This is cool. New Belgium is sponsoring a Clips of Faith Beer and Film Tour, made up of amateur short films. The rules are simple: Make a 10-second to 10-minute-long film and incorporate one or more of New Belgium’s main follies: Craft Beer, Sustainability, or Whimsy.
 

It's funny how sometimes your personal and work lives can intersect. Yesterday I got an email at my work address from a PR person inviting me to a fundraising event for the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition. Normally, that's not that unusual. But in this case, since I work in California and live in Colorado, it was strange to get the email at work. 
 

I read this ad age article (hat tip to a Beer Wars’ Facebook post) about MillerCoor’s latest entry into the craft brew market. Colorado Native Lager is made entirely with ingredients from Colorado. 

That’s a pretty cool idea. In fact, I have been planning to do the same thing, except my beer would be brewed in my family cabin near Estes Park and would be called “Colorado Cabin.” Oh, and it will also be an ale, not a lager. But I digress.

I received a gift certificate to Beer at Home for Christmas from my mother-in-law. Thanks, Linda! So this weekend, I’m going to brew a batch of American style IPA.

I’ve been experimenting with homebrew software and really like Beer Alchemy from Kent Place Software. I had a license a few years ago, but through multiple email and computer changes, I lost it. Not wanting to spend $30 on another license at the moment, I remembered that I had downloaded the Brew Pal iPhone app a few months ago.

Before my Beer Alchemy trial had expired, I formulated a big Imperial IPA recipe. Turns out it was too big for my setup. To do five gallons, I’d need a 10-gallon Mash/Lauter Tun, and I’ve only got a 5-gallon one. So I decided to dumb down the recipe and make a standard IPA (it was only later that I came to the obvious conclusion that I could brew a 3-gallon batch and it would fit).