Monday, March 13, 2006

mmm...beer

Some of my longtime readers may remember the post I made when I first moved into my apartment. It included a photograph of the contents of my refrigerator, which humorously portrayed the fact that while I did have things like orange juice, deli meats, cheese, a few vegetables and the like, I predominantly had beer and soda (or "coke" if you prefer. Or "pop" is you're really gay).

Well it has been about 6 months since then, and my how things have changed. I now pretty much only have 2 things in my fridge. One is of course beer, and the second, judging from what used to be the milk, is the cure for cancer.

Let's join my cat Sarek in pondering the example of the bananas pictured to the left. On the left side is a bunch of yellow bananas that I purchased yesterday. On the right side, the bunch that it replaced (Don't be too disgusted...I threw them away after taking the picture). Clearly there is enough bacterial activity taking place in my apartment to earn me an honorary biology degree from Harvard (I chose Harvard since they would at worst give me a 'B' for this).

And so while I wrinkled my nose at the milk as I reached passed it for a beer (and resolved for the Nth time to throw out the milk as soon as I finished said beer), I got to thinking about all this biology in action and, or course, beer. Then it dawned on me. If all this bacterial activity was going to be happening, I might as well harness some of it for good. And by good I of course mean beer.

So I went out, bought some supplies, and started to brew my own beer. I bottled the 5 gallons of brewed glory yesterday after it spent the last two weeks in a glass fermenter. It will spend the next two weeks conditioning in the bottles. And then I will have 2 cases of homemade beer to enjoy. But the enjoyment will be bittersweet, as I will have to drink the beer knowing that many a good yeast will have died to bring me this alcohol. Yeast that has lived with me these past weeks. That I have come to love.


Farewell sweet yeast! You will not have died in vain.

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