Hop Madness is almost here!

Near daily quality assurance tastes straight from the fermenter are telling me to stop hoarding good hop juice, its time to share this with you all. So in honor of our nation's celebrated student athlete peach basket tournament I give you Hop Madness. This week, that's right, just in time to follow your brackets, a Double I.P.A. to sooth your #4 seed losing to a #13...hey it happens, I could have warned you. Hop Madness checks in at 8.0% ABV and a wheel barrel full of IBU's( International Bittering Units, which correlates to....lets just say its bitter). I loaded this DIPA with plenty of Simcoe and Columbus, but just to be sure I added more Simcoe and Columbus. Wash,rinse,repeat, you get the picture by now. There's no telling how long this beer will last on tap, but if the sales of Hop Zen are any indication this probably won't make it much past the deciding game in Indy.

Peace,Love,Beer,

Mike

The Winter of My Discontent

My friend Andrew brought to attention to me tonight that I might have jinxed myself.Upon arriving in Maryland back in January, I sent out this text message via my cell phone, "No snow on the ground,home sweet home." Flash forward a month and we are in the middle of yet another blizzard. Hyattsville is starting resemble Hoth and I think my Tauntaun has frozen.

Thankfully though things are warming up at Franklin's as last night the neighborhood came down to introduce themselves and try our two newest offerings,Hop Zen and Porter.From all accounts everyone seemed to enjoy the beers,myself included. There's a lot of positive energy buzzing around the pub and I'm really digging it. I think its going to offer a really great environment to be creative in and I trust I will get sincere feedback from our people.

Prior to the meet and greet last night I was able to fill a fermenter with "Please name me soon" Belgian Dubbel. It was fun to brew, so many nice toasted Belgian malts and its fun dumping sugar into 300+ gallons of boiling liquid.I tasted it today(Wednesday), and even though its only 24 hours old, its beginning to take shape quite nicely.

Stay warm and keep you beer cold.

Thanks for Noah Giebel for emailing the photo above,as its a great way to conserve energy by turning off your beer fridge and allowing nature to be your walk-in cooler.