 3:56:34PM on 07/06/2009 | Over four years ago Sean and Marty bought me a starter beer making kit as a wedding gift. The kit moved down to Dallas, back to St. Louis in our temporary situation, then finally into our house last summer. It went unused until this May. Boycotting AB because they sold out St. Louis and the rest of America caused me to look elsewhere for my beer. Luckily an alcohol mega-store, Friar Tuck, opened up close by and my options were many. Problem is it gets expensive. I started to get more and more interested in making my own, but I was always very intimidated by the process. I had the equipment, but I had no idea where to begin. Sean planned a trip to St. Louis around Memorial Day, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and finally dive into the world of homebrewing . Sean has several batches under his belt and did a great job teaching me the basics. We went to the local homebrew shop and I decided I wanted to try an Amber Ale recipe. We picked up the necessary ingredients and extra equipment and went back to my house. The whole process took about three hours and I had a lot of fun along the way. We cooked the batch and put it in the primary fermenter. Then came the hard parts, waiting and naming. Beer, on the low end, takes about four weeks until it is ready to drink. After ten days in the primary fermenter I transferred (or racked as I have come to learn it is called) the beer from the primary fermentation bucket into the secondary fermenter. Then a week or so after that I had to rack the beer out of that fermenter into a bottling bucket which I made out of the original bucket I had gotten as a wedding present. The five gallons of beer we had made ended up making 44 bottles of beer. The bottling and labeling part of the process was definitely a labor of love. I spent several days designing the label, but I had a ton of fun doing it. Once the design was finished and printed off it took me over four hours to waterproof the labels, cut them out, and glue them on all the bottles. It was worth it though as the end result was very well received (more on that later). As mentioned above another hard part of making the beer is naming it. I stewed over this for days trying to come up with something unique, relevant and fun. Then one day at work not only a name, but an entire theme of beers came to me. Growing up I had a ton of pets. Everything from dogs to rabbits to iguanas. To some people on our street we were known as the Chinnici Zoo. So I thought "what better way to memorialize all my beloved pets then to name my various brews after them"? After I came up with that concept, ideas for my current beer and several to follow just started pouring out. I decided to name the first after one of my family's favorite dogs, Reggie. For some reason or another I decided to use his more formal name Reginald, and thus Old Reginald Red was born. I also had to name the brewery. That came easy to me. Sometime in high school Marty decided to try brewing in his basement closet. His most famous creation was Evil Coach Ale (well it is famous in our small triangle anyway). He was the first of us to start brewing. Sean then picked it up in college/grad school and has done several batches and continues to brew. The two of them knew of my interest to start and bought me the kit for my wedding. When we would bum around in highschool we came to call ourselves the "Three Schifosos" which I was told roughly translates from Italian into "Rat Bastards". And thus the name "Three Rat Bastards Brewery" was born. The logo honors the influence my friends had on me and also incorporates my Italian heritage with the green, white and red rats. In July Erin and I threw a "Brew and Que" party at the house. I was to debut Old Reginald to my friends and family. It seemed to go over really well. Since then this hobby has become an obsession. I have spent many hours researching and learning everything I can about beer, brewing beer and using more advanced techniques. I currently have fifteen gallons of beer fermenting in the basement (Apfelwein, Chocolate Stout, and a second batch of Old Reginald). This weekend I am going to make my fifth batch, which will also be my first partial mash which involves going beyond just using a kit. I set the bar pretty high with my first beer and am excited to see how my current and future ones turn out. Stay tuned to see what they are called and how the labels turn out. I'm really excited about the label for the stout! | |||
By: Nick Made at 5:14:50PM on 08/28/2009 | I removed all the previous comments from this post since they were no longer relevant. Also I will post some pics soon! | |||