Archive for the 'Homebrew' Category

Homebrew Session: Harvest Rye IPA

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

A full glass of the Rye IPA.

Note: I participated in the “Grow Your Own” round up. It’s essentially a collection of blogs where the running theme are things made with stuff your grew yourself. In the case of this beer, these were homegrown hops. You can read the complete roundup here.

This homebrew was my attempt at brewing a Rye IPA. I really enjoyed the Rye IPA from Firehouse Brewery and I wanted to see if I could do something similar. Like my Harvest Pale Ale, I ended up using my homegrown hops in this beer as well. Read on to see how this beer turned out.

The ingredients I used for my beer.

Malt

  • 7 lbs - Coopers Light DME

Specialty Grains:

  • 1 lbs - 2-Row Pale (1.5L)
  • 1 lbs - Belgian Caravienne (20L)
  • 2 lbs - Flaked Rye

Hops

  • 2 oz - Centennial (8.0) bittering
  • 2 oz - Amarillo (8.5) finishing
  • 6 oz - Chinook (homegrown) wet - flavor
  • 12 oz - Cascade (homegrown) wet - flavor

Yeast

  • California Ale Yeast WLP001

Extras

  • 1 tablet Servomyces

Original Gravity: 1.074

Final Gravity: 1.020

ABV: 7.09%

Adding in homegrown hops during the boil.

Process

  1. Steep all specialty grains @ 155° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
  2. Bring wort to a boil.
  3. Add 6 lbs of Coopers Light DME at the 30 minute mark.
  4. Add 2 oz Centennial hops and wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
  5. Add 12 oz Cascade hops at 45 minute mark.
  6. Add 1 tablet of Servomyces at 50 minute mark.
  7. Add 6 oz Chinook at 55 minute mark.
  8. Add 2 oz Amarillo hop plugs at flame out.
  9. Cool to 65°F  - 70°F.
  10. Pitch yeast and aerate.

Tasting Notes (wort) — 9/7/2009

Very muddy, amber color with a lot of hop particulate floating about. Sweet malt aroma, like soggy Wheaties. Hop aromas are fresh and a little “green” with slight citrus and pine notes. Flavor is sweet, cloying and grainy. Medium-high/high hop bitterness, grassy. Full-bodied, no carbonation.

Tasting Notes (primary) — 11/8/2009

Amber/light caramel in color, no head. Beer is cloudy. Floral/piney aroma with bready/caramel malt undertones. Beer has a distinctive rye flavor that is earthy and spicy. Hop flavor is pungent with slight piney/floral notes, hop bitterness is medium-high/high and lasts well into the finish. Beer is medium-high in body.

Tasting Notes (final) — 2/24/2010

The beer is a clear, mahogany color with ruby highlights and a white/off-white head. The beer has a soft, piney/citrus aroma with a pungent hop character. Noticeable spicy, earthy aroma is from the rye. Toasty and caramel malt aromas as well. The flavor is initially toasty and caramel malt flavors that give way to a medium-high/high hop bitterness. The spicy and earthy flavors of the rye come into the finish. This is a full-bodied beer with medium-high carbonation and a slight astringency in the mouthfeel.

Overall

My beautiful Harvest Rye IPA in a beautiful Bruery glass.

For my initial attempt at a Rye beer, I think I did OK. The malt flavor is pretty nice, the hop bitterness is much more than expected (more on this later) but I think the beer is unbalanced with an overabundance of rye flavor and aroma. Looking back at my ingredient list, I thought I used 1 lbs of rye for the beer but imagine my surprise when I looked back at my notes and saw I had put in 2 lbs! I’ve always had a little trouble discerning the rye character in commercial examples of rye beers but make no mistake, I know what rye in beer tastes like now!

You may or may not have noticed in my process section but I didn’t add any hops until the last 40 minutes of the boil; this includes the bittering hops. I haven’t looked at this recipe and process in a while so I wondered why I had put in the bittering hops so late. I forget what I was listening to but the basic idea was to add in all your hops, bittering included, as late as possible. You get the bitterness by adding in more hops than usual. So, instead of adding in 1 oz of Centennial hops in the beginning, I added 2 oz at the 40 minute mark theoretically maintaining the same level of hop bitterness. This is also supposed to increase hop aroma and flavor. The tradeoff, of course, is you need to add in more hops.

Despite the fact I had this beer sitting on primary for about 2 months, I don’t detect any off-flavors (burnt-rubber) that would be the result from autolysis. I brewed this during the cooler, late Fall months and it sat in my office which is the coolest part of my house. Once I took it off primary, I kegged the beer and had it in my kegerator which is usually sits at about 35°F. While I have been drinking this beer since kegging, it’s been chilling in the kegerator for so long that it looks as if I’ve filtered it.

Amarillo hops in hop plug form.

Anyway, if I had to do this all over (and I will be doing this all over) I will definitely cut back on the rye by at least 50% if not more. I will also dry-hop the beer for more hop aroma and flavor. Ha! I just remembered that I was only supposed to add in 1 oz of Amarillo during flame-out and add the other 1oz during dry-hopping but I got lazy and added it all in. Oh well.

Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Fest 2010 Recap

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

A vintage truck greeting everyone on the way in.

Not bad for your first stab at putting on a beer festival. Pretty darned good, actually.

By many accounts, the Brewing Network’s first Winter Brews Festival was a success. There seemed to be several hundred craft beer lovers in attendance, if not thousands. A break in the Bay Area’s winter weather brought out the sun and made what was supposed to be a festival celebrating winter brews into a celebration of good weather, good friends and great beer.

