2009 Brewing Year In Review

This was a neat post I did at the end of last year, so I figured I would continue the trend with some random brewing stats and facts from 2009. Enjoy!

- Number of Batches Made - 18
- Number of Gallons Made - 110
- First Brew Day - 1/17/2009
- Last Brew Day - 11/29/2009
- Number of Beer Batches - 16
- Number of Wine Batches - 0
- Number of Cider Batches - 1
- Number of Mead Batches - 1
- Homebrew Competitions Medals Earned - 1 silver and 2 bronze
- Batch with Highest Alcohol - ~13% - Mixed Berry Mead (not finished yet, so ABV is estimate)
- Batch with Lowest Alcohol - 3.7% - Mild n' Wild English Mild
- Average Alcohol Across Batches - 6.2%
- Favorite Brew - Hoppy Gentleman English IPA (wonderful biscuit malt character that blended very well with the herbal and earthy English hops)
- Worst Brew - Headless Folly Pumpkin Beer (added too much vanilla, so all you can smell and taste is vanilla, which makes it hard to drink)
- Favorite Name - Double-Wide Dubbel (Belgian ale brewed in two parking spaces outside our local homebrew shop for Teach a Friend to Brew Day).
- Approximate Amount of Grain used in 2009 - 263 pounds (average of 16.4 lbs/brew)
- Approximate Amount of Hops used in 2009 - 47.5 ounces (average of 2.97 oz/brew)
- Biggest Equipment Upgrade - Purchase of a 15-gallon stainless-steel kettle with attached ball-valve
- Number of Batches Brewed for Baker's Party - 4
- Biggest Supporter of My Brewing - My wife, who still supports my wonderful hobby, though under duress at times. Thanks, honey!

Oktober Fete and Fest

Oktoberfest or marzen beers are the richest of the European amber lagers. They were traditionally made in early spring and lagered in cold caves over the summer months. They would be pulled out for the fall harvest festivals, where their rich character and higher alcohol content would be appreciated by festival-goers. Oktoberfest beers are typically smooth and rich and start with malty sweetness, but finish dry enough to be drunken in quantity.

Back in Septemeber, I brewed my third attempt at making an Oktoberfest-style lager beer. My first attempt was years ago, before I understood how lager yeast worked and it did not finish fermenting out. I don't even think it should have been called a beer, though a friend of mine "adopted" the whole batch and, as far as I know, actually drank it. My second attempt, just last year, also had fermentation issues. The first pitch of yeast I used (Wyeast Bavarian Lager - 2206) turned out to be sickly and did not get off the ground almost at all. I pitched a dry lager strain on top of that to save the batch and it worked. The finished product had a fair amount of diacetyl in the flavor (buttered popcorn), but was definitely drinkable. But, it was not to style and I knew I could do better.

This year's Oktober Fete and Fest used the same grain bill as last years batch, but I used a different yeast strain (White Labs 820), which was special ordered right from the manufacturer and was VERY lively. I made a gallon starter out of it to prime it for the job. The result was easily my best yet and I have had difficulty not drinking it all quickly, as it pairs very well with food.

Here are the stats on the Oktober Fete and Fest:

Brewed: 9/12/2009

Kegged: 11/2/2009

Original Gravity: 1.059

Final Gravity: 1.013

IBU: 27

Alcohol By Volume: 6.0%
Lager Length: 31 days at 40 F

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a clear rich amber color with a rocky white head. The head slowly fades during the pint, but leaves thick lace behind all the way down the glass. This beer is one of the clearest I have ever produced, which is likely a result of long lagering period. The aroma holds a very subtle bready malt character, but finishes with the drying quality that you find in many lagers. I do wish the Oktoberfest had a more substantial aroma, as this one is rather thin.

The initial taste is slightly bready and malty, but lacks some of the malt complexity that I like in this style. The mid-palate flavor has a nice balance between malt and hop bitterness. The taste concludes with a nice dry lager profile that makes it easy to go back for another sip. I think it is this dryness that makes the beer pair well with food and also makes it go down so easy.

The Oktober Fete and Fest received an honorable mention at the 2009 CASK Virginia Beer Blitz competition and earned a score of 33. The judges found it to be very drinkable, but found slightly more diacetyl than they would like to see, as well as it lacked some of the malt complexity they wanted up front.

I am just glad that it placed as well as it did.

Third Annual Virginia Beer Blitz

Earlier in December, the Colonial Ale Smiths and Keggers (CASK) club, out of Williamsburg, VA, put on their third Virginia Beer Blitz. This is a competition that a member of our club did really well in last year, so the rest of CAMRA was interested in it this year. We put on a concerted effort to get entries into the competition, which included having a member's friend drop the entries off at the host brewery in person. Jamey also went down and volunteered as a judge in the competition and had a good time doing so.

The results of the competition can be found here: http://www.colonialalesmiths.org/BeerBlitz/ It was nice to receive a silver metal (mead), a bronze metal (cider), and an honorable mention (Oktoberfest) from the competition. CAMRA, as a whole, also did very well, coming in a three-way tie for most metal points with CASK and the Beer and Ale Research Foundation (BARF) for the coveted Blitzkrieg award. The award ended up going to CASK because they got the most points in the best of show round. This was a great showing for our club, as we are relative newcomers to the Virginia homebrewing competition scene.

Thanks to Jamey for bringing back everyone's medals and prizes and for representing the club at the competition. I hope to be able to volunteer at next year's event.

Hand-Crafted Tap Handles

A couple of months ago, one of the members of our homebrewing club offered to help anyone who was interested make their own tap handles. Eric had just gotten a small lathe for his wood-working shop. The type of lathe he purchased was most often used to make fancy wooden pens or small ornamental dowels, but Eric figured it could also make great tap handles. He wanted to get a feel for what the lathe could do, so he wanted some "guinea pigs" to try different techniques out. I immediately volunteered, as anything we could come up with would be better than the small plastic handles I was currently using.

On three nights over the span of a couple of months, I met Eric in his shop and we created three completely different handles. Eric let me select pieces of wood to use from his furniture-making scrap pile, which had a lot of off-cuts. I selected three different woods, so that I could get significant variation in the tap handle appearance (from left to right, in the picture, we have maple, cherry, and walnut wood). We drew some inspiration for the tap handle shapes from on-line pictures, but most of it came spontaneously as we worked with the wood. I was able to help do some of the less detailed work, but Eric usually had to step in at the end with his more delicate touch.

Thanks for your help, Eric. I had fun making them and I think they look great.

The "Mane" Event

This post needs a little background. Stay with me, as I promise it will get back to beer.

For about 8 years now, my family has been involved with a local childrens theater company called Blackbox Players (http://www.blackboxplayers.com/). My wife and I have enjoyed acting for quite a while and now that we have kids who enjoy being on stage, our interest in Blackbox is even stronger. This fall's show is a musical version of the C. S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It has been a fun show, with an interested cast of adults and children and some great original music from a local artist.

I am cast as Aslan, the mysterious lion leader of the good forces in the land of Narnia. Aslan has proven a difficult role for me to play, as I am typically cast in a comic-relief type role. Aslan does not joke; he does not make the audience laugh; he hardly even smiles. All the same, it has been an interesting role for me and the costume is really neat (see the attached picture).

