Announcing October's inevitably spooktacular Fermentation Friday

That my strange sense of compulsion was deep and overwhelming is shewn by its conquest of my fear. No rational motive could have drawn me on after that hideous suspicion of prints and the creeping dream-memories it excited. Yet my right hand, even as it shook with fright, still twitched rhythmically in its eagerness to turn a lock it hoped to find. Before I knew it I was past the heap of lately fallen cases and running on tiptoe through aisles of utterly unbroken dust toward a point which I seemed to know morbidly, horribly well...*

Your beer cellar, perhaps?

October 31^st marks this month's entry in homebrew blogging's monthly Fermentation Friday carnival, one that we're lucky to be hosting here at Pfiff! Lucky, that is, because despite all attempts to otherwise fashion a unique, creative topic around which we could all gather and warm our hands by like some big psychic bonfire of brilliance (attempts that failed, repeatedly), it's of no use anyway. Trying to avoid the obvious was like trying to steer light out of a black hole. Lucky, because it's Halloween, kids. Which leads us to the obvious theme for this month: It's time for y'all to whip out your best homebrewing horror stories. Extra points for tales of woe told in true campfire fashion, and head straight to the front of the class for a bonus handful of candy corn if there's a deliciously ironic twist in the end. If there's one experience we're certain is common to anyone who's ever homebrewed, it's a disastrous tale worth sharing in order to scare the hell out of other homebrewers.

Hopefully we can all learn valuable lessons from these wretched homebrewing legends. Or not. Send along your submissions on Samhain either to or by posting a comment in this here blog post. I'll plan on wrapping up the roundup on Saturday, November 1st in order to provide you with a megadose of terror. Until then, beware!

* H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out of Time