BetterBeerBlog

This was one of the better Fourth of July weekends that I’ve had in some time. I managed to spend some time at the beach, catch the fireworks show in downtown San Jose, party up with some friends while squeezing in some “I’m going to be really, unproductively lazy right now” time. To wrap up the weekend, Sammy and I decided to drive all the way up to Fairfax to attend the BABBBBQ (Bay Area Bloggers Barbeque), graciously hosted by Rob of Pfiff.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this BABB meeting. I had no idea how many people were going to be at Rob’s place or who. In the end, it ended up being a more intimate affair with just a handful of people showing up. Surprising to only Sammy and myself, we were the first ones there. Unless we get the times incorrect, Sammy and I are rarely the first ones at anything. Here’s who attended in the order of appearance (I feel like I’m writing up meeting notes, ha!):

• Rob and family (wife Des and daughter Maya)
• Myself and Sammy
• JJ, her sister Allie and Melissa, Allie’s girlfriend
• Jay Brooks and family (wife Sarah, son Porter, and daughter Alice)

Of course what BABB event would be complete without beer? This is, after all, a gathering of beer bloggers. Silly me for not taking any notes but there are just some times when you want to turn the blogger part of you “off” and just enjoy a beer without having to think too hard about it. That being said, here is a list of the beers that were served along with my comments as I remember things:

• Rob’s witbier - I’m a bit jealous of Rob’s witbier as it turned out much, much better than my own. It was everything mine was not: appropriate color for the beer and head, appropriate aroma and flavors as well. The biggest critique I would have of his witbier was the lack of body. Already light in body, the carbonation made the wit even more light. That being said, it was a refreshing beer to start off with after the long drive.
• The Bird - A double IPA brewed by Rob, this one had an 8% ABV that wasn’t noticeable. The Bird had a wonderful amber color with solid malt aromas and a surprisingly subdued hop aroma. As with many beers, the aroma is pretty indicative of the flavor. Malty sweetness is the first thing that hits you when you drink it, followed discreetly by hop flavor and bitterness. This is a style that is supposed to have strong hop flavor supported by a solid malt profile. Rob got the malt part right but the hops were a little on the low side. Having talked to Rob about it briefly, he used a continuous hopping method when he brewed it. Knowing that, The Bird then reminded me of Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA which uses a similar method. I remember that beer having a lower than expected hop bitterness despite it’s 94 IBU rating. I believe that the continuous hopping method will calculate out to high IBU numbers but have a much more mellow hop bitterness which leads to a perception of lower hop bitterness but not necessarily lower hop flavor.
• Russian River’s Damnation - Brought by the Thirsty Hopster herself, Jessica. I wish I could remember more about this beer but I made the mistake of having the JC Flyer IPA that blew my palette out. As a result, I don’t remember much about this beer other than I liked it.
• Iron Springs JC Flyer IPA - Supplied by our host, Rob. Wow, what a hoppy beer. Great American hop aroma, citrus, piney and even floral. Good malt characteristics with an aggressive hop bitterness that lasted well into the finish of the 2nd slice of “palette cleansing” bread I ate.
• My own Altbier - By most accounts, my altbier was well received with the only critique coming from Jay Brooks who said, “That’s one hoppy altbier”. I realized that the malt and hop flavors where a bit big for the style and pushed the envelop a bit bit I liked how it turned out after some weeks of aging.
• Rob’s Barleywine - If I remember this correctly, this was dark in color, maybe darker than appropriate. Having attended the Barleywine festival at Toronado, I can say that the range of colors from all the barleywines at the festival were all over the board. Some were amber in color while some were as dark as stouts. The American Barleywine category has such a wide range, Rob’s would’ve fit in just fine. The aroma was malty sweet with noticeable alcohol. The flavor matched the aroma as well. I only had a little bit of this as it was a warm afternoon and I might be driving later on. As with many of Rob’s beers I tried today, there was a noticeable lack of hop bitterness and this carried on that tradition. Keeping that in mind, I’ll just call it an English Barleywine instead.
• Rob’s Holiday Ale - This was the last beer I had for the day. I only remember a few things about it. The flavor leaned toward the malty side but this beer was more well balanced. Normally holiday ales are spiced in such a way as to evoke the holiday season in which they’re supposed to be consumed in. Other adjuncts such as bitter orange peel or dried fruit maybe be added as well as honey, molasses or brown sugar. I mention this because I never did ask Rob if he spiced his beer or added anything additional. I don’t recall smelling or tasting anything out of the ordinary but I must admit that after a certain time, I stop thinking about beer and focus more on drinking it. This beer certainly fell well within that time frame.

