Paul and George make beer

Paul chose a honey-wheat for summer. The malted wheat has a honey flavor but no actual honey. The bin that held the malted wheat has a little Canadian flag. It's a little bit darker than the last time. It tastes exceptionally good and simple as tea before the hops are added, and more complex with a light type of hops added incrementally for more complexity, and it will be a little less sweet as the yeast consumes the sugar.

You know, I'd like this stuff just as simple wheat tea.

The ten gallons goes into two 5-gallon buckets for fermentation, and that allows the possibility of additional flavors for half or for all of the batch. Paul is considering some kind of citrus. He had a grapefruit flavored beer that he liked very well, strange, but very good, he is also considering orange or lime. They want their beer bottled by 4th of July. A very large fireworks display is shot off nearby their house.

That's the plan.

The two are surprisingly good students. The teacher took to these two like two pet students. Their instant rapport was a marvel to behold. The instructor was all yakitty yak yak all the way through. He never stopped talking. Never paused. Not once. While both George and Paul never stopped listening. And their questions were remarkably on point and astute.

All three of us, all four of actually, had a very fine time.

There were two more groups who came in later also making beer. The whole place filled up with people mulling around. 95% guys.  Our group was intimate compared to the others. George and Paul had a half-day of one-on-one instruction, intense and interesting. You might not expect that guys have so many beer-related detailed questions. But they do.

I culled from 75 photographs eliminating whole groups except for one. I narrowed them down best as I could. I think these are the best fifteen.

Wheat tea is steeped then the top container drained.

Hops are added to the wheat-tea in the lower container.

This young instructor is pleasant and knowledgable, eager to share what he knows.  

Another larger group. All men.

The guy in the red shirt is another instructor. The whole place is hard surfaces and became very loud inside. His voice is alto and loud, it pierces through all of the other voices. 

The woman in blue and the heavy guy run the place. Both of them like me because I drive business. I stop in quite a lot and give them sandwiches and fresh fruit that I scored from nearby. And I tell the whole neighborhood and everyone that I know about them. Like you.

This photo typifies the day. I enjoyed watching these three.

Paul adding yeast. 

They shared the fun of adding hops and adding yeast.

Paul testing sugar level through the spectrometer. When the instructor does it he looks like a pirate.

Pizza guy in front holding the white sheet of paper. 

I'm impressed how intense these two are. I expected a degree of flakiness, certainly mind-wandering, and a lull period as the wheat tea is brewing, and as the hops cook, but that never happened. They stayed intensely concentrating all the way through. There never was any empty time. They taste-tested some twenty or so grain samples in the room where all the various grains are stored. They interrogated about various grains and about the malting process, they asked a hundred questions about hops, why their recipe uses only one type but the other groups used three types. They never stopped asking question as if they intended to brew beer at home. I am so pleased. They actually valued this lesson and made the best value of it. It really is a perfect gift. A gift they returned by how it's appreciated and used to its maximum. They wrenched this instruction for all that it's worth.

I am cheered. I want to do this again.