Top of the Hops Festival - Racine, WI - May 12, 2012

I recently was going over some notes, and I thought I should share them with you regarding another festival I attended. The notes/scores of the beers I tried will be provided at the bottom, after some general observations of the festival itself.

The Top of the Hops in Racine, WI started off by offering discounted tickets on GroupOn, which I will always be a fan of (hooray saving money!). With that, we were off on our expedition on a somewhat chilly Saturday in May, but there was beer to be enjoyed, so damn the weather!

Upon arriving, the facility was prepared very nicely, with each brewery in its own area, under large tents. Considering it was an overcast day and we were positioned very close to Lake Michigan, the tents may not have been all that necessary, but still, it was nice to have them for a sense of nostalgia of other beer festivals.

This festival offered a VIP ticket, which gave you early entry, access to free food, and private beers. Sadly, the private beers that were being offered were a number I had already enjoyed or sampled and found not to be my favorites. There was one beer here that I had not expected to find, and to say that I was pleasently surprised is a drastic understatement. Grand Teton's Pursuit of Hoppiness was incredible, with warm malty characters, but balanced wonderfully with stand-up-and-take-notice hops on the nose.

As for the festival as a whole, the entire facility was filled with breweries, but very few of the stations were manned by people from the breweries, but rather volutneers, which I have mixed feelings on. First of all, if you are going to volunteer at a beer festvial, you should probably know something about beer at the very least, but I do appreciate the giving of their time to help out, so I'm torn.

There was a really enjoyable beer school done by the folks from Samuel Adams, who turned out to be very laid back and fun, the standard for beer people in my eyes. They even enjoyed how big of fans we were of their recent exporations into IPAs and hooked us up with some samples to enjoy after the event. Cheers!

Another enjoyable conversation took place with the people of Rhinelander, where we got a chance to trade war stories, ask about their beers, and learn a bit more of their passion for the process. I am also heartened to hear people that have been doing this for a while and still have the same drive that I do for the pursuit of world class beers. A big thanks to them for being such good beer people.

After touring the entire area, got a good perspective of who was present, and sampled along our way. Those beers that stood out were St. Francis's Lust Weiss, Abita's Jakamo IPA, and Grand Teton's Sweetgrass APA (the Pursuit of Hoppiness was scored, but being a VIP beer, I placed it into its own category to rate the festival beers against each other).

The only true down sides as far as the beer was concerned were, thankfully, only 2 beers. Tallgrass's Belgian Tripel and House of Brews' Pale Ale were subpar on the style and a huge disappointment. Hopefully it was just a batch issue, but I am a little gunshy to try either again in the near future.

Overall, this was a fun festival, the weather was decent, and I got to have great beer, which is the best compliement I can pay to any festival. So, I tip my hat to the breweries and organizers for a well done event.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slante!

NOTES/SCORES

Frankemuth - Dunkel

• Dark brown, chocolatey color
• Sweet, malty, caramel notes
• Very light hop notes with decent head retention
• Mouthfeel was very mild
• Malty taste with a mild bitterness
• 7.5/10

House of Brews - Pale Ale

• Golden color
• Weak hop notes on the nose
• No hop taste at all
• Watery mouthfeel
• No bitterness on aftertaste
• 3.5/10

Pangea Beer - Hop Nest Monster

• Nice straw color
• Light notes notes on nose
• Good bitterness on taste
• Mild mouthfeel
• Missing punch for the name
• 5.0/10

St. Francis Brewery - Lust Weiss

• Cloudy straw color
• Traditional belgian banana & clove notes
• Light mouthfeel
• Hint of bitterness on taste
• 8.5/10

Titletown - Hopasaurs Rex

• Burnt orange, light amber color
• Good hop notes, with hints of citrus
• Great bitterness on the intial taste, but lingers too long
• Malty, hoppy mix unbalanced
• Mild mouthfeel
• 7.0/10

Abita - Jackamo IPA

• Light amber color
• Glorious hop notes on the nose
• Nice bitterness
• Mild to heavy mouthfeel
• Sweetness and bitterness balanced wonderfully
• 8.5/10

