Captain Lawrence Cuvee de Castleton Release (In Pictures)

I was lucky enough to attend the Cuvee de Castleton release at Captain Lawrence on Saturday (well, really, Friday night and Saturday), and it was one of the best beer experiences of my life. I then spent probably close to a half an hour working on a recap post for this blog earlier tonight, but to accurately sum up the experience would probably take more text than you're willing to read (and definitely more than I'm willing to type). Thankfully, I did bring my camera with me, and so I'll let some of the photos guide us back through the festivities...

Here are the other intrepid souls already at the brewery when my cousin and I arrived at 10:30 Friday night to wait for the tickets that would allow the purchase of bottles on Saturday morning. A good bottle share was already underway, and my Blushing Monk and 2010 Nemesis joined a lineup that included Framboise for a Cure, Sixpoint Diesel, and a few other brews. Thankfully the tickets went out early (about midnight) and we were unable to return home for a few hours of sleep. Many had more than our 45 minute drive home though and chose to camp out in the parking lot overnight.

After about 4 hours of sleep, a breakfast sandwich, and another 45 minute ride (Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime made a great soundtrack), this was the scene that greeted my upon my return to the brewery at about 8:30 Saturday morning. What had been maybe 20 people when I got there Friday night, and maybe 50 when the tickets went out, was now definitely over 100 strong and full of generous people opening bottles of cool beer. The two tables served primarily as a staging area for beers that were open or waiting yet to be consumed (as well as my Breakfast Stout Brownies), while the windowsill in the background served as the Wall of Fame.

By the time 10:30 rolled around and bottles started getting exchanged for money, there was a pretty good crowd around the steps up to the front door. One would think that someone from the brewery would have been organizing the line and making sure people went inside in order, but this ended up being a volunteer job done by people who had a few numbers to go before it was their turn. While there was some grumbling online  later on about line cutters and people changing clothes and going through multiple times, my own experience was that everything ran pretty smoothly.

Really guys? Like we weren't going to buy the beers anyway? Nothing placates beer nerds who have been waiting in the cold for hours better than free samples of tasty beer. For all the fuss about being one of the ~120 people who got to buy the Barrel Select releases (two bottlings of a sour brown ale, aged on cherries and raspberries respectively, and admittedly the reason I was there so early), I definitely enjoyed my splash of Cuvee de Castleton (belgian pale ale aged in wine barrels with muscat grapes) the best out of the three.

People got their bottles, and the party was still going strong (and yes, someone rented an RV for the occasion.. just awesome)!

Wall of Fame part 1, featuring Bourbon County Stout, Cuir (I think), Mikkeller Chipotle Porter, Event Horizon, unknown Fantome, Speedway Stout, and Dark Intrigue, among others.

Part the second: Marron Acidifie, 2007 East End Gratitude (wish I got me some of that), Cantillon St. Lamvinus, Old Rasputin XII, unknown Hill Farmstead (I think), The Abyss, Unibroue 17, unknown 3 Fonteinen.

We've reached the midway point! Some of the pictured bottles are Firestone Walker Parabola, Ithaca White Gold, Surly Smoke, Alesmith Decadence and Horny Devil, Cigar City Sugar Plum, Black Butte XX and XXIII.

We're almost done, I swear... The Bruery Grand Funk Aleroad, Hill Farmstead Earl, Brute, more Decadence, unknown Kuhnhenn bottle, Kentucky Breakfast Stout, 3 Floyds Zombie Dust (one of the highlights for me), an experimental sour from 3 Floyds (and a couple other bottles I'm not sure of).

The end of the Wall... The Brury's Oude Tart, unknown Alaskan Beer, Cigar City Hunahpu's Imperial Stout, The Bruery Coton (I think), Barre Aged Yeti, others.

There were plenty of other beers being passed around there, including Heady Topper, 2009 Darkness, Black Tuesday, multiple bottles of Canadian Breakfast Stout, Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout, Cigar City Marshall Zhukov, Alpine Barrel Aged Token, Sexual Chocolate, Weyerbacher Idiot's Drool, a 3 liter bottle of 2006 Mad Elf, and Barrel Aged Sexual Chocolate.

All in all, the release was packed with (mostly) generous people who were happy to share some good brews with friends and fellow enthusiasts, and really showed this craft beer community at its best. This was my first trip to Captain Lawrence, but it won't be my last.

Cooking With Beer: Breakfast Stout Brownies

It’s become more and more of a tradition in the last couple years for me to prepare some desserts for big family holiday meals. I recently decided to do a test run of a new recipe and take a crack and making Breakfast Stout Brownies. I found a recipe for oatmeal stout brownies here and stuck to it almost entirely. The only changes I made were to bump up the white chocolate chips to a full cup (because hey, white chocolate is awesome) and use a full 12oz bottle of Founders Breakfast Stout instead of the 10oz called for (because leaving behind just 2oz of such a tasty beer to drink is just a cruel tease).

Stage one of the batter, ready to go

This was actually my second attempt at Breakfast Stout Brownies, as I took my first run at them about a week and a half ago. That was the same day that I went into NYC for a tapping of the whole Founders Breakfast Stout family (Breakfast Stout, Kentucky Breakfast Stout, and CanadianBreakfast Stout). I thought the brownies would be a fitting end to the day, but, suffice to say, baking after imbibing that much imperial stout was not one of my better ideas. Basically I ended up with brownies that, while flavorful, could have been strapped to someone’s feet in order to drown them in a river. Batch two though had my undivided attention after I finished bottling my Belgian Dubbel. 

Cream cheese portion added, ready for the oven

The baking process went relatively smoothly, and I’m pretty happy with the results. As a kid I grew up with my mom baking brownies that were very light and cake-y, and so I've always internalized that as what brownies are/should be like. These are not like that, they’re very rich. The flavor is great though, and I like the extra edge that using a coffee stout brings as opposed to a more traditional stout. I’m calling these a definite success, and will be putting them into my regular rotation of desserts.

A plate of the finished product, these are heading down
 to a beer release/bottle share with me

Homebrewing: Dubbel Down

I’m back again, after a brief hiatus due to technical difficulties (who knew my laptop wouldn’t like beer as much as I do?) and a paucity of beer related events.  Today though I finally got back in the homebrewing swing of things by brewing up what hopefully will be a fairly tasty Belgian dubbel in a few weeks. For anyone unfamiliar with homebrewing, here's a primer on the process that I wrote a couple months ago. I was aided during the process by glasses of Chimay Premiere (red label) and Ommegang Abbey Ale, as I’ve turned it into something of a tradition to drink some of my favorite versions of whatever style I’m making on brew day.

