adding support as well as beauty. Under the hinged bar top where the 24 kegs were stored there was room for two 1 0-pound CO2 cylinders: one to drive the beer, the second a spare.
The Southern California Homebrewers Festival convinced me that once again homebrewed beer is the best beer in the world. Only homebrew is available at this festival and I found several that not only rocked my taste buds but that sent a smile through my entire body. Not only did these beers exceed my expectations, they reaffirmed my faith in beer and homebrewing. More than 1,000 people attended the festival and got to choose from about 2,200 gallons of homebrew!
Sam Piper shared his Chocolate Mint Porter, based on a recipe developed by accident when he forgot he'd left some mint extract in a keg (awaiting a different batch), racked porter into it and rushed off to a club meeting. There he was surprised to find everyone raving about a mint beer. That minty beer was his. ("Mint? My beer didn't have mint.") The hot topic for the night has become a favorite recipe of his ever since. This beer, with the aroma of one of those little green-wrapped mints you get on your pillow in good hotel rooms, was refreshing and delightfully pleasing in my mouth with a rich, malty flavor softly surrounded by a hint of chocolate and touched with a kiss of mint
I tasted Steve Casselman's and M.B. Raines' wedding cake imperial stout, 'Til Death Do Us Part. They added the leftovers of their wedding cake to the mash for a batch of stout. It had a delicate sweetness, creamy body and full flavors that swam in my mouth and tickled my throat on the way down to warming my belly.
Sheldon Jackson offered me an IPA hopped to heaven with 70 IBUs that was smooth, clean and tasted fabulous. Yep, these are beers I remember. These homebrewed beers thrilled me and left me smiling. It's in homebrew where ingenuity lives and the spirits of brewing history thrive. Let's continue to create the best beers in the world.
From the Society of Barley Engineers to your next batch of homebrew, the vitality and essence of beer is surviving in the creativity of homebrewers. Let the pages of Zymurgy guide and inspire you to keep up the great brewing.
Karen Barela, AHA president