I can’t quite muster the courage to effectively write this post. Last night, at approximately 0230 PST, a loud, wet sort of pop announced the end of a hefeweizen that had barely begun. Brewed on Friday, the OG was solid at 1.042, the color was an even, red earthy base with a mighty amber froth. Hell, even the yeast smelled incredible. It all stopped last night.  Begin CSI: Brewery!  Let’s begin with the fermenter itself, a Grape and Granary 6-gallon primary fermenter, on loan from its owner, a Captain Beer living in Southern California to his constituent Sergeant Stout. The recipe was simple enough, a standard Hefeweizen with all extract, no specialty grains and an ounce of Mt. Hood hops. The yeast was a specialty strain for German-style Hefeweizens, White Labs WLH-300. It was brewed Friday, April 18th at 9:12 pm, with the yeast being pitched serving as the designated brew time. OG was 1.042, and brewing was generally uneventful. Much Xbox was played. All this changed 37 hours later. In the middle of the the night, Saturday, I was awaken by an audible bang, followed by a nasty ‘flop’ sound on the floor. My assumption was that a cat had knocked something off a desk and subsequently destroyed something valuable that I would deal with in the morning. How wrong I was.  This is a recreation on the back patio, but you get the idea. The lid (4) had blown nearly five feet from the fermenter (3). This had happened more than six hours earlier, so I had a good idea resterilization was out of the question, and the beer was toast. Damn. What was left was a still frothy beginning of beer.  And just my broken will. Back to the drawing boards, kids. Methinks a blowoff valve with 1″ tubing affixed to the airlock will help prevent this from recurring. Sarge Out.