Diary of a Beergeek

Culture Media - Lime Bitters Flavor

2011-06-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

Welp, my Uncle Mac liked to say "You always go to school on the first one". The Lime Bitters is finished and what we have is a solid gelatinous block of bittersweet citrusy goodness. Following the "Regans' Orange Bitters No.6" recipe; I separated the booze from the botanicals, boiled & steeped the solids in water, and left that to soak. The final step is to combine the two steeps and sweeten. The bitter alcohol portion was wonderful - pure lime bitters excitement. The bitter water portion was a little challenging - weird, semi-solid, and slimy. It passed the "Looks OK & tastes OK test" so I proceeded to finish. Pint of bitter lime rum, pint of runny slightly gelatinous goo, and a cup of invert sugar syrup hardening in a small non-stick saucepan - check! Got it mixed together, glopped into an empty fifth bottle, and into the fridge. Fixed us a round of vodka tonics with lime bitters as taste test and the result is very good. This batch of lime bitters doesn't score very high on appearance but the flavor is exactly what I had in mind; an herbal spiciness, resinous bitterness, and a bright lime citrus flavor on top of it all. Next time I'll forgo the extra water steep, sweeten that second pint of water, and expect a slightly milder bitters. Now on to the next batch...

Update: So after a little sleuthing, we've decided that boiling the botanicals with the fruit for the hot water steep set the pectin in the fruit. And well and truly set it is, I've got a fifth of lime bitters that ain't goin' nowhere.

Lime Bitters

2011-05-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

So we've been doing a bit of cocktailing lately. Or rather moving on from our comfortable Classic Martini, Gin & Tonic, and Whiskey Sour when-we-want-a-cocktail routine and getting better acquainted with the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, and the Negroni (as a start). Yeah, I'm still a 2nd level Cocktailist, but my AC and saving throw against cocktail ignorance are coming up. I thank you. Part of my investigations into quality cocktails has been a lot of reading up on bitters, the patent medicine-style infusions and tinctures that are used to add depth and dimension to cocktails. Angostura and Peychaud's are examples of classic aromatic bitters and there are a ton of contemporary bitters producers replicating long lost commercial examples; orange bitters, celery bitters, etc. So, in keeping with the current "F*ck it, I'll make my own" motif that I've been operating under I've decided to make my own bitters. After I've already stocked up on Angostura, Peychaud's, and Regan's Orange Bitters, of course. So I decided to start with lime bitters, "I don't know, maybe it'll turn out OK and we can use it in G&T's". Now ""Regans' Orange Bitters No.6"" is out on the internet so I used that as a starting point and replaced the orange component with fresh lime. That was a week ago and OMFG!!! this sh*z is teh deelizious!!! I'm never buying commercial bitters again. Just having the ingredients on hand putting this batch together has given me enough insight that an excellent aromatic bitters is right around the corner. Thank you Mr. Angostura, thank you Mr. Peychaud, but your services will no longer be required.

Aquavit

2011-05-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Had a great beer dinner a while back at Brandon's and had a spot of Aquavit as a digestif. Very very nice finish to the evening. Spicy, earthy notes behind a very firm and floral anise flavor with a lingering sweetness. Very nice indeed. So along with that, we've been watching episodes of "New Scandinavian Cooking" over and over. One of the recipes that the Norwegian food writer/chef Andreas Viestad (though I like the Dane, Claus Meyer, better - I get the feeling that his cuisine is a lot closer to the Danish culture, closer to the place it comes from, and I like the simpler, "cooking by hand" feel of it) has shared is for Aquavit, the ubiquitous Norse schnapps-style liquor flavored with caraway, fennel, dill, and anise. Aquavit has always held a certain charm for me, even though I've only come to it very recently. When I was a mere 'Tween I had a stack of cookbooks that were in the same rotation as Tolkein, Herbert, Heinlein, and Stephen King, one of which was the Time-Life book "The Cooking of Scandinavia". Very appealing to me to read about the food and associated culture of part of my heritage, with the one thing making the biggest impression on me being the mention of Aquavit and the traditional "Skål" that accompanies it. Illustrated by a very suave Max von Sydow; hold your aquavit glass in front of you, look your company in the eyes, "Skål" is cheerfully offered as you raise your glass, down the hatch, and you return to look your company in the eyes. Very civilized, very convivial, and bad ass. So fast forward a bit, and lately I've been getting more and more interested in expanding the kinds of food products that we make for ourselves. Getting better informed and pointed toward making more charcuterie, pickling food, cheese making and baking. Anyway, I put some Aquavit together. Took a bit of an experimental approach to it for the first pass, put together a base mixture of caraway, fennel, and dill seed along with star anise and whole clove (all traditional ingredients). Picked out a 2 liter bottle of middling vodka and put that spice mix into 4 separate splits. In three of those splits I added a larger proportion of caraway, fennel, and dill for a more pronounced flavor, and in the fourth split I added crushed black pepper and strips of fresh lemon zest. My thinking was to let these sit, filter them, and go through a convoluted program of blending small portions of each to get a nice result. Pffft, whatever! So after 3 weeks rest I got all the filtering done last night, the result being a beautiful golden hued, intensely aromatic, and inviting infusion. And after a few samples, the well considered attempt at blending was decidedly unnecessary. The black pepper & lemon peel stands on it's own; intense Lemon Pledge aromas upfront, very lively interplay of fennel/anise, black pepper spice, and resinous citrus through the middle palate finishing with a modest heat from the black pepper lingering very late. For the more "traditional" style 'Vit, I'll bottle one part each of the caraway & dill portions with two parts of the fennel portion. After a bit of sampling (ha, ha), I feel the base mixture of spices is probably a bit fennel/anise forward (which I like). On their own, each portion shows the extra ingredient very well (as I expected); the caraway is grassy & spicy, the fennel is very floral & intensely licorice-like, and the dill is very herbal with interesting fresh cut grass/floral notes. The "house" Aquavit should end up with a nice caraway/dill character backing up a pretty firm fennel/anise flavor. Some of the Aquavit recipes I looked at required that it be sweetened, which I'll take a pass on. So far at least, this first attempt doesn't need it. I think that I should have enough of each split after putting a big bottle together that I can put another bottle together and rest it on some sour mash whiskey flavored oak cubes that I have somewhere. Or maybe I should soak some oak cubes in some Sherry. Hmm....

The East Marginal Way South & South Spokane Street Fraternal Order of Wayward Brewers

2011-04-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year! Well I've moved out of the house. Moved all me brewing equipment that is. I've gone in with a couple homies on a little brewing space down in Sodo/Georgetown. Lotsa room and brewing under cover rules. Haven't hit my full stride yet, I'm looking at getting up to brewing once a week, but getting back to brewing feels really good. Got a couple things under my belt; 5 gals. of Sierra Olympus (my SN Pale clone with Citra, Simcoe, and Amarillo - very good drinking indeed), 5 gals. of Belgian Bland (low gravity batch to prop up some of the Wyeast Westmalle strain), 10 gals. of botched IPA that is being served as a Northwest-style Bitter (actually pretty nice, lots of subtle hop character), 5 gals. of an ashy Foreign Export-style Stout using the Pacman yeast to prop up for 5 gals. of Infernal Libation (a Black Wine that I've been "planning" on brewing for about 2 years) that still has to package, 5 gals. of Czech Plz (a beer I've brewed a few times with various tweeks; this batch uses Sterling hops for the first time for me, still a bit green at this point but should come around), 5 gals. of an attempt at a Westmalle-style Tripel with a West Coast hop profile (I abhor the whole "Belgian IPA" affect and refuse to use that term) that is a few weeks shy of going into the keg, and freshly put up tonight: 5 gals. of Berliner Weisse. WAHA organized a lecture with Jess from Wyeast about that style of beer with a lot of great information. I'd brewed a Berliner Weisse before with stomach turning results (no boil, a week on Lacto, then pitched with yeast = ugly, sulphury mess) and have wanted to try it again. The Wyeast advice was to brew, pitch Lacto, and two days later pitch Sacchromyces to clean up. Still wanting to take advantage of a short boil, I chose dried malt extract instead of all-grain thinking that a lot of the sulphur compounds inherent in malted barley would have been driven off during the malt extract production process resulting in a cleaner wort. The wort after knock out and chilling was clean and bright tasting but we'll see after we get into the ferment. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to a lot more brewing; got a couple weddings this summer to brew for, need to fill Darrel, my home brew club North Seattle Brewers has a barrel project in the works, and with all the brewing gear out of the house there's finally room for a kegerator! Wheee!

The Hardest Liver To Liver '11

2011-03-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Ahoy True Believers! So being about 4 months behind on the blog; nevermind the Christmas Mule, moving into Beer Lab, and "Hey, hey, now I can afford to brew me own beer!" - I'll jump into 2011 with a bit on our Brouwers' Cafe Hard Liver Barley Wine Festival ex-beer-ience. Went down on Saturday to judge (thanks Bonney!), which was pretty cool. Sat with Megan from Beer West and Brandon (a local beer Illuminati) for our evaluations. Good times had by all; just a few "not so much" beers on hand. The big problem (as if) were beers with just a bit of a nasty chloro-phenol thing happening, which I attribute to overuse of a certain hop variety. Not that the specific hop variety is important, but using too much of any hop can lead to some "challenging" flavors. Anyway, sat at the bar for lunch with Mr. K & Mr. S, and had a nice time tasting and talking trash (lots of trash talked) waiting for the judging results. Seemed to take a looong time, but we ended up with '10 Anacortes "Old Sea Bass" taking 1st (deservedly so; perfect malt character, just a tad sweet, low hops with a nice port wine-like finish), '09 Anderson Valley "Horn of the Bear" taking 2nd (a bit too candyish/strong Imperial IPA for my taste), and '10 Glacier Brew House Old Woody (full bodied with big maple/vanilla "rested on wood" flavors) taking 3rd. Very nice indeed. Had a hearty bowl of potato soup for lunch and managed to escape without blacking out. I thank you.

Went back down on Sunday, with me Sweetie, for a few. That Anacortes beer is simply wonderful. Showed the best among the 30-odd Barley Wines we managed to get to. Interesting balance across the lot; for the most part very hop forward, just a few seemed to firing on all cylinders. We liked the Rogue '08 Old Crustacean and the '09 Speakeasy Old Godfather the best; both very nice, with firm malt flavors finishing just a bit sweet, big rosy alcohol flavors, and pleasant hop character, with the Rogue beer leaving the palate with a big resinous hop note. Very, very nice indeed.

15 Points of Satisfaction

2010-11-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

Sitting down with a pint of the Robopo after spending most of the day out shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner. We're hosting, so that means collecting lots of turkeys and mass fixin's. Got the scoresheets back from Novembeerfest last week. I entered McChief (first place, Belgian-style Specialty), Fled (3rd place, Belgian-style Sour), the Bride's Ale (meh, too clovey), the Witch (meh, too anise-y), and the Robust Porter which scored (on average) 15 points. That made me laugh out loud! Now I'm not proud and I think that at the very least it's a 28 point beer (ha, ha, ha), but these "judges" blew it. Harumph! I'll take it to the next North Seattle Homebrew Drinker's meet and see what Russell and the Joy's think of it. Anyway, I'm enjoying it.

Schönweisse and Bonus Kettles

2010-10-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

10/10 - Brewed a 5gal batch of my German-style Wheat Beer, Schönweisse. Got a pitch of the Wyeast Weihenstephan yeast from my Doctor and I want a Weizenbock for Christmas this year, so I figured a batch of my weissbier was necessary. I really like this style of beer; really, really like it. I'm partial to Fransiskaner but I like the Schneider biers best. Schneider Original has a great balance of yeast character; nice spicy phenols just edged by banana esters & great balance of grain character; the texture of malted wheat combined with a rich malt flavor for an excellent toasted bread-like quality. I've brewed my Weiss over the years with varying amounts of malted wheat trying to find the sweet spot; always figuring more was better anywhere from 50% to 100% of the grain bill. Pretty decent results, but as I got closer to the high end of malted wheat I liked the beers less and less because of a heavy milkshake-like texture. The current version is 30%-35% wheat with the balance made up of equal parts Vienna and Dark Munich malt; great for nice deep toasted bread flavors and just a bit more color than most commercial versions. I schedule for 18 or so IBU and ferment at standard ale temps for a relatively mild yeast character. My preference is for a more refined flavored Weissbier, yeast flavor should be just moderate for a well balanced flavor profile and drinkability. I had just finished Stan Hieronymous' new "Brewing with Wheat" book; I mashed in at 90F to hydrate and the first rest was at 113F for a ferulic acid rest in order to promote clove phenol production during fermentation & I split the 5 gal brew length into two 5 gallon carboys thinking that a shallower fermentation would promote ester production. The gravity sample wort was very tasty but I haven't been into the beer since. I had planned on brewing the Weizenbock this weekend but couldn't get it together, oh well, another week in the tank isn't fatal. The Weizenbock is just a bit short of being a Double Schönweiss; same base grain bill but with the addition of Cara-Munich, Chocolate malt, and Special-B. The Wyeast 3068 yeast flavors compliment the rich dried plum & chocolate malt flavors of those specialty grains very nicely. Alcohol just a bit on the high side for style and a robust terminal gravity will make for a very festive bier indeed.

So, I couldn't get a brew in this weekend but there was an interesting development in the home brewery. An old North Seattle Homebrew Club-mate posted to the list that he was selling his setup. Boom! I'm all over that and now I'm the proud owner of 2 converted keg brewing vessels (work done by Bob at Bob's Homebrew Supply; killer, high quality work), the goods for HERMS-style brewing (March pump, copper manifold, copper coil, hoses, etc.), a high efficiency copper counter-flow chiller (with the convoluted interior for acres of surface area), another 20# CO2 tank, another burner, and another 6.5 gal carboy. Yay! This will all come in handy for plans I've been mulling over to get equipped for two 10gal batches at a time. We'll see, if I'm feeling frisky next weekend I'll roll two batches at the same time. Really need to get on the ball with the rest of the Christmas beers.

Fives A Crowd

2010-10-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

9/22 - Marathon kegging session. Put away the Czech Plz, Bride's Ale, and Robopo from the latest brewings & the McChief and Fled from the cellar. The Czech Plz went into the tank with an ounce of Saaz dryhops, the Bride's ale blended the Wyeast Wit & Trappist High Gravity splits, and the Robopo was showing way too much sulfur. McChief is a Belgian-style Strong Scotch from earlier (dig the archive) and I think the Flanders-style Red predates this blog.

McChief is a piece of work, TG at 1.044 but just boozy and flavorful enough to balance. I really like the Scotch Silly, lots of sweet malt, tropical fruit ester, and rummy booze. My little friend the 'Chief is close enough to that to satisfy. And how. Now Fled on the other hand is simply beautiful; deep malty red, still just a tad sweet, with a wonderfully well balanced sourness. A touch of vinegar, broad lactic sweetness, and a soft pineapple-like Brett note through the finish.

Czech Plz is showing moderate bitterness, a moderately strong earthy-herbal hop flavor (which keeps coming on stronger), and a bit of estery sweetness that I'm not sure about. I pitched just a bit warm because the ground water temp was still high and the finished Czech is just a bit fruity. Not fatal but just short of "crisp & clean". I'll still pitch it forward into a "proper" Czech Pils and then a Pale Bock. The Bride's Ale is super nice; lots of spice, just a bit of bitterness from the citrus peel and a firm milkshakey body from the raw grains. A good start on a beer I'll brew again for the wedding party later. The Robopo at packaging was showing a LOT of sulfur, I was sure that getting some CO2 in there would push that out. And yes! We have a palatable Robust Porter! That touch of sweetness and sulfur (*touch*, not "Ew, who farted!?") that I was looking for from previous experience along with a nice coffee with cream & sugar and minty herbal hop flavor. Thank you very much!

