Aug 19
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Today will be a different style of Monday Brews. Instead of listing the beer and board games I enjoyed I am posting a gallery of some of the things I played or saw at GenCon. Don’t worry. This is a family friendly gallery, which means I didn’t take any pictures of men or women that […]
Oh baby! It’s GenCon week! That means I’ve already been staying up way too late as I prepare for the convention. I’ll be providing my GenCon Preparation blog post tomorrow with tons of awesome goodness (maybe). But today is Monday.
That means it’s time to review the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Let’s start with the Barley as usual…
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I am nearing the end of my supply of my second homebrew. I had hoped to have a few of these left to bring to GenCon but that’s not the case anymore. Sorry fellow designers. At least we still have PBR!
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: This excellent Wisconsin beer is enjoyable to drink, goes down smooth, and has a refreshing taste of honey. This is a favorite summer beer of mine, especially when I’m camping.
Lake Louie Warped Speed Scotch Ale: Lake Louie makes my favorite Scotch Ale. Located in Arena, WI, they have made tasty beer for a while now. But just recently, I believe, they just re-opened their doors for tours. This scotch ale is a really good beer.
Warning: May make other game designers jealous!
Boddington’s Pub Ale: A can of Boddington’s isn’t just an enjoyable beverage. It’s also an enjoyable experience. I brought a couple to Protospiel-Milwaukee and could feel the jealousy of our fellow designer’s as Adam and I cracked the can and listened to the widget exhale. This British pub ale is a very excellent beer, even outside of game designer events! The only downside is that it’s a product on InBev.
Alberti Amber: I have had the last of my first homebrew ever. There’s a little tear running down my cheek. My friend’s seemed to enjoy this one so I may brew it again. Alberti and I had an enjoyable ride.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: I purchased this and the Leinie’s Honey Weiss for our softball team to enjoy after our last game of the season. Thankfully we won the game and became the league champions! That made this beer much more enjoyable, since I’m not typically a Pale Ale or IPA kind of guy.
It was another slow gaming week for me. I’ve been pretty busy prepping for GenCon and haven’t had as much time to actually play games. But here are the two lonely games I played this week:
Qwirkle: This is a great abstract game. In Qwirkle you are trying to complete sets of six tiles of either the same shape or the same color. There is a fun amount of strategy in this game. It’s pretty easy to teach. And since I have the travel edition it is pretty easy to take anywhere!
Scoville: I had the pleasure of testing Scoville with a good friend of mine. He had previously played the game twice, including the 4th ever playtest in Scoville history. We played a very close game until the end when he beat me to a 16 point recipe and I had nothing to fall back on. I love that about the game though; Sometimes you just have to make sure you get what you want first! I ended up losing, but the game was a lot of fun. Here’s a picture from early on in the game at our camping table:
Sometimes playing by the light of a lantern is really fun!
Last Friday was my birthday. And it happened to coincide with the receiving of two Kickstarter project rewards and one Blogiversary prize!
The special Kickstarter variant “Mimic” box.
On Friday before we left for camping I received my Dungeon Roll game from Tasty Minstrel Games. Dungeon Roll comes is a sweet treasure chest box. It includes a bunch of custom dice and hero cards. I have not yet played, but since there were over 10,000 backers there’s no shortage of people who have gotten it to the table. Congrats to Tasty Minstrel on a very successful campaign!
Then when I got home from camping I learned that my Catan Board had arrived. This was expected to arrive in April, so that’s a little disappointing. But the product looks really nice. I’m hoping that it works as advertised.
And finally my prize arrived for being the randomly chosen winner of the Theology of Games Blogiversary Contest #2. The game I won is Sunrise City, by Clever Mojo Games! I’m very excited to get this game to the table!
Add in the fact that I also received Le Havre: The Inland Port and a set of Beer Glasses for my birthday and you’ll see that all the gifts I received had to do with either Boards or Barley. (Disclaimer: I also received Seasons 1 & 2 of MacGyver, but I already had those so I returned them and bought something for my kids with the money).
And now we’ve got GenCon week! So I’ll pretend it’s my birthday all week!
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So that’s the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Any of you try a new game or new brew that left a lasting impression?
What a splendid week we had last week. I ordered prototype cards for Conclave. I playtested new components for Scoville. And I enjoyed a few beverages.
