BetterBeerBlog

Author: The Rabid Brewer

This past weekend I helped judge the MoreBeer! Forum Competition in Concord. The competition is in its 6th year and is a BJCP sanctioned event. Although the competition rules state that, “You must be a member of  the MoreBeer! Forum to enter,” that process is free and easy, so technicality it was open to anyone willing to register online.

This year saw around 200 entries in BJCP categories 1-23 (beer only, no mead or cider) competing for the Best of Show grand prize of a new MoreBeer! 14 Gallon Conical. This has to be one of the best homebrewing competition prizes out there and had plenty of folks excited to enter.

Around 30 judges were seated in tables setup in the MoreBeer! warehouse for both a morning and afternoon session, followed by the final Best of Show round.

Judging Underway at the 6th Annual MoreBeer! Forum Competition

In addition, some of the more popular categories (IPA, Pale Ale) had enough entries to warrant queued judging with a separate mini-BOS round. Despite the additional work, the competition ran smoothly and folks had a good time.

Judges, stewards and other volunteers don’t get paid, but we were all provided bagels and juice for breakfast and a wonderful lunch spread of homemade Mexican food prepared by competition organizer Randy Griggs and MoreBeer! staff. Randy even had fresh mozzarella cheese still warm from just being made! On tap was a keg of Triple Rock Single Hop Apollo Pale Ale.

Lunch Spread for the Competition Judges, Stewards and other Volunteers

Here’s a personal thank you from Randy that was posted on the MoreBeer! Forum:

I also want to say thank you to all the volunteers who showed up and help sort, prelim, judge, cellar, and organize this event. I can’t say enough how great it is that Chris Graham is helping me right now in his free time to scan all 198 entries scoresheets. David Teckam, judge coordinator, for handling the entries and judging, Tasty McDole for his constant advice and guidance, and Ale Industries for providing us refrigeration that makes this all possible. There are many more I am leaving out, and I appreciate them all.

Big shout out to Best of Show winner Dwight Mulcahy for his Weizenbock. Dwight is a member of the Worts of Wisdom and has racked up more than 35 ribbons this past year including 5 Best of Show wins. He also has an entry in the GABF Pro-Am that he brewed at Hanger 24 after winning BOS at their competition earlier this year. Looking forward to trying it at GABF!

Congrats Dwight for your Best of Show Win and new MoreBeer! Conical!

For a complete list of competition winners, stay tuned to this thread on the MoreBeer! Forum.

Brian

Author: The Rabid Brewer

I’ve mentioned the Northern California Homebrewers Festival (NCHF) in a previous post.

Just a quick note to let you know that if you’re thinking about attending, now is the time to buy your tickets. Advance sale ends today and the price goes from $45  to $55 tomorrow. You can sign up online at www.nchfinfo.org

A note from Paul Keefer, NCHF Officer of Registration:

It is always a great time……. sampling beer from other clubs, hanging out with fellow homebrewers and sampling a variety of tasty food, great speakers and a phenomenal raffle (a chance to win a MoreBeer! 14 gallon conical fermenter.) You can find more info at the NCHF website. Hope to see you there.

Cheers!
Brian

Author: The Rabid Brewer

This is Part 2a in my series covering homebrewing a saison. Use the following links to read other parts in the series. An inactive link means that part has yet to be published.

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2a - Recipe Formulation: Overview
• Part 2b - Recipe Formulation: Grain
• Part 2c - Recipe Formulation: Hops
• Part 2d - Recipe Formulation: Yeast
• Part 3 - Water Treatment
• Part 4 - Process and Equipment
• Part 5 - Results

This installment gives a short list of resources, my goals, some objective parameters and the final recipe. Details on recipe formulation will follow in subsequent parts.

Resources for Recipe Formulation

Formulating a recipe for most beer styles has never been easier than it is today. A great starting place is the BJCP website which provides guidelines for each style including ingredients. Although some folks are critical of pigeon-holing beers into style boxes, the BJCP is an excellent online resource. Just because something is bounded for ease of understanding, doesn’t mean you have to brew it that way!

Another great reference is Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. Jamil is a well known and respected homebrewer and has twice won the AHA Ninkasi Award. His book contains award winning recipes for each of the BJCP beer styles. If you were to buy just one homebrew recipe book, this should be the one.

Finally, there are often entire books devoted to a particular style (see the BA/AHA bookstore) and most include recipes.  Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski covers saison (and biere de garde) in great detail. If you’re interested in saison, this is a must have reference.

