You never think it will happen to you. Sure, there’s the occasional boilover, the incidental spillage during bottling, the random skunky beer. All risks that are inherent to the homebrewing trade. But until last night, I’d never experienced the worst of them all… the catastrophic beerplosion.

Now, I’ll admit I was asking for this one. Adding fresh yeast to an already extremely high-gravity beer is a risky proposition at best. But I persevered, and for three weeks, I HAD it man! No exploding bottles! Cripes, even the ones I had specially flown to VA (by my wife, professional beer-mule that she is) made it in one piece! Three weeks! I was in the clear.

Then, at 4:30 this AM I was awakened by a muffled but still quite powerful {THUMP} sound from the kitchen. Apparently my rabbit must have thought there was another bunny thumping in the cabinet or something, because he immediately started thumping in response too, which is in fact what finally drew me out of the bedroom to lay some smackdown. Little guy saved the day… [sniff]. For there, on the kitchen floor, was the broken glass and spilt brew of a bottle that had apparently gone out like that one dude’s cranium in the movie Scanners. The cabinet door was closed–this little homey had enough force to blow it open. So, after procuring suitable eye protection (in case my suicidal friend had given any of his neighbors ideas… or structural damage), I set to work cleaning up the sad remnants of a young beer that had once held so much potential. The biggest piece of glass left was about the size of a quarter. I put most of the remaining brews into a plastic tub that will hopefully contain any future beerplosions, but let us hope this is an isolated incident. Cause otherwise I’m just gonna have to drink them all at once before it gets any worse. And then I will be not just sleepy as I am now, but massively intoxicated.

Here’s a toast to one fine bottle of beer that will never have the chance to go down, down into my belly. Vaya con Dios. But… no more like that, hmm?