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Fair brewing

The Santa Cruz County Fair is in full swing this week and part of the festivities is the Microbrew beer sampling booth and Homebrew exhibit.

The brew rig
Different members of the Zymurgeeks are taking turns throughout the week demonstrating the techniques of making beer at home. Brewing beer, answering questions, promoting homebrewing are the tasks assigned to the Zymurgeek club each night.
I took my turn at the boil pots on Thursday night and with the assistance of my brewing partner made a double IPA using 25 lbs. of grain and 1.25 lbs. of hops. Our original gravity came to 1.070 with IBU's well over 100. In addition to fielding questions I was pushing for people to sign up for my Homebrewing classes at Cabrillo College.

Brewer Michelle



Firehouse Brewing http://www.firehousegrill.com/ was on hand next to our booth dispensing four very quaffable beers. For the price of $4 one could sample 4oz. of each beer on tap starting with a thirst quenching American wheat and slightly bitter American pale ale. Also pouring was a very good Oktoberfest that was on the sweet side and finally an IPA with 11% Rye malt that I couldn't stop drinking.




Brewers dress in funny pants!

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