Even though there were only a few of us, some interesting discussions were taking place. Between myself, JJ and Rob, we talked about the February Beer Month idea that was being kicked around a while back on the BABB group page. We all felt that it would be a worthwhile event to participate in and just rehashed some of the ideas from the Philly Beer Week document. Hopefully it will be more of a “bay area” event as opposed to just a “San Francisco” event as the Peninsula, South and East Bay need love too.

We (all of us) then, then talked about what the BABB could be. Jay, the catalyst for starting everything, basically said he put the group together without much thought about it’s purpose or direction. In my opinion, he doesn’t have to know. He doesn’t even have to make a suggestion. As with any other organization, loose-knit or highly structured, it is only as strong as it’s members. Maybe all we will ever do is meet up every once in a while to drink, eat and be merry. And that’s fine, I am all about the “merry”. Or maybe we can all pull our resources together and plan our own week-long beer event. That would be cool too, pretty badass actually. Whatever we end up doing (or not doing), I can say that I am making friends with people I probably otherwise would not have had a chance to meet. That is cool in itself.

JJ and company had to leave early as she needed to drop her sister and Melissa at the airport to catch a flight back to Washington (State). I got to talk to Allie and Melissa a little bit and found them to be cool people. Because of JJ, Allie and Melissa are now just getting into beer. How fortunate then to live in Seattle where they have quite a number of breweries in the city and more opening up. Just in Allie’s neighborhood alone, there is a brewpub within walking distance and as well as a very diverse bottle shop. Sammy and I have always wanted to visit Seattle and now we have a reason other than beer to visit.

As the shadows grew longer and the glasses emptier, all the children started to get tired at once. A more obvious clue to end the get together could not have been made. Jay and his family were next to leave, followed minutes later by myself and Sammy. Before we left, Rob offered up either his barleywine or his holiday ale in exchange for the altbiers we brought. I left the decision to Sammy and she picked the barleywine. It currently sits in my kegerator where it will age for a few months to be enjoyed during the winter months.

It was a great way to end an otherwise great weekend for us. I look forward to the next BABB event and meeting more bloggers.

For as many times as I’ve written about my homebrews, I have never review any of my beers on this site. Part of me thinks that I can’t be objective. I don’t necessarily think that I’ll rate myself undeservedly high, it’s the opposite, in fact. I think I just might be more strict when judging my own beers that that of others. That being said, I had it all lined up where I’d review both my Märzen and my Altbier but something happened on the way to the homebrew store. Well, not on the way, more like, at the homebrew store.

I was purchasing ingredients for next home brew when Rich, the owner of Beer and Winemakers of America, told me about the upcoming Bay Area Brew Off (BABO) homebrew competition held by the Draught Board homebrew club. On a whim, I dropped off my two entries.

It seemed to take forever but the BABO winners were finally posted on the Draught Board website. Draught Board President Roger St. Denis sent an email out to all the participant earlier in the week but I hesitated posting how well I did until Draught Board updated their website as well.

Now that they’re up, I can proudly say that my Märzen took 3rd place in the Amber Lager category while my Altbier took 1st in the Amber Hybrids category!!! Now I can add “Award Winning Homebrewer” to my short list of achievements, ha, ha, ha! Then again, I probably shouldn’t toot my horn too much as not only did my Märzen had an average score of 21 points (Misses the mark on style and/or minor flaws), there were (it would seem) only 4 entrants into the category. My Altbier fared better scoring an average of 30.2 points (Generally within style parameters, some minor flaws) with also 4 entrants in the category. It was an ugly win but a win nonetheless.

Jon from Beer Obsessed once emailed me to say that should I place, I would be bitten by the homebrew competition bug. I would be lying if i didn’t say I am more inclined to enter more of my beers into competition. On one hand, I would’ve been happy just to place but for one of my beers to take 1st in a category is pretty good. On the other, when you start at the top, it’s a long way down. Granted, I didn’t win BOS (Best of Show) but it’s a good feeling nonetheless.

It validates to me that I am a decent homebrewer. It also raises a valid question, do I brew for myself (as I have been) or do I brew for competitions? One would think that both are the same thing but in reality, it’s not, it’s a completely different mindset. For now I think I’ll continue to brew for myself and as competitions come up, I’ll send in whatever I have on tap at the time.

This past week the class covered the Amber Hybrid and Belgian ale styles. I forget now but at the time, I remember contemplating whether or not I should go to class. I am very glad that I decided to go as the Belgian ale portion of the class was really enjoyable. Talk about complexities! There’s a lot of beer going on in the Belgian ales. You could, literally, take an entire college semesters going over just Belgian ales. While there are a few broad categories, the sheer number of variations within those categories is staggering.

We’re talking about a country where beer is as much a part of the national diet as soda is for the United States. Sure, Germany has long been known for being the “beer capital” of the world but I think the ales that Belgium produces have so much going on and are consistent. There’s the subdued malts and hop flavors, the fruity esters and spiciness, the aromas and flavors… wow. Good stuff.

