Suds n' Spurs Brewfest 2016

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It is said that as his first gift to man, the Greek god Zeus sent down a carbonated barley beverage to intoxicate and delight the teeny, tiny little mortals down below. Now, mind you, that’s not said by many because we just made it up. But it is still technically “said”, so from a legal standpoint we’re in the clear. Plus, who’s gonna sue us? Zeus? He’s too busy hurling righteous thunderbolts at whaling ships or something. But we think we may have lost the point here… Ah that’s right! Beer. A magical word. A word that, much like the actual product, makes you feel all bubbly inside. Though the reason the actual “beer” beer induces that effect is due to carbonation, while the word is more due to… We’re not sure. Freud? You’ve probably always wondered how beer is brewed, right? Well we’re here to answer all your wildest questions, of course assuming that you’re wildest questions involve a cursory understanding of the process of brewing beer, which we feel is pretty likely. If you’d like to get straight to the Brewfest event details without all of our palpable charm, you can find all the details and necessary links at the bottom.

The first step, assuming that one is not malting their own barley, is to mill that beautiful little grain. The key to well-milled barley is to crack the kernels into large pieces while leaving the hulls more or less intact. You could even eat it like a breakfast cereal. We wouldn’t recommend that, but it’s definitely a door you could open. The milled barely is then added to hot water in a device called a mash tun, in order to be mashed. Now, according to the internet, one “tun” is more or less equal to four hogsheads. And one hogshead is about 238 litres. And the Grand Canyon can hold more or less 17 trillion hogsheads. So, if you’re fixing to brew beer in “The Great American Caesareon”, you’ll know what to expect. Once the “mash” (mix of barley and boiling water) is made, that’s when the real freaky stuff starts happening. The heat from the water releases all sorts of enzymes from the barley, which in turn form starches into sugar. The brewmaster can control how much sugar is produced by raising or lowering the temperature of the mash. After the mash has been sufficiently mashed, which has a disappointingly low amount of Gallgher-esque hammer-smashing as the name might imply, it is separated from the spent barley and the sweet liquid now known as “wort”. You read that right. Wort. This is called lautering. Some water is also added during this process to extract more sugars. After the sugar-laden wort (pronounced “wert”) is extracted, it is brought to a rolling boil for one to two hours. This is important for many reasons. One of its chief effects is to sterilize the beer, because we don’t know about you but we like our beer without the incipient threat of viral infection. Interestingly, in olden times this was a literal life-saver. Back in the days of olde,when things were much simpler, when men wore pantaloons, strummed lutes, and burned people at the stake for witchcraft (hey, it wasn’t all positive), the water supply was less than clean. So, oftentimes peasants and serfs would drink beer. Speaking of, “serf” is kind of a radical name for feudalistic social bondage, right? The beer is then transferred to a big tub, and yeast is added. As the yeast consumes the sugar, it expels carbon dioxide and alcohol. The beer is then conditioned, packaged, and shipped to the thirsty masses. You may be wondering why we’ve been talking about beer so much. Besides the obvious, the 5^th annual Suds n’ Spurs Brewfest is just on the horizon. We’re talking about lots of beer, food, live music, and a raffle. 18 different breweries from 6 different states will be showcasing their wares, with local breweries such as Blacktooth Brewing Co. and Luminous. There will also be beer straight from Juneau, Alaska. If that veritable smorgasbord of awesome applies to you, so basically if you’re breathing, tickets are $30 and available at Blacktooth, the Chamber office, at 307-672-2485, or online. All proceeds will go to the Sheridan County Chamber of Commerce and to help local committees and community business interests.