Barring any last minute hitches, this afternoon Mrs Velkyal and I are signing all the necessary paperwork to finalise the purchase of our new house, though it won't be until Monday that we actually take possession of the property and have keys in our hands.
The new house, and it is entirely new, has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an acre and a half of land, and most importantly, from a homebrew perspective, a double garage. The double garage is particularly useful for homebrewing when you only have one car, thus leaving half the space for me to mash, boil and ferment without upsetting the delicate nostrils of Mrs V, who is not a fan of the smell of wort.
One of the first homebrew related tasks I face is to get my water supply checked out because we have our own well. I am, naturally, hoping that we have ridiculously soft water so that I can proceed with me plans to brew a classic Czech pilsner without having to buy purified drinking water.
One thing though that I will not be doing is growing my own hops, sure I will have plenty of space for it, but given the difficulty of getting rhizomes for the hops varieties I use most, I am just not all that bothered about doing so. I am considering though reserving some space for growing barley and other grains to use in both brewing and my bread making, but that's something of a fuzzy idea at the moment.
Clearly such an auspicious occasion as buying one's first house (how Fisher Price does that sound?) needs to be marked with something special, at least one bottle of my various Fuller's Vintage Ales that I have in the cellar, or maybe even the 1996 Gale's Prize Old Ale. I could also go with one of the strong American beers that have been aging away in the cellar for nearly three years, Bell's 25th Anniversary Ale, Victory Old Horizontal or one of the Bell's Third Coast Old Ales. If I wasn't saving the remaining 2 bottles of the 2009 Samoset Vintage Ale for when I see my best mate in Baltimore in August I could well imagine that being a contender.
What beers are you saving for a special occasion and when do you plan to drink them?
* Mrs V and I have started a joint blog about our new house and the garden we plan to create around it, it's called City Girl, Country Boy.
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You're a lucky man! I dream at one point owning a house and have a set-up for homebrewing. The garden sounds like a great addition! Plus a place the cellar would be great.
ReplyDeleteI have a bottle of Boon Mariage Parfait Gueuze my wife and I will open for our 10 year wedding anniversary this August. I also have a bottle of 2002 3 Fonteinen Gueuze I'm saving for my birthday this year. After those, the stock of what I brought back from Belgium will have been depleted.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the wonderful world of garage brewing!
I also have a Fuller's Vintage, saving it for when the pub breaks even. I suspect I'll be an old man and the beer will be fantastic.
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