Now, back to beer. One of my fellow cast members has been interested in brewing for quite some time. We got to talking and I invited him to my house over to brew a batch of a beer of his choosing to help show him the ropes and see if he would like to explore the hobby further. He said he wanted to do an oatmeal stout and we left it at that. Apparently, he was in a grocery store looking for a couple commercial examples of oatmeal stout when he saw a beer bottle with a giant lion (think Aslan) on its label. He kindly purchased it and gave it to me as a gift.

Lion Stout is brewed by the Lion Brewery PLC, which is located in Sri Lanka. It is a beer that has gained quite a following outside its country of origin. The bottle has the following quote from Michael Jackson, of Beer Hunter fame, ". . . the stout was soft, fresh and quite delicious. This was the top-fermenting Lion Stout . . . it was bottle-conditioned and had an extraordinary chocolaty, mocha character . . ." Ratebeer.com gives it a rating of 98%, with well over 1,000 votes. Here is my humble review . . .

The stout pours with a thick mocha-colored head. The foam has a tight bubble matrix, which makes it look rather like a giant pillow, though it gradually dissipated, leaving a neat lacing on the glass. The beer itself it as black as I imagine a black hole would appear. I held the glass up to a strong light and I could not perceive any light coming through. The aroma has a distinct dark chocolate smell, with just a hint of alcohol, which reminds me of a Godiva liquor. I also get hints of coffee, but it does not come close to competing with chocolate in the nose.

The flavor of the beer is devine. It is smooth and creamy, without any of the alcohol presence I would expect from an 8% ABV beer. The main flavor component through the entire taste is dark chocolate. I get some coffee and mocha in the mid-palate, but it is subdued. The end of the palate has a slight sweetness; one that competes nicely with the slight roast character of the beer. The stout reminds me most of a "death by chocolate" desert, but not as sweet. It is really quite incredible.

A special thank you to my kind cast-member, Tres, who gave me this wonderful stout. It has been my pleasure to review it. My vote . . . it gets a big ROOOAAARRR!!!

Collaboration Label

Jeff recently mentioned that he would like to create a label for our collaboration brewing sessions. Seeing how we do them infrequently and they will likely always be bottled beers meant for aging, a label seems a creative way to make the effort special. Add to this that Jeff has a friend who is a graphics designer who might be willing to exchange his expertise for homebrew, and now we are cooking.

Jeff asked for some ideas on what our co-homebrewery might be called, and here is what I came up with.

- North and South Brewing
- Dixie Line Brewing
- Wallace Brother's Brewing
- Two Brothers Brewing
- Barley Brothers
- Wallace Clan Brewing
- Shared Obsession Brewing Company
- Stout and Bitter Brewing
- Witty Exchange Brewing Company
- Bugman's Brewing

I will add Jeff's thoughts to the list when I see them. Regardless of what we choose, it seems a fun collaboration for our collaborative brews.

Thanksgiving Beer and Brew Day

My brother and his family were able to come down for Thanksgiving this year, which was great. In addition to being able to spend time with my lovely sister-in-law and nieces, Jeff brought down some incredible beer. He has access to a larger beer market where he lives than we do here in Virginia. Some of the beer that we were able to sample includes:

• Cantillion Gueuze (http://www.cantillon.be/br/3_101)
• De Struise Black Albert (http://struise.noordhoek.com/eng/)
  
• De Struise Pannepot (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/struise-pannepot/37835/)
• Pretty Things Jack D'Or (http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/site/node/13)
• Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga (http://www.jollypumpkin.com/beers.htm)
  
• Several beers from River Horse Brewing (http://www.riverhorse.com/our_beer/our_beer_tripel_horse.html)

Jeff also brought me down several bottles of the New Belgium Dragon's Milk clone we brewed together this summer. This beer is a complex dark ale with wood and bourbon character. Early taste tests of the beer were clearly too heavy on the bourbon, but time has definitely helped blend the rougher characteristics together. We did a side-by-side comparison of our clone and the actual Dragon's Milk (http://newhollandbrew.com/corp/beer/high_gravity) and they were amazingly close. I detected a slight coconut flavor in our clone that was missing from the real beer. Jeff suspects this is due to a difference in the wood chips we used versus the barrels used at the brewery. Otherwise, they were really close and this was the best clone I have done to date. I am going to stash the 11 remaining bottles away and see how they age.

Our loving spouses were also supportive enough to allow a brew day on Sunday, which we took full advantage of. Jeff and I have co-brewed a beer every time we have been together since he started homebrewing early this year. We have arrived at the consensus that we should brew dark big beers together because they can age well and a while often passes before we can see each other again to hand the beer off. It also allows us to build a library of beer we can sample and discuss when we visit. So, this time we elected to brew an English barleywine. Neither of us have attempted this style before, so we decided to use Jamil Zainasheff's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles as a starting point. We modified the recipe to use the hops we had on hand and ran with it.

Sunday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and there was an autumn crispness to the air. There were leaves on the ground and the sound of laughing children around the deck as we made our beer. Regardless of how the beer turns out, I must say, that it will always embody the joys of family for me. It was made in the company of multiple generations (see the picture of our youngest brewer), in the shared interest of two brothers, and at the end of a holiday that celebrates our extended family, past and present. It is a beer I will save away to bring out on special occasions. When I serve it, I will remember a small piece of the joy that my family brings to me.

Cheers, Jeff. Thanks for another wonderful brew.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - 2009

Yesterday was the American Homebrewing Association's (AHA) annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. This is an event that the AHA organizes to help show people how homebrewing works and encourage interest in the hobby. It is one of my favorite "group brewing" events of the year, as I really enjoy showing off the process and talking to prospective brewers. I have participated in this event for the past three years, by hosting an event at my house in 2007 and then helping with the events at The Fermentation Trap in both 2008 and 2009.

This year, my good friend and fellow CAMRA-member, Greg, and I decided we should do a joint-brew of a Belgian Dubbel. We had been planning on doing another join-brewing session for a while and this seemed a great way to profile the hobby and our local homebrewing club, as well as making some good beer. The recipe we chose to follow is Tomme Arthur's dubbel, as documented in Brew Like a Monk (see my review of Tomme's Lost & Found Abbey Ale here). To do a 10-gallon batch of this beer, we required more than 31 pounds of grain, three pounds of dark candy syrup, and over a pound of raisins. The sheer volume of grain meant that we needed to use both our mash tuns, which allowed us to show the differences between batch and fly sparging. We ended up calling our beer "Double-Wide Dubbel," as it was a double-sized batch and we brewed the batch in the parking lot, while taking up two parking spots.

We had about 14 people stop by and chat with us during the event at The Fermentation Trap. I hope that we were able to provide some useful information and encourage interest in our favorite hobby. In the end, Greg and I each got six gallons of 1.083 wort (higher than we expected) that will make a great beer. I greatly enjoyed brewing with Greg, as he is a fantastic brewer with different processes than mine and because we are good friends. Thank you to Randy and the staff of The Fermentation Trap for hosting the demonstration and for being so supportive of CAMRA and homebrewing in Central Virginia. They are great and I would recommend people stop by their online or retail store and pick something up (http://www.fermentationtrap.com/).