What Type of Saison?

So what does all this tell us about formulating a recipe for a saison?

In Farmhouse Ales, Markowski writes that “Saisons defy easy categorization and are sometimes rife with contradiction. Many are light in color, a few are dark, and some are in between. One or two are full-bodied and sweetish, most are extraordinarily dry and fruity. Those who like their beers neatly arranged in narrow categories find defining saison frustrating, to say the least.”

So, the first question to be answered is, “What type of saison?”

I decided my goal wasn’t to try to reproduce any particular saison, but simply to brew something that had much of the character that I like in my favorite versions of the style. This tends to be the lighter, drier ones like Saison Dupont. This deceptively simple choice ends up driving much of the grain bill as well as the mash schedule. In addition, since much of the character of Saison Dupont comes from the yeast, that will also be an important consideration.

Here is how the BJCP defines Style 16C Saison: “A refreshing, medium to strong fruity/spicy ale with a distinctive yellow-orange color, highly carbonated, well hopped, and dry with a quenching acidity.”

They also provide the following objective parameters:

• OG  = 1.048 - 1.080
• FG = 1.010 - 1.016
• IBUs = 25 - 45
• SRM = 5 - 12
• ABV = 5 - 8.5%

This tells us that (unlike many Belgian beers) saisons are quite hoppy. Nothing like West Coast IPAs, but 45 IBUs is still a fairly bitter beer. And “well hopped” means more than just IBUs - the measure of bitterness. It also means hop flavor and aroma from late additions in the boil and possible use of dry-hopping.

The OG and FG tells us we’re looking at an apparent degree of attenuation (ADF) of 80-90%. That’s quite high. Consider that of the approximately 80 BCJP styles, around 75% of them have an ADF less than 80% and malty beers are much lower than that. E.g., English style bitters typically end up in the low 70’s and a Scottish Heavy could be down in the mid-60’s.

Getting an ADF into the high 80’s can be difficult. It will require careful formulation of the grain bill, an appropriate mash schedule, proper yeast selection and health as well as ensuring the best possible environment in which the yeast can do their job.

Another important aspect of saison is its “quenching acidity.” Examples of the style will range from thirst-quenching to tart to even slightly sour. Since acidity is measured by pH, this means shooting for a beer with a low final pH. As there is correlation between final pH and mash pH, paying close attention to water, water treatment and how to drive the mash pH in the right direction will be important.

Finally, the BJCP provides lots of helpful information in the ingredients section. Rather than go into those details here, I’ll be referring back to that section as we walk through my thought process in subsequent parts in the series concerning recipe formulation.

Recipe

I’ll cut right to the chase: here’s the recipe I’ll be using for a 5 gallon batch.

Although most of the grain bill and hopping is taken directly from Brewing Classic Styles, I did the due diligence before hand to ensure I would achieve my original goals using this recipe. I’ve also tweaked things a bit here and there to suit my process, concerns and desires. In the next few installments I’ll go into the details of why I chose this recipe, how I dialed it in, and give some options to consider for future iterations.

It’s important for me to keep track of (at least mentally) various options, why I made a particular decision, and if any assumptions were used for various unknowns. That way, I’ll have a good idea of what to change the next time I brew the beer.

Grain

• 10.5# Briess Lesser-Modified Pilsner
• 0.75# German Munich
• 0.75# White Wheat Malt
• 1# Cane Sugar (added in stages during fermentation)
• 2oz CaraMunich

Hops

• Bittering: 2 oz Hallertau at 60 minutes for 23.8 IBUs (TInseth)
• Flavor: 0.5 oz Hallertau at 15 minutes for 3 IBUs (TInseth)
• Aroma: 0.75 oz Hallertau at 0 minutes for 0 IBUs (TInseth)

Yeast

• White Labs WLP568 Saison Yeast Blend

Process

• Step Mash with Sacch Rest <150F assuming 75% Efficiency
• Ferment at 75F-85F

Original Gravity = 1.062
Final Gravity = 1.008
ADF = 85%
ABV = 7%
IBUs = 26
SRM = 5

In the next few parts in this series, I’ll be going into more detail on the various aspects of the recipe. I’ll start with the grain bill, move on to hops and finish up with yeast. From there, I’ll talk a bit about water, then move on to process, both brewing and fermentation.

