Bloody Good Hefe

"For a quart of ale is a dish for a king," William Shakespeare, 'A Winter's Tale'.

On this wonderful Talk Like Shakespeare day, it only seems fitting to offer up a new post in addition to some wisdom from the bard himself. The topic of the day is the beer made for my little sister, who is a fiend when it comes to the wheat beers of the world. This is my first wheat beer, but I really enjoyed the process behind it, starting with my research.

I dove into texts and different websites to discern the unique aspects of the wheat beer, and I came up with some interesting points. Wheat beers could be considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, styles created by mankind. In fact, a crock was found in Kulmbach (north of Nuremberg, in the southern part of Germany) dating back to 800 BC that held the remains of a black wheat beer!

I was also blown away at another link to weissebier (white beer, due to the pale appearance), this time with the Reinheitsgetbot Purity Law of 1516. At one point, the production of weissebier was controlled by the duchy of Bavaria, until the original house's lineage and the rights passed on to another. The second noble house, the Wittlesbach, made the Purity Law, but not because they necessarily wanted the beer to be of the best quality. The law required beer to  be made from water, barley, and hops (yeast was unknown, so it is considered an unwritten but acceptable ingredient), which does in fact give a more "pure" brew to enjoy. The house of Wittlesbach, however, controlled much of the barley farming in addition to the weissebier production. So, in the end, the use of the law was more to solidify their monopoly on ingredients and a highly sought after product!

Even with the advent of the lagers in the 1800s, the weissebiers of the world not only thrive, but continue to evolve. This evolution brings me to my recipe for this offering to the masses. I wanted to take a route that will be similar to the old versions, living up to the Purity Law of 1516, with my own flair on the ingredients. I have had the raspberry,cherry, and I have had other fruit variations, so I began to contemplate the possibilities. I finally arrived at a mixture of my ideas and one I really like already: blood oranges and strawberries. The use of blood oranges is something Sam from Dogfish Head, in his infinite wisdom, decided to pair with the weissebier style, and it couldn't have been more successful. I wanted to take that and run with it by adding strawberries into secondary, offering a different aroma and a hint of extra sweetness for those summer days around the corner.

Unfortunately, Coren and I were unable to acquire the fabled blood oranges as they are very seasonal (I swear we tried!). So, to compensate for that, I used cara cara navel oranges at a lower amount due to their increased sweetness, and upped the quantity of strawberries from 3 lbs to 4 lbs for balance.

The process for this boil couldn't have been easier. The grains went in, the hops were added (2 ounces of German Hallertau, so nothing difficult), and the oranges were pasteurized  for 15 min before joining the wort in the carboy. All in all, this was surprisingly easy and quick, so it maybe a beer I try again with some other local ingredients (I have a few interesting ideas floating around up there already...he he he). The decision to go with the Wyeast 3068 is something I am very happy about, because I read a lot about the strain's wonderful esters and phenols and it makes my mouth water thinking of the banana and clove aromas mingling with the oranges and strawberries.

I am very excited to get this into secondary in a few more days, on top of the strawberries that are really looking quite tasty. The turn around on this batch may make it one I decide to turn into a year-round offering, but we shall see.

This will not be a very long fermentation, considering the amount of yeast I used, and the lower gravity of this (1.061), so updates should follow shortly.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

UPDATE 1: Holy crap! This guy didn't wait at all to ferment, and what a crazy krausen! I had to take a whiff, and this is certainly getting some serious orange and bready notes. The esters and phenols are already in high gear as well. The only down side to the 3068 strain is some sulfur being produced, but this goes away in secondary and conditioning. All is looking and smelling quite nice!

UPDATE 2: The strawberries have been added to the secondary after a nice long pasteurizing session on the stove. They added so much volume to the carboy that I had to grab a second one and add about 1 gal of the original recipe to it! Oh well, I will just have to suffer through 2 wonderful German wheat beers in a few weeks. Prost!

Festival Review: Schlafly Repeal of Prohibition

Greetings brewsters! I am so happy to be able to provide you this post, since I finally have a second to do it, about my recent trip to St. Louis for what is easily one of my favorite festivals, the Repeal of Prohibition at Schlafly.


This marks the beginning of the good weather for festivals, although that doesn't always hold true. A few years ago, the festival was on a day with a blistering 15F as the high. This year, we did quite nicely with around 70F, so no complaints at all.

Coren and I arrived on a Friday, albeit in less than optimal conditions: my cell phone was damaged beyond repair and I'd gotten a speeding ticket to start our trip. Did that stop us from getting to our destination or having a fan-freakin-tastic time? In short: not a damn bit.

