Thursday, August 1, 2013

San Francisco Conquests

The Whole Foods near my house has an incredible beer selection.  In fact, they have an employee whose only job is to find beers for their beer selection.  He even has his own Facebook page, often updated several times a day with new offerings and the like.

So when I learned that Whole Foods is in California as well, I was very excited--there are lots of beers that just can't be found on the East Coast.  I was a little disappointed in their selection; I think it paled in comparison.  Still, when you've got Pliny the Elder on the shelf it's hard to complain.

Beers I brought back:
  • Firestone Walker's Walker's Reserve
  • Delerium Tremens
  • Weihenstephaner
  • Tripel Karmeliet
  • Russian River's Pliny the Elder (two bottles)
  • Trappistes Rochefort 8 (I can get it here, but it was available)
  • Firestone Walker's Wooky Jack
  • Stone's Imperial Russian Stout
I'm glad to say that they all survived the plane ride intact.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Continuing Education

Every time I brew, I learn a little bit more about brewing and about beer in general.  Same thing every time I try a new beer, and often even when I'm trying something I've had before.  Still, one of my goals in brewing is to make a concerted effort to learn and improve.

I imagine this seems obvious, but I'm not sure it is universal.  My dad, for example, is satisfied with his brewing process and the beers he brews.  I don't mean this as a negative--he knows what he likes and he brews very tasty beers.  Lots of people are not focused on the educational aspect, and that's fine.  That's just not me.

So, my basic plan of education:
  • Read.  Read books on beers and brewing (I'm currently finishing Mosher's Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass and John Palmer's How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time).  Next up: Possibly Designing Great Beers and Brewing Classic Styles.  Read forums and articles on brewing.  Read the style guidelines.
  • Brew.  There's no substitute for experience.  I think it's important to try brewing a variety of styles, but I imagine there's value to brewing the same beer multiple times to try to make improvements, too.
  • Evaluate Beers.  I'm trying to gather some great beers to evaluate using the BJCP's style guidelines.  However, I suspect it's just as useful (or more useful) to judge less-than-perfect examples, and even bad examples.  Most importantly, I need to compare my own beers to exemplars of the style.
  • Enter Beer Competitions.  This is an extension of the point above.  The goal is not so much to win awards (which would be nice), but to get feedback from experienced judges and brewers to improve my craft.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Next Up: Mosaic IPA

I've finally decided it's time to try my Mosaic IPA.  This is a beer I've been wanting to try for a while. 

It's inspired by a batch of test IPA's I brewed a while back: five one-gallon batches using a simple grain bill and US Magnum bittering hops (bitters clean and I don't have to worry about the differing levels of alpha acids in the flavor/aroma hops), each featuring a different flavor/aroma hop.  The hops I used were: Cascade, Citra, Falconer's Flight, Mosaic, and Simcoe. 

(The guy at MyLHBS put me on to the Mosaic and Falconer's Flight, btw.  I very much recommend the shop.  My only gripe is that if you need more than five pounds of grain crushed they require a full 24 hours advance notice--and they actually enforce that.  So basically, if you are doing any kind of all-grain batch you need to call them a day before you want to pick them up.  Jay's Brewing is much more laid-back about it--they just want you to call/email if you want something ridiculous like 50 lbs. so they can start grinding it before you get there.)

The idea behind this beer is similar to my hop-test beers: it's designed to be a showcase for a specific hop (in this case, Mosaic).  I've found Mosaic has a beautiful bright, fruity flavor.  Most places seem to describe it as tropical fruit, but it tastes more like pink grapefruit to me--a bright citrus tang, but sweet rather than sour.

I'm not using any bittering hops in this.  Instead, I chose to hopburst, which is a technique where all of the bitterness comes from late additions of flavor/aroma hops.  It takes a lot more hops to do this, but it gives you a crazy amount of flavor and aroma of the hop(s) you're using.

I decided to go with an extract recipe, because I've only made one all-grain (my Centennial Blonde), and I haven't tested it yet.  Given the crazy amount of hops (9 oz!), this would be a really expensive beer to screw up.

BrewSmith says it will look something like this:


which is exactly what I want.  The recipe is as follows:
  • 8.5 oz Crystal malt (20L), steeped for 30 min. at 155.0 F
  • 3 lbs. 3.1 oz Light Dry Extract, added for full boil (60 min)
  • 4 lbs. 4.1 oz Light Dry Extract, added for the last 15 min (late extract additions keep the extract from darkening and caramelizing too much)
  • 0.5 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 15 minutes
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet added for last 15 minutes
  • 1.0 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 10 minutes
  • 1.0 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 5 minutes
  • 2.5 oz Mosaic hops, added at flame-out
Once it's cooled I'll pitch  about a 2L starter of California Ale yeast (White Labs WLP001), and dry-hop with another 4 oz. of Mosaic hops at the end of fermentation for four days, so it has a nice burst of Mosaic aroma when you pour it.  I will probably add gelatin at the same time for fining.

The numbers for the beer are:
  • Original Gravity: 1.066 (style guidelines: 1.056-1.075)
  • Final Gravity: 1.015
  • Bitterness: 45.0 IBU (style: 40.0-70.0 IBU) (I wanted to stay on the less-bitter end; my goal isn't to make you pucker, like so many IPA's, but to give you that great fruity flavor I like about Mosaic)
  • Color: 9.1 SRM (style: 6.0-15.0 SRM)
  • ABV: 6.7% (style: 5.50-7.50%)
Once it's ready I'll post my tasting notes, but here are my goals/expectations:

Aroma: The dominant aroma should be an intense citrus/tropical fruit notes from the hops, likely with some piney/resinous notes beneath.  Possible grassy aroma from the dry-hopping.  Some sweet malt or caramel notes possible but unlikely.

Appearance:   Light copper color.  Probably somewhat hazy due to dry-hopping.  Large off-white head that persists with good lacing.

Flavor: Hop flavor should be extremely high, with the dominant flavor being citrus and tropical fruit, with additional piney and resinous notes as well.  Medium-high hop bitterness.  Sweet malt backbone should support bitterness nicely.  Low malty sweetness with potential caramel notes.  No diacetyl.  Finish likely bitter, lingering into aftertaste.  Finish medium-dry.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, medium-bodied mouthfeel with no hop astringency.  Malt sweetness likely to be counteracted by moderately-high carbonation, making mouthfeel somewhat dry.

Overall: This should be a showcase for the incredible aroma and flavor of the Mosaic hop.  Drinkers should get a burst of hoppy aroma right from the get-go, and that flavor and aroma should dominate the beer from start to finish.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Recarbed!

The recarbonation of the hefeweisen went well.  Although for scientific purposes I should have cracked all fifteen beers and measured them, my goal is to maximize my enjoyment of the beers--which meant one of each of the samples.

I did, however, bow to the dictates of science and try to collect some objective data.  My methodology was to take one of each beer, crack them, and pour them aggressively into a 22 oz. wheat beer glass, aiming for maximum head.

Results are as follows:

  • 1/8 tsp priming sugar: 1/2" head
  • 1/4 tsp priming sugar: 1 1/2" head
  • 1/2 tsp priming sugar: 3" head (couldn't pour it all in right away)
Realistically, a 1 1/2" head is probably about what I'm aiming for, especially since they won't generally be served in a wheat beer glass.  However,  I was pouring very aggressively, and I felt that under normal conditions (and will cold-conditioned bottles) the 1/2 tsp would probably suit best.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to re-prime the rest of the hefes with 1/2 tsp priming sugar.  Prost!


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Brewing Bucket List

A few beers from Radical Brewing I really want to try:

  • Two Bits Abbey Dubbel (p. 124)
  • Three-Nipple Tripel (p. 125)
  • Roggenbier (p. 149), possibly with add some grains of paradise, or scaled up to a bock
  • Oatmeal Cookie Ale (p. 149).  I want to redeem myself on this one.
  • Witbier with chamomile and grains of paradise, and possibly orange blossoms.
  • Caramel Quadrupel (p. 166)
  • Spiced Cherry Dubbel (p. 166)
  • Spiced Bourbon Stout (p. 169)
  • Gordon Strong's Chai Brown Ale (p. 170)
  • Mister Boing Boing Cherry Barley Wine (p. 178)
  • Black Ship Pirate Stout (p. 200)
  • Sahti (p. 244).  I'll have to find a source for fresh juniper branches.