Tallgrass Brewery - Belgian Tripel

• Cloudy straw color
• No hop notes at all
• No banana & cloves on nose at all
• A very mild bitterness on the taste
• The mouthfeel is nice and smooth
• Missing on the style completely
• 1.0/10

Potosi Brewery - Pure Malt Cave Ale

• Golden color
• Slight malty notes on the nose
• Direct and simple taste, not overly done
• No bitterness on taste
• Easy to drink and light mouthfeel
• 7.5/10

O'so Brewery - Night Train Porter

• Dark as the night
• Sweet and malty notes mixed with chocolate/coffee
• No head or retention
• Great bitterness on the initial taste
• Want it to be a bit stronger
• Mouthfeel is watery
• 7.0/10

Grand Teton - Sweetgrass APA

• Golden to amber color
• Reserved hoppy notes on the notes
• Sweet and malty taste mixed with hoppy citrus
• Clean finish with no bitter aftertaste
• Mild mouthfeel
• 8.5/10

HONORABLE MENTION

Grand Teton - Pursuit of Hoppiness

• Cloudy amber color
• Smells like a hoppy heaven
• Sweet malty characters balanced perfectly with tart hop bitterness
• Mild-heavy mouthfeel
• Slight bitterness on finish, but not overtly harsh
• 9.0/10

Nessie's Scottish Ale: Review

The days waiting for this one are over! A while back, I made the Scottish Ale from Brewer's Best, who have been a good ally in the learning process of brewing and its pit falls. Since this was a lighter ABV than some other Scottish Ales, the fermentation didn't take long, but I still wanted to give it an extra week of sitting before bottling it, just in case. It came in at roughly 4%, but I'd have to get another reading on the finished product to know for sure.

I also didn't follow the instructions exactly, because I wanted a bit more head on my final product, so I boiled the hops for an extra 10 minutes on both the bittering and aromatic varieties.

The beer itself is what you would expect for any product that is prepackaged and planned: pretty good, but little wow factor. I will say this for the beer, which is being dubbed Nessie's Scottish Ale by the marketing staff here (wink): the malty notes come through very nicely, with a hint of sweetness from the leftover starches. The extra hopping did pay off, allowing for a nice strong head with good retention, although there is almost no hop notes or taste to discern whatsoever. There is also a wonderful body to this beer, as a result of the speciality grains and the extra boiling, but it is a welcome component to say the least.

In the end, I would have to rate this beer a 7.0/10, because it does meet the expectations that were set out for it with the ingredients available, but it does nothing to create the OMG response, which is what I am always trying to find in a beer, especially any I make. That is not to say this wasn't a good beer, because it was quite drinkable, and great for those cold nights you might need something with a bit more heft.

Nonetheless, I am hoping the lessons of this beer were translated well in the Flint Hill Scotch Ale, which is currently in the secondary vessal and is slowly maturing. Only another 17 days of aging there and then it is at least 2 weeks of maturing in the bottles. Be still my beating heart!

If you want to see the recipe for this brew, head on over to http://www.brewersbestkits.com/recipes.html .
As always, drink well and be merry. Slante!

Wisconsin Beer Lover's Festival - Glendale, WI - June 16, 2012

The intrepid exploration of beer festivals is a great way for any homebrewer to meet like-minded folk, and it doesn't hurt that they have great beer to try as well. I cannot begin to count how many I have been to, but I do plan to catalog them on the blog for my own memories.

The most recent festival was only a few days ago, and the drive was really not bad at all, with the mild exception of WI drivers and their desire to speed up, pass me, only to immediately exit. That aside, we arrived no worse for wear and were stunned by the size and location of the festival. It was roughly 30-40 breweries in total, but it was spread throughout an outdoor outlet mall. For those keeping score at home, yes, I did mean to type "outlet mall."

On site, the breweries were set up under small tents and the patrons were lining up for their samples. The use of those small tents is one of my only complaints about the logistics of the festival, because it is a poorly thought out festival that doesn't consider the sun/heat beating down on the consumer as they wait to sample a beer. Come on guys, we deserve some shade too!

Aside from that, the lack of a uniform system of direction or signs to indicate which brewery was where and what they had on tap would have been so much faster. Because of the poor signage, I almost missed the other half of the festival!