A sea of people as far as the eye can see.

The Brewing Network did a fantastic job of rounding up brewers to participate. The 38 breweries in attendance featured a strong, local flavor but distant breweries such as Alaskan Brewing Company, Ninkasi Brewing Company, Green Flash Brewing and New Belgium featured beers on tap as well. Here’s a list of the participating breweries:

  • 21st Amendment
  • Speakeasy
  • Iron Springs
  • Lagunitas
  • Moylan’s
  • Marin
  • Russian River
  • Firestone Walker
  • Linden St
  • Magnolia
  • Triple Rock
  • Drake’s
  • Odonata
  • Valley Brewing CO.
  • The Bruery
  • Gordon Biersch
  • Ale Industries
  • Firehouse Grill
  • Stone
  • Deschutes
  • Rogue
  • EJ Phair
  • Schooner’s
  • Elysian
  • Alaskan
  • Black Diamond
  • Pacific Coast
  • Two Rivers Cider
  • Uncommon Brewers
  • Moonlight
  • Drake’s
  • Black Diamond
  • Jack’s
  • Green Flash
  • Bear Republic
  • New Belgium
  • Ninkasi
  • Shmaltz

One of the many volunteers pouring at the Winter Brews Fest.

Beers were organized into 5 groups, each group featuring a theme. “The Darkness” as the name would imply, featured darker, malt-dominant beers that ranged from an ESB all the way through to stouts. Beers within “The Higher Ground” category were primarily big, wintery beers of higher alcohol content. “The Dankness” category represented hop-forward beers while the smallest category, “The Funk”, featured 2 sour ales and Belgian black ale. The final category, “The Works”, seemed to be a catch-all that featured beers brewed with interesting ingredients or just didn’t really fit into the other categories. To give you an idea of what was in “The Works”, Monk’s Blood, a Belgian dark strong ale brewed with figs was featured in with this group as was the Bacon Brown, an ale brewed with pork bellies from Uncommon Breweries.

The Homebrew Chef Sean Paxton.

Food was provided mainly by the homebrew chef Sean Paxton. Pork was the featured animal and word was Sean brought with him two whole pigs injected with Lagunitas’ Brown Shugga to be used in the meals he prepared. In addition, sausages made from local pork and cooked with local beer were on the menu as well as confited duck legs sourced from Sonoma. In addition to Sean Paxton, additional food was supplied by Emergency BBQ while a vegetarian-friendly offering was at the beer fest as well.

The homebrew pavilion, aka Tasty's Tasting Room.

A feature that was pleasantly unexpected, and unadvertised, at this beerfest was the inclusion of homebrews in a homebrew pavilion of sorts. The beers supplied by 2 4 local homebrew clubs, the Bay Area Mashers, Draught Board (thanks @bjornidentity) with members of the Mad Zymurgists and D.O.Z.E assisting, seemed to be just as popular as their professional counterparts. Unlike the professional beers, tasting the homebrews required no tickets but you only got a half pour.

Despite everything that went right with this inaugural beerfest, there were a few things that could be improved upon. First, there needed to be more portable toilets. At the height of the festival, it wouldn’t be uncommon to wait nearly 30 minutes for your turn at a Port-o-pottie. Even with 6 port-o-potties in the back of the festival, the line seemed unusually long, while the 2 in the front were woefully inadequate to service the people in those areas.

Lines everywhere. I think this was the line for Emergency BBQ.

While the food from Sean Paxton and Emergency BBQ seemed to be excellent, the lines for either one stretched out for dozens of yards. People began to line up for Sean Paxton’s food an hour before even before the pigs were done cooking. The long wait times and lines were unacceptable to me and I didn’t get a chance to try any of Sean’s cooking. Luckily the group of people I went with brought sandwiches. As a by-product of the long food lines, bottlenecks started to form around the beer fest making getting around difficult in certain areas. Hopefully the next beer fest will feature more and/or a greater variety of food vendors to help alleviate congestion.

A view from behind the taps and from another docking area.

It took a few hours for everything to start running a bit more smoothly but it was rough in the beginning. With the exception of the beers from “The Higher Ground”, a single drink ticket would net you a full pour while half a drink ticket a half pour. Great idea but it wasn’t readily known to the volunteers pouring early on. Also, signage for the event left a lot of room for improvement, making it difficult at times to locate certain beers on the list. In addition to improving signage in the future, I hope the organizers take a look at the how traffic flowed and will hopefully arrange things differently in future beer festivals to minimize bottlenecks and chokepoints.

The Winter Brews Fest from the Brewing Network was a very impressive showing for a freshmen effort. Even though I didn’t really mention them, host brewery Linden Street Brewery gets a lot of credit for the success of the festival as well. If you get a chance, try their California Common (aka “Steam” beer); it gives Anchor Brewing a run for their money. Between the homebrew clubs and professional breweries in attendance, there were plenty of good beers to be had. And while not everything went off without hitch, the issues I brought up can be improved upon to create an even better beer festival. The bar they’ve set for themselves is pretty high and I am looking forward to the next beer festival organized by the Brewing Network.

The band playing in the docking area of Linden Street Brewery

Emergency BBQ.

More Beer! homebrew store brewing up a beer at the festival.

As the sun sets on the festival, I wonder how they plan on lighting the place up.