Robopo Three

2010-09-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

Just got 5gal of my Robust Porter put to bed. A recipe that I'm well pleased with that I wanted to go back to. My version is inspired in part by Anchor Porter; terminal gravity a bit on the high side, firm chocolatey malt flavors, moderate bitterness, and moderately strong hop aroma & flavor. I think the commercial version uses the same yeast that they use for the Liberty Ale; top fermenting, clean tasting, and to my palate very lightly mineraly. I go in a different direction, I like to use the Wyeast California Lager strain; yes, the supposed Anchor Steam yeast. With a not quite 1.080 OG terminal gravity should finish off in the low 20's, leaving a fair amount of sweetness that compliments distinctive and complex chocolatey malt flavors. As I'm thinking of it, maybe Nutella would be a good comparison. Another aspect of the Cali Lager yeast that I enjoy, is that bit of sulfur that this yeast strain produces. Adds a pleasantly appetizing touch in the finished beer. Bittered with Columbus & Magnum, finished with Amarillo & Cascade for firm bitterness and a lightly citrus-like hop character. Nice balance of flavors along with the chocolatey malt. Hmm, Robopo!

Cobwebs

2010-08-29T19:26:00.001-07:00

are gone! Just finished a long day in the home brewery. Spent an hour and a half cleaning, organizing, and battling cobwebs before I cracked the kettles. Two of my favorite people in the world are getting married next year and Homebrew Club has decided to hijack the beverage concession for all the festivities. I'm going to contribute a batch of Bride's Ale (among other things) and wanted to get a test batch going to tweak a previously brewed recipe. The first Bride's Ale was a pretty straightforward Belgian-style Wit flavored with coriander in the mash & kettle, dried lemon & orange peel, and chamomile. This batch starts with that recipe, adds just a bit more grain, some honey in the kettle, and a more ambitious approach to spicing with coriander in the mash & kettle, fresh lemon & grapefruit rind, sliced fresh ginger, cloves and twice the chamomile as last time. In tasting the gravity sample, everything is way overdone. Not fatal, but just too much. Mostly what I expected though, this batch will give me an excellent starting point for the next one. The first batch was fermented with the Wyeast Wit strain. For this batch I got curious about mixing two strains, the Wyeast Wit strain and the Wyeast Trappist High Gravity (Westmalle) strain. I'd initially thought that I would mix them both into one fermenter and roll with that. But in a slight "Aha!" moment I decided to split the wort, pitch for primary seperately (both splits will get mixed together later), and then keep each type of yeast on hand for repitching later.

Second batch that got put up was 5gal of roughly Czech-style wort that'll ferment with the Wyeast Czech Pils strain for repitching into a few more carefully considered batches of Czech-style beer. Bohemian Pils, nice soft Dunkle, and some pale Bock for Christmas time.

Oh and just a bit of that Czech-style wort was kept aside for a starter of the Wyeast California Lager strain. That will go into a batch of my Robust Porter and repitch from there into some Baltic Porter. Yum. Mee.

Darrel the Feral Barrel

2010-03-27T13:24:00.001-07:00

Say hello to my little friend! Meet Darrel, as soon as I get him in shape he's going to get filled up with delicious sour red wort. I'll introduce him to Roeselare Blend and they'll get nice and friendly too.

A bunch of the lads scored a half dozen spirit barrels from Lost Abbey. This one is a former Heaven Hill bourbon barrel that the Abbey used for spicing up some Angels Share. We got these in pretty rough shape, bone dry with the stave bands falling off. I got Darrel home, jammed the hoops further up the barrel a bit to secure them, and popped the bung out. Took a whiff, nothing. I expected something from it's previous life, a bit of whiskey or rich strong ale aroma. No dice. Oh well, not too disappointed really, I want the real estate for sour beer not necessarily for ze bourbon.

First step: Rehydration! Standing on end and hosing down, water just leaked through between the barrel head and the stave ends. Bummer. Nice sieve though. Layed him down and did the best I could to fill him up. Which was the routine for the next week, each day gaining a little ground on tightening up. The picture here is Darrel at the end of the first week after holding water down to about 4" from the bung. Good enough to get on him on end to get the heads soaking from the inside. Maybe a couple days on each end and then I can get him cleaned and sulfured in preparation for a marathon brewing session.

Interestingly though, when I siphoned the water out so I could tip him up, I found the bourbon. Smells like a tanker of whiskey crashed in my backyard. May end up with a bourbon barrel red after all.

Honorary Irishman '10

2010-03-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

This year's batch of the annual Honorary Irishman Irish-style Dry Stout went into a keg over the weekend and into my belly last night. I really enjoy cooking up a big dinner for St. Patrick's Day and this year was no exception. Cured my own corned beef, house smoked trout, pan roasted cabbage, boiled potatoes & carrots, and home made soda bread. All washed down with lashings of me home brewed stout. This years version came a little closer American Stout than a strictly considered Irish Stout, I'm no Style Queen, so it's fine with me. 7 1/2 #'s Gambrinus ESB, 1 # flaked barley, and 1 # Black Barley; single infusion for just a bit under 5 gallons of 13.5P wort. In pounds; 7:1:1 of pale, flaked barley, and roasted barley is the standard grist bill. My preference is for Marris Otter & a British Roasted Barley, this year I used Gambrinus ESB and the Briess Black Barley, both for the first time. The Gambrinus is OK, I guess, maybe not the same fine, juicy quality of flavor that I like in the the MO. I'm feeling stronger about the Briess Black Malt though; "No thank you!" Likely a matter of perception, but I think the British roasted malts are of a better quality and quite a bit smoother. Very slightly higher gravity this year with the addition of 3/4# brown sugar in the kettle, just thought "Why not" & 15 more BU's, bittered with Cluster and Domestic Goldings. My first use of Cluster in any beer, I like it, with a pleasant evergreen-like resin with citrus character. Reminds me a bit of Northern Brewer. Increased hop flavor, the 60 BU & a firm 5.5% abv are where I get the American Stout aspect. I rushed this batch to service just a bit, but it drinks very nicely; smoothish, very dark chocolate roast malt flavor, firm lingering bitterness, warming a bit after the finish. I get an interesting very light tang through the finish too, like the acidity in coffee, perhaps a bit of a cidery character from the brown sugar contributes also. I "powderized" the black malt in this years batch, maybe it's a flavor effect of that. I imagine that right as the flavor profile comes together, it'll run out.

Mic Check

2010-02-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

QC'd the Milds the middle of last week. The beer is drawing a bit clearer. Volume of CO2 is juuust a bit too high, made a correction for that & we're real close to a nice creamy pint already so it didn't take much. I think there's just a bit too much Sulfate showing too, low gravity beers finishing relatively dry leaves a bit of space in the flavor profile so water quality stands out. We'll see how they hold up to "judging".

One thing I'd failed to post earlier is getting 10 gals. of cider from Fox Island Farms last October. So, got the goods at the end of last October, pitched some Safbrew s-33 (looks like this is turning into the house dried yeast), and just let it go. The 10 gals. went into two 5 gal. carboys with one getting a fair amount of apple gunk. Thiefed a bit of each to taste and I'm well pleased with the result. One carboy was showing a bit more sulfur than the other, not sure if it's the apple gunk or not, but in any case the sulfur will clear during conditioning. Really nice, dry and tart cider. I had thought to bottle condition and try for a very tight effervescence but I believe I'll keg it, maybe push the CO2 to the high side, and just serve it on draft. It really needs to get to drinking.

Thiefed a bit of the McChief too. Oh man! This is sooo good! Malty sweet, big dark dried fruit flavors and sweet warming alcohol. This one will need to go under corks and cages, I'm thinking I'll prime with some fresh yeast only and let it go. I'd rather have this without enough gas than with too much gas. I'm looking forward to deep goblets of this one.

Update: So I put this post up and then spent the rest of my evening having a few of the Milds. There's been some nice changes going on in the last week or so since the initial sampling. The all-malt Mild still seems to show too much Sulfate, but both adjunct versions are tasting better balanced. The AK in particular is very nice; toasted malt flavors, very fine fruity esters, and finishes with a lingering nuttiness that ends crisply. A very nicely drinking beer. The Dark Mild seems a bit rough still, maybe a bit more time will help the flavors round out better; lots of bitter cold coffee and dark chocolate, nice but a little at odds with the water quality. The Ruby is quite a bit brighter than the other two and is tasting cleaner for it; very light "juicy" malt flavors, moderately strong dark dried fruit flavors compliments a subtle fruity yeast character. That pound of Crystal 120 really stands out. The finish is just a bit tooth coating and slightly over bitter, which I'd attribute the calcium sulfate levels that I've been complaining about. Still pretty nice but not quite that amazing soft pint either.

Born To Be Mild

2010-01-18T22:04:00.000-08:00

Brewed three 5 gal. batches of Mild last Sunday and just got done puttin' them to bed in some kegs. Impaling Alers are hosting the AHA Club Only Competition for February, "The Session Challenge" featuring English Brown Ale which includes Northern & Southern English Brown Ale and Mild. I had planned on brewing a Ruby and a Dark mild. I broke out my copy of "Brew Your Own British Real Ale", a good reference featuring recipes based on commercial beers. I surveyed the Dark Mild lists and came up with a recipe based on the average amounts of grains used, which I tweaked a bit with an addition of brown malt. Love the brown malt. Then onto Brewing Classic Styles "Mild" for something ruby-ish. Decided on the AK, more a light tawny brown in color than ruby which was fine. The Dark and the AK use a fair amount of adjunct, both with brown sugar in the kettle and the AK with a bit of flaked maize in the mash. Mark made a comment calling the quality of adjunct Milds into question, saying that a low-gravity style like this will thin out too much. Perfectly reasonable observation. So what the hey, I'll brew an all-malt version too, and we'll see what's what. So the Ruby Mild is all-malt; 5 1/2 pounds Marris Otter and 1 pound Crystal 120 in five gallons for 8.5P. Ruby, Tawny, and Dark. Boom, boom, and boom.

So after racking into kegs; the Ruby terminal gravity is just a bit higher than the beers with adjunct as expected, and shows that nice juicy Marris Otter malt character very nicely. The AK and the Dark are nice but definitely drier, interesting combination of higher kilned/roasted malt flavors and low terminal gravity. All three are still a bit dusty, I'll have a better idea of the final result after we drop bright and condition.

The AK
5 gallons 8.5P wort

5 pounds Marris Otter
1 1/4 ounces Chocolate Malt (Powderized )
1/2 pound flaked maize
1/2 brown sugar (at end of boil)

The Dark
5 gallons 9P wort

5 pounds Marris Otter
6 oz Crystal 120
4 oz Brown Malt
3 oz Chocolate Malt
1 oz Black Patent Malt
8 oz brown sugar (at end of boil)

All three were bittered with East Kent Goldings for 22-24 IBU's and pitched with the Safbrew S-33 (Edme-style) dried yeast.

Yo GABF GABF!

2009-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Man, I just flew in from Denver and boy, are my arms tired! Ha, ha! I can't resist. So the brewery closed down for a long weekend and sent us out to the Great American Beer Festival. Thank you Al and Noelle, truly! Our first time at GABF and a great experience. A great chance to tour the US via beer. Two things: 1) tons of breweries from smaller markets all offering the same f*cking thing (pale, porter, IPA, stout, and some cheeky attempt at something "cuh-razy"!, 2) The best part of GABF is having the chance to try beers from breweries that you'll read about but have no chance of ever getting to. Ballast Point, Russian River, Cambridge Brewing, New Glarus, Jolly Pumpkin, Southhampton Publick House, and Marin Brewing; all worthy, all there right in front of you thank you very much. Thursday afternoon session; started in on the Southeast section with a sample of each brewery. That lasted about six tastes before we figured out that we were sure to get sick from either stale beer or tons of diacetyl. So we held off for stuff that just looked good, waaay better strategy and much happier with the result. Friday spent away from Denver touring New Belgium and beers at Odell's, Oskar Blues, and Avery. Loved the Lychee Tart at NB, the 90 Shilling at Odell's, and Moloch at Avery (blend of their Samael and Old Jubilation). Saturday afternoon was spent cleaning up at all the places we didn't get to on Thursday. Interestingly, the crowd seemed a bit thinner which was nice. Maybe everyone standing around at the far end of the venue for the award announcements had something to do with it? Anyway, lot's of Californian strong n' hoppy beer went down, thank you very much. Kinda funny though, for all the plans we made for extra-beericular activities, we pretty much festivaled, napped, ate, and slept. Didn't really make it out to anything else, which was fine with us. Relaxing weekend catting around drinking beer? Count us in anytime.

(Just Like) Starting Over

2009-09-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

I am an Artist; a Poet, a Musician, a Cook, and a Brewer. This last year and a half, I haven't been paying close enough attention to some of the things that are most important to me. Living less than paycheck to paycheck is a shitty excuse for not pursuing my Art, so fuck it. Time to get back to rattlin' the kettles, playing with fire, and searching for those peak experiences.

Got 10 gals. of Dunkle-Weisse and 5 gals. of Kitchen Sink bubbling away after brewing yesterday. The Dunkle wort smelled and tasted great; 7# each dark malted wheat, dark munich, and german pils. Had to settle for the pils malt because Vienna malt wasn't available. I brought the color up with 2 ozs. Carafa II that I ground to dust in the spice grinder, more color than simply cracking it. Very nice, deep amber brown. Perking away nicely with the Wyeast 3068. The Kitchen Sink is the goods for a Wit and a Dark Strong that's been siting around, hopped with all the odds and ends that I needed to get rid of, and steeped with a pound of wet Cascades. OG 1074 and the dankest batch of beer I've ever gotten close to. Pitched the 1056 and there's still 2 ozs. of '07 Amarillo to go into the keg for dryhopping. Intensely hoppy wort; kinda moderate bitterness but huge hop resin and flavor. Really won't get a true sense of this one until the yeast flocs. It'll be interesting in any case.

The Hardest Liver To Liver

2009-03-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

3/21: Hard Liver Barley Wine Festival at Brouwer's Cafe. Got to sit at the Best of Show table this year. Great time! Finally got to sit at the table with the adults; a couple of high profile beer writers, the owner of a well known Philadelphia Belgian-style cafe, a couple of the organizer's cronies, a BJCP Master Judge, and me. A couple of photos here, scroll down a bit for the group shot. I'm in the upper left looking red faced and sassy under the flat cap. Interesting process; the wood aged beers were dismissed out of hand, the good hop forward beer didn't seem to get much respect, and I wasn't finding much depth of complexity in many of the beers where some other judges were. Did the usual "Brouwer's Cafe/Hard Liver Find a Place to Sit Boogaloo" afterwards. My sweetie showed up and I pulled some strings to get her in ahead of a bunch of people who had been waiting in line awhile. Very Rock Star, ha, HA! We went through a good 18 or so. Overall quality this year was really good (even the Redhook BW was impressive). Standouts were the '07 Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws and the '06/'08 Lagunitas Gnarleywine. Doggie Claws; real firm sweetroll malt flavors with moderate bitterness and big resinous hop flavors (still!). Really good stuff. 'Claws always makes me think of shopping for Christmas trees with it's piney/minty resin-like qualities. Gnarleywines were both big and alcoholic; all the best qualities of Barley Wine right up front. The '06 seemed just a bit more refined. These things age really well. Comparing the beers on the Best of Show panel against what we were having at table was a bit of a head scratcher. I liked some of the beers we had better than what we had to judge. Even on strict style considerations. Oh well.