DC a Beer Destination?

Interesting article in The Examiner on DC as a beer destination.  The article promises a follow-on about Virginia beer as well.  Likely to be Charlottesville-heavy, although I developed a public Google map of breweries in Virginia that shows them clustered in Northern Virginia, down 95 to Richmond then 64 east to Tidewater; and another stretch down the Blue Ridge (including Charlottesville).

Monday, June 24, 2013

Stand Back, I'm Trying Science

After consulting with wiser heads on HomeBrewTalk, I've decided that the only thing to do is to try and add some more priming sugar to my flat beers--I don't want to pour out ten gallons of beer, but I don't want ten gallons of flat beer, either.

John Palmer says in How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time that if you're priming per bottle with corn sugar you should use a teaspoon of corn sugar per bottle.  I figure that the beers are at least partially carbonated, so I want to use less than a teaspoon.

After consulting with Melanie (the house scientist), I decided to go with five trials at three different concentrations: 1/2 tsp, 1/4 tsp, and 1/8 tsp.  Unfortunately, the sugar gives the existing carbonation something to bind to, which means as soon as I add the sugar it foams over.  Ultimately I had to have Melanie add the sugar while I stood over the bottle with the capper ready to go.

Game plan now: give them about a week to carb up, then stick them in the fridge for a few days and test them...at least whichever ones don't blow up on me.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Harvesting the Great White (Wh)Ales

 This weekend saw some changes, due both to the Northern Virginia BrewFest and another trip to Total Wine.  Again, items in bold I've gotten to try, and items in italics I have picked up but haven't tried yet:
  1. Pliny the Elder
  2. Heady Topper
  3. Founders KBS
  4. Founders Breakfast Stout
  5. Bell's Hopslam Ale (sadly, Bell's brought Oberon and a red ale, but not hopslam)
  6. Zombie Dust
  7. Trappist Westvleteren 12 (XII)
  8. Bourbon County Brand Stout
  9. Trappistes Rochefort 10
  10. The Abyss
  11. Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout

  12. Supplication
  13. Parabola
  14. St. Bernardus Abt 12
  15. Sculpin IPA
  16. Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
  17. Dreadnaught IPA
  18. Imperial Russian Stout
  19. Troegs Nugget Nectar (Troegs was there as well, but didn't have Nugget Nectar)
  20. Consecration
  21. Ruination IPA
  22. La Fin Du Monde (Total Wine was out of 12oz bottles, and I didn't want to spring for a big bottle)
  23. Ten FIDY
  24. AleSmith Speedway Stout
  25. Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock
  26. Founders Imperial Stout
  27. Peche Mortel (Imperial Stout Au Cafe)
  28. 90 Minute IPA
  29. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout
  30. Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue)
  31. Double Jack
  32. Blind Pig IPA
  33. Furious
  34. Victory At Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter

  35. Two Hearted Ale
  36. Duvel
  37. Double Bastard Ale
  38. Founders Backwoods Bastard
  39. Trappistes Rochefort 8
  40. Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Unser Aventinus
  41. IPA (India Pale Ale)

  42. Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
  43. Alpha King Pale Ale
  44. Westmalle Trappist Tripel
  45. Dark Lord Imperial Stout
  46. Hop Rod Rye

  47. Founders Porter
  48. Choklat
  49. Union Jack India Pale Ale (Firestone Walker had this, but it was right next to Wooky Jack.  Come on!  What was I to do?)

  50. Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout
  51. Green Flash West Coast I.P.A. (I can understand why this is so highly rated.  Very fruity, almost juicy flavor and very well balanced.)
  52. A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale
  53. Burton Baton
  54. Founders Double Trouble
  55. Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale

  56. Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
  57. Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout
  58. Arrogant Bastard Ale
  59. Racer 5 India Pale Ale

  60. Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale
  61. Maharaja
  62. Trois Pistoles
  63. Yeti Imperial Stout

  64. Flower Power India Pale Ale
  65. Hop Stoopid
  66. Founders Red's Rye PA
  67. Gumballhead
  68. Tripel Karmeliet
  69. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
  70. Orval Trappist Ale
  71. Bell's Expedition Stout (again, not one Bell's brought this weekend.)
  72. Gulden Draak (Dark Triple)

  73. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
  74. Sierra Nevada Bigfood Barleywine Style Ale
  75. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
  76. Palo Santo Marron
  77. Hennepin (Farmhouse Saison)
  78. Sierra Nevada Hoptimum Imperial IPA

  79. Maudite
  80. Chocolate Stout
  81. Black Butte Porter
  82. Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ale
  83. Founders Centennial IPA
  84. Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
  85. Saison Dupont
  86. Jai Alai IPA
  87. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew
  88. Ommegang (Abbey Ale)
  89. Allagash White (Allagash was a few tents down from Yards, and I tried the White without realizing it was even on my list)
  90. Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
  91. Three Philosophers Belgian Style Blend (Quadrupel)
  92. World Wide Stout
  93. Hercules Double IPA
  94. 60 Minute IPA
  95. Hop Devil Ale
  96. Delirium Tremens
  97. Chimay Premiere (Red)
  98. Smuttynose IPA "Finest Kind"
  99. Anchor Porter
  100. Storm King Stout

Northern Virginia BrewFest

So Saturday was the Northern Virginia BrewFest. When I say it exceeded my expectations, you have to understand that I set my expectations for thisp thing almost painfully high. My dad's been asking me to come for years, and the list of breweries--including Stone, Bell's, Firestone Walker and more--really had me pumped.

Somehow it was better than I expected. I was pouring for Yards Brewing out of Philadelphia, and one of their distributors named Jason was there. He was a certified cicerone, and he really knew his stuff. I learned a decent bit from him.

Yards had two beers: their Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale and their Love Stout.  Both were quite tasty and some of the more popular beers of the festival, but very different.

Jason described the Tavern Ale as "an English Strong Ale brewed with honey, about 8% ABV". He's a pro, and he does these festivals for a living, so I'm sure he knew what the patrons wanted to know, but the story behind it was the interesting part to me.

"I have no reciept [sic] for brewing," Jefferson wrote, "and I much doubt the operations of malting and brewing could be successfully performed from a reciept," according to the Monticello website. Strange, for a man who kept such careful records. Nonetheless, Yards brewed a beer with the sorts of ingredients that might have been available at Monticello, and used a recipe that might have been used at the time. It contains malted barley, rye, flaked maize, and a decent bit of honey, which forms the most prominent note. It has very little on the way of hops, as Jason said they'd not have used hops at Monticello, hops being introduced to the colonies nearly one hundred years later by German settlers.

I'm not sure I buy the explanation--the Monticello site says they grew hops for beer in 1794, no doubt from Jefferson's meticulous notes on his garden.  The Reinheitsgebot was enacted in 1516, specifying hops as one of the ingredients in German beer, and my own ancestors emigrated from Hamburg to New York in the early 1600's--nearly two hundred years before Jefferson was brewing.

Nonetheless, it's the historical tie-in that I find so fascinating about this beer. They have a line of "Ales of the Revolution", and the concept thrills me.

The other beer was their Love Stout, a draft-only English stout carbonated with nitro to emulate cask beer. It was quite tasty, and the nitro gave it a smooth, creamy body that really worked well with the mild flavor. I'm hoping it makes its way into restaurants in the area.

I managed to knock one beer off my list: Allagash White. They were a few tents down, and volunteers could basically sample at will. I also got to try Bell's Oberon, a very tasty wheat beer (they didn't have Hopslam or Two-Hearted, more's the pity). Stone had both their IPA and Arrogant Bastard there for the hopheads, though; Green Flash brought their West Coast IPA and Firestone Walker had both Union Jack and Wooky Jack. Most of the other breweries also had IPA's as well.

Friday, June 21, 2013

You Get What You Measure

What a difference a single trip can make.  I made a trip out to Total Wine to look for Flying Dog's Irish Red, which I heard was on sale.  I didn't find it, but I decided to make lemonade.  Since I was there, I thought I'd see if any of the beers on my Great White (Wh)Ale list.

