The Adventures of Beer Hat

As I’ve written before, Pretty Purple Porter (#5) is my favorite beer, by design. Before I started brewing, I was always a stout/porter drinker, preferring Guiness or Murphy’s Irish, etc. (This is before the wide variety of great craft beers now available. If it had been around then, I’d-a probably been hooked on Founders Porter. Anyway…) Once I got pretty good at brewing, I wanted to make something that I liked at least as well. I had a pretty good porter to start, but it took me 5 iterations to get the recipe just the way I like it. Hence, Pretty Purple Porter (#5).

The name Pretty Purple Porter is a little bit of a joke based on something funny a close family friend (Mary) said a long, long time ago. Plus the alliteration is nice. But it’s mostly about that inside-joke.

ManyFriends Brewery currently resides in an outbuilding on our property that we affectionally refer to as “The Barn”. (Well, we used to call it “The Barn”, now it’s “The Brewery”, I guess. Anyway…) It’s not heated — other than the fermentors, themselves, or whatever heat is generated during beer-making — so working out there can get a bit chilly, sometimes. I rarely complain*, but those close to me can tell that it’s uncomfortable sometimes.

*This is an outright lie; I complain all the time! But I’m usually just joking around. I have a pretty great life, so I tend to entertain myself by faux-complaining about trivial stuff that doesn’t really matter. This is also helpful in times that are truly stressful, as it reminds me to say “ok, enough complaining! Time to focus…” Anyway…

This past Christmas, Mary got me a great toque with little beer mugs on it. It’s soft and comfortable and all around perfect for working in The Bar^W Brewery. As a show of appreciation (it really is a great hat!), I started sending her texts titled…

The Adventures of Beer Hat

…Partially recreated, herein. 🙂

For our first task together, Beer Hat and I did some Brewery repairs.

This, and a few smaller places around the side, to keep critters out.

We also had to repair a bit of the roof where a tree-branch had fallen. Beer Hat: Protecting future beer from rain damage!

Beer Hat’s first big adventure in town was ringing in the new year with his new friends.

Later that week, I sent Beer Hat to pick up some grain. He’s getting to be quite the little helper!

Beer Hat studied hard on our brewing processes and made his first batch of beer.

After, we visited one of our favorite customers*, and Beer Hat got to sample some finished product.

*Farouk at Cafe Limelight, in Santa Cruz.

A few weeks later, Vicki and I visited Tokyo. Turns out we could sneak Beer Hat along in our suitcase and the airline was none the wiser!

Beer Hat and I* visited a small, family-owned, craft Brewery for a delicious dinner.

*And Vicki, of course! 🙂

USA Hat was becoming envious of all of Beer Hat’s adventures, so we took him to the office for a nice view of Mt. Fuji.

Beer Hat stayed back at the hotel and relaxed in the Sun.

The Following Week, we visited Kyoto and Beer Hat saw his first snow. 🙂