Citra TuTu

2009-03-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Spent the afternoon with some of my favorite people, putting down some good beer and snacking a bit. The Citra Pale being part of it, ended up very nice. Something to consider is that the 5 OUNCES of steam hop extract in 5 GALLONS of beer really doesn't show very strongly. Altogether the beer is really good; firm malt with strong bitterness and lots of herbal/fruit character over a really firm bitterness. Going forward I think that using the steam extract method for adding some edge to the overall hop profile will require ALOT more hops. Oh well...

Belgian-style Strong Scotch Ale

2009-03-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

Racked the McChief down to one carboy. Gravity is a firm 10P. The beer is strongly sweet with nice banana/plum esters and a ton of sweet alcohol. According to my measurements the alcohol content is around 11% which at this point is a nice counter point to the sweetness. The beer isn't worty sweet but more like eating a caramel hard candy when you start getting it to melt across the palate. Actually pretty nice. I'll see if I can get another percent or so alcohol out of it before I call terminal. I have half a mind to simply bottle it as is without primings just to see what happens. So far it's fuller bodied and sweeter than McChouffe but not quite as intense as Scotch Silly. Shaping up to be a really nice beer. Definitely one to put down.

That 1.200 OG starting gravity wasn't that hard to pull off. Got me thinking about planning a whole 1200 series. October Ale, Barley Wine, Imperial Stout, Baltic Porter, a more straight forward Belgian-style Quad, Dopplebock, hmm, what else...

Citra Too

2009-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Just finished kegging the Citra Pale. Was a bit concerned with the gravity sample right off the bat; picked up a bit of papery tang. Thought it might be a bit of spoilage, the initial primary ferment climbed up and out the airlock and maybe we picked something up in my effort to clean up(?). But coming back to it later with the hydrometer a lot of the nasty stuff had volatilized away. What's left is simply some stale hop notes. Not fatal. Other than that the beer is nice; firm bitterness with peppery herbal, light candied orange, and catty flavors over a nice light malt flavor.

I dosed the keg with 5 ozs. of Citra Steam Extract. Which leads to two things: 1) A correction and 2) A statement. The correction; the counter top espresso machine I have is a Braun, not a Krups. The statement; Holy Fuck! Steam extract through pellets appears to be way more intense than the same volume of whole leaf hops. The result is just simply intense. Intensely bitter, intensely aromatic, and intensely flavorful. The Citra extract is orange blossom herbal perfume, lightly sweaty, and leaves a sticky film across the palate. Imagine a dog working peanut butter off the roof of their mouth and you'll have the right idea. Steam extract won't replace dry hopping here in the home brewery but it's definitely part of the playbook. I'm anticipating some over the top hop character out of this beer. Stay tuned.

McChief

2009-02-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

2/8: 5 gals. OG 1200 Strong Scotch Ale.

Somewhere between a Quad and McChouffe is McChief! Marris Otter, a little Aromatic, a little Special B, a pinch of Roast Barley, and 2# Brown Sugar. Goldings just a little short of balance. And a ton of the Chouffe-style yeast. Colin racked 10 gals. Belgian-style Blonde and brought his carboys over. I split my five gallons between the two, each with a substantial yeast cake. Signs of fermentation were nearly immediate. Over pitched for sure, we'll see if by forgoing oxygenating, some kind of yeast character was forced out. If it's too clean or comes up short in some other manner, I'll brew it again and blend it out.

Citra

2009-02-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

2/8: 5 gals. OG 1060 SNPA-style Pale Ale with Citra hops.

The Citra are an experimental variety that some of the WAHA kids each got 3 ounces of. High alpha Hallertau-type with a real firm grapey citrus Cascade thing happening. We're supposedly brewing our own batches of beer with this hop and planning a tasting to get a feel for it's character. For a 60 minute boil, I added ounces at 60 & 40 and .5 at 20. Beer Tools Pro called out 109 IBU, which I'll take with a grain of salt. I'll pull the last .5 ounce through the Krups and add the resulting hop extract straight to the keg. This method of steam extraction is good for at least 4 fluid ounces of the sickest bitter bong water goodness you could imagine. Way beyond a simple hop tea, you get bitterness along with the flavor and aroma. All part of an effort to get the most out of what few Citra hops I had on hand. I'm shooting for the one beer out of the group that shows what you get when you over bitter. We'll see.

Make Mine Mead

2009-01-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

Just started a batch of Mead. Five pounds Clover honey in 4 gals. water. Sulfited. I'll run out for some 1056 tomorrow, dose it with some DAP, and pitch. I've been working on the idea of making mead by starting at a low OG with less expensive honey, maintain a high krausen with careful doses of a nice varietal, pushing the alcohol content up, and finishing with a real firm honey flavor and aroma. Plus it's New Years Day and getting some Mead going seemed like the right thing to do.

Where It's At

2008-12-06T17:55:00.000-08:00

Well it's been three months since the last posting, may as well throw down an update. Working the Tasting Room at Big Al Brewing. Very interesting; mainly on two levels, going through starting a new business and starting that new business on the ashes of one that operated before. The cut in pay has been a real bear, no home brewing going on at present. The schedule keeps me away from my sweetie more than I like. But on the bright side, I'm eating less shit behind the counter these days. The previous brewery that ran on this site had a very cozy little taproom scene going on. Very cozy, lot's of shenanigans and some of that I'm sure helped contribute to sinking the ship. The new brewery opens and the locals expected a simple reopening of the old brewery. Didn't happen, won't happen, get over it, over and out. Some tension, some hurt feelings, and some tears. As the full time bar I'm the point person for answering questions, explaining the new plan, and taking shit when that comes up short of the "right" answer. Oh well. No more; IPA, Live Music, Food, TV, Mug Club, Party Pigs, Longer Service Hours, Under the Counter Beer Sales, Smoking Weed in the Walk-in, and After Hours Partying. Really.

Where's the Beergeek?

2008-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Welp, I been here. Not too much brewing going on at the house since May-ish. Did a bunch of brewing while still putting hours in at the store. Leffe-style Belgian Blonde, Export style lager, 10 gallons of Pale Bock, a Karmeliet-style Golden Strong (Kriple), Orval-style farmhouse beer (still on the Brett), a Duvel-ish Golden Strong, a Strong Saison and 5 gallons of mead using that Saison yeast (I felt bad about tossing all that yeast out). The Blonde oxidized, likely due to oxygen contact through the ancient rubber musting cap I was using. The Kriple was real nice, took it to a party at Colin's and we killed the tank. One day at the store a guy comes in with his kid, tries to gather grains for some brewing, I see he's having trouble with both the shopping and this human tornado little guy, I take his list offering to pull the grains for him, get all the way through it, find out that his list was two batches of beer and I've run all the grain together. Shit. Filled his order correctly and took the grain grab bag home for my Karmeliet-style Strong Beer. Triple Karmeliet is a six grain beer; malted and unmalted barley, wheat and oats. The Kriple replaces malted and unmalted rye for the oats. Used the Wyeast Rochefort strain. The finished beer had a nice earthy, lightly spicy yeast flavor complimented by juicy lip smacking, spicy, crisp rye. Easy drinking at 8%. I brewed the Pale Bock, rather I slayed 10 gallons of Pale Bock wort. Spot fawking on! Get it all put away tight and tidy in the old brewing fridge dialed in for a nice and easy 50 degrees. That was a Friday. Shuffle down to the home brewery on Sunday morning to see how we're doing. Ha, ha! THE REFER IS DEAD! And we are blowing CO2 in full on PFFFT mode at 70 degrees. Arg! Anyone for Steam Bock? Finished the beer anyway. The first 5 gals. out of the tank is very Malt Liquorish. Strength is apparent, some sweet perfumey alcohol, a lot of rough higher alcohol and licorish/smokey phenol. I think I'll sour the second 5 and keep on hand for blending.

Nah, You're Alright

2008-05-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Woof. Got to a point where I had decided I hated writing. So put a pout on and stopped blogging for awhile. Yeah, I know, big loss. Anyway, 'tween then and now...

Hard Liver '08 was great. Judged again this year. Good crowd. Great venue. Excellent beers. EXCEPT! There were a couple spoiled beers in the mix. Not so excellent. And a very first in my experience; I spit a beer out. Very first time in all my days as an uppity beer judge and self-styled con-a-sewer. I could not finish the taste I had taken. I love sour beers. I can handle the foulest shite beer put before me in a judging situation. But this beer (Pacific Rim Barley Wine) was supremely disgusting.

North Seattle Homebrew Drinkers entry tasting was great. Hosted here at the house. Had a good turn out. Beers we sent forward were a Dunkel Wit; nice brown/amber Grand Cru-ish beer with juicy plummy malt flavors and good Belgian-style spicy character, a Weizenbock; excellent balance of rich malt complexity and German-style wheat beer character, and a Saffron Wheat; based on SG's version in "Extreme Brewing", medium strength Belgian-syle Blonde seasoned with saffron. A richly flavored beer with warm, earthy notes from the saffron. My Smoked German-style wheat beer was going to go as the third pick. I fouled the bed thinking we could send four forward, so I kept my entry back as penance for the tension.

Cask Fest '08 was great too. Tons of great beer on hand, standouts were; Maritime Pacific's Bootlegger Bosun's Porter; my favorite local Porter with bourbon infused oak and dryhops, Pike IPA, and the wood aged Ram Strong Ale "Sleigher" with Brettanomyces. Vanilla/maple malt, firm bitterness and tropical fruit salad funk. Nummy!

I Probably Don't Like You

2008-03-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

This won't count as one of my most productive posts, oh well. I'm about four real posts behind. Got the Washington Homebrewers Association, our Clubs' Wheat Beer Shindig, Hard Liver '08 & Cask Fest '08 to blawg over.

Looking over the bids on that eBay deal, I can't tell if any of the people who pushed the prices up won any of the auctions. Have to wait for all the feedback to register. Maybe see if eBay can give the series of auctions a once over and make the call on whether or not there were any shenanigans.

Plus that fawking AHA TechTalk mailing list is dumbing waay down lately. Knock it off with the clone recipe requests, shitheads. Sack up and do the work yourself!

Harumph!

The Cascade Crown Caper Results Show

2008-03-24T16:59:00.002-07:00

Got my 30 year old Cascade crown today. Huge hunk of hop rhizome with tons of pale shoots coming off it. I won the eBay auction last week. I held off leaving feedback until the package came. I left my feedback (all excellent, Dave at Freshops is a gentleman and master of customer service) and noticed that all the auctions that ended before that f***u shithead caught wind ended at about 50 bucks. I ended up getting stuck for more than 3 times that. Grrr.

F***u, whoever and where ever you are, if you managed to actually win some of these hops, I hope that they rot in the ground.

The Cascade Crown Caper

2008-03-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

Who's the fuckhead jacking these bids up? Bold moves to corner the Cascade Crown market.

Bring me the head of "f***u"!

Gary Gygax 1938-2008

2008-03-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Raising a tankard of mead in honor of the Grand Mage of Gaming.

The Final Toronado Barley Wine Festival

2008-02-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

2/15: Off to Frisco for Long Weekending. Into Oakland early Friday. Off, off and away on our hybrid magic carpet. Lunch at La Note in Berkeley and a quick jar up at the Triple Rock. (Red Rock Ale and an Ipax, respectively). Up to Santa Rosa for a run by Russian River Brewing. Half orders of a couple things; Pliny the Younger (Triple IPA; big body, firm expansive hop character, warming and way drinkable), the Pale Ale with Brett (medium bitterness, great hop flavor and intense pineapple from the Brettanomyces; so good), the Pinot Barrel aged Dark Strong (medium-ish for a Dark Strong with pleasant tartness) and a Czech-style Pilsner (for a brewery noted for such huge hoppy beers and strong flavors a great glass of beer). I heart Sonoma. Back to drop the car off and make our way into the City. Dinner at Ramblas; delicious tapas-style food. Great fruity sangria. Saturday morning and across town to the Toronado for the Barley Wine festivation. Tried for an early-ish start in order to get a table. Learned a very important lesson. Getting down at the Toronado for the Barley Wine thing is like playing Frogger. To get ahead you gotta hop at just the right moment. In the past we've managed to hop in late enough in the day to score a table just as the first wave is beginning to retire. This year we didn't hop early enough and got pasted. The lads showed up early and managed a few courses of 3 oz. tastes hunkered over the end of a table of attractive young urbanite fuckheads. The lasses showed up later and were less than impressed with the accomodations we'd managed. So we bailed. Into the Upper Haight to some Irish Bar for lunch and a few Guinness waiting for the rest of our party. Walked back down to the Toronado to check in on some Barley Wine. Out of all of them the Bear Republic "Old Scoutter" stood out the best; good example of the West Coast style, not just a Double IPA but bigger malt character, firm alcohol and well moderated hop character. Quite a few vintage selections. An 11 year old "Old Boardhead" from Fullsail and a 13 year old Devil Mountain (?, closed in 1995), both quite vinous yet very, very tasty. Exactly what I would hope for in a well kept up "Old Ale". Interesting that most of the comments I heard really put them down for being "sour and nasty". Fucking Philistines. Somewhere between this point, beers at the Pilsner Inn, dinner at Chow and back to the apartment; I lost my tasting notes. Not the end of the world but a fitting end to the whole beer festival shitteree. We'll see how the Hard Liver and the Cask Fest fall apart. I may be off the beer festival thing altogether. Anyway. Sunday; lunch at the excellent Monks Kettle, Chinatown, North Beach, stayed in with pizzas. Monday; goofed around at Golden Gate Park and dinner at Suppenkuche. Great German-style restaurant; German biers on draft, tasty pickled herring starter and awesome meat-potatoes-and-brown-gravy entrees. Tuesday; Home!

Robopo

2008-02-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

2/24: Brewed my Robust Porter. Six glorious gallons of 21P palatatious potable. Pretty much my homage to Anchor Porter. Love that Anchor Porter. Mine is a bit bigger and with a fair bit of residual sweetness like drinking rich chocolate truffle. Fermented with the Wyeast California Lager strain, which I like for its malt accenting properties and the wee bit of residual sulfur that I like. Like I'd said before, I like beers with an edge. There's something that I find quite appetizing about lager beer with just a faint hint of sulfur. Yum.

Summer Ale Again

2008-02-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

2/22: Kegged the Summer Ale. Finished out at 2.5P. Light bodied, good grainy flavor, and tangy bitterness. Should be drinking real nice with a good amount of sparkle put into it.

Club tasting to determine our entries is next Tuesday. Should have a dozen or so to go through. Gonna be fun.

Honorary Irishman

2008-02-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

2/10: Brewing the '08 Dry Stout. Hmmm... Dry Stout. The usual deal; 7# Marris Otter, 1 1/2# Roast Barley and a pound of flaked barley. Going for bitter this year with 45 or so IBU. Fermented with the Wyeast Irish Ale strain. Good solid Guinness-like brew. Goes down well with the corned beef and mashers. I'll skip the corned beef from the Egg this year, gonna roast it off in a low oven for 10 or so hours. I liked grinding up the spice pack and using that as a rub, so I'll do that again. I'd like to get back on the Egg. It needs some new felts and a bit of a cleanup, no big deal.

Off to Frisco at the end of the week for the Toronado Barley Wine Festival. Going to spend the day Friday off to Santa Rosa to visit Russian River. Looking forward to Pliny the Younger and bringing some bottled stuff back. Saturday is at the BW Fest. Sunday, laid out hating life swearing that I'll never drink again. Monday, toodling around town. Tuesday, back to the house. Whee!

