Not to hedge in on Beer Haiku Daily’s territory, of course… But let’s make this Friday one for the haiku record books. I’ll kick it off:

the slowest of weeks
calls for the help of a friend
a friend named good beer

Anyone else got a haiku in that bag of tricks?

We’re learning a lot throughout this whole business planning process, but it’s also interesting to see what our friends are up to. Specifically Wilson over at Brewvana, who will soon be opening his own Burrito shack called Electric Burrito.

Wilson, being a beer guy, spent some energy planning his beer menu recently. Sounds like he found a good balance between his natural beer-loving tendencies and the general headaches caused by adding a million taps. (He settled on 2 taps and about a dozen local microbrews.)

Granted, I rarely get out to Iowa. If Bryan Adams plays a farewell show there I might just have to make the trek.

What about this idea? An inflatable pub. Because pubs are so cool that sometimes you want to take one to a vacant field and just go to town. Is that what passes for cool across the pond, Stonch?

Trel•lis. Noun.

1. A frame or structure of latticework; lattice.
2. A framework of this kind used as a support for growing vines or plants.
3. A frustrating necessity of growing hops.

The third definition is really hitting home. Fortunately we’re not the only ones dealing with this problem. And there are many potential solutions. Trouble is, we haven’t yet found one that pertains enough to our situation. Specifically, it can’t look like crap. And there’s nothing for it to lean on. And it has to be at a minimum 10-12 ft tall. But it can’t look like crap.

Any ideas?

We received some disappointed news from Jeff this morning. Apparently our dubbel might also have gotten infected with some such yeasty nonsense. This would mean that 3 out of the last 5 of our batches have gotten the plague.

Instead of brewing tonight we’re going to do a full-scale sterilization of all of our equipment, and hopefully we’ll be replacing a lot of our tubing and nozzels as well. We won’t have any of our beer on tap tonight (because of the reasons mentioned above) but you’re still more than welcome to stop by!

I realize this post has already lost a lot of its thunder, since this picture was taken a week ago. But GEEZ. Check out our hops! They’re growing like gangbusters, even after Joel tried to “water them” himself:

Jonathan’s recent post about beer for dogs combined with my latest beer of the month shipment has had me thinking about the health benefits of beer.  After all it’s just grain, water, hops and yeast.  Heck, our grains are even ORGANIC sometimes - that’s gotta be good.  So, here are the stats on 1 cup of 2% milk vs. 1 cup of an average beer:

Milk vs. Beer

Fat (g) 5 vs. 0

Fiber (g) 0 vs. 0.5

Sodium (mg) 122 vs. 12

Cholesterol (mg): 20 vs. 0

Calories: 122 vs. 97

Calories from Fat (%): 37 vs. 0

So which will YOU put on your cereal tomorrow morning?

The enterprising Japanese have figured out that you should start talking about these health benefits at a very young age.  How? Non-alcoholic children’s beer (thanks to Hikari for finding this article too…google translation so a bit tough to follow….you get the idea).  On top of that some other Japanese guy has come up with BILK (70% Beer, 30% Milk) for those of you who want the best of both worlds.

Amazing.  And not surprising that Japanese have the longest life expectancy of anyone in the world.