Sometimes I brew late at night whe the kids are in bed. I brew in my backyard on our patio. I live up in the mountains in a VERY rural hacienda type of structure...no heat except fireplaces, no AC and NO GARAGE!
Anyhow around midnight, it's just me and our 5 dogs...
I was brewing a partial mash Belgian amber and at the start of the boil the wind kicked up something fierce. I mean Santa Ana's that make the news. I covered the pot about 3/4 to try to keep out any windborne junk...
Not until I racked to the secondary did I notice the short black lab hairs floating in my beer! They hairs must have blown in during the boil. The beer tasted fine so I assume they were sterilized! I have to waste a batch of beer so....I strained through a cheesecloth and bottled.
3 months later and the beer's aging well. The first bottle was just fine, no off tastes at all.
Oh....I named it "Hairs of the Dogs Belgian Amber"
;-)
Nice story. I do my brewing indoors, which hasn't always prevented stray items from making their way into the wort. Once I found a penny at the bottom of the primary mixed in with the yeast sediment. I think I called that batch "Abe Lincoln Ale"
;-)