Summer Ale

2008-02-04T15:31:00.001-08:00

2/3: Brewed the fourth batch for the Wheat Beer Competition. British-style Summer ale. Hugh Baird Marris Otter, Belgian Pils malt & malted wheat for 12.5P. Tangy, moderate bitterness from Columbus (I know, hardly tradtional, but I've got 'em on hand) and a touch of Gypsum in the kettle , finished with Goldings, fermented by the Safale S-04. Should dry out pretty well and with an effervescent condition be light and refreshing.

Kegged both the WIt and the Smoked Wheat. The Wit needs to drop a bit more yeast and clean up a bit. Should be pretty nice; good citrus peel flavor with faint pithy bitterness at the finish and very light coriander flavor. A bit too light. The Smoked Wheat on the other hand is a bit "not so much". Near spot on German Style Hefe yet smoke flavor and aroma just isn't there. Hm. We'll see what the club thinks about it as a competition entry. I really enjoy that heavy Schlenkerla Beech Smoke character, but to get that intensity I'll need to smoke my own malt.

Through the Tasting Glass

2008-02-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

1/26, Water Street Brewing' s Strange Brewfest 2008: Rolled up to Port Townsend on Friday night and checked into the Palace. Great old Victorian building. Bite to eat and over to the Water Street for a quick one before an early bedtime. Hassled the dude at the door and got in with paying just one cover. Thank you. Recognized a few folks on the way in, some familiar East Sound faces in town for the Festival too. Jar of the Imperial IPA for me and a fresh lime Margarita for J. I like beer with a bit of an edge to it; the IPA is firm bodied, pleasant tea biscuit malt sweetness, slightly coarse bitterness, grapefruit pith and resinous spruce hop flavors with ethanol apparent. Reminds me a bit of the first iterations of the Pike IPA; firm biscuity sweet Marris Otter, moderate bitterness accented by judicious addition of brewing salts, huge sweet fresh cut grass and herbal tea East Kent Golding aroma and flavor with a strong ethanol character. Almost fusel. Dryhopped in the Cask and served off a handpump. Excellent glass of beer. Oh, and the Margaritas are fantastic at the Water Street; fresh fruit squeezed at the bar is the best. Offered another round and I got a Barley Wine. Way deep mahogany with bright ruby highlights, very aromatic; lots of dark dried fruit, hops and sweet alcohol, rasiny dark toffee malt flavor, firm bitterness with lemon peel/black pepper flavors, medium-full body with a long warming finish. Perfect nightcap.

Up at the crack of 11. Off to breakfast and over to the Water Street for the starting gun promply at 1. Good crowd this year. Our usual beerfest cronies; some folks from the clubs, people we know in the Industry, well respected beer dorks and about 150 Elkheads (like the whole town of Buckley showed up to support the brewer). Wide range of beers; many regular offerings, some wood finished beers, some perennial Strange Brew offerings and a few that appeared to be regular offerings tarted up to show well at the festival. Silver City Basil infused Pilsner. Egad! Dr. Johns Spearmint Vanilla Porter anyone? Actually not bad at all, like a chocolatey sasparilla soda. I Liked the Baron Barrel Aged Liberator Dopplebock; deep ruby brown, rich and elegant malt flavors with maple notes from the wood, lightly warming. Excellent example of using wood finishing to add depth and complexity instead of just "wood flavoring". The Maker's Mark Barrel Aged Sleigher from the Ram Northgate on Nitro, was fantastic; toffee malt flavors, forward bitterness, rich vanilla bourbon flavors accented by the creamy Nitro service. Whiskey Barrel Aged Bigfoot from Sierra Nevada; another great glass of beer, my favorite Barley Wine given greater depth and character by wood aging. Got sips of most of the rest of the field. Wasn't really feeling most of the beers on tap. Settled for a few rounds of the above beers, the Boundry Bay Imperial IPA, the Rogue Issaquah Imperial Red and the Big Time Maine Thing East Coast-Style Pale Ale. Cut out for a dinner break. And back to the Water Street for some music. Same great funk band as last year. Stood in line for service for their first set (an hour). Hooked down our drinks facing an empty stage and called it a night.

Wit

2008-01-20T17:53:00.001-08:00

1/20: Brewed the third batch for the Wheat Beer Competition. Belgian-style Wit beer. Belgian Pils malt, malted wheat, flaked wheat, and flaked oats for 12.5P. Moderate bitterness from Domestic Goldings, flavored with ground coriander (in the mash & in the kettle) and fresh citrus peel (lemon and grapefruit) and fermented with the Wyeast Wit strain. I'll definitely be pitching that forward, I'd like to get some Strong Golden going.

Rauch-Weizen

2008-01-19T16:25:00.000-08:00

1/19: Second batch for the aformentated Wheat Beer Competition. 75% German Rauchmalt + 25% Malted Wheat for 13P, 10 IBU & the Wyeast Weihenstephan in another 3 gallon batch. Gravity sample didn't seem too smokey. Be interesting to see how it plays after the beer attenuates.

Country Bier

2008-01-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

1/15: Brewing the first of four batches of wheat based beers for the Pyramid Brewing and Washington Homebrewers Association sponsored Wild World of Wheats Homebrew Competition. Brewing a Country Bier. Malted Wheat, Munich and Vienna malts for 17P or so. Medium bitterness and firm hop flavor. Fermented cool with Wyeasts' seasonal "Hella-Bock". Just a three gallon batch for the Comp. I'll hold the yeast back for a larger batch of Maibock later. Yum.

Don't like your job? Quit!

2007-12-30T10:18:00.000-08:00

I did. Gonna put some hours in at Bob's Homebrew and try to pick up a Beertending gig while I complete my Business Plans. More on that later. Mind is still slightly blown. Does that hard dark knot in the pit of my gut signal the exit to self employment?

"This one time at Judge Camp..."

2007-12-06T20:51:00.002-08:00

12/1: Advanced Judge training at Full Sail, Hood River, Oregon hosted by Ted Hausotter, BJCP Master Judge. Loooong way to go. Good information on sour flavors in beer, flavor effects of sugars in brewing and judging mead. Young Orval only misses the point, Sorry Ron. Jammed 50 5-gallon Corny kegs in the back of the truck for the ride home. Nice. Oh, it stormed and poured snow all the way home. Real nice.

Big Wood

2007-12-06T20:51:00.001-08:00

11/29: Went down to Brouwer's for their wood aged beer festival. Tons of amazing beer on draft. Dozen or so sour beers and about three times as many big beers. Most of them being stronger styles. Two sour Lost Abbey selections; "Brouwer's Blend" Stong Dark and "Yellow Bus" peach beer. Brouwer's Blend appeared to be a blending of different vintages of Cuvee de Tomme; excellent flavors of resinous herbs, chocolate and balsamic vinegar. We managed to show up right as it was 86'd but did get a short sip from a friend. Yellow Bus on the other hand was a bit of a challenge; very firm acetic/white vinegar with a distinct pedio/diacetyl note long through the finish. Wooof. Maritime Bourbon Bosuns' Black was the best; firm bodied chocolatey/smoky Porter with delicious caramel candy flavors from the Bourbon Barrel. The beers that showed the best were the ones where the addition of wood added real dimension and depth of flavor. Flyers Laphroiag Oaked Bottleworks VIII Imperial Scotch Ale; quite a mouthful and quite a mouthful; full bodied, boozy, rich malt sugar flavors against firm & phenolic oak. Elysian Jack Frost; candyish malt and firm citrusy bitterness out of a Jack Daniels barrel. Hair of the Dog Fred on the Wood; hearty, sprucy and candyish Strong Golden. Port Brewing Older Viscosity; sugary, intense maple and roast-like flavors with a huge Port Wine nose. Amazing beers, every one.

National!

2007-11-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

11/25: Got the word from the BJCP Mothership that I've been awarded the rank of National in the Beer Judge Certification Program. Huzzah! Now, on to Master.

Novembeerfest '07

2007-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

11/3: Judged at the Impaling Alers' annual Fall event. Sat a flight of 7 American Pale and Amber Ales. All pretty good, firm upper 20's and mid-30's. Good clean beers, good expression of style. Lunch, then a flight of 8 Spice/Herb/Vegetable beers. Standouts were two Sweet Stouts; one flavored with vanilla and another with ginger, orange and cinnamon. Obviously the same beer with differing flavor treatments. The ginger, orange and cinnamon version was real nice; like a black treacly Christmas pudding. Ooh, and a pale beer flavored with oregano. Interesting but not without it's own distinct nauseating charm. These types of beers are a challenge to judge, especially when the base beer style isn't mentioned. Your Spice/Herb/Vegetable, Wood Aged, Smoked and Specialty entries would all score better/more accurately if you'd make sure to include ALL the pertinent info with the entry. Base beer style, special ingredients, types of wood, types of smoke, and whatever else you can fit in would be sooo much help. Sat the Best of Show panel. 15 top notch homebrews. Best of Show was our ginger, orange and cinnamon Sweet Stout, 2nd Best of Show was a Dopplebock (fine malt complexity though a little bit thin bodied and hot) and 3rd Best of Show was a Strong Scotch Ale (firm malt, a bit of booze but lacking a distinct smoky phenolic). Seemed to be a bit of difference of opinion about what constitutes Best of Show judging criteria (first time I've ever used that word in a sentence, I swear). Got down to the last 3 beers of the 1st pass, one of which was a lambic. Judge X starts to spiel about how wonderful it is. I say not so fast; it's far too acetic and very one-dimensional. It simply did not taste very good. Judge X starts to comment about how it represents the style better than the other two beers in our taste-off. I say well at this point the most important thing is quality of flavor. Judge X hisses at me, hisses at me!, "We judge by style!" Not so fast Chieftan, these beers have already been judged for style. That's the whole point of the mornings' previous judging. Best of Show round is the part of the contest where we pick the best tasting beer. Style considerations are important, but mostly when you're making eliminations or ordering the remaining entries and then as a way of edging one beer over another. Sheesh. Judge X also didn't appreciate a comment made about the Strong Scotchs' lack of smoke. "These aren't smoked beers." Duh. Style guidelines state that Scotch Ales may have a phenolic smokiness. Which means that if you expect one and it's not there and that one consideration means it comes up short against the Dopplebock then it's getting a downcheck for not having it. Are there a lot of prick homebrew judges out there?

2007 Season Opener

2007-10-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

10/13: Brewed the first of this years' Christmas beers. 10 gals. of 17P Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale inspired wort.

12# Marris Otter
12# 2-row Pale
1# each 120L & 80L Crystal

Chinook, Centennial & Casdade in the kettle for 80 IBU

1# Golden Bakers' Sugar and 1/2# Corn Sugar into the kettle right before the fire went off and 2 ounces Cascade went in to steep.

Pitched a big 2 quart starter of Wyeast 1056.

Bitter wort was yummy and bitter. Mmm...

This will transfer onto dryhops, same as the kettle hop varieties. I'll put it into a keg with more dryhops still.

Got the goods for 5 gals. of Belgian-Style Dark Strong and 5 gals. of Robust Porter. May not get the Dark Strong put up in time for the Holidays. The Robo-Po shouldn't be a problem. Makes a delicious full bodied chocolatey and strong Porter that's ready to get into pretty quickly. Mmm, indeed!

10/14: Scored 15 gallons of Fox Island Farms' 13.5P apple juice. Bruce managed to get it into town in one piece this year. Huzzah! Straight apple juice + yeast this time. No honey or other sugars. Poured off 2 quarts or so for a starter of the Wyeast 1056. Turned over pretty quick and then into each of the 5 gallon carboys. They kicked off real quick; very frothy and slightly sulfurous fermentations. This stuff should attenuate pretty well and make a nicely drinking dry cider.

The Great X-Brew BBQ Turkey Michael Jackson Memorial Toast

2007-10-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

9/29: Judged X-Brew out at the Issaquah Brewhouse. Kinda funny though, 40 entries and about 16 judges. Sat one panel of mixed entries; Standard Lager, Helles, Bohemian Pilsner, Blonde Ales, a Cream Ale and a German-Style Wheatbeer. A bit of allright. Lots of off-flavors and aromas apparent. Hope these dudes are happy with my comments. Sat the Best of Show flight. Lots of good flavor. Best of Show went to a really nice smoked Doppelbock. RIch malt flavors, nicely alcoholic and firm bacon-like smoke. Spot on. Second Best of Show went to a smoked Marzen entry in the X-Brew catagory. Very interesting and complex malt and smoke flavors. In the Dopplebock the malt and smoke flavors were very well integrated. In the Marzen the malt and smoke flavors seemed to hit in two different spots in the palate. No less rich and complex than the Dopple just quite distinct. Turns out both were brewed by my friend Nathan. Cheers, Z! The one flight and the B.O.S. means I have enough points for my National pin. Huzzah! Now all I need is to make up 9 points on the exam and 20 more points and I'm a Master Judge. Whee!

9/30: Got up early to BBQ some turkeys for a family dinner later in the afternoon. Fresh natural turkeys brined with brown sugar and citrus, cooked low over a hardwood charcoal fire with applewood. Fantastic. Think I might look into opening the "House of Turkeys". Turkeys were a hit at dinner. Stopped in at the Pike on the way home to raise a glass to Michael Jackson. Glad we did. Cask Pike IPA, cask Bhagwan from the Big Time and cask Wildcat from Snoqualmie on the bar. Probably the three best IPAs in the area. Charles Finkel made a little speech and made the toast. Good room. Lots of good people in it.

Brouwers Hopfest '07

2007-09-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

9/7: Brouwers' Hopfest 2007. Beautiful evening, a table on the patio and 56 IPAs on draft. We managed to get through like 30 or so. Quite a broad range of flavors on all accounts; malt, hop bitterness, aroma and flavor, mineral/sulfate, alcohol and yeast flavors. I liked the Dryhopped Pike IPA the best; medium-light body, very fine hop character, great balance of flavor and very drinkable. Way drinkable. Enjoyed the Big Time Scarlet Fire dryhopped with fresh hops out of Bills' yard. Nice herbal/vegetal flavors, like celery tops and lemon thyme. Hair of the Dog Blue Dot like an English IPA on steroids. Flyers Mach II; big Bongwater-Style NW IPA. Very much to my taste with a sweet nose-in-the-hop-bag aroma. Skagit Bourbon Barrel Scullers on cask; firm bitterness, nice oak notes, rich flavors reminiscent of dry cocoa powder and vanilla milkshake. Two vintages of Maharaja Double IPA from Avery. The 2/20 was the best; everything you'd want and expect. Firm body, nice light-toasty caramel malt, firm citrus/resin bitterness/hop flavor all the way through the palate with a slight warmth in the finish. Just enough alcohol rising through the sinus to carry some sweet hop notes, very nice flavor effect. The 5/14 promised all that up front but seemed to be a bit rough with some solventy alcohol. Maybe that extra 3 months in cold storage really did the job for the 2/20. Kitty-corner from Brouwers is the old Redhook keg yard where there are still hops growing up over the walls. I went and pulled some hops off, brought them back to the table and we used them to doctor our own "Fresh Hopped" beers. Not sure of the variety, I think something like Willamette, but really oomphed up some of the "Not So Much" beers. We managed to work in a few rounds of other beers; Rochfort 10, the Lindemans Cuvee Renee, Schlenkerla Mårzen and Einbecker Maibock. Whew. Don't quite recall the walk home. And Saturday was a little rough. Hoo boy, was Saturday rough.

