A gigantic IPA and Geueze

The brewing continues (in spite of my silence). I don't feel that most of what I am brewing these days is really noteworthy. I still like to brew English style beers, and lately I've also kept belgian style beers around; I'm especially fond of belgian dubbels.

I typically keep an IPA on tap as well. A recent batch was based on the recipe for a great Portland IPA, Gigantic IPA. It's a terrific and drinkable IPA, and Gigantic Brewing is kind enough to share the recipe here. The recipe is pretty straightforward, but they add a hop rest at burnout. I realize this may seem 'normal' or at least not unusual, but for a homebrewer it is a bit unorthodox. There is so much talk about chilling the wort quickly after the boil and avoiding DMS that it seems pretty dangerous to toss in a bunch of hops and let the beer sit for 45 minutes after burnout. Well, after talking to a couple of brewer friends about this, I decided to do it anyway. Their take was that as long as I do a good long boil (75-90 minutes) with the top off, all of the DMS causing compounds will escape and I shouldn't have to worry about it. So that's what I did, and the result was great. No DMS and it is a great tasting beer. (How close to the original by Gigantic is hard to tell. I don't have one available for a side-by-side.) The only other thing I did differently was in how I clarified the beer. I typically count on a combination of a quick whirlpool and then the submersion chiller to drop the trub before transferring to the fermenter. Due to the rest, this process was not as effective. To counter the haze left in the beer, I simply put the secondary into a wine chiller (once finished with the fermentation and dry-hopping) for a day to knock the haze down. That worked great. What I have now is a crystal-clear, hoppy, great-tasting IPA. It won't last long in my keg.

The other note-worthy project of late is that I finally bottled the gueuze I have been 'working on' for the last 3 years. I ended up blending 3-year, a 1-year, and a 6-month old lambics at equal concentrations and bottling in 750ml belgian bottles with corks and crowns. The night before I bottled, I pulled a sample of each to measure gravity, make sure they weren't bad, and to test different blends (though from the get-go I intended to maximize my final volume by doing an even blend of all - I just wanted to make sure none of them was bad and needed to be dumped). Their gravities all ended up in the 5-6 range, which was expected. Each one tasted different, though.

• 3yr - The 3-year lambic surprised me. I was expecting very sour but it wasn't really sour at all. It was definitely funky, but in a brett sort of way instead of a sour sort of way. Pleasant to drink, it tasted like an aged funky beer. 
• 1yr - The 1-year lambic also surprised me. It was very sour. This had the quintessential belgian sour flavor I enjoy in sour beers. Great! I looked back at what I did differently from the 3yr to this beer and the main difference was that the bacteria I had added was from the dregs of a flemish sour I had kegged around the same time as brewing this lambic. So there was a much greater quantity of bacteria critters in this one and they got a hold of the lambic and ran with it. That approach I will repeat.
• 6mo -  The 6 month didn't surprise me much. A little sour; a little funky. Not very mature. Perfect, really, since I am expecting this one to serve as some fuel for the others to go back to work in the bottle.

On bottling day, I boiled some water in my boil kettle to sterilize it for use in bottling, (my boil kettle is my only 15 gallon vessel) and then transferred each of the lambics to the makeshift bottling bucket. I had some other stuff to do, so I stirred it a bit and then let it rest for a couple of hours until ready to bottle. Bottling was typical, but corking is a bit of a pain. Do they even make belgian-specific corkers? I eventually figured out a good pattern and finished with 65 bottles of geueze.

Now for another year of waiting until I open my first bottle.

The myth of nitro beer.

I like "nitro" beers. I especially like English style bitters on "nitro". A couple of years ago Left Hand Sawtooth Ale started showing up around town being dispensed from nitro spouts. Sometimes the pub simply delivered a standard keg of Sawtooth using nitro gas and spout, which is ok but not that special, but sometimes I come across a Nitro Sawtooth that tastes like it was meant for nitro delivery. By that I mean that the beer is delivered with a relatively low amount of carbonation and a nice creamy head. The nitro sawtooth quickly became my beer of choice, over even my own homebrewed bitters; it was time for action.

Last summer I took the plunge and invested in a nitro system for my upstairs kegerator. This meant acquiring a nitrogen tank and regulator for the gas, two new nitro spouts, and the lines and hardware to connect it all up. I hooked it up and started experimenting with methods of conditioning the beer for service via nitro taps. Through reading, I had learned that nitrogen isn't soluble in beer, so the initial conditioning needs to be done via co2. The strategy was to carbonate the beer to a low pressure with co2 and then serve the beer using higher pressure using beer gas (75% nitro / 25% co2). After a couple of kegs, I got my conditioning figured out and my beer was serving nicely. I carbonate to about 7lbs and would set the beer gas to about 30 lbs.

It all worked pretty well, but I didn't quite understand what it was I liked so much. I had heard and had myself exclaimed that "nitro has smaller bubbles" which contributes to the creaminess. Nitro supposedly makes the beer closer to REAL ale. Nitro.. nitro.. nitro.... The whole "non-soluble" concept bugged me, though. If the nitro didn't dissolve into the beer then how did it get dispensed into the head. What was the point. There must be some mis-information or some magic going on.

This past weekend, we had some friends over to help drink some beer, and my nitro tank ran out about halfway through the evening (I'm thinking my system has a slow leak that is exploited by the high pressure of the nitro tank - but that is for another discussion). Not wanting to put an end to the consumption of those beers, I hooked up my spare co2 tank to those kegs and kept them pouring. I was a little worried about their mouthfeel or how the pour would be without the nitro, but my initial test was fine so I didn't think much more about it that night. People kept drinking it without any negative comments.

