Hey 1 or 2 readers (do I have that many?) here is yet another overdue and delayed post. I really have intentions of posting more often, but work, lack of internet at home, etc is hindering this. (excuses, excuses). Anyway….
Last weekend I went down to Florida. Specifically Pinellas Park Florida, where I grew up. My mom still lives in the house that I lived in when I graduated high school in ’92. She kindly offered to pay for Orion and Myself to fly down and rent a car for the weekend. I haven’t been down to Pinellas Park for around 10 years or so. It was strange to see how things changed in that short period of time. The woods where I use to play as a kid is now yet another neighborhood of houses. Enough about all that, this is supposed to be a beer centric blog.
The Thursday we flew down was actually the first social media focused and planned IPA day. August 4th was intended as a celebration of India Pale Ale. All over the world bars and breweries celebrated this popular style of beer. Unfortunately, because of the flight and hanging out with my family, I did not get to partake of an IPA on IPA day. Oh well, it’s not like that isn’t my go to drink at the Downtown Grill & Brewery or anything. Truth be told, I drink enough IPA year round that one special day dedicated to it wasn’t a big deal to me. I’m sure I could have drove to the store and got a six pack if I was really worried about it.
However, I did get to visit Dunedin Brewery on the Saturday of my trip. In fact when planning the trip, the first thing I did (like any self proclaimed “beer tourist”) was google breweries nearest to my mom’s house. I was delighted to find out that Florida’s Oldest Microbrewery was in the same county, just a short cab ride away. (by short I mean 30 minutes). I am very anti-drunk driving, so we took a cab driven by one of mom’s good buddies at a super reduced rate so that I could sample and imbide some tasty craft beers. They do a tour every Saturday at 5pm. They charge $5 for the tour, but you get a beer and a free pint glass, so it’s a great deal. The tour is super short. One of the brewer’s named Rick took myself and 2 other guys behind the predominately displayed fermentation tanks to talk about the process of brewing. He showed us some ingredients, talked about the grain hopper, the mash tun, the serving tanks and showed us the goodies in the cold storage room. It took maybe 15 minutes, we spent another 15 just talking about beer and other local brewers and events. After the tour I went out and had a sampler of their beers. I meant to take detailed tasting notes for the blog, but determined that it would take my attention away from actually enjoying the beer, so I didn’t. You can see the pictures below. My favorite beer I tried was probably the wheat.
Ok so that’s my visit to the Dunedin Brewery. Since then I have kegged and bottled beer all week long after work. I still need to rack my Mead into the secondary carboy after a month long primary fermentation. Hopefully I’ll get to do that today. I just have to sanitize the carboy. I didn’t brew this weekend, but picked up ingredients to do the next 10 gallons of Butternut Squash ale. I am hoping to find time to brew it next weekend.
One more thing I want to mention on this post. My favorite local place the aforementioned Downtown Grill & Brewery having their first ever cask night next Wednesday. They took a half barrel of their IPA and dry hopped it with a bunch of extra hops. Then they naturally carbonated it to make “Real Ale”. They are tapping the keg at 6pm. I will be there at 5:45 waiting for this special event. This really is a big deal because for so long The Brewery has never done anything different like this. I mean, they don’t even brew seasonals. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Cheers, Ratchet
Ratchet Brews 
[…] it, doing special events around it and tweeting/blogging about it. This is the 2nd annual IPA Day. Last year I went down to Florida on beercation, and didn’t actually get to partake of an IPA on IPA day. This year things are different. On […]