Trip to Odell and the Latest

As many of you know (see previous posts), Muddy Huddy was chosen to be brewed by Odell Brewing Co. for an entry into the Great American Beer Festival. At the beginning of August, I drove up to the brewery and brewed my beer on their brewery. It was an absolutely awesome experience and a really fun day....really makes me want to open my own brewery soon.

Started out with over 500 lbs. of malt!

Here is the system I brewed on, can make about 8 barrels (252 gallons)  of beer on it (we made about 6)

Muddy Huddy mash!

Morning sun coming into the brewery...beautiful, right?

Well, one month later, we took a family trip to Odell to try the finished product. It came out pretty good!  A little lower in alcohol, 5.9% vs. 7.5% that I brewed. All and all, it is very tasty and we'll be taking another trip up with friends to sample it again.

Tap Room beer list...that's right...uhhuh

I actually wrote the description for Muddy Huddy

Cam is so psyched

Wonderful wife..she doesn't like stouts, but said she liked this one!

Cam is really impressed with the brewery...

The day after the brewery visit, I brewed up two beers. The first was a Saison that will have 20 pounds of Colorado Western slope peaches added to it at the end of fermentation. The other beer was a wet-hopped harvest ale that was made with fresh hops from the backyard and Micah's yard. I had mostly Chinooks and Micah had CTZ. It will be a lighter beer at 4.6%, but it should have a good wet-hopped taste and aroma.These beers will be the first of the Harvest Series brewed each fall.

 

Had to hire workers for the harvest (Olivia loves the smell...while drinking a Muddy Huddy, how fitting!)

The Hop Harvest:

The fresh, wet hops thrown into the last part of the boil.

So, this is the time of year where I want to have nothing but autumn seasonal beers on tap. I have the Oktoberfest lagering until October. The saison and wet-hopped ale will take two more of the taps in 2 weeks. I will most likely still have Bellamy Amber on tap at that time too. I also worked up an Imperial Pumpkin ale recipe tonight! Although, I don't have enough fermentors! Space will free up in a couple of weeks and maybe I can brew it then. Have fun sipping your favorite fall seasonal craft brews...