A few days later I was curious and decided to check out the beer situation for myself. Again, there seemed to be no major difference from nitro to co2. I was still pouring through the nitro spouts, and the pour was a little slow, but the signature cascade was still there, the thick creamy head was still there, and the beer was still lightly carbonated and smooth to drink. So I went back to read more about it on the internets. There doesn't appear to be a single definitive source of information about serving beer on nitro, but what follows are my conclusions:

• Nitro beer is smooth because of low carbonation.
• The nitro creamy head and cascade are a result of the nitro spout and the creamer plate inside that spout. (Perhaps a creamer adapter for a standard stout would do the same thing? I have never used one.)
• Many pubs have taps that are quite a distance form the kegs, requiring higher pressure to push the beer to the taps and to serve the beer(both for standard and for nitro taps).
• Beer gas (nitro/co2 mix) allows for higher pressure between the keg and the tap without the danger of increasing the carbonation of the beer.

So it would appear that really the only thing beer gas does for a nitro system is push the beer to and through the tap without changing the carb level. And perhaps the higher pressure helps dispense the beer faster (though with the settling time required for nitro beers does that really matter?). Therefore most homebrewers (and anyone else whose tap is situated in close proximity to the keg) do not actually need to serve the beer using beer gas. Simply carbonate the beer to the desired lower carbonation level and serve that beer at that same pressure. As long as that is enough pressure to push the beer through the spout and its creamer plate, then the final product will be same. At least in my experience this is how it works.  I will be doing further experimentation (with fresh kegs) to test this theory.

(This "theory" has other corollary observations. For one, Left Hand bottles their "nitro" milk stout without a widget or any other obvious bottle addition. Their strategy for creating the cream head and nitro experience is to "pour hard". Anyone who has poured normal beer knows that a hard pour will cause the beer to foam much more than a gentle pour down the side of the glass. Well.. perhaps by filling that bottle with low-carbonated beer, a "hard pour" will cause the limited carbonation to foam up as desired. I poured my first ever bottle of Nitro™ Milk Stout before seeing the "pour hard" instructions and poured it like any other beer, which created essentially no foam, but it was still a low-carbonated beer. A hard pour, on the other hand, did produce more of the desired effect. So I ask you, gimmick? Why don't they call it a low-carb(onation) beer instead of "nitro"?)

I'm not sure there really is such a thing as nitro beer. Only nitro delivered beer. (The exception being Guiness and its British cousins, which really are served with nitrogen that is released from a widget. There is no need to "pour hard" with a Guiness as the nitrogen really is dispensed with the beer and appears to generate the head. Or maybe that really is magic.) Of course, I could be wrong.

Anyone want to buy a nitro tank and regulator?

Edit: For the record, I went home tonight and reminded myself about the pouring/drinking experience of the Left Hand Nitro™ Milk Stout, and it may just have some nitrogen in the bottle. The "pour hard" dispensing did produce a slow cascade effect reminiscent of a nitro spout pour. So somehow they managed to hide some nitro in the beer during the bottling process.  I'm still not convinced, however, that serving a beer on nitro does anything but deliver with higher pressure without over-carbonating the beer.

Lambic

This weekend I brewed a new beer using a new technique. Ever since going to Belgium a couple years ago and being introduced to non-fruity lambics, I have been a big fan of the style. When I first returned home, I wasn't able to find any gueuze in the local market, but thankfully with the recent uptick of interest in sour beers, they have started to show up at local stores. I really enjoy the sourness and the complexity of the taste of lambic beers and gueuze in particular.

So what is a lambic and more specifically what is gueuze? A lambic is traditionally a spontaneously fermented beer which is both light in color as well as light in hop bitterness/flavor. By 'spontaneously', I mean that the traditional lambic beers were given the opportunity to ferment from the natural yeasts that the beer pulled in from the air immediately after the boil. Traditional brewers will finish the boil and then move the wort into an open-air pool in which it will slowly cool (traditional methods require brewing in the cooler months of the year in order to chill the wort with the cold open air) and absorb both natural yeasts and bacterias. Then the beer is moved into a stainless vessel for the primary fermentation until it is finally transferred into a wooden barrel where it will live typically 1-3 years and continue a long, slow fermentation process. That beer is a lambic beer. To make gueuze, a brewery will  blend different age lambics to produce a special blend that is bottle-aged further before distribution.

I keep using the adjective "traditional" because most brewers are using a different, more controlled process these days. Brewers have figured out what natural yeasts and bacterias create the desired flavors and now brew lambic beers in much more controlled environments. Cantillon, one of the last (maybe the last) traditional lambic breweries still uses the open methods, which is interesting since the brewery is in a relatively dirty and industrial part of Brussels. Using traditional methods, brewers are less concerned about keeping a closed system and keeping their beer from being contaminated because the wildness and bacteria that enters their beer is what makes the beer exceptional. On the other hand, the people at Cantillon also admitted that they lose about 30% of their beer due to wildness that didn't quite work out, creating off flavors that were beyond repair. (By "repair, I mean that Cantillon often uses their less tasty lambics for their fruit beers since the fruit will help mask the off flavors.)

So anyway. I like lambic beers, but they are expensive because of the effort required to brew them. So I figure I may as well brew my own. The recipe for a lambic is quite simple, really: just some pilsner malt and some unmalted wheat. The mash process is what takes much more effort. As I mentioned, a lambic requires much more time to develop in the fermenter than a normal beer, a year typically being the minimum. What this also means is that the yeast and bacterias will need something to eat on over the course of that time period. That is one of the main reasons for the unmalted wheat. By not fully converting the starches to sugars in the usual way, not all of the sugars will end up fermentable and so can be "processed" (by yeast and bacterias) in other ways. There is a lot more science to it that I don't understand, but that's the gist of it as I do understand it. So what that meant for me on brew day was a different mashing process than my normal routine. Typically I just add all of my crushed malt to hot water so that when mixed my mash will end up in the neighborhood of 150 degrees F, and then I just let it rest for an hour for the starch conversion to take place. For this beer, I did what is called a step infusion mash. This is one where I dough-in at a lower temperature and slowly bring the heat up in stages by either adding hot water or removing and heating up some of the mash water at different stages. It ended up taking twice as long to mash, but I ended up in the neighborhood of my target gravity, so maybe it all worked out? Step infusion mashing is a new thing for me, and there are quite a few different techniques out there to achieve similar results, so this is a learning process and I will likely use a different technique next time. It also should be noted that reaching my target gravity is not a guarantee of success since my goal was more complexity in the end product. Only time will tell.