As we arrived to the festival on Saturday, the stage was getting prepped for the band to keep our toes tapping all day long. One small note about bands at festivals: I really don't want you to be super loud or have a ton of lyric-heavy songs, because it means I cannot focus on my friends and of course the beer. As a result, I tip my hat to Swing DeVille for not only being a great group overall, but they didn't require me to shout to be heard. Huzzah!

Continuing on, this festival holds a dear spot in my heart because Schlafly invites guest breweries to show off their stuff. Past invitees have included Alaskan, Midnight Sun, Deep Ellum, and Shorts. This year, it was time for Iowa to represent, and they did with Great River, Backpocket, and Peace Tree.

So, as the festival started up, Coren and I took up our positions: pouring for Backpocket. This is a big deal to pour for one of the guests, so needless to say, I was pretty stoked. Coren was stationed next to me, so it was nothing short of perfection. As the festival started, however, we soon realized that she was in for a rough day. Her chosen beer was a touch over-carbonated, and as a result, she really had to focus on getting a decent pour to each patron. She gets some serious credit for holding strong and never backing down, even when she got the stink eye from a certain fella (yeah, I saw you...you watch your ass bucko).

The day continued on with little to no issues that I noticed, unless you count my allergies deciding that the festival was the best time to overreact to the world (seriously, I hate allergies). We managed to finish up our shift, and go about and enjoy the offerings around us and our buddies.

Coren was a HUGE fan of the Dirty Blonde from Great River, which shouldn't be shocking because it was a golden ale brewed with chocolate. I have to admit, it was probably the biggest WOW beer of the festival if for nothing less than its contrasting color & flavor.

For me, I was torn in a few directions with my choices. I poured a really nicely balanced Munich dunkel from Backpocket, which was located next to their peated bock that was meant for someone that likes a good scotch (THIS guy right here). I also found plenty of joy in the complex barrel aged farmer brown from Great River and the easy-drinking rye porter from Peace Tree. Each of them brought a nice hoppy offering too, so trying to name a favorite beer is just far too difficult for me (but I'm happy to keep trying them...he he he).

Schlafly, of course, had plenty of their wonderful beers available to try, including a few I was itching to get my hands on. The Belgian golden and Scotch ale were really just fun departures from the beers they have made in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised with how easy they were to enjoy. I fully plan to have more of each from my stockpile I returned home with over the next few months, so don't be shocked to see a review of either (wink wink).

Overall, this was a festival that can be crazy or easy, and I'm happy to say that this one went off quite well. Coren and I even got to see 2 beer festival newbies get their feet wet this year, one of which is the wife to a good friend and fellow beer geek (shout out to my man Stewart and his super cool wife Kristin!). I look forward to the next festival, considering how well this one went for us. Thanks to everyone that made this weekend one to remember: You know who you are!

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

Banshee's Wail

Good morning malt fans! I have a wonderful brew day to share with you, as a result of some friends that wanted to see how brew is done. There is a bit of back story here, so I will start with that.

Kelly & Debbie, two wonderful ladies, have been in the housecleaning game for a while, and that includes my folks place. Well, I have made it a point to make sure they get to try any new offerings I have when they are available, and they are proving to be very capable and fun tasters. This lead to the questions of whether or not I'd be willing to brew with them some time, especially since Kelly's husband Jim was interested in the process ever since he tried Awesome Sauce IPA (I guess he liked it enough to want to do it on his own some time).

That lead me to a wonderful Saturday where we got to make something Coren asked for, and imperial Irish Red. I had to scratch my head on this one for a recipe, and I think we have either arrived at a bigger version of it in every category or more of an amber ale. I'm more than happy to keep playing with this recipe, but in the end, this should still be a fine sipper as the weather starts to get warmer.

The stats on this one are as follows:

• OG 1.074
• FG 1.020
• ABV 7.09%
• IBU 34.04

So, it will be bigger in every way possible, but next time I may scale the hops down just a bit, especially since this may end up being a bit higher than the 34 IBUs that I originally calculated. Age will always smooth that out if need be, but I think the extra malt I added in primary (he he) will help to balance this out a bit more.

As for the day itself, to call it anything short of a total blast would be an understatement. We started our day with getting things set up in their kitchen (holy cow, what an amazing kitchen), and then got the specialty grains steeping. I was able to keep the temp right around 158 for the entire 30 minutes, which I think was mostly due to a pretty strong burner on that stove. While we waited, Coren and I were treated to some of Jim's world-famous Bloody Mary's (yum).

As the day rolled on, Debbie and her husband Frank showed up, and I was able to provide some background to the type of beer we were making, and also allow them each to take turns with various steps, like hop additions and sparging the grains. They all seemed to really enjoy it, mostly because they really didn't believe it was all that easy.

The day wrapped up and we returned with the carboy fully loaded, aerated, and pitched with a full starter (.5 gal growler) and an extra smack pack of Wyeast Irish Ale.