Wow, did I ever.  I blew half of my (admittedly tiny) bonus on items on my list.  I picked up thirteen, and there were more I could have gotten (there are lots of stouts on there, and stouts don't tend to appeal to me in the summer).

Items in italics are ones I've picked up but haven't tried yet:
  1. Pliny the Elder
  2. Heady Topper
  3. Founders KBS
  4. Founders Breakfast Stout
  5. Bell's Hopslam Ale
  6. Zombie Dust
  7. Trappist Westvleteren 12 (XII)
  8. Bourbon County Brand Stout
  9. Trappistes Rochefort 10
  10. The Abyss
  11. Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout
  12. Supplication
  13. Parabola
  14. St. Bernardus Abt 12
  15. Sculpin IPA
  16. Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
  17. Dreadnaught IPA
  18. Imperial Russian Stout
  19. Troegs Nugget Nectar
  20. Consecration
  21. Ruination IPA
  22. La Fin Du Monde
  23. Ten FIDY
  24. AleSmith Speedway Stout
  25. Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock
  26. Founders Imperial Stout
  27. Peche Mortel (Imperial Stout Au Cafe)
  28. 90 Minute IPA
  29. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout
  30. Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue)
  31. Double Jack
  32. Blind Pig IPA
  33. Furious
  34. Victory At Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
  35. Two Hearted Ale
  36. Duvel
  37. Double Bastard Ale
  38. Founders Backwoods Bastard
  39. Trappistes Rochefort 8
  40. Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Unser Aventinus
  41. IPA (India Pale Ale)
  42. Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
  43. Alpha King Pale Ale
  44. Westmalle Trappist Tripel
  45. Dark Lord Imperial Stout
  46. Hop Rod Rye
  47. Founders Porter
  48. Choklat
  49. Union Jack India Pale Ale
  50. Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout
  51. Green Flash West Coast I.P.A.
  52. A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale
  53. Burton Baton
  54. Founders Double Trouble
  55. Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
  56. Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
  57. Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout
  58. Arrogant Bastard Ale
  59. Racer 5 India Pale Ale
  60. Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale
  61. Maharaja
  62. Trois Pistoles
  63. Yeti Imperial Stout
  64. Flower Power India Pale Ale
  65. Hop Stoopid
  66. Founders Red's Rye PA
  67. Gumballhead
  68. Tripel Karmeliet
  69. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
  70. Orval Trappist Ale
  71. Bell's Expedition Stout
  72. Gulden Draak (Dark Triple)
  73. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
  74. Sierra Nevada Bigfood Barleywine Style Ale
  75. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
  76. Palo Santo Marron
  77. Hennepin (Farmhouse Saison)
  78. Sierra Nevada Hoptimum Imperial IPA
  79. Maudite
  80. Chocolate Stout
  81. Black Butte Porter
  82. Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ale
  83. Founders Centennial IPA
  84. Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
  85. Saison Dupont
  86. Jai Alai IPA
  87. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew
  88. Ommegang (Abbey Ale)
  89. Allagash White
  90. Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
  91. Three Philosophers Belgian Style Blend (Quadrupel)
  92. World Wide Stout)
  93. Hercules Double IPA
  94. 60 Minute IPA
  95. Hop Devil Ale
  96. Delirium Tremens
  97. Chimay Premiere (Red)
  98. Smuttynose IPA "Finest Kind"
  99. Anchor Porter
  100. Storm King Stout

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Historical Brews

Interesting article in the New York Times on Great Lakes Brewing attempting to re-create an ancient Sumerian beer.  Better yet, the recipe (such as it is) is contained in a song.  What better way to honor beer?  Oh--it's actually a hymn.  To Ninsaki, no less--the Sumerian goddess of beer.

Anchor has done an interpretation of this beer before, but I've never been able to try it.  Dogfish Head, however, is great at more than just IPA's--they also have a line of historic/ancient beers as well.  Most are limited release, like their Birra Etrusca Bronze, which they recreated from an analysis of beer found in Etruscan tombs, and Ta Henket, made according to an ancient Egyptian recipe.  Their Midas Touch, however, is available year-round; it tastes more like a spiced mead to me, but it's a very ejoyable, different brew.

Unfortunately, it does look like Great Lakes has no plans to release their creation commercially.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Great White (Wh)Ales

The May 2013 issue of BeerAdvocate magazine had an interesting article called "Beer Baggers" about compiling and pursuing a list of "great beers" to try.  I think anybody who has a serious interest in craft beer has at least considered creating a wish list of beers.

The author used the BeerAdvocate Top 100 (now Top 250), and says he had no idea how difficult it would be.  I know that for me it would be even harder--my wife doesn't drink beer, and is not going to be receptive to me taking time away from what we're doing every time we travel to look for beers I haven't tried.  Buying beers from traders and having them shipped isn't really in the cards either, as I frankly have better things to spend $30 on than a single bottle of beer.

There are problems with this approach beyond cost, as well--it is likely to contain beers that are no longer available, and trendy beers are going to be on it as well, and will likely fall off long before I get to them.

The article describes another aficionado who used BA's "Beers of Fame", which are the top 100 beers that have over 2000 ratings and have been on the site for at least two years.  This might be more approachable, although there's nothing that prevents an old, impossible-to-obtain beer to appear.

Let's see which ones I've had the opportunity to try (beers I've tried appear in bold):
  1. Pliny the Elder (no surprises there)
  2. Heady Topper (I didn't realize this wasn't a new beer--I've only recently heard of it)
  3. Founders KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout)
  4. Founders Breakfast Stout
  5. Bell's Hopslam Ale
  6. Zombie Dust
  7. Trappist Westvleteren 12 (XII)
  8. Bourbon County Brand Stout
  9. Trappistes Rochefort 10
  10. The Abyss
  11. Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout
  12. Supplication
  13. Parabola
  14. St. Bernardus Abt 12
  15. Sculpin IPA (I got to try this recently at Fireworks Pizza; I'd heard of it but didn't realize it was so highly rated--though I did thoroughly enjoy it)
  16. Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
  17. Dreadnaught IPA
  18. Imperial Russian Stout
  19. Troegs Nugget Nectar
  20. Consecration (this isn't good; a the entire top fifth done and I've tried only one)
  21. Ruination IPA (I really wanted to like Arrogant Bastard better, but I had to admit that Ruination was my favorite Stone offering)
  22. La Fin Du Monde
  23. Ten FIDY
  24. AleSmith Speedway Stout
  25. Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock
  26. Founders Imperial Stout
  27. Peche Mortel (Imperial Stout Au Cafe)
  28. 90 Minute IPA
  29. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout
  30. Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue) (One of the first Belgians I tried, and one I really loved.)
  31. Double Jack (haven't tried it, but Firestone Walker will be at the Northern Virginia BrewFest next weekend, and I'm hoping they bring it)
  32. Blind Pig IPA (anyone else losing count of the number of Russian River offerings on here?)
  33. Furious
  34. Victory At Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
  35. Two Hearted Ale (given that the label looked like a box store store-brand label, I was blown away by Bell's.)
  36. Duvel
  37. Double Bastard Ale
  38. Founders Backwoods Bastard
  39. Trappistes Rochefort 8
  40. Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Unser Aventinus
  41. IPA (India Pale Ale)
  42. Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
  43. Alpha King Pale Ale
  44. Westmalle Trappist Tripel
  45. Dark Lord Imperial Stout
  46. Hop Rod Rye
  47. Founders Porter
  48. Choklat (I can probably (hopefully?) pick this one up relatively easily--I see Southern Tier all over the place.)
  49. Union Jack India Pale Ale
  50. Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout
  51. Green Flash West Coast I.P.A.
  52. A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale
  53. Burton Baton
  54. Founders Double Trouble
  55. Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
  56. Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
  57. Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout
  58. Arrogant Bastard Ale
  59. Racer 5 India Pale Ale
  60. Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale
  61. Maharaja
  62. Trois Pistoles
  63. Yeti Imperial Stout
  64. Flower Power India Pale Ale
  65. Hop Stoopid
  66. Founders Red's Rye PA (the first RyePA on the list?  Wow.)
  67. Gumballhead
  68. Tripel Karmeliet
  69. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
  70. Orval Trappist Ale
  71. Bell's Expedition Stout
  72. Gulden Draak (Dark Triple)
  73. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
  74. Sierra Nevada Bigfood Barleywine Style Ale
  75. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
  76. Palo Santo Marron
  77. Hennepin (Farmhouse Saison)
  78. Sierra Nevada Hoptimum Imperial IPA
  79. Maudite
  80. Chocolate Stout
  81. Black Butte Porter
  82. Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ale
  83. Founders Centennial IPA
  84. Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
  85. Saison Dupont
  86. Jai Alai IPA
  87. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Interesting--this is one of the "collaboration" beers I was looking for for an earlier post, but I couldn't remember.)
  88. Ommegang (Abbey Ale)
  89. Allagash White (is this the first witbier on the list?)
  90. Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
  91. Three Philosophers Belgian Style Blend (Quadrupel)
  92. World Wide Stout)
  93. Hercules Double IPA
  94. 60 Minute IPA
  95. Hop Devil Ale
  96. Delirium Tremens
  97. Chimay Premiere (Red)
  98. Smuttynose IPA "Finest Kind"
  99. Anchor Porter (huh.  Their porter made it, but their flagship--Steam--didn't, nor did any of the others.)
  100. Storm King Stout
I was hoping after that slow start (only one tried of the top 20) that I would find that I'd had mostly moderately-great beers, but I really didn't find that. Score: 15/100.  That's an F by any scale.  I'll have to get to work.