The rest of the brewday process was mostly typical. I did run off a larger volume of wort to allow for a longer boil than usual. Also, I used aged hops in the boil which are primarily used for their preservative effect and not their bittering effect.

Regarding the yeast, I struggled with the approach to take. I was really interested in trying to do truly spontaneous fermentation by putting my wort out on the back porch to allow it to collect natural yeasts and bacterias like they do in Belgium. The Cantillon brewery used to be near orchards and other natural surroundings that provided the natural yeasts to create their beer, but now it appears to be surrounded by city and industry; not exactly the picture of a natural world providing an abundance of yeast and good bacterias. So originally my thinking was that if they can collect the needed yeasts in the middle of the city, then certainly I can in my back yard (which is a wooded valley of sorts). The more I thought about it and read information from Cantillon, though, the more I decided that even though their surroundings may not be ideal, their attic space where they have chilled their wort for decades (centuries?) has a natural history that I don't have. That attic room is like a sanctuary to yeast and bacteria and has a life of it's own. The magic isn't in the air blowing into the windows as much as the wood and dust and history of that room and the brewery in general. That is something I don't have. So in the end, I ended up using some neutral yeast (which had an IPA as a "starter") to do the primary fermentation and when I put the beer in the secondary, I will add in a mixture of magic additives sourced, grown, and standardized from the likes of Cantillon, similar to how the non-traditional lambic breweries make their beer.

So the process has started. I do want to end up making gueuze, so I will likely brew another batch or two this year so that I have some for gueuze and some I can drink as a single vintage lambic. This feels like a whole new world of brewing beer, which I am excited for, but not overly excited since it will be at least a year before I can do anything with this beer, and that's if it ends up ok. At any rate, I need to figure out where to store all of these fermenters.

New beer

It all started with a desire to brew something new. It's been a while since I have brewed something that wasn't based on my standard set of recipes. Sometimes I switch up the hop profile a little or even try out a new yeast strain with one of my tried and true beers, but most of what I keep around tend to be the same basic styles of beer. I usually keep an ordinary bitter, an IPA, maybe a stout, etc... a good variety, I assure you, and one that prevents me from buying much beer at all, but man cannot live on the standard flight of beers alone.

This week, in my normal online perusal of the writings of others, I came across a recipe for a traditional Scottish ale. 1868 traditional, to be more precise. The recipe is an attempt to duplicate a Youngers 120 shilling ale from around 1868. It looks pretty cool and should lend some different flavors from what I generally keep around. It is also a 120 shilling ale, so it will be perfect as cooler weather sets in. I usually will only use others' recipes as inspiration for concocting my own, but this time I decided to make an exception and brew the recipe as written. So I jotted down the ingredient list and headed to the homebrew store, full of anticipation.

The recipe calls for scottish pale malt and continental pale malt. At the homebrew store, they didn't have any scottish malt, and they suggested german malt as the continental malt. Their suggestion was to use Maris Otter as my base in place of the scottish. This beer was starting to sound like my bitters, where Maris Otter is my base. So I opted for the English pale malt in its stead.

As far as hops, the recipe calls for bittering with fuggle and finishing with some obscure Polish hops; obscure in middle TN, anyway. I picked up my fuggle hops, but had to settle for what the recipe called the closest replacement for the Polish hops, some Czech Saaz hops. I actually also picked up some Sterling hops, which are also supposed to be a close match. My plan is to finish with the Sterling hops and dry hop with some Saaz.

So in the end, my attempt to brew the Younger's reproduction won't really be a Younger's reproduction at all. I am using the yeast they suggest, which is a Wyeast London III yeast. I have never used Wyeast before, so I'm interested in the results of this one, in both the flavor and attenuation (though the recipe calls for a high final gravity). Assuming I get good results, the beer probably won't be too far off of an ESB, except that the German malt and different hops should provide some varied flavors, and the added strength should give it a good malty body. Sounds like a good winter warmer to me.

So the only downside of brewing something out of the norm is added cost. Because I am using hops that I don't ordinarily use, I had to buy them retail instead of using hops from my bulk-purchased supply freezer. In addition, it is very unlikely that I will end up re-using my yeast (mainly from lack of time/beer storage space for another batch right now). So this batch soaks up the total cost of the premium liquid yeast. Total cost of this batch:$38 (including tax). Still cheaper than buying anything better than PBR or Keystone at the beer store. (I guess that doesn't include other costs such as propane, water, and the beer I drink during the brewing process.)

And a brief update of my brewing in the last few months....

I brewed a bunch of beer in the late spring so that I could take the summer off from brewing for travel and because I'm not a fan of hanging outside in the 100 degree weather. I also don't drink as much beer in the summer (due to the heat) so my supply lasted the duration (and I am still working on a couple of the kegs now). Current tapped beers include ordinary bitter, summer stout, milk stout, Inglewood pale ale, and an IPA. The milk stout is actually a small beer created from the second runnings of an imperial stout I brewed in September and which is still sitting in the secondary. The Inglewood pale is my IPA malt bill hopped solely with fresh hops grown about 1/4 mile from my house by my friend Greg, whose hop vines have been growing about ten years now. Every year he gets a healthy crop, and I was the lucky recipent of most of this year's harvest. The IPA is loaded up with a bunch of Columbus, Willamette, and Crystal hops from last year's harvest that I needed to go ahead and use. It rivals about any commercially available highly hopped beer in its hoppiness, but like to think it's a bit smoother drinking than most of the others.

Cheers.

Regular Beer

(This is a post intended for participation in Session #49 "Regular Beer" in which people all over the internet share a beer or three and post about their thoughts on it.)

These days, when I want a regular beer, I think of my own homebrew "Ordinary Bitter". Mine is an attempt to make a beer I want to drink everyday and all night. The ordinary English bitter is a beer that has been somewhat left out of the hop-obsessed craft beer world. There are a few out there, but not many, and especially not many that are drinkable in the way the classic English bitters are.

