Beermaking update

A bit off topic, but thanks to a fantastic wedding gift, I've gotten heavy into homebrewing. I could go on and on about the different beers and equipment, but the piece de resistance is a kegerator that some friends and I converted. Here's the story:

I picked up all the goodies (from Rebel Brewer, an awesome homebrewing store in Goodlettsville) as well as an old fridge on cragislist ($175 delivered):

Then my buddies (to whom I am now eternally indebted and grateful) Aaron and Dan came over and got all handy on it. First, we built a level base for the kegs to sit (that's the CO2 in there):

Then we put in 4 taps one by one, with this being the first:

After all 4 taps were in, we drilled a hole in the side for the CO2 to run in (it's not yet attached to the CO2 canister at this point):

Finally, and some may argue most importantly, I hooked up a 1/6 commercial keg of local favorite Yazoo's hefeweizen and gave it its first foamy pour:

Here are the insides with a commercial keg in there:

And here are the taps from the inside of the door, waiting for homebrew kegs to be attached (you can see where the Yazoo is attached on the far left):

I finally got the homebrews kegged and hooked up and ready and the commercial keg out, so it's all homebrews all the time:

I also slapped some chalkboard paint on the freezer door so that everything could be labelled:

Finally, I picked up a gorgeous half-sized keg so that I can put 4 in at one time (the compressor controller gets in the way height-wise in the back, so I needed something shorter):

Happy brewing indeed ...

Yonder Mountain String Band w/ the Infamous Stringdusters, Marathon Music Works, Nashville, TN - 2/10/2012

Here's a quick, no frills recap of this one. A couple of buddies and I made this show on a last minute decision. First off, this was my first visit to this venue, and it is quite awesome - great sight lines, nice bar area, $5 draft Yazoos, clear sound. Parking is an issue, which I figured.

We walked in midway through the Stringdusters' set, and just as I heard, they were pretty great - extremely good players with a more traditional mode of newgrass.

YMSB came out a good deal later and played a very long couple of sets with an encore. I used to be something of a fan, but I don't think that they are particularly great bluegrass players and find the very long, very repetitive (3 chords stretched out for 10 minutes) tunes to get a bit old at times. I enjoyed that they had a revolving cast of Nashville bluegrass stars playing with them.

Had a great time but would have enjoyed a more economical set from the headliners ...