The Lost Abbey's Lost & Found Abbey Ale

One of the members of my homebrewing club took a trip up to Pennsylvania a while back and brought a bunch of bottles of beer we could not find down here in Central Virginia. He was kind enough to offer several bottles of Lost Abbey and Russian River beer for sale to club members, at the cost he paid for them. I took him up on the offer and picked up a bottle of Lost Abbey Lost & Found Ale. I have previously had Lost Abbey's Devotion Ale, but that was the only one of their offerings I have sampled.

Here is what The Lost Abbey says about the beer (http://www.lostabbey.com/lost-abbey-beers/year-round-beers/lost-and-found-abbey-ale/):

"Lost and Found- Modeled after the great Trappist and Monastic beers that inspired the founding of our brewery. A richly deep garnet colored ale created from a blend of Domestic and imported malts. As part of our commitment to interesting brewing endeavors, Chef Vince created a special raisin puree for this beer. Malts, raisins and a fantastic yeast strain working in harmony produce a beer of amazing complexity and depth. Available in 750ml bottles and on draft at select inspired locations.

OG- 1.065 TG- 1.010 7.5% ABV [bottle shows 8.0%]

Malts- Two Row, Wheat, Medium and Dark English Crystal, Special B and Chocolate Malt.
Hops- German Magnum and German Tettnang
Yeast- Proprietary Belgian Ale Strain
Adjuncts- Dextrose and Chef Vince’s Raisin Puree."

The beer pours a cloudy deep garnet color, with a thick off white head. The head itself has very course bubbles in it, looking almost like a sponge. The head dissipated rather quickly and did not leave any lacing on the sides of the glass. However, after the bulk of head evaporated, there was a thin lair of tighter bubbles that lasted through out the tasting. The aroma is very complex, including dark brown sugar, bitter herbs, raisins, and some funk.

The taste begins with the flavor you get from brown sugar, if you imagined taking the sweetness out the equation. I get a definite raisin flavor next, which has some sweetness that lingers on the tongue. I also get a lot of carbonation in the taste at this point, much like tiny pin pricks on the tip of my tongue. The end of the flavor has more raisins, but finishes dry with a little alcohol warming. I was actually surprised at how well the beer hid the alcohol, as I would have expected to taste more at 8.0% ABV.

All in all, I liked the beer. I remember liking Devotion a more for its pillowy body and smooth drinkability. But I would recommend trying Lost & Found, if you can find it.

Hoppy Gentleman - IPA with English Class

At the end of July, I was looking through my freezer and discovered I had accumulated a good amount of odds-and-ends hops - partially full hop bags that were left over from previous brews. Given that I brew a lot of English-based ales, it is not surprising that most of the extra hops are English in nature (herbal and floral hops, rather than the citrus or pine-like American varieties). I felt like making something hoppy, something with class and style, but something that still excited my palate. So, I thought, why not make an English IPA?

India Pale Ales generally fall into two categories, American and English. The IPA style originated in Britain, though it is not brewed much there anymore. The IPA style has been adopted by West Coast American craft brewers as the poster child of the good beer movement. While the American version is bold, higher in alcohol, aggressively bitter, and dripping with flavor, English IPAs are more subdued and balanced and have a more defined malt character. They seek to interest your palate through subtle complexity.

So, here are the stats on my Hoppy Genetleman, an IPA with English Class:

Brewed: 8/1/2009

Kegged: 8/15/2009

Original Gravity: 1.066

Final Gravity: 1.014

IBU: 51

Alcohol By Volume: 6.6%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a dark amber-red color, with a thick rocky head. The head stays with the beer through the pint, leaving a neat lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer has a floral nose, similar marigolds in the summer, with a hint of bitter herb in the back. The IPA has a lot of malt flavor in the early part of the taste. I get hit with an assertive fresh bread flavor that fades to dark caramel by the mid palate (hence the picture with the IPA and the homemade sourdough bread). The hops are there in the beginning of the taste, but definitely playing second fiddle. They become more prevalent in the back of the palate, and help end the beer dry, which prepares you for another taste.

I think I would like a bit more hop presence in the beginning of the taste, but I am very happy with the beer. It hides its 6.6% ABV well, so that you really don't realize its potency. I will definitely do this one again, perhaps with more late kettle hops to increase the hop flavor at first taste.

It is classy and interesting, it is a Hoppy Gentleman.

Red, White & Awesome - Dogfish Head Inspired Ale

My wife, Meghan, has been a big fan of Dogfish Head's Red & White ale since she first tried it at their Frederick brew pub several years ago. The Red & White ale is a strong Belgian wit that is supplemented by pinot noir grape juice, fermented out in stainless steel, and then aged in used pinot noir wine barrels. It is a complex and interesting beer, though it is quite strong at 10% ABV (as are most Dogfish Head beers). Given Meghan's love of this beer, I set out to make a beer using the same basic process as a gift to her.

The basic process is that I take a standard Belgian wit recipe and brew it up. I ferment it out completely, and then rack it into secondary on top of a couple of ounces of oak chips that have soaked in pinot noir wine for a few of weeks. I let it age on those chips for about a week, or until I can start to taste the oak. Then, I keg and serve it.

This is the second time I have made this recipe. The primary difference is that last time I did not get much Belgian wit character, as it was missing a solid orange citrus character. So, I doubled the orange peel this year. The other difference is that I could not find medium toast oak chips this time, so I had to use heavy French toasted ones. These tend to add a vanilla character, so I added and extra half an ounce to see if I could get oak in addition to the vanilla (I used 2.5 ounces this time, for a week).

Here are the stats for my version, which is called Red, White, & Awesome (RWA for short):

Brewed: 8/16/2009

Kegged: 9/4/2009

Original Gravity: 1.055

Final Gravity: 1.011

IBU: 21

Alcohol By Volume: 5.9% (calculated as 5.6%, assumed 5.9% from wine in chips)
Time Aged on Oak Chips: 8 days

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

My wife very nicely surprised me with a bottle of Dogfish Head Red & White ale to do a comparison with the RWA. In the picture above, the RWA is the one in the Chimay-style glass. We tasted them together and here are her observations:

The Dogfish Head version has a much richer aroma, much more complex. The version I brewed has a less intense aroma. The Dogfish Head beer has a slightly darker color, though it has yeast particulate matter floating in it. The RWA ale has a bright and clean flavor, with a citrus finish. The Dogfish Head beer has a different starting flavor, one that is rounder and fuller, much like the aroma. The finish of the Dogfish Head beer is similar to the RWA ale in that they both finish dry and clean, though the RWA has a citrus finish that the Dogfish Head lacks. She says she likes the complexity of the Dogfish Head beer more than the RWA, though the bright flavors in the RWA are nice too.

I share most of her opinions, though I will build on them with the following. The RWA ale appears more cloudy, much in a true wit fashion. The Dogfish Head is more amber, though with some hop matter floating in it. I think her description of the beer aromas are dead on, as the Dogfish Head ale has is much more complex. The RWA does have a very clean and citrus-forward flavor. I don't get too much in the way of an oak flavor or that much wine character in the RWA, maybe a little bit of vanilla from the heavy toast chips. With the Dogfish Head version, I get a much more defined alcohol character, which I would expect for the ABV difference (5.9% versus 10%). I also definitely get a wine character and an oak character in the early and mid palate. I think the RWA finishes cleaner than the Dogfish Head version, and seems more drinkable.