More specifically, the bitters I write of are typically the basic bitters that is on tap at every pub in the motherland. I mean the beer that is pumped out of the cellar and often has a nice haze in the imperial pint you hold. It is a beer inoffensive enough to down in fit of thirst, but you tend to enjoy casually. It is the beer that you appreciate because it settles into the background of your pub visit. It is also the beer that most inspired me to start homebrewing.

I'm a big fan of beers from Fullers, Greene King, etc., but they aren't always readily available here in Tennessee, nor are they particularly affordable to consume on a daily basis. Besides that, with so far to travel to get to my glass, English bitters aren't the freshest beers available. So I decided to brew my own.

I actually first started with Special Bitters (and I try to keep a keg of that around, too). The problem I found was that after a glass or two of my Special Bitter, at around 7% ABV, the rest of my evening was pretty much shot. The solution was to go the route of an ordinary bitter and attempt to keep my edge. After a few years of brewing and experimentation, I have narrowed my recipe down pretty well, but I still tweak it here and there.

So back to the session and my regular beer. It is the beer I drink when I have 30 minutes to relax before I have somewhere to be. It is the beer I start with when I know I have a long night of drinking. It is the beer I drink when my drinking isn't about the beer. My ordinary bitter is a malty beer with some tasty but subdued hop flavor. It tends to pour with a big head but separates nicely and leaves the history of my imbibing with a healthy layered lacing down the glass, which is typically an imperial pint. My bitter tastes much like the smell of the wort boiling, and I like it that way. My regular beer is cheaper than Schlitz, smoother than Sam Adams, as clear as a Sierra Nevada, and tastier than all of them. Regular beer is better than craft beer when it's homebrew.

Acquisitions

Wow. It has been a while. Again.

The highlight of my brewing for the past few months has been acquisitions that allow me to brew more and serve more. So I can now brew 10 gallon batches and I have capacity for 6 kegs to be on tap at any given time.


Back in October, I guess it was, I acquired an additional full-size refrigerator for the basement. There was a fellow down in the Smyrna area that posted an ad on craigslist for a free kegerator fridge for whoever came to get it. So I went and came home with a huge fridge that had already been drilled for a faucet out the front. He had also built a wooden platform at the base of the fridge for kegs to sit level inside. After some cleaning out of the compressor and such, the fridge started working great and I haven't had any issues since. The shank he had installed on the front door was very long such that it actually interfered when i tried to fill the fridge with my corny kegs. (I have since acquired 4 more kegs, too) Last week, I sawed off the shank, though, so now I'm good to go. So now I can fit a 10 lb. co2 tank and 4 5-gal kegs in that fridge. It is currently at capacity, but I have two kegs of the Polo beer; so only one of those is tapped at a time.

In late October, I was the recipient of a pretty awesome gift from my lady friend. She gave me a new 15 gallon Bichmann brewpot. That thing is beautiful and functional, and it came with a thermometer, graduated sight glass, and a 3pc. stainless ball valve. Really nice stuff. So this new pot allows me the boil capacity to brew a 10 gallon batch. The other problem with such a big batch, though, was that it becomes dangerous and mostly impossible for me to move pots full of hot liquid around to use gravity for the sparge and such. So around the holiday I finally ponied up and purchased a pump to move hot liquids around. I have done one ten gallon batch (the hoppy pilsner "polo beer") and that worked out pretty well. But I am still needing to improve my process. So there is still some thinking going on.

All that being said, ten gallon batches do pose another problem. I like to drink my own beer and I do tend to save money over buying beer, but one of the main reasons I brew is because I enjoy it and I enjoy experimenting with styles and variations and such. Brewing ten gallons means more beer from a brew session, which means less brew sessions since I have limited beer storage capacity (and who wants to constantly clean and fill bottles?). So I do plan to brew 10 gallon batches still, but mostly when brewing with others where at the end of the brew session, I only keep 5 gallons for myself.

So anyway, that's what's been going on lately in my brewing world. I have a lot of beer at the house (including some Westvleteren 12 from our November trip to Belgium) that I am trying to wade through. But don't pity me, I'll get through it.

Brewing Update

I have been brewing, just not reporting. Currently I have three beers in the fermenters. Two are IPAs and one is an ordinary bitter. The first IPA is my standard recipe which I am exceptionally happy with. The second IPA was an experiment. The malt bill is my normal one (a combination of American 2-row, some Munich, and some special-B) but my hop profile is different. For that beer, I am using warrior and columbus hops, and dry-hopping with columbus. The inspiration for this hop profile came from the Flying Dog IPA, which in my opinion is a great IPA. My third batch, brewed last night, is my tried and true ordinary bitter recipe. I miss having that one on tap.

New to my brewing process is an aeration stone. When hooked up to a canister of oxygen, this should aerate the beer and hopefully aid in the attenuation of my fermentation. I haven't used it enough to see how it is working, but the current beers in the fermenters should provide me with good feedback because I have records from brewing these beers a few times before.

The brewing of my standard IPA brings me to another, more commercially oriented comment. My IPA was inspired by a clone recipe for the Avery IPA. I am not sure if my recipe is much like Avery's, but I think it tastes pretty close and I am a big fan of both. Or I was, anyway. It came to my attention recently that Avery has changed their IPA recipe. I noticed something was different when I saw the IPA with a new label and in the liquor store, where only high-alcohol beers are sold (here in TN). I finally decided to buy a sixer of the new formula to try, and I was disappointed. The new IPA is really good, don't get me wrong, but now it tastes much like many of the other American IPAs on the market. The hop profile is a little brighter and, I would say, a little stronger. The alcohol difference is pretty negligible in my opinion (this isn't an imperial IPA), but it is now missing the signature maltiness that was evident in the old Avery IPA. I am an Avery believer, but I don't see myself buying this IPA. I don't agree with their decision to change the recipe. (To me it is like the experiment Coke did back in the 80s, after which they came out with Coke classic. I would buy an Avery IPA Classic.)

In other news, I have decided to retire one of my own recipes because, frankly, I just don't enjoy it as much as other beers I brew. I have limited brew capacity and limited consumption capacity (if i want to keep my girlish figure), so the Oatmeal Mild is going away.

