Introducing The Little Pink House Brewing Company

I would like to introduce to you the start of The Little Pink House Brewing Company. A small little home-brew company started up by myself and pal NPY. (CG is also involved as a silent partner/Senior Graphic Designer.) We think that we've started something pretty great here and we plan on taking it as far as we can.


THE HISTORY - A Long Time Ago...
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A few years ago, Spud, T, and The Irish bought me a home brew kit. With it, I made 2 batches - one that was OK and one that was not so OK. I knew the second one was bad when I decided to bring a 12 pack of it to my cousin’s graduation party and when my cousin’s husband Bruce tried it ... well, let’s just say that he was a saint and tried to find some redeeming quality towards a drink that had none. It was a valiant effort that has yet to happen again, but I assure you that it’s not too far off.


THE HISTORY - Not Such A Long Time Ago...
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For Christmas, my favorite younger sister, Spud gave me a gift certificate to a beer making place called INCREDIBREW. It’s a beer making facility that caters to the every kind of beer enthusiast. I knew that I wanted to involve NPY in my rebirth into the beer making process. (I tried to get The Irish and P Murph to come too, but they both had other plans that took them away from the joys of beer making.) No worries though... NPY and I stepped up to the challenge.


First step... pick out beer.

We new we both wanted to do something light and easy given the seasons. (NPY - What’s my motto about beer? .... Don’t be afraid of the dark!) Though I do have a love for all things dark in beer-world, one of my favorite things to do in the summer is to have an ice cold Sam Summer in a frosted pint glass. So after sifting through the 2 giant recipe books. There was a chart right on the first page that broke it down nicely. Dark to light. Bitter to sweet. Wouldn’t you know... BAMN!! right in the middle there - a summer ale.


2nd Step... secure your ingredients.

Brewing beer couldn’t be any easier than at Incredibrew. Not only do they map out all the ingredients in the recipe for you, but they also have a few helpful staff members to help if necessary.

Brewing beer is always about stages and time. Each stage and time allotment will vary depending on the equipment and the recipe, but here’s what it was for our brewing.

Stage 1 - cook the grains in water for color at 180* F . (est time: 30 min)

Stage 2 - Add your malt and glucose. (est time: 60 min)

Stage 3 - add one set of hops. (est time: 30 min)

Stage 4 - add your last set of hops. (est time: 30 min)

BREWER’S NOTE: Make sure you pay special close attention to the adding of your hops. (This may have been the reason my last batch didn’t turn out too good.) You want to add your hops slowly and a little at a time. Because you’re cooking the beer at such a high temperature, you want to add a little in at a time. Otherwise the wort will boil over. A problem that I learned the hard way.

Stage 5 - After a couple of hours, you’re going to (somehow) syphon your wort from the brew kettle into a fermenting pail. It’s here that you’re going to add yeast.

Our beer sat for 2 weeks before we could come back and bottle. Again, this will vary depending on your recipe and equipment.

Another great reason to try INCREDIBREW - on the bottom shelf of the ingredient fridge was a big sign that said ‘leave one, take one.’ So here was your chance to sample some of the other quality batch of home brews that other people had made.






THE HISTORY - Even less of a long time ago...
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During the in between week we employed the third member of the Little Pink House Brewing Company... CG. She designed our super-hip, labels for our first run. (And what a FABULOUS job she did I may add.) NPY and I used to work at this little tiny book store that you’ve probably never heard of. It’s called Narnes and Boble. Well, at this store the ratio of females to males was about 10-1. I honestly believe that there were maybe 5 men that worked there total. Well, 4 of them worked on Tuesday Nights. It was the one time a week where all the guys would outnumber the men. Thus began the Tuesday Night Fun Club.

As for the baseballs and the chairs... well, let’s just say that it’s a long involved story involving the following: break time, frappacino time, whiffle balls, wrapping paper tubes, Wal Mart, Janet, Sue, NPY, myself... and of course... DAVE.



So we headed back up to the brewery for the bottling of the T.N.F.C. summer ale. Again, the process couldn’t have been simpler. Wash and sanitize the bottles. Apply the super sleek stick on labels that CG designed us. Add CO2, then beer, then cap.

BAMN! DONE!!

OH, and BTW - the stats on this whole process at INCREDIBREW:
13.5 gallons of beer
6 full cases
12 - 22 oz bottles per case
(with 8 bottles extra of left over after the 6 cases were bottled.)

The first bottles of the T.N.F.C Summer brew were capped and ready for the drinking.

And to bring it back to the sharing of the beer... while we were capping, we made friends with some of the people at the other station and swapped a 6 pack with them. So we took 6 LONELY DOG’s a delicious honey wheat beer and swapped 6 TNFC’s.



PICTURES and more to come...