All in all, the beers are more similar in the finish than anything else similar. However, they are not that close in taste overall. That is why I have stopped saying that RWA is a "clone" of the Dogfish Head beer. I really like the "inspired" idea, as that is what actually happened. Meghan liked the beer, as did I, so I tried to make something like it. I very much enjoyed our beer discussion about the two different ales, and was very grateful for the unexpected gift of great beer.

Cheers, honey. I love you.

Dominion Cup 2009

The Dominion Cup is the largest homebrewing competition in the state of Virginia and three of us from CAMRA drove down to Richmond to volunteer at the event this year. Jamey, Greg, and I left Charlottesville around 7:00 am the morning of August 28th and arrived at the site of the competition, Capital City Ale House Music Hall (http://www.capitalalehouse.com/), a little after 8:00 am. The Capital City Ale House Music Hall is a large rectangular room with a large cooler in the back, where the competition organizers from the James River Homebrewers (http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/) set up a series of long tables for the judging to take place.

Jamey, Greg, and I each ended up in different roles during the competition. Greg, who won a bronze medal for his German alt beer in this year's National Homebrew Competition, ended up judging IPAs during the morning session and fruit beers in the afternoon session. Greg has been talking about getting BJCP-certified, so this was a great experience for him. Jamey ended up stewarding for both sessions of the competition. A steward assists the judges at his or her table by organizing score sheets, maintaining the beer entry pull list, and generally trying to keep things moving for the judges. As an added bonus, Jamey got to taste some of the entries along with the judges and weigh how he would have scored the beer as compared to the judges' comments.

I got to spend the day performing the duties of cellarman. I had volunteered to steward for both the morning and afternoon sessions of the competition. But, though a volunteer sheet mix-up, I was not scheduled in the morning. The competition director put me to work helping the club's cellarman, Mark, for the morning session. The cellermen of a competition organize how beer is stored and distributed to the stewards and the judging tables. In this case, it meant moving and organizing 732 bottles of beer (366 entries, two bottles each). The cellerman position was surprisingly interesting, as it was a logistical focal point of the competition. We had to make sure the entries were pulled in the correct order for each of the 11 tables, so the judges were working through sub-categories correctly (light alcohol to heavy alcohol, less assertively flavor sub-categories coming first, etc.). We also had to organize the cooler so that we could easily locate the best of show entries for the final session in the afternoon (the best beer in each category was reserved and then provided to the BoS judges late in the afternoon to pick the best beer of the competition). Mark did a great job and I enjoyed myself enough to volunteer to continue to help him into the afternoon. It was a great way to spend the day.

At the end of the day, CAMRA did great (full awards list can be found at http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/dominioncup/DomCupWinners2009.php). Jamey ended up winning more medals than anyone else and took home the Plato Award for best brewer at the competition (total of 25 medal points). Greg won two medals and I won my first ever medal, a bronze for my Hoppy American Amber Ale. Several other CAMRAites won medals, bringing our club total to 15. It was very exciting to see our club get so many accolades. It was also fun to see my brother take home two medals with some of the beer I brought down from his club when we visited Rhode Island earlier this year.

Most of all, I enjoyed spending time with my two friends and talking shop about a hobby we all love so much. I had a chance to meet a bunch of other homebrewers from all around Virginia and hear some of their stories and brewing methods. The experience once again affirmed to me that brewing beer is, above all, a social activity. While we all came together in the spirit of competition, the most enjoyable part of it all was spending a day in each other's company.

Of course, winning a medal never hurts either . . .

Smokey Fox - Comparison and Contemplation

I have been remiss in posting tasting notes for my homebrew of late. So, I figured I would take a moment to post some thoughts on what I am calling Smokey Fox, my smoked lager brewed with grain that was smoke-malted at the Copper Fox distillery (see the post from June). This beer was an experiment for me, as I had never made a smoked beer before and had no idea what to expect from the malt from Copper Fox. I must say that this beer has again shown me that decent process will result in good beer, even if you are not familiar with specific ingredients.

Smokey Fox used a traditional German Rauchbier malt and hop profile. This is a style that originated in and around Bamberg, Germany and the distinctive smoke flavor in the beer came from the beechwood fires used to roast the grain at the end of the malting process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauchbier). The malt bill included the Copper Fox smoked 6-row barley, pilsner malt, Munich malt, Caramunich malt, melanoidin malt, and a pinch of black patent malt for color. The smoked malt made up about 50 percent of the total grain bill. I used hallertau hops in the beer, though you could use any German noble hop, as the hops are not the focus of the beer. Here are some stats:

Brewed: 6/28/2009

Kegged: 8/1/2009

Original Gravity: 1.052

Final Gravity: 1.014

IBU: 32

Alcohol By Volume: 4.9%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

Smokey Fox pours with a huge craggy off-white head. I was surprised at how much head this beer has, given the smoked malt in it. The beer's aroma is just slightly smokey, which increases as the beer warms. The aroma is otherwise smooth, with a very faint hint of sulfur at the end of the nose. The beer is a deep red in color, almost like the color of sunlight coming through red glass. This color did not come through very well in the picture, but it looks wonderful up close. The smoke flavor in the beer is also subdued, though it picks up as the beer warms. I also get a little biscuit and bread flavor, along with just a hint of spice. Smokey Fox finishes very clean and leaves you wanting another sip.

Knowing that I was going to eventually be reviewing Smokey Fox, I took the opportunity to pick up a classic example of a smoked beer while visiting my parents in Rochester, New York (Beers of the World is a wonderful store). I bought a bottle of Schlenkerla smoked marzen, both because they are one of the classic producers of smoked beers and because I love marzens. When comparing the two side-by-side, I was struck by their similar color; they looked almost identical. Their heads were the same color, though the Smokey Fox was thicker. That is where the similarities ended.

Compared to my beer, the smoked marzen was smokey, REALLY smokey. Its smoke aroma was intense and lovely. Think bacon cooking over a camp fire (yes, I said bacon). It was truely lovely. The smoke aroma transferred to a slightly lesser extent to the flavor. The malt in the marzen, which is usually a mainstay of the style, was completely subservient to the smoke. The smoke persisted throughout the taste, even lasting 10 seconds or more after you swallow.

I must say that I really enjoyed the Schlenkerla, but it definately wore my palate down. The smoke flavor, which I loved, kept building through out the pint. By the end, my palate was dead. I did alternate between the two beers through out this evaluation, but by contrast, the Smokey Fox tasted like a smooth malty lager, with little to no smoke flavor. I guess it is not that surprising, given the Schlenkerla's intensity. After having both, I think I would like a bit more smoke in my beer, but not that much more, as I can have several pints of Smokey Fox, but not more than one of the Schlenkerla.

I hope you enjoyed the review as much as I had writing it. Thanks to Copper Fox for the malt and the chance to do this project.

Cheers,

Tom

Brother Brews: Dragon's Milk Clone

We went up to visit my brother and his family in Rhode Island a couple of weeks ago for vacation. The cousins had a lot of fun playing together and we did all sorts of fun activities like going into Boston, going to the beach, and playing around in the backyard. Jeff and I also got to do a bunch of fun beer-related activities (much to our wives' chagrin), such as stopping at some of his local bottle shops, trying a bunch of his homebrew, and doing a comparison of the Lost Abbey Devotion clone we had brewed together with the actual commercial beer. Jeff is lucky enough to get Lost Abbey beer in his area. It was really a lot of fun to compare the two beers. As I recall, our homebrewed version was more grainy, rough, and had more Belgian character than the commercial version, which was smooth, velvety with just a hint of spice. We were also able to get a brew session in together, which was a highlight of the trip for me.