Last week I was in Chattanooga to run in a race, and the night before the event, my special lady and I had some time to spend in the city, so we tracked down the Terminal Brewery. First off, I should mention that the Terminal is at the end of the free electric shuttle line (at the terminal) so if you are staying anywhere in town, you have free transportation to the brewery and can drink to your heart's content without worrying about driving. Now, as far as the beer they serve, it was nothing short of phenomenal. Their IPA was so good that I opted for a second in lieu of trying another beer. (It was primarily hopped with Magnum hops - possibly my favorite hop variety.) They also had a great German Alt which the lady has now requested that I attempt to brew at home. Looks like the Terminal Brewery has inspired 2 beers for me to brew in the future. Great stuff.

That's all for now, and that's enough. Cheers.

Beer in Tennessee

Rumor has it that Boulevard Brewing Company is pulling all of its beers out of TN because of lack of sales. This is interesting, but not really surprising, and a little disappointing.

Ever since the local distributors decided to end exclusive distribution of the big boys and started snatching up craft beer accounts, there has been a glut of craft beers in Tennessee (specifically Nashville). What started with some new beers showing up, increasing variety and giving us access to many of the great west coast breweries, started to overwhelm the local beer buyers. It is nice to always see new beers on the shelf to choose from, but at some point some of the favorites started to go away. With the competition for shelf space and consumer's fridge space, most breweries started sending only one or two varieties. An example is the Avery ESB. A very good beer that I was buying for a while until it disappeared from the shelves. (I saw it again about a month ago at a local beer store, and I did buy a sixer of it.) That is when I first noticed the problem. Beers were coming in at such a high speed that beers were being pushed out just as fast. For many beers, that was just fine because a lot of craft beers really aren't that great, but there were also some casualties that shouldn't have gone away. And there are beers that never made it because of the crowded market (Schlafly No. 15, I am thinking of you).

So while the Boulevard announcement is not too surprising, it is a little disappointing that a brewery, and a quality long-standing one at that, is giving up on us. Admittedly, I haven't drank much Boulevard since it first came to town at the beginning of the big craft beer Tennessee movement, but I did enjoy what I drank.

I guess the moral of the story is to consistently buy the beer you like so it doesn't go away. Or just start homebrewing and don't worry about it.

Brewing has resumed

This past weekend I managed to pull my stuff together and jump back on the horse. I live in a new home, so my homebrew process needed figuring out. At the old brewery on West Linden, I brewed on the front porch, using the change in elevation to help with the process. At my new place, the setup is different. The optimal place to brew doesn't have stairs. What it does have, however, is better lighting, a roof from the elements, and much more space. None of the brewing process will need to take place in the kitchen (except the drinking part), and I am no longer limited to daytime, fair-weather brewing. (Truth be told, I have brewed in the dark and in the rain, but it was enough of a pain that I did try to avoid it.)

So when it came to designing my new brewery, the main question was whether to stick with the gravity method of fluid transfer or step up to using wort pumps and such. When it came down to it, the decision came to what I was willing to spend, and a wort pump was just not yet worth the price of admission. So gravity it is. So then it came to figuring out a structure which would allow versatility and ease of process. There are a few commercially available homebrew targeted brewing structures, but, again, they can be expensive. So I decided to build one.

What I came up with is a table that uses sawhorses as legs, and then another smaller table to provide a third level. So this is my new brewery:


With one batch brewed, I am feeling pretty good about it. The only part that is slightly tough is lifting the hot sparge water to the top level. But for 5-gallon batches, it is never too terribly much water. If I ever moved to larger batches, then I will more likely move to a different system anyway.

Cheers.

A Lull

I am having a bit of a pause in my brewing, but only for a month or so. I am moving in the next few days, which means a few different things as far as my brewing is concerned. 1. My brewing has paused, as I have mentioned, in order to move more easily (brewing will probably resume in a week or so). 2. West L.A.B. will be no more (I won't be living on West Linden Ave. anymore) . 3. I hope to increase my production some. I will have much more space for both brewing and storage. I am working on upping my refrigeration capacity, so if anyone has a source for good, cheap refrigeration appliances, let me know.

Earlier this month, I did a friend a favor and brewed two batches of beer for his grand opening party. I brewed a Chocolate Milk Stout (using chocolate nubs from Scott at the Olive and Sinclair Chocolate Company ) and my typical Special Bitter. The bitter tasted about like usual, but maybe a little lighter. I think that was due to using a different source for my Maris Otter base malt. The Chocolate Milk Stout was pretty phenomenal, if I do say so myself. I look forward to brewing that one again, hopefully sooner than later.

With that event taking up my kegs, I am pretty light on beer right now. I did brew a standard bitter before the party, though, so I wouldn't be completely dry. It is based off of my Special Bitter, but is attempt at a more session-able beer. I like the results, but I am not satisfied with them. That recipe will require some tweaking. So that's what I currently have.

On another note, one of the beer blogs I read regularly is by a fellow named Ron Pattinson, who is a beer historian and tends to write alot about beer history and old beer recipes and beer numbers and many things that are often dry, but he tends to give an entertaining slant. Ron also posts (usually-) weekly recipes from the early days of European (and mainly British) brewing. There also happens to be a brewery up in Massachusetts called Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. These two came together to re-produce (as in produce again) a beer based back in 1832.

The beer is called a Mild Ale. It is not a dark-colored mild that most people know a mild to be today. This is a caramel/amber colored beer that really tastes more like an imperial ESB (if that makes any sense ). Well, I managed to get a hold of a couple of bottles of the beer through a friend coming to Nashville from Mass. a few weeks ago. Tonight I finally opened the first of the two, and it was very interesting and quite enjoyable. I plan to hold onto the other bottle for a while to see what aging does to it. I also intend to track down a homebrew-quantity version of the recipe and attempt brewing it myself. Well worth learning some brewing tips from the early 19th century.

Cheers!

Teaser and Short Update

This is a teaser for one of my next beers. I'm brewing for a friend's bike shop grand opening. Should be a good beer.

