Forever and a Day

I haven't posted since I was thinking of brewing that CDA, which I did and it turned out fantastic. I took it to Chris and Megan's Halloween Party where it was a huge success. That beer was the last beer I was going to brew until I moved into my new apartment. My new roomie and I had a checklist of things that our new place had to have and mine was that it had to have either a patio, basement, or garage. We have a patio.

So many things have happened since I last posted but the biggest one was hearing back from Elan of Coalition Brewing and setting up a day and time to brew a beer for their Coalator Program, where they invite a homebrewer to brew on their pilot system any beer they desire and then they serve it in their pub. Brewer gets to name it and everything. I applied sometime mid summer and heard from them in like late October and we'd set the date for November 29th. I had originally planned to do the CDA but settled on an Amber that I liked when I found out they have never had an Amber on tap and no one had made one.

This is the same Amber I'd made this spring, the AG one.

Brewing day was great! It went super smoothly, we were out of there in 4 hours not 5. I hit right in the range of my target gravity and the color was fantastic. I did a first wort hopping (Thank you, Chris Oslin for turning me on to that!). I totally fell in love with the Blichmann and want one or two of those bad boys. I also definitely need a cooler mashtun. Recipe was pretty simple and the plan is to ferment for 7-8 days then rack to a secondary and toss it into a cooler for a couple days and then carbonate and serve. I'm pairing this beer with something warm and tasty, my second favorite dessert, bread pudding with bourbon caramel sauce. I'm going to see if the chef can do a slightly hop infused bourbon for the sauce.

As for the naming of the beer I decided to call it Peoples' Amber, in honor of People's Brewing the first Black-owned brewery in the United States. It only lasted 2 years and considering it was from '70-'72 and in Wisconsin, I think that deserves a lot of credit. They had a lot to contend with, breaking into a very popular endeavor, which a strong, european and white american history, in a very racist time and place, and from every thing I have been able to get my hands on they did the best they could with the situation they were dealt.

As an African American woman homebrewer I can definitely see where there might be some issues, and I'm truly grateful to the great brewers I've encountered who after their initial shock, take me seriously. Though I will say it would be nice to see a few more faces of color at events and club meetings, there are certainly more than there were 10 years ago. That said I think there needs to be a hell of a lot more.

Here's to the successful brewing of People's Amber at Coalition Brewery. It should never be the color of a person's skin that is important but the quality of the beer.