BJCP Prep Class starting soon in Los Altos

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

The BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program. The purpose of the BJCP is to:

  1. promote beer literacy
  2. promote the appreciation of real beer, and
  3. recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills

BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson has organized another BJCP prep class. I’ve taken John’s prep class in the past, twice actually. As a craft beer lover, it was the best thing I ever decided to do. Not only did I learn a lot about craft beer in general, I learned a lot about the various styles in the BJCP style guideline. I had no idea there were over 70 recognized styles!

I would highly recommend this BJCP prep class to homebrewers and to anyone who is interested in craft beer. Even if you decide to never take the BJCP exam, you will get more out of this class than you expect. Here are the details:

Who: BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson
What: BJCP Prep class
Where: More Beer homebrew shop, 991 N. San Antonio Road, Los Altos, CA 94022 map
When: First class is on Thursday, January 28, 2010, 6:30pm - 10pm
Why: Because it’s cool to be a beer geek
Cost: $135 ($20 deposit at the shop) for an 11 week course

Homebrew Session: Harvest Pale Ale 2009

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Update: At the urging of some readers, I have submitted this post to the Grow Your Own (GYO) round-up. The GYO round up is a monthly collection of blog posts featuring stuff people have made using ingredients they’ve grown themselves. Seeing as how I used my homegrown hops for this beer, I qualified for the round up. If you’re at all interested in the GYO movement, check out the link below and peep the fabulous things over people have done or submit your own stories/blog posts for future roundups.

Check our the GYO round up here.

A basic American Pale Ale recipe, not too different from my usual pale ale recipe, but featuring home grown hops harvested a do or so before brew day. I was initially supposed to tap this beer around September/October but didn’t do so until late November. What can I say? Can’t tap the new beers until the old ones are finished.

Malt

  • 6 lbs - Coopers light DME

Specialty Grains:

  • 1 lbs - Hugh Baird (80L)
  • 1 lbs - Bamburg Munich (6L)
  • .25 lbs - Belgian Aromatic (20L)

Hops

  • .5 oz Magnum (13.1) bittering
  • 1 oz Perle (7.6) 30 minute addition
  • 1 oz Amarillo (8.9) flameout
  • 8 oz Cascade (wet, dry-hopped)

Yeast

  • English Ale Yeast (WLP002)

Extras

  • 1 tablet Servomyces

Original Gravity: 1.074

Final Gravity: 1.024

ABV: 6.56%

Process

  1. Steep grains @ 155° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
  2. Boil .5 oz Magnum for 60 minutes.
  3. Add 6 lbs of Coopers Light DME at the 30 minute mark.
  4. Add 1 oz. Perle hops at the 30 minute mark.
  5. Add wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
  6. Add servomyces at 50 minute mark.
  7. Add 1 oz of Amarillo at flame out.
  8. Cool beer to 70° F and pitch yeast from yeast starter.
  9. Aerate for 10 minutes.

Primary Fermentation (wort) — 8/11/2009

Murky, amber ale with lots of hop particulate matter in suspension. Sweet malt aroma, caramel & grain cereal sweetness. Flavor is cereal sweet with a medium bitterness. Body is full & slightly cloying.

Secondary Tasting Notes — 9/7/2009

Clear, reddish brown color with amber highlights. I’m surprised at the clarity the beer has achieved. Slightly toasty malt aroma with medium-low hop aroma. Noticeable alcohol notes. Toasty, nutty, caramel flavor with medium hop bitterness. More bitter than aroma would suggest. Medium-low/medium body, some astringency in the mouthfeel. I added the 8 oz (wet) freshly picked Cascade hops at this point.

Kegged — 11/20/2009

Final Tasting Notes — 1/7/2010

The beer pours out a clear, dark brown with ruby highlights and an off-white/beige head that lingered for sometime before leaving decent lacing behind. The aroma is a balance between a pungent, citrus/piney hop aroma and a toasty, caramel malt aroma. The beer’s flavor tends to lean towards the malt side exhibiting a sweet, savory, toasty malt character with caramel notes. The hop flavor has a slight pungent quality (garlicy?) with resiny undertones. The hop bitterness is medium and not long lasting. The body is medium/medium-full with medium/medium-high carbonation. There’s a slight alcohol note in the aroma but no discernable heat in the finish.

There was an off flavor in the beer I was having trouble figuring out but I now recognize as a “plastic” phenolic. This could be the result of chlorophenols in my water or maybe I didn’t allow my carboys to drip dry thoroughly enough after sanitation. In any event, I’ll have to watch my process in the future.

Despite this, the biggest issue I had with this beer is the lack of Cascade hop flavor and aroma. Even though I dry hopped with 8 oz Cascade for about a month, the quality of the homegrown hops were on the low end. They weren’t as aromatic as I wanted and even though there were a lot of hops that were picked, they were much smaller in size, about as big as the tip of my pinky finger. Next year I’ll limit my Cascade plant to just 3-4 main bines to help increase the size of the hops.

hops

What a difference limiting the number of bines has on hop size. Chinook on the left, Cascade on the right.

Pouring our my Harvest Pale Ale from the kegerator.

My Harvest Pale Ale in all its glory.

Close up shot of the beer's head.

SF pub crawl with South Bay Homebrew Clubs

Monday, December 28th, 2009

A week ago Sammy and I were invited by the south bay homebrew club Worts of Wisdom to join them on a San Francisco Pub Crawl. The idea was to take the Caltrain up, drink a lot and get home safely via the train. The invitation was also opened up to the other south bay homebrew club Silicon Valley Sudzers. Since Sammy and I were late arriving to the original meet up point in Sunnyvale, we wouldn’t know how many people were going to be on the pub craw.

