Down In the Holler

A beer baby, that is, with all the trimmings!

Though it’s been over a month since the day, I thought it was high time I let the digital world in on a very real-world secret. With the help of several friends, I have brewed, fermented and savored my first batch of home-brewed beer. The result, which I have affectionately named Deep Holler Pale Ale, is astoundingly good. This represents the culmination of years (literally!) of planning, planting and learning my way around the exciting world of homebrew.

The process began around March of 2007, when I received for my birthday a gift that has kept on giving: my very own hop rhizomes. The vines that sprouted from them are now in their second year of production, and let me tell you, the produce is mighty indeed.

For the recipe, I used one called “American Pale Ale” that I got ingredients for from the good man Craig at Hop City over on the West side. The recipe called for a total of 2oz Northern Brewer hops and 1.5oz Cascade hops. Since Hop City sells plug hops in 2oz vacuum-sealed packs, I thought it foolish to let a good half ounce go to waste, so I threw those in during the last addition.

I was keen to use my own harvest in the brew, however, so I decided to dry hop the batch after it had fermented for about a week. I transferred the wort to a secondary fermenter and added a good helping (maybe 16 or 20g) of whole Cascade hops from my garden.

After another week, it was time to bottle. After still another week, I sampled the first beer late on the night of Kip’s birthday, and passed it around to friends. The results were surprisingly excellent! I feel like the flavor has only improved as the beer ages a little in the bottle. While the initial hop punch has always been significant, the middle notes have become more pronounced in the subsequent weeks.

Kip’s brother Paul, a graphic designer, is graciously designing label art for us to use, and we’ve got big plans to make the Deep Holler brand a mainstay of the local scene. Up next is Kip’s favorite style, a hefeweizen! Into that we plan to incorporate some coriander that we harvested from cilantro plants that went to seed in the garden. I just love using so many parts of the harvest!

Want to help with the brew next time? Just let me know!

Sassafras Peppercorn by Kevin Griggs

Last Friday, the 29th, we picked up an adorable new addition to our pet family from some friends across town. May I introduce you to Sassafras Peppercorn?

This little bundle of trouble is already creating quite a stir. We’ve mostly been keeping her isolated in the bathroom until she’s weighty enough to get vaccinated, and she’s wasted no time finding cute little messes to make. The toilet tissue tower has become a climbing toy.

Our friend Kevin Griggs came over last night to take some glamour shots of the new baby. He posted a few choice samples to Flickr, and she even made the first picture in a “Kitten Tuesday” post on their blog! Clearly, with all this activity, we have a heart-breaker on our hands.

It will be exciting to see how she matures, and how Binky (our other cat) takes to her. After the untimely passing of our cat George (may he rest in peace), I was half-jokingly excited to get another pet named George II, but Kip managed to knock some sense into me, and Sassy here is the result!

Please enjoy responsibly.

For my birthday in 2007, a couple of my friends gave me four delightfully fresh rhizomes of two varieties of humulus lupulus: Cascade and Chinook. I quickly got to work researching planting and growing techniques for these vigorous vines. Based on this reading, I was prepared for (and got) a relatively meager yield from the first season. The second season, which is now in full swing, is another story entirely.

My trellis design takes advantage of a steep North-facing slope that forms the upper end of what we affectionately refer to as the Holler. Three vertical 2×6 planks act as the top end of the trellis’ wire, with the bottom end anchored about 18 feet down the hill in two large safety-orange stakes. The wire traverses the hillside between these structures in a large “W” shape, which provides one vertical length of wire for each of the four rhizomes.

Last year, even at the peak of the growing season, the vines only reached about three-quarters of the way up the wires, and I was able to harvest a total of about 16 grams of flowers. This year, the Cascade vines are already stretching beyond the top of the trellis and bursting with flowers.  I will probably harvest as much within the next month as I did for the entire season last year.

The Chinook vines are slightly less vigorous in my setting, and I think it is related to a nitrogen deficiency. A couple of weeks ago I gave them a decent dose of blood meal and they have since improved significantly.

I am extremely excited about harvesting these fragrant beauties and putting them to use in my first batch of home-brewed beer this Summer. Stay tuned for details on that process, as I am sure there will be many tales to tell.

So, we finally did it. After all this time, we jumped on the blogwagon. We have entered the blog-o-sphere. Though there’s a lot to live up to in this arena, we consider ourselves primed for the challenge.

In addition to a casual documentary of our lives, we hope this site can be a place to share exciting new ideas and experiences. Learning and growing together with our friends, old and new, is one of our favorite things to do!

You must forgive my lack of introductions. Allow me to start with my compatriot in this tiny kingdom: the love of my life, Ms. Kip Slaughter. She’s a saucy young woman with a head full of knowledge, and she’s not afraid to tell you all of it; you might not even have to ask! But seriously, as a trained Master of Science in Nutrition, she will have a lot to say about gardening, cooking, composting and living sustainably in the semi-suburban patch we call home.

And with that, I’ll leave my introduction to her.