6.25.2007

Funny Story

I did do a tasting tonight, of Westmalle Dubble. It was boring. But a funny thing did happen.

My son Boden is about a year and a half old. My oldest (3.5 years) was asleep and I wanted to check on my beers downstairs (I transferred Big Slick and Doree Forte to secondary today). I asked Boden, "Want to go check on my beers?" And he immediately pointed downstairs and said, "beer" (in his just beginning to talk voice, where most words sound the same, but this was definitely "beer" - he has said it before in context, and it was in context here too). So that was pretty funny.

Then we get down there, I strap him into his old high chair, and pick up the yeast starter for tomorrow's Stonington Memorial Summer Ale 2. He makes a motion indicating that he wants me to shake it around. Apparently he has seen me rouse yeast so much that he expects me to do it every time. Now there was some yeast on the side walls of the jug, so I did want to shake it up a bit just to get that down into the liquid of the starter, but I was shocked that I had taken him down there while I roused yeast so many times that he expects it now.

As a side note, I am not convinced that rousing does anything at all other than provide an exciting burst of bubbling activity as CO2 comes out of solution.

Then as I checked on Doree Forte (which was dosed with corn sugar at transfer, so it should bubble up again), he told me to shake that one up, too. So I did. Then I checked on GSX-R1.104 (which had a thick layer of stuff on top when I went to measure gravity (1.030~10%ABV) and maybe transfer today), and he told me to shake that one up. I am getting a bit crazy, but I actually asked him, "Do you really think that helps it?" And he gave an assertive nod. Mr. Future Brewer right there!

Of course he also nodded when I asked him if he saw dragons in the basement, so it is hard to tell...

No comments: