Zwickelmania

I learned a new word in German yesterday…”Zwickel”. Apparently that’s a spigot, in particular on the bottom of a brewing cask used for sampling beer.
The local wineries have twice yearly open houses that seem to draw crowds well. On Saturday Oregon’s breweries gave it a go under the “Zwickelmania” banner. It sounds like turn out was good, so here’s hoping they do it again.
We “only” went to HUB. One of their brewmasters gave us a tour and a few samples of their exquisitely crafted beers. It was amazing to see the “air locks” (bucket with a plastic hose blowing off the top of the fermenter) on their massive fermenters blasting away. That many gallons of wort sure kick out a lot of CO2. Makes ours look absolutely puny.
Among the various interesting things we learned about HUB is that they (the brewers) have an open door policy Friday evenings, they welcome homebrewers and the curious to stop by for a chat, and even sell barley and yeast! And they use Young’s yeast for some things…I’ve got to try getting some of that for our next batch of chocolate stout.