Jeff and I had previously decided to try and brew a clone version of New Belgian's Dragon's Milk, which is a wonderfully rich bourbon-aged old ale. I had previously tried Dragon's Milk at The Timberwood Grill, which is near my house, and fell in love with the beer. We decided on it because it was a rich and interesting beer and would age well, as it would be some time before we would see each other again and be able to exchange bottles. The clone recipe was published in the January 2008 edition of Brew Your Own magazine.

I had a lot of fun seeing how Jeff brews beer, as every homebrewer develops their own process with their own equipment. Jeff also brews at night, which is very different than my weekend daily brewing. He also batch sparges, while I use a homebrew-sized fly sparging setup. As an added bonus, one of our best friends from when we were growing up, Craig, came down from Boston and stayed the night to hang out. It was really fun to show him the process and chat with him over a couple of pints of Jeff's great homebrew.

The Dragon's Milk Clone is now aging on bourbon-soaked oak chips in secondary and I can't wait to try it out. I had a great time, Jeff, and I hope we can do it again soon.

Pictures from the 2009 Baker Crab Fest

Well, the 2009 Baker Crab Fest went very well. We only had a very brief period of rain and it was not too hot. The food was excellent and I even got away with a lion's share of the clams. The beer seemed to be well received and it was fun, as in years past, to chat with people about what they thought of our efforts. The only slight problem we had was that the pilsner poured foamy after about 6 oz were in the glass. The flavor was still good, but it was pretty foamy.

The order the kegs were kicked was as follows:

- Midnight Breakfast Oatmeal Stout on Nitro Tap (making it the party favorite, yay!!!)
- Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale
- Double Down Scottish 80/~
- Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner (it was kicked after the party)

And here are some pictures:

Here are John's handmade tap handles

Here is a picture of the full tap machine

Here are all the kegs

Me pouring a beer

Copper Fox Distillery

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Central Virginia and, surprisingly enough, my family had nothing scheduled to do. So we decided to take a drive, have a picnic, and tour some local wineries and distilleries. That is right, I said distilleries. There are two operating distilleries here in Central Virginia and both of them are within an hour drive of our house.

The first one, the Belmont Farm Distillery (http://www.virginiamoonshine.com) has an advertisement on Route 29, near Culpepper. It was fun to visit and really looked the part of an old time farm-based distillery. The pot still used there was built in the 1920s and several parts of the bottling line were from the early 1900s. There are several modern pieces to the operation, most notably all of the different water filtration systems, but the place still has a very authentic feel. They sell two types of whiskey there, both available from the farm, an aged whiskey and a raw, unwooded whiskey.

The second distillery was the real gem, and the most fun stop for me on our entire trip. I first saw mention of The Copper Fox Distillery (http://www.copperfox.biz) on the Mad Fermentationist's blog, where his club was looking to possibly get a used barrel from the distillery (http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/2009/06/oubreak-2009-infected-barrel.html). Copper Fox is located in Sperryville, VA in an old apple processing facility. The owner, Rick Wasmund, and his "Master of Malt" (Mom) operate the distillery and provide very personal and educational tours. They have an innovative aging process where they age the whiskey in contact with apple and cherry wood, which imparts an interesting color and taste to the whiskey. But, the coolest thing of all is that they malt their own barley.

Copper Fox uses 6-row barley as the sole ingredient in their whiskey. They get the barley from one farmer, who lives about 3 hours from the brewery, and bring the raw grain directly into the distillery. Then, during the cool times of the year, they soak the barley in giant vats and then lay it out on the floor of a special section of the building. They let it germinate and then they kiln it right on site, using apple and cherry wood (http://www.copperfox.biz/products/). This imparts the malt with a interesting smokey note that helps make the whiskey distinctive. As far ask Rick knows, they are the only distillery in North America that malts their own grain.

Rick was kind enough to send me home with a sample of this special malt. I am planning on using it in a German-style smoked lager sometime in the near future. I would encourage any readers in Virginia to pay the distillery a visit, as the tours are well worth the drive. While you are at it, pick up a bottle of Wasmund's Single Malt Whiskey and give it a try.

Baker Summer Party Brews

Mr. Baker and I have been busy brewing beer for his annual 4th of July Crab Fest. We brewed the last batch of beer this past Sunday and it is mostly done fermenting now. John asked me to do a brief write up of the four beers we will have on tap, which he includes in the invitations and posts near the kegs on party day. I figured I would post that text here, just so people could see what we have put together.

Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner
OG: 1.055 FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.3% IBU: 40
Bohemian pilsners are more malty and rounded than their dry German cousins, while still retaining the crisp and sharp hop edge that defines the pilsner style. This characteristic roundness is emphasized by a lower mineral content water that provides a softer body that helps bring the malt body in balance with the Czech Saaz hops. Our Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner is named for a hawk we saw circling over the deck on brew day, as well as the Bohemian quality of the beer that will leave you wanting more and more of this beer. Groovy, man . . .

Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale
OG: 1.050 FG: 1.010
ABV: 5.1% IBU: 48
The pale ale style is one that has defined the American craft beer movement. It originally came from England, where its slightly higher alcohol content and lighter color than traditional English bitters and milds made it very popular. American brewers have made it their own by using citrus hop varieties, such as our use of Millennium and Centennial, higher hopping levels, and larger alcohol concentrations. This beer was the crowd favorite from last year, being the first keg tapped on that rainy Saturday. The beer's name came from a previous brew session, where John witnessed my neighbor's black cat urinating on my smoker. I hope she was not commenting on the quality of the smoked dishes I like to cook.

Double Down Scottish 80/~
OG: 1.053 FG: 1.019
ABV: 4.2% IBU: 15
Scottish ales are characterized by a massive, complex malty body that finishes slightly dry to make drinkable in quantity. The ales are meant to be session beers, where their relatively low alcohol concentration enables someone to have several pints in a "session" at the pub with friends and not get overly intoxicated. Scottish ales are named for the number of shillings of tax the brewer had to pay on each barrel at some point in long forgotten history. This beer is an 80 shilling, designated by use of the symbol "80/~" Our beer is named for the two kettle boil overs I had the first time I made this recipe, which created quite a mess.

Midnight Breakfast Oatmeal Stout
OG: 1.064 FG: 1.018
ABV: 6.0% IBU: 36
Oatmeal stouts are derived from dry Irish stouts, though the addition of oatmeal in the grist provides a rounder and less edgy finish, often described as a "slick" feeling on the palate. This has long been a favorite beer style of mine and we have had a version on tap ever since I started brewing for John's party several years ago. Last year, John purchased a stout tap for this beer, which uses a nitrogen/CO2 gas mix to carbonate the beer. It provides a rich and velvety finish to the stout and gives it a dense foamy head. The beer is dark as midnight, but the smell coming off the kettle on brew day reminds me of breakfast oatmeal. Thus, Midnight Breakfast was born.

