Kolsch

My sister's wedding is right around the corner and she came to me with a dilemma. She and I both brew and our tastes, while not favoring any style in particular, stay as far away from your run-of-the-mill, American, mass-produced beers as possible. We had planned to brew all the beer for the reception and make soda for the kids. Her problem was that her fiancée requested a "Coors Light-type" beer for his friends and family.

What beer tastes good, but is delicate enough to not offend the tastes of the light beer crowd?

Kolsch.

From the BJCP: "A clean, crisp, delicately balanced beer usually with very subtle fruit flavors and aromas. Subdued maltiness throughout leads to a pleasantly refreshing tang in the finish. To the untrained taster easily mistaken for a light lager, a somewhat subtle pilsner, or perhaps a blonde ale." Sounds perfect.

For a 5 gallon batch:
93% Pilsner Malt
5.5% Wheat Malt
1.5% Munich Malt
Hallertauer hops(60 min) 21.1 IBU
Hallertauer hops(5 min) 1.4 IBU
WLP029 Yeast

Mash: 149F, 70 min
Mash out: 168F, 10 min

OG: 1.046
FG: 1.011

Fermentation:
10 days, 65F
25 days, 35F

Carbonated to 2.5 volumes

The finished beer, while not fully carbonated yet, is delicious! It's a crystal clear pale yellow, has a subtle fruity aroma, a slight sweetness on the tongue, and finishes dry and crisp. It's not Coors Light (thank heavens), but I think they'll like it.

Time Flies...

...whether you're having fun or not. Believe me, I was not. I had another of those home remodeling/repair surprises kick me in the teeth. I pulled up the nasty carpet on the stairs back at the beginning of November. I figured it would be relatively easy to strip the glue and old finish and then refinish the wood, much like I did on most of the first floor. Long story short...I finished building a new stair case the other day. You can stop reading here if you only like short stories.

The wood under the carpet was so dry and brittle that I could pull most of the treads apart with nothing but my hands. Several treads were broken and I am really surprised that no one had fallen through them. I replaced the worst of the treads with what I had on hand then went off to purchase proper oak treads to replace all of the old ones. It's important to note at this point that my house is old. It was built in 1900 and back then, 1 inch = 1 inch. See where this is going?

No?

Alright, the original stairs were made of 1 inch oak treads and risers mounted on a triple stringer. Moulding was cut from 1" by 12" by x' oak boards to fit precisely along both sides of the staircase, covering the seam where the edges of each step meet the walls, and capped with a nicely milled piece of trim. The result is a very neat and finished look. For whatever reason, today's lumber is smaller than the specified size would have you believe. For example, a 2x4 stud is really only something like 1 3/4" by 3 1/2". Weird. So, the 1" by 10" boards I needed to make the stair treads only measured 3/4" by 9 1/2"...not big enough. This also meant I would have a bigger gap than originally between the tread and the moulding.

So, I had to buy 1" by 12" oak lumber, cut it to size, add a nice round edge with the router, stain, poly, and install 11 steps with spacers to make up for the old inch/new inch difference, and add new painted risers. I also installed new oak flooring on the landing. What a pain in the ass. The only thing left is to touch up the nail holes, put a fresh coat of paint on the risers, and either restore the original woodwork, if that's possible after my less than gentle demolition of the old stairs, or cut all new and try to match a modern stain/varnish combo to the color of 100-year old varnish. (>_<)