The Mad Fermentationist - Homebrewing Blog

Citra Calvados Tripel Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:20:00 +0000

I know I’ve said it before, but it is a tragedy that more breweries don’t dry hop their sour beers. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand the appeal of combining bright fruity or citrusy hop aromatics with the flavor of a tart pale or red beer. Brett is even a great oxygen scavenger, so hoppy beer fermented with it taste fresher longer than similar clean beers.

Although they haven’t been sour, I’ve really been impressed with the dry hopped Brett’d beers that Gabe Fletcher has been releasing from Anchorage Brewing. Most recently I was shocked by how fresh and hoppy a bottle of Galaxy (A white IPA brewed with Indian coriander, kumquats, black peppercorns, and Galaxy hops) was considering it was four months old.

The beer I’m drinking tonight is a variant of the sour tripel I brewed 18 months ago that was aged on Calvados soaked oak. I was underwhelmed by the flavor and acidity after aging, so in addition to bottling a gallon I kegged the rest with a healthy dose of Citra dry hops.

Citra Dry Hopped Sour Tripel

Appearance – The slightly hazy body has a deep golden hue. The bright white head deflates after a few minutes, but maintains a coarse covering until the beer is almost gone.

Smell – Huge citrusy hop nose. Complex tropical notes, mango especially. There is some overripe fruit that I could credit to the Brett, but this is a beer that really showcases Citra. As it warms a slight sour apple character emerges.

Taste – Even though I know what is coming, after the huge nose it is a shock to taste a beer that is so hoppy yet lacks any perception of bitterness. The sourness is light, but adds realism to the tropical fruit hoppiness carried through from the nose. Slight residual sweetness further accentuates the fruitiness. The malt is mellow, but occasionally provides a slight honey tone. As the beer warms the apple from the Calvados starts to come through in the finish.

Mouthfeel – Carbonation is medium as is the body. For a tripel it certainly could be livelier, I should probably turn up the CO2 pressure.

Drinkability & Notes – The dry hops took a couple weeks to mellow out to where they are bold, but not overpowering. I love having a hop aroma that isn’t harsh or grassy, but still blows me away. I’m really happy where this one has ended up. Hopefully the bottled version gains some funky complexity during a few months of bottle conditioning.

I'm sorry I don't have any more of the homegrown mango sour beer my friend Seth shared with me last week (long time readers may remember him from the Temptation clone we brewed three and a half years ago). Even though I'm not usually a mango fan, it was terrific on its own, and made a perfect blending partner for this batch. I need to get down to Florida to taste some of what he is brewing for Gravity Bar. It sounds like they have a bunch of interesting beers with local fruits for Berliner Bash on the Bay this weekend.

How many taps on your kegerator?

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:46:00 +0000

0 (no kegerator) - 30%
3-4 - 27%
2 - 23%
1 - 7%
5-6 - 5%
10-15 - 2%
7-9 - 2%
15+ - 0% (3 votes)

My kegerator has two normal taps (Perlicks), which is about right for my level of consumption. I like the forward seal faucets because they don’t stick, even if they don’t get used for a week. The beers I put on tap tend to keg are either low-moderate alcohol, or hoppy because these are the brews that I want to drink fresh. Much like a good beer bar, I tried to avoid installing more taps than needed. Since I am kegging fresher-is-better batches, I want to avoid letting them sit around too long. If it is a beer I want to drink over the course of months or years, I’d rather bottle.

When I want to put a sour beer on tap, I use a picnic/party/cobra tap to ensure that I don’t mix up the lines (or drink it too quickly). I tend to only keg dry hopped sour beers and other batches that are not my longest-aged most complex creations. Some people are a bit disturbed by the perceived risk of spilling microbe-laden beer in my kegerator, but since the kegs are airtight I don’t see it as a major concern.

As a longtime holdout to kegging, the last two and a half years with my kegerator have been eye-opening. As much as people try to sell kegging as labor and time saving compared to bottling, I’ve found that the real benefit is to the quality of my beers. Kegs can be flushed with CO2 to reduce the oxygen exposure (especially beneficial for hoppy beers). The carbonation level can be dialed in precisely, and there is no risk of over-carbonation because excess pressure can be vented easily. After sucking out the trub on the first few pints the beers tend to pour pretty clear.

However, kegs are not as hassle-free as some people make them out to be. It takes a decent amount of effort to keep them (along with the lines) clean and sanitized. Kegging systems have lots of small areas where microbes can fester. I recently bought Mark’s Keg Washer on a friend’s recommendation. It is essentially a sump pump with a long stem that sprays cleaner, and then sanitizer, on the interior of the inverted keg (or fermentor). I also bought the fittings to attach the pump to the liquid post to clean the dip-tube without disassembling the keg.

