...that 90 years ago, the armistice underlined the courage of many men and women who took up arms, some willingly, and a great number, let's not forget, through forced conscription. Yet for many the fight does not end there but is brought back as they return to civilian life. I tip my hat off to their courage on and off the battlefield ( Read more... )

Since not all of you may be aware of this, I might as well post here that Melanie and I are breaking up after seven years ( Read more... )

I was thinking to myself, contemplating my batch of flat brown ale, that maybe, if in-bottle fermentation hadn't worked the first time around, I could give it another shot. That is, add some more dextrose to quickstart it, hoping for a palatable result ( Read more... )

Bad news ( Read more... )

The brown ale has now been bottled, resulting in 32 full pints. Somewhat less than I expected, but I had a lot of sludge left in the primary fermenter before I siphoned it off to a carboy three weeks ago.

To be continued in a couple of weeks. I'll need an excuse for a party :-))

Woo-hoo ( Read more... )

Siphoned all of the beer into another carboy for secondary fermentation yesterday ( Read more... )

The new batch of beer is happily bubbling away since yesterday.

I got all the grain ground in a grain mill yesterday morning, and I'm aiming for a rather strong brown ale, which could (in the best of case) reach as high as 9% (but I'm expecting a more reasonnable 7%). Not too hoppy either, hopefully (it's the first time I design my recipe).

For BIA3 in IDD

Well, I guess I'll be cooking this week-end, then, which means that for the first time in a long while I won't make it to Winter War.

However, you're all cordially invited to drop in and say I while I cook next week :-)

On March 1 near Montreal, for all those interested ( Read more... )