Brian

Author: The Rabid Brewer

This is Part 1 in my series covering homebrewing a saison. Use the following links to read other parts in the series. An inactive link means that part has yet to be published.

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2a - Recipe Formulation: Overview
• Part 2b - Recipe Formulation: Grain
• Part 2c - Recipe Formulation: Hops
• Part 2d - Recipe Formulation: Yeast
• Part 3 - Water Treatment
• Part 4 - Process and Equipment
• Part 5 - Results

Introduction

When Peter first asked that I write for the BetterBeerBlog, I had brewed 45 batches of homebrew in the past 33 weeks. Although that’s not much more than 1 batch per week, the extra maintenance of racking, kegging, bottling, cleaning, etc. really adds up to a lot of work. At times, it almost felt like a full time job. Then there’s the club meetings, competitions, judging, research (i.e. beer tasting ), craft beer events, record keeping and everything else that goes along with a full-fledged addiction. To put it mildly, I felt a bit rabid at times. Thus was born my moniker for this blog: The Rabid Brewer.

Given this rabidity, I suspect Peter may have had a slight expectation that I provide some practical brewing information for his readers. Unfortunately, life conspired against me and the last time I brewed happened to be less than a week before my first post to the BetterBeerBlog.

My Once Rabid Fermentation Freezer

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve broken an almost 3 month hiatus and recently brewed a saison. This is a style I’ve been wanting to brew since the beginning of the summer. I can’t seem to get enough Saison Dupont and it’s turned into one of my favorite warm weather styles.

Saison in Progress on the Rabid Franken-Brew System

Perhaps it’s out of a sense of guilt, or perhaps I feel the need to make up a bit for lost time, or just maybe there’s a trace of rabidity still left in my system. Whatever the reason, there’s quite a few things I’ve been wanting to write about and this gives me the opportunity to get started.

So, I’ve decided to write a series describing my thought process leading up to this brew, a bit about the process and equipment I used, and ultimately the end-result. Some things (such as special equipment or water treatment) may warrant future elaboration, but we’ll play that by ear.

With any luck, someone out there might get something out of what I expect to be a lot of blathering on my part. If not, well, this will simply be a keen way to document the day in the life of a Rabid Brewer.

Brian

Author: The Rabid Brewer

One of the year’s largest gatherings of homebrewers is happening this September in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada when the Northern California Homebrewers Festival (NCHF) celebrates its 13th year.

The Festival takes place at Lake Francis Resort in Dobbins (near Marysville) where the entire campground is reserved for festival goers. (The resort also has a limited number of cabins available.) This year promises a packed event with less than 100 sites still available out of 350 total. It’s expected the event will sell out by the end of the month.

A full schedule of activities is planned including live music, raffles, nationally recognized speakers, a club only homebrew competition, and a Friday Night Brewers Dinner.  And, what kind of beer festival would it be without beer? Rest assured that the festival will be literally overflowing with homebrew from clubs and individuals alike.

Every year the Festival follows a theme and this year it is Eastern Europe. Expect many clubs to have booths following the theme, but as with past festivals, anything goes!

Clubs often spend months planning to make a good showing at the festival and will pull out all the stops to have a creative display and plenty of homebrew on tap. Clubs also compete in the club-only competition and this year the featured styles are Baltic Porter and Bohemian Pilsner.

The only downside of this year’s festival is that it occurs on the same dates as this year’s Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Unfortunately that means no NCHF for me. These two events don’t always overlap and organizers try hard so that they wont. But, due to having to make firm commits on reservations for the festival before the GABF dates are announced, there is always the possibility of a conflict such as happened this year.

The other minor effect of this overlap is that Sean Paxton the Homebrew Chef (who in the past has prepared the Friday Night Beer Dinner) will instead be off at GABF. I doubt that will prevent NCHF from having tons of excellent food though. Check out the menu on their site.

If you’re a homebrewer looking for an amazing event to be a part of, you can’t go wrong with NCHF. Check out their website for complete information and to see more photos of past events (from which all photos in this post were gleaned.)

Update - Received this via email this morning regarding the inventory at the Hop Yard.

The 2010 hops harvest is almost at an end!  We had a small harvest of Centennial this year and most of that went to a few brewers wanting wet hops – it’s gone!   We had a GREAT harvest of Cascade – we have 51ounces that is dried and vacuum packed, and more being dried.  Same for Chinook and Nugget – about 30 ounces of each already dried and vacuum packed.  We are still harvesting and expect to be doing that thru this weekend, so if anyone is interested in wet hops (Chinook and Nugget still on the bines), you can come for a visit and pick some up.