Sammy's first time riding the train.

I have only taken Caltrain once prior to this pub crawl. It was to a Giants game. I don’t remember if they won or lost but we took the last train out of town that night. Sammy had never been on the train before so this was an experience she spent the last 30 minutes asleep. Good times.

21st Amendment Brewery Cafe, 563 2nd Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 map

Within walking distance from the Caltrain station, 21st Amendment was the first stop of the day. By the time Sammy and I arrived, the majority of the people going on the pub crawl were already there. I didn’t take a formal count but there were around 15 - 20 of us at the table. I found the staff there to be friendly and accommodating. Even though we ate sandwiches on the train, we ordered a salad to snack on while there.

Monks Blood, 8.3% ABV

Sweet beer, I can taste the dark candi sugar they used to make this beer. I can also taste some dark fruit notes, especially fig, as well as some oak flavors and hints of vanilla. The beer was cold when it arrived but once it warmed up, the aroma was similar to the flavor, just heavier on the sweetness and fruit character. Monks Blood is a dark brown color with a tan/beige head, medium-full in body with medium-high carbonation.

The (in)famous Monks Blood at 21st Amendment.

This beer is one of the newest additions to the stable of 21st Amendment line of beers and there have been select, retail locations that have been fortunate enough to stock 4-packs of this beer. Monks Blood is part of the Insurrection Series of limited edition beers that 21st Amendment is brewing up and canning to rise up “in revolt of what canned beer should be”. Mighty fine beer, if I must say so. Gotta find a 4-pack of this someplace. Here’s a link to the Monks Blood spec. sheet (it’s a .pdf).

Noir de Blanc, 4.8% ABV

Very dark brown beer with an off-white head. Aroma is a combination of corriander, floral notes and some wheat malt. The flavor is slightly sweet with noticeable wheat malt flavors, some spice character with hints of citrus and a surprising dark chocolate component. It is light in body with medium-high carbonation.

Noir de blanc, black witbier at 21st Amendment.

Noir de Blanc is an oxymoron in a glass as it is a dark/black witbier. Were I blindfolded, I would’ve drank this beer and told you it was a witbier as Noir de Blanc pretty much hits all the major points that define a witbier but it’s not at all what I expected when I looked at this beer. The interesting dark chocolate notes I picked up are a result of the TCHO chocolate used in brewing this beer.

Rogue Alehouse, 673 Union Street, San Francisco, CA 94113 map

Most of the other homebrewers arrived at Rogue Alehouse via Muni but we hitched a ride. This location is the southernmost boundary of “Rogue Nation”. They don’t brew any Rogue beers here, this is just a bar. With a 40-tap count, Rogue not only carries many of their beers on tap but has a pretty decent guest tap selection as well.

Rogue Alehouse.

Other than being an outlet for Rogue beers, there is not much outstanding about this location. Well, it is a great place to get beer on draught. You can also pick up many of Rogue’s beers on bottle here as well. Other than that, it’s a straightforward bar. The “beer garden” in the back is also roomy and I can see how nice it would be out there during one of San Francisco’s mild summer evenings.

Juniper Pale Ale, 5.2% ABV

Clear, pale amber colored beer with an off-white head. There is a balance between the biscuity, slightly toasted malt flavors and aroma with the citrus/spicy, slightly pungent character of the hops. Hop bitternes is about medium. Since I’ve never had Juniper berries before, I can’t really comment on whether or not I can taste them. This is a medium bodied beer with medium carbonation.

I had also wanted to try Yellow Snow IPA but didn’t get around to it. Truthfully, I wasn’t impressed by Juniper Pale Ale. I thought the biscuity malt character was an interesting way to go but overall I found the beer to be a little dull. Maybe if I knew what Juniper berries tasted like I could appreciate it more.

Rogue Beer Garden.

Hanging out at Rogue Alehouse

Rogue beers for sale.

Rogue taproom.

The first time I went here was for a beer & cheese pairing event a couple of years ago. I don’t think this will be my last time here but I’m not in any rush to get back. It’s not that Rogue Alehouse sucks or anything it’s just that there are better places in the city to get beer at. Speaking of which…

La Trappe, 800 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, CA 94113 map

Almost a stone’s throw away from Rogue (more like two blocks, unless you have a really good throwing arm) sits La Trappe Cafe. By day, it looks like an unassuming cafe but by night, it still looks like an unassuming cafe. The real treat is to go on in and take the spiral staircase downstairs to the bar.

La Trappe from the outside

Even in broad daylight, you feel as if you’re in a cave. The bar is low lit for ambiance while the exposed brick walls add to the othercountry feel of place. As one homebrewer said, “Gentlemen, welcome to Belgium”. You can pull right up and grab a seat at the bar or at any one of several tables spread throughout. In the back area of La Trappe is a very dimly lit “hole in the wall” that is another seating area. We fit most of our group there and from that location, you have good views of the place.

latrappe

Spiral staircase to the bar below.

Gouden Carolus Noël, Brouwerij Het Anker, 10.5% ABV

Very dark brown beer with a beige/tan head (I think, it was pretty dark in La Trappe). Very rich and complex flavors consisting of caramelized malt, figs, dates, raisins with some pear and slight clove phenolics. The aroma is similar to the flavor. This was a full-bodied, medium/medium-high carbonated beer with low-no hop bitterness. It is pretty sweet and definitely malt forward.

Gouden Carolus Noël.