Beer Bottling Blitzkrieg

2007-09-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

9/2: Hunkered down and got a couple batches of beer put away. Barley Wine into 2 cases of 12 oz'ers and a short case of 22's. Imperial Stout into 2 cases of 22's. Saison into 2 cases of 22's and a corny keg. Transfered the Biere de Garde from under it's pellicle into a clean carboy. I've had a couple ounces of the Stavin American Oak cubes soaking in some George DIckel for a awhile. I dosed some of the Barley Wine and Imperial Stout with these. Wasn't sure of how far to go with the addition of oak cubes so I did 2 pairs of bottles with 4 cubes and 2 pairs of bottles with 6 apiece. The Imperial Stout got a similar treatment but starting with more cubes, like 8 to 10. I figure I can up the dose as needed. Very excited to see how these turn out. The bottles smelled amazing before the caps went on. The Imperial Stout turned up spot on; bitter black, slightly oily with a lightly ashy finish. The Saison should condition up nice; earthy, toasty malt, lightly drying and spicy. The BdG has got some interesting stuff going on; firm and dry "cellared" character with a touch of tangy pineapple. Something wild going on, perhaps a touch of the Brett. I'll bottle this up shortly and we'll see how we do.

MIchael Jackson 1942-2007

2007-08-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson has been a profound influence on me, where beer flavor is more important than beer style. Beer is not simply defined by OG, TG, IBU, SRM and ABV. Mr. Jackson presented a point of view where the broader flavor profile is the least of it. The simple technical characteristics of a beer fit within style description. The subjective qualities of beer; aroma, appearance, texture, food accompaniment, and the simple satisfaction of a soft pint have a deeper significance. Similar to the way wine is tasted and described, Mr. Jackson brought a lexicon and a sense of literature to the way beer flavor is described. Beer style is a function of beer flavor and the technical, geographic, cultural, and commercial influences on that beer flavor. Mr. Jackson was a sound authority on those influences and their importance. Every beer tells a story and Michael Jackson was a great story teller.

And On To the Beach

2007-08-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

8/5-8/12: Spent the week camping at Kalaloch. Very nice. Though it took until Thursday to really unwind. The ten gallons of Red Ale was delicious. Firm malt: chewy, lightly sweet and raisiny, excellent bitterness: that bittering hop combination is a nice balance of "clean" and "dirty" bitternesses, good hop fragrances and flavors, and nice fruity esters: melon and pears. Carbonation was a bit on the low side which was fine. I usually just stick the keg in a bucket of water for cooling, so the beer pours at "cellar" temperature. Mmmm, nice and soft.

Into the Keg

2007-07-15T21:19:00.001-07:00

3/14: Kegged the Red Ale. Dryhopped each keg with an ounce of Amarillo. Terminal gravity was just a touch high. Maybe it'll dry out a little further. Tastes nice though. Quite firm bitterness, raisiny malt flavors and light fruity esters.

I think I might toss all my kegs and start over. Couldn't get the liquid tube of the second keg to stay pointed straight down the keg. It kept twisting. Son of a Beeotch. Aw, maybe I'm due for a coupla keg reconditioning kits. Although tossing out all those ungrateful MF's sounds appealing.

I'll have to forego brewing the beers for the wedding party. Not enough time. Plus too hot for brewing. Oh well.

Sketches of Belgium

2007-07-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

The grand detailed post reflecting on our recent trip to Belgium is feeling a little over-ambitious. We're deep into extra hours at work and spending any more time in front of a computer keyboard than I absolutely have to is a bit "Not so much" right now. Anyway, here's the Fisher-Price version:

Checked into Brussels June 13th for a two night stay. Our first meal in Belgium was mussels and frites at Chez Leon washed down with Mort Subite Geueze. Hit Delirium (spent two evenings "in residence"), Poechenellekelder (awesome little cafe and great staff) and the Cafe Mort Subite. Dinner at t'Spanakopke, desert was an assortment of sorbet made from beer (Wit, Kriek Lambic and an amazing spot of Maredsous 10 - delicious). Picked up the rental and sped North to Antwerpen (should have followed Dons' advice and went with the GPS option). Stopped at Het Anker for lunch. In Antwerpen, checked into the Hotel Rubens off the Grande Place. Maredsous 10 and Liefmans Kriek on draft at Kulminator. Went for the 20 year old bottle of Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus (musty, mushroomy and heatburny). After dinner beers at Pater's Vaetje. Lunch the next day at the DeKoninck cafe. Then off to Ghent. Beautiful city. Dulle Griet and Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant housebeers; light, mildly sweet pale Blonde and a dryish, bitter effervescent pale beer. Both very tasty. Off to Brugge for three nights. Checked in to the Hotel Erasmus. First class accomodations, first class kitchen and great location. Found t'Bruges Beertje, Cambrinus, De Halve Maan Brewery and Cafe Vlissinghe. Met a very kind and generous local gentleman at the Beertje who offered to give us a walking tour of Brugge. Two mornings of amazing walks through the town telling the story of Brugge. We spent one day out of town and drove out to the North Sea coast, then off to Trappist Westvleteren for lunch at the De Vrede. Simply amazing; beautiful lunch of the Brothers' cheese, pate and bread along with their profoundly delicious beers. Peak experience for sure. Last Supper in Brugge was at Den Huzzar; recommended by our new friend Paul. I had a delicious Brugge specialty of braised pork cheek with grapes. Rich and intensely flavored. Washed down nicely with the Bruges' Zot. From Brugge to Mons. Our first serious brush with the language barrier. Mons to Rochefort. On the way went west to pay our respects to Brasseries' Dupont and Dubuisson. A few rounds of Saison and samples of the new Moinette fruit beer (flavored with green apple and black currant; tart and pleasantly sweet). Lunch at the Dubuisson cafe. Overcooked food. But the Cuvee de Trolls and the Bush 7% were very nice. Checked in at Rochefort. Dinner at the Hotel Luxembourg Cafe. Nicely prepared Entrecote (a little tight for medium) with frites accompanied by a few rounds of Trappist Rochefort beers. From Rochefort out to Orval for a stroll through the ruins of the old Abbey. Lunch at the Cafe down the road; the 6.5% Orval was quite a bit milder than what we get here (Brett character was light and faintly pineappley) and the Petite Orval was particularly nice (mild Pale Ale, well hopped with elegant Sulfate notes). Off to Luxembourg city for the National Holiday Party. And Luxembourgers know how to party. The whole town is roped off and turned into a beer garden. Beer stalls and sausage vendors on every block. Tons of music; the whole gamut of rock bands and DJs all over (some really good ones too). Very pleasurable experience wandering around with a half liter of Bofferdings (crisp and creamy Pils with faint hints of Kolsch) in one hand and a hot and juicy smoked Mettwurst in the other. Very civilized. Hung out to watch the fireworks, more accurately we hung out and got fireworked on. Luxembourg to Houffalize. Paid our repects at Brasserie LaChouffe. Stayed at the Hotel du Commerce in Houffalize, very nice accomodations and the staff was very forgiving about our lack of French. Back to Brussels. On the way a stop at the Drie Fontainen Cafe for Sunday lunch. Young Lambic and Faro off the handpump, real tart with firm acetic flavors and the same flavored with sugar syrup. Checked in at Brussels. Toured Cantillon. Another couple rounds at Delirium. If I had been paying attention earlier in the trip I would have got onto the La Rulles Estivale a lot sooner; light bodied, pale & hazy, effervescent, intensely bitter and dryhopped. Excellent. Got some shopping out of the way, mostly chocolate to take back with us. Chocolate covered candied orange peel from Planet Chocolate is the best. Though the girls on duty were shocked when we mentioned pairing beer and chocolate. Found the one restaurant in the city that has Pho on the menu. Nice. Adieu to fair Brussels and off to the airport. Delayed flight meant having to spend a couple hours washing down Neuhaus chocolate truffles with half liters of Leffe Blond. Darn. In all our trip to Belgium was amazing.

Something Reddish

2007-07-02T21:07:00.001-07:00

6/30: Brewed 10 gals. of beer for our week at Kalaloch in August.

10# 2 Row
5# Marris Otter
5# Munich
2# Honey Malt
1# Biscuit Malt
1/2 #'s each; Special B & Crystal 120

Made an attempt at a Batch Sparge and the efficiency was just 65%. Bummer.

1 oz. 13.3% alpha Simcoe @ 1st wort
1 oz. 11.5% alpha Magnum + 1/2 oz. 13.1% alpha Chinook + 1/2 oz. 17% alpha Columbus at 60 and 30
1 oz. 8.9% alpha Amarillo at 20 and 10

Pitched the Wyeast 1098 British Ale. One of my favorites; good attenuation, malt and hop accenting and a nice flavor profile overall.

I'll dryhop each tank with an ounce of the Amarillo for added dimensions of hoppiness. I'm expecting a firm bitterness from this beer and the dryhop should compliment nicely.

We'll take a tank of Saison with us too.

I'm soo looking forward to hitting the Coast. This has been a yearly trip for ages, we missed it last year and this year will make up for it. Campfires, beach walks, toss some horse shoes, fly a bit of kite, afternoon naps, lotsa hearty home brewed beer and good food. My favorite camping lunch is cold roast chicken, hard white cheddar and Stoned Wheat Thins washed down with lashings of good home brewed beer. Hmmm.

... The Wonderful Wizard of Ahs

2007-06-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

We're back. Amazing. I'll be posting more as I get my notes sorted.

Off To See The Wizard...

2007-06-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

We're off to Belgium. Not a moment too soon either. Last couple weeks have been a Perfect Storm of family obligations (folks from out of town, houseguests, a Commencement). I'm starting to feel the "Got To Brew" pinch. All me free time I would have used in April/May for brewing, I was judging. Extra hours at work and the familial plague since then have precluded any time in the Homebrewery. Oh, my truck got hit too and I've had to contend with that. Drivers' side door won't operate. Climbing in and out through the passenger side is a f*cking drag. But we have a couple days out of town to look forward to. I'm taking the kit so I'll be able to post, maybe put up some pictures. I hope to return inspired and hot to fire up the kettles. When we get back I'll be brewing some Double IPA and Strong Wit for a friends' wedding party and beer for our camping trip in August (a 4C Pale and some nice, nutty Mild). And then I'll see where the Belgian Retreat leads me.

My Dinner With Tomme

2007-05-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

5/21: Tomme Arthur beer dinner at Union hosted by the Rare Beer Club. Six courses of American Bistro-Style cuisine paired with beers by Artisinal Brewer Tomme Arthur. Woo woo! This should be good. Tomme says that he doesn't brew Belgian-Style beer but Belgian-Inspired beer, cool with me, but they're still Belgian-Styled beers.

• Hors d'oeuvres: Nice firm and nutty prosciutto with toasted Spanish almonds and batter fried quail legs served with the Lost Abbey Devotion ale. Dry, drinkable and dry-hopped glass of "6". Firm resinous bitterness and soft conditioning. A nice pair with the prosciutto not so much with the quail (too much batter coating, tough, dry meat).

• Foie Gras Terrine with Pear Mostarda (pear candied with mustard) served with Mahleur Brut Reserve. The Lost Abbey beer "Signature" was not available due to Customs SNAFU so was replaced by the Brute. Amazing glass of beer; elegant aromas of perfumed tropical breezes, deep earthy cellar flavors, luscious velvet-like mouthfeel, warming and heady at the finish. Excellent pair with the liver, both similarly rich on the palate but played with the spicy/sweet pear/mustard and the effervescent Brut. Nicely done.

• Seared Halibut with Braised Morel, English Peas served with Lost Abbey Avant Garde ale. Tomme Arthurs' Blonde Biere de Garde didn't display the dry, earthy richness I associate with this type of beer. A fine, dry cracker malt character, bitter forward (slightly too much so) and a tad too much spritz in the condition. Seemed to close to the Devotion. The dish was similarly a little loose; fish slightly overdone, not enough morel and the peas too firm. Better yet would have been a larger proportion of morel presented as ragout placed over a rich puree of peas and topped with a flash seared piece of fish. The highest quality halibut can stand to be served slightly less than medium. No matter what the Health Department says.

• Braised Veal Cheek with Potato and Ramp Puree, Roasted Artichokes served with Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale. EEK! The servers are swirling the bottles! Yuk, serving the lees should be optional at best. I'm careful to select from the brighter pours from here on. Tomme Arthurs' updated Pizza Port SPF 45 Saison; a very expressive mix of earthy perfumes, spices, lightly resinous bitterness, tart mineral-like yeast and firm effervescence. Paired with a drop dead amazing dish of intensely rich and flavorful fall-apart-under-the-fork cheek, rich buttery puree and fleshy artichoke. Good pairing where the beers' black peppery notes complimented the dish and forward bitterness and firm conditioning kept the palate bustling.

• Roasted Venison served with Lost Abbey 10 Commandments ale. Tomme Arthurs' updated Pizza Port SPF 8 Saison; strong, dark and richly flavored, firm bodied and dry chocolatey, light rum and raisin flavors complimented by a light peppery yeast character. Served with a very rich and firm medallion of venison loin with a red wine/dried cherry jus. A good dish but after that veal cheek, it just doesn't show very well. Pairs with the beer OK, nice warm spiciness of the beer compliments the venison. I might have chosen something else, duck, goose or wild boar, to pair game with the 10C. Texturally the venison was just too big and chewy.

• Chocolate Terrine, Coffee Ice Cream, Pistachio Brittle served with Cuvee de Tomme 2005. Aromatic and funky; strong, dark chocolate, bourbon oak, meaty cherry pit and wonderful Brettanamyces tang. A delicious take on the Belgian Sour Red. Served with a challenging chocolate terrine; too starchy tasting with a slightly gritty texture. OK ice cream and just a dusting of the brittle. Better yet would have been a single simple chocolate truffle faintly infused with black pepper. The Cuvee de Tomme is a deeply flavored glass of beer. Almost too much to serve just to wash down a desert. Maybe a sliver of a hard, aged cheese, Manchego or Edam; a slight salty/nutty counterpoint to the fruit and tang of the Cuvee would be nice. I could go on and on. Man, it was tasty.

Does it seem like "earthy" as a flavor descriptor is overused here? What the hey, if the shoe fits... "Beer Style" or the language we use to define and describe beer flavor always reflects where the beer comes from. Tomme Arthur is partial to Farmhouse or Country Style beers, Saison and Blonde/Brune Biere de Garde are just the starting points. These types of beers come from the land and the people who work the land. These beers will share aromas and flavors with the things that come out of that ground and that ground itself. Tomme Arthur considers himself an artist, his palette is beer flavor and he has deep talent for creating a true expression of where beer comes from.

My Brewers Cup Runneth Over

2007-05-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

5/5: Cascade Brewers' Cup Day One. Showed up early out at Redhook Woodinville to help pull entries and whatnot. Sat two flights. Seven Pilsner entries; Germans and Bohemians and one Classic American Pilsner (Advanced to BOS). Seven Stout entries; all the substyles represented except for Russian Imperial Stout. The best was a very nice Foreign Extra.

5/12: Cascade Brewers' Cup Day Two. Showed up early out at Redhook Woodinville to help setup, pull entries and yes, whatnot. Sat three flights. Nine American Ale entries; Pales and Ambers. One of the Pales was nice, scored a 37. Seven Belgian and French Ale entries; three Wits, a Belgian Pale, a Saison and a "Specialty Ale" (no French bieres). One flight of 4 Other Smoked Beers and 3 Wood Aged Beers; good entries overall, the Smoked Dunkelweizen advanced to BOS. Excellent beer; sweet roll malt flavors, firm banana, warm spice phenol (clove, cardamom) and firm smoke. Think Bananas' Foster over the campfire. Should have been the big session but only 6 judges showed. Bummer.

5/16: Cascade Brewers' Cup Day Three. Pick-up judging session at Mountain Homebrew to make up for getting stiffed last Saturday. Sat one flight of Specialty Beer (Huzzah!). Interesting ingredients, etc.; a very fine Berliner Weisse (firm carbonation, soft lactic character, dry with green apple notes) and a handful of entries that appeared to be Dogfish clones (a Golden Shower-like Strong Bohemian Pilsner, an Indian Brown and a Black & Blue-like beer but with cherries along with the blueberries instead of blackberries).

