The Yeast Beast

I think Dave’s suffering from a yeast infection. It’s all he talks about. He is consumed by it. Two weeks ago he performed the normal tasks related to brewing a batch of beer. The beer is from a hundreds year old recipe brewed on the farm of Thomas Jefferson. I was not there at the outset of this endeavor but all seemed to be going well when I arrived. We managed to get through the process and sealed the bucket for the fermentation stage.

Dave started to get a little itchy 2 days in when no visible signs of fermentation were present. He then revealed that the proprietor of the brew supply store warned him about the expiration date of the yeast packet. He assured the nice lady that the dead yeast she was selling him would be fine. To his credit, now he says, “I may have been wrong.” May have been Dave? Still, he decided to wait until the weekend to deal with the issue.

He added a second helping of yeast one week after the initial batch. Twelve hours later he called a “Code Blue brewing disaster.” This is when Dave found religion, well sort of. He asked, “Have I offended Silenus? (Silenus is a Greek god of beer and a drinking companion. He is usually associated with his buddy, Dionysus. He is often featured as a bald and fat man, with a big beer belly. He is normally drunk and it is said that he had to be carried either by donkeys or satyrs (in Greek mythology, satyrs are wood-dwelling creatures with the head and body of a man and the ears, horns, and legs of a goat).”

Last night, the third attempt at yeasting Dave’s brew was made with live active yeast taken form the batch I brewed on Sunday. Today, he’s still got nothing. The homebrew help sites and forums were all checked for possible reasons and ways to save the brew. Dave came up with a list of possible to do’s. Last on the list, number 7, was the word “pray.” Quickly evaluating the situation, I advised the inflamed biermeister to forgo steps one through six. The following was his response, which Mike thinks should be included on the label of each BierWerkes brew.

“Oh Silenus! I beseech thee. Grant thy humble servant success in brewing. Give unto me strong, flavorful, nutritious beer. May my fountain of beer never run out. Consider now that my mug is dry. The unnatural state causes great stress and angst to me and all of my family. My brewery moans and suffers from this awful plight. Heal thy bucket and give us bubbles aplenty.”

Such a compassionate and heartfelt plea such as this surely will be heeded by the Great Silenus.

Dave has decided to go to the bottling stage immediately. Somewhere we hope all the gods and satyrs are smiling, and blessing us with a cure for the yeast beast that has been plaguing Dave’s brew. A potent potable is all we ask as salve for the brewer’s sullied soul.