In a former life I was indeed a commercial brewer and the above pic I came across recently is of one of the several brewhouses I ran back in the early-mid 90’s. This is the Hops Grillhouse & Brewery in the Carollwood neighborhood in Tampa, FL, many good stories from my time there. As you can imagine you get very good at polishing copper in this brewhouse. Please also notice all the Briess bags nicely stacked to the left! This was a direct fire 7BBL brewhouse with 2 x 7BBL and 2 x 14BBL FV’s + a bunch of highly polished Grundy tanks. Anyone who was in the craft brewing industry “back in the day” knows what a Grundy tank is (the reason the 7BBL brewery size exists in our industry) and how easy it is to track down parts for them (not). And since I’m reminiscing I thought I’d share a great barley wine recipe I brewed in 2002. This 3BBL recipe is a bit more in the English style than the bigger in-your-face barley wines; I kept it somewhat lighter in body by using Florida Orange Blossom Honey at the end of the boil. Give it a shot, you’ll love it! You can link to the recipe here: El Chupacabra Barley Wine
