Tipo Roja or Hop To It

Shea and I have brewed our first beer. The idea being that, by brewing our own, we can add a little American-style hop to our beer-drinking routine. We went ambitious on our first try and did an all-grain batch. (Read: the beer will probably be flawed due to the increased opportunities for contamination). This means that we started with the malted barley, ground it ourselves:



(Goodness... I look like a f*&#ing hippy, don't I?) mashed it ourselves:



etc:



I had spent the day making Paneer and Ghee because I was craving Indian food (vegetarian, of course) which we ate while we crafted Christmas cards and waited for the mash to wart (or something like that.)


all to the soundtrack of Nina Simone and The FIRST Mariah Carey Christmas Album.

In short, I should probably move to the Pacific Northwest... but then, that would just make me a cliché, wouldn't it?