Che Loco 5

                                               (Yerba Mate in its natural environment)

I'm not really sure what happened to me but the other day I created the most epic post ever and decided to try saving the post and having blogger post it 2 days later for me just to see if it worked. Well Obviously it didn't because I am doing a different post right now.

For those of you who don't know I went to Argentina to visit my Tim my brother who was there for 8 months with his fiance Sylvie. We traveled around Buenos Aires and the North West of the country partly on bikes to Missiones/Apostales (Yerba Mate Mecca). While there I fell in love with Yerba Mate(Mahteh) through Tim who taught me almost everything I know about making a "rico mate". I really enjoy culture and processes and making the perfect mate combines both of those. I won't bore you with the details of making a proper mate, but ever since I traveled there back in August of 2010 I have been drinking mate almost on a daily basis. Naturally my love for mate and my love for beer collided when I brewed my first batch of beer back in January of 2011. The birth of Che Loco happened on the 2nd of January and since then I have never looked back.

Today's post is all about yerba mate and of course beer! Tonight I am racking a Scottish inspired ale onto some french pressed mate with water additions at the proper temperatures to extract all the good flavors of the yerba shrub and leave all the bad behind. This will be the 5th incarnation of Che Loco (named by Zach Ruttenberg one night at Tim and Sylvie's apartment in Portland) "Che" inspired by the revolutionary Che Guevara and "Loco" after the 4 loco craze. Because mate naturally contains caffeine its energizing you while its slowing you down all at the same time. In the past I have created different Che Loco batches that are either too offensive to the "non mate appreciator" and not intense enough for the "mate aficionado". With this batch I hope to get one step closer to the Goldilocks of Che Loco's so I can start creating the same beer consistently for your drinking pleasure. With that said I am going to start racking this beer from primary fermenter to tertiary onto my secret mixture of mate. I will let you know how it turns out! Or even better yet hopefully you will get to taste it soon!

Cheers

Chris