I can’t believe it. I can’t f%&#ing believe it. I can’t F%&#ING BELIEVE IT!!! They all blew. THEY ALL BLEW! THE WHOLE G%#DAMN CABINET!!!

It is quite possible that I have discovered a source of energy that is renewable, organic, has the potential to free us from the grip of foreign oil, and will get you drunk. If, that is, we can find some way to control its destructive force. I… have not.

Where to start with this one? You’ll recall a few months back (last year, in fact), when I posted regarding the violent explosion of one of my new Tripel homebrews? I lamented the loss, gave thanks to my pet rabbit for alerting me to the carnage (by thumping), and asked a small prayer that such an occurrence would never happen again. Remember that?

Fast forward to two weeks ago. The Kolonel is breaking out one of his now three-month-old Tripels for a taste (and carbonation) test. The wife happens to be standing close by, which helps the situation none. For about three seconds after I open it, nothing. Then the carbonation lying dormant in the sediment at the bottom of the bottle “wakes up” and, like a GI trying to unload a live handgrenade (full of beer), I race the impending geyser to the sink to let it off-gas. After a few seconds I figure the worst is over, so I re-cap it with one of those reusable wine stoppers and leave it alone it to think about what it has done. 20 min or so later I return to enjoy it, assuming by now it will be smooth drankin. Again, with the wife standing by. As I release the lever on the stopper I am greeted by a burst of overpressurized foam that blasts me right in the face (so to speak). At this point I dump the rest down the drain and grab a Fat Tire. But I swear… I thought I heard… laughter… as the potent brew slipped away to oblivion….

Two nights ago the rabbit started thumping again.

This time I let it go, and he stopped after a bit. Yesterday morning I woke up, in kind of a hurry to get to an 0700 debrief, and as I walked out of the bedroom was greeted by the sweet smell of… beer! Ahhh, glorious, I thought–followed immediately by ahhhh, s#!+ as I walked into the kitchen and beheld a LAKE of beer, strewn with tiny, jagged islands of broken glass (If a barefoot burglar had come in that night through the kitchen I would have been all like “ha ha, joke’s on you, sucka”). I’m talkin beer clear across the kitchen and under the fridge.  So, as any good man of the house would do, I walked into the bathroom where the wife was getting ready, informed her that a lot of beer had exploded all over the kitchen, and that I was late for my debrief and had to roll. She took it well. We have our first meeting with the therapist scheduled for Tuesday.

In all honesty, amazement is the emotion foremost in our minds. Now, when I say they ALL blew up, that wasn’t exactly true. I had a second batch of the Kolonel’s Tripel in a different cabinet, and those survived. However, in the offending cabinet, EVERY one of the Tripels went. That’s between 12 and 15 beers. Glass blew over the inner wall and into drawers three shelves over. I’m wondering if Mythbusters or Smashlab or someone would like to do a bit on it, cause I would love to watch one of those super-slow-mo replays to see how the force from the first explosion transfers to the next beer, and so on. Did they go one after another, or was it an expanding, exponential blast (hence the nuclear reference)? We’ll never know. After 2 hours of cleaning last night we now have a relatively glass-free abode and a cabinet whose insides bear the scars (no kidding) of a million glass shards flying at incredible speed. 

So, what did we learn? First off, life is unpredictable. Who would have thought it would take 3 months for such a buildup? (By the way, I “retired” the rest of the Tripels, while wearing heavy gloves and a paintball mask, by gingerly opening them in the sink. Yeah… they were ready to blow too). Second, even in life’s unpredictability, things DO happen for a reason. I screwed this one up right from the beginning. With a beer of this gravity you absolutely NEED a secondary fermentation to clarify the mixture, or else you end up bottling it with a lot of food left for the yeast (and hence, a lot of CO2). Then, in some cockamamie moment of idiocy, I thought adding a pinch of fresh yeast just prior to bottling would give it that extra touch of flavor and character. Basically I poured gasoline on the fire, then poured gunpowder on top of that, and threw it in the cabinet to age. Duhh. But finally, the greatest lesson of all is to learn from our mistakes. My carboy arrived in the mail last night and I transferred my belgian wit from the primary into there, and this batch looks and smells great. I added extra coriander and some orange peel to the spice bag, and I can tell the final product is going to be phenomenal.

You remember a couple posts ago when I talked about how I was kinda moving on from tripels? Well, they had the last laugh. Tripels… I salute you.