I try to minimize mold and moisture in my kegerator with a bucket of DampRid, but despite its best efforts once every six months I still need to pull everything out and bleach the interior. With such a small chest freezer the main issue is the area below the kegs, next to the compressor bump, where moisture pools. Cleaning the kegerator is just another one of those little things that many people fail to mention when promoting the benefits of kegging.

I usually get about nine months out of each five pound CO2 tank fill, probably seven or eight batches depending on whether or not I am keg conditioning or force carbonating, and how diligent I am about double purging both before and after filling. Sadly the DC metro-area only has one shop that is open on weekends and willing to fill tanks. There are a few places closer to my house, but they either close by the time I could get to them after work, or only do tank exchanges (I want to keep my aluminum tank).

For the test batches I have been brewing for Modern Times Beer, I have been using a Blichman Beer Gun to bottle from the kegs. So far it has been pretty easy to use, and Jacob told me that even the hoppy beers I have sent held up pretty well for a month in the bottle. This bottler connects to both the liquid out of the keg, and CO2; a button flushes the bottle with CO2, then the trigger dispenses the carbonated beer. The included liquid tubing is long and narrow enough to bottle well carbonated beers without much foaming, but using chilled wet bottles certainly helps as well.

If nothing else, serving your homebrew on draft fun. Being able to perfectly fill any sized glass, or just have a small taste of a beer without drinking a whole bottle. Although conversely, I sometimes run out of a beer when I’m not expecting to (either kicking a beer I was really enjoying, or having to knock through a mediocre batch to make room for something else). If you have the room, kegs are certainly worth the investment, but don’t think of them as a cure-all if bottling isn’t your favorite part of the hobby.

Coffee "Oats in the Boil" Stout Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:04:00 +0000

If someone tells you that they never brew a bad batch of beer, odds are that they don’t try many interesting techniques either. The coffee oatmeal stout I brewed a few weeks ago with a half-pound of oats added to the boil, would have been better if I just added them to the mash instead. The beer is still very good, but the oats didn’t add that rich silky body that I was hoping for.

Coffee "Oats In the Boil" Stout

Appearance – Almost black, but not quite. The oats in the boil didn’t have a negative impact of the appearance of such a dark beer, but looking at the edges it is certainly hazy (although not murky). The tan head is sticky, but not especially long-lasting.

Smell – A few people who have tried this beer have described the aroma as pre-packaged coffee/mocha drink (e.g., Frappuccino), and that isn’t a bad description. It has a sweetness, and light chocolate/coffee character that screams comfort more than complexity. It is amazing how nicely just two ounces of coffee beans steeped for less than 36 hours comes through. Some fresh-grainy notes from the oats come through as it warms.

Taste – The flavor is similar to the aroma, mostly smooth coffee and chocolate roast. There is a good balance of sweetness from the caramel malts and bitterness from the hops. The oats are there only as a tertiary flavor, so I am planning to up the amount and substitute in toasted oats in the second iteration for more complexity.

Mouthfeel – The mouthfeel is strange. It starts with a nice round/fullness, but it finishes thin. Whether it was the oats, or the roasted malt, something has contributed a lingering tannic quality to the mouthfeel; after swallowing each sip my tongue is left with a dry/rough texture.

Drinkability & Notes – The flavor and aroma of this beer is not far from where I want them, but I don’t think the oats added to the boil is an experiment that I’ll repeat. To channel Thomas Edison: I did not fail, I found a way to not brew an oatmeal stout.

NHC 2012 First Round Results

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:31:00 +0000

Early last week I got my score sheets in the mail from the the Pittsburgh regional of the 2012 National Homebrew Contest. I'm generally not much of a homebrew contest guy because I don't like brewing to the BJCP style guidelines. However, as a blogger who likes to talk a big game, I think it's worth entering a few beers at the NHC every year to see how my beers compare. Two years ago I won sours in the East Region, but last year I didn't place anything even though I had a couple great scores.

This year I entered six beers, all of which were in the sour-funky vein. Out of those entries three are going onto the second round! Considering at most 11.2% (84 of the 750) of the entries in each region advance, my 50% isn't too shabby. Here are the results from Pittsburgh if anyone wants to see who I was up against. Below I summarized how each beer did, and quote the score sheets to give an impression of what the judges thought.