I love “Noël” beers for a variety of reasons, primarily because they taste so damn good. This beer was no exception to that as the only thing I could think of was “Wow”. Luckily for me, this would not be the only “wow” beer of the evening.

Avec les bon Vœux de la brasserie Dupont, Brasserie Dupont, 9.5% ABV

Gold-ish color with a white/off-white head. Lots of yeasty, phenolic character in the aroma such as pears and clove as well as a spicy, peppery note. The flavor echos the aroma with the addition of a pils-like malt flavor. This beer has aa medium-lo hop bitternes. Generally speaking, this beer has a lot of “white flesh” fruit character. Avec les bons Vœux is medium/medium-full in body with medium-high/high carbonation.

Avec les bons Voeux

The beer’s name, Avec les bon Vœux de la brasserie Dupont translates into “With the best wishes of brewery Dupont”. This beer was originally brewed to be given as gifts to the brewery’s best clients but demand started to exceed the seasonality of the offering that Dupont started brewing this beer in greater volume. Listed as a “Christmas Saison”, I felt this beer was a very solid saison regardless of the season.

Saint Lamvinus, Brasserie Cantillon, 6.0% ABV

OMFG!!! Wow. This beer was shared by BJCP judge and fellow homebrewer Matthew. I felt guilty when after finishing my taster Matt poured me more. This is definitely a “must try” beer and one worth sharing. The flavors are just too intense to keep to oneself.

Cantillon Saint Lamvinus

The beer pours out a clear-ish, red-brown (more red than brown) with a white/pink-white head. The aroma is full of brettanomyces character, lots of barnyardy, horse(blanket) character with some fruit notes. The flavor is completely unlike what the aroma teases you with as it’s primarily tart throughout with just enough residual sweetness to prevent this from being a sour bomb. I can also taste red wine flavors and slight oak notes as well. My description is woefully inadequate, just try this beer if you can.

This lambic is unblended with merlot and cabernet-franc grapes added to the beer while it is aging in Bordeaux barrels.

Vigneronne, Brasserie Cantillon, 5.0% ABV

Vigneronne is another OMFG beer, the second of the day. This beer was “on the house”. While we were enjoying Saint Lamvinus, the bartender opened this bottle and poured a little bit in several glasses. Thank you, La Trappe.

Cantillon Vigneronne

This beer pours out a clear gold with a white head. The aroma has a lot of fruit character to it not unlike white wine with a tart note. The flavor is also tart but there’s a lot of fruit in this beer. Again, woefully inadequate description. If you can find this, definitely give it a shot. Unless you don’t like sour beers in which case, pick it up and mail the bottle to me. As with the Saint Lamvinus, this beer was also brewed using grapes. In this case, hand picked white Italian grapes.

With about 19 taps and a beer list in the 400s, this is one of the better places I’ve been to grab a beer and definitely a reason for me to brave the parking disaster that is North Beach.

Back room at La Trappe

The bar at La Trappe.

Another view of the bar at La Trappe.

Additional seating at La Trappe.

Homebrewers at La Trappe

Toronado, 547 Haight, San Francisco, CA 94117 map

What can be said about the Toronado that hasn’t been said before? Their bartenders can be rude, the place is tiny but dammit if they don’t have a great beer selection that is constantly rotating in new things.

The Toronado.

N’ice Chouffe, Brasserie La Chouffe, 10.0% ABV

The holiday offering from Brasserie La Chouffe. This is a full-bodied, malt-forward beer with a rich and savory malt character. Sammy likened the body of this beer to a coconut creme with spices. I just found out I have a 750mL bottle of this beer in my refrigerator that I’ll be reviewing in greater detail.

N'ice Chouffe at Toronado.

The other reason I don’t have a full review is because my notes suck at this point. Rereading them strongly implies that I may have been (read: no doubt about it) drunk at the time and scribbled something in my notepad to satisfy my inner sense of needing to write something down when in reality I probably just didn’t care at this point.

Christmas Ale, Brouwerij Sint Bernardus, 10.0% ABV

Sorry to disappoint yet again but this is another suck-ass review due to bad notes. In retrospect, I’m surprised I even got this far with the note taking. For your reading pleasure, my notes, verbatim:

Smells like tortillas, hints of fruit character, spices, pear…

Eric and Sammy at Toronado.

The crowd at Toronado.

A bunch of homebrewers at Toronado.

Bobby and Dwight enjoying themselves at Toronado.

Fritz, 581 Hayes St, San Francisco, CA 94102 map

The group was originally supposed to dine at Suppenküche but with 15 of us, the wait would’ve been about 2 hours. Hungry and running low on patience, the group decided to make a break for someplace else. Being a little too hungry, Sammy and decided to stick around and have dinner at Fritz.

fritz

Sammy and I first heard about this place while watching the Malou Review with Malou Nubla. As their name would imply, the house specialy at Fritz would be their fries. Nothing more than french fries, Fritz separates themselves from other places with a wide variety of dipping sauces for their fries. In addition, they also serve savory crepes as well as dessert crepes. Surprisingly, they had a poor Belgian beer selection. I would’ve expected a place specializing in Belgian-style fries to have a a decent Belgian beer list selection but they didn’t. Here’s a link to their menu (it’s a .pdf).

In case you were wondering, here’s what we had for dinner:

  • Arles Belgian Mussels - shallots, butter, parsley, garlic and white wine. Note that not all Belgian mussels are available at all locations.
  • Fritz - regular order of fries with balsamic mayo and smokey honey mustard.
  • Duchamp savory crepe - mushrooms, rosemary chicken, fresh spinach and swiss cheese.
  • 2° Below - Winter warmer from New Belgium Brewing Company.

mussels

Long story short, the dipping sauces for the fritz were too cold to really appreciate but between the two, we finished the smokey honey mustard. The fritz themselves were nothing to write home about, flavor wise, but they did have a great crispness to them. The Arles Belgian mussels were very good. Simple ingredients but very satisfying and “home-like”. I liked this so much I slurped up as much of the steaming liquid as I could. The Duchamp was just “okay”. I found it to be satisfying but simplistic in its flavor profile. Then again, chicken is a neutral meat that, in my opinion, requires a lot of work to get really flavorful if served sans skin. Lastly, we were pretty beered out and only drank a small portion of 2° Below. To try and give it some sort of review would be unfair.

crepe

The train ride back was not the best of experiences. A little tipsy, Sammy and struggled with slight nausea and headaches on the ride back. If I could’ve fallen asleep, I would’ve. As with many other trips, the ride back seemed to go much quicker than the ride up but it still wasn’t quick enough for me. Still, beats driving drunk any day.

The success of this little outing has inspired me to try and organize my own beer train/pub crawl type of event. I’d like to thank Worts of Wisdom for organizing this event and for welcoming us along for the ride.

2below

finished

California State Homebrew Competition Pre-Lim

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I had the opportunity to judge a preliminary round for the California State Homebrew Competition, better known in homebrew circles as Stern Grove, at Firehouse Brewery & Grill last night. Stern Grove holds a special place in many a homebrewer’s and BJCP judge’s heart for a variety of reasons. It is one of the oldest homebrew competitions in California. Stern Grove also signals the end of homebrew competition season. It is one of the last, if not the last, homebrew competition in California.

Judging Stern Grove is a bit of a departure from your typical BJCP/AHA sanctioned event. The biggest difference is the way the beers are scored. In a typical homebrew competition, beers are judged against a 50 point scale. Beers are evaluated according to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel and overall impression. Because the competition has been around for so long, Stern Grove has it’s own competition forms. They’re not really trying to be different from your typical BJCP event more than they’ve been grandfathered in.

The Stern Grove worksheets are evaluated on a 20 point scale. This poses a slight conversion issue for judges in the sense that a point given or taken away from a Stern Grove worksheet will have a greater impact than your typical BJCP score sheet. That being said, it takes a little bit getting used to.

Most homebrew competitions will have preliminary rounds. This allows the judges to cull the field of entries, weeding out the stronger ones from the entries that need a little more work. By the time the final rounds of judging at Stern Grove actually takes place, the majority of the beers there will be pretty good.

In last night’s preliminary round, we had the opportunity to judge the wheat beer category. There were 3 judging groups. Two of the groups had 3 judges while the final group had only 2. Unlike other preliminary rounds I’ve judged at, we actually had 2 stewards to help us out. Big thanks goes stewards Bobby and Anthony for keeping things fluid.

There were a few issues that kept cropping up as the night wore on. Weizen beers are supposed to be lighter, effervescent, refreshing and flavorful. Yeast character needs to be the dominant, yet balanced, character in a weizen beer. Just about all the entries we tried were lacking banana esters and clove phenolics. In their place were generic fruit esters slightly reminiscent of Belgian yeasts while the phenolic character was equally generic and varied from spicy to plastic/band-aid. Body was an issue as well as many beers were watery while other samples were undercarbonated. Surprisingly a few beers were clear and lacked the “mit hefe” cloudiness one would expect from the style.

To bring out more of the weizen yeast character, start with a viable weizen strain of yeast and then ferment one’s beers at a slightly higher temperature (70º F +). Having a thin body in a hefeweizen is unusual since the addition of wheat malt is usually the prescription for thickening up a beer’s body. For the hefeweizen though, the brewer can implement a decoction mash to both thicken up the body and darken the beer slightly to get a gold color. Wheat malt will also help with head retention. When bottling beers, make sure to measure out one’s priming sugar correctly. Weizen beers are noted for their effervescent character and a flat beer is not a good sign. Lastly, always be mindful of one’s sanitation.

It was good to get back on the beer judging horse. It had been at least 6 months or so since my last competition. I may have been a little rusty with filling out score sheets and with my descriptions but my palette’s been okay. For whatever reason, I haven’t been all that interested in judging competitions this year. You could probably count on one hand how many competitions I’ve judged. What’s ironic is that I received my BJCP exam results (I retook the tasting portion of the exam) and I moved up a rank. There’s always next year.

Organicfest at San Jose Gordon Biersch

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

This Sunday at the San Jose Gordon Biersch brew pub is the Organicfest Tapping Party. This special tapping party will be right on the heels of the 2009 National Organic Brewing Challenge (NOBC) homebrew competition that will be held earlier in the day at Gordon Biersch. San Jose Gordon Biersch brewmaster Dan Satterthwaite is part owner of 7 Bridges Cooperative Organic homebrew shop in Santa Cruz, California. 7 Bridges is the sponsor of NOBC and I think it’s great of Dan to let them hold the competition and afterpart at Gordon Biersch.

Here are the details:

Join us on Sunday, October 18th, from 6pm to 8pm, for an Organicfest Tapping Party to celebrate the winners of the 2009 National Organic Brewing Challenge!

The annual competition takes the craft of homebrewing to a whole new level, as participants are challenged to create a unique, flavorful brew with completely organic ingredients. The top winners of the 2009 Challenge will be announced during the tapping party!