In the last month or so, I have brewed a dry-hopped pale ale and I have kegged my backyard bock. The pale ale is very good and the bock is decent. It is a little sweet, but I can definitely taste the difference made by lager yeast instead of ale yeast. I am glad that I don't require cold weather to make my ales.

Cheers.

Lager, etc.

This week I started my first foray into lagering. I brewed a bock-inspired recipe on Wednesday night and pitched some lager yeast. I also turned the heat down in my house to help out the cause. (I have a laundry/utility room in the back of my house that tends to be about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of my house... That room seems to be about 50 degrees right now...) Once primary fermentation appears to have settled, I plan to move the secondary out to a shed behind the house to take advantage of the seasonal cool weather for a few weeks of lagering.

This is a new thing for me. With ales, I know how to tell when the primary fermentation is finished based on the appearance and activity of the yeast (ale yeast is top-fermenting - so the yeast dropping to the bottom is a good indicator). Lager yeast, however, is bottom-fermenting (or so they say). So I am in the process of learning something new. Really hoping that 1) the weather cooperates and 2) the beer is good.

Also, as an update, I am currently serving/drinking the "small" extra stout from my Christmas day brewing, and quite enjoying it. I call it "extra" stout because it is super dark tasting with a very dark/toasty lingering aftertaste. It is certainly an interesting beer to drink. I call it "small" because it was brewed from the second runnings of my imperial stout mash. That imperial stout is still in the fermenter just chilling out. One of these days I will bottle that one, and I look forward to the opportunity to try it. Considering how dark and tasty the small beer is, I think the imperial will be pretty remarkable. That one had an initial gravity of 1.118, which means it could conceivably reach an alcohol content of around 12%. Crazy. It should only improve with time. I intend to bottle the imperial stout sometime around the end of this month.

Cheers.

Kegging

A good friend of mine, known to many as The Mannondale, has lately started brewing his own beer. He is on the accelerated homebrewer program. In the month he has been brewing, he has brewed maybe 6 batches of varying strength and variety. I have yet to try any of his beer (since he lives 2 southern states away), but considering his increased interest and the quality of the ingredients he is using, I have no doubt that the quality of his product is top-notch. Another aspect of his brewing for which he can be considered an over-achiever is that he has already acquired a kegerator and is planning to keg his first batch tonight. This post is essentially a primer for how I keg and carbonate my beers so he has somewhere to work from when figuring out his process.

What you need to keg your homebrew:

• A 5-gallon soda keg
• An auto-siphon
• Sanitizer solution
• keg lube
• co2

Kegging

The process is super quick and simple. Essentially, it is the same as racking to secondary, but you are racking to the keg. Your keg needs to be clean. Then your keg needs to be sanitized by pouring in some sanitizer solution, re-fitting top, and shaking the keg for a a few seconds. I usually then let it sit while I take a sample of my beer to check the final gravity. Then, simply pour the sanitizer water back into your sanitizer bucket. Go ahead and drop the top in the sanitizer water, too. (But I usually keep my rubber o-ring out of the solution.) Using a sanitized auto-siphon, transfer the beer to the keg. Then lube the o-ring with a fresh coat of keg lube, place on the top, and secure the top on the keg.

Purging

With your beer in the keg, the next important thing (for beer quality) is to purge the oxygen immediately. To do this, simply hook the co2 up to the "in" connector on the keg and turn on some gas. You will hear the gas fill the empty space in the keg. When the keg is up to pressure, simply let the gasses escape by opening the pressure relief valve on the top of the keg. Repeat this several times to be confident that the oxygen has been evacuated.

Carbonating

It is generally accepted that beer carbonates more successfully when chilled. So at this point, I typically put the keg, while still connected to the co2, into the fridge to chill overnight.

(Fast forward to the next day)

Now that your keg of beer is chilled, you have a couple options for carbonating.

1. Slow Carbonation - If you just hook up your beer to the gas and let it sit for a few days, then your beer will eventually carbonate. This can take different lengths of time, depending on your co2 pressure. I have had this take a week to fully carbonate in this manner. These days I want my beer faster, so I no longer use this option.
2. Fast carbonation - For this method, I will jack up the pressure to 20-30 psi and actively work at the carbonation over the course of 20-30 minutes. You can either lay the keg down on its side and rock the keg back and forth or plug the co2 into the "out" connector (if using ball locks) and keep the keg upright (but still gently rocking it back and forth). Keep going as long as you hear the bubbling of co2 entering the keg. After maybe 20 minutes of this or when the bubbles are much less pronounced, then I call it done.

At this point, your beer should be ready to serve. Turn your gas down to your desired pressure (around 8-9psi for me - i prefer lighter carbonation) and pull yourself a beer. You may find that the pressure settles in over the course of a few days.

That's all there is to it. Beats bottling any day (Though I do still find reason to bottle the occasional special beer).

Cheers.

November Brewing and Porters vs. Stouts

This month has been a busy one for brewing. Six 5-gallon batches brewed, 4 of them bottled, and 2 will be kegged. The 4 are the aforementioned single hop pale ales. They seem to have come out pretty well. We'll see once they are carbonated and chilled. My favorite so far (warm and flat at bottling time) is the Crystal hopped pale ale.

I hadn't really planned on brewing more than those four, but that is mainly because I hadn't considered how quickly my kegs would run out. Two nights of the guys coming over to hang out, one of those nights with hot chicken, and the kegs get pretty low. My special bitter was exhausted within 3 weeks. The cappuccino stout is still pouring, but only because I've been milking it (get it?). So anyway, my two new batches are another batch of special bitter and then a vanilla stout to replace the cappuccino stout.

These brews had problems. And the problems were mostly out of my own control. When I purchased the malts from my local homebrew store, the mill was set too coarse, so the malts didn't get crushed enough. This effected the beers to the effect of losing about 25% of my expected initial gravity. The special bitter has been a very consistent beer for me to brew, so the cause of the difference was obvious to me; especially after analyzing the grains further. Some of the grains weren't crushed at all. Disappointing. The vanilla stout was supposed to be a little stronger than I would usually brew, but ended up being about normal due to the grain problem. (For anyone local who has concern, I did contact the homebrew store, and upon inspection they found their mill settings to be off. They have since fixed it.) As disappointing as this is, I will still have good beer to drink. But I also have more resolve to control even more of the steps of the beer making process. So there may be a grain mill in my future.