When it came time to put a recipe together, I leaned heavily on two books that I keep on hand. The first, Brew like a Monk, profiles the beers of the different monasteries producing trappist beers, as well as other Belgian and American interpretations of the style. The second, Brewing Classic Styles, gives a general overview and brewing tips for many different styles, along with a competition-winning  recipe for each. The key ingredient is dark Belgian candi sugar, which imparts some fruity flavors, as well as a sugar source that’s wholly fermentable (able to be consumed by the yeast), which will help give the beer an appropriately dry body. There are plenty of guides online for making your own candi sugar, but for my first crack at the style I decided to keep it simple and use imported syrup. There are several different readily available Belgian yeast strains, and I ultimately went with the commercial version of the Chimay yeast, because I just like their beer.

Brewday for me started at about noon, as I heated the water to mash in.  I mashed long (90 minutes) and low(149 degrees) to produce a wort that would be easy to ferment for the yeast. After drawing off the liquid from the grains, I added the candi syrup as well as some table sugar (to boost ABV without adding any residual sweetnes) and brought the wort to a boil. I used Mount Hood hops to bitter, and also for a small flavor addition, as I think they impart a very cool earthy, slightly woody character that could work well.  After an extended, 90 minute boil (necessary with the pilsner malt I was using), I chilled the wort down to about 70 degrees and pitched the yeast.  It’s now fermenting away happily, and will hopefully be ready for bottles in about three weeks.

No brew day ever goes entirely smoothly for me though, but at least this time my problems were a step removed from the beer itself. I pulled samples of the wort  at every step to track the sugar levels in the beer, but didn’t draw enough liquid for the first three samples, and the hydrometer (the instrument for tracking sugar concentrations) tipped over and broke before I could measure the last sample. Furthermore, the beaker that I used to build up my yeast supply fell over and shattered during cleanup. Still though, nothing went wrong that will affect the beer, it just adds a purchase or two to my shopping list for next time.

My brewing setup: Propane burner and boil kettle in the foreground, "command center" complete with beer in the middle, and mash tun in the background

My command center, featuring laptop, ingredients, equipment, beer (aka brewing fuel) and lunch leftovers

Chilling the wort: Cold water is run through the submerged copper coil, and the then hot water is collected in tubs to avoid scorching the grass

Recipe: Dubbel Down

Pilsner Malt 10lbs (78.62%)
Special B 10oz (4.09%)
C20 8oz (3.71%)
D2 Syrup 1lb (9.98%)
Table Sugar 4oz (3.59%)

mash at 149 degrees for 90 minutes

.75oz Mt. Hood (6.1%AA) @ 90 minutes
.25oz Mt. Hood (6.1%AA) @ 20 minutes

Wyeast 1214 (Chimay)

IBU: 20.4
OG: 1.065 (assumed 70% efficiency)
ABV: 6.9%

Stone Brewery Night in New York City

Hello again everybody.  Aplogies for the radio silence here the last couple weeks. Truthfully, I started out this blogging adventure on a torrid beer run, and ended up getting a little bit burnt out. In the month of August I reviewed nearly 40 beers and posted nearly 30 blog entries. I decided to take a little time off to recharge my beer writin’ batteries, and I’ll be back with regular (albeit not as frequent) blogging. I’ll still cover any special beer events/trips, as well as homebrewing adventures, but my coverage of regular drinking will be a bit less... regular. Enough with that though, on to the brew tal

My most recent beerventure, and the last event I attended from this year’s NYC Craft Beer Week was Stone Brewery night at the Rattle n Hum on Thursday, featuring brewery founder Greg Koch. There was a similar event last year (with admittedly a much more epic tap list) that ended up with the RnH as packed as any bar I’ve ever been to, so to make sure I had a seat for the night I made it there  by mid afternoon. The only flaw in my plan was that I got to the bar so early that they weren’t pouring any of the Stone beers yet. I decided to start with Allagash White, a true classic, and nice and refreshing after the 15-20 minute walk to the bar from Port Authority. Next I decided to go with Captain Lawrence St. Vincent’s Dubbel. Captain Lawrence is a brewery that seems to be fairly well respected within the beer community, but aside from a couple sours they’ve brought to beer festivals in the past, I’ve always been fairly underwhelmed by them. This beer did nothing to change that, as it’s probably my least favorite version of the style that I’ve ever had. The requisite plum fruity and light pepper notes were there, but were largely dominated by a buttery, caramel sweetness. It tasted like someone blended a bunch of malty English brown ale in with a dubbel.

Two beers into the night it was finally Stone time, and I started with their Green Tea IPA collaboration. It’s a beer that was brewed as a fundraiser for Japan in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami, and it’s an IPA that was “dryhopped” with a type of Japanese green tea. I was glad to try this one, as bottle distribution was a bit scarce here in New Jersey. It was good, though the tea didn’t lend the beer as much of a unique flavor as I might have thought it would. It basically reminded me of a (more intense) version of Sam Adams Latitude 48 in that there was a balance between citrusy American hops, and a more herbal flavor (from noble hops in Lat 48, and presumably the green tea here). Next up was Stone’s 2010 Vertical Epic. It’s a strong Belgian pale ale that was brewed with white wine grape juice. I enjoyed it fresh, but the intense white wine flavor gave it a bit of acidity that had nicely mellowed out nearly a year later. Around this time Greg Koch. After he got some food and some beer for himself he ended up climbing on top of the bar right in front of me and delivering a gospel church style sermon about craft beer, replete with cries of “Amen!” from the many drinkers below. The video here is from a very similar speech Greg gave last time he was at the Rattle n Hum. Don't mind the spotty sound quality and occasional profanity.

Third up for me was the Stone 15^th Anniversary Imperial Black IPA. I’ve had it a couple times before, and it’s one of my favorite beers from this year. The hop lineup reads like the start of the “Bill’s Favorite Hops” list, utilizing both Citra and Nelson Sauvin hops. The great juicy fruit/citrus/white wine flavors from those hops end up playing very well against the chocolate and coffee roasty notes from the dark malts. I closed the night with their Old Guardian BelgoBarleywine. They fermented their regular Old Guardian with their house Belgian yeast strain, and while it’s seemed to be fairly polarizing on Beer Advocate, count me firmly in the “I like it” camp. I dig the way the fruity esters from the yeast play against the aggressive hopping, and I might even prefer it to regular Old Guardian (at least fresh). Part way through the beer I managed to track Greg down in the by now mobbed bar, and he was happy to take a picture with me in exchange for me shilling for his new book in said photo. It was a fair trade to me, and a great way to close the night. I would have liked to have made it into the city one more time for Craft Beer Week, but Stone Night at the Rattle n Hum was a great way to close it out!

Myself and the man himself, Greg Koch

Bill's Boston Bound

Tomorrow morning I begin my trek up to Boston to volunteer for this year's Beer Advocate Belgian Beer Fest. The blog will remain dark until the beginning of next week when I get home and post recaps. I'll definitely be taking plenty of pictures, and posting plenty of updates to my twitter. Until next week, happy drinking!