Admission to the tapping party is just $15 and includes…

  • Complimentary Gordon Biersch Organic Blonde Bock and Weizenbock*
  • Complimentary Gordon Biersch signature appetizers*
  • Live funk/soul music by “Timeless”
  • For an additional $5, also receive a commemorative pint glass

33 East San Fernando St.
San Jose, CA  95113
408-294-6785

I had initially planned on judging the competition but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I think I’ll just stop by for the after party instead. Maybe I’ll be seeing some of you there.

The Session #31: Summer Beers

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

sessionI initially suggested the topic of Summer Beers because no one else had, which surprised me. I thought this would be a fairly straightforward topic to write about but it wasn’t. Summer has kept us pretty busy here at BetterBeerBlog with all the festivals, events and good times. We’ve been so busy that I didn’t even get the chance to hit up the BevMo and pick up the Summer seasonals that were in stock. So, for this topic, I remedied that situation and headed over to BevMo to pick up what Summer Seasonals were left. I invited a couple of friends over for dinner and we had a mini-Summer Beer Fest to determine which beer would be the “Best Summer Beer”. Here are the beers we had with some of my notes.

alaskan

Alaskan Summer Ale, Alaskan Brewing Company, 5.3% ABV

An American interpretation of the German Kölsch style of beer, this is as close as an ale can get to a lager without being a lager. While it misses to capture the true essence of an authentic Kölsch, it doesn’t miss by much. This beer is ridiculously easy drinking, is flavorful without loosing the subtleties and refreshing.

festina-peche

Festina Péche, Dogfish Head, 4.5% ABV

Branded by Dogfish Head as a “neo-Berliner Weiss”, Festina Péche is what happens when you tell brewmaster/owner Sam Calagione he can’t do something. At a session-level 4.5% ABV, this thirst quenching beer has a pleasant level of malt sweetness to counter balance its mouth-puckering tartness. The peaches present undertones more than an overt character which allows the beer’s Berliner Weiss character to shine through.

pils

Mama’s Little Yella Pils, Oskar Blues, 5.3% ABV

An example of the Pilsner style of beer, Mama’s Little Yella Pils is Oksar Blues answer to those beer drinkers who ask for a macro American lager. It has a pils malt flavor and enough hops to balance but not as much as I expected from the Pilsner style. Out of all the beers we had this evening, this was the only one that came in a can.

summer-solstice

Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, Anderson Valley Brewing Company, 5.6% ABV

I wasn’t quite sure how to view this beer. The flavor profile is unlike most beers I’ve tried. A quick look at the BJCP style guidelines lists Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema as an example of the Cream Ale style. I found this beer to be malt-forward in flavor with a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. More than one person described this beer as having a flavor reminiscent of “cream soda”.

kellerweis

Kellerweis, Sierra Nevada, 4.8% ABV

Sierra Nevada’s newest entry into their list of beers available year-round, Kellerweis is an exceptionally balanced Hefeweizen. All the trademark characteristics of a Hefeweisen are present: fruity, banana-like esters are balanced by clove-ish like phenols and balanced out by a moderately sweet, wheat character. The mouthfeel feels thicker than it really is and, for added complexity, pour out a two-thirds of the beer into your glass, swirl, and reintroduce all that yeasty goodness in the bottom of the bottle. What further separates Kelleweis from other Hefeweizens is that it was brewed using the traditional Bavarian methods of open fermentation.

blackberry-wit

Blackberry Witbier, Samuel Adams, 5.5% ABV

The one thing about Samuel Adams that I absolutely enjoy is the freedom they give their brewers. According to their website, they have 30 beers they brew regularly. Chosen by tens of thousands of beer lovers in over a thousand taste screenings, Blackberry Witbier beer is their most recent addition to their ever-growing portfolio of beers. Because this beer is brewed with Oregon Marion blackberries, this beer is much darker than your basic witbier. The berries contribute a large part to the character of the beer and are noticeable in both the aroma and flavor.

friends

By the end of the evening, there was no clear cut favorite. A lot of people liked a lot of the beers for different reasons. Alaskan Summer ale was a favorite of a lot of people and seemed to embody the spirit of summer. The Festian Péche, my personal favorite of the bunch, ended up being a love it/hate it kind of beer. The one beer I thought that would’ve done better but didn’t was Mama’s Little Yella Pils. Both Sammy and I found this beer not as crisp as we would’ve thought and felt it could’ve been hoppier.

The one beer that did get a bunch of votes but wasn’t part of the “official” tasting line up was the Saison I made. It was the “reception” beer people could drink while we were setting things up still. Despite the fact that it’s a poor Saison, people thought it was a great drinking beer. Three cheers for the homebrewer!

As much as I would like to say that all the beers were great summer beers, I’m going to have to make an executive decision and say the best beer of our mini-Summer Beer Fest was… drum roll please… Saison! Yes, this is a very biased executive panel of one. If you don’t like it, hold your own mini-Summer Beer Fest!

In reality, all the beers were pretty good. It was difficult for the group to come to any clear consensus as we had a wide variety of beer styles on the table that matched the wide variety of preferences people had.

What I had hoped would happen ended up happening. I am of the opinion that part of what makes a memorable beer so memorable is what was happening at the time you drank it. Lounging in my backyard on a perfect, late summer evening with friends is what good living is about. We had good food and good beers on the table and everyone was laughing and enjoying the good conversation that accompanied the night. Hopefully as my friends drink these beers in the future, they can remember this night and the good time we all had trying these new beers.