Still in awe at the organization of this event, I began my sampling. This festival's sampling glass was better than some other recent festivals (using pint glasses as tasting glasses in the midst of 90 degree heat still boggles my mind), opting for the 3 oz. traditional festival glass and having water scattered throughout to rinse the glass between tastings. Well done!

Another truly welcome sight was the decision for brewpubs and local food vendors to pair food to the individual beers. So little attention is paid by most, but the right beer with the right food makes the two of them vastly better. I especially liked the assortment of cheeses available, but we were in WI after all.

Now that the festival and its pros & cons are behind us, let's talk beer. The beers that jump right to my mind as being pretty good were: Lakefront's Brad Scotch Ale, Silver Creek's Imperial Maiboch, and Vintage Brewery's Hoppity Jones.

The best of the festival was a tie for me between Bulls Falls' Zwickel and Titletown's Johnny Red, which both came out and delivered on the style very well and found a way to surprise me at the same time.

Not to be outdone, Lake Louie's IPA, Hinterland's IPA, and Pearl Street's Smokin' Hemp Porter (even if they kept bashing me for my Cubs hat) all were respectable in their own rights, but they didn't stick out in my mind very much in the end. Still, I would recommend a six-pack any time and you wouldn't regret any of them.

For those people that like the unconventional, then Woodman Brewery had you covered, from a Jalapeno Blonde, a Mushroom Ale, and a Cupcake Ale. While they were different, the shock appeal  is what likely kept pulling people over to their taps. They, however, did nothing for me aside from making me question the brewmaster's decisions and forcing me to pour out my samples. Kudos on thinking out of the box, however.

Overall, this festival was executed well with a ton of variety in the styles and breweries that were present. The food pairing was a delightful addition to a hot day, allowing those festival rookies (you so totally know who you are) to avoid heat stroke, dehydration, and public stupidity. I did find some beers that I expected to find, several that I didn't, and I was surprised more often than not, which is really the best part of any festival.

That wraps up the review for the Wisconsin Beer Lover's Festival.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slante!

NOTES/SCORES

Capital Brewery - Urban Fire

• Amber to reddish color
• Light head and little retention
• Syrupy, malty nose with a strong scent of bourbon
• Sweet at first, but finishes harsh
• 5/10

Sand Creek Brewery - One Planet Ale

• Pale gold color; very clear
• No head at all
• Slightly sweet to the smell, but no strong notes
• Mild taste of sweetness, but nothing special
• 4.0/10

Point Brewery - Raspberry Saison

• Cloudy straw, goldish color
• Light head and little retention
• Good spice notes and sweetness on nose
• Very clean taste with a nice, slight bite on the aftertaste
• 7.5/10

Stone Arch Brewery - Scottish Ale

• Golden color
• Great head with decent retention
• Slightly sweet and malty nose
• Very light sweet taste with almost no flavor
• 3.0/10

Stone Arch Brewery - SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hop)

• Cloudy amber, reddish color
• Lovely head and tight head retention
• Malty and hoppy nose with some grassy notes
• Nice tartness with bittering hops, but not bitter enough for the AA
• 6.5/10

Pearl Street Brewery - Pillsner

• Light straw color
• Great head retention
• Light hoppy notes on the nose
• Very clean taste, but a little weak for the style
• No aftertaste
• 6.5/10

Lakefront Brewery - Brad Scotch Ale

• Amberish to red color
• Thick head with great retention
• A hint of smoke and malt notes on the nose
• Very full bodied
• Malty and sweet to the taste
• A clean tart finish
• 8.0/10

Northwoods Brewery - Flopping Crappie Ale

• Good amber color
• Light head with little retention
• Malty notes that come across a little muddled or watery
• A nice sweetness on the taste
• Bland overall, but matches the style
• 6.5/10

Sprechers Brewery - Summer Pills

• Light straw color
• Minimal head with no retention
• Very light nose with a hint of sweetness
• Tastes more like a blonde than a pills
• 4.0/10

Woodman Brewery - Cupcake Ale

• Cloudy straw color
• No head with no retention
• Very sugary nose with desert-like notes
• Far too sweet; no balance
• 2.0/10

Hinterland Brewery - IPA

• Clear amber color
• Slight head with a little retention
• Balanced nicely on the nose between malty and hoppy
• Style is executed very well; missing a wow factor
• 8.0/10