What's In My Glass: 9/4/11 and 9/5/11

After a night off on Saturday, I started my warm up for this weekend’s Beer Advocate Belgian Beer Fest on Sunday. First up was Sierra Nevada Ovila Saison. This is the second beer in their three beer run of Belgian abbey ales this year (with the possibility of other releases further on down the line). A few months ago they released a dubbel (which was a bit of a disappointment for me), and there will be a quad coming out before the end of the year. The saison, which served as my drink of choice during a fantasy football draft, was good, if not a bit rote. It was very dry, with herbal, lemon-citrus, and pepper notes. It was a well executed version of the style, but showed no imagination when the world of saison is fairly wide open. The word soulless is a bit harsh, but it was very paint by numbers.

Next up was a beer I was very much looking forward to, Deschutes Black Butte XXIII. Deschutes has a year round Black Butte Porter, and every year, starting with Black Butte XX, they’ve released a special imperial version as an anniversary ale. This year’s batch was brewed with cocoa nibs, orange peel, and chili peppers, and partially aged in bourbon barrels. I had the XXI version a few months ago, which was brewed with cocoa, and coffee, and underwent a similar partial barrel aged treatment, and loved it. This one was a bit of a miss for me though, at least right now. Fresh, everything went well together except for the orange peel, The citrusy, candied orange flavor both clashed with and covered over just about everything else. It was a case of a beer trying to do too much. With some age, the orange peel (along with the peppers) should fade, and I really liked the rest of this beer, so I may try to get some more to lay down for a while.

I led off tonight with a recent trade extra, Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Barleywine. I love a good barleywine, and aging it in barrels just kicks things up a notch. This one had the base beer shining through strong with notes of caramelized sugar and toffee, but the barrel influence was also apparent through vanilla and mild bourbon flavors. Beers like this are some of my favorite, full of flavor with a rich and luxuriant mouthfeel. This is the kind of beer I could settle into a chair with after dinner and just lose myself.

My nightcap tonight was my second bottle of Kern River Citra. I enjoyed my first bottle last week, but I think this one has a bigger impact since I haven’t had any other hoppy beers in the last couple days (whereas last week’s bottle came on the back end of a crazy hops run). Plenty of tropical fruit and citrus flavors, along with a nice hop bitterness bite in this one. This is just another IPA/Double IPA that makes me wish I lived in California.

There’ll probably be another post or two here during the week, but the blog will go dark for the weekend once I leave for Boston and the beer fest Friday morning. Expect the first bit of recap sometime on Monday, depending on exactly when I get home. 

Brewventure: Order of Osiris Inaugural Meeting

Friday saw me dash out of work a couple hours early to hop on the Decamp 33 headed into NYC for another beer expedition, my second of the week. On the itinerary last night was the first ever meeting of the Brooklyn Brewery’s Order of Osiris. The mug club, so named for the Egyptian god of beer, was to be gathering for beers and all around good times for an hour before the brewery opened to the public for the usual Friday night happy hour. The brewery staff member, I believe he said he was the operations manager, who ran the meeting was decked out in a ranger’s hat and sunglasses, and I couldn’t help but think of Super Troopers (one of my favorite movies) every time he rapped his mallet on one of the barrels laying about to get our attention and make an announcement. The sole bit of bad news was that the mugs arrived to Brooklyn in bad shape and so we’d have to wait until the next meeting to get them. The good news though was that there were plenty of great beers on tap, with hardly a line at all to get them (which is not the normal state of affairs there). I started with pours of Brooklyn Radius, a light Belgian pale beer that was poured at the ghost bottle night a few weeks ago, and their very nice rendition of a weiss beer. Next up was a real treat, their Cookie Jar Porter, a Brewmaster’s Reserve release from them about a year and a half ago, was being served from a cask. It’s a moderate strength porter brewed to taste like an oatmeal raisin cookie. Now, cask conditioned beers are hit and miss for me, but I tend to like the maltier styles when served this way, and this was no exception. The vanilla and raisin added to the brew was really able to shine through, and I found it overall a bit better than when I had it on draft when it was released. Last up, as the regular Friday night happy hour was getting underway, was their Blast imperial pale ale. Now this is a beer I love, but I had intended to order it on draft, and the bartender ended up pouring me the cask version instead. I was a bit apprehensive, as I tend to not go for hop forward beers as much on cask, but the hoppy flavors were so vibrant here that I really enjoyed it nonetheless. The meeting as a whole was a blast, I ran into my friend Seth and had conversations with a couple other cool people, and we sang the official Order of Osiris theme song. I dare not disclose the lyrics, but it was set to the theme of a song from the Simpson’s, so you know it’s good. By about 6:15 the place was filling up and, having already drank what we all wanted, Seth, myself, and a third person headed out into the city to continue our night.

Next up was a relatively new German beer hall style place a few blocks away called Spritzenhaus. The place is *huge*, a quick google search tells me about 6000 square feet. There’s a lot of seating, from stools at the bar to small tables to the big communal style tables one normally associates with a beer hall. The vibe is pretty cool, the décor inside is a bit industrial, and that combined with it being completely open to the outside just worked. The beer list is unsurprisingly dominated by German brews, but American crafts get a good representation as well. I decided to fall back on an old classic, Weihenstephan Hefeweissbier. This beer, to me, is the standard against which all hefes are measured. Killer yeast profile that’s right up front and doesn’t let bready malts take center stage. This spot was a one and done for us, though I’d definitely go back there in the future, and then it was time to head back into Manhattan.

We ended the night at what’s almost definitely my favorite beer bar in the city, the Rattle n Hum. First up for me was a keg of Stone’s 15th Anniversary Imperial BlackIPA. It’s a behemoth of a beer, over 10% and hopped to the gills. This beer uses some of my favorite hops, Citra and Nelson Sauvin, and they play very well over a roasted malt background. I very much look forward to getting my hands on a bottle when it hits shelves in New Jersey. We also got some stuff to munch on at this point, as we were now a few hours into our escapades, and in addition to a great beer list, the Rattle n Hum has some fantastic food. We split an order of IPA brined French fries and rosemary and garlic sliders (I think I could have eaten about ten of these). My nightcap as I finished watching the Yankees close out a victory over the Blue Jays was an old standard for me, Pretty Things Jack D’or. This is the beer that turned me on to both saisons and Pretty Things as a brewery. It’s a bit hoppier than is traditional for the style, but the extra bitterness and herbal flavors meld in well. It’s still one of my favorite versions of the style. I decided to call it a night after that, and it had been a good one. If nothing else, I look forward to the Order of Osiris giving me cause for more beer nights out and about in NYC in the future. 

