Cracked Car Kolsch

“So, I’m in a brew club with five other guys. Only one of us knows what he’s doing…and I’m not him.”

-Excerpt from a dialogue at The Thirsty Brewer


Thus began a journey of perseverance and dedication in the face of incredible odds and monumental lapses in both reason and the basic laws of science. What shall we take away from the following account? Karma loves a good beer.



Part 1:
After a very successful first batch by Steve and Matt, it was my turn to step up to plate with my partner, Bill (beer, not life—not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Our goal? A kolsch. In keeping with the season, Bill was looking for a beer that would be a nice compliment to crabs, apple pie and little kids running with sparklers. I was just looking for something that wouldn’t make me throw up until I at least drank a few 6-packs (more commonly known as Thursdays.)



With beer recipe in hand, off I went to the Thirsty Brewer for supplies. I would highly recommend a visit to this store for any home-brewers out there. The guy behind the counter was very helpful (i.e. he didn’t laugh at my ignorance), the place smelled like hop-heaven and the prices were great. With a box of ingredients, a bottle of sanitizer and an air of self-confidence, I strutted out of there like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever. Little did I know I would be shuffling back a week later like Charlie Brown after he hung that one bulb on the Xmas tree and it bent to the ground.



The following evening, brewclub assembled. After the introductory round of secret handshakes, the reading of the minutes and a sampling of some other homebrew that was destined for a shelf in Obsoletion Central once our beer was completed, we got down to business. (**I would like to take this moment to come clean to my fellow club members. It was at roughly this point that I realized you are supposed to refrigerate the yeast until the day of brewing. I did not. Heavy exhale. Weight lifted.)



The recipe was fairly straightforward: http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/MarylandHomeBrewInc/store/content/kolsch.pdf , and since I thought ahead and started boiling the water earlier, we shot right thru things at a much faster rate than our predecessors. All that was left for the night was to cool down the wort, pitch the yeast (that phrase still sounds not quite right) and make some more empty bottles.



At this point, I would like to take a moment to describe the professional representation in brewclub (I have changed the names for matters of personal professional privacy):

Stev: scientist by day, founder and the one guy in brewclub who knows what he is doing (see introductory quote)

Scot: Educator (yeah, it’s only middle school, but he has been doing it for a while and--up until the Corona incident—he has shown sound judgment)

Mat: Assistant Principal and tallest member of Brewclub.

Bil & Jas’n: I know these guys have college degrees, but I’m not exactly sure what they do. I think Jas’n provides sports therapy for dogs and Bil is a transpondster. I don’t know for sure, but they are definitely white-collar.

Me: I’m the only blue-collar member and I have an English degree but I don’t teach, so I basically bring nothing to the table.



So, what I’m trying to say is that someone other than me should have realized it is not a great idea to pour steaming wort into an ice-packed glass carboy (from the Arabic qarraba meaning big jug, FYI). The one saving grace is that, while the entire bottom of the 5 gallon jug did break completely off, it was sitting inside of a larger tub, so my kitchen floor (and wife-allowed future brewclub hosting dates) remains intact. It was a lesson learned, and I rested easy knowing that it was everyone else’s fault the batch was ruined, and not my fault for failing to refrigerate the yeast.





Stay tuned for Part 2