A little over a week ago, I arranged to visit a small, organic hop yard in Gilroy owned and operated by the father and son team of Dennis and Jared, respectively. I received the tip from a fellow BJCP judge and homebrewer via email and immediately followed up. A hop yard? In Gilroy? Consider my interest piqued.

Now, I’m not really one to get all that excited about hops. I’ve been growing hops of my own for the past 3 years so I’m pretty familiar with the plants. Every day when I wake up, I look out the window and this is what I see.

Regardless, as soon as I pull into the driveway of Dennis’ home, I feel goosebumps race down my neck as I see the hop yard in the distance. Part of me is in awe of hops being grown in a much larger scale. Another part is just beaming with pride. San Jose, and south (Santa Clara) county has never been accused of being a craft beer mecca, so to see something so “craft beer” in my neck of the woods is empowering in a way.

Dennis and Jared’s hop yard contains approximately 60 plants made up of Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Nugget varietals. Dennis gives us the grand tour as his son Jared is up on the tall ladder harvesting Chinook cones. Many of the bines are bare as Dennis and Jared had already harvested many of the hops. The remaining Chinook would be completely harvested in a few more days while the Cascades are still developing. I ask Dennis how he knows when to harvest the hops. Dennis pulls off a few cones that are ready to be harvested and gives them to us for inspection. “Feel how papery they are? That’s when they’re ready,” says Dennis. Jared, having come down from his ladder, shows us a few cones that aren’t yet ready. “See how solid these still feel?” asks Jared. The cones he gives me, by comparison, are denser, more moist and slightly heavier than the cones Dennis showed me.”These should be ready in about a week,” predicts Jared.

The trellis system, researched and designed by Dennis, is comprised of 15 foot tall poles from which airplane wire was strung across. Pullys, attached via electrical ties, were strategically placed every few feet or so to allow the bines to be easily lowered or raised during harvest time. Unfortunately, the ropes derail from the pulley wheel easily. The actual pulleys themselves don’t stay put, the slightest breeze can pull, or push, them along the lines, further complicating the functionality.

“I thought I was the first person to think of using pulleys to raise and lower the bines for harvesting,” explains Dennis. “Then my wife comes home and shows me a photo of someone already using the system.”

Dennis limits a single bine per vertical line. It’s a never ending battle to keep trimming the new growth back as well as de-weeding the immediate area of the hop yard. At home, we use twine as a support for the hop bines to grow on. It’s not really the strongest material to use but our bines don’t grow any taller than about 8 feet before they start to fall back to earth. I am surprised to find Dennis using the same twine, although he’s not exactly thrilled by it. “The weight of the bines, sometimes, is just too much,” explains Dennis. “The twine snaps and the bines fall”.

I pull a hop cone off a nearby bine. Gently pulling it apart, I see the yellow lupulin within the interior of the cone. It is fresh and fragrant; the resin makes my fingertips sticky. Jared does the same only to start only to put the hop cone in his mouth to eat. I am slightly surprised as I have never seen anyone eat a hop cone before. I follow suit and find the raw hop to be as bitter as new, evergreen tips. The aroma and hop flavor are intense. My burps for the rest of the evening smell of hops.

“So why hops?” asks Mrs. BetterBeerBlog. She takes the question right out of my mouth. I notice on the drive to the hop yard that many of the nearby homes have personal vineyards. It seems to be the “in” thing to do for people with a lot of land. “Hunting,” comes the unexpected reply. Both father and son are avid hunters. Growing and selling hops is just a way for them to help finance their out of state hunting trips. “The original idea was to sell hops to the local microbreweries,” says Dennis. “But selling to the homebrewers has been a lot of fun. I think we’re just going to stick to that”.

Surprisingly, neither Dennis or Jared homebrew, at least for the time being. Roger St. Denis, the homebrewer who initially emailed me the information about the Dennis and Jared hop yard, has all but convinced Dennis to take on homebrewing. “I just gotta make some room in the garage,” says Dennis.

I ask Dennis if he dries the hops before selling and he does. There is no sophisticated hop drying machine, just several screens arranged in the sun-facing bedrooms. The finished hops are packed in 1-ounce packages and vacuum sealed before being stored in a freezer. Prices are range from $4.25 - $4.50 $5.10 an ounce dry, plus shipping. If they’re able to completely sell out of their harvest this year, Dennis and Jared will have pocketed a very modest profit. Very modest.