Having brewed a vanilla stout, some people who were recipients of last year's (over-carbonated) vanilla porter may be asking why I call this one a stout instead of a porter. The difference between porters and stouts has long been discussed and argued. Some sources I have read lately point to times, maybe 40 years ago, when there were clear-cut differences. These days, however, it is mostly up to the individual brewer since strength, color, sweetness, IBU's, etc. for both porters and stouts are all over the charts. So with that, I feel like it is my duty, as a (home)brewer who makes both types of beer, to clarify the difference to me.

I try to make my stouts dryer (except for the sweet stouts (milt stout, cappuccino stout, etc.)) and more one-dimensionally strong and dark then the porters. My stouts will often use a lot of the darkest malts (black patent, etc.) to cause the dark colors and flavors and should usually leave the mouth dryer, with less of an aftertaste, because they have less going on. My porters, on the other hand, typically have a broader spectrum of flavors such that, while they may be just as dark, there is typically more complexity and lingering flavors on the palate. This is achieved in the porter by using more variety of varying degree dark malts in the grain bill. The outcome if still a very dark beer (and sometimes maybe darker?) but with more levels of dark taste.

I hope that is clear enough. Enjoy your beers.

Cheers.

New Belgium Brewery (A curiosity piece)

New Belgium brewery has been on my mind lately; mainly due to stuff I have read about them lately. I am not sure i have much of a conclusion for my thoughts, but I will proceed anyway. Maybe writing out my thoughts will help me....

First, I will describe my personal history with New Belgium beers. I say personal history because I have been drinking their beers since I was old enough to buy beer back in 1997, living in Texas. I always really liked their beers; especially their lesser known Sunshine Wheat, Trippel, and some others that we don't quite have out here in Tennessee yet. Even their Fat Tire had a strong appeal beyond just the fact that there was a bike on the label (I was working at a bike shop at the time - their's was the preferred of the "bike associated" beers back in the day.) Fast forward about 6 years and I moved to Tennessee, where I have been since. New Belgium Beers have only recently been available here, and really just 3 standard brews and a seasonal are available. And they have stormed onto the scene. Neon cruiser bikes are everywhere (even bike shops), there are frequent specials on New Belgium Beers, and they have quickly infiltrated about everywhere that serves beer. I sort of think this is a good thing. Only that where my friends and I used to bring back cases of New Belgium beers from trips and such, now I sometimes feel like I am settling for a Fat Tire when there are no other decent craft beers within easy access.

This summer, I visited the New Belgium brewery. It was no less than breathtaking. The culture is closely guarded and the facilities are second to none. They are very active in their community and they had many different beers to sample. Essentially, they have made their brewery a beer mecca and their beer one that is often celebrated. They have become America's "cool" brewery.

So two bits of information that I have read lately are interesting to me. The less interesting is that they are looking for a beer ranger in North Carolina. Maybe it has already happened, but they are on the verge of hitting the Atlantic (Just a year or so ago, they wouldn't even cross the Mississippi). The other bit of news is that the couple that founded New Belgium are getting divorced. My source for the info (a trade magazine) stated that the divorce should be final by the end of October (now). The wife part of the relationship is taking over the company and the husband is letting go of his involvement.

That is interesting to me in several ways. The biggest, though, is that the husband, Jeff Lebesch, is the person who started the brewing and came up with their flagship Fat Tire Beer. Now, I am not going to pretend to know how the company has progressed since then as far as management, direction, or whatnot. I also have no idea what has transpired to take things to this point (and I have no interest, especially on a personal level), but I do question the focus when the original beer master leaves a brewery. Jeff hasn't been in charge of production for a long time, that is known, but still.....

It is no secret that Kim Jordan, the other half of that founding couple and now CEO, knows the business as well as Jeff. But it is also obvious (from interviews, etc) that her focus is on the culture and the employees and such as much as on beer. I think these things are important, but it all has to start with the beer. And I do feel like some of the quality of the beer has been lost in the last year or two. Granted, I may be all wrong about Kim's role in that and maybe the quality is one of the things she is looking to improve upon in the coming months and years. But these things are clear: they are expanding very quickly, the beers they are expanding with first are not their best beers (in my opinion), and their ubiquity seems to be pushing them to the realm of Sam Adams, a beer that is everywhere but mostly just a fall back when there is nothing else worth drinking. To successfully distribute so widely, a beer has to cater more to the average beer drinker, which essentially precludes it from having any significant character....

So anyway... as I mentioned, I am speculating that Kim Jordan may not be the best for the brewery and that losing the originator of the beer may also remove the original passion from the brewery. I hope I am wrong. But my hope is waning. I am curious to see what happens in the coming years, and I am curious to see who will take the "coolness" crown if New Belgium loses it.

Some Yeast Work and Brew Preparation

November will be a (relatively) busy month for me when it comes to brewing beer. I plan to brew 4 five gallon batches in the next week or so, and then eventually (in probably about 2 weeks) I will be bottling around 200 beers. My kegs are in good shape for a bit from brewing about 4 weeks ago (currently serving my special bitter and my cappuccino stout), so these new batches are meant more as an experiment. Sort of along the lines of the Yazoo Hop Project, I am making 4 different pale ales. Mine won't be dry-hopped IPA's like the hop projects, but they will each share the same grain bill, much like the Hop Project series does. The difference, though, is that instead of trying different combinations of hops to find that perfect recipe, each of my pale ales will be brewed with just one type of hop. The purpose of this "experiment" is to learn more about a few different hops.

The hops I have acquired for this series are:

• 4 oz Centennial (this one has a higher alpha value, so less will likely still be more)
• 6 oz Crystal
• 6oz Willamette
• 6oz Perle

I am looking forward to having 4 different hopped beers to compare and learn about.

A year ago, a project like this wouldn't have been very affordable. Hops were expensive and in short supply. This year, however, in case you have been in a hole or just don't follow the hops market, there is a surplus of hops and prices are sometimes 1/4 of what they were last year. So what does that mean? It means that I can use 4 times the hops! Or maybe just that I can do a single-hop pale ale series. At any rate, this should be fun.

