BetterBeerBlog

I suppose I owe my readers a bit of an explaination regarding my last post. After all, when I lead in with, “With the exception of some bullshit that happened during Pro-Brewers night…”, I’m bound to pique the interests of a few people. So, here it is.

Even now I’m a little reluctant to write about it, not quite embarassed by my actions but a little reluctant. Well, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if my course of action was prudent or not. At one point during Pro Brewers Night Anchor Steam decided to give away 1.5L magnums (big bottles) of their Our Barrel Ale, or OBA. My wife Sammy, short in stature but big in tenacity, is able to receive a bottle which she sets down at the table Firehouse Brewery is pouring from. I am there talking with Deb, Steve’s (Firehouse brewmaster) wife when this woman standing near me swipes the bottle from the table. She then accuses me of stealing her bottle of OBA and that she’s just taking back what’s hers. We argue, I call Sammy over, the guy at BJs comes up with a compromise: I get one of the BJs shirts if we open the OBA bottle so everyone can have some. Sammy, the kind woman that she is, agrees and before I can say anything the bottle is open.

At this point I am pissed, I am livid. Instead of causing a scene, I take a long walk to try and calm down. Truth of the matter is, I don’t even really care about the beer. What I am really pissed off about is that I am accused of stealing, I get stolen from, and the compromise is that we have to share our beer with the people who stole it from us. That is BULLSHIT. By the time I am calm enough to return, we don’t even have an empty bottle I can put on a shelf to remind me daily of this disappointment.

Now that’s off my chest, I can resume my recap of NHC Day 2.

Extreme Fermentables with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head.

Oy. Sammy and I woke up, as with many other people, with a bad hangover. Despite my headache, I was only a few minutes late to my first session: Extremem Fermentables with Sam Calagione. Here’s the big, take-away from Sam’s session: the Reinheitsgebot is an antiquated form of art sensorship. He even made us repeat this outloud. This feat alone is a true testament to the man’s charisma; he was able to get a room full of hungover NHC conference attendees to be interactive.

Sam sees himself, and the brewers of Dogfish Head by extension, as artists who have decided to use beer as their canvas. A leisurely glance at the portfolio of Dogfish Head beers can confirm, at the very least, they have an artistic spirit when it comes to their recipes. Admittedly their worst brewer, Sam is responsible for conceptualizing their beers before handing off the general idea to his head brewer to source the ingredients and brew up on their Sabco pilot system.

I am sometimes awed at how Sam is able to hold a room. He spoke for a few more minutes sharing with us some of the funnier moments behind the creation of certain Dogfish Head beers. For example, the “Minute” beers are all continuously hopped over the course of the entire boil. Standard brewing practice would be to add the bulk of your bittering hops in the beginning and your flavor hops towards the end. While everything these days is all computer controlled and automated, early attempts at “automation” included the use of a repurposed, vibrating table top football game or a brewer having to stand there and add hops continuously for the duration of the boil. The original idea for this technique was inspired by a cooking show Sam once watched where the chef added black pepper throughout the entire time it took to cook a meal. The reasoning was to add a layer of depth to the food that a one-time addition could not give.

A 20 minute video showing the origins of their Palo Santo Marron beer played for the remainder of the session. While I found this video interesting, I really came to see Sam talk and not watch some video I could’ve probably found on the Interwebs someplace. I must admit that Sam does an excellent job of selling the idea that Dogfish Head is like homebrewing but bigger. He is a consummate salesman always pimping his beers out. I can appreciate what he is doing over at Dogfish Head but the session was a little disappointing because it felt like one of those paid advertisements you see on TV late at night.

Funkification, a 100% Brettanomyces fermented mind dump with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River

In this session, Vinnie broke down the barrel aging program at Russian River. What makes their barrel aging program different from another brewery is their inclusion of different types of yeasts such as brettanomyces, lactobacillus and pediococcus. Here are my notes on this session:

Sanctification was poured during the brettanomyces portion of the session.

• Sanctification is 100% brettanomyces, although I think he mentioned they do take out 20% of the beer to spike it with lactobacillus and pediococcus after primary fermentation and then blend it back together. Sanctification is then bottle conditioned with fresh brettanomyces.
• Rules for Funky Beers
  • Be patient
  • Don’t look or taste everyday
  • Can’t be a control freak
  • Be natural
  • Listen to your beer. It will tell you when it’s done.
  • Making something drinkable is a success
  • Make 2 of everything
• 100% brettanomyces is relatively easy. Just brew your beer as usual and pitch brettanomyces.
• Brettanomyces is not a wild yeast

Beatification is a result of 100% spontaneous fermentation, aka “sonambic” (Sonoma lambic).