Monday, June 17, 2013

A Return to Mashing: My First All-Grain

I've been determined for a while now to try my hand at mashing again.  After my disastrous previous attempt at doing a mash, I spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong.  My conclusions were two-fold: 1) I did a horrible job of temperature control; and 2) I have no idea what really went wrong.

I've since attempted a mini-mash with three pounds of left-over grains (the same size as my previous partial mash), and it went pretty well.  I learned a few things, the biggest being that there's a significant temperature differential between the top of the grain and the middle.  In other words, laying my floating thermometer on top of the grain bed won't give me an accurate reading.

Still, given how poorly my first attempt went I don't want my first all-grain to be an expensive or difficult recipe.  I asked around on homebrewtalk.com, and I got a fairly universal response: BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde recipe.  So, I'll be making a 5-gallon batch of this on Wednesday:

BeerSmith's estimation of the color of the Centennial Blonde

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: Nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: Nope
Original Gravity: 1.039
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: 21.6
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60-75
Color: 3.9
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 4 days at 68 Degrees
Additional Fermentation: Kegged, chilled and Carb'd for one week
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 5 Days at 68 Degrees

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.040 SG
Estimated Color: 3.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount
7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (55 min)
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (35 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (20 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min)
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) (Hydrated)

Mash at 150 degrees for 60 minutes.

This will also be my first time attempting to calculate my efficiency (things went so badly last time it wasn't worth the effort).  Wish me luck!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

This Time, I'll Explain the Name For Sure

It occurs to me that this is the third time I've written about the beer I call "Azog the Defiler", and although I've promised each time I'd explain the name, I still haven't yet.  I intend to remedy that with this post.  The last two posts were all about my travails in brewing the beer--this one will be about the beer itself.

I mentioned before my fears about how this beer would turn out.  When I sampled it during gravity tests and during bottling, it was downright unpleasant: the first thing noticeable was a hot, solventy flavor.  It smelled like rubbing alcohol and tasted like I'd rinsed the bottling bucket with turpentine.  I thought I could detect some nice malty cereal notes beneath the alcohol, but they were masked very well.  The mouthfeel was slick and strangely chewy.

The mantra on homebrewtalk.com is "RDWHAHB", which stands for "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew".  It's not elegant, but it's an all-purpose statement that sums up their reaction to anything that goes wrong during the brewing process.  They'll tell you that time will cure almost any problems with a beer.  That's why I chose to bottle it rather than pouring it down the drain, but it was a close thing.  I didn't even bother soaking the labels off the bottles I put the beer in--it didn't deserve it.  It was a rough, ugly thing, and deserved bottles to match.

From my tastings, it was obvious that this beer wasn't anything like Grandma's oatmeal raisin cookies--at least not my grandma's.  Maybe it was like your grandma's, if she hates you and tries to kill you by putting Drano in your cookies.  Your mileage may vary.  However, it was clear that a name based on the cookie idea wasn't really going to work.  I needed something new.

In discussing the beer with friends over IM and texts, I started abbreviating it ORC (for Oatmeal Raisin Cookie).  Being a Tolkien fan, I immediately thought of the horrific monstrosities that Tolkien called "orcs".  Hmm, maybe there's something there?  Like the orcs, the ORC was harsh, it was ugly, and any good person would consider it an abomination and a crime against nature.  Even the beer's home, the bottles, was rude and unfinished, like an orc's dwelling.  Maybe we're on to something.

Azog the Goblin was the orc who killed Thorin Oakenshield's grandfather in the Mines of Moria.  He was powerful, scornful, and disrespectful.  In the recent film adaptation of The Hobbit, he is named The Defiler.  I couldn't think of a better name for this beer.

I've tried the beer again, maybe five months after bottling it.  I won't say it's a great beer, but it's drinkable.  Most of the particulate matter has settled, though it will never be anything like clear; and the alcohol isn't nearly as harsh.  This in turn lets the malt shine through.  It's still a bit challenging, but it reminds me more of an Old Ale or a Barleywine than a brown ale.  Not surprising, since the recipe comes out at 8.2% ABV, twice the maximum of the BJCP style guidelines for a Southern English Brown Ale (which should be 2.8-4.1% ABV).

So I'm really not sure what to call this in terms of style.  It isn't nearly bitter enough to be called an English Barleywine, and the yeast rules out any Belgian style.  Maybe it almost fits as a Wee Heavy, though there's no roasted barley in it, and certainly no peat notes.  Maybe I'll just call it an Imperial Southern English Brown Ale, and hide it from the light of the sun.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Collaboration

I'm on the fence regarding collaborative brewing. I'm not talking about collaboration between breweries, like Avery and Russian River teaming up to make "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale", or breweries teaming up with a noted homebrewer, like Stone and Randy Mosher making "Dayman Coffee IPA". Things like that make sense: you basically have an all-star team working on a beer, and by throwing together groups that don't normally work together I imagine you break out of your comfort zone, learn a bit about your partner's style of brewing, and get to work on a really envelope-pushing beer without too much risk (since the expectations are different than if it was just another beer in your standard lineup). I'd consider something like Sierra Nevada's "Beer Camp" to be an extension of this.

(Tangent: These collaborations aren't just limited to two partners, by the way; I saw in the March/April 2010 issue of Imbibe that Russian River, Lost Abbey, Allagash, Avery and Dogfish Head all collaborated on a sour ale called "Proximus". I'd love to try that.)

No, what I'm talking about are the "inspired by"-type beers, where a brewery "collaborates" with some public figure to produce a new beer. A few I'm thinking of:
  • DC Brau and D.C. United: "The Tradition".  Apparently the team approached the brewery about producing a beer, which makes it akin to a brewery making the house beer for a sports arena. 
  •  The Flying Monkeys and Barenaked Ladies: "BNL Strong Beer", a chocolate Imperial Stout.  The head of Flying Monkeys, Peter Chiodo, admits it's his recipe, and the band simply approved it.  It doesn't strike me as anything more than branding--it's their name slapped on a product they had little to do with (although the band members apparently did come in to help dump ingredients into the vats).
  • Dogfish Head and Pearl Jam: "Faithful".  Chido claims that Pearl Jam essentially just allowed their name to be used in this beer honoring the 20th anniversary of the album "Ten".
  • Cambridge Brewing Company is making a beer honoring slain MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was killed by the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing.  I have to admit I'm really uncomfortable with this, even though it's being done with the full approval of his family, and some of the profits are going to the officer's favorite charity.  It still feels like an attempt to profit off his death to me.  I think I would be more comfortable with it if all, rather than some, of the profits were going to charity.
  • Dillon Dam Brewery and Denver Art Museum: "DAM Gogh", a beer honoring Van Gogh.  This one actually seems like an appropriate choice: the brewery has a history of Van Gogh-inspired beers, and there was a real effort to tie the beer in with the subject.  It's a bier de garde, chosen because Van Gogh so often used the average French citizen as a subject.  It also uses anise to tie it in with absinthe, the drink the artist famously imbibed.
Some of these seem more like marketing gimmick than collaboration.  Some of them strike me as crass attempts to make money.  What do you think?