Along the same lines, brewing 4 batches of beer can be pretty expensive for a homebrewer, so I am trying to maximize efficiency wherever I can, but without cutting corners. Often, in the quest to save a buck (and speed fermentation), I re-use my yeast by pouring new wort on top of a yeastcake from a previous batch. This requires planning so that I am racking the first batch the same day I am brewing my second.

For this series of four batches, I intend to do a similar thing, but I am planning to have two batches going at a time. So to still use one vial of yeast, I am making a starter. But not just a typical start. I am doing a 2-stage start to try to multiply the yeast some before pitching. At any rate, it should be good and primed to do some munching when it gets into the primary.

As a part of the starter preparation, I made some standard wort with some dried malt extract and poured some off for the starter, pouring the rest into standard beer bottles to store for future yeast care. Not a difficult process, but sanitation is of utmost importance. I ended up with 8 bottles of extra wort and some wort for my starter. Once it cooled, I added the yeast. Let's hear it for procreation!

Victory Brewing Company

I am spending this week in Pennsylvania at the ol' homestead, with my parents and sister. It is always nice to go home for a few days and drive around the old roads and run and ride on the old trails and smell the old smells and see some old friends. It is also a good thing to try some new beers. Since I was last in town, it had come to my attention that the Victory Brewing Company is a paltry 27 or so miles from my parents house (much closer as the crow flies as that 27 miles is all on back roads). So my sister and I decided to head that way to check it out.

Our visit wasn't at a time when tours were available, but the brewpub and restaurant were fully active. And they had no less than 15 different beers on tap. I think that easily more than half of them would be considered high alcohol in Tennessee. Now I am not one for samplers, as I think that to really pass judgement on a beer, at least one (and usually 2) pints of a brew are required. But this time, with limited time and opportunity, I went for a 5-beer flight. Their flights are drinker's choice, so my choice was 5 beers that I can only get at the brewery, and the bartender served them up.

• Yakima Twilight - this was an IPA that was brewed wth 4 different hops from the Yakima valley. Decent taste, though I think that I like their hop devil better. Interesting, nonetheless.
  
• Scarlet Fire - this was a smoked marzen, and boy did it taste smokey. Again, interesting, but not a session beer for me.
• Brewmeiseter's Pils - Definitely tasted like a pilsner. Very dry, though. This one didn't have a description in the "book".
• Kolsch - very drinkable, and I have never been much into the Kolsch style. So really, I don't know if that means it wasn't a very good Kolsch? But it worked for me. An enjoyable beer.
• Wild Devil - this one was interesting. Essentially, this is the hop devil, but it was brewed with 'wild' yeast. And the "wild" taste was there. I think I like the regular Hop Devil much better, but it was interesting to be able to taste what "wild" adds to the flavor.

So after the taster, my sister and I ordered dinner. I ordered the smokehouse burger (which was superb, by the way), which I only mention because I ordered a beer that was suggested with that burger. I got their Storm King Stout.. on cask. 9.2% goodness on cask poured in all of its strength and glory. It seriously took 10 minutes for them to pour the beer and deliver it to me because of the time required to pour me an imperial pint, settled, filled, and ready to drink. After that one it was apparent I wasn't driving home.

Victory was the only true production brewery I visited on this trip (so far?), but wasn't the only opportunity to try new beers. On Monday, while visiting a friend, I was served a Milk Stout and a (American)Pale Ale from the Lancaster Brewing Company. Both were very good beers.

On Tuesday I met a friend at a a pub in Kennett Square called the Half Moon. They have quite the beer selection, but it took one gance at the three cask beers on tap to determine that I would be drinking the Yards ESA (English Style Ale?). The first one was so-so, but that was because it was probably the first beer pulled that day (I later determined) because it was warm and a little off-tasting. My second, though, was fresh and spot-on. A very good English Bitter style ale. My favorite variety of beer.

Later that night, I also enjoyed an Iron Hill IPA. Iron Hill is sort of the local brewpub that makes decent beer and has decent food. I would compare them to the Big River or Blackstone of Nashville (Boscos being a step above).

The trip isn't over, but the remaining time is dependent on what the Chesapeake Bay port of Rock Hall has to offer... Hoping it will be good...

Cheers...

Fine Homebrewed T-shirts

I don't wear too many different shirts. And many of the shirts I wear on a regular basis are brewery shirts. This isn't a bad thing, but then I thought one day -->> "I try to brew and drink my own beer most of the time, and I prefer my own beer to most others, so why am I wearing others' t-shirts?"

So, I am proud to introduce my own homebrewed t-shirts. I recently finished my first small run of branded t-shirts with the help of my friend Doug, who has a screen-printing setup. The mens shirts are printed on some uber-soft smoke-colored shirts and the womens are printed on brown relaxed-fit women's shirts (unfortunately, the shirts aren't as soft as the men's - I'll do better next time).


I currently have the following available: 2 women's medium, 1 men's medium, 3 men's large, and 1 men's XL.

These are available for the paltry sum of $10 (plus $3 if it needs shipping out of Nashville).

If you want one, shoot me an email (troy [at] mybrewing.com) and I can reserve one for you...

Beer Pouring Again

I kegged two batches last night. And tonight I am drinking pints of both. That's one thing I love about kegging: very little waiting. Essentially, once the beer is cold it can be drinkable if you choose to carbonate it quickly. The other option is to put it on CO2 and wait 2-3 days, but 20 minutes of attention will fix that.

The method: Lay the kegs down on their sides while connected to the CO2 (turned up to maybe 20 lbs) and periodically (or constantly) roll/shake the kegs around. You should be able to hear the gas moving into the kegs. Keep doing this until the you don't hear much CO2 moving. Then you are done. Turn your pressure back down and put the kegs back in the fridge. They should be ready to go. The biggest problem is potentially over-pressurizing the beer, but if that happens, it will settle itself out soon enough.

Cheers!

Brew Kettle.

Wow!