The plan keeps coming up again...

Late summer is always a bear for us when it comes to brewing. See, there are three different events that we need to plan for: my church's Oktoberfest party, my homebrew club's Oktoberfest party, and our Novemberfest party. We generally bring one keg to each of the Oktoberfests and have three kegs for Novemberfest, so that's 25 gallons of beer right there. Since we can brew 10-gallon batches, that translates to three brew days with three different styles, two of which need to be ready by late September. This year we're planning on brewing an Oktoberfest/Märzen, an Altbier and a Schwarzbier.

Now the tricky thing with planning is making sure we have adequate space for everything. You figure the lagers will need at least three weeks in our temperature-controlled chest freezer for primary fermentation, and the Alt will need around two. After primary, we have a fridge in the garage we can use for lagering, but that only holds three kegs. Of course, if the chest freezer is being used for primary fermentation, that means we can only lager three kegs at any given time. Therein lies the problem.

There's also the issue of timing. If I need at least three weeks in primary for each lager, that means the brews have to be staggered three weeks. And if it takes roughly six weeks for the lager to be ready overall, that means nine weeks before two batches of lager can be ready. Looking at my calendar, that means I have to brew the first beer by August 1st for everything to be ready by the 25th. Oh, and we have a baby due six days before August 1. Hmm...

For now I think the easiest solution is to try and brew our first beer (probably our Oktoberfest) sometime in early July. Then it gives us a little more flexibility for a brew day in August. And then we can brew the Altbier in late September, thus avoiding any issues with refrigerator space. This does run the risk of Leah going into labor during a brew day, but if that happens I guess we roll with the punches.

In the meantime, it looks like we'll have to put our Rauchbier on the backburner (my buddy Mark and I want to try smoking our own malt in an effort to duplicate Schlenkerla's Fastenbier). Nonetheless, between the brewing and the baby it looks like late summer/early fall is going to be rather busy!