39.5 - Brett Finished Belgian Single (16E Belgian Specialty Ale) - 2nd of 55

The judges were very enthusiastic about this one, although both were underwhelmed by the amount of Brett funk in the nose. I'm actually surprised how little the Brett brux has done, considering that when I bottled it I was concerned that the gravity might still be too high (1.010).

"Grainy and light slightly citrusy fruitiness. Low Brett character. Finishes light, crisp, with a slight sweet note. Very pleasant."

I'm planning on rebrewing this one over the summer. I'll be splitting this batch between the May-June Platinum White Labs Brett Trois strain (aka "Brett Drie") and the standard Brett brux.

38 - Berliner, Little Brother (17A Berliner Weisse) - Mini Best of Show

This basic recipe always does well in competition, it delivers a beer that fits well within the guidelines, and it seems to be a style a lot of other brewers have trouble getting sour enough. The problem is that at close to 3% ABV it is hard to get a Berliner weisse to compete against complex sour beers in the Belgian tradition.

"A little one dimensional but that's OK for style. To give it that extra oomph I'd like to see more wheat or malt character or maybe a touch of Brett."

I actually find it to have a pretty significant Brett character, if anything people usually say it has too much funk for the style. I think the judge may have confused the Brett for what he thought was an "earthy and spicy hop" in the aroma (there were only 1.5 oz of hops in 10 gallons, and it was brewed two years ago). Next month I'll be rebrewing this one with more wheat malt than my usual 30-40%.

34 - Cabernet Wine Barrel Solera (17F Fruit Lambic) - 1st of 28

Happy to win sours in my region for the second year in the last three! However, it was surprising to win with such a mediocre score. I'm sure wine grape character made the beer really stand out in the mini-best of show round. Bold flavors tend to do well in competition.

"It isn't very complex - really just sour - I enjoyed it though and it reminded me some of the great Cantillon grape lambics."

After going through the five gallon bucket of frozen wine grapes I bought two years ago with the help of a few friends, I think its time to get another. Although I might need a new source as the only frozen grapes Midwest Supplies has at the moment are pushing $200 a bucket including shipping (I paid around $100 for the first bucket).

32 Sour Cherry Bourbon Sour Porter (20 Fruit Beer) - 3rd of 16

Despite putting this one onto the second round, I thought the judges were way off base on a few of their comments. Not trying to blame them, this would be a hard beer to judge next to a variety of clean/sweet fruit beers. The base beer actually finished at 1.014, pretty sweet for a sour beer (although nothing like the 1.035+ that New Glarus has in their sour fruit beers).

"The sourness is very high. The porter character is light. Should be more porter-like. The finish is very long and a bit tannic. Very highly attenuated with no residual sweetness left in this beer. Base style 'Sour Porter' had to judge."

29.5 Buckwheat Sour Amber (17C Oud Bruin) - DNP

I didn't have high hopes for this beer as far as being to style, but I really like it. Both judges seemed to enjoy the flavors as well, but both pointed out that it is too thin/sour/bright for the style. I should learn my lesson and not enter beers that fall too far outside the style guidelines.

"The ester character could be muted slightly and the citrus eliminated while the fruit aspects could be played up."

26.5 Custom Blend Gueuze (17E Gueuze) - DNP

This batch was a custom blend I made and carbonated with a Carbonator Cap specifically for the NHC. After opening several bottles of beer and pulling samples from fermentors, I ended up with a blend of 37% DCambic, 30% Lambic 3, 26% Wine Barrel Solera, and 7% Berliner Lambic. I would have liked to taste this one after a couple weeks in the bottle because the comments were very different from what I tasted at bottling.

"This was a well crafted blend but the entire body of flavors and aroma was muted."

"The harsh finish just lingers in this beer, not good for style. Needs to be more complex and needs more carbonation."

So, three onto the second round! Hopefully one of them will earn me my first final round medal. Sadly I planned poorly and only have four bottles each of the Brett Finished Pale and the Sour Cherry Bourbon Porter, and the final round needs three of each. Just another reason for me not to like entering beers in competition.

It is amazing that in just the last few years the NHC has gone from never having a region max out, to this year when all 10 regions hit their entry cap within a few days of registration opening. I suspect a big part of the issue is those brewers gunning for the Ninkasi Award. This is the given to the brewer who accumulates the most wins in the final round. I'd like to see the AHA restrict each brewer to no more than five or ten entries, make brewers pick their best beers, not win by entering 50 beers.

Dark Saison III Tasting - Figs and Honey

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:28:00 +0000

For the third beