Big Brew turned out great. Zach, John, Jim, and the brewery were great hosts. I suspect they enjoyed seeing the individual homebrewer rigs as much as we enjoyed coming down to Oak Creek to brew.

We were able to sample their Imperial Porter and Rare Earth, a Saison that was aged in Oak Wine barrels from Page Springs winery. I had Rare Earth at this year's Strong Ale festival in Mesa so I was looking forward to trying it again as soon as Zach mentioned it would be there. The wood aging clarifies and added an interesting red color to the brew. The wine character is apparent in both the aroma and flavor so it was great to get to enjoy again.

The brew day went well for me I ended up coming up with my own partial mash recipe based on some scraps at the shop and a few things offered by Oak Creek. Among them was some of hops they had won in the Sam Adams raffle, so it seemed rather appropriate that Jim Koch's generosity was further passed along.

The brews went well for myself and everyone else, we look forward to sharing the finished beers with the guys at the brewery in the future. It was a great opportunity to teach some of the breweries customers that you can brew at home.

John, a brewer at Oak Creek, was the day's archivists with his photos and he has just started blogging so check them both out.