The Maltedbarley.org BBQ and Homebrew Party was a success. We enjoyed my Vanilla Cream Ale, Summer Lemon Wheat Ale, Founders Centennial IPA, and Great Lakes Brewing - Lake Erie Monster. We built a Fondant Cake that tasted better than it looked, homemade vanilla ice cream with homemade vanilla extract, and ate Beer Brauts, Spicy Brauts, Hotwings, Burgers, BBQ Chicken, and more. The Vanilla Cream was rather popular despite the fact that I will never brew it again. While the Strawberries complemented the cream ale, the vanilla just was. There was cream ale, and vanilla. But the two never seemed to quite meet-up in my book. The one success was this - my method for making the vanilla extract and infusing the brew - it worked great. I just need to do it on something dark and chocolaty like a stout, not a cream ale.The Summer Wheat was excellent. I will use a whole bag of lemons again, that's what it takes if you want the lemon to come through. Lake Erie Monster is a great double IPA, and yes it might cause you to slur your words and necessitate someone driving you home.
I experimented with soaking pecan chips and putting them on the grill in some hole-poked tin foil. This works great and gives your BBQ that something extra special. This years
BBQ sauce came out great, while not near as spicy as last year, I still liked it. Next year I think we'll focus a bit more on the homebrew aspects. I finally got my mash tun setup and brewed my first all grain brew, so by next year we'll plan for a full up group all grain brew and invite folks that want to learn to brew, or step up to all grain brewing.
