Old Ladies Brewing

Luke and I had previously thrown around a few names for this home brewing caper, trying to come up with something that linked to our little girls given they were the reason we'd met in the first place. Our wives were in the same mother's group after having our first kids just a few weeks apart. Since then, we've both had another girl each.

Each of the four girls has a kinda old fashioned name; Evie (Luke's), Audrey (mine), Mabel (mine) and Esme (Luke's). Old Ladies Brewing. Has a nice ring to it I reckon.

Since doing another 23L of the original pale ale last month, we've knocked out a couple of half batches, one of a chocolate porter and another based upon Mountain Goat's Steam Ale. Given the smaller batches (about 10-11L each, or roughly a slab), we're likely to have a few different beers that are drinkable at any one time, and I've grown tired of looking at the cap to see the bottling date, then trying to remember what the hell we bottled that day (I have the memory of a confused Abe Simpson) before having to go back through my notes to find out exactly what beer is in the bottle.

So I had a quick mess around on ye olde photoshop to whip up a temporary label. Simple, easy to print at home, with a few different colours to quickly identify each beer in the fridge. Print 'em on plain paper, and stick 'em on with milk. I've got something a little more detailed in the works, but these will do until then. I'll still be sticking the labels on with milk, because the effectiveness of it kinda blows my mind. No wonder scrubbing old weet bix out of a bowl is harder than convincing a three-year-old to wear pants. That shit is like super glue.

I've cracked open the Ping Pong Pale. It's good without being great. Not as nice as the original version, but still good enough to give away to friends, which is pretty cool. The Splash Brothers Steam Ale, named after the Golden State Warriors backcourt duo of Klay Thompson and Steph Curry (I was brewing/bottling around the time the Warriors were carving up the Spurs early in the Western Conference semi-finals) and The Land of Chocolate Porter will be opened for tasting in another two weeks, just in time for late night Tour de France watching.

Viva le homebrew!