The hubs is growing hops this summer, something he's always wanted to do. Years ago, I gave him a
Mr. Beer brew kit as a Christmas present. This kit is really geared towards the novice beer brewer, which was fine when he was learning the process. But after a few rounds of brewing, he quickly got bored with it, because it didn't leave room for a lot of experimentation. He wanted to step it up a notch, and to grow his own hops and mix in his own natural homegrown ingredients to make some interesting brews.
Next week is the hub's birthday so I decided to buy him a new brew kit to allow him to experiment with different home brew recipes, before he jumps into growing his own. There is a local company called
Brooklyn Brew Shop that sells brew kits as well as different beer mix ingredients. I bought the kit that has the beer mix of Chocolate Maple Porter for his birthday. Yum, doesn't that sound just ah-
mazing? Plus, I'm pretty excited that we can support a local business.
I also picked out another flavor, Honey Sage, their belgian ale. I love honey flavors in a beer so this sounds just yummy.
I didn't have any wrapping paper at home, but I have garden catalogs! I took the staples out of the catalog and taped the sheets together. I love
recycling seed catalogs!
I wrapped the beer kit in my new "wrapping paper".
Hahaha, looks good to me! Happy birthday love!
Yeah, those Mr. Beer kits get old quickly! We've been brewing awhile and there's nothing like the real fermentation and brewing equipment! We grow Cascade hops as those are the ones most frequently used in our IPA's, check the growing requirements for what's good in your area, but most should do well there. Freshops is a great place to source rhizomes and they have oodles of info on the website. Hubby built a kegerator last year out of a stainless dorm fridge and it's empty (yikes!) now so he'll be brewing 2 more batches this week :) Let us know how your batch turns out, it sounds good!
ReplyDeleteMeems, I love it. We have a friend who makes his own beer and his porter is the best! Like red wine, a good dark beer is hard to beat. We have some golden hops growing, if you'd like a start; although, I don't know if it is the same as the regular hops.
ReplyDeleteI hope hubby likes his present, seems like you couldn't go wrong with beer. That is a fabulous idea for wrapping paper, I must remember to do it next time I need to send a gift.
ReplyDeleteThe new beer kit sounds like a wonderful birthday present and I love the wrapping paper...really cool.:) We will definitely be saving our seed catalogues for this going forward...such a great idea.
ReplyDeleteCute idea for wrapping his present. Hope he enjoys using it!
ReplyDeleteWhat varieties of hops are you growing? We've got Kent Golding, Nugget, and Sterling. They just about ate our little garage last summer.
ReplyDeleteMy husband had some kind of home brew making kit, well, maybe he still does, but he has never used it. I love your "wrapping paper"!
ReplyDeleteIs there any better gift, I think not :-)
ReplyDelete