Freedom Beer

Yesterday was beer bottling day. Much like Laverne and Shirley, we worked the line Old Milwaukee style and came away from the adventure with nearly 6 cases of tasty Rattlesnake Lager. Good stuff. Some of our friends agreed to join us to lend a hand. I guess the promise of free beer is motivator enough. We all met up at 1:30pm at Vine Park Brewery in St. Paul. I thought the actual brewing part was fun, but the bottling was even better. The staff at the brewery encourages the you to sample your beer as you bottle and cap it. We provided some snacks as bottling is some hard work and one can become famished. We had to guard against folks passing out :)


Above you can see the antics of some of our brewing comrades (I will withhold names to protect the guilty!). I think it is fair to say that we all had a pleasant experience drinking our self-crafted nectar and partaking in some harmless revelry.

In one of the images you will see there was a quality control incident. One bottling related injury occurred so, be warned, this task is not for the faint of heart. Ms Jo received a small gash whilst opening a bottle. After some immediate triage, we all agreed that this injury was not fatal and she would live on to bottle another day. Whew. Jo, you might want to investigate a Tetanus shot to forgo any future lock jaw issues or various other bottling infection-type maladies. I'm just sayin . . . .

Well, lest you think that all we did was drink and cause mayhem, here are some pictures of the finished product. Since it was only 3pm when we finished, we continued the fun at a secret, yet-to-be disclosed location. A bonfire and more merriment ensued. All in all it was a great day!
















Now onto an Independence Day tie-in . . . you knew it was coming . . . A while back there was a big uproar over the French not supporting our ill-conceived and poorly executed war in Iraq. Some brilliant (insert sarcasm) person decided to re-name French Fries to Freedom Fries. I thought that was funny. I would like to do something similar and from here on out will refer to our beer as Freedom Beer not just because we bottled it the day after the 4th of July. No. Each time we take a sip of this fine beverage, we will pay tribute to those brave souls who stand up and defend our freedom. I'm not talking about the soldiers in Iraq. While I respect and admire them for their sacrifice and I wish them a speedy return home, I'm talking about those who are trying to defend our Constitution, fight for our civil liberties and keep the government in check. Not an easy job. For you, fearless defenders of the freedom, well . . . this beers for you. Happy 4th of July everyone.