Here’s a recap of what I drank and what I played last week:
Here are the tasty beverages I was able to enjoy last week:
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: This was an easy choice since we were camping. It’s a pretty easy-drinking wheat and honey beer from Wisconsin brewer Leinenkugel’s. We needed something in a can (Not Pabst!) that would be enjoyable around a campfire. I had requested Leinie’s Summer Shandy, but my wife choose Honey Weiss instead. No complaints there.
Ben Franklin’s Honey: This is my second homebrew and is rather enjoyable. Perhaps I have something for honey beers. This was enjoyed while working on game design. A perfect combination!
New Belgium Fat Tire: This fine beverage was enjoyed after our softball game where we won and became the first half champions of our league, thus locking in a spot in the championship game for our team.
Lake Louie Warped Speed Scotch Ale: This delicious scotch ale from nearby Lake Louie Brewery was also a post-game celebratory beverage. It is probably my favorite scotch ale and I hope to visit and tour the brewery someday.
Pearl St. Mills Pils: This was the last of the celebratory softball beverages and unfortunately also was my least favorite. It was a typical pils and nothing about it really stood out. Or it could have been because I had two before this one, it was late, and I was really tired. I guess I’ll have to give it another attempt.
Alberti Amber: This is my first homebrew and I only have a few of them left. I saved the very first bottle and it will remain in my basement/man cave forever! I was able to enjoy this during a game night last Friday. I think it’s pretty decent for a first go at homebrewing.
Here are the delightful games I was able to enjoy last week:
Conclave: This prototype of mine is still very rough. I solo tested it and learned that it needed some mathematical tweaks to make sure things are balanced for all players, and so that it can actually be played the way I want it to be played. I’ll likely have this with me at GenCon if anyone is interested.
Scoville: Four of my Level 1 friends were willing to test some new components for this game. The components are bonus abilities that let you do things you normally can’t do. But you can only do them once per game. If you use an ability, then you sacrifice the four points that it is worth. If you do not use them, then each is worth 4 points at the end of the game. This is like the train stations in Ticket to Ride: Europe.
Tsuro: This tile-laying game plays quickly and can be frustrating. We played twice, but the finish to the first was quite memorable. This picture shows the final tile placement, which resulted in all three remaining players being eliminated at the same time.
The grand elimination/victory moment for the Red, White, and Blue!
Gentlemen Thieves: This is a competitive game where you are trying to earn your own character the most loot from participating in different robberies throughout the game. On your turn you place a piece of evidence onto one of the five locations. If a location then has at least one of each of the five different types of evidence, then that location is robbed. The evidence tokens are flipped over to the loot side and divvied up between whichever team robbed the location. The team that robbed the location is the one with more evidence of their player colors in that spot. The game ends when the Brigadier makes a showing, and the player with the most loot wins. This is a fun light-ish game with a large mental aspect. I’ve now played twice (Once 2p and once 5p). I enjoy it, though it feels like my brain wants to explode each time!
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So what Barley or Boards were your favorites from this past week? Anything you’re hoping to enjoy this week?
I’m back from a series of mini-vacations. In that time my Ben Franklin’s Honey Ale was able to carbonate and mature enough to try it out. So today I will review my second beer, Ben Franklin’s Honey!
Bottling Ben Franklin’s Honey while enjoying Alberti Amber!
I’ve mentioned this beer before so I won’t go into depth here but I wanted to mention a few things.
The first is that brewing my second batch of beer was much less intimidating than the first. Everything was easier. Everything went better. And the overall amount of time and effort that was required fell a lot.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that I recently learned a little about lagering. This seemingly has nothing to do with Ben Franklin’s Honey, however, I only learned about lagering due to a conversation that was started because of Ben Franklin’s Honey. Why do I mention this? See more below.
The third thing I wanted to mention is that timing is an important part of brewing beer. Due to the amount of time is takes to brew/ferment/carbonate it is important to choose a date by which you want your beer to be ready. Then work backwards. So assume you want a month in the bottles. Then add in a week in the carboy. Then add a week in the fermenter. All told for a simple ale you’re looking at a month and a half minimum. That’s how far in advance you need to brew before your desired release party.
So completing my second brew has taught me a lot about the process and what it all involves. And I now have a great summer beer to enjoy over the next couple months!
Last night I had the privilege of sharing the first tasting of Ben Franklin’s Honey with three friends over a game of Ora et Labora. My friends were willing to give it a try. The collective opinion: Enjoyable!
This beer is a pretty light beer that tastes “summery.” It comes in around 5% alcohol. It has a light and clear color. The honey flavor was not overwhelming, which was good.
Overall I would say this was an enjoyable brew. I have plenty more to enjoy and may bring a few to GenCon. I will hold off on rating this beer until I have had a few more. But if this brew is like the Alberti Amber, which got much better after maturing in the bottles for a month, then this will be a fantastic beer come August!
So above I mentioned lagering. This leads me to my next brew. I am planning on brewing an Oktoberfest!
The problem with lagering is that it is slow and needs to ferment at a cooler temp than a typical basement. My luxury is that I have an extra refrigerator in my basement. So I can probably adjust the temperature on the fridge to a point that might work for lagering.
Since I can try to lager, I now have to make sure the timing will work. If lagering takes 6 weeks and maturing in the bottle takes a month, then I have 2.5 months before it will be drinkable. So if I want my Oktoberfest to be available at typical Oktoberfest time (September), then I need to get going on it.
If I brew within the next two weeks I should be able to have a decent Oktoberfest ready on time. Oktoberfests are one of my favorite beer styles. Perhaps it’s partially due to the season in which they show up since I really love late summer/early autumn. Perhaps it’s because I would love to attend the real Oktoberfest in Germany. Whatever the reasons, I am planning on brewing/lagering an Oktoberfest for this fall.
Have you been brewing? Any tips you’d like to share about lagering? I’m planning a post about the lagering process and how it compares to brewing ales and your tips could be included. Thanks for reading!
When it comes to home brewing there are two approaches to the bottling stage. The first is kegging, which is awesome, but very expensive. The second is bottling. Bottling can be nearly free and today I’m discussing my three step process to prepare bottles for holding your precious creation.
Everyone has friends. And if you share the other hobby that this blog covers (board games) then you likely get together and hang out quite often. Well, if you’re a home brewer this is a great opportunity for you. During our board game nights my friends typically each bring a 6-pack of beer.
Is it weird when at the end of the night I ask to keep their empty bottles? Not at all. One friend thanked me for taking his trash. But beware… here are some tips for successful bottle procurement.
Now that you’ve procured your bottles (about 50 for a 5 gallon batch) you’re ready for step 2.
This is the worst part of home brewing. If I weren’t also trying to save money by home brewing I would just purchase new bottles. But I’m guessing I’m not the only one out there who removes the labels from bottles so here’s how I do it.
It’s a Utility Sink Party!
I first fill my utility sink full of hot water. Then I place the bottles in there for a good half hour. The idea here is to soak the labels and get them ready to be peeled off.
After a half hour I take one bottle at a time and peel off the label. There will likely be some residue left on the bottle. To remove the residue I take a dish scrubber or dish wand and apply a little elbow grease.
This is sort of a buy beware point, though. Some bottles have great labels that basically fall right off. Others have very gummy labels that leave behind some terrible glue that is nearly impossible to get off. In Wisconsin I’m blessed to have the New Glarus Brewing Company in my back yard. They have the best labels ever! Soak them and they fall right off.
And the best part about labels that fall right off is that you can make some really cool art with them. Here is a collage I made with the New Glarus labels:
New Glarus Label Art
To get all the labels off and residue removed will take a little while. Be prepared to stand over the utility sink for a while. But once you’ve got the bottles all spic and span I like to move on to step three.
Dishwasher parties are hotter than Utility Sink parties!
Now that your bottles are free of all denigrating marks of previous ownership they are ready to visit the dishwasher. This step helps to remove any leftover residue from the inside of the bottles and helps to sanitize them as well. And for some reason I really like how they look all lined up in the dishwasher.
The key here is to run it as a normal wash cycle, but do not use any detergent. These bottles aren’t likely to be caked with peanut butter or broccoli or any other typical dinner fare. They were filled with beer. So they really only need to be rinsed.
So run the cycle a few hours before you are going to bottle the beer. That will give you enough time to let the bottles cool off from the hot dishwasher cycle.
And that’s it! You now have bottles that are ready to go for bottling. I would, however, make one more recommendation. And that is to do one final rinse in your sanitizer before bottling, especially if these are sitting around for too long. Better safe than sorry. If you have a preferred method for bottle prep, please let me know. I’m always looking to get more efficient!
Boards and Barley 