The Flying Dog Raging Bitch 20th anniversary beer, aside from a name that is obviously devised to catch your attention and illicit a response, is a good, tasty beer. And potent, too, which is one of my primary requirements. (What’s the point of drinking watery, 4.5% alcohol by volume beer? If you’re thirsty, drink water.) Also, it’s not terribly expensive, costing me about $33 at the Beer Guys in Havertown, PA. $33 for a good, Belgian-Style IPA with an 8.3% alcohol by volume content can’t really be beat.
If you downed one too many while watching the Super Bowl, here’s at least one reason to hold your head high: Drinking beer can be good for your health.
So I just started brewing my own beer, and the process was pretty simple and straight-forward, all except for the siphoning. I purchased a generic brew kit including two big plastic buckets (Ale Pails) and all the other gear I would need to brew my own, and of course the ingredients for some tasty alcoholic beverages. I decided to try to make a Belgian Tripple with an alcohol content somewhere, if everything went according to plan, between 8% and 9%.
And everything was going well until I got to the siphoning part…
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I didn’t learn this in chemistry or stealing gas 101, but getting the siphon to work without sucking on the tube and/or ‘dirtying’ the sanitized material was quite the pain in the ass. And if you are anything like me, you’ll want some help/references, and that’s the whole point of this post. If you have the ‘wand’ (racking cane) and tubing, are looking at it, twisting and turning it and trying to figure what makes it ‘go’, then here are some links for you…
If you are from the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania, enjoy browsing a good selection of beers you likely haven’t seen for sale anywhere else, then you need to go to the Beer Yard in Wayne. With the rising popularity of craft and micro brews, more and more stores, restaurants and take-out shops are carrying good beers, but the Beer Yard takes it a step further with their selection. And their website is quite informative as well.
Beer Yard – 218 East Lancaster Ave · Wayne, PA 19087 · Tel 610.688.3431
Total Wine has multiple locations up and down the east coast and a few locations out west. Your best bet is to go to the site and see if there is a location near you.
