Barefoot Lion Brewing Blog
Just a blog for our homebrewery. Feel free to stop by and check in to see what we're up to. Ok that's what it used to be, but come join us on a new adventure. From humble beginnings, come great things. (and yes I've brewed in the snow to get beer done)
Prost!
I spent a short stint with a small brewery and after a long hiatus from the world, things are starting to shape up toward a new revelation(revolution) in my brewing life. Come follow on the journey, I can't promise being heavily active but will try to keep posts interesting and informative.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Learn to Homebrew Day 2014
Learn to Homebrew Day
Hosting learn to homebrew day, again, at the house. Link to the AHA Site for RSVP.
That's about all to say there.
Kennett Square Brew Fest

Location, Location, Location
It is starting to sound like we are getting a new location lined up. That means expansion should be starting to get planned.
Time to talk funding and investors, so that's going to be fun.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Still Brewing....

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Indoor Brewing |
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The final count was 5. The number of times I hit my head. |
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Harvest time!
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The pile after cleaning up the stems and leaves |

Harvest season means wet hop beer, so continuing the tradition, used those fresh hops in a Black Rye IPA, inspired by both Wookie Jack and crazy Wookie pilots, 'Pryyshaak got a Star Destroyer'. When you have a 5lb pile of hops for a homebrew batch, you tend to do silly things like mash hopping and sparge hopping. The final tally of hops used was 44oz of wet hops.
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Mash Hops |
On the professional front.
They say when it rains it pours...
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The cat's out of the bag...
So now that we've started really talking, and the owner is also openly discussing it... I am now in talks to become a partner in a local brewery, Armstrong Ales.
So eight years in, my old homebrew partner is off in Indiana openning a brewery and I'm here getting ready to start brewing professional.
This blog will start having some professional content in it as well, as we move from a 1 US barrel system to a 15 US barrel system. We still have some money to raise, and the lawyery things to get done but we are starting on the way now.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Saison Brew Day
Back from NHC 2014, I find myself with 7 packs of dry Belle Saison yeast from Dan Star.
I did some research on the yeast, found that it attenuates like a man mad, getting down to 1.002 without a lot of effort. This works just as mom starts to bug me for beer.
A slightly hop forward take on a Saison. I have a small pile of Southern Hemisphere hops, so I decided to make Motueka and Wataku the stars of the this beer.
Needless to say, running saisons at 80+F, the fermentation is quite active. Now we are a week into fermentation the aroma is great, I was expecting more phenols, but I'm not smelling them now. I couldn't find a whole lot of information on this yeast strain as far as flavor characteristics, so I am interested to see what it does.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Coffee in beer.
Getting back to using the Blog:
So I know I planned on getting back to using this, then I stopped about 30 seconds later.
But I feel like I can put some time into writing on here. I want to do a few different projects that I would like to write about.
So let's see how long my attention span stays on here.
Coffee Extract Test:
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Left: .25oz Costa Rican Coffee, fine ground. Right: .25oz Costa Rican Coffee, whole bean. Both in about 2oz of 100 Proof Vodka. |
Being concerned about watering down the final beer and serving as an additional risk of contamination, I wanted to look for an alternate method. Since I have had success with cocoa nibs in vodka, I figured I would try the coffee in vodka as well.
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24 hours |
I let the glasses sit for a few days to see the changes.
By the end of the first day, the beans had all sunk to the bottom and started to release some great aromas, fresh coffee beans(go figure), nutty and hid the alcohol pretty well. The grounds, on the other hand, still smelled like vodka, cheap vodka at that, with just a slight hint of dark coffee.
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48 hours, only slight color difference |
Sampling over the next two days yielded pretty much the same results, with some evolving coffee flavor in whole beans. The flavor was still stronger in the grounds.
I pulled a blind sample for someone, with no explanation of what he was tasting. The flavor and aroma from the whole beans masked the alcohol, to the point that he thought that, when he sampled the grounds, he said right away, "There's alcohol in this." I explained that both were the same solution, just one made with coffee grounds while the other is made with whole beans.
So, the conclusion? I'm going to use both. Probably a 70/30 or 60/40 blend by weight of beans to grounds. I want the coffee flavor as well as the aroma, but going into a dark beer too much astringency from the coffee might make it hard to drink.