Alright , so it’s been a few more days since my first post than I originally planned– my bad. I suppose that it wasn’t a good idea to start a blog the weekend before I had a midterm, two speeches, a lab report, basketball band practice, and 3 games to play at. Whoops.
Anyway, I’d like to talk about a little– well that’s a little (so is this) misleading– project of mine. That was a horrible sentence; I apologize. I’ll start over. I want to talk about a big time, money and alcohol consuming project of mine. The project is a table top covered in beer bottle caps.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “wow, that’s lame. Everyone dreams of making something crazy with their bottle caps. They store every cap from every beer they drink, are super anal that you put your spent caps in their bucket while drinking at their place, and then three years later, they move out of their apartment and throw all their caps (and dreams) away in a huge, shiny, sickly sweet smelling pile.You suck.” Well, that’s very rude of you to think, especially because I intend for this to be an amazing table, and will spare no expense to complete it successfully.
Since I decided that this was going to be an exquisite table, I decided that I might as well enjoy an exquisite beer while working on it. That’s when my last bottle of Thomas Hardy’s 2004 old ale was cracked open. Joy…
The design of the design of the table is pretty simple. One day I happened upon the lid from a shipping crate in a dumpster outside one of my classrooms. Naturally I snagged it, noticing right away that it was perfect for my idea. It’s about a 3 1/2 foot square with two-by-fours lining the edge. This leaves a perfect pit in the center to place a 28 by 28 grid of caps. I’ve done some work on the wood already, but today I just want to touch on the caps.
After everything is said and done, the table will feature a giant “Block M” made entirely of maroon Summit Winter Ale caps. Surrounding the M will be a one-cap-thick border of Grain Belt Premium caps. Then, the rest of the grid will be filled out with random caps that I and my friends have amassed. How many caps you ask? 784 in total: 226 for the maroon caps, ~110 for the gold border, and the remainder being random. Here’s what that looks like:
Here’s what it looks like when their laid out in rows of 10, and I feel like taking an artsy picture with a non-artsy camera:
So, I’ve got most of the caps I need. I’m still a couple short on the Premos, and I’m not sure if I have enough operable random caps. (opening a bottle can have some unflattering effects on a pry-off cap) Then again, I haven’t bought the epoxy to seal everything with, so I’ve still got some time. Next up, I’ll talk about the wood work I’ve done, the whole epoxy extravaganza, and then my crazy wacky lighting idea which may or may not reach fruition.
P.S. A high five goes to anyone that can name more of these bottle caps than I can.
Filed under: Misc
So here it is, my first post. I intend that this will serve as a record of all my attempts at brewing and related activities. There are plenty of other, really good blogs about beer out there– links to my favorites are located to the right– but I hope that will not dissuade me from posting or people from reading. I will do my best to update this regularly and often.
I plan to comment on all my brewing endeavors. As I type this, I am boiling the wort for a batch of Honey Brown Ale, using an extract kit from Northern Brewer. Also, I just pulled out a loaf of bread that was made using some stout that I had brewed late last year. I will most certainly cover all the aspects of brewing and related baking that I can, but will also delve into the other happenings in my life (such as my bottle cap table and my horrible, ugly beard that I’m growing… err, am trying to grow in support of the UofM men’s basketball team– Go Tubby!).
