Onward and upward (...or downward?)

Big news at the Beer Lab!! As operations expand into new and exciting horizons, so has my pile of equipment, leading me to sequester myself and a helpful family member in the basement last weekend to build a new national headquarters.

This may just look like some cheap wooden shelving from Fred Meyer, and that it would be. But it's also the start of what I hope to turn into a beer aging/storage/quaffing area in our currently dull, cat-infested concrete downstairs.

Under the towel is an inaugural cider, which I suppose I should talk about in a future post.

Nearly complete, this setup will hold my boxes of finished beer (complete with Velcroed labels on the outside so I can track what's where), all my brewing equipment, buckets of fermenting beer and wine racks for our other booze collection. Down the road, I hope to find somewhere to squeeze in a small chest freezer that's been lingering out back on the patio, as well as maybe a chair or two.

It also serves a secondary purpose of blocking all the holes in the wall that the cats like to crawl in.

But that's not all! Fresh in the mail today is the next step in brewing world dominance. I speak of hop roots.

Yeah, I know, it's just two roots sitting there. What'd you expect?

Next weekend, if all goes well, we'll tuck these rhizomes down into the dirt and have fresh Adams Street hops to tuck into beers later this year. I'm very excited -- it's supposed to be extremely easy to grow the vines, long as you keep an eye on them and give them a little care.

I'll keep you all posted on the results.