What's In My Glass: 8/30/11

And I’m back after a couple days of radio silence. Last night I had some killer Hill Farmstead beers on tap in New York City, as well as a bottle of Kern River Citra that had just come in the mail in a trade that same day. Reviews are either posted or queued in my backlog of review notes. I started tonight with my second can of Surly Furious from a recent trade. There’s not much to add to my thoughts from the other night, there’s a little bit of malt there to support a ton of pine and citrus hoppiness. Once again I declined to review this beer as I’m a little burnt out from beer writing. I’ve got 29 beer reviews logged so far in August, plus notes for another seven, and more than 20 posts here on this  blog. Since Furious is a year round, flagship beer for Surly, I’m confident I’ll have it again and be able to formally log a review.

The main focus of the evening was a big monster of a double IPA called Knuckle Sandwich from Bootlegger’s Brewery out of California.

It was a very cool extra to find in the box I got yesterday with some bottles of Kern River Citra (thanks to Brian from California). It’s a monster of a beer, clocking in at 10%ABV, and it’s got a lot going for it. It’s more in the East Coast IPA vein, meaning there’s a fair amount of sweetness to balance out the hops. As for the hops themselves, the bitterness here was surprisingly mild, and there was some pretty cool orange and tangerine notes to be found on the back end of each sip. All that said, I was a little let down, because I expected that a beer called Knuckle Sandwich would really hammer me with the hops, and this one was a bit more mellow and balanced.

That’s it for tonight; I may or may not be back tomorrow night before going dark on Thursday. Friday night I’ll be attending the first meeting of the Brooklyn Brewery’s Order of Osiris and will definitely have a report on that.

What's In My Glass: Hurricane Irene Edition

So as if a hurricane isn't lame enough to begin with, tonight's post was supposed to be a recap of an epic daylong bus trip to Victory Brewing, put on by my favorite bar in NYC, the Rattle n Hum. Mother Nature had other plans though, and so I decided to open an extra beer or two tonight as a consolation prize. First up was an extra from a trade I recently received, but did not profile here on the blog, a can of Sunny Haze hefeweizen, from Mother Earth brewing out of North Carolina

Canning is becoming more and more popular among craft brewers, as technological improvements have made both made canning a more financially feasible option and led to higher quality cans that don’t leech flavors into the beer and protect it better. Some breweries, most notably Oskar Blues over in Colorado, can exclusively, while many other brewers are canning select beers in addition to their normal bottling. The beer is what it’s all about though, and this one’s pretty good. I’ve found hefeweizen is one of the few styles where we haven’t really caught up here in the US to the best of our German brewing counterparts, but anemic appearance aside, this one makes a good run at it. It’s got the same problem that I have with most domestic versions of the style in that a doughy malty flavor is a bit too prominent when compared to the banana esters and clove phenols thrown off by the yeast. It definitely comes closer to what I’m looking for than most of the others though, it’s just a touch off. The aforementioned yeast derived flavors are tilted just a bit too much towards clove for me, but that’s just a personal preference. There’s also a pleasant citrusy splash in the flavor profile (no need to pour this one over a lemon!) that’s a nice touch. The relative lack of head (the above picture is right after the pour) hinted at the beer’s other weak spot; the carbonation was definitely a bit too low for the style. Still though, a decent effort from a brewery that has a couple hundred years less practice at brewing weiss beers than those pesky Germans. I’d pick this one up again next time I’m down in North Carolina.

Next up was the last of the different Surly beers I’ve received over the last few weeks, Surly Hell.

It’s a summer seasonal beer for them, an unfiltered lager (accounting for both the crisp taste and the hazy appearance). I’m not always a fan of lagers, sometimes there’s just not enough going on in them for me, but this one hit the spot. It smelled and tasted like freshly baked white bread and crackers, with just a suggestion of floral spiciness from the hops (basically an American version of a classic noble hop). It’s got a killer combination of good flavor and being super drinkable (this one clocks in at just 4.5%, definitely near the low end of the craft beer spectrum). I can see myself trying to get my hands on a bunch of this at the beginning of the season next summer as my go-to summer beer along with Allagash White.

After that I cracked my second bottle of Odell’s Myrcenary, which was just as good as when I first had it a few nights ago. As much as I would have liked to keep going with new beers, any great IPA/imperial IPA deserves to be consumed fresh, and I have a couple bottles of this one still to go.

Next was my second weekly check in on my most recent batch of homebrew. This time I got to have a full bottle, and the good news is it’s definitely carbonating just fine. I’m not at the point of getting good head formation/retention or lacing yet, but I’ve found that that sometimes lags a bit behind. Evidence of carbonation is readily apparent from the first sip. The flavor’s still a bit off, but I’m hoping that I’m just tasting the beer while it’s still a little young.

The last beer of the night would end up being Three Floyds Moloko milk stout.

The trippy bottle art is no surprise, as the beer was named as a reference to A Clockwork Orange, which itself was referencing a drink in 1970s Europe that consisted of milk and LSD (somehow, I don’t think that does a body good). A milk stout is a regular stout that’s had lactose, the sugar found in milk, added to it. This particular kind of sugar can’t be consumed by yeast, so it all remains in the beer and provides both sweetness and an enriched body. The nose/flavor on this one is exactly what I imagine a good strong coffee that’s been dosed with sugar and cream is like. In fact it took on a little bit too much of a vanilla and sugar edge as the beer finished warming and the sweetness started overpowering the roasted malty flavors. I also decide to pair the last third or so of the bottle with some mint chocolate chip ice cream, which turned out to be a very good life choice. Seriously, some people laugh, but good ice cream combined with the right kind of beer is just about one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.

Brewventure: Homebrewing Class at the Brooklyn Brewery.

Last night I took a trip into the city for a homebrewing class hosted at the Brooklyn Brewery. I had some time to kill before the class was set to start, so a side quest was in order to the restaurant Eleven Madison Park. This place has quite the reputation as far as fine dining in NYC goes, but I wasn’t there for the food, I was there for a special beer on their bottle list (this is a beer blog after all). They recently partnered with the Brooklyn Brewery for two new beers that would be exclusive to the restaurant. Local 11 and Nine Pin Brown Ale are Brooklyn’s Local 2 and Brown Ale respectively, and each was aged in barrels previously used to make Pappy Van Winkle 20 year. As with all Brooklyn cork and caged 750s, they were then bottle conditioned with champagne yeast. Having had a barrel aged brown ale from Brooklyn before (Dark Matter, a previous release in their Brewmaster’s Reserve series), the Local 11 was tops on my priority list for this visit

It was impossible for me not to have high hopesfor this one, as I’m already a big fan of Local 2, but this beer met and even exceeded my lofty expectations (I haven’t reviewed this one on BA yet, but that’s forthcoming). There were still plenty of Belgian characteristics from the base beer, as vanilla notes from the barrel served to highlight the dark fruit flavors from the dark Belgian sugar and yeast esters. This relegated the clove and pepper phenols to the background, but they were still easily appreciated. This was all swirled with the wonderful flavor and aroma of what’s clearly a very smooth whiskey. The spirit influence is a bit more smoothly integrated in the aroma than the flavor, but I’m really splitting hairs. It was a killer beer, and worth the trip just to try it. Hopefully I’ll be posting sometime in the coming weeks about another trip to tackle the Nine Pin Brown Ale.