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Perils of Partial Mashing, or How Azog the Defiler Got His Name

Thus begins the second part of the story of the beer that would become known as Azog the Defiler.

As described before, this beer was originally conceived as a Southern English Brown Ale, with toasted oats and underlying raisin notes, and was supposed to remind the drinker of eating an oatmeal raisin cookie.  This was my first custom recipe, but I had high hopes.  Alas, it was not to be.

It was a Murphy's Law sort of brewday, which only compounded my trials as I ventured into the world of mashing. As I mentioned in a previous post, it appeared that Mosher's book was calling for a partial-mash recipe.  It was called a partial-mash, anyway; there was no extract or extract-with-specialty-grains recipe listed, and Mosher gave specific instructions for how to do a partial mash recipe.  So, despite the fact that it looked to my untrained eye like an extract-with-specialty-grains recipe (which just requires steeping the grains for a little bit before the boil), I followed Mosher's instructions for partial mashing.  I followed them, in fact, even though BeerSmith was setting off alarm bells, saying that if I treated it like a partial mash the original gravity was going to be way too high.  Besides, so what if the OG is a little (or a lot) high?  It will have a little extra alcohol.  Nothing wrong with that, right?

It turns out that is not the case; different strains of yeast have different tolerances for alcohol and differing abilities to chew up sugar in the wort.  In addition, a heavy alcohol presence can be hot or solventy if you don't handle it correctly, and it's also not appropriate for most styles (barleywines being one of the exceptions; more on them later).  But that's a problem that I didn't have to deal with until later.

The first step in transitioning to partial-grain or all-grain brewing, of course, is getting the right equipment.  I had gotten a pretty large (7-gallon) brewpot with my original equipment, so I was sitting pretty there, and I figured I could use kitchen pots for my sparge water.  All I really needed was a mash/lauter tun.

For anyone who's unfamiliar with all-grain brewing, the central vessel is called a mash/lauter tun, or MLT.  This is the vessel that holds the grains--you steep them in carefully temperature-controlled water for about an hour, depending on the style (it's possible to get much more complicated, with steps and rests and multiple temperature changes, but it's generally just one steep in water between 150-155 F).  This is called the mash.  A decent MLT will have a drain valve and a false bottom to keep the grains away from the valve.  Draining the liquid out of the MLT is called lautering.

In addition to the MLT, you need a vessel capable of holding and heating several gallons of water for sparging, or rinsing the grains in the MLT, and another vessel capable of holding the total volume of liquid for the boil.

At this point all I really, really needed was an MLT.  I decided to go with a round cooler-style 5-gallon homemade tun.  The advantages were that it was relatively inexpensive, easy to assemble, and flexible.  The only real downsides were that there was some assembly required, and I would need to get a bigger one if I got into doing large all-grain batches (bigger than 5 gallons) or high-gravity all-grain brews (like barleywines and the like).

Finding the cooler wasn't particularly difficult, but like with all projects the cost I found was a lot higher than online guides said it would be.  Assembling the brass for the valve, on the other hand...I spent a week and easily a hundred dollars buying, testing, and arranging connectors.  My local Home Depot and Lowe's didn't have all of the pieces I needed (particularly washers), and being relatively new to brass plumbing features I underestimated how many similar-but-incompatible styles there are.  Thankfully Home Depot will accept returns even of opened items, but I still ended up with probably $20 worth of brass that I couldn't find the bags for despite careful organization.  I eventually broke down and ordered a $25 pre-assembled kit.  It was about twice what it would have been had I been able to find all the parts, but a quarter of what it cost me to try it myself.

Finally my mash tun was assembled, and I ordered the ingredients from Northern Brewer for my Oatmeal Raisin Cookie brown ale.  I've had good experiences with them overall, but this time I opened the box and everything was there...except for the pound of rolled oats, which is kind of central to the recipe.  So off to the store I go.  My local homebrew store (MyLHBS) was closed by this time, but I'd heard that quick oats would work just as well.  Turns out Quaker Quick Oats are just about a pound, so it was perfect.  I poured them on a baking sheet and popped them into the oven for a few minutes.  They browned a lot quicker than I'd been told to expect, though, so I might have overtoasted them a little.  I'm not really sure.  After toasting they need a couple of days rest to get rid of some nasty aromatics, so I stuck them in a paper bag and let them rest.  (Addendum: NB was very quick to send me out a pound of rolled oats as soon as I alerted them to the problem.)

I was oh-so-careful in starting my yeast starter.  Exactly eighteen hours before I anticipated needing to pitch I started my starter.  I boiled up the correct amount of dry extract, cooled it, pitched the yeast, and stuck it on the stir plate. 

The next day I got everything set up.  I added my grains to the mash tun and started heating up my mash water.  Once it hit the target temperature (167.5 F, which should cool to 156 F once it was added to the grains) I added it to the grains and stirred.  It seemed rather thick; I suspect I fell significantly below the 4.75 quarts during the boil (a lot of water probably boiled off).  After about five minutes the temperature was below 150, so I boiled another several cups of water and added it.  Five minutes later it was still low, so I repeated the process.  I checked halfway through the mash, and the temperature was way too high (maybe in the 170's?), so I added some cool water.  I don't recall the exact numbers or times but it was a mess.  Temperature control was probably my single-biggest problem during this ordeal.

I say that temperature control was the biggest problem I had with this brew, but whether that's true depends on whether you think a lack of temperature control was responsible for what happened next.

Generally what happens next is you open the tap part-way and collect what are known as first runnings.  The first stuff out of the mash tun generally has a lot of husk and other particulate matter in it.  You collect it and pour it back into the tun until it runs somewhat clear.  Mine never really did that.

In fact, mine hardly ran at all.

The most dreaded thing in all-grain brewing is known as the stuck sparge.  That's when the grains form a tight, compact bed and let very little liquid through, and the draining slows to a trickle.  I could hardly work my way up to that.  I would open the tap (part-way; opening it up too fast is one of the leading causes of stuck sparges) and get a slow flow for a few seconds, then a trickle...and then a drip.  Closing and re-opening it would restart this process as long as there was a lot of liquid in there, but mostly vigorous stirring/scraping of the contents of the tun is the only thing that got any liquid out.  What I did manage to extract was sludgy and thick with particulate matter.

I spent hours trying to drain this liquid.  I added the sparge water early in hopes that a higher liquid/grain ratio would ease things (it didn't).  I stirred.  I pleaded.  I adjusted the tap.  I begged.  Nothing worked.  Finally around 11pm I posted a query on HomeBrewTalk (God bless these people): am I doomed if I just cover the wort and do my boil tomorrow?  The quick consensus seemed to be I would probably be all right, although there was a slight possibility of some off flavors.  I laughed.  After this ordeal, their minor concerns were the least of mine.  I covered the kettle with aluminum foil and trudged off to bed.  Did I mention this was a weeknight, so I was getting up again in a few hours?

I mentioned earlier how carefully I timed the creation of my yeast starter.  I wanted to pitch it eighteen hours after I started it: no more, no less.  Except I'd just added another twenty-four hours to that.  Eighteen, forty-two; what's the difference?

My yeast had kind of a greyish color and smelled a little sour when I checked on it the next day, although it otherwise seemed healthy.  Hopefully that won't be a problem.  The boil itself was not so bad--even I can't screw up a partial-volume boil too badly.  Unfortunately, the stuff I ended up transferring to the carboy for fermentation was thick with particulates, and it was only the homebrewer credo of "relax, time can fix almost any problem" that kept me from pouring it down the drain.  Eventually I would almost come to wish I had.
To Be Continued...

Friday, June 7, 2013

Mapping the Rise of Craft Beer

Very interesting article in the New Yorker on the rise of craft beer in the United States: http://www.newyorker.com/sandbox/business/beer.html.