5/19: Cascade Brewers' Cup Day Four. Lake Washington Rowing Club at 9AM. Sat a flight of Russian Imperial Stout with 8 entries. Solid low to mid 30's and then a 41 for the final entry. Great glass of beer; rich complex malt flavors, tons of chocolate, dried dark fruit and alcohol, low carbonation with a velvety mouthfeel. Sat the Best of Show round. That was a bit of allright, took a bit long to get it knocked out though. Win, Place, Show turned out to be a Weissbier, an American IPA and a British-Style Premium Bitter. The Best to Brew prize went to the 41 point RIMP.

Cheers to the Brewers' Cup Organizer for pulling the Competition along kicking and screaming. For a club that has a national level competition written into the bylaws you'd figure that it wouldn't be so hard to get the clubs' judges to participate. Sheesh. Anyways, I believe that I now have enough experience points fer me National pin. Yes!

A Real Corker

2007-05-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

5/8: Batch primed, dosed with a bit of fresh yeast and bottled the Golden Strong. Put it into "Belgian-Style" brown glass bottles (750's with the broad shoulders) and corked 'em. Cages took a bit to get a suitable method down. Fingers crossed.

Got down to 2P for terminal gravity. That dose of sugar at high krausen must've worked well. Out of the carboy the beer is a deep gold, has a fine malt sweetness, a firm phenolic spiciness and a quite forward hop character. Bitterness apparent with a firm spicy/herbal hop flavor. Finishes a bit grassy, sl. chewy with a lingering anise-like note. Should be great after conditioning.

Overall Impression: 3/10

2007-04-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

On the way home from Portland, reflecting on that days' judging experience, I decided that unless you're putting your ass in a chair to judge at home brew competitions you have no business entering beer into home brew competitions for judging. Competition organizing and judging take up a huge amount of time and effort. Judging your home brewed beer is a lot of work. There are many entries that absolutely require very thoughtful deliberate consideration. Particularly when a Quality Judge is working at rating the beer accurately for competition and providing meaningful feedback for you, the brewer. The program needs more judges, especially in regions like ours where there are a lot of very active competitive home brewers, great distances seperate our events and the ratio of entries to available judges is high. The goal should be to minimize the number of entries each judge has to evaluate. Fewer entries means less palate blow-out, higher quality feedback on the scoresheet and I don't go home feeling like I spent the day drinking hairspray. Home brew judging should be enjoyable.

Entrants are hopeful that the feedback they receive from the judges will help them brew better beer. Sounds good, but the best way to develop a better understanding of beer flavor profile and process is by judging beer. I repeatedly hear two comments from beer judges; "I got involved with judging because I wasn't satisified with the quality of the comments I received for my entries and I knew I could do better" and "Once I started judging beer the quality of my home brew improved". Cheers to the former as I think the program is strongest when we take responsibility for it by entering beers into home brewing competitions for judging and then supporting home brew competitions by judging in them. In regards to the latter, the quality of your home brewing (beer, mead, cider, sake, experimental, extreme, kitchen sink beers, whatever) will improve to a greater degree with involvement in judging than by simply relying on a judges' feedback. Learning to judge beer, developing the understanding of every aspect of brewing, flavor evaluation and quality assessment necessary for Quality Judging will do better for your brewing in a way that comments on a scoresheet never will. Cheers!

I Heart Portland

2007-04-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

3/28: Got a wicked early start and hit the road for Portland to judge the second split of our regions' entries for 1st Round Nationals. Failed a saving throw against getting lost but still made the venue early. My Judging Mentor made an appearance. Hadn't seen him in awhile, so it was cool to get caught up with him. Sat a flight of 7 entries in the American Pale Ale category (with a taste off between the high scorers of 4 flights of APA) and after lunch a flight of 6 entries in the Robust Porter category (with a taste off between the hight scorers of 2 flights of RP). The APA's were mostly high 20's/low 30's and mostly to style with the exception being an overall lack of well balanced hop character; over bitter without much forward aroma and flavor. There were a couple real nice Robust Porters though. The best one was well bittered, had nice raisiny black malt flavors and a stiff alcoholic backbone. Very well made.

My first out of town judging experience was mostly positive. First off, I appreciate and understand the time and effort made by anyone undertaking the task of organizing a homebrew competition especially a first-timer. The Organizer, his staff, the 'Brew Crew and allied judges in attendance were friendly, capable and on mission. A lot of credit goes to the Organizer and his staff for keeping the judges assigned to flights a mix of experienced BJCP and less experienced BJCP/non-BJCP. With the amount of entries and typical judging day madhouse this effort to support the BJCP programs' mission of beer judge education could have easily been set aside to simply plow through the assembled entries. Now, the "wah-mbulance"; I would have preferred that the judges been assigned to their flights and not left standing around like my amigos at the Home Depot, stepping forward willy-nilly as the flights were brought out. Also avoiding the situation where the local bull judges are zipping up the foxiest categories. I would have liked some preference shown to the judges from out of town. Like maybe some locals stepping forward to help pull the first couple flights instead of the judges from Seattle and Redmond. Anyway, maybe I can squeeze a staff point out of it.

Wimped out on sitting a 3rd flight. A long drive home and still had some errands to run. Hit the Roots organic brewpub for a short pour of their IPA. Awesome glass of beer; huge hop aroma (cut grass/lemon pepper, some sweet resin) wicked up front bitterness, huge herbal/resinous hop flavors, firm lightly sweet malt and very well carbonated. Tasted like weed, yummy. Found the Belmont Station at their new location. Went into the cafe and sat down to a glass of Chouffe Houblon Belgian-style IPA. Delicious. Chatted with the beertender, Wade, super nice guy. I made a pass through the bottleshop on the way out to pick up a few things that aren't distributed up here in Seattle. Mostly Jolly Pumpkin stuff. I think I may have pretty well wiped the Blemont out. Some Roja, some Maracaibo, some Blanca, the last of their Oro and most of the Bam 12 ozs'ers they had on hand. They talked me into a bomber of the 2006 Barley Wine from Pelican, in place of a very expensive Arctic Devil. And then back to the house.

BJCP Style Guide Amendment

2007-04-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

Just had a really obnoxious idea. How 'bout adding food pairings to the BJCP Style Guide? Ya know, just slipped in after the list of commercial examples.

Korean-Style Short Ribs + Export-Style lager = TL4E

2007-04-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

Came up with a wicked simple marinade that is simply wickedly delicious.

Equal parts soy sauce and brown sugar (1/2 cup or so each)
8-ish garlic cloves, minced (better yet, half a head of garlic, minced)
A wee dribble of Mirin
A not-so-wee dribble of Sesame Oil
Many grinds of white pepper
A handful of sliced green onion

Threw this into a zip-bag with some good looking Natural Beef short ribs cut Kalbi style. Just short of 4 pounds. Zipped up, massaged it a bit and then into the fridge. Let it rest about 2 hours. Got a nice medium-afterburner fire going in the Egg. I've been rocking the Kingsford brand hardwood charcoal lately. Not bad at $6.99 for a 10# bag (should probably have stocked up). Burns clean and hot with some nice campfire notes. Anyway, on with the ribs. Centered over the fire at 2 mins. per side. Just enough for some good color and cooked to medium (maybe 3+ mins. on that 1st side next time). Served with chili/garlic stir-fried Asparagus and steaming hot white rice. Very nice indeed.

The only thing missing were quarts and quarts of cold and crisp home brewed Export-Style Lager to wash it down. Export is one of my dream styles. Medium-full bodied, lightly malt sweet, firm underlying bitterness, tight conditioning and a snappy finish. I love it. Made do with Singha for the ribs. I like the Singha but it's a bit moody and you don't always end up with a brightly flavored glass of beer. If it's off, it's usually stale. BJCP places Singha in the American Premium Lager catagory. I'm thinking "Not so much". An OG of 1.064 and medium-full body with a well distinguished malt complexity should place it well outside the American Premium standard. When I want Export-Style beer I go for Singha (though that 1.064 is still off the BJCP chart). One of my peak beer experiences is on one of our early trips to Frisco when the Gordon Biersch off Harrison was still fresh to us. We dropped in for lunch on an afternoon when they had their "Golden Export" on tap. A sublimely delicious glass of beer. Half order of zesty BBQ'd Baby Backs, salty garlic fries right off the oil and that Export-Style beer. Very, very nice indeed.

1st Round Nationals - Seattle

2007-04-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

4/21: Sat three flights for the 1st Round National Homebrew Competition Mountain/Northwest Region. American Premium Lager, Schwarzbier and Vienna Lager. At least one good Premium; spot on balance and clean as a whistle. Schwarzbiers were interesting; seems the approach most of the entrants were going for were lagered Porters. The Viennas' were tough. Cloying malt sweetness is not the same as malt complexity. Oh, and consider shooting for the low end of the OG range on these beers fellas. Top end of the range in the Style Guide is 5.7%abv, kick those 6+ percenters up to 5A/Helles Bock. The last couple entries seemed a bit alcohol-sweet too.

We'll choogle down to Portland next Saturday for the second Mountain/Northwest Region judging session. Closing in on my National pin. Should think about retesting and scoring high enough for Master. Just need to make up 9 points on the exam. Hmm....

Twist and Stout

2007-04-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

4/11: Took some of the Stout to the Club meeting. So much for a Dry Stout, it's showing much, much better as a luscious chocolatey Sweet Stout.

Oh, and mind the difference between "Sterile" and "Sanitary". Harumph!

Golden Strong Ale

2007-04-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

Scored some yeast from the Pike. A bit of their Belgian strain (White Labs 530) which is similar to the one from Westmalle.

4/5: Brew

6# Belgian Pils
6# Marris Otter
1/2# Biscuit malt
1# Flaked Barley

Gave me 5 or so gals. of 16P wort

.6 ozs. 13.3% alpha Simcoe @ 60
2 ozs. Czech Saaz plugs @ 20

Pitched the Pike/Westmalle.

This went into one of my brewing vessels lined with a fresh 33 gal. trash bag liner. There was an article in a recent Zymurgy about the effects of fermenter geometry on flavor profile. So I thought I'd try something in that direction. This setup is good for a shallow (8"-9"), open ferment. We'll see what happens.

4/11: Transfer

Into a clean, sanitzed glass carboy. Then added a syrup made up of 1 and 1/2# corn sugar and a quart or so of water.

Not being one to simply change one aspect of the process at a time; the other novel approach I'm trying with this batch is a new way of using sugar. I skipped the sugar addition in the kettle and racked the beer onto a syrup solution just past high krausen instead. Tried this to help ensure a greater degree of attenuation. Yeast will ferment simple sugars preferentialy. In a wort of complex malt sugars and simple sugars, there's a chance that as the simple sugars are completely fermented there might be viability issues that affect the fermentation of the more complex malt sugars. Leaving a relatively high terminal gravity. In this case I'm adding the simple sugars after a fair amount of the complex sugars have been taken up. So, we get attenuation of the complex sugars and nearly complete fermentation of the simple sugars and we hope a nice dryish, "digestable" glass of beer. Jamil can explain it better.

Hard Liver v5

2007-03-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

3/17: Up at 6:30 to get a fire going in the Egg. Got the brisket on then down to Brouwers at 9AM to judge Barley Wine. Scored 6 entries, the one notable entry ended up being the Old Wookie from Waterstreet. Helped collate and add up the scores. Each entry had 5 score sheets to resolve and add up for a cumulative score (each sheet representing a score between -17 and +17). Half dozen or so needed a "retest" because the scores were so wildly disparate. Well experienced judges should be able to turn in scores within 7 or 8 points of one another. Some of these entries had scores ranging from a -12 to 9. Yike. Anyway, it looked like a solid ten or so advanced to the second round with scores in the upper 40's and into the middle 50's. Went downstairs and sat down with a glass of the Arctic Devil from Midnight Sun. Excellent beer! Firm malt (warm toasted marshmellow, vanilla/maple toffee) with good bitterness underneath, warming with added dimension of flavor from being wood aged. One of the beers we missed out on at Toronado. Shot the shit for a few and went back up to the house. Made a run for groceries and back to the house to make dinner. Pulled the corned beef off the fire (I had taken the supplied pickling spices that you're supposed to use in the boil, ran them through the spice grinder with some more bay leaf and a fair whack of black pepper and used it as a sort of rub. It looked and smelled awesome), stoked the Egg up a bit, laid out some applewood and put the trout on. Went after a pitcher of my Dry Stout to find that it was really iced up. Thawed it a bit in a bucket and it started to pour OK. Finished dinner prep and dug in. Excellent meal of BBQ'd corned beef, smoked trout, cabbage (braised in water with a bit of chicken stock and green apple), carrots glazed with honey and orange, boiled potatoes (broken up on the plate, well buttered and loosened with a bit of the cabbage braising liquid) and fresh from the oven soda bread. All washed down with me Stout. Yummy to say the least. Back down to Brouwers for dessert. Notable examples were the Old Ruffian from Great Divide and the Doggie Claws from Hair of the Dog. Both beers excellent examples of a more West Coast-Styled Barley Wine. Firm heavy dextrin malt flavors, quite firm bitterness long in the palate and very aromatic. Sampled 20 good Barley Wines and one spoiled Barley Wine. The 2004 Stone Old Guardian was bad. Cloudy, vile smelling and tasting of garbage. Lots of good conversation and it looked like the yahoos were mostly well behaved too. I think I may have three offers for a job as a brewer. Stay tuned.

New Cask Festival Boogie

2007-03-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

3/10: Washington Cask Beer Festival. Better. (see 10/16/06 post) Showed up in a rather more timely manner than last time and were treated to the last three festival glasses on the table. Lots of tasting note sheets though. Back in the Alki room which I like better than the Fisher Pavilion, not quite so bright and cavernous. Lots of good beers put out for us. Started off with the Bottleworks VIII Oak Aged Strong Scotch Ale brewed by Flyers and released to honor the Anniversary of the Bottleworks store. Very rich, satisfying meld of soft toffee-ish malt flavor and whiskey. Lush and mouthfilling on the palate. I'll have to make run for a few bottles. After putting up with a bit of weirdness from Younts we managed samples of Adambier from Hair of the Dog. This is an amazing beer; firm, full bodied, great depth of flavor, deep dark bittersweet chocolate, dried fruit (black currants and cherries), long firm bitterness and gently warming in the finish. I hadn't been too keen on this seasons' Jolly Roger out of the bottle. Maritime had a tank of Jolly seasoned with rum soaked oak on hand. Very nice, the rum and wood added some nice vanilla/maple flavors and a certain richness, like a boozy rum hardcandy. Skagit River had an excellent wood aged Porter. Medium bodied, mild nutty and toasty malt flavor with dry chocolate cocoa, just the correct amount of hop finishing a bit chewy and inviting. Perfect for a nice, ripe salty sheeps milk cheese and ripe pear. I think Dave Leonard may be on to something. He had his Belgian-Style Dubbel with him; very impressive, medium bodied, nice malt flavors (toast, raisins, dates) but very nicely attenuated. Good dextrin development and a modest terminal gravity combined for drinkability. On top of that he threw in a bit of Brett to add complexity. Not funky by any degree but just enough tart and green apple to add a savory mystery to the finish. Many good beers on hand and good people in attendance. Straight home to bed. No "Afters" this time, I had to work Sunday.

Dry Stout

2007-03-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

My annual Dry Stout for St. Patty's Day.

3/3: Brew

7# Crisp Marris Otter
1# Roasted Barley
1# Flaked Barley
4 ozs. Chocolate malt

Gave me 5 gals. 11.5P wort.