After that it was a mad dash (figuratively, I guess a mad sit on the L train) into Brooklyn as I arrived at the brewery just as the proceedings were beginning. First up was a presentation by Erica and Stephen from the Brooklyn Brew Shop. It gave a basic overview of every step of the brewing process (similar in content to my post from a couple weeks ago). They managed to make it a lot of fun and get a lot of laughs though, with a highlight being them highlighting the differences between ale, lager, and wild yeasts via a series of Craigslist casual encounter posts. After their piece was done, they went to the back and started pouring samples of one of their homebrews, a saison made with jalapenos. It was good (though I don’t think I could have had more than my 4 or so ounce pour), but all the heat from the jalapenos (and there was plenty) did a number on my palate that left it kind of wrecked for a little bit after. Part of me wishes they had either saved that beer for the end, or brought a different one. Next up was I Ben from Bierkraft, a beer store in Brooklyn. His talk was focused on hops, how they act in the boil, and how best to utilize them. The most interesting part for me was the end of his talk, where he touched on the topic of growing one’s own hops, which is something I may look into next spring. Appropriately enough, he was pouring a homebrewed IPA afterwards, that was pretty good. It used a relatively new strain of hop called Apollo, and the beer had a definite juicy, almost Hawaiian Punch thing going on (although that may have just been on my mind since Dan used it as an example several times in his talk). Last up was Dan, one of the brewers at the Brooklyn Brewery, whose talk was focused on yeast and fermentation. It was interesting to hear a professional’s take on things like pitching rates and the need for a yeast starter, given that most of what I’ve read comes from people who are solely homebrewers. Brooklyn was also pouring their regular draft lineup all night and I got to enjoy a couple great beers, Brooklyn Weiss and the BLAST! double IPA. Overall the event provided both great information and beers in spades, and I would have been willing to pay a bit more than the $5 cost of the ticket to attend. Hopefully with Brooklyn Brewery’s recent expansion these types of events will become more frequent.

What's In My Glass: 8/23/11

Well, tonight ends my run of hoppy beers just in from trades, and I kicked it off with one I’ve had and enjoyed before, SurlyFurious.

As its darker than average color hints, there’s a fair bit of sweetness serving as the backbone of the beer, but only to support a ton of hops. There’s a fair bit of pine running neck and neck with the citrus in the flavor profile, which give it a bit of a unique twist, at least as far as IPAs that I’ve had are concerned. I’ll hold off on formally reviewing this one until I crack the second can I was lucky enough to receive.

The final stop on Bill’s Out of State IPA tour was Great Lakes Lake Erie Monster, an imperial IPA.

 I was looking forward to trying my first beer from Great Lakes, and ended up a bit let down. The beer did have a little bit of age on it, but it was still shy of the printed “best by” date (albeit by only about a week). It still had maybe the nicest pour of any of the beers I’ve had recently; I almost took a second picture of all the lacing it left stuck to the glass, but that was the high point. I thought I might be in trouble when the beer smelled grainy more than anything else. There was an aroma of oranges as well, but the first thing I thought of was the smell of a bag of grains that I’d get in one of my homebrew orders. It managed to be a little more hoppy in flavor, with a strong orange flavor that sets it apart somewhat from most IPAs/IIPAs, but it still lacked the overall hop punch that any good imperial IPA is going to deliver. I look forward to trying Great Lakes porter, which should be a bit more resistant to short term aging, and Oktoberfest, which is undoubtedly fresh, but this one was a miss for me.

Tomorrow I’ll be going into the city for a homebrewing class hosted at the Brooklyn Brewery, but I might not get around to posting an entry about it until Thursday.

What's In My Glass: 8/22/11

First up tonight was a can of Surly Bitter Brewer.

It’s brewed mostly in the style of a traditional English bitter, with the notable exception of the use of American hops. I ended up not reviewing this one on Beer Advocate since the “canned on” date was illegible and a beer this small (4%ABV), especially a hoppy one, is going to be very delicate as far as freshness goes. It was still a very good drinking experience, very light and drinkable, with just enough malt to balance a lightly hoppy attack. The flavor profile was interesting, as the citrusy hops tended more towards orange, and melded neatly with the fruity esters from the yeast. It’s the kind of beer that, if it was available locally, I could see myself buying in bulk when it first came out and going through way too quickly.

Next up was my second big bottle of double IPA in two nights from Three Floyds, Dreadnaught

This is their year round imperial IPA (with Arctic Panzer Wolf being a seasonal release), and the one that garners more hype on Beer Advocate, but I found myself greatly preferring APW. This one is more of a paint by numbers version of the style, with a nice tropical fruit presence trying in vain to drown out the harsh grapefruit flavors of Centennial hops. That flavor isn’t as abrasive and dominant here as it was in the Summit beer I had over the weekend, but it’s still weighing the brew down. I’ve been impressed with Three Floyds overall so far, but I can’t see myself actively seeking this one out again.

Last up was Odell Myrcenary (the misspelling honors Myrcene, a chemical component of hop oils)

This ended up being the high point of the night. The beer was an absolute tropical fruit bomb. It was redolent of pineapple and mangoes, both in aroma and flavor, with just a little bit of peach in there as well. More common citrus notes showed up as an accent in the flavor. Myrcenary is a fairly unique beer, not as much so as last night's Arctic Panzer Wolf, but  interesting nonetheless. I'm glad I picked up a four pack of this one

What's In My Glass: 8/20/11-8/21/11

I ended up splitting up what was to be one night’s worth of beer out over the weekend, and only felt it made sense to pool the last two nights into one post. Saturday night I cracked a bottle of Summit’sSilver Annversary Ale, an IPA. I received this one as an extra in two separate trades this past week, and was eager to try my first beer from this brewery.

