One of the first, and major things that needed to happen was to make some beer. What? You question our priority list? Keep in mind that beers generally take a few weeks to ferment. (Brew? Cure? Clueless.) We are having a party in early December and Mike wanted his taps in working order.
A couple weekends ago he spent an entire Sunday afternoon and night - until about midnight - working on two different beer batches. Our house smelled so bad. I finally ditched being a friendly coworker and headed upstairs where I could sit by an open window and breath again.
You'll notice the word above "Fuggle". Here's the back-story. Years ago when our children were MUCH smaller and had bigger ears and couldn't distinguish between repeatable words and not-repeatable words, Mike learned how to make beer. I don't know if one day he burned himself or what, but he was about to utter some not-repeatable words but saw a set of little ears and caught himself. Later he told me we needed a word that between us, we would know it's meaning to be not good, but that if the kids repeated, we wouldn't feel bad because it really meant nothing. As he was working on his brew he came across "Fuggle". He decided right then that that would be our word. And it has been ever since. Try it sometime. When you really want to throw out a very not-repeatable word...yell, "FUGGLE!" If it's really serious you can say, "FFFFF-UUU-GGGLE!!!" Or clench your teeth and, "fuggle." It's a wonderful word - it's akin to being as awesome as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Whew...I am not spell-checking that.
Mike's bar was built with three taps. The kids and I convinced him that one of his brews should be Root Beer. How awesome would that be to always have root beer on tap!?! He relented and gave up one of his beloved taps and after an exhaustive search for what may be the best home brew root beer he settled on this:
Apparently you can buy it at Cub, but he made it before I got a chance to get there and pick some up to taste test.
The recipe? Root Beer syrup and water. The dog was only too happy with some stray drops.
This is the canister that holds the Root Beer. They are fairly tall and there are three of them sitting in his bar area. We spent last Friday at the Home Brew store getting CO2 tanks filled and some other necessary stuff to make our Root Beer Float dreams a success.
I've learned a great deal about "Forced Carbonation" and 40PSI levels to start then getting things to an 8PSI level to serve...it is a hobby I will never understand, but one I'm glad he thoroughly enjoys.
We desperately hope the Root Beer tastes good and not like Root Beer Barrel candies. Otherwise you may hear a quartet of "F-U-GGLE."
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