Schönweisse and Bonus Kettles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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!