Something’s Brewing at Sourwood Farm

Ok, something was brewed and is now fermenting – bubbling happily away as we speak (um, or read or type or something). I figure that homebrewing fits into our suburban homesteading – producing something that is normally bought at a store. And let me tell you, our local grocery has a terrible selection of beer! So, we benefit in two ways from our homebrewing efforts – one, it is cheaper than purchasing commercial beer and two, we have an unlimited selection to choose from.

While I would love to be able to produce the ingredients needed for brewing, the only thing really practical is to grow hops. We have an arbor over both of our gates and we planted some hops at the base of the larger one two years ago. One side did not make it at all and the other side came up meekly/weakly and fizzled out. The drought has not helped but that side is up this year and looking strong. We also got two additional rhiozomes from our friend S (best neighbor ever) this weekend for the other side. Hopefully we can keep them nicely watered from the rain barrels this summer but tomatoes come first. I am willing to sacrifice the hops for homegrown tomatoes. The variety of hops that we are growing is Cascade, my favorite.

My homebrewing efforts started about ten years ago when S dug her equipment out of storage and showed me the ropes. I was hooked immediately! Every batch has been drinkable. Sure, some have been better than others but over the years, I have refined my techniques and processes so I’m turning out some fairly consistent and tasty beers (so they tell me). I also have narrowed the field down to several go-to recipes that are our favorites.

Right now we are drinking a pale ale that I would have to say is our all-time favorite. Nice and hoppy but not overly challenging, easy to drink but still very interesting.

So, the brewing, right. I brewed a lemon wheat this weekend. I love this ale in the summer. Don’t let the lemon scare you off – it is there but just enough to be slightly refreshing and light. I think it goes well with the wheat.Hopefully next weekend I can get this wheat bottled and get another batch brewed (an ESB). This flurry of brewing is more than my usual batch every several months or so but I’ve been tasked (happily accepted) with having some beers ready for our camping trip to the Bass Mountain Bluegrass Festival at the end of May. That’s ambitious for my schedule of brewing and waiting FOREVER to actually bottle but I think I’m up to the task. We also need to get the garden in sometime too. Busy days here at Sourwood!