Virginia was pretty much in the middle on all counts: we're 12th in total number of craft breweries, 28th in total production, 12th in overall increase, and 30th in craft breweries per population.

Most of the data isn't really that surprising.  The biggest states are California, Washington, and Colorado; followed by Oregon, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin.

In terms of growth, however, the order is much different: Alabama leads the pack (not surprising, considering the official stance on craft beer has changed rapidly recently; see the recent legalization of homebrewing there); Minnesota, Connecticut, Nevada and Tennessee round out the tops for growth.  Again, this makes sense: since they started so low there's lots of room for growth.  It is interesting to see craft beer spreading away from the West Coast, however.

Perhaps the most interesting to me was breweries by population: suddenly Vermont was in the lead, with 20 craft breweries for every 500,000 people.  Oregon, not surprisingly, was second, with Montana trailing close behind.  California, surprisingly, had barely a fifth of Vermont's density, with 4.2 craft breweries per 500,000 people.  Perhaps this is a commentary on the vast population of California than anything else, but I found it surprising nonetheless.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

An Unexpected Party, or a History of Azog the Defiler

I've always been eager to push boundaries and try something new (at least on my own terms), and I've never had much patience for doing the same thing over and over again in the name of learning.  I like it just fine as a routine, because it allows my mind to be otherwise occupied.  I can run the same reports and answer the same questions at work without a problem, but when there's a goal beyond the work itself, the wasted time and effort just chafes at me.

I used to give my second-grade teacher, Ms. Beneker, fits.  We would get those math worksheets with thirty problems on them, and I'd never finish them.  I would do enough to be confident I understood the process (if she was doing the first few on the board, doing them myself and getting the same answers was enough to satisfy me), then I'd get up and wander, helping my classmates.  I was constantly getting yelled at to sit down and do my work, and by the time the lesson was over I'd done each problem multiple times...but only a few answers ever showed up on my worksheet.  It was a constant battle.  (Those worksheets where the answers give you clues to a joke or something worked better, right up until the moment I figured out what the answer would eventually be.  Then I was wandering again.)

Brewing has been much the same for me.  I don't have anything against extract brewing per se.  Many, many homebrewers have gone their entire career doing extract brewing, my father included, and had great results.  to the extent that my goal in brewing is to brew tasty beers, I'm perfectly happy brewing extract.  But I have another goal: to learn.  I want to learn everything I can about this, and I've heard so much about mashing and sparging and lautering and the like, and it seemed like the natural next step in learning about the art of brewing.  (Note that my goal here wasn't to brew great beer, but to learn more about brewing.)

At the time I was reading Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass, as I mentioned in my first blog post.  And oh, did that book light a fire in me to experiment!  It's basically a big book of "here's a recipe for a classic beer style.  Let's talk about all the ways you can alter it to make it unique!"  I finally broke down when I hit his recipe for a Southern English Brown Ale (for those who aren't familiar, it's a relatively mild, sweet brown ale), and Mosher suggested putting a pound of toasted oats in to replicate the flavor of an oatmeal cookie.

It was as if the One Ring had taken hold of me.  This recipe was my precious, and I must have it.  I conceived of an improvement over Mosher's recipe: a pound of Special B in the grain bill.  Special B is a dark, flavorful crystal malt reputed to confer caramel and especially raisin flavors to a brew.  I would make no mere oatmeal cookie ale; I would be brewing an oatmeal raisin cookie brown ale.

The only snag: Mosher's recipe only came in partial-mash and all-grain versions; or at least, that was how it appeared to me.  Thus began my downfall.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

NoVa Summer BrewFest

For the first time in several years, I will be volunteering at the Northern Virginia Summer BrewFest!  My dad volunteers every year and loves it.  The last time I volunteered I was assigned to run spin art for the kids, which was fine--but this year I get to be a pourer.

The big email with all the instructions for volunteers, etc. came out today.  Good stuff, and it appears pretty well organized.  Best of all is the section labeled 'Related Information - "The Fun Stuff"'.  It's all about learning about the beers and brewery you'll be working with so you can discuss it with the patrons, as well as learning as much as you can about the other beers available at the festival.

You can understand why this excites me.  I only wish I knew beforehand which brewery I would be assigned to so I could do some homework!

Brewers appearing at the brewfest:
  • Abita Brewery
  • Allagash Brewing Appocalypse Brew Works (Louisville, KY)
  • Baltimore-Washington Beer Works (Raven)
  • Bell’s Brewery
  • Blue & Gray Brewing
  • Blue Point Brewery
  • Boston Beer Co.
  • Bold Rock Ciders
  • Brewery Ommegang
  • Capitol City Brewing
  • Climax Brewing
  • Corcoran Brewing
  • Crispin Cider
  • DC Brau Brewing
  • Devils Backbone Brewing
  • Dominion Brewery
  • DuClaw Brewing
  • Evolution Craft Brewing
  • Firestone Walker Brewery
  • Flying Dog Brewery
  • Fordham Brewing
  • Gordon Biersch Brewery
  • Goose Island Brewing
  • Great Lakes Brewing
  • Green Flash Brewing
  • Harpoon Brewery
  • Heavy Seas Brewing
  • Highland Brewing 
  • Kona Brewing
  • Lagunitas Brewery
  • Lancaster Brewing
  • Laughing Dog Brewing
  • Left Hand Brewing
  • Legend Brewery
  • Long Trail Brewing
  • Lost Rhino Brewing
  • Mad Fox Brewing
  • Magic Hat Brewing
  • Miller Brewing
  • New Belgium Brewing
  • New Holland Brewing
  • Peak Organic Brewing
  • Port City Brewing
  • Redhook Ale Brewery
  • RJ Rockers Brewing
  • Schlafly Beer (St. Louis Brewery)
  • Shocktop (Anheuser-Busch Brewing)
  • Sixpoint Brewery
  • Smuttynose Brewing Somerville Brewing (Slumbrew) (MA)
  • St. George Brewery
  • Starr Hill Brewery
  • Stone Brewing
  • Terrapin Beer Co. Three Brothers Brewing (Harrisonburg, VA)
  • Three Heads Brewing
  • Troegs Brewing
  • Vintage 50 Restaurant & Brew Pub
  • Widmer Brothers Brewing
  • Williamsburg Alewerks Brewing
  • Wild Wolf Brewing
Several of these are new this year.  I won't lie; there are some I'd prefer to others (Lagunitas, Bell's, Stone, for example--and I would be over the moon if I was assigned to Firestone Walker, though I'd probably consume all of the Wooky Jack if they had it) but I'll be thrilled with whomever I'm assigned to.

Time to start doing some homework, and the teacher hasn't specified what's going to be on the test yet...personally, I regard this as a valuable educational experience as well as a test of what I've learned so far.

Bottle Bombs and Other Catastrophes

Ah, the infamous bottle bomb.  I'd heard about them, but never experienced them.  All good things must come to an end, I guess.

I experienced my first one a week or so after bottling Hefeweis City (see Hefeweis City, Part I and Hefeweis City, Part II).  Nothing major; I had gone down to my laundry room/brewery to check on things...and saw a puddle under the case.  Never a good sign.  Fearing the worst, I opened the case.  Glass and beer everywhere, but much to my relief only one broken bottle.  I checked the other case, and found no further victims.  I cleaned up, happy I'd only lost a single bottle.

A few days later, I was downstairs washing bottles and I heard it--a dull thump.  It sounded like something had fallen over in my brewing cabinet.  I opened the doors, and lo and behold...beer was dribbling out of the case.  This one made much more of a mess, despite the bottle breaking cleanly into only a few pieces.

While I waited for all the cardboard to dry, I sat down to think about causes.

What could have caused this?  The proximate cause is overcarbing, of course--carbonation causes more pressure than the bottle can stand.  But why this batch?  Why these particular bottles?