I know I used to do do individual beer reviews but they took a lot of time and effort. I get… reviewed out by the end of class and by then, I just really want to crack open a cold one for the sake of enjoyment and not because I have to work on it. I’ll bring the individual reviews back after the BJCP classes are over but for now, here are my tasting notes from class.

My homebrew altbier has been in primary fermentation for a solid week now and I just racked it to secondary fermentation this past Sunday. Actually, that’s a bit misleading. While there still may be some fermentation taking place with the residual yeasts still in suspension, what I actually did was rack the altbier to a secondary container in the hopes that it’ll clear up a little bit more. Once I bottle it, then the altbier will undergo a secondary fermentation that will result in carbonation.

One of the things you can do though while racking your homebrew to a secondary container for clarifying is to take another hydrometer reading. A hydrometer measures the amount of residual sugars still within the liquid. I took a hydrometer reading before fermentation that gave me an Original Gravity of 1.060 (aka ten-sixty) with a Final Gravity of 1.016. After running the numbers through a simple formula, I calculated my altbier to have a 5.895%ABV. For those who are really curious, here’s the formula:

(O.G. - F.G.) * 131 = %ABV (alcohol by volume)

I got to taste it before carbonation and the beer has an initial malt-forward flavor that is a little sweet with dark fruit undertones balanced out by a medium intensity hop bitterness and flavor. There’s not much on the nose of this beer but that might change a bit after the beer gets carbonated. Although I am not expecting it to.

I did have a picture of the altbier still in primary and I wanted to post it but I am having trouble connecting to the server BetterBeerBlog is hosted on. I’ll have to shoot out an email tonight and see if I can get that resolved.

Most of my beer knowledge comes from my homebrewing background. I initially got interested in homebrewing after reading about it in my college newspaper. It seemed like a cool thing to do and I have always been interested in making my own things. Eventually I’ll get to the point where I’m roasting my own coffee beans and making my own soap.

I finally had time this weekend to brew. Usually I set up my canopy and brew in the backyard but because of the rainy weather, I was forced to do so in my garage. Interestingly, I found brewing in the garage to be really enjoyable. This gives me reason to clear the garage out of all this crap my wife and I have managed to accumulate over the years living single.

The style of beer I decided to brew is an altbier. While there are two different styles of altbiers, based upon my ingredient list, the beer I have fermenting in my dining room is a Düsseldorf Altbier. You can read up on all the specifics of this beer on the BJCP website but as it was explained to me, it’s similar to an english pale in malt and hop flavor but without the aroma. This is an older style ale that is fermented on the cooler side of the ale spectrum and allowed to mature like a lager in order to produce a clean, crisp and smooth beer. Ironically, I used the term “lager” when describing this beer style but historically speaking, lager yeasts weren’t yet isolated so this beer predates lagers.

I decided to brew this beer as I am interested in brewing things I haven’t done before. To decide what style of beer to brew, I asked Phil over at More Flavor! what would be a good beer to brew for the upcoming season. I suggested a maibock but he countered with the altbier style. Because the weather is still cool, I could ferment this at lower temperatures. Also, it’s still a bit early to be brewing for maibocks.

Here’s the ingredient list:

Malt Extract/Additions

• 8 lbs. Ultralight Malt

Grain

• 1 lbs. Crystal 40L
• 4 oz. Chocolate (Not using real chocolate. Chocolate is just the adjective used to describe the color of the grain, not the flavor)

Hops

• 1.5 oz Northern Brewer Hops (These are my bittering hops. As the description implies, these are the hops that will give my beer it’s bitterness. Normally hops are packaged with their IBU rating but I don’t recall any rating for these. These are boiled for 60 minutes.)
• 1 oz Hallertauer Hops (Added during the last 5 minutes for flavor and aroma.)
• 1 oz Hallertauer Hops (Added during the final minute for aroma only.

Yeast

• Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast (Some yeasts are dry, this is a liquid. Unlike other liquid yeasts that are bottled in test tube like things, these are in a “smack pack”. The advantage of a smack pack is the little package of yeast nutrient inside. You smack the nutrient packaging to release the nutrient about 3 hours before you need to add them to your wort. In essence, the smack pack is a mini-yeast starter in a bag.)

For those uninitiated with the world of homebrewing, I’m sure I am using a lot of terminology you may not be familiar with. I will be putting up a homebrew section in a couple of weeks. Homebrewing in itself is enough to base an entire blog (book, magazine, career) off of so I will be relating everything to my own homebrews. I’ll break things down into easier to understand chunks as well as explain the lingo as I go along.In any event, once this beer is finished, I’ll put it through a BJCP style review instead of my own review process. In fact, I still have a few homebrews left so I’ll put those on my list of beers to review.