Port Huron Brewery - Porter

• Black as the night
• Very little head and less retention
• Strong malty notes
• Watery and mild flavor
• Not enough profile; poor execution of the style
• 3.5/10

Silver Creek Brewery- Imperial Maiboch

• Cloudy straw color moving towards a golden color
• Nice strong head and good head retention
• Malty and sweet notes on the nose
• Hit the style perfectly, but needing a bit more ABV to match the imperial title
• Clean with a fun aftertaste from the spices
• 8.0/10

Vintage Brewery - Hoppity Jones

• Light gold color
• Decent head with good retention
• Mildly hoppy nose, but understated
• Very good bite from the hops
• The aftertaste has the same bite, but the wow factor is not present to move it up
• 8.0/10

Pearl Street Brewery - Imperial Pilsner

• Light straw to gold color
• Very light head with little retention
• Slight sweetness and hoppy notes on the nose
• Delicious taste, but not sharp enough with the hops
• Very clean and aftertaste was minimal
• 7.5/10

Lake Louie Brewery -IBA

• Dark and milky brown color
• Nice head and good retention
• Creamy and lovely taste
• Not quite as hoppy on the nose or taste as desired for style
• 8.0/10

Bull Falls Brewery - Zwickel

• Very clear straw color
• Light head with no retention
• Very hoppy, grassy nose
• Clean, refreshing taste, with a finish that satisfied perfectly
• Very little aftertaste
• Drinkable for many a session
• 9.0/10

Milwaukee Brewing - Black Iron

• Black as the night
• No head at all
• Malty, roasty, coffee notes very prominent
• Watery body
• Flavor was mild and muddled
• 6.5/10

Titletown - Schwartzbier

• Black as the night
• Roasty, malty notes very strong on the nose helped by some nice hop compliments
• Smooth and clean
• Mild aftertaste, but not overly harsh
• 8.0/10

Titletown - Johnny Red

• Clear and red as hell
• No head or retention
• Malty, hoppy notes overwhelm the nose in a great balance
• Smooth and clean on the palate with each sip
• Session beer for sure!
• 9.0/10

Flint Hill Scotch Ale

Well, this was a fun project to say the least. First of all, this is a special request, because I had already made a Scottish Ale and I prefer not to repeat myself in any way in order to become a more versitle brewer. I made this batch as a birthday present to my dad, who is turning 60 in July. Now that I got the mushy stuff out of the way, let's get to the beer.

Considering this was my first customized recipe, I needed to take it in stages. I started with the goal of having a full-bodied, dark brown or black color, and roughly 6% ABV. Knowing that, I hit the web and made my way to brewersfriend.com, a must for any homebrewer. I played around with the specific grains for a while, but I ended up at:

• 6.6 lbs LME - Amber
• 1 lb DME - Light
• 1.25 Caramel/Crystal 120L
• 1 lb Chocolate

I liked the balance of dark, roasty qualities of the chocolate, and the extra sweetness and body from the crystal. The next trick was figuring out the hops, which turned out to be a true challenge. I wanted the bitterness to be high, but not above 25 IBU. To accomplish this, I used:

• 1.25 oz Centennial ~ 10 AA
• 0.50 oz Fuggles ~ 4.5 AA
• 0.50 oz Willamette ~ 4.6 AA

I also wanted to make this special with a unique ingredient, something that few people would use any more. So, I also threw in:

• 0.75 oz Heather Tips

With the recipe complete, I did my initial steeping in a different way than I had in the past. Instead of boiling 2.5 gal of water, I put in only 0.5 gal and steeped the grains for 40 minutes. I then rinsed them with an additional 0.25 gal of water. This produced a much sweeter and darker wort.

Roughly half of the LME was added, along with 1.5 gal of water and I began the initial boil. (Homebrewer's note: something I consider really important whenever I add an ingredient, especially a malt of any kind, is to turn off the heat source to avoid burned malt on the bottom of the kettle). This took roughly 45 minutes, due to the size of the heat source I had, but as long as it is heating and I have a good beer to enjoy while I wait, all is well in the world.