• Beatification is tart but the flavor remindsme of green raisins
• Fairly simple recipe, 60% barley/40% wheat
• Sour mash - Mash tun is opened up overnight and the natural bugs in the brewery are allowed to take root and sour the mash.
• Aged hops
• Resulting somanbic is then aged and blended together to make a consisten product
• Beatification is then bottle conditioned with a wine yeast

Vinnie is actually from wine making family and some of his techniques and ideas seem to come from that experience. For the homebrewer making funky beers, the plastic ale pail we all used in the beginning would make a perfect vessel for sour beers because of its porous nature.

This talk was a vast improvement over my first session as Vinnie laid down principles of how we could scale this process down for the homebrew environment.

Keynote Speech with Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada

This was an entertaining keynote speech where Ken Grossman pretty much ran through the humble beginnings of Sierra Nevada and then contrasted it with the Sierra Nevada of today. While it may take some time to find it, you can probably find the complete history of Sierra Nevada online, no need for me to repeat it here.

What I will say though is that the brewing sciences have come a very long way in such a short amount of time. In today’s climate, homebrewers have access to pretty much the same sort of raw ingredients and materials professional brewers have. Back when Ken used to own a homebrew shop, homebrewers used liquid malt extract from a can, sometimes hop flavored, to make their beers with. The liquid yeasts that are so ubiquitous today would’ve costed you hundreds of dollars 30 years ago. Fresh hops? Forget about it. Hops used to come in pink wrapped bricks that were often send to 3rd world contries as an additive to keep bread from spoiling. Even then, those pink bricks were of aged and dry hops, a far, far cry from the relatively fresh whole, plug or pellet hops we can get today.

Needless to say, we are spoiled by today’s technological advancements. Instead of learning to weld as Ken did to fabricate the equipment he needed, we can just search on Google for brewing equipment for sale. It’s ridiculous to see how far Sierra Nevada has come, how far the craft brewing industry has come and how far the homebrewing community has come over the years. Knowing where you’ve come from gives me a better appreciation of where the craft beer industry and homebrewing industry will be going. The beers of the future, as cliché as it sounds, are built from the beers of yesterday. I am excited to see what the future holds.

Mead Panel - Moderated by James Spencer featuring Charlie Papazian, Byron Burch, Curt Stock and Harod Gulbransen

Didn’t take too many notes but here are my bullet points:

• The best mead has been aging for at least one year. It’s possible to make a mead that’s only 7-8 weeks old but you really have to work
• Only one person does a full boil that lasts for only 2 minutes, just long enough to skim off solid particles in the honey.
• Generally speaking, adding fruit to “secondary” results in more fruit character. Adding during primary yields more subtle notes. Spices can be added much later down the line, easier to add more, can never remove
• You are able to resweeten your meads
• People get grumpy when they don’t get their meads. Maybe they should consider moving to the front of the room and shutting up

Going Pro Panel - Moderated by Justin Crossley featuring Sean O’Sullivan, Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, John Pinkerton and Keith Lemcke with Ken Grossman

I tried to take as many notes as I could but then I’d be missing something someone would be saying. I must say that Justin did a great job as moderator keeping the panel going, keeping the questions coming and managing time.

• Ken Grossman was a late addition while Keith represented Seibold Institute
• Vinnie believes that niche brewing has a future
• However much money you think you’re going to need, it won’t be enough. Make sure to get enough capital, roughly $1M minimum.
• Don’t skimp out on the brewery floor.
• Have a good relationship with city officials, it makes things easier in the future
• Actual brewing makes up only 5% of your day, 95% is the business of brewing
• Think carefully of the type of brewery you will want (production, brew pub) as each has it’s own set of pros and cons
• Think and plan for the future. Sean laments the type of liquor license he has as it prohibits him from self distribution
• Think about the area you will be starting your brewery in. Lack of a sustained brewery presence may be an indicator the area isn’t ready for a brewery

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 am and is filed under American Homebrewers Association, Homebrew, Lecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.