Brew Day: First of May Edition

We very rarely set brew days on a Sunday.  Brew days tend to be fairly...physical.  All of that standing, sitting, stirring, eating and uh, tasting, tends to lend itself to a day of rest afterwards.  However, when we discovered the annual arrival of the 1st of May was on a Sunday, we tossed tradition aside and opted to mark the occasion by brewing.  Now what exactly is the 1st of May, you ask?  For the answer, I suggest you check out the great (and highly NSFW) song by geek soft rocker Jonathan Coulton. We sang it several times through out the day.  Much, I'm sure, to the utter shock of the neighbors.

As regular readers of this blog know, brew days consist of at least three constants.  Homebrew:

A fatty:

and great times:

This brew day was certainly true to form.  Between four of us, we brewed 35 gallons of beer.  Eric did two different batches and Drew and I brewed double batches, both of us opting to use the same grain bill with two different yeasts.  I brewed a hefeweizen and Drew a Belgian.  I wish I could say I thought of the idea, but I blantanty stole it from Drew.  He has good ideas.

Although spring was knocking on the door, rain forced us back into the garage.  Even with the less than stellar weather, we have really gotten into a brewing grove.  So much so, we found ourselves sitting down...a lot.  Very rarely do we "camp out" and the fact we were still heating our mash water and sitting down, says something.

A special highlight of the day was the uncorking of Drew's mead.  Drew brewed it at one of our earlier brew days and brought a bottle along for tasting.  It was absolutely fabulous.  Although still rather young, Drew is going to cellar the rest and hopefully treat us with some more late in the year.

On the food front, which is really the fourth leg of brew day, we turned towards the fryer.  Typically frying is a little too involved, but with some associate members present, we had plenty of help to get the job done.  I'm glad too.  Drew whipped up some fried Haddock, which was exceptional.

Mike arrived and helped with the chips and hush puppies.

He has earned the title "Master Fryer" for a reason.

Of course since we were frying, it would not have been complete if we didn't include an onion loaf.  There is just something magical about deep fried onion rings compacted together in a thick batter.

At the end of the day, we had full fermenters and full bellies.  The rain, although inconvenient, didn't  hurt our day one bit and although Eric offered to bring a partner for our 1st of May brew day, we opted to keep everything legal.

Truthfully, I really can't imagine what Mother Nature could throw at us to knock one of our brew days off.  We can pretty much make a good time out of any situation...especially when we have a steady supply of food, good beer and great friends.