Once the boil occurs, I add the bittering hops, which could be Centennial, as indicated above, but I also toyed around using Wye Target and Simcoe. Wanting to avoid any pine or excessive earthy tatstes/aromas, I opted for the Centennial. In a steeping bag, the wort boiled for 45 minutes. (Homebrewer's note: as soon as you add hops, DO NOT LEAVE! You will hit the "hot break" shortly, and the unwatched wort loves to boil over.).

Next, I added the remaining LME and returned the wort to a boil for an additional 30 minutes. Next, the Fuggles & Willamette were added in a steeping bag and boiled for 20 minutes. The heather tips were added in a steeping bag in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

Thankfully, this concluded all the boiling. I moved over to the sink, which had an ice bath already prepared, and placed my kettle in it. (Homebrewer's note: be VERY careful not to let any of the water into the kettle, or you will contaminating the wort and potentially ruining the beer.). It took me 20 minutes of carefully stirring the wort in the ice bath, but it did reach the 70°F mark eventually.

My final steps included siphoning the wort into the fermenter, which had been sitting quietly with sanitizer in it the whole time, and pitching the yeast. The yeast I selected was Wyeast liquid yeast 1728, which is my total preference after having a bad experience with dry yeast. Having activated it when I began brewing and keeping it in my cargo pocket for most of the duration, it had not only been mixing, but it had reached room temperature quite quickly.

The last steps completed, I went through the clean up process. (Homebrewer's tip: Clean everything as soon as you are done with it, or you will spend 3X as long cleaning it later.).

Update 1: Fermentation began roughly 12 hours after the yeast was pitched. It has a nice throaty hop note coming from the airlock, and the color has managed to sit comfortably at a heavy brownish black.

Update 2: After almost 3 days of fermentation, the process appears to be slowing down. I am going to give it a few extra days to sit in the primary vessal, due to how long this one needs to age.

Update 3: 8 days have passed, and the passing of the torch took place. I moved it over to the secondary vessal. The trub in this batch was quite impressive, but it was mostly just the grist from the malt. The clean up was a chore, until I found a new technique of siphoning water into the primary vessal instead of trying to pour it in. Another 2 weeks of hanging out in the secondary vessal needs to happen for this batch, because I want to cut down the conditioning time, so the next update will be delayed at least that long.

Update 4: All the trub has settled once again, and the bottling is going to happen in 2 days. This has been aging in the secondary vessal for about 2 weeks, which is on top of the 8 days it had in the primary vessal. I'm going to age the bottles for roughly 2 weeks before sampling the final product, but the current assessment is very promising. The color has balanced out to a nice dark amber brown that shifts to nearly black. The best I can estimate on the rest will be a mild-heavy body, with a nice final ABV of roughly 7.5-8.0. To say that I am excited would be a drastic understatement.

Update 5: All the transfering is complete, and we are looking at something with a very complex attitude. It is in the very traditional style of a Wee Heavy Scotch, but it comes across almost with porter like qualities. I assume this will mellow out as the conditioning takes place, but I am very excited to see how the aging will impact the overall profile. I must admit, I am very proud of this effort. Happy birthday Pops!

Let's do this thing!

Welcome! This is the first post where I will catalog my experiences as a homebrewer, but I will also provide some reviews of beers I will try. I am also willing to take on challenges to try new beers, as long as I can get them without having to take out a loan.

Ok, so this is what you can expect as I go forward:

I will try to update this as often as possible, but to roughly paraphrase someone, there is no need to write if I have nothing interesting to say. That being said, I plan to make this more or less a weekly or biweekly update schedule. I will review comments and such more or less daily, but I may not get back to you immediately. It isn't a slight against you, but if you take offense to having to wait for a blogger to respond to your comment, maybe you should be offended...and examined. I will be brutally honest at all times with respect to any beer, including my own.

As this blog will be devoted to beer in a variety of ways, I am going to refrain from exploring any other topics here, and I will enforce that as much as possible throughout the blog itself. This includes, but is not limitted to: sports, religion, politics, business, pop culture, and music.

I suppose that concludes the first post. I will be probably working on the second one and posting itshortly, including some comments about a few festivals I have attended recently, and notes about my current project, which is dubbed the Flint Hill Scotch Ale.

Until next time, drink well and be merry. Slante!