Despite this, Dennis has plans to try and double the size of his hop yard. “Any bigger than that?” I ask. “Nope. We’ll just add in a second trellis system and leave it at that,” replies Dennis. Continually awed by the plants, Dennis hopes to add in Amarillo and Simcoe varietals to his hop yard next season. It’s a move I might duplicate myself.

Mrs. BetterBeerBlog and I leave impressed and optimistic. In the span of just 2 years, Dennis and his son Jared have shown that hops can be grown in this area to a large degree of success. While it is a lot of work, I get the feeling the rewards Dennis is reaping go beyond the monetary. I have found the homebrewing community to be friendly, open and welcoming and I think Dennis has too.

Speaking of homebrewing, at the time of our visit a week ago, Dennis said that there is about a 2-3 week window, at the most, where fresh hops will still be available for homebrewers looking to make a wet hop beer. If you’re interested, you can contact Dennis to make arrangements to pick up the hops. I’ve listed their contact information at the end of this post.

Contact Information:

Email: dandjhops[at]gmail[dot]com
Phone: (408) 847 4682

Another benefit of your local homebrew club is the opportunity to visit great local beer venues with like-minded enthusiasts. Periodically throughout the year, most clubs will host bus tours, brewery tours, pub crawls, etc.

Recently, I sampled some of Oakland’s finer beer venues as part of the Worts of Wisdom Summer Pub Crawl. Actually, the Worts refer to it as a stumble, not a crawl, and not without good reason. Suffice it to say, public transportation plays an important role for these kind of events.

The Worts Getting Started at Pacific Coast Brewing, Oakland

There may be other places in Oakland that deserve attention, but of the places we visited, The Trappist and Beer Revolution were the two standouts. Either one alone would be worth the trip to Oakland from the South Bay, but when both are in walking distance to each other (and to BART), well, let me just say you owe it to yourself to get to Oakland!

The Trappist has over 2 dozen rotating taps featuring “Belgian, local (California), and several specialty micro brews from the US.” They also have a bottle list of “approximately 100 Belgian, Dutch, Scandinavian and American craft brews.”

I personally tried the De Ranke Guldenberg which was amazingly hoppy for a Belgian Trippel. It was also well deserving of it’s high scores on both RateBeer and BeerAdvocate.

I also sampled perhaps a half a dozen other beers and would have been happy to have ordered any of them.

The Worts and Friends Enjoying The Trappist, Oakland

One interesting thing about the Trappist is that each beer is “served properly at the correct temperature and in the correct glass.” This is more than just marketing fluff. Many of the beers were served in glasses with a logo of the brewery in which it was brewed, and of the dozen or so beers being served at our table, it seemed that not one of them was in the same glass! No generic bar-ware here.

Beer Revolution is another Oakland gem. Aside from the dozen or so beers on tap, they also have 3 large coolers lining one wall with singles priced to go. If you want to drink it there, it’s only $1 more. Prices are as good as any other location I’ve seen craft beer for sale and the selection is excellent. I was able to take home a bottle of Saison Rue from The Bruery.

It was surprisingly busy for a Saturday afternoon - the place was literally packed. But then, our group alone was at least a dozen people. The owners (Rebecca and Fraggle) were pouring and serving and are some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Another great thing about Beer Revolution is their outdoor patio. It was the  perfect day to sit outside and enjoy a craft beer at a great venue.

The Revolutionary Worts at Beer Revolution, Oakland

I highly recommend checking out both of these venues as well as enjoying a pub crawl (or stumble) with a homebrew club near you!

Brian the Rabid Brewer

If you’re a homebrewer living in the Bay Area looking for other like-minded individuals, you won’t have far to travel. Here’s a list of active clubs and this month’s meeting schedule.