The sample looked, smelled, and tasted great, and I am anxious to see the results of this bad boy!

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte! 

UPDATE 1: The fermentation on this took off like a bandit! I sent a picture over to Kelly so Jim could see the result of our efforts, and I'm really looking forward to bringing a bottle of this over for us to try in a few weeks.

UPDATE 2: This has been bottled and is now in conditioning! I am happy to say I ended up with a fun beer, beyond what I had planned. The nose is AMAZING and the taste has a hint of the hops so as to give bitterness without being overt. The malt flavors mingled really nicely with the extra ABV we put into this, and she finishes nice and dry. I am pumped to try this in a couple of weeks.

UPDATE 3: Here is a fantastic view of the Banshee being enjoyed by Jim and Jake Thiel. Cheers gents!

Brewing Goodies

Greetings yet again my fellow beer geeks! I am happy to say that my next phase in homebrewing is upon me, as I stepped out and got some new gear! Recently, I acquired a burner, a 20 gal propane tank, a 7 gal kettle, and 2 kegs for conversion to MLT & keggle!

As it is, the kegs are the only big hiccup I have right now, because of two things. For starters, I need to make sure they are clean and purged of any gas. Why? Imagine trying to open up one that still has some liquid or gas at roughly 15-20 PSI. Yeah, I'm not looking to have that happen, so I'm working something out with a local brewer when he gets his keg washer up and running. I love the beer community for exactly that reason, because it was just an easy suggestion that made my day. Looking forward to that soon!

So, the next phase of my operation is to move the entire process outside. To accomplish this, I will need to do more than just rinse and cut the kegs, but also get some fittings to allow me to just pour wort and liquor (hot water) without trying to lift a nearly full keg of very hot liquid. So, I will have to go and get them bored out at the bottom and potentially add one of those nice Blichmann thermometers to each. This puts me at a stand still until I can figure out a way around it, but with all the machine shops in the area, not to mention family friends in the auto industry, I think I should be able to work something out. A couple of free beers ought to take care of it, right?

Once that is all done, all I will have left to do is get some support structure on the burner to support the keggle. The last thing I would like to see here is the entire batch of an all-grain recipe go spilling on to the driveway. I'll have to go MacGuyver on it a bit, but I think again the machine shops might be a good place to start.

My goal is to be outside brewing no later than 4th of July, which is convenient because I have a recipe worked up just for that day and I'd love to get started on it with this new system in place. I'll let you know what comes of it all as updates are available to me.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

Loose Lederhosen

Well, my friends, I owe you an apology. I haven't written to you in some time, but I have been very busy with March and totally forgot to provide any updates! Well, I have several posts to share with you, so let's get started.

The first topic to update you on was the other lager I made, my Oktoberfest Loose Lederhosen. As with the maibock, I decided I had to be respectful of the brewing tradition here and kept everything in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot, or the Purity Law of 1516 that says only a few special ingredients can be used: water, barley, and hops (later they learned of yeast, so it is considered an obvious addition to the list). As a result, I made sure to use as much of traditional malts and hops I could, so I stuck with Vienna, Cara-Munich, and Munich malts, along with some amber DME to get the color and OG just right. The hops I chose were as close to the money as I could get them, with Hallertau and Tettnanger.

All told, this beer clocked in with an OG of 1.056 and a respectable 26 IBUs. I didn't want this to be a knock your socks off beer, but rather something that will become more and more interesting as it cellars and conditions, considering I won't really be enjoying this until September.

The other part of keeping this traditional had to do with when I made the beer. Marzen, or March, is when the beer is made so that it can lager and age nicely during the hot summer months and be truly enjoyed when the weather starts to get cold again. Did I hear someone say football beer?

Well, the brew day went really and I have to admit, it was not a hard batch to get together. I might consider doing a winter version of this at some point by incorporating some late harvest or winter wheat to add some complexity to the body and flavor.

Stay tuned, because there will be more to follow with this one as it continues to age.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

UPDATE 1: The fermentation for this batch lasted just as long as the maibock, which surprised me in a bit considering the amount of yeast, even with the starter, was decent, but it was still a lower gravity beer. I'm not going to complain though!

UPDATE 2: The lagering has begun! The garage is sitting comfortably in the 30s, and even if it does go up to about 45 or 50, the carboy is sitting covered, and out of direct light. I suspect the temp inside is hard pressed to go above 40, but if it gets closer to 60 during the day and 40s at night, I'll end up cutting the lagering short and bottle it. Here is hoping the cooler temps can stick around just a bit longer!

Beer Community: Lagunitas & The Big Bad Wolf

So, I decided since this is a blog all about beer, it wouldn't hurt to comment on beer news I garner through the grapevine from time to time. We could be talking about new breweries, expansions, or industry shake-ups.