Brother Brewing - In Person

My brother was able to come down and visit a couple weeks ago and we were able to brew together in person. I must say that I had been looking forward to doing this for some time. Jeff and I have shared common interests and hobbies since I was in kindergarten and it has been great to have another topic to talk about. We have definitely exchanged more phone calls and emails recently, discussing homebrewing clubs, equipment, competitions, and recipes. In fact, during the visit, my wife even requested "can we PLEASE talk about something OTHER than beer!" I count this a moment of personal success, as my wife is pretty much immune to beer-related talk at this point in our relationship.

At any rate, after much debate and research, we decided on brewing a Belgian pale ale. It fit our requirements to brew something slightly "paler," with an interesting element, something of moderate alcohol strength (~6% ABV), and something neither of us had brewed recently. We elected on doing a Brew Your Own (BYO) magazine clone of the Lost Abbey Devotion Ale. The recipe looked interesting and was developed with the help of the brewer (a key component when it comes to clone recipes). The brew day went very well, except for planning around a spring storm that never arrived, and Jeff spending time trying to solder an addition to my immersion chiller (more below). Jeff even got me to try a Flemish sour beer that I ended up liking (Duchess de Bourgogne, brewed by the Verhaeghe Brewery). I am planning on taking some of the Belgian pale up to Jeff when we visit his home later this summer. [Note: the Belgian pale is the furthest carboy to the back of the picture. The other two are oatmeal stouts for Baker's summer party]

One of the other brewing things we did during that weekend was to upgrade my immersion chiller. I had been having some trouble cooling batches down recently, with 10 gallon batches taking well over an hour to cool to pitching temperatures. My existing immersion chiller was only 25 feet of 1/4" copper tubing. So, I purchased 25 feet of 3/8" copper tubing with the hope that I could connect the two of them somehow and double my cooling capacity. I am glad that Jeff was here to help, as he had soldered pipes before. Even so, it took two different trips to Lowes to get everything we needed, plus about 90 minutes of work. But, the chiller works great and it is all thanks to Jeff.

Factors that Influence Tasting

My brother read the review I had of his Almond Wheat and emailed me a correction. The beer he sent was an American Wheat, there was no almond in it at all. I felt rather embarrassed to say the least, but he would not take an apology, stating that I had planted the seed in his mind to do an almond flavored beer. However, all this got me thinking, what factors influence our sense of taste, especially when it comes to beer?

I have long been a believer that what a person says they taste is what they taste. Taste, along with smell and touch, are very hard to verbalize and put into words what we experience. It is more almost like a guided free association, where you try to describe what you taste using correlations with your own experiences. As such, people will likely not use the same words or "descriptors" to describe what they are tasting. I am a believer that what words a person uses to describe their sense of taste are right for that person. I tell this to people I taste beer with in our homebrewing club, and I tell it to my wife when she says "You know I am not very good at this sort of thing . . ."

All that being said, how much did my thinking there was almond in my brother's beer influence my taste in it. I guess I will never know, but I have a feeling that it influenced it to some degree. Perhaps I would have described a portion of the flavor profile with another word, other than almond. Perhaps not.

I am not sure where I am going with this post, other than to say I find it very interesting. I wonder if other people think about these sorts of things. Or, maybe it is just another sign of how much of a beer geek I really am.

Cheers.

Jeff's Almond Wheat

I am finally getting around to trying another one of my brother's beers. He sent three down to me, the first being the award-winning Irish Red I have already reviewed. He also sent two wheat beers, an Almond Wheat and a Cherry Wheat. My brother's wife has discovered a love of wheat beers with a dash of something special. Jeff is wisely supporting this interest by supplying excellent homebrew to meet the need.

He always was a very smart person . . .

The beer pours a slightly cloudy dark amber color, though the amber leans more towards red than burnt orange. The head is comprised of coarse off-white foam that lasts for the entire pint. It leaves a nice lacing down the glass that is very pretty. I would expect a nice head on the beer, given that it has a large portion of wheat in the recipe. The beer smells is very clean and neutral, with just a hint of floral aroma and a little bit of sweetness.

The first thing I taste is a hint of caramel that has some alcohol warmness. I next get a touch of almond, with its warm nutty character. This is most akin to the liqueur Amaretto, though not nearly as sweet. I found it very pleasant. The flavor finishes slightly sweet, but not in enough quantity to build on the tongue and limit drinkability. I could definitely drink another pint.

It is a very nice drinkable beer. If I could make any suggestions about it, I would recommend increasing the almond flavor a bit to make it more immediately identifiable. I would also increase the hopping slightly, maybe with a floral or herbal hop that would mesh well with almonds. I would not increase either of these elements too much, maybe 5 IBUs more of bitterness and just a bit more almond. The beer has balanced itself well as it aged and I think these changes would just help make it stand out a bit more.

Another good beer, Jeff. Thanks for sharing!

Dark Mild - Multi-Yeast Experiment

A little while ago, Greg, a fellow CAMRA club member, and I started talking about doing a cooperative brew. We share a number of common interests: brewing, breadmaking, cooking, kids; so it seemed a great idea to share a brewing session. We both enjoy English session ales, so we figured we would brew a dark mild, as they are not commonly available here in the U.S. and are best drunk fresh. Additionally, to make things interesting, we decided to do a yeast experiment.

I have often heard people state that the liquid yeast products that brewers pay a premium for are far superior to the dry yeast equivalents. Some things about the two yeast forms can definitely be attributed to fact. Liquid yeast strains can be designated as pure and without contamination, which means with proper sanitation, a brewer has very little chance of getting wild yeast contamination. Dry yeasts always have some wild yeast contamination as part of their manufacturing process. This is minimized, but how great is the risk of infection? Several podcasts and homebrewing magazines have done experiments on the dry versus liquid yeast packages, but Greg and I wanted to do our own.

The plan was to use one common wort source, split in half, and then to use two different yeasts to determine the yeast form's impact. Further, we wanted to use dry and liquid yeast strains that came from the same historical source. So, we picked Wyeast 1968 London ESB and Safale S-04 Dry English Ale. Both of these strains are based on the Whitbread yeast strain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitbread). This should provide us with a situation where the dry versus liquid yeast difference would be maximized, if any existed at all.

The following stats applied to both beers:
SG: 1.039 (both yeasts)
FG: 1.011 liquid, 1.012 dry
Starter Size: 1 L liquid, no starter dry (10 gram pack)
Pitching Temp: 72 F (both yeasts)
Fermentation Temp: 68 F (both yeasts)
Fermentation Length: 4 days liquid, 3 days dry

The results were extremely close. The liquid yeast beer (Duval glasses in picture) was slightly lighter in color than the dry yeast batch. The liquid yeast beer also had a slightly more definable aroma, but it came from a keg, so the aroma could well be from a slightly higher carbonation rate. The most definable difference was in the intensity and length of flavor. The liquid yeast batch's flavor lasted longer and was more intense than the dry yeast, but not by a large factor. I did not get any off flavors from the dry yeast, and I think it was quite comparable to the liquid offering.

Bottom line was that they were VERY close. Given that the dry yeast is much cheaper and it is easier to use, I think I would recommend using dry yeast when a version that has been well received by the brewing community is available.

Thanks for a great brew day and tasting, Greg. It was a lot of fun.

90 Seconds of Goodness Imperial IPA

Spring, for some unknown reason, has gotten me into a hoppy beer mood. I am normally a English session beer kind of person, if I were to pick a favorite set of styles. However, with winter starting to loose its hold over Central Virginia (compared to where I grew up in New York, winter never has a "hold" over Virginia at all), I am feeling in the mood for hops. So, when I had the opportunity to get some commercial Chico yeast from Starr Hill Brewing Company, I decided to go hog wild and make an Imperial IPA.