 I wanted to like this beer, and I acknowledge it’s technically sound. Nice appearance, solid malt to hops ratio, and both the body and the carbonation level are good. My beef is in the hop choice, namely what I’m guessing is extensive use of Centennial hops. As a bit of background, Cascade hops are the classic American hop strain that give the iconic Sierra Nevada Pale Ale its citrusy, grapefruit flavor. Centennial hops are described basically as Cascade on steroids, and the result is an unpleasant one for me. If you’ve ever done any cooking and had to zest some fruit, you’ve probably encountered the advice to not grate too much of the skin off, lest you get some of the bitter white pith underneath. Centennial hops to me taste like someone zested a grapefruit and got way too much pith mixed in. It’s more bitter than citrusy, and that bitterness combined with the natural amount present in your average IPA just overwhelms the beer for me. That’s what I found in Summit’s brew. I know it’s right in a lot of craft beer drinkers’ wheelhouse, but it’s just a bit of a miss for me.

Next up Saturday night was a test bottle of the Kitchen Sink Saison I bottled last weekend. This wasn’t a taste test as much as a check that the beer is carbonating properly. It wasn’t even a full 12oz serving, just the little bit extra that went into the last bottle. Mission success on the carbonation front and the flavor is promising, if not exactly what I was aiming for. I once again got plenty of fruitiness from the Dupont yeast strain (I used the same yeast for my first homebrew batch last year), but didn’t get quite as much spiciness from the rye and hops as I might have hoped. The beer still tasted a bit young, but I’ll be checking in once a week or so to see how it’s coming along.

Tonight was a one beer night for me, with that one beer being a bomber of Three Floyds Arctic Panzer Wolf.

This was one of two double IPAs from Three Floyds that I received last week and it was the one that I was more intrigued by. Similar to last night’s Summit brew, this one was well constructed from a technical standpoint. While the Silver Anniversary Ale’s hop choice killed it for me, this one’s (I don’t know the exact culprits, but I have a few suspicions) was absolutely inspired. Here was a beer, brewed as well as the best of them, which completely eschewed the stereotypical citrus notes of most American IPAs. Apricots and other tropical fruits shone through, as well as a distinct white wine flavor. Pine was also present in the background to keep things interesting. I’d  buy/trade for this beer again over others from brewers of similar skill just because the hop varietals used result  in a fairly unique beer within the IPA family.

Beer Trades: 8/19/11

Continuing my epic haul of beer trades this week, I had two more boxes arrive in the mail today. The first box came from Eric in Ohio, whom I sent a bottle of Brooklyn Black Ops, as well as a bottle each of Dogfish Head Olde School Barleywine and Bell's Batch 9000. In return he sent me the following

The two big bottle are a couple of imperial IPA's from Three Floyds, Arctic Panzer Wolf and Dreadnaught. Three Floyds is a very highly respected brewery out of Indiana who doesn't distribute around here, so I'm excited to try a bunch of their beers over the coming weeks. The 12oz bottles all are beers from Great Lakes Brewing. Similarly to Three Floyds, they're located in the middle of the country and are known for producing great brews. Their beers tend to be a little more classic and not as extreme as other American breweries, so they fly under the beer commmunity radar a little bit more. This will be my first time trying any of their stuff, so I look forward to cracking Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Lake Erie Monster Imperial IPA, and Great Lakes Oktoberfest.

The second box was courtesy of Dan in Minnesota, who sent me all the good stuff below in exchange for a bottle each of Black Ops and New England Brewing Co's Imperial Stout Trooper.

The negotiated trade was that he would be sending me Boulevard Imperial Stout and a four pack of Odell Myrcenary, an imperial IPA. These alone would have made a killer box, Boulevard makes some absolutely killer beers, and Myrcenary has been very well reviewed on Beer Advocate. Dan threw in some killer extras as well though, especially Deschutes Black Butte XXIII. Deschutes has a regular Black Butte porter that they brew year round, and starting with their 20th Anniversary they've made an imperial version every year as an anniversary ale of sorts. This year's batch was made with orange peel, cocoa nibs nibs, and chilies. A quarter of it was then aged in whiskey barrels before being blended back into the batch. Not only is it almost assuredly a great beer, but this saves me having to set up a separate trade for one. Dan also sent a can of Surly Bitter Brewer and a bottle of Summit Silver Anniversary Ale. I sent some extras on my end as well, but I definitely ended up a little bit humbled here, hopefully he and I trade again and I can repay the favor.

As a final note, I did have a couple beers last night and neglect to get a post up. Suffice to say, both Three Floyds Lord Admiral Nelson and Surly Bender were great, and full thoughts can be found in my "official" reviews on Beer Advocate

Today in Beer: 8/17/11

I decided to consolidate a couple topics into one post for today. First is the two boxes I received in trades today. One box was from Joe out of Minneapolis MN, and contained all the bottles below.

The agreed upon trade was that I would be sending out a bottle of Firestone Walker Abacus and two bottles of Firestone Walker Parabola for a bottle of 50/50 Eclipse Imperial Stout aged in Evan Williams bourbon barrels, a growler of Minneapolis Town Hall Masala Mama IPA, and whatever cans of Surly he wanted to throw in to balance out the dollar value for each side. I ended up getting two cans of Surly Furious, an American IPA, and one each of  Hell (German lager) and Bender (American Brown Ale). In addition, Joe was kind enough to throw in Dark Horse Plead the 5th Imperial Stout, Central Water Bourbon Barrel Barleywine, and Summit Silver Anniversary Ale. I'll be touching on the Masala Mama again shortly, and I look forward to trying the rest of these beers.

My  other trade haul, from Jason in Lincolnwood, Illinois, saw me send out a Brooklyn Black Ops and a New England Brewing Company Imperial Stout Trooper for a Small Animal Big Machine collaboration sour ale from Half Acre and de Struise and a Behemoth Barleywine from Three Floyds Brewery.

Jason also sent me a bottle of Three Floyds Moloko milk stout and their Lord Admiral Nelson extra special bitter. Three Floyds is a very well regarded brewery whose beers have largely eluded  me, so it's pretty cool to have a couple waiting in the fridge.

Despite the many good beers now on hand, I decided to spend tonight focusing on my 64oz growler of Masala Mama.

Quite simply, it's the best American IPA I've ever had. There's just enough sweetness to balance everything, a potent burst of bitterness mid palate, and a metric ton of citrusy grapefruit and tropical fruit (think mango and pineapple) notes to close things out. As I said in my  BA review, it's almost as if Town Hall had a direct line into my brain in figuring out what the best hop schedule to please my taste buds would be. This is definitely a beer you'll see me trading for more of in the future.

What's In My Glass: 8/16/11

Having myself a little mini Founders night tonight as I finish emptying  the fridge in anticipation of all the beer trades that should be starting to arrive tomorrow (I've got five boxes en route that hopefully will all be here by Monday or so. Expect posts and pictures). First up was Devil Dancer, a self billed triple IPA clocking in at 12%ABV and 112 IBUs (International Bittering Units, a measure of how bitter a beer is).

