It was perfect! The wife and kids were going away for the weekend. I had the house all to myself. I had already misplaced the honey-do-list, or at least planned to. My only task was to keep the dog, the guinea pig and the lizard alive for the entire weekend —a difficult task, but not insurmountable. Hmm, what to do . . . what to do. What about . . . oh, I don’t know . . . perhaps a BREW SESSION. Yeah, that’s the ticket. One small problem. It was late July, in north Texas. A quick look at the forecast revealed a high of only 100 ºF (38 ºC). No problem — a little water, a few beers, a dip in the pool, let the games begin!

With my buddy Mike arriving back in town late on Friday night and me succumbing to a scratched cornea that same day, we decided to push back the brewing session to 2:00 PM on Saturday — in the heat of the day. What the hell, I’ve done stupider things, like jamming my eye into the support rod of a dirty clothes hamper (hence the scratched cornea). No pain, no gain, eh? I’m not sure what that annoying little phrase has to do with this situation, but it somehow seems appropriate.

After arriving at Mike’s house, I began unloading all of my equipment, grains, supplies and beer. Did I already say beer? We set up everything in his backyard, and readied for the day’s activities. Of course this included donning the customary Old School Brewery caps. The ubiquitous OSB is our brew club in Flower Mound, Texas with a membership of . . . let’s see . . . carry the 2 . . . divide by 3 . . . that would be 2 — Mike and me.

We were both making Czech beers, mine an Octoberfest from the January 2000 BYO edition, and Mike’s, a Kumburak Pilsner knock-off. As we began measuring the brewing water, the thermometer read 97.5 ºF (36 ºC). The sweat was pouring from our brows, arms, legs — you get the picture. I faintly remember Mike calling me an “expletive” as I began to whine about the heat. I bucked up after a short trip to my air conditioner — I mean, house — to retrieve some forgotten supplies. After 20 minutes of searching the comfy leather couch with no avail, I returned to Mike’s. Amazingly, he had everything ready to go (he always falls for this).

Having brewed together for several years, we had perfected the idiosyncrasies of grain brewing. Why, it only took us an hour to begin adding grain to the mash tun! Boy, how we’ve progressed! Since neither of us had a camp lighter with us, we fired up the very manly propane burners . . . with a nifty white candle. It was 3:00 PM and the temperature had crept up to a mere 98.3 ºF (37 ºC). With grains added and strike temperature struck, it was time to relax and have a cold beer. After all, it’s not a complete brewing session without a little dehydration and heat exhaustion.

It was 4:30 PM, the grains were converted and it was time to sparge. We briefly talked about having a sparge race (Mike’s a pro at this) whereby the winner is really the loser since the OG is off by a very wide margin. The temperature was nearing the century mark and the only thing that kept us going (other than the cold beers) was the thought of jumping into the cold swimming pool after the day’s activities.

At 6:00 PM, as we began boiling the wort, we looked over at the thermometer and noticed the temperature had risen to 100.9 ºF (38 ºC). Our day was now complete! I turned to Mike to shake his hand, as Section 43.2 of Brew Law dictates. Proper protocol also calls for another beer! With the boil finished at 7:30 PM it was time to cool the wort. We were finally on the downside of the brew session! The temperature had dropped to a cool 99 ºF (37 ºC). We placed the brew pots into ice laden containers and waited for the wort to cool, and waited, and waited. By 9:00 it had cooled enough to pitch the yeast.

We were about to finally reap our reward with a plunge into the cold pool water — well deserved after such a grueling session. As Mike jumped into the water an inexplicable string of expletives came pouring from his mouth. I followed shortly and a similar string reverberated through the neighborhood. As it turns out, one of the kids had inadvertently turned the pool heater on and the temperature was 96 ºF (36 ºC). This capped off the end of a perfect brewing day!

Epilogue: As I sit here writing about our adventure, whilst drinking a home brew, I can hear the satisfying gurgles of the air exiting the blow-off tube. That sound alone makes it all worthwhile!