The answers I came up with:
  • Bottled too early.  Only a week had passed since the beer went into the fermenter.  Fermentation was early and ended early, with very low, stable gravity readings by the end of the week.  I could have been wrong about fermentation being over, though.  If the beer still had residual fermentables when I bottled it, that could cause bottle bombs.
  • Too much priming sugar.  I used a full 5oz package of corn sugar.  This was higher than the style guidelines, according to BeerSmith (BeerSmith recommends 3.61oz of corn sugar), but certainly not more than a bottle should be able to handle.  Lots of homebrewers use a full 5oz every time without issues.
  • Weak bottles.  Several cases of bottles were donated by a friend and are reportedly decades old.  Some still had old homebrew in them (cleaning them was not fun).  Perhaps age and/or holding beer for so long had weakened them.  I've never heard of it, but Hamlet was right when he said "there is more in Heaven and Earth [...] than is dreampt of in your philosophy".  It would explain why only one had gone off.
  • Poorly-Mixed Priming Sugar. If some bottles had more sugar than the others, they would over-carb even if the total amount of priming sugar was correct.  Weak bottles might exacerbate it, but too much sugar will bust even a strong bottle, I suspect.
It took me a while to figure out, but I think the last was the cause.  My standard procedure is to boil up a solution of priming sugar and water, cool it to room temperature, and add it to the bottom of the bottling bucket, trusting to the agitation from racking to mix it thoroughly.  It works for my dad, and it worked for my first few brews.

However, a recent hop experiment (5 1-gallon batches of IPA, each with a different flavor/aroma hop) gave me mixed results in several areas, including carbonation.  At the time I chalked it up to the difficulty of small measurements and doing things on a different scale than I was used to, but now I'm not so sure.  The first several I tried turned out flat, but others were well-carbonated.  It doesn't appear to be a function of time, either: carbed and uncarbed have come up interspersed.  However, I think it might relate to the position of the bottle in the case (and thus to the order they were brewed in).  If most of the priming sugar went into either the early or late bottles, it would explain the differing carbonation levels.

I had assumed that racking one gallon over just didn't give the priming sugar enough time to mix.  With the hefe, however, I racked a full five gallons.  But it's the only answer that fits.  If I bottled too early, all of the bottles would be dangerously carbonated.  The first test beer was flat, which disproves that theory.  Same thing with too much priming sugar--I should be seeing overcarbonation on every beer and multiple bottle bombs.  Weak bottles would explain why I had two bottle bombs and no more, but it doesn't explain why the test beer was flat after three weeks.  An inconsistent level of priming sugar, however, explains all of the symptoms.

After a little research on HomebrewTalk.com, several members recommend stirring the beer (gently!  We don't want to oxygenate the beer) after racking it to the bottling bucket.  I think I will have to try that in the future.  The IPA's were an experiment, and successful in their goal despite inconsistent carbonation, but the hefe was supposed to be something I and my friend could show off.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

You Get What You Pay For

I signed up for Black Bucket Brew the other day.  I'm not sure how I found it, and I'm still not sure what it is.  It describes itself as "an e-zine for lovers of craft beer & home brew", and perhaps that's accurate.  It's a mishmash of shopping links, basic information about craft beer and homebrewing, and the like.

I signed up primarily because they offered a free e-book, called 10 Tips: How to Enjoy Your Beer Even More!.  It's written by David Ivey, who appears to be the guy in charge of Black Bucket Brew.  On the upside, he grants people the right to distribute the booklet freely (though he asks that links remain intact, which is reasonable).  On the downside, there's not much in here that can't be found easily in a hundred other places.  All-in-all, though, it's not a bad primer to beer appreciation/judging for a complete novice--but it's not that good, either.
  • Tip #1: Appearance.  Basically, he says to pour it into a glass.  Important, yes; but pretty damn basic, and a cop-out considering appearance is so important to a quality brew.  Maybe the title of the tip is a problem, but you could give some tips about pouring it into a glass, like the importance of a clean glass (dirty glasses can trap carbonation and inhibit head formation) and getting all the soap off (again, inhibits head).  Even better, wash it again without soap.  He could also talk about glassware if he's not actually going to talk about appearance (and pouring it into a glass is about so much more than appearance).
  • Tip #2: Clean Glass.  Ah, here it is: the importance of a clean glass.  He talks about how to clean a beer without leaving soapy residue, but it feels like he's splitting hairs to get to 10 tips.  By the way, you can tell that a beer hasn't been cleaned properly if carbonation clings to the inside of the glass or the lacing is uneven.
  • Tip #3: Beer Glasses.  Here he talks about the importance of using proper glassware.  If his audience needs to be told that they should pour it into a glass instead of drinking out of the bottle expecting them to use special glassware may be a bit of a stretch--most beers can be adequately enjoyed out of a standard beer mug or a pint glass (although yes, proper glassware will enhance it).  His description of glass styles also lacks.  He describes a pint glass as the best all-around glass, but really it's just a good standard size, easy to clean and stack at a bar.  Moving on to a weizen glass, he claims that the flare at the bottom is to "capture yeast"--but traditionally, if you're going to drink it "mit hefe" (with yeast), you pour out 90% of the beer, then swirl it to get the yeast in suspension, and pour that on top (this only works with bottle-conditioned beers, by the way).  He also calls "BudMillerCoors" pilsners--which is flat-out wrong.  They are part of the Light Lager category, at least according to the BJCP.  Pilsners are an entirely different category of beer (they are both lagers).
  • Tip #4: Serving Temperature.
  • Tip #5: Pouring a Nice Head.
  • Tip #6: Beer Color.  There's a lot more to say about beer color than he does.  I'd like to see at least a basic explanation of how the malt used contributes to beer color, and for bonus points talk about caramelization.  Truth be told, though, he should just talk about appearance overall, including carbonation, head, and clarity.
  • Tip #7: Clarity.  Ah, here it is.  It's just been stretched into another tip.  Perhaps we can hold our breath for carbonation and head?  Some decent info here.
  • Tip #8: Aroma.  Alas, my hopes for finishing up appearance, in suspense since Tip #1, are not to be.  Wait, we're 8 tips into 10 and we're just now getting to aroma?  Are you sure we needed separate tips for "Pour It Into A Glass" and "Make Sure It's Clean First" (which are sort of backwards anyway, if you think about it).  Sadly, for something so important to appreciating a quality beer, the information here is superficial at best.
  • Tip #9: Taste.  Decent info here.  A couple of paragraphs just isn't enough for any meaningful discussion of flavor, though.  The tip ends with a mention that they'll talk about flavor in the future, and a link to sign up for their newsletters.
  • Tip #10: Mouthfeel.  Includes a mention of nitrogen ("nitro") as well as carbon dioxide, and their explanation contained info that was new to me.  Good show.
  • Bonus!  Tip #11: Finish.  Maybe if you all hadn't stretched your tips you would be able to count to 10.  Or perhaps that was the point.  At any rate, finish is more properly considered part of taste and mouthfeel.  Oh, and another request to sign up for their newsletter.
All in all it's not a bad little booklet, although there are numerous places the information is lacking or flat-out wrong.  But it's really more a guide to beer evaluation than appreciation, and a flawed one at that.  Five of the ten (sorry, eleven) tips are on appearance, which is worth a whopping 3 out of 50 points when evaluating a beer, according to the BJCP.  Mouthfeel is worth more than that (although he does stretch that into a tip-and-a-half).

If I were to write a guide to beer appreciation for newcomers, I think I'd start with a broad overview of beer--talk about the basic ingredients and how they affect the final product.  Perhaps move into a discussion of styles: nothing too deep, but explain the difference between an ale and a lager, and talk about a pale ale/IPA vs. a porter or a stout vs. a wheat beer, etc.  Throw in a little information about some less-common styles like the variety of Belgians out there.  Talk about some common trends--how American versions of beers tend to be hoppier and less malty; or how rye is big right now.

If I were writing a guide to beer evaluation, I'd start with the BJCP guidelines, walk them through a scoring sheet, and encourage them to actually record their impressions.  Of course, it would be even better if I was a BJCP judge, but I suppose a disclaimer would be sufficient.  I don't see any disclaimers from the authori of this tract.

In this case at least, you get what you pay for.

Hooray for IPA!

One of the stores in my area, Total Wine, holds periodic classes and events. Honestly, they're more wine-oriented, but they have a pretty good selection of craft beers, and I love going in and assembling a custom six-pack. I don't drink a great deal, so if I have to buy a six-pack every time I want to try a beer I'll never get to try half of what I want. Buying singles is the way to go for me.

