Pool Party Pale Ale

Greetings my friends of the humble malted barley! I hope you enjoyed our last post from Coren's Corner. I know I had fun going to the festival, so there is always that! Our next festival is coming up in Mundelein, IL in the parking lot of Tighthead Brewing Company. If you want to go, get some tickets here for 6/8!

It hasn't been that long since my last brew session, but you can't keep this guy away when he has the brewing bug. I decided to welcome the summer with two beers earlier, one of which was the Bloody Good Hefe (turned out so damn good!). The next one up is for the hopheads, which means I will enjoy this beer quite a bit (I might share...might).

This was a simple beer that I hyped up in two ways, rye and hop variety. I used flaked rye in order to get a bit more of a complex flavor from the malt and to also help with the head retention (rye, rice, corn, etc all have more protein in them than malted barley, so they can help in a big way here). Now, the varieties of hops I selected were all of the US, keeping with the American Pale Ale theme I set for myself, and they all needed to contribute something fun.

Why fun with the hops you may ask? Well, a certain someone that recently posted about a seminar blurted out a particular hop of a piney nature, and I decided I wanted to showcase the US hops for what they really do well: big bitterness and piney & citrus aromas. To accomplish this, we had 1 once of Simcoe up front with a modest 11.8% AA (Alpha acid, or the thing that makes beer bitter when boiled in wort). That was it until we reached the end with 2 ounces of Ahtanum to round out that citrus nose. So, that takes care of round 1 of piney & citrus, but what else can we do to show off?

Those of you that know me, know I love dry-hopped beers, so it was only natural that I would show off with exactly the same thing. We are going to have an extra 5 days of dry-hopping with 1 ounce each of Centennial, Chinook, and Simcoe, so we can fully appreciate the aromas of the Pacific Northwest.

Phew, just typing about it made me really excited to just get a whiff of this bad boy when it hits the bottling stage in a few short weeks (honestly, I may have drooled just a bit too, but it just sounds so good!).

So, the boil and everything went really well, as was expected. I had some Pale 2 Row and Crystal 20 L (that is 20 degrees Lovibond, which tells us beer geeks how much color we should get from the grain) steeping and some extracts, but nothing scary. There was a single late addition to help keep the beer balanced and not a hop bomb (hey, it isn't an IPA after all).

I used Wyeast 1272 American Ale II because it attenuates (changes sugar into alcohol) just about the same as 1056 American Ale, but it also is a bit better at flocculation, which is how fast the yeast finishes its work (better flocculation, the less time I wait for beer).

So, that is all I have about this brew day. But stay tuned for updates, per usual.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

UPDATE 1: Wow, the 1272 is strong to start, that is for sure. That must be why so many people want to use it as a reliable "house" strain. I can detect the hops, obviously, from the blow off bucket, but also a bit of malty nuttiness. Wyeast, you nailed it again. I'm looking forward to seeing this beast in a bottle soon. Check out that krausen (foamy head from fermentation); its crazy!

UPDATE 2: I moved this to secondary yesterday, on top of 3 more ounces of hops (Centennial, Cascade, Chinook) to enhance the aroma. We should be bottling this within a week and drinking it inside of 3. Hoppy goodness here I come!

Coren's Corner: Belle City Festival & Lakefront Seminar Review

            Happy Craft Beer Week to all of you wonderful beer people. If you haven’t noticed by now, Brian has a significant passion for craft beer.  Anyways, his love of all things brewing has seriously inspired me to take the bull by the horns and learn more about this great community.  This is why I’m trying to attend as many events as possible to expand my horizons. In fact, just this past weekend, I sat in a great seminar at the Belle City Brew Fest in Racine, WI that I wanted to share with you.

This was our first beer festival of the season (yes, we did go to one last month, but we were volunteers so it is a major difference).  There was about 20 different breweries all lined up inside the Racine Civic Center and Brian and I were getting anxious to try some great brews.

With this event being in Wisconsin, one could say a sizable chunk of the breweries from Wisconsin were on hand to represent their brand.  Lakefront Brewery, who has always held a special place in my heart, was there sampling their many beers.  Not only have I been on their brewery tour 10 times (I think the 11^th should be free…), but I truly love what this brewery has to offer.  Last summer at Top of The Hops, Brian and I had the opportunity to meet the owner and brewer of LFB, Russ Klisch.  With me being the big dork that I am, I was kind of nervous to meet him. Their IPA, Fixed Gear and IBA are among my favorite beers ever, but I did muster up the nerve to shake his hand and state how much I like his beer.  What I was pleasantly surprised with was how genuinely Russ wants to make good beer.

           Since that initial meeting, Russ does notice Brian and me when we attend any beer events he happens to be at.  Well, at Belle City, I walked up to the LFB table and said hi and mention that the newest inductee in the My Turn Series, Chad, truly hit the barley wine style dead on. Russ kindly said thank you and then let us know that he will be speaking at a seminar that day at 4 pm.  Brian and I knew this would be something we would not want to miss.

