Last night was what we call “busy.” Of course, our annual barleywine brew session is always a little busier than normal because we don’t normally have a 47 pound grain bill and don’t usually have to worry about crushing cloves and cinnamon sticks and other ingredients best left to potpourri gift baskets. Also we were busy getting our chilling system working correctly (thanks to Melvin for his expertise). And I am proud to say that we chilled that wort completely in about 16 minutes, compared to the usual 45 minutes. GO TEAM MONDAY NIGHT!

Our mashtun is usually quite capable, but it is not capable of handling 47 pounds of grain. And so we had to add some DME. As newcomer John pointed out, this is not cheating if you’re brewing a barleywine. It’s just science.

We had our ginger-infused Belgian wit, an India Brown Ale and a little bit of IPA on tap last night. We also had the Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale in bottles. If you drank the Belgian wit last night, we’d love to hear your thoughts. I can already feel an argument coming up on whether we should add less ginger next time. All in all, we had a good crowd, including some newcomers and some old-timers that I thought had completely forgotten about us. But then I remembered, how could anyone forget about us? We’re the poster children for Awesome. Aaaaand… SCENE.

See original here: Monday Night Brewery