I chatted with a guy I knew from high school the other day. This guy also happens to be a home brewer, so naturally part of our catch-up conversation was about beer and brewing.

When I mentioned to him that we have a newborn coming soon (due April 16th), he said I should brew a beer to mark the occasion and then suggested the title “Welcome to the world!” Wit. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to brew it. I can’t cook it up this weekend because we’re too close to delivery date (the last thing I want to happen is to have to stop what I’m doing in the middle of a batch to take Malin to the hospital – and obviously telling Malin to wait for a few hours for me to finish wouldn’t be a realistic option). So I’m hoping the whole family can hang out on the deck in the nice weather while I’m on vacation (I’m taking three weeks off when the new one is born), and maybe I’ll have a chance to cook up the celebratory beer at that point in time.

The biggest thing going for me being able to brew with a newborn around is the fact that my wife loves Belgian Witbiers. I’m still deciding which recipe to cook up – my box o’ uncooked original recipes currently includes two Wits: Hump’s Wry Wit – a witbier made with malted rye instead of malted wheat; and Hump’s Witless Monk Ale – an “imperial” Witbier at >7%abv. I think I’m leaning towards the Rye Wit – since “imperial” isn’t always the best pair with “hot weather in Atlanta” (among other reasons)…

In any event, I still have lots of delicious stuff sitting in the basement, eager go into kegs. That may have to tide me over until the time when I can make the next baby-welcoming batch.

The dark strong Belgian ale I made three weeks ago is probably ready to be kegged. I racked it to a secondary fermentor for a little aging since time will do it good (it finished at nearly 9% abv). It could certainly stand to stay in the secondary for a few more weeks, but I’m getting itchy for something new…

The English IPA I made last week, Hump’s Punjabi Pale Ale, is very nice so far. It’s probably finished fermenting (though yesterday I did see the occasional slow bubble from the fermentation lock). My plan is to rack it over 1.5 ounces of dry hops (Fuggles and Target) and let it sit for another couple of weeks in that state before kegging. I can hardly wait!

And, of course, we have the India Amber Ale I just made this past weekend: Hump’s Red Bedlam. It features some of my favorite hops – Columbus and Simcoe. It smells retardedly awesome, blowing hoppy and estery air out of the fermentation lock as it bubbles along. Once it is done fermenting (I’ll probably give it another week from now), I’ll rack it over 1.5 ounces of dry hops, too (more Columbus and Simcoe).

My current line-up of kegs is nowhere near empty, so I’ll be putting a lot of beer into bottles over the coming weeks. Of course, Malin will actually be able to drink some beer pretty soon here, so maybe we’ll finish some of this stuff off after all…

Also this past weekend we added three more hop plants to the garden: Centennial (my favorite), Horizon (never used but have read lots of good things about it), and Willamette (the most plentiful rhizomes available at my local homebrew store). And the Chinook we planted last year has already started coming out of the ground (though growth is admittedly modest). We had to cover everything Monday night to prepare for the freak cold front that came through. The mercury dipped below freezing Monday night and Tuesday night. And today things returned to their normal Spring self (near 70 degrees – a long way from freezing).