After beer notes began to overflow in our respective notebooks, Brian and I headed to towards the seminar. Of course, we were among the first to arrive, took our seats right in the first row.  Others began to join us, some rowdy, some tired, but all with a love for good beer.  Russ started his presentation letting people know a little history behind his brewery and how they started off.  Now, this was all well and good, but the blessing/curse was the fact Brian and I had a keg with a test batch of their IPA right in front of us. During the presentation, folks constantly were asking poor Brian to keep filling their glass, which did get a bit annoying. I don’t think he minded in the end, or at least I hope not.

           Anyway, Russ got into detail about barely is converted into malt and the way it changes the flavors of different bears. He actually passed around malted milk balls and other gains for everyone to try, highlighting the differences in the kilning process as the grains got progressively darker. He then ventured into the world of hops and started explaining why they are so important in a beer. At this point in the seminar, volunteers were pouring some beers so each person was able to try his creations. This was really useful though, because each person was able to experience the complexities of malt and hop varieties.
 

           One of the more interesting parts was how hops can be added at different times during the boiling process, which directly impacts what they do to the beer.  We found out that dry-hopping, for example, actually captured certain compounds better than boiling. This was only highlighted when the question came out of how to get different flavors/aromas from hops, like pine, and I just said, “Oh, like in Simcoe.”  At that moment, Brian, who knows plenty about hops and their characteristics, turned his head to me and proudly stated, “Great job….”

In the end, what really impressed me with the day was getting to spend time inside the mind of a very successful brewer.  Russ Klisch really impressed me with his knowledge of the beer culture and why he got into it in the first place.  His operation with Lakefront Brewery is truly one to respect, and I fully expect that to continue.  After all that was said and done, I went up to Russ and thanked him for his time.  Even though this was only an hour long seminar, Brian and I walked away smiling knowing this was the reason we keep going to festivals: the culture.

I am very excited to see what other beer festivals have to offer this year.  We will be attending Tighhead’s Beer Fest on June 15 and Glendale Beer Lovers Festival on June 22.  So, keep your eyes glued to this blog.  Plus, much more will be happening in the next couple of months as far as new beer and other reviews.

           And with that, to all the beer geeks out there, there is only one thing left to say: Prost!  

Grammatical Error Kölsch

Hey there brew fans, I have another update to provide you! Big Brew has come and gone for 2013, and I have a new batch at home fermenting away. What is Big Brew you ask? Well, that just so happens to be the day the American Homebrewers Association tries to get its members to all brew on the same day, with the same recipe. I wasn't keen on the recipe choices for this year (Belgian Blonde, English Dark Mild, and American Pilsner), so I went my own route with it and made a Kölsch, the history of which is partly why I wanted to. Ok, I also love the way these taste as the weather gets hotter, so sue me.

So, what is a Kölsch? It is a style that has a hodgepodge of origins, just like the city it originates from in Germany. Cologne (Köln in German) is in West Germany and was originally a Roman trading hub between Munich and London as it was located by the Rhine River. Those that remained after the fall of Rome began to explore the art of brewing, and eventually they formed a guild in order to protect themselves from unfair taxation and labor practices, but also to make sure they could control their craft.

The craft the guild wanted to protect was the use of gruit, or herb mixtures to balance the sweetness of the malt. Kölsch got part of its identity in this, because the guild would eventually give in to the pressure of the time to use hops instead of gruit. The heritage of the spicy, fresh, and effervescent gruit would not be lost, however.

What makes this evolution all the more interesting was that it took place roughly when the lager revolution was beginning to pick up steam throughout Europe, but especially Germany. Because of how set the guild was in its ways, they outlawed the use of bottom-fermenting (lager) yeast in Cologne and stuck hard to the ale yeasts. Though, they did in the end concede on the use of lighter malt varieties in order to get closer to the popular golden lager color.

So, the beer finally had its basic components and was gaining interest, only to have the two World Wars interrupt them and make the brewers have to go down to a trickle as far as production. It wouldn't undo them though, as they fought back to firmly establish Kölsch a style the world would know forever.

That is the heritage of this style, and the history always pumps me up to find my own way to express it in the present. My recipe uses flaked wheat, which is a bit of a throwback to the wiess version, but I kept it grounded in what is considered a true Kölsch with pilsner malt. The hops are all noble varieties, and no one would venture away from the proper yeast for this style, so it all was pretty simple. The only extra I added in here was some roasted paradise seeds that I crushed and put in right at the end of the boil, to enhance the peppery and spicy qualities of the hops, especially the Saaz.

Overall, the brew day went super well, and I was even able to try my hand at increasing my mash temp gradually instead of the lazy man version of setting it to 160 F and letting it ride. I figure that should give me a more interesting flavor in the end, not to mention a smoother finish. I'm very excited to try it again in a larger batch.

That is all I have for now, but stay tuned for a new post from Coren's Corner and a beer festival review.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

UPDATE 1: This was not a slouch at fermenting, which I am happy to see. The aroma coming off the blow off bucket is great and makes me want it to finish all the faster. I'd like to try this one again with a bit more wheat, especially red wheat, in the grain bill, just to see what it would taste like. Anyways, here she is after about 30 hours after pitching.