To a certain extent, once a beer crosses the double digit ABV mark and keeps going, calling it an IPA (albeit a double or triple version) becomes a bit of a misnomer. This big of a beer requires a ton of sugar present at the start of fermentation, and with the upper limits of attenuation and alcohol tolerance for most yeast strains, too much sweetness gets left behind. The resulting beer then is more in the vein of an aggressively hopped American Barleywine, with a robust malt backbone supporting the massive hopload, rather than being a more hop-centric beer like most IPAs are wont to be. Style quibbles aside, this one (like the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA from yesterday) is jam packed with flavor coming from every angle. There’s a ton of caramel malt sweetness laying a foundation while heavy notes of bitterness and resinous pine weave around a more than slight warming sensation from the alcohol. On a more typical IPA profile the bitterness would be palate shredding, but here it only just manages to balance the maltiness of the beer. It’s a good drinking experience, but one I can only do a bottle of at a time. It’s a yearly release from Founders, and I’ll dutifully pick up a bottle or two every year, but probably not more.

Next up was Blushing Monk a beer Founder brewed a few years ago, and recently brought back to kick off their new Backstage Series of 750mL bottle releases. It's a strong Belgian ale brewed with raspberries.

If the label didn't highlight the use of raspberries in the brewing process, it would be clearly evident just by pouring the beer. Hopefully the picture illustrates just how purple and pink the foam atop the beer is, totally unlike anything else I've seen. The nose is redolent of raspberries, and it's pungent, hitting me even as I'm pouring the beer. The flavor is just as raspberry-centric as the aroma suggests, and it really does get old after a few ounces. This is a beer that would be done a great favor if it was packaged in smaller bottles. I probably could have gotten through 12 ounces without the raspberry assault wearing me down too much, but at more than 25 ounces that definitely happened.

Brewventure: Eataly and Brooklyn Ghost Bottle Night

Apologies for the lack of pictures tonight, I arrived at my first stop in New York City and discovered my camera's battery was dead. After some last minute rearranging, my first stop was the rooftop brewpub, La Birreria, at Eataly NYC. I started off with Sofia, a house brewed witbier served on cask.  Cask isn't my preferred serving style for a wit, it enriches what should be a light body and takes the edge of what should be a fairly bubbly level of carbonation. That said, the addition of peppercorns lent a subtle heat on the back end of each sip that really gave this beer a unique twist. I followed that up with a small pour of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. At roughly 20%ABV is was massively sweet, hoppy, and boozy all at once. A small pour like this was really ideal, as I can guess that a full serving would have been a bit much for most palates.

After a brief journey, I arrived at The Diamond in Brooklyn. While Garrett Oliver and his team of brewers would pour several beers over the course of the night, I would also enjoy several on tap. First was Brooklyn Brown Ale on cask. The cask conditioning allowed bready and toasted nut notes to really shine through, but  also resulted in a beer that was served just a bit too warm to hit its sweet spot. Next was Radius, a very new beer that only made its debut at the brewery this past Friday. It's a tasty pale Belgian brew, plenty of pale malt crackers and lemon and black pepper for only a 4.8% beer. It's the kind of beer I'd kill to have a keg of for a party sometime this summer, it has appeal both to people who do and don't drink craft beer regularly. Next was a rare Sorachi Ace draft appearance (made even more rare by the fact that it was evidently accidentally filtered). This one tasted super fresh, and the lemon notes from the Sorachi Ace Hops really shone through. There was just enough sweetness and peppery yeast phenols to keep things lively. Finally, there was Brooklyn Blast,  a double IPA. This is one that I would love to see bottled, even if just to shut up all the west coast beer advocates who insist the best IPAs come from their home turf, because this one can hang with the best of them. Pungent citrusy grapefruit notes, with a touch of pine and a little bit of caramel sweetness laying a base for everything.

In addition to all that, Brooklyn was pouring several rare, unreleased beers. The first was a blend of their Local 1 aged on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir lees. The wines from which the lees were drawn were naturally fermented, and as a result this one had a definite brettanomyces wild funky presence. Beneath that were some acidic white wine and peppery Belgian phenol notes. Finally, there was a hint of bourbon (the beer was aged in used Black Ops barrels) present. The next beer was a similar riff on the same idea, this time Local 1 was aged exclusively on Riesling lees. For whatever reason the bourbon shone through much more intensely this time around, with white wine and Belgian strong pale ale flavors filling in the blank spaces. The next two "ghost bottle" beers would prove to be a radical departure from the first two. Cuvee Elijah is Brooklyn's Cuvee Noire, a strong Belgian black saison, aged in 12 year Elijah Craig bourbon barrels. The chocolaty flavor that was barely there in the base beer was emphasized by the notes of vanilla from the barrel aging, while the bourbon and dry peppery flavors came in on the back end. Last, but certainly not least, was a 2007 late bottling of Black Ops. Brooklyn has been selling their barrel aged imperial stout since winter 2008-2009, with the first production batch being given to employees and friends of the brewery in winter 2007-2008. While Black Ops is generally aged in barrels for four months, what was poured for us tonight was beer that rested in bourbon barrels from inception in 2007 until just twelve weeks ago. Upon texting a friend about what I was drinking, he replied "For 4 year old Black Ops, I'd miss my wedding." Having tasted the finished product, I don't think I could argue his sentiment. A velvety rich milk chocolate note, bolstered by a potent vanilla presence stole the show, with super smooth bourbon and oak flavors contributing as well. All in all Garrett Oliver and his team proved to be gracious hosts, perfectly willing to talk shop about what was being poured or just beer in general, and bringing some tasty suds to boot.

What's In My Glass: 8/13/11

After almost a week off, I was back at it tonight. First up was Belvidere Big IPA from Rock Art brewery in Vermont.

It was a bit of a letdown, both as a double IPA and as my first beer in a week. There was a pretty intense bitterness mid palate, which isn't unusual for a big IPA, but there was no payoff this time in terms of hoppy flavor. Big bitter is OK as long as it's part of an absolute hop bomb, but this one kind of peters off from the bitter bite, without much in the way of hoppy flavors.  What is there seems to come primarily from Simcoe hops, which aren't my favorite hops per se. There's just something off about the tropical fruit flavor they tend to leave. In the end, I didn't even feel like finishing the bottle, it was that mediocre of an imperial IPA

Next up was Breckenridge 471 IPA, another double IPA from this month's haul from Amanti Vino (my local bottle shop) and their Beer of the Month club.

 This one was a bit better than the last one, and a pleasant surprise. Simcoe and Centennial were among the hops used, and they are two of my least favorite hop varietals. Together though, they seemed to cancel the negative aspects of each other out, there was no harsh edge to either Centennial's grapefruit nor Simcoe's tropical notes. I was a bit wary of Breckenridge after their lackluster Vanilla Porter, but this beer was much better.