This post is dedicated to Tony Magee (@lagunitasT on Twitter), who was recently very active in support of his own company/employees, but small breweries everywhere. Plus, Chicago and the brewery formerly known as Goose Island got in there too, which makes me happy Tony still has love for his original city. Before we go any further, well done Tony, well done indeed.

So, according to his Twitter posts, some executive, the one that captured the contract with Goose Island, from AB-InBev began a process of wining & dining Tony. This was not the first time a decent sized craft brewery has been approached by one of the dreaded "Big 3," and it certainly won't be the last. Hell, it wasn't that long ago Sam from Dogfish Head had to turn someone down from another conglomerate.

Well, Tony's responses on Twitter were not only hilarious, but they proved a point that all brewers must respond to at some point: to sell or not to sell. While some will make the decision to give the reigns over to some faceless company that has to focus on investors and their returns, the ones that remain strong are the ones we need to thank for moving the craft beer industry to a point where the "Big 3" have to consider these moves more and more often. Why? They are losing business to the little guy, and that is seen as a problem. Why do you think we see more and more of the big guys joining up in the last 10-15 years? This trend will continue until there is an equilibrium, more or less, in the industry, or craft wins/loses totally to the "Big 3".

So, does that mean I'm upset when some craft brewery makes the decision to sell? Not necessarily, but the game that is being played is a simple one. The "Big 3" control so much revenue, and therefore have a lot of sway in the way the overall industry is directed. When they capture a craft label, it is to add another feather in their cap for additional revenue for the investors. If that stream begins to underperform, you will see it either be cut in quantity, quality, or just removed altogether. This is very plainly on display for the consumer that is savvy enough to see it with Goose Island; look at the bottle next time, because they are no longer brewed in Chicago or by the watchful eye of a GI brewmaster. The various offerings they have generated lately seem to be less and less underpinned with the goal of quality, sacrificing some ingredients for cheaper ones. And how the hell is 312 Urban Wheat if it isn't even coming from the 312 area code?!

Some breweries are taking a different approach to this issue by going to an local or employee-owned system. Schlafly in St. Louis recently took that stance, and not only are they thriving, they are showing strong everywhere you look, even expanding into new markets. So, selling, so to speak, can be done in a way that helps in terms of cash as well as perserving the atmosphere of the brewery when it first opened.

I guess the overall thing to take away from Tony & Lagunitas being able to stand up and say no should mean that in this industry tipped highly in the favor of the "Big 3" there are still beacons of hope. Hope in the original purpose of a brewery to be in it for the beer first, the money and glory all come in a distant second. So, tonight, raise a glass and say thanks to Tony and the other small local guys that you support; they are not alone!

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

Beer Review Challenge: Spitefull Burning Bridges Brown Ale

Good afternoon once more! This is the dramatic conclusion (insert your favorite climatic music) to the Spiteful reviews. Again, thanks to Caitlin Malone for her help in getting these bottles. On to the review!

The brown ale style is a seriously ambiguous beer that can be so many different things. American versions are bigger in most aspects than the original source of England, but both are very good and share similarities. The malts and hops will vary from mild to aggressive depending on who is making it, but overall, you expect to have a balanced beer with bit more of a nod to the malt overall and maybe a glimpse of the hops at the end. The new trend, however, is to make this into the India Brown Ale, or a hoppy brown ale, which does make things a bit harder to narrow down. Ultimately, if it is brownish-reddish in color, with anywhere from 3% - 8% ABV, and low to high hops, you may very well have a brown ale in your glass (brewers do get to "decide" if that is what they intended to make, so be respectful if this isn't what you end up with each time).

Color: Brown through and through, but you cannot help be notice the tinge of heavy color, almost black in the right light. The head has a very fluffy, creamy, white appearance, which offers a nice contrast to the beer itself.

Head:  Wow! This is some serious head retention, begging the question about hop selection, protein use, and mashing methods. Very impressive.

Taste: The balance of a true brown ale is in the heart of this beer. A touch of malty sweetness is married to a hint of bitterness from the hops. The mouthfeel of the slightly chewy character, a nod to the presence of proteins and unfermented starches, helps to give the weight to this beer you really want to see. The aftertaste also was a welcome offering, as it started with the sweetness but cleaned up with the bitterness. Yum!

Overall: I am a big fan of brown ales, because they can be anything you want them to be. Small/big, malty/hoppy, thick/thin, etc. This was one of the best I have had in a long damn time. The delicate balance of these flavors with 7.5% ABV (oh yeah baby!) and the excellent head not only heighten the appearance, but it makes the entire beer a great offering. This is one I would gladly take again...and again...and again. I would consider whether or not this beer has something to offer year round by toying with adding some candi sugar or lactose to make it a milk brown ale (sounds so tasty), but this is one hell of an ale.

Score: 8.5/10

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!