Beer Wars Tonight and Home Brewery Troubles

So tonight is the Beer Wars Live movie/live-simulcast-panel-discussion-thing and I will be seeing it, along with R, at the theater in Union Square. Earlier in the week I looked over this FAQ post on the movie's web site. The very fact that this post is even there would indicate that the movie's director/producer has been taking some heat and decided that they'd take the time to address some of the more frequent or pointed questions thrown their way. I'm pretty surprised that they'd get so many questions about the cost and the decision to have Ben Stein host the panel discussion.

First, $15 is not a heck of a lot of money these days. And when you consider that this movie is only being shown in theaters on one date, at one time, AND they're satelite feeding some discussion, I would have expected it to be more than $15.

Second, on Ben Stein... I completely agree that he's a piece of crap. I watch the Sunday Morning show on CBS with R on the weekends and his rants about the economy, politics, and whatever else is on his uber-capitalist mind, are really annoying. But to boycot the movie over it (see the comments section on the FAQ post)? Seems a bit rash to me.

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Some potentially troubling news out of my home brewery. I think I may have an infection. I'm noticing that my last three batches seem to have a mild bit of sourness in the finish. Unfortunately, living in an apartment in an Urban Area, I don't really have the ability to separate some of the functions of a brew day. For example, I have to crush grains in the same room where I store all of my gear. I do a pretty good job of minimizing the proliferation of grain dust, but it's not remotely possible to contain it all. So I wouldn't be surprised if I got some kind of lactic acid bacteria infiltrating my gear. Frankly, I should be surprised that this hasn't happened sooner.

So what does this mean? Tomorrow night, everything that comes in contact with wort post boil is getting replaced, autoclaved, boiled, and/or thrown through some kind of multi-step sanitation regime of bleach, star-san, and iodophor.

Also, I used gelatin for the first time the other day to clarify a beer. That stuff stinks! After dumping the gelatin solution into the keg, I caught a whiff of the mason jar that I mixed it up in. Smelled like feces. Like an actual shit. Granted, the beer has no doodoo off-aroma at all. But I don't know if I can bring myslef to use that stuff again.