Pro-Am Beer Night at the Trappist

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

With only 23 days left until the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), things are heating up. We already have our tickets and accommodations set and our growing sense of anticipation and excitement is building. In addition to being the showcase for American craft beers, the GABF also plays host to the Pro-Am Competition. The Pro-Am Competition is when a professional brewer teams up with an award-winning homebrewer to brew up the homebrewer’s award-winning recipe. In addition to being entered in the GABF Pro-Am Competition, the resulting beer is also on tap of the host brewery. Pretty cool, huh?

California is home to quite a few Pro-Am entries, 8 total I believe. Thanks to the good people at the Trappist, you will be able to sample 6 of them this week. The details are below, hope to see some of you there:

Event: Pro-Am Beer Night
“6 regional entries to the Pro-Am competition at the Great American Beer Fest”
What: Bar Night
Host: The Trappist
Start Time: Thursday, September 3 at 7:00pm
End Time: Friday, September 4 at 12:00am
Where: The Trappist map

Come to the Trappist to taste 6 regional entries to the Pro-Am competition, a competition of collaborative beers brewed at a professional brewery by an amateur brewer. There will be a sampler of all six available to purchase. The event will feature beer brewed at Russian River by Mike “Tasty” McDole, 21st Amendment by Richard Brewer-Hay, Triple Rock by Nathan Smith, Sacramento Brewing Co by Mike Mraz, Blue Frog by Michael Frenn, and Fifty Fifty by Alex Drobshoff. Hope you can join us!

Homebrew Session: Saison

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This beer was my first attempt at a Belgian ale. I like to drink them but have never brewed them and I was eager to brew this beer, get my feet wet and see what the result would be. I brewed this beer a little over a month ago during the heatwave. I decided to brew this beer because Belgian ales tend to ferment better at higher temperatures and brewing seasonally is a great way to learn about beers from a historical perspective as well as to save energy.

ingredients

Malt

  • 5 lbs - Coopers light DME
  • 1 lbs - Bavarian Wheat DME

Specialty Grains:

  • 1 lbs - Belgian Caramunich (50L)

Hops

  • 1.5 oz Styrian Golding (4.9) bittering
  • 1 oz Kent Golding (4.8) finish

Yeast

  • Saison Ale Yeast WLP565

Extras

  • 1 tablet servomyces
  • 1 oz Kifer Lime leaves
  • 1 lbs - Corn Sugar

Original Gravity: 1.065

Final Gravity: 1.020

ABV: 5.91%

Process

  1. Steep grains @ 155° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
  2. Boil 1.5 oz Styrian Goldings for 60 minutes.
  3. Add 6 lbs of Coopers Light DME at the 30 minute mark.
  4. Add 1 lbs of Bavarian Wheat DME at the 30 minute mark.
  5. Add wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
  6. Add 1 lbs. corn sugar at 45 minute mark.
  7. Add servomyces at 50 minute mark.
  8. Add 1 oz of Kent Goldings and 1 oz kifer lime leaves at flame out.
  9. Cool beer to 70° F and pitch yeast from yeast starter.
  10. Aerate for 10 minutes.

Primary Fermentation — 7/14/2009

As I said before, I brewed this beer during the little heat wave we had. The interior of the house was no cooler than 75º F and was as warm as 90º F - 95º F. I let this beer ferment out for two weeks.

wort

Tasting Notes (wort) — 7/14/2009

This beer is cloudy, lots of particulate matter floating about. It is a muddy amber/light caramel color with light amber highlights. The aroma is of sweet malt, slightly grainy, slight caramel, very low wheat character. Low hop aroma but has noticeable kifer lime leaf aroma underneath. The ber has an initial malt sweetness reminiscent of dry cereal with low bitterness and a residual sweetness. It is full bodied and flat.

Tasting Notes (primary) — 8/1/2009

Nearly opaque amber/light caramel color with no head. Slight alcohol presence in the aroma with honey-like malt sweetness and lots of fruit esters, pearl-like. Malty sweet, some fruit flavors and slight alcohol warmth. Seems slightly underattnuated.

final

Tasting Notes (final) — 8/24/2009

The saison pours out a caramel color with amber highlights. It is opaque with an off-white head. The saison has a sweet, malty aroma with slight peppery and clovey phenolics as well as a sweet, caramel-ish malt component. Sammy also detects a slight tartness in the aroma as well. Unfortunately, the kifer lime leaf aroma I detected at the end of the boil is pretty much gone. The saison has a caramel-like malt flavor balanced by clovey, peppery phenolics with very low fruit character. Hop flavor is low in intensity, with an earthy, spicy character. Hop bitterness is low. The body is medium/medium-high with medium-lo/medium carbonation.

I think this beer will taste a little better in a few weeks. The carbonation will get up to the effervescent level eventually. There’s supposed to be a slight sourness in the beer that I could probably fix by using acidified malt. I think this is also a beer that would’ve benefitted from bottle conditioning. Had I bottle conditioned this beer, I would’ve used lactobacillus as the bottling yeast. In the future, I won’t use Belgian Caramunich as I believe caramel is not supposed to be part of the flavor profile. Despite fermenting at a higher temperature, I’m at a loss to explain why there’s a lack of fruity esters. I will end up amending the recipe to add more spices as well, just enough for complexity but not to overpower the rest of the beer. I also think I’ll exclude the Bavarian Wheat DME as well as I’m not really enjoying the clovey phenolic character of the beer. Any suggestions as how to get more fruit character out of this beer?

boil

kifer

primary