• Tuesday, 8/10 @ 7:00 PM - Worts of Wisdom - Los Altos
• Thursday, 8/12 @6:30 PM - Mad Zymurgists - Dublin
• Thursday, 8/12 @7:00 - Bay Area Mashers - Berkeley
• Friday, 8/13 @ 7:00 PM - Silicon Valley Sudzers - Los Altos
• Saturday, 8/14 @ 2:00 PM - Draught Board - San Leandro
• Saturday, 8/14 @ 7:00 PM - The Grain Trust - San Jose
• Sunday, 8/15 @ 11:00 PM - Special Joint Meeting of BAM, DOZE and Mad Zymurgists - Martinez
• Sunday, 8/22 @ 1:00 PM - Santa Cruz Zymurgeeks - Santa Cruz
• Monday, 8/30 @ 7:00 PM - Diablo Order of Zymiracle Enthusiasts - Walnut Creek
• Not Sure! - Bay Area Brew Crew - South San Francisco
• Not Sure! - Hetch Hetchy Hop Heads (website defunct) - Redwood City

If you’re interested, please click through to the club website to confirm time and location. I’ve tried to be accurate, but I’m only active with a few of these clubs (those located near the South Bay) and my information may be in error.

Some clubs publish their meeting location while others prefer to keep that information off the web. Again, use their website to get the current information.

Please post updates/corrections/additions to the comments.

Brian the Rabid Brewer

Inspired by the success of Kong’s Hefeweizen, I decided to take the same recipe and modify it. Kong’s Hefeweizen was already pretty hoppy for a hefeweizen but I wondered what the resulting beer would be like if I really pushed the hop character of the beer. So I did.

I suppose I should explain the name a little bit. I normally like to listen to rock music but lately, I’ve found rock music to have stagnated. There hasn’t been a “new sound” that’s captivated my attention. So I decided to give hip-hop another shot. While I find most of hip-hop/rap music to be very derivative of each other and utterly devoid of any sort of messaging outside of I-have-a-lot-of-money-and-you-don’t, or I’m-a-gansta-taking-what’s-rightfully-mine, or I-wanna-have-sex-that-demeans/objectifies-women, or I’m-a-gangsta-with-a lot-of-money-and-you-don’t-so-I’m-taking-what’s-rightfully-mine-by-having-sex-that-demeans/objectifies-you-lady-RESPECT!, there are a few mainstream rap artists that are just fun to listen to. Snoop Dogg is one of them. Fond of smoking marijuana and of repeated consonants, Snoop Dogg gained critical acclaim as part of the early “gansta rap” genre of the early 90s. That is neither here or there, what is relevant though is his hit song “Drop it like it’s hot“. I had often wanted to brew up beer that was inspired by music and I guess my Drop it Like it’s Hopped Hefeweizen is the first one.

Ingredients

Malt

• 6 lbs - Bavarian wheat extract

Specialty Grains:

• 1 lbs - Bamburg Wheat (1.6L)

Hops

• 1 oz - Magnum (13.1) bittering
• 3 oz - Citra (?) finishing
• 2 oz - Citra (?) dry-hop

Yeast

• Hefeweizen Ale Yeast (WLP300)

Original Gravity: 1.060

Final Gravity: 1.016

ABV: 5.775%

Process

1. Steep all Bamburg Wheat for 30 minues at 150° F.
2. Bring to a boil, add 1 oz Magnum hops for bittering.
3. At 30 minute mark, add 6 lbs Coopers Light DME.
4. At 40 minute mark, add in wort chiller to sanitize in boil.
5. At 50 minute mark, 1 oz Citra.
6. At 57 minute mark, add 2 oz Citra.
7. Flame out, chill to 65° F - 70° F.
8. Pitch yeast and aerate.

Tasting Notes (wort) — 5/15/10

Opaque, gold color with green-ish tint. Soapy, white head. Wort-ish, wet grain cereal aroma with wet grass hop notes. Assertive bitterness that lasts into the finish. Grain flavor is sweet. Full-bodied, slight hop astringency.

Tasting Notes (primary) — 5/29/10 (Added 2 oz Citra hops for dry-hopping at this time)

The beer pours out a cloudy, yellow/dark gold with lots of yeast still in suspension. No head. The aroma is a mix between lemony citrus notes, yeasty banana esters and pungent/citrus/piney hop character with slight wheat malt notes. There is a moderate level of hop flavor, followed up by yeasty, banana flavor and wheat malt flavors in the finish. Hop bitterness is medium-high and lasts into the finish. Grapefruit? Medium body, no carbonation.

Tasting Notes (final) — 7/27/10

Hazy, dark gold color with a lasting, thick, off-white head. The aroma has strong citrus hop character, light yeasty lemon and low banana and clove character. This is a hop forward beer; hop flavor is grapefruity with lemony citrus yeast flavors and light wheat malt character. Hop bitterness is medium-high intensity and lasts well into the finish but isn’t harsh. There is a slight tartness in the finish. This is a medium/medium-high carbonated beer with medium-low/medium body and a slight hop astringency.