2 ozs. 4.8% alpha Domestic Goldings in one addition.

Pitched the Wyeast 1084.

3/13: Rack to keg.

Terminal is 3.75P (or 1.015). Higher residual sweetness; a little too firm and chewy for a proper Dry Stout, quite nutty (Choc. Malt), long coffee-ish finish. Needs a bit of conditioning to sweeten up a bit, still a fair bit of yeasty sulfur hanging in. But tasty nonetheless.

3/15: QC

Tapped the keg to check the gas level. Turned out fine. And the sulfur has cleared. Deep brown/black, moussy tan head, mild aromatics (coffee and dark bittersweet chocolate), a light-medium body, not so chewy with the gas in it, slightly oily on the palate, firm roast flavors ending on a quite smoky note in the finish. Tasty and drinkable. Cheers.

Sweet Home Toronado

2007-03-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

Choogled down to Frisco for a long weekend and the Toronado Barley Wine Festival. Flew out the Thurs. night and man I was pissed. Air travel in Post-9/11 Soviet America sucks. And motherfuck the TSA. That's all I got to say about that. Missed out on an early start time on Saturday for the BW Fest (too much carrying on the night before). Wink, wink. Strolled in later in the evening to a relatively light crowd. The 2004 "Big Nugget" from Alaskan Brewing was already up on the 86'd sheet, came to find out that it took a first in judging. Figures. Also missed out on the Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine from Drakes. Must've gone while we were getting our accomodations squared away. That left only 52 Barley Wines to hunker down to. We sat down to the first half of the list. 2005 Hair of the Dog "Doggie Claws" stood out; a hazy pale orange-amber, very aromatic (fruit, toast, some alcohol, flowers and resin), medium-full body, very firm on the palate, very firm/forward bitterness and a deep resinous finish. The Best. Had the "Angel's Share" from the new Port Brewing Trappist-Style outfit, Lost Abbey; an intense and deeply flavorful interpretation of a Trappist 12, think St. Bernardus with rum flamed Bananas Foster. Very slightly too full bodied yet otherwise heavenly. Enjoyed J.W. Lees Harvest Ale; brilliant, ruby red, very leggy, intense aromatics (rum, raisins, chocolate, dried black currants) and great depth of flavor. I imagine an all pale grain bill with a real long boil to develop the intense color and flavors. Enough for the evening. Back to the apartment and sweet dreams. Early afternoon on Sunday, back up to the Toronado for the second half. Now at this point the 86'd sheet had quite a few more dead soldiers posted. Missed out on a couple that I was curious about (but weren't being served the previous evening); 2005 Southampton "Old Herb", Midnight Sun oak aged "Sun Devil" and Dogfish Head "Old School Ale". Not too put off by missing the Midnight Sun, should be able to pick that up later at the Hard Liver. Would have liked to check out the Dogfish Head. Not a fan of Dogfish Head but I will sample their beers just to keep up. 2007 "Big Woody" from Glacier Brewhouse in Anchorage was worthy; big, flavorful West Coast-Style aged in French oak. Firm, chewy yet elegant and pleasantly warming. I'll put off a complete posting of tasting notes for another time. These were all the 2-plus beers off my notes. Overall the quality of flavor and condition was a bit rough. Most of the younger beers were a bit green or had some defect; thin bodied and solventy being a common theme. Most of the older beers seemed to have lost a little somethin'-somethin'; stale. Good times.

St. Valentines' Day Massacre

2007-03-06T21:03:00.000-08:00

Met my sweetie at the Pike after her run through of the Flower and Garden Show for their Valentines' Day Beer Lovers' Dinner. Four courses accompanied by Pike beer. Appetizer was some local organic radish with truffle salt and Beechers Butter with an assortment of charcruterie served with the Pike IPA; Peppery radishes (with the salt and butter washed down with the IPA, the best!) nice Salami and Coppa from Salume (a bit mild to my taste) and some amazing Prosciutto (salty, melt in your mouth buttery) along with the Pikes' toast-ish, firmly bitter IPA. A simple salad course of local greens, beets, wee yellow tomatoes and Estrella Blue Cheese dressed with a Framboise vinaigrette accompanied by the Pike Scotch ale; fresh and toothsome greens, lovely beets, (not enough) excellent local cheese, a relatively mild dressing. Not too sure the beer worked very well though. Perhaps too malty and alcohol forward for such a delicate preparation. My entree was Prime Rib sauced with Pike Tandem jus and served with horseradish mashed potatoes along with the Pike "Old Bawdy" Barleywine. Pffft... Good beef but from too near the middle of the roast for my taste, a bit pink and that's the bit that cools the fastest. Mashers were fine, mildly horseradished. The jus missed the plate. And, eek, grated horseradish as a garnish. Serving grated horseradish is simply uncivilized and a dirty trick. Old Bawdy helped; deep red/mahogany, toffee malt flavors, firm bitterness and warming. A nice counterpoint to the more appetizing bites of the roast. My sweetie had the King Crab legs, nice but similarly "not so much". We chose one of each of the deserts; a house made chocolate tart with vanilla gelato and the cheese plate along with one each of the accompanying drinks, Pike Chocolate Stout from the cask and Siegerrehe (a sweet muscat-ish wine from Bainbridge Island Winery). The chocolate tart was OK; crust was a bit too firm, the filling a very firm bittersweet chocolate but the gelato was delicious. The cheese plate was amazing (really); Brewleggio a firm Tallegio-style with a Pike Tandem Double ale washed rind from Estrella Farm Creamery, "Vache de Vashon" a soft-ish, buttery/nutty cheese and "Cirrus" a Camembert styled cheese from Mt. Townsend Creamery in Port Townsend. Holy shit! An amazing cheese, soft buttery, earthy with hints of grass and wildflowers. All the cheeses were fantastic.

Once and a while I have a difficult time with eating out. I hate sitting through a meal knowing I could have done better. Though I enjoyed our dinner at the Pike here's what I'd do; Appetizer; same charcruterie but fewer more generously portioned slices of the cured sausages with a taste of Parmasan Reggiano or well aged Edam and bit of cracker served with the Pike Pale, mild bitterness and firm nutty maltiness to go along with the rich meats and the salty cheese. Salad served a bit more rustic and deconstructed; beets roasted in the oven with garlic and fresh thyme, a fair chunk of the Blue, perhaps a compote of the tomatoes served with a stack of the Framboise vinaigrette dressed greens with the Pike Scotch ale, here we'd want to start with a salad emphasizing the hearty/earthy quality of the ingredients and counterpoint the vinegar and blue cheese with the relatively malty sweet character of the Scotch ale. Entree; same roast of beef perhaps a cut from a smaller, very slightly more well done roast, better browning, seasoned better (salt and pepper!). Put the jus in its own ramekin on the plate. Mashers = OK. Serve a horseradish sauce! A simple preparation of fresh, finely grated (or ground) horseradish, sour cream, salt and white pepper is more than sufficient (as well as suitably civilized). Old Bawdy is still served. Desert; chocolate tart, bittersweet genache in a flaky crust served with lemon cream and Stoli Raspberry couli. Cheese plate; same cheeses but with a second 1 1/2 ounce portion to make sharing better. Both accompanied by the world class Pike 5X Stout.

Dinner was nice. But the best is our traditional Valentines' treat of chocolate and Orval. 'Cept this year we ended up with some shitty truffles. That's the last time I pass on the Diletantes.

What A Long Strange Brewfest It's Been

2007-02-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

We did the Strange Brewfest up at the Waterstreet in Port Townsend. Those kids throw a killer party. Many good beers on hand. Made the most of the Big Time Lift Ticket and Rogue Charlie that was available. Great stuff. Sierra Nevada had their Tripel; pale gold with a tint of deeper orange-red, light medium body, aromatic (apricot bars and hops), well conditioned (for keg beer), very good. Elliot Bay had a Belgian-style IPA; think Chouffe Houblon and you're pretty close, cloudy pale straw, light bodied, very firm bitterness, very lively on the palate, very good. This is the one to chase down the Brouwers rib-eye with. Diamond Knot had a tank of wood aged Industrial Ho! Ho!; well appointed Strong Winter ale aged on oak, not so much a bourboned beer but very well wooded, probably the best local beer from the wood I've had since wood aging has become fashionable. Walkingman had a Sour Brown; interesting attempt, lacked the depth of acid and residual sweetness that I would expect (pretty heavily lactic and drying), missing a solid fruity/balsamic middle palate. Leonard from the Ram had his Bretted Saison on hand; much more character than at the previous Cask Fest, not so much funk but nice lemon juicy notes. Baron Jeff brought their Jim Beam barreled Dopplebock; to my recollection the Baron Dopple is close to the Optimator, maybe very sl. paler and drier/nuttier, out of the whiskey barrel it seemed thinned a bit and very boozy (though the vanilla complimented veeery nicely). The perfect accompaniment to a sweet creme brullee. Turns out that Jeff is the WBG president this term, passed on some of my ideas about the festival trip (check out the previous Cask Fest rant). Pike 5X Stout with raspberry was very nearly perfect; their already amazing stout with deep, deep, deep raspberry flavor, like an intense bitter chocolate/rasp truffle. Put down a fair amount of the Waterstreet Frosty; a winter seasonal, deep brown, medium full body, chocolate graham crackers and citrus/resin hops. Almost a house character at Waterstreet is that sharp herbal resin hop flavor that Skip seems to favor (Simcoe?), most notably in the IPA and Red Imperials. Other selections of note; Snoqualmie dry hopped Avalanche and the Lazy Boy winter seasonal, Mistletoe Bliss. Both very firmly in the style of West Coast Strong Winter ales; very firm bitterness, citrusy hop character (juicy lemon rind, orange marmalade and grapefruit jellies), very firm malt character (tea biscuits and sweet rolls) with a fair kick. Also put down a fair amount of oysters off the half shell. One indicator of an undoubtedly civilized affair is the presence of a well stocked oyster bar. Indeed. Good time, got to catch up with a lot of familiar festival cronies. Cut out for dinner over at Sirens and back to the Waterstreet for music. The hands down best local funk band I ever seen, La Push from Bellingham, solidly rocked the place. Great Bootsy era JBs inspired dance music, horns and a water tight rhythm section. Awesome.

Off to SF for our annual Toronado-ing this weekend. Belgium's been pushed back to June. Irish Dry Stout soon.

Beer as Cuisine

2007-01-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

Not alot of posting in this direction so far. I know. [Insert Day Job Whining] Anyway...

I think the "Beer as Cuisine" concept has two basic angles; using beer as an ingredient in food preparation and beer as an accompaniment to prepared food. The former meaning beer having a greater role in overall flavor development than simply using it as a liquid component. The later meaning the use of beer to enhance/support/contrast/etc. the enjoyment of mowing through your delectations (much in same way that wine is used). One evening over the holidaze we enjoyed a bit of store brand Asiago with cashews and a bottle of North Coast Brother Thelonius. Slightly sharp, firm, and nutty cheese with that salty cashew (earthy? slightly sweet?) followed by the softly warming, mildly sweet and spicy Strong Dark Belgian-Style ale. Very nice. Speaking of cheeses; New Years Eve, we had an aged Edam that we were washing down with Sandemans Ruby Port. Mmm, fantastic!

I brew an Irish Stout every year and prepare a good meal of corned beef, boiled potatoes, steamed cabbage, carrots and house made soda bread. This year won't be any different but with one exception, I'm going to cure my own corned beef! Ha, ha!!! I'll get some good natural brisket and brine away. Lotsa cracked pepper, Indian coriander, allspice, some mustard seed and a fair dose of bay leaf. Should be good. I'll use the Egg to cook the brisket "low and slow". The Stout is based on Guinness (of course). Medium-light bodied, silky from using too much flaked barley, tart from a bit of acid malt and intensely roasty/coffeeish from a generous dose of roasted barley. Good with the corned beef, helps to clean the palate off a bit after a bite of rich and fatty brisket. Hmm, I'll have to get that going soon.

Happy New Year?

2007-01-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

Wooof. Zero action in the home brewery these days. Frakkin' Day Job. Holidays were great though. The Holiday beer turned out very nicely. Firm brown, softly malty (chocolate biscuits and toffee), slight phenol spiciness (warming spices; clove, cinnamon, etc.), quite firm bitterness and a citrus zesty hop flavor. Very nice indeed. Pretty much killed that keg. Took out most of the 2nd keg of Pac Man Pale. Started in on the tank of O-fest lager. Now this one is real good. More Pale Bock than a strict strong Marzen. Firm Munich malt finishing clean with a whiff of alcohol. Otherwise, mostly settled for Celebration Ale and Brown Shugga. Half-racks of the former was a capital idea, thank you Sierra Nevada. A case of 22's of the latter held up pretty well. Didn't care too much for the Jolly Roger this time. Just not doing it for me; candyish, phenolic, and dirty tasting. Scored a bottle of Glenmorangie 15yr from Santa, dee-licious! New Years Eve was sweet. Woke up on the 2nd and went to work. We got an XL Big Green Egg from Santa. Very killer! Looking forward to getting that going. Just have to get it put together. Woulda had it cleared today but ran out of light.

Looking forward to StrangeBrewfest up at the Water Street in Port Townsend next weekend. We've got our travel arrangements squared for the Toronado in February for the Barley Wine Festival. We've decided to hit Belgium in May. Then I'll come back and give notice (yuk, yuk, yuk).

Shee-ot!

2006-11-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

Too much Day Job lately and not enough Brewing. Got the T-day weekend off, so I'll brew Friday. 5gal batch of something strongish and dark for the Holidays. I'm thinking 12# pale (half Marris Otter - half Great Western 2-row), pound or so of 80L Crystal, 8ozs Chocolate malt, and a couple pounds Brown Sugar. Moderate bitterness (British) and a finish of fresh orange peel and Cascade. Zipped up with some 1056. Passed a similar recipe for an extract beer to Julian two weeks ago. They've just started their adventure in Homebrewing and wanted to put something strongish and dark together. So I rattled this little ditty off. They're gonna be in town for Christmas and they'll bring some of their brew to share. I haven't put my holiday beer together yet so I thought I'd brew one of these so we can compare batches. Should be fun.

Imperial Stout!

2006-11-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

11/7: Transferred the Imperial Stout. Gravity is still about 9P. Pretty stiff, I'll check it in a couple weeks. If we haven't got at least 5.5P or 6P I'll put it onto some more yeast. Should be a quite a glass of beer when all is said and done. Still too early to call but it should hang onto the oily, bitter finish it has now. We'll wait on the finished beer before I get down to a more complete description of the flavor profile.