One of their upcoming classes is called Hooray for IPA! The cost is pretty nominal--$15. I don't know much about the class, but it promises English IPA, Belgian IPA, American IPA, American Double/Imperial IPA, and "other hoppy goodness". I'm not sure what that last one means, but I assume it is talking about either other hoppy styles (American Barleywine or American Pilsner, maybe?) or hoppy versions of otherwise not-so-hoppy styles (you know us Americans, more hops are always better!)

 I'll have to check that out and see what they have to offer. I've been interested by their in-store tastings in the past.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Brew Locally, Drink Globally

CraftBeer.com had an interesting post recently called Bringing Local Flavors to Your Pint.  The article itself is fairly superficial, focusing on pretty obvious ingredients and the benefit of freshness, but it was interesting nonetheless.
It got me thinking about including local (or at least Virginia's) iconic ingredients.  A lot of what Virginia produces isn't really that unique (except tobacco, and I'm leery of both the ethical and flavor questions raised by trying to work that into a beer).  So what could I use?

I came up with a couple of ingredients:
  •  peanuts
  • apples
  • wine/wine must
  • cherries
So: what do I make of this?  I could probably find some local peanut butter for a peanut butter porter or a peanut butter stout.   I already have an apfelwein fermenting, though an apfelwein/weissbier hybrid has promise. What about a sour apple lambic?  

As for the other two ingredients, a kreik lambic is perfect for cherries, and delicious to boot. I know there are lots of recipes using wine must as well--Dogfish Head has one, if I recall. I'll have to look that up.
Any other ideas?  Anybody brewed anything with local ingredients?

Hefeweis City, Part II

I suppose I should explain why I'm calling the blog posts about the hefeweisen "Hefeweis City".  As I mentioned in the previous post, this beer was partly an introduction to homebrewing for a friend.  I don't expect he'll take the plunge into homebrewing himself, but he enjoys craft beer and seems curious about my brewing.

As you may have guessed, "Hefeweis City" is the name of the beer.  I let my friend pick the name, partly because it was his first brew and partly because I didn't have any ideas myself.  It's based off Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (he had video games on the brain; the alternate was "M. Weisen", a play off of the Street Fighter character M. Bison.

Fermentation went very quickly.  In my last order I picked up one of the paddle aerators that fits into a drill, and a couple of minutes with that I suspect provided all the oxygen the yeast needed.  Fermentation started later that same evening, and the krausen had fallen by the next day.

By the end of the week there were no bubbles in the airlock, and I started taking gravity readings.  I was concerned that perhaps my hydrometer was off, because it kept reading about 1.000 (1.002 adjusted for temperature), but I didn't worry too much because the readings were consistent over several days.  At that point I knew that the gravity wasn't excessively high (indicating a stuck fermentation) or still ongoing, so a week after brewing we bottled.  I was a little apprehensive about it, but it seemed to be ready.

Bottling with two people is the way to go.  Besides the fact that bottling consists primarily of two activities that can't be done simultaneously by one person (filling and capping), I didn't have a bunch of filled bottles sitting around ready to be knocked over.  I filled, he capped, and we zipped through it.  Best of all, he could tip the bottling bucket for me when we got down near the bottom (I don't have a dip tube yet) and I could concentrate on bottling.

For labels, I typically use Avery 8160 labels; They're 1" x 2 5/8", large enough to hold a decently large title and other information--I generally add the style and bottling date, although this time I stuck the brewers' names on there as well (so my friend can show off beer with his name on the bottle). 

I downloaded the font used in Vice City and made up some nice labels:


Friday, May 31, 2013

Hefeweis City, Part I

I'm still relatively new to brewing.  I've been brewing for less than a year, but I'm passionate about it.  So it's something I talk about with my friends ad nauseum.  It's that same passion that led me to create this blog.

So when a friend expressed an interest in some of the craft beers I was talking about, I jumped at the chance to introduce him to the world of quality beer.  To my surprise, his palate progressed quickly and he was able to describe very well what he tasted in various beers and what he liked and disliked.  (He dislikes most lagers' relatively light body and neutral flavor and stouts' often roasty flavor, for the record; he's a big fan of IPA's and other hoppy beers.)

I swear, this is going somewhere.

He called me a little less than a month ago to see what I was up to.  As it happens, I was going to brew a Bavarian hefeweisen that weekend, and I invited him to join me.  To my delight he agreed, and we had a pleasant day brewing an extract-with-specialty-grains hefe.  The recipe is below:

  • 1 lb crystal 10L malt
  • 2 lbs wheat DME (60 min boil)
  • 3 lbs wheat DME (15 min boil)
  • 0.5 oz Tettnang hops (60 min boil)
  • 1 pkg Munich (Lallemand) yeast
It's a pretty simple recipe.  The original gravity is on the low end of the style guidelines (1.045 according to BeerSmith; the style guideline is from 1.044-1.052), with average bitterness (11.0 IBU), a somewhat dark color (7.2 SRM; guidelines are 2.0-8.0) and below-style alcohol content (4.2% ABV; guidelines 4.3-5.6%).

I could have bumped up the gravity and ABV by adding another pound of DME, but I wanted this to be a nice light summer "lawnmower beer"--something crisp and refreshing that won't knock you over if you down one quickly when you come in dehydrated from working outside.  The darkish color (it's still only a medium amber) is probably due to the fact that I'm using extract (for those who aren't familiar, a rather complex set of reactions called Maillard reactions tend to cause malt extract to caramelize and darken during the boil--which is why the majority of it didn't go into the boil until later).

The beer style was my friend's choice, by the way--I was leaning toward something hoppier, but he'd suggested a hefeweisen for the summer.

Our brewday went fairly well.  I had a lot of fun teaching him about brewing, and he seemed to enjoy watching me scramble around to deal with the inevitable problems that crop up (primarily boil-overs due to using an outdoor burner for the first time--one of the boil-overs was severe enough to extinguish the burner after I was out of matches, so I had to put my old Boy Scout skills to use and light a branch on fire using my smoker and re-light it the hard way).  My wife also seemed to enjoy correcting me every time I mangled a scientific explanation (she's a biology teacher).

I'll chronicle the rest of the process in a later post.

Lines on Ale

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain -
Quaintest thoughts–queerist fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.
~~Edgar Allan Poe, Lines on Ale

I ran across this poem in Randy Mosher's excellent book Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass, and I really wanted to share it. I mean, Edgar Allen Poe is one of my favorite authors--he's not the cleanest or most rhythmic poets, but damn is he evocative. Who can forget The Raven or Annabel Lee?

For me Lines on Ale struck much the same tone. But where could I share it? Not on Facebook. I work with a youth group, and although I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with brewing beer or consuming it (in moderation), and I do share beer-related things on Facebook occasionally, I have several hundred underage "friends", and constantly discussing alcohol and drinking with them isn't in anybody's best interests. That said, I do intentionally post things on there from time to time--it's also important for them to see an adult modeling a healthy relationship with alcohol.

 In addition, Facebook often makes up a large part of what people see of you. If someone goes to a blog on homebrewing, they expect to see beer-related posts. When that's all they see of you on Facebook, they're likely to draw a much different conclusion.

 I'm active on a few homebrewing forums, but they don't provide quite the platform I'm looking for. They're great for starting discussions or asking questions, but there are things I want to share that don't really fit there. Hence this blog. Things I'm considering for this blog:
  • my own journey through homebrewing:
    • Recipes I've tried
    • Progress of various batches
    • Recipes I'm considering, or daydreaming about
  • my journey through the world of craft beer
  • other beer-related experiences:
    • Brewery tours
    • Beer forums, publications, associations, etc.
    • Beer clubs
If there's anything else you'd like to read about, leave me feedback and I'll do my best to include it. I'm also signed up with Amazon Affiliates, since I'm likely to review or suggest a number of things you can buy there. If something piques your interest or something I say tempts you to buy it, please consider using a link from my page. The links in the text will link to the item on Amazon, and I'll get a small referral fee, but it doesn't cost you anything extra. In addition, I'll put text-and-graphics links at the bottom of the post for products I discuss, so they don't get in the way of the post.