Overall

By no means is this a traditional hefeweizen, American or otherwise. It is also not a balanced beer with the hop character definitely in the forefront. That being said, I really liked how this turned out. With the name “Drop it Like it’s Hopped”, this needed to be a hoppy beer. Surprisingly, this was also a very refreshing beer. I tapped this beer in time for my birthday party a few weeks ago and I didn’t think anyone would really like it because of it’s assertive hop character but I think this was the most consumed beer of the evening. I’m nursing what’s left because I like it so much.

At one point during the evening’s festivities, my friend Diane and her husband Michael brought out their growler of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder. We had been drinking “Drop it Like it’s Hopped” all evening and I though it would be a pleasant change to have a hoppy IPA. After taking a swig of Pliny the Elder from my pint glass, I commented on how malty it was. The growler was fresh, no more than a couple of days old; we all just snickered at how hoppy “Drop it Like it’s Hopped” really was.

In any event, I look forward to brewing this beer up again. I’ll probably experiment with the hop combination a little bit more to try for more hop complexity and layers, but even if I did nothing else to it, I’d be satisfied.

Normally, Hopinions is a collaborative effort between myself and Mario, blogger of Brewed for Thought. We take turns picking a topic, writing about it and then hosting the collaborative post on our respective blogs. For the past few years, this format has been successful. With the exception of a few posts where we seem to bicker within the post itself, the process has gone swimmingly.

Swimmingly, until now.

Mario has decided to put his foot down and not write about the topic I choose. The topic? The End of History, a whopping 55% ABV beer brewed by Scotland’s own Brew Dog. Mario has very strong opinions about this beer and about Brew Dog that he unfortunately refuses to share on his blog.

Hopinions, though, is not about airing “dirty laundry”, so-to-speak. This has always been, and will continue to be, a place for collaboration. Having had the downtime yesterday to let the situation sink in, I came up with an idea.

The Birth of the “End”

I have a homebrewed Russian Imperial Stout that I’ve aged on a bourbon soaked oak spiral that is about 1.5 years old now. I brewed this beer, developed a label for it and gave it away as Christmas presents last year. While I still have a handful of bottles left over, I have about 1/4th to 1/3rd of a 5-gallon keg of this beer left. I have decided to take this beer and run it through the freeze concentration process Brew Dog uses to make their incredibly high alcohol beers. I would then bottle the resulting beer and wrap it in a koozie of my own visage and give it away to the first person to donate $100 to the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA).

I have decided to name this beer End of Hopistory.

Thinking about it further, I felt that this was a lot of trouble for a $100 donation. So I have decided to expand the idea to try and raise as much awareness and money as I can for the LFA. So why the LFA? And what is lupus? According the to the LFA website:

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). Chronic means that the signs and symptoms tend to last longer than six weeks and often for many years. In lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, which is the part of the body that fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs (”foreign invaders,” like the flu). Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protect the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues (”auto” means “self”) and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body.

Someone close to my family has lupus and this effort is for her and the thousands of other people living with lupus. There are many causes in the world that are important and urgent to many people; this is mine and I’m hoping you can help me.

Can I get a helping hand?

So here’s the plan: I want to raise money to support this cause. I am still working out the details as to how I will be raising the money. Mario has suggested a raffle. I’ve been looking into silent auctions and how to do this online. Is online even the best way to do so? The last time I helped to raise money for a cause, I was selling candy bars out of Ziplock bags. So I am looking for ideas that are fairly easy to implement.

I am also looking for people to help with incentives. This is what I have to offer so far:

• End of Hopistory homebrew
• Tentatively planned 3-day/2-night stay in Windsor, CA (Santa Rosa is a quick, 10 minute drive south of Windsor)
• A bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin or Sink the Bismarck, both graciously donated by Brew Dog

So if any brewery, brewpub or business is willing to donate other incentives to sweeten the pot, I would greatly appreciate it. I also would greatly appreciate a company with philanthropic designs to fully match, dollar-for-dollar, whatever I am able to raise. I would even be happy for partial matches.

As ideas solidify and details become set, I will be setting up a page for this fundraiser. It will be a way for people to keep track of my efforts and of the incentives that will hopefully come our way. August has shaped up to be a very busy month for me but I will be looking to launch this campaign in the next, few weeks.

So I guess the next question is, does anyone have a freezer I can use?