Brewseum
This section is dedicated to the unique Gray Bones Brews. It is a compendium of the flavors and special labels used to celebrate my family's life.
Sherman's Flight Wings
Sherman's Flight Wings is the premium cherry mead that was created for my father's 90th birthday. To his family, he is known by his middle name, Sherman. The picture was taken during his flight training in World War II.
The mead was made in two stages. The initial stage was made with 1 gallon of premium local honey. It was given 2 weeks to ferment. Then 6 cans of Ortegan Red Tart Cherries in water (14.5 oz) were pureed and added to the mead. It was given another 6 weeks to ferment and age in the carboy before being bottled on 10/18/2013.
This is an extremely limited batch of 43-12 oz bottles and 2 specialty bottles.
Bill Gray's Classroom Tonic
This beer is a special label attached to two previously brewed similar flavors: Plain Jane and Dirty Jane.
The picture was from 1981, when dad was still teaching at the Denison High School.
I had brewed a Plain Jane for the birthday party. Usually, it takes 2 weeks to ferment the beer. But after the initial 2 weeks, the beer was not ready to bottle. So to avoid any premature evacuations, the beer was racked and set aside until after the party.
Flying Pig Brew
Flying Pig Brew is the label used at my brother's wedding for Mysterious Brunette, Dirty Blonde, Plain Jane, Dirty Jane, Sultry Redhead, and Sexy Redhead brews that were available during the weekend of his wedding.
The picture is of a pig flying through hell frozen over. The established date is the wedding date and the difficult to read inscription on the left reads, "Congratulations to ME!" Which are the initials of the bride and groom.
Mysterious Brunette
The Mysterious Brunette is a brew that you can chew. It is made in the monk style of Belgian dark beers using Trappist Ale Yeast and Belgian Candy sugar. The brew is very dark and has many complex flavors that age well. When people drink this beer, their initial reaction is always shock, because they are not ready for the flavor explosion and robust character of this beer.
Dirty Blonde
The Dirty Blonde is a wheat beer made with wheat and barley malt. I use heffeweizen ale yeast, some of which will impart banana esters to the beer. This beer has a very clean finish and is excellent with a hamburger or steak.
Plain Jane
The Plain Jane was my first creation. It is a simple medium ale that has almost no bitterness. I liken it to drinking a glass of fresh iced tea. It is made using a mix of light and amber malt syrups, very low amounts of hops, and Safebrew T-58 ale yeast.
Dirty Jane
The Dirty Jane is a bastardization of the Dirty Blonde. My local home brew supply does not have consistent wheat malt syrup. They premix the syrup 60% wheat and 40% barley malt syrup, which is the general ratio used in wheat beers. Unfortunately, the ratio does not stay that way. Apparently the syrups do not stay mixed, so you can sometimes get very little wheat syrup in the mix. When this happens, I throw in some Safebrew T-58 ale yeast and call it a Dirty Jane (mix of Dirty Blonde and Plain Jane).
Sultry Redhead
Sultry Redhead is a raspberry mead. It is made with clover honey and frozen raspberries. I did not add priming sugar to my Sultry Redhead, which made it like wine, i.e., without carbonation.
Mead is a honey wine and is likely the first fermented drink. It was believed that if you drank honey wine each day for a month (a moon) after getting married, then you would conceive a son. Hence the term honey moon.
Sexy Redhead
Sexy Redhead is a cherry mead. It is made with a variety of honey and pureed Ortegan Red Tart Cherries in water. I add priming sugar to make it carbonated, which makes it effervesce like a sparkling wine.
In non-scientific taste tests among friends and family, the Sultry Redhead is preferred to the Sexy Redhead, but the Sexy Redhead is preferred over no mead!
So ladies, the lesson is that people prefer sultry over sexy!
On a side note, the Sultry Redheads have not had the premature evacuation issues that the Sexy Redheads have been plagued by.
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