One of the biggest challenges that you face when doing big beer recipes is to get full attenuation. Because there is so much sugar in the wort for these beers, it is absolutely crucial that you have a HUGE slug of yeast to get the resulting beer down to a reasonable terminal gravity. If you don't, you risk having a sweet and unpalatable beer. The Starr Hill yeast samples we got were HUGE slugs of very active yeast. They gave me the perfect excuse to try one of the biggest beers I have ever contemplated (ABV of 8.5%).

This beer recipe is from a series of clone brews done by Brew Your Own Magazine. 90 Minute IPA by Dogfish Head is one of my favorite big hoppy beers. It has a great hop nose and a complex flavor, but is dangerously drinkable because it finishes dry. Even with all the alcohol, it does not leave a lot of sugar on the tongue, so you can easily finish a pint. This clone brew recipe was done in colaboration with the brewers at Dogfish Head, so I definately wanted to give it a try.

So, without further a do, here is the review:

Brewed: 2/15/2009

Kegged: 2/24/2009

Original Gravity: 1.083

Final Gravity: 1.016

IBU: ~92

Alcohol By Volume: 8.5%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a dark orange color with huge coarse white head. The most immediately apparent thing is the aroma. The beer is a hop aroma bomb. The aroma is complex and multi-dementional. It starts off with an herbal quality and then moves to a slightly sweet citrus orange/lemon smell. The dry hopping (2.5 ounces of amarillo, millenium, and simco) is really pronounced and I find myself just sitting and smelling the beer for a good while.

The initial flavor is a hint of sweetness. This is followed by some of the hop complexity with flavors of orange, pineapple, and mint. I then get a bit of bitter bite on the tongue, which is followed by a slickness that I attribute to the simco hops. The taste ends with a drying quality similar to belgian tripels or other very low terminal gravity belgian beers, though the IPA also has a twinge of burnt sugar. I do also get a very faint warming from the alcohol, though nothing like drinking a scotch or other whiskey.

All and all it is a very good beer, certainly my best so far this year. I took it to a homebrew tasting recently and was strongly encouraged to enter it in the National Homebrew Competition (NHC). So, we shall see how it does and what feedback I receive. Regardless, this is a beer I will definately make again.

Cheers.

Congratulations to Jeff - Gold Medal

Just a quick note of congratulations to my brother, Jeff. His first brew ever (discounting the Mr. Beer kits) won a gold medal at the 2009 Boston Homebrew Competition for his Irish red ale! I previously reviewed this beer on the blog. I am very proud my brother and hope that he continues to enjoy this wonderful hobby.

http://www.wort.org/bhc/winners.shtml

Brother Brews

One of the coolest brew-related things that have happened to me this year is that my brother has started homebrewing. He first did this a while ago with a Mr. Beer kit that I gave him for Christmas. As with many Mr. Beer experiments, it did not go well and my brother did not repeat his Mr. Beer experience. I am not sure exactly what got him to try it again, but part of it is probably our repeated trips to Beers of the World, while visiting our parents in Rochester, NY. It is a great bottle shop with so many neat beers to try, as well as a homebrewing section that we would browse through. In addition to our frequent conversations about homebrewing, which I find a lot of fun and very interesting, I know that part of Jeff's interest in the hobby has been a result of finding a local homebrewing club near where he lives. The club members have provided an outlet for my brother's questions, as well as providing tasting samples and an interest in a common hobby.

Jeff was nice enough to send a sample of his first batch, an irish red, for me to taste. I appreciate it and I wanted to review it here.

The beer pours a delightful deep red color, almost scarlet. The beer is slightly cloudy, but I can still see my hand through it when the beer is held near a strong light. A frothy white head sits on top of the beer and remains while you consume the pint. It leaves a nice lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer has a very clean and neutral aroma, with a hint of caramel sweetness at the back of the nose.

The beer tastes very clean and balanced. It has a crisp malt character, somewhat akin to a german pilsner in its dry maltiness. The beer is nicely balanced with the hops and it creates a very drinkable beverage that leaves no sweetness build up on the tongue. The only recommendation I would make with the beer would be to carbonate it a bit less. The beer became more malt forward once I swirled it in the glass a bit to shake out some of the carbon dioxide. The flavor became more like some of the other irish reds I have had in the past and a little less pilsner-like. I will definitely say that I could drink several pints of this beer, which, in my opinion, is the most important judgement on a beer's quality.

Thank you for sharing, Jeff. I hope that you find as much enjoyment in this hobby as I have over the last 10 years or so. The community of homebrewers that you will interact with, both online and in person, really make this such a unique and wonderful hobby to be a part of.

Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale - Yet Again

This is the third time I have brewed a version of this pale ale. In general, I really like how it has turned out in the past. It is a beer halfway between a pale ale and an IPA. Hoppy, but not over the top. It has a nice amber/pale orange color and was the crowd favorite at Mr. Baker's Crab Fest last year.

All that aside, it did not turn out as well this time. This recipe is the first one where I tried to recreate a beer that I brewed and really liked previously. With it, I begin to understand how hard it must be to be a professional brewer, who must constantly turn out a high-quality product that varies little over time. I am also definitely not my harshest critic, so I can't imagine what a sharper tongue would do to my attempts to replicate my previous success.

I think what went wrong with the beer is hop choice. Previous versions of the beer used nugget/columbus and millenium/centennial, with the millenium/centennial turning out the best. This version used warrior and amarillo, with warrior being used for a lot of late addition hopping. I have subsuquently read that warrior is best used as a bittering hop and does not lend itself well to flavor or aroma additions. I think these hops must have clashed to create the undesirable flavors that I mention below, as I hit all of my other numbers (OG, FG, fermentation temp., fermentation time, etc.).

Regardless, here are the stats and the review . . .

Brewed: 1/17/2009

Kegged: 1/25/2009

Original Gravity: 1.048

Final Gravity: 1.012

IBU: 47

Alcohol By Volume: 4.8%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a crystal clear pale amber color, with a white pillowy head. The hops in this beer provide for a nice long lasting head, that follows the beer all the way down the glass, leaving a nice lacing pattern on the sides of the glass.

The beer has a strong herbal aroma too it. The aroma borders on medicinal in nature, which is not flattering to the beverage. I remember previous renditions of this recipe having a more citrus or floral scent, which I liked better. The medicinal quality of the aroma seems to strengthen as the beer warms.

There is definitely an off flavor of some sort to the beer. It is immediately present when you take your first sip and it lasts throughout the entire taste. Perhaps my mind is wandering towards our medicine cabinet, but it is vaguely reminiscent of an herbal cough drop. I am thinking about a Ricola-style cough drop, though not quite as strong. There is a biscuity flavor there too, which might be pleasant on its own, and reminds me of the previous versions of the beer. The off-flavor diminishes as you drink your pint, but that is likely due to your taste buds becoming used to it.

As I mentioned above, I think the off flavor is likely due to hop choice, particularly the warrior hops, which I used as a late addition to the kettle. My friend, Jamey, thinks the beer tastes slightly old or stale, and we have actually had some fun becoming "beer-sleuths" and trying to figure out what went wrong. I will definitely brew this one again, but next time I will go back to the original hopping regimen of millenium and centennial.

Happy Birthday, CAMRA!

Just a quick note to say that the homebrewing club I helped found, the Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA), celebrated its first year birthday last week. What began as an idea hatched amongst three friends who loved to make beer, grew in the first couple of meetings to standing room only crowds at a local bar. Since those first meetings, we have contracted into a core group of about 15 to 20 people. Meeting attendance varies some what, but we usually have a dozen people come out to talk beer styles and brewing.

Tastings have proven the most popular events, and so to celebrate our birthday, we had a combination homebrew tasting and a tour of the largest brewery in the area, Starr Hill (http://www.starrhill.com). We had a blast touring the brewery and talking with Master Brewer Mark Thompson. The difference in scale at a professional brewery is truly staggering. Equally impressive, though, was watching one of his brewers take a starting gravity reading before pumping the wort into a 50-barrel fermentation tank. While the scale is truly different, that act is one I have done on every brew day of my homebrewing journey. Watching this one step really hit home for me both the similarities and differences between homebrewers and professional brewers.

All of the CAMRA people who turned out for the tour and tasting had a great time. I hope we get to do it again sometime.

Cheers, CAMRA, and I wish you many more birthdays as rewarding as this first year has been for me.

Partigyle Brewing - Trying to Get Two Beers from One Grist

Partigyle is the practice of making multiple batches of beer from one grist. This means that you mash once and run the "first runnings" off of the mash and make one "big" beer. Then you run more sparge water through the grains to get a second "small" beer. The idea is that the first beer will be of high strength and high malt character, while the second beer will be a small beer that is much milder. Historically speaking, this was done all the time, as brewers would extract as much sugar solution from each grist as they could. Partigyle is responsible for many different styles of beer that we have today, including Belgian Doubles and Tripels, English Barlywines and Milds, etc., as brewers made different strengths of what was basically, the same beer.

I had read about this practice in several books and heard about it on at least one podcast, so I wanted to give it a try. I was planning on brewing a big weizenbock and figured it would be the perfect time to try the technique, as there should be some sugar left in the grist, right? Well, it did not really work out as expected, as you will see below.

First, a review of the beers themselves.

Big Daddy Weizenbock

Brewed: 11/25/2008

Kegged: 12/6/2008

Original Gravity: 1.077

Final Gravity: 1.020

IBU: 24

Alcohol By Volume: 7.5%

Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

This beer was the real reason for the brew day. It is the color of dark brown, bordering on black, though deep red highlights show through if you hold the beer near a strong light. The weizenbock pours with a thick tan head that lasts for about 5 minutes as you drink it. The beer has a strong banana aroma, almost like banana bread. It also has a slight hint of clove in the aroma, but no bubblegum at all. The aromatic qualities of the beer are directly related to the yeast strain I used (hefeweizen ale - White Labs WLP 300), and it is fermentation temperature of 62 F.

The beer has a very pleasant taste, with a malt forward presentation on the tongue. I taste a little biscuit on the tip of the tongue, followed by a caramel and molasses flavor. The beer finishes with a hint of carbonation and hops, but they are definately in the background. There is a slight bit of molasses that stays on your palate before the next sip, but it does not seem to build too much as you work through the pint. Finally, there is a warming feeling from the beer. This is not any kind of hot alcohol, but a pleasant feeling in the throat that occurs several seconds after finishing a sip.

I am very happy with this beer, and I would definitely consider making it again. It is sort of like a dunkleweizen on steroids, and dunklewezien is one of my favorite beer styles. I would hope to have the beer attenuate a couple of points lower next time, but otherwise I am pleased with it and its yeast character after it had aged for about a month in the keg.

Baby Bock - Little Weizenbock

Brewed: 11/25/2008

Kegged: 12/6/2008

Original Gravity: 1.027

Final Gravity: 1.009

IBU: 14

Alcohol By Volume: 2.6%

Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

The small beer is a dark honey color with a thick off-white head. It has a neutral aroma, though I do detect a hint of astringency that smells vaguely of plain oatmeal. The head remains a while on this beer, as with many wheat beers.

The flavor of the small beer is definitely lacking. Thin is the word that comes to mind, though watery is also applicable. Next to its big brother it is down right plain. It also has an mildly unpleasant astringent flavor. I think this came from the fact that I tried to get all of the sugars I could from the beer. This dropped the sugar levels in the grain bed too low and I started to pull tannins out of the grain husks. There is little yeast character in the beer, but I expected that using dried California ale yeast. The hops are a little overbearing in bitterness, but otherwise clean with little herbal hop character or aroma.

The little beer is definitely that . . . little. I increased the boil time on the beer to 90 minutes with the hope of getting a higher starting gravity, but it did not happen. It seems that most of the flavor had already gone out of the grist, so the beer just tastes plain. However, it is not really bad, just uninspired. The astringency has aged a bit out of the beer, so that it is not that objectionable now.

Observations

I can see how this process was used frequently in the past. I effectively got two beers out of one set of ingredients, minus some extra hops and a package of dry yeast. However, the little beer was almost not worth the trouble. I suppose that perspective comes from the fact that I don't sell beer for a living, but this is something that I will probably not do again. If I were to consider a second partigyle, I would take the following into account:

- You should not really worry about the volume of wort for the bigger beer. Just drain your mash tun and use whatever you get. I made sure to get enough wort to make a full 5 gallon batch of the main beer. This left too little sugar for the second beer.
- Start with a larger grist than you would normally. I would definitely have added a couple of extra pounds of base malt to ensure there was sugar left for the second beer.
- Pay attention to the specific gravity coming out of your mash tun on the little beer. If the SG drops below 1.008, make sure to stop so you avoid the grain husk tannins.
- Take a pre-boil gravity of your small beer and use that to determine your hopping. Seeing how you cannot predict how much sugar will be in the small beer, if you pre-plan your hops, you could significantly over hop the little beer.
- Be happy with what you get and be glad that the sale of the little beer does not directly correspond to how much food your kids have to eat.

2008 Brewing Year In Review

I thought that a quick post of random stats and facts about my brewing year in 2008 might be fun. So, here you go:

- Number of Batches Made - 23
- Number of Gallons Made - 115
- First Brew Day - 1/19/2008
- Last Brew Day - 12/28/2008
- Number of Beer Batches - 19
- Number of Wine Batches - 1
- Number of Cider Batches - 1
- Number of Mead Batches - 2
- Batch with Highest Alcohol - 12% - Black and Blue Mead
- Batch with Lowest Alcohol - 2.6% - Baby Bock (made from already used grains in weizenbock)
- Average Alcohol Across Batches - 5.6%
- Favorite Brew - Double Down Scottish 80/~ (so very drinkable)
- Worst Brew - Steamy Summer California Common (fermented 10 degrees to warm and had the aroma and flavor of a freshly opened band aid)
- Favorite Name - Murphy's Law Irish Stout
- Approximate Amount of Grain used in 2008 - 225 pounds (average of 11.8 lbs/brew)
- Biggest Equipment Upgrade - Switch to kegging beer with my kegerator
- Number of Batches Brewed for Baker's Party - 7
- Biggest Supporter of My Brewing - My wife, who loves me enough to drink my beer and encourage me to keep brewing. Thanks, honey!