So Kochun and I brewed up a Belgian trippel yesterday and tossed it on top of the yeast cake from the Belgian singel that had just gone into secondary. The trippel itself was based on the recipe for “Third Nipple Trippel” from the Randy Mosher’s book Radical Brewing, but I really wanted to come up with a different name. As it turns out, it didn’t take too long for inspiration to strike.

Within 4 hours of pouring the sugary wort onto the yeast, insanely vigorous fermentation had begun and the airlock was bubbling so quickly that you could feel the current of CO2 hit your hand. I noticed that the frothy krausen was rising dangerously close to the lid of the bucket and it was around this time that I decided that placing a potentially explosive container of yeast and sugar water next to my couch was probably a bad idea. I moved the fermenter inside of my bathtub, and replaced the airlock with a thick blowoff tube. I recorded a short video of the setup just before I went to bed.

For several hours, the yeast strained against the confines of the bucket. At first the blowoff tube was able to handle the stress, but as the night wore on, the krausen rose into the tube and starting gumming up the works. Periodically, the tube would clog and pressure would rapidly build up inside the bucket until finally the clog was shot out of the tube in a burst that sounded like somebody sneezing through a straw into a glass of water. These eruptions grew more and more violent until finally, the bucket yielded to the caged god inside:

I like to imagine that the the beer was just trying to get back to its open fermentation Belgian roots. In any event, the violence and fury of its creation inspired the name. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Caged God Belgian Trippel.

From the looks of things, my first batch of Joe’s Ancient Orange Mead (as well as my first batch of Brock’s Ancient Orange Cyser) is ready! It’s nice and clear and even the oranges have sunk to the bottom. I’m letting them settle for a day before I siphon them out and bottle them up.

Behold!

The mead is on the left and the cyser (effectively identical, but made with slightly less honey and apple cider instead of water) is on the right.

I currently have five batches of fermenting beverages happily bubbling away in various dark corners of my house. Currently fermenting:

• Overhead Pale Ale (5 gallons)
• Oak Porter (5 gallons)
• Holiday Spiced Hard Cider (5 gallons)
• Ancient Orange Mead (1 gallon)
• Ancient Orange Cyser (1 gallon)

In addition to all that, there is also a 5 gallon batch of Belgian spiced Wit on tap in the kegerator. 22 gallons of alcohol (or potential alcohol) is a new high-water mark for me, but I don’t really have any concerns about being able to go through it all. The beers are largely earmarked for some CrossFit festivities to take place at the end of the month, the spiced hard cider will likely find its way into various gift-baskets come Christmas, and the 2 gallons of mead are reserved for some future D&D adventure night (I know it reeks of desperate, oily, neck-bearded, mouth-breathing, ren-faire nerdliness… Sue me.) Lucky for me, I have friends that care about me so deeply that they’re willing to help me drink my homebrew.

I’ve dedicated the last two weekends to brewing up a few new batches of beer. The first batch I brewed up was a special request (my first!) I created the recipe from scratch, but it’s a pseudo-traditional German Pale Ale with a hopping schedule requested by Mark Rippetoe. Mark is the author of the books Starting Strength and Practical Programming; he’s a highly regarded strength coach and a nearly constant reference in the CrossFit community. He also harbors a well-known passion for good beer, famously having stated that he “regards American Corporate Beer and the people who prefer it as a serious cultural problem, much worse than homelessness and poverty.”

I’ve not yet met the man face-to-face, but it would be hard to imagine what could make me not like the guy. In any event, I’ll get the chance to find out soon enough, as he’s going to be visiting CrossFit Eastside at the end of October to head up a barbell certification class. When Michael and Carrie from the gym asked whether or not he’d be interested in a ’special brew’ for the cert, he replied “A pale ale. Hallertau hops to finish. Saaz to bitter.”

That level of specificity is beyond run-of-the-mill beer snobs. It would take quite a bit of Saaz to bitter a batch of beer (being a relatively low Alpha-Acid hops variety, Saaz is more generally used to finish), but it was definitely something worth doing! After developing a recipe that I thought would work, my next goal was to come up with a fitting label:

I think it works… One of the core lifts that Mark coaches is the Overhead Press. It’s a lift that seems to have fallen out of favor in many communities since the advent of the Bench Press (which allows moving considerably more weight. ) CrossFit folks can’t get enough of the Overhead Press because, despite the fact that the weight is lighter, it is more technically demanding and helps build truly functional strength.

The metaphor I’m working with is this: MillBudCoors drinkers are the Bench Pressers of the beer world. They’ve lost sight of the subtlety that beer is capable of and have opted to drink a brew that does little for them besides allow them to drink a lot of it. Those that choose to go Overhead choose a beer that, while similar upon first glance to MillBudCoors, gives them a much fuller experience – a beer that challenges them.

Maybe I’ve oversold it a bit, but there you go. In any event, here’s a look at the brew just before it went into the fermenter.

I also brewed up a mildly hoppy (Perle bittering and Tettnang finishing) Porter that I think will turn out nicely. Both batches are happily bubbling away in my bathtub at home!

Next weekend I hope to find time to start a batch or two of hard cider. I found an excellent local resource for fresh cider. Lee Minea of Minea Farms in Woodinville is going to press some fresh Washington Apples directly into my carboy! You can’t get any fresher than that!