Heah Come de Judge

2006-11-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

11/4: Judged at Novembeerfest. This competition is hosted by the Impaling Alers, a club based out of Larrys Brewing Supply in Kent. I've shopped at Larrys a few times over the years but this was the first time I've been in the back (where the judging was staged). Overall the competition was well organized and business-like. There was a series of flights in the morning, lunch and then the Best of Show panel in the afternoon. In total I think there were 8 or so panels with 10-14 beers per flight. With each flight pretty well split up covering a few different styles of beer excepting the American Ale and IPA entries. These seem to be popular enough that they usually have enough entries to make up a solid flight. The 1st panel I sat was with another judge and a steward. Good guys. The other judge admitted to being Novice but I was well impressed by his understanding of the process, how to relate to Styles and willingness to listen to a more "experienced" judge (me - ha, ha, ha). Our steward had no judging experience at all, I made sure to pour for him as well so he could follow along. So, our panel was broken out into entries for 8b Special Bitter (x2), 8c Extra Special Bitter (x2), 9c Scottish Export 80/- (x3), 11a Mild (x1), 11c Northern English Brown Ale (x1), a Common CIder, and a Sweet Mead. The first 3 entries judged seemed to be scoring almost too well. I'm always concerned, almost to the point of apprehension, about whether or not I'm scoring accurately. I'd like to be able to do more judging at competition sitting at a table with other more experienced judges, just to get a better sense of scoring "accurately". Anyway, that 3rd beer I scored a 38 and was pretty confident that is was worth it. It scored the highest out of the flight and we advanced it to Best of Show. The rest of the scoring was pretty strong too, not so much in the sense that all the beers scored high but that the scores reflected the quality of the beer. I think we did a pretty good job. The challenging part was to make accurate and helpful comments. Beer quality was pretty good overall and the entries that came up short seemed to have characteristics that were easily explained. So we cleared the panel, had lunch and I was asked to sit the Best of Show panel. Now, this whole Best of Show thing is kinda weird. I've only judged 5 competitions, including this one. I took the BJCP exam in Spring 2005. I scored National but haven't got the points for the pin. So there are either more experienced judges who don't care to sit the BoS, don't have the rank for BoS or there is actual respect for my judging ability. Scary thought. Anyway, 13 beers advanced to BoS with a widely diverse range of styles. Eliminating the 1st seven wasn't too tough. All the beers were very good but a few really stood out. Ranking the remaining beers took a little more attention and debate. The Best of Show winner was the ESB that we advanced out of our 1st panel. Kinda nice to have that counter my scoring "neuroses" or whatever it is. 2nd place was a German-style Wheat beer and 3rd was an American Barley Wine. All were good but the ESB was really nice. Nice malt complexity, firm yeast/fruit flavor, nice bitter backbone with a huge, intense hop flavor and aroma and very nicely made, no real faults present. Very nice indeed.

Into the Keg

2006-10-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

10/26: Kegged 5gals of the Pac Man Pale Ale. Dryhopped it with .5oz each Amarillo, Columbus and Simcoe. The beer isn't too far off from what's noted in a previous post. Dropped completely bright leaving a nice golden hue. The flavor cleaned up a bit. I think I'm still picking up some phenolic though. I can't decide if it's a function of some aspect of the fermentation or a result of using such a large amount of hops of questionable condition. Or even simply that there is so much Simcoe used. I'm beginning to understand how strongly Simcoe contributes to flavor. There's a very intense cedar resin note that hits right at the end of the first third of the palate and keeps going and going (ha! how's that for geek). Maybe I'm attributing some aspect of the resin note to the phenol I'm tasting. The bitterness and that resinous thing fade a bit at swallow but then kind of come back a bit, think of waves lapping at the seashore. Waves of hop character. Even though the beer is so hop forward there is a real nice chewy, nutty malt character to back it up. There's some chocolate too, like what you get from a chocolate mint plant. We'll see how it all plays once it's gassed.

Judging Novembeerfest next weekend. Should be interesting.

Will pick up some canning supplies today. Thinking about putting up a couple cases of yeast starter.

Imperial Stout Eruption...

2006-10-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

has ceased. Swapped out the S-bubbler and rubber stopper for a clean musting cap and 3-piece airlock. The yeasty sludge caked down the side of the carboy and out around it looks like what's left in the bottom of the french press after the coffee's gone. Yeesh. Smells good though.

So Much For 28P

2006-10-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

10/21: Imperial Stout!

10# Great Western 2-row
10# Hugh Baird Marris Otter
8# Munich
2# Black Patent
1/2#'s each:
20L & 120L Crystal
Cara-Munich
Chocolate malt

Gave me 5 gals. 25P wort for the Imperial Stout and 5-ish gals. 10P wort for a small beer.

The Imperial Sout took 1.5oz 15.8% alpha Magnum, 1oz 16.8% alpha Columbus and 1oz 13.3% alpha at 60 and 30 then 1oz each Amarillo, Columbus and Simcoe at end of boil for a bit of a steep.

The small beer took .5oz of the Magnum and 1oz of 3.5% alpha domestic Tettnanger at 60.

Pitched the Pac Man yeast I'd saved into the Impster. A good 2qts or so. Smelled sweet and yeasty, so it appears to have held up well enough. I was doubtful at first. Check it out:

Pitch + 6 hrs = No Action.
Pitch + 12 hours = No Action.
Pitch + 18 hours = One quarter sized flocc on the surface, no gas.
Pitch + 24 hours = Thin head up on 2/3s of the surface, no gas.
Pitch + 30 Hours = Modest Head, no gas.
Pitch + 36 Hours = Glad I have this sitting in the shower in the downstairs bathroom. If we were filming in black and white you'd swear someone got chopped up, blood everywhere. Wish I'd set this up for blow-off. At least the shower will be easy to clean up.

I pitched a dose of Wyeast California Lager yeast into the small beer.

The Impster should end up a pretty intense glass of beer. We'll have to wait for the finished beer, of course, but tasting the gravity sample was interesting. The beer is solid opaque, inky black, intensely bitter/hoppy, huge black malt presence with the ash in the finish. And sweet, duh.

The small beer should end up a Mild Porter or so. After tasting that gravity sample I get the sense that once the beer finishes it'll need something to boost the body and add some sweetness. It'll definitely need something to add some dimension and balance to a very intense malt character. I believe I'll be adding some lactose when this goes into the tank. That should do the trick.

I'll plan the Barley Wine for 28P. It'll require the big mash, running off extract for the one beer and a long enough boil to get down to the brew length. Yeah, that's the ticket. Hmmm, Marris Otter with a touch of Honey malt, hopped just to balance with British Kent Goldings and fermentated with the 1098. Yummy.

O-Fest v. BdG Update

2006-10-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

Robust signs of fermentation! Huzzah. I shoulda gone for propane tonight, I'll need it. I believe I'll plan on the Imperial Stout brew for Saturday. As part of that I need to decide what I want to do with the small beer made from the second runnings. I'm leaning towards something along the lines of a Schwarzbier. Hm.

Oktoberfest vs. Biere de Garde

2006-10-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished transferring the two beers made from the Fest wort. The O-fest is down around 5.5P. The BdG is still up at 10P. Either may seem a little high but I'm not worried. At this point in the program the O-fest will come out of the chillbox into the mid 60Fs for a diacetyl rest through the weekend or so. I'm pretty confident I can expect a drop of at least 1.5P. Top end of the range for Terminal Gravity but I'm fine with that. I like a firm sweetness in a finished beer as long as it's clean and attenuated. There's a big difference between a well attenuated beer with a higher TG and a less well attenuated beer with a higher TG. The former can be full bodied, luscious and smooth. The later can be oversweet and taste like canned fruit. Now the BdG on the other hand is interesting. Gravity is still quite high but the beer is sound. Except for some flavor compounds I expect to clean up as the ferment progresses there are no significant off-flavors. The very slightest hint of both green apple and diacetyl but no spoilage apparent. The ferment so far has been on the cool side but stable, I'll warm it up a little and see how it progresses. One thing I've thought of though; this is an authentic French BdG strain. The other yeast strain from the Farmhouse beer region that I've used (the Wyeast Saison) takes a looong time to reach TG. I wonder if this strain will end up sharing that characteristic. I'll zap it in two weeks with the 'thief and check the gravity. We'll have a better idea then. I'll need to make an effort for the lowest TG possible with this beer maybe pitching more yeast. Since it'll be bottle conditioning I'd like to avoid any untoward complications (like exploding bottles or geysers of finished beer).

... And the Cask Beer Festival You Rode In On!

2006-10-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

10/14: Washington Brewers Guild Cask Beer Festival. Shitty. We're an hour late, walk in with our tickets and they're out of festival cups. We'll have to make do with these creepy little hard plastic drinking cups (I'll end up going through three of them as they like to simply split in two). And they're out of the programs that list the breweries and the beers they're pouring. So much for tasting notes.

NOTE TO WBG: Procure a laptop. Format festival documents on laptop. Procure a suitable, portable laserprinter. Bring laptop and suitable, portable laserprinter to festival. Setup laptop and laserprinter at the check-in table of the festival. Print out programs for handout on demand. Festival program documents are available for last minute editing if necessary. Your paying customers have up to the minute information at hand, you're not running out of any handouts, and you're saving paper. About the cups, X number of tickets sold requires X number of festival cups (maybe 10% over for good measure) to be available. The festival cups may not be pretty but they are flavor neutral and sturdy. If you're selling us out to save a few bucks, how 'bout getting a shitload of generic Washington Brewers Guild cups all at once. Long production runs are cheaper than short production runs. I think we can get by without festival specific glassware. Better yet, offer festival goers a premium to encourage reusing last years festival cup. Check it out, I've just saved you worlds of paper, plastic fucking cups, time and money. Asshole.

Anyway...

More fresh-hop beers this year, which is kinda cool and a more judicious use of wood in others, which is even cooler. Rogue Issaquahs' fresh hop beer was good and Anacortes' was really good. I think their standard IPAs with the fresh hop twist. I was eagerly anticipating the Maritime XPA. Total bongwater, I loved it. I think the Double Whoop Pass from Silver City might have been fresh hopped too. Their "X Anniversary Ale" was nice. Right between a pitchy, full bodied Foreign Style Stout and a firm, oaky Stock Ale with chocolate toffee flavors and some ash in the finish. Diamond Knot XXX IPA, fresh hops and "Ported Oak". Real nice, tons of hops all across the palate with a firm, elegant finish from the Port and oak. Bourbon Barrel Stout with dried cherries from the Rock Bottom in Bellevue. Fine stout with the bourbon more mild and warming than some more "bourbon forward" beers I've had. The dried cherries came in with some tartness. Reminded me of those cherry cordials. The Waterstreet sent down a monster! A mixture of their Coffee Stout, Imperial Red and India Pale ales aged in a Chardonnay barrell. Tons of wine and barrel. Heads Up Brewings' "Bipolar" a butterscotchy strong ale was nice, just like a Butterscotch Nip. Fish Brewings' "Winterfish" was real nice, liquor filled hard candy (think rum and Sugar Daddy) with hops. Great stuff.

I was particularly curious about the Saison from Ram Brewery Puyallup. Dave brewed a straightforward Saison but primed a couple kegs with Brettanomyces. Brett is a wild yeast that creates all sorts of funky and wonderful flavors and aromas. Sweat, musty earth, horse blanket, cheese, feet and lactic acid for starters. Neat stuff. The Saison at the festival was just too young for the Brett to have developed its full flavor potential. A fine beer but just a manner of time before it's mind blowing.

We went down to Brouwers for "Afters". Real busy but we managed to get a table pretty quickly. I was in the mood for sour beer, especially after all the hoppy beer at the festival. Had both the Hanssens and Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze. Hanssens was excellent, firm and elegant. Drie Fonteinen was just a powerhouse of sour. Sweat, sour cream, some green apple and spritzy as hell. Definitely what I was in the mood for. Others at the table had; Scaldis, a Belgian Strong Pale ale with flavors similar to the two toffee-ish strong ales at the festival. North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout; bitter chocolate, resinous hops served on nitro and incredible as always. And a wee dram of Laphroig. Yummy!

At this point the evening or rather early morning devolved into madness. Grown men and women behaving like animals, howling and beating their chests. That was my cue to head home.

Cider House Blues

2006-10-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

10/13: No cider. Bruce from Lopez Island Farms hit town with 325 gallons of juice in a poly tank in the back of his pickup. The tank came loose from its lashings, the load shifted, pop goes the tailgate and out slips the tank off down the hill. Boom! No survivors. Many deeply disapointed cider fans at Bobs'.

Pac Man Pale and Imperial Stout Daydreams

2006-10-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

Transfered the Pac Man Pale. Got it down to a respectable 2.5P. Big aromatics; orange juice and roses. I think the primary was a little hot as I'm picking up a bit of perfume up front and a touch of phenol through the middle of the palate. Otherwise; deep golden amber with a distinct red hue, firm slightly chewy malt, the bitterness is quite forward with flavors reminding me of lemon grass and cedar. Very resinous, which I like. I put it into carboys as I don't have any kegs ready for fresh beer. I'll dryhop the beer in the keg, a mix of Columbus, Amarillo and Simcoe. This'll bring one of the bittering varieties and both late addition varieties forward into the tank. Full circle, in a sense.

I've been meditating on the Imperial Stout I want to brew. I'm thinking OG 27.5P or so, a hop routine similar to what went into the Pac Man Pale and, of course, the Pac Man yeast. Tons of Black Patent malt, a bunch of Crystal 120, a little Chocolate malt, and some Caramunich. Inky black, kinda oily with intense bitter chocolate and ashy notes. This should show well against the residual sweetness I expect and the firm bitterness I'll put into it. I've got oak cubes resting in some Dickel, maybe I'll season some of the Imperial Stout with a little wood n' whiskey.

I'll go out to Bob's tomorrow and get my apple juice. The yearly delivery of cider juice from Lopez Island Farms is coming in. Yay! Bruce (Lopez Island Farms Mainman) has orchards made up of varieties of apples specifically for "cidering". Juice shows up sulfited and ready to pitch. I'm in for 10 gallons this year. I've done this previous years and have ended up with some pretty good stuff. Usually ferments out quite dry and conditioned with a lot of very tiny bubbles is real nice.

Washington Brewers Guild Cask Beer Fest is Saturday. We've got passes for the evening session. Should be a good time, I look forward to this one because it's less a marketing event and more a real celebration of local beer. Looking forward to Maritime Brewings' XPA and the Saison from the Puyallup Ram/BIg Horn Brewery.

Anyone know where to get good fresh pork belly in Seattle? I've got Pancetta on the To Do List. Thanks.

Festbier

2006-10-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

10/07: Brewed 10 gallons of 16.5P wort.

Everything is bubbling nicely this morning.

20# Weyerman Munich
5# Weyerman Vienna

German Hallertau and Domestic Saaz for 25 IBU

5 gallons pitched 2206 for an Oktoberfest-style beer.
5 gallons pitched 3275 for Biere de Garde.

Wort smelled and tasted real nice. Big toasty malt character, some smoke. I would associate the smoky note with mash scorching but there was none. Curious to see how that aspect plays out as we ferment and condition.

The BdG will go into heavy Belgian-style brown glass bottles (recycled Ommegang), get corked and bottle conditioned. Looking forward to that, now to get some bottles cleaned up.

Pulled a sample of the Flanders Brown. After 5 months on the Wyeast Roeselare it lacks the acid and character I was expecting. Maybe not enough gas exchange. I'll transfer out of the carboy into a plastic bucket and see what develops.

So far...

2006-10-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Finally had a chance to get back into the homebrewery after a summer of way too many hours at the Day Job. Spent a few hours on Saturday cleaning and getting organized to brew again.

09/30: Brewed 10 gals. of 13P wort for Saison

15# Belgian Pils malt
1.5# Aromatic
1.5# table sugar in the kettle

Warrior for 40 IBU
Domestic Saaz for steep at KO

Pitched 3724

I expect a long and cantankerous ferment. Then bottle conditioning. Hmmm, bottle conditioning.

10/01: Brewed 10 gals. of 11P wort for Pale Ale

16# Great Western 2-row
.5# Caramunich
.5# Crystal 80
1 oz. Chocolate malt

1 oz. each 17% alpha Columbus, 10% alpha Centennial & 12% alpha Chinook at 60 and 20.
1.5 ozs. each Amarillo and Simcoe at 5 or so.

Split the wort into two 6.5 gal. carboys and pitched Wyeast Rogue Pac Man yeast. These in turn will get used as starter batches for a Russian Imperial Stout and a Barley Wine.

These all went into the downstairs bathroom with the heater tuned for 70F (the heater will burn out later in the week - ha, ha, ha).