Last up was the truly unique beer of the night, the collaboration Acer Quercus between The Bruery and Lawson's Finest Liquids.

This one is a big rye beer brewed with maplewood smoked malt and maple syrup. I wasn't sure about the beer at first, it seemed more of a novelty than anything else, but as it warmed it really came together. Smoky flavors dominated both in the nose and the taste, with maple and spicy rye notes playing supporting roles. Maple was more prominent in the nose, and rye in the flavor, but all in all I just ended up wishing that smoke was a little less dominant.

Aside from the false start with the first beer tonight, I cracked a couple good ones while I boxed up a couple trades I'm sending out this week. I'll be dark tomorrow due to work, but be back Monday night with a pretty cool trip into NYC planned.

Bottling: Kitchen Sink Saison

This afternoon my cousin and I bottled my most recent batch of homebrew, a saison. I'm calling this one "Kitchen Sink" saison because of the number of grains/fermentables  that went into it.  Saisons can have very simple grain bills, Saison Dupont for example (the golden standard of saisons), is supposedly brewed using 100% pilsner malt. This beer takes a bit more of a traditional, farmhouse approach, using pilsner, wheat, and rye malt, as well as some flaked oats and a little bit of sugar to help dry the beer out. The hops are a blend of Styrian Goldings, East Kent Goldings, and Saaz, right out of Phil Markowski's excellent Farmhouse Ales. I fermented this one with the Dupont yeast, taking advantage of the recent heat wave to get the temperature up at (and over) 90 degrees, which really kicks this strain into overdrive. Due to some losses, both in the boil kettle and the fermenter, I only ended up yielding about 3 gallons of beer, 34 bottles to be exact. The whole process took just over two hours from the beginning of set up to the end of clean up, and I'll crack the first bottle about a week from now to see how bottle conditioning is coming along.

Me (wearing my snazzy pink work gloves) siphoning the beer from the fermentation bucket to the bottling bucket, where a sugar solution is waiting to mix with the beer and serve as fuel for the yeast to naturally carbonate the beer

not the best view, but I'm siphoning the beer from the bottling bucket into empty bottles. There's a bottle wand at the end of the tubing that lets me control the flow of beer into the bottles

The other half of the assembly line, my cousin capping all the freshly filled bottles. Having a second person on hand makes the bottling process run much more smoothly

Homebrewing

Homebrewing is something that's becoming more and more of a hobby for me, and is something that will hopefully one day move beyond just a hobby. The spectrum of homebrewers ranges from people basically making soup, adding in prepackaged powders and hops, to those who grow their own hops, crush their own malted barley, brew with these ingredients on thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and sometimes tuck their beers away for a year or more before even bottling (or kegging) them. Many started back in the 80s out of necessity, there was no more reliable way to get better beer. Despite the craft beer resurgence we're now in, many continue as a first step towards a career in brewing, as a creative outlet, or just to see if they can make beer as good as the guys with millions of dollars of equipment.

As you'll no doubt hear on any brewery tour, the four basic building blocks of beer are malted barley, hops, water, and yeast. The malted barley will ultimately give the beer its color and, more importantly, provide sugars. Some of these sugars will end up food for the yeast later on, while others will remain behind to give the beer its sweetness and body. Hops are added to provide bitterness, which balances out the sweetness from the malt, and also provide certain citrusy, flowery, or herbal flavors and aromas. The chemical makeup of the water used for brewing can impact how the flavors from the malt and hops shine through in the beer, depending on the levels of certain minerals and salts. Some homebrewers go so far as to obtain water reports and treat their brewing water with salts to alter the profile of the water to better accent the particular beer in question. Finally, yeast is what actually gives us beer. At a minimum, yeast consumes sugars from the malt and produces alcohol (hooray!) and carbon dioxide. Depending on the specific yeast strain used, not to mention the temperature fermentation takes place at, esters and phenols produced by the yeast may be a minor, or major contributor to the beer's flavor profile as well. From here countless other ingredients (other sugar sources, spices, etc) can be added to further tweak the final product, but the groundwork is laid with these four ingredients

The first step in any successful homebrew is a recipe. Some homebrewers prefer to leave this to others. There are many books with tried and true homebrewing recipes, as well as recipe kits offered by most homebrew supply shops, not to mention recipes posted in online homebrewing forums. Others (myself included) prefer recipes of their own creation. Ingredients may be pulled together to brew something approximating a commercial beer, or fit within an accepted style, or they may be combined to make something truly unique (I recently came across someone working on a recipe for a stout brewed with vanilla and basil). Garrett Oliver (brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery) has often said that brewers are more akin to chefs than vintners or distillers, and it is in the formulation of recipes that one sees the truth in that.

Once a recipe is in hand, it's time to actually brew the thing. Brew day for me usually entails a solid 4+ hours from first setting up equipment to finishing clean up. The basic process begins with what's called the mash. The malted barley and other grains are crushed (some crush their own, others buy them pre-crushed from the homebrew supply store) and soaked in water at a specific temperature (usually between about 144 and 158 degrees) for a length of time (usually about an hour). This allows enzymes to convert the starches present in the grain into sugars. The specific temperature determines what kinds of sugars are produced (specifically, how much of the resulting sugars are able to be consumed by yeast). Next is lautering, where the sugar rich liquid (now called wort) is separated from the spent grain. The wort is then brought to a boil, and hops are added. The boil typically lasts from 60 to 90 minutes, and hops added at the beginning stages of the boil contribute a beer's bitterness, while those added later on will contribute aroma and/or flavor. After the boil the wort is chilled as quickly as possible to a safe temperature to pitch the yeast. At this point, once the wort has been moved from the boil kettle to a fermentation vessel and the yeast has been added, work is done for the day.

It is over the coming weeks and months that we actually get beer, as the yeast ferments the sugar present in the wort. Some beginner guides may have you bottling in a week or so, but the more commonly accepted practice is to wait closer to three or so weeks. In reality though, we're at the mercy of the yeast, and no matter what must wait for fermentation to finish before anything is bottled. If a beer is bottled and capped mid fermentation, the carbon dioxide produced from post bottling fermentation will likely build up until it reaches a breaking point and the bottle literally explodes. That said, brewers may wait longer than that, whether it be to let a big beer mellow out a bit, or to add more hops (called dry hopping) or spices or other additives. Eventually though it's time for bottling, and the beer is mixed with a precise amount of sugar (usually table sugar for simplicity) right before going into the bottle. This extra bit of sugar will be fermented over the next week or so and produce hopefully just the right amount of CO2 to properly carbonate the beer. Finally, usually 4-6 weeks after brew day, it's time to enjoy the fruit of one's labors.

I'll be documenting all of my homebrewing adventures here, my first "hands-on" post should be up after bottling a recently brewed saison on Saturday