I've got a fever

And the only prescription is more brewing.

I think there may be something wrong with me.  Anybody talks about anything anymore and I think about a beer or wine in relation to it.  My mom went to pick blackberries and I started thinking about a tart dry blackberry wine.  I wondered how many pounds of berries I would have to pick to get my food grade bucket full of berries and how long it would take me to press them for juice.  I would use a champagne yeast I think to give it tiny bubbles and a like the cider I've made thus far a nice dryness.  We where talking about how we where going to miss harvest this year because of the baby (it's a family thing where we go make salsa and harvest my Uncle's garden in eastern Oregon) and the pumpkins that we where going to get from the garden.  I thought about a pumpkin spiced ale, and how I could get the flavor of pumpkin pie in a bottle.

It's funny really that I don't drink that much, in a given week I may only have 4 or 5 beers total! Most weeks I don't have anything to drink, but I really enjoy making beer.  The science and labor needed to get more sugar out of the grains, or what fruits and how to pair them to make a nice fruit beer.

This summer I found Bridgeport's Stumptown Tart and have been eager to try a fruit laced beer.  My trouble is that beers with tricky additives also have precise timings related to not letting the additive (fruit) spoil on top of your lovely beer.  One way around it is to just add the juice rather than the berries, but I think that takes away from the romance a little and I am unwilling to compromise on that.  I seem to be better at murky or deep colored beers at the moment (though I haven't tried a pilsner yet) I have yet to make a clean or crisp enough ale for me to feel comfortable just dropping fruit in on top.  I don't want the fruit to get lost to the maltyness, and I also don't want the beer to get turned into a Mike's style beverage.  The Stumptown Tart has just a hint of fruit at the end of the beer that makes it nice.  Not everyone will like this beer mind you, but it made for a lovely summer ale for me.