Recovering, Slowly

Some might ask why on earth anyone would think it a good idea to brew your ambitious batch N on the day you have a party to celebrate said milestone. Some might ask, "Shouldn't you know better by now?" Or, "Isn't that too much work?" Well. It's the idea of the thing. Or stupidity. But you know what?

We did it. So there.


Here's batch 300 on the right, accompanied by batch 300A on the left, fermenting merrily away.
There will be a separate post detailing the brewing activities. While Annette returned to the kitchen after having left off at 10PM previous, Skip, Richard, and a little later, Roy, came over to help with brewing and miscellaneous setup eeearly in the morning. The water was started heating at 7AM, Batch 300 was settled into fermenters by about 4PM, with 300A following by about an hour or so.
In and around the brewing and setup of chairs, tables, canopies, etc, there was some cookin' going on. As noted in a previous post, a couple of things were cooked the day before: pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, trifle, gumbo. The morning and early afternoon saw roasted garlic and onion jam/blue cheese pizzas, couscous pilaf, smoked turkey legs, salads, two legs of lamb, a big ol' salmon, sangria, and probably a few more things my fatigued memory cannot bring forth just now. If it wasn't meat, then Annette did it, and I could scarcely stay on top of the few food items I was responsible for. And, of course, since there were many brewers in attendance, there were many other contributions to the feast arriving all day. There was a lot of food. A lot. And almost no leftovers. There was beer, too. The final lineup:

Helles
Pils
Maibock
Imperial Pils
Schwarzbier
Rauchbier
IPA
Pale Old Ale
Big Brown Ale
Irish Stout (cask)

Of course, there were lots of bottles and growlers of various delightful things being shared around, as well. We are estimating that there were 60 people in our tiny yard at peak, with people coming and going until pretty late. By 3AM, though, we were down to two very tired Cicerones and a couple of dozing guys around the fire.

That was a lot of work, but totally worth it. Thanks to all that came to help celebrate this minor milestone, and especially to those that worked so hard to help us pull it off. We toast you with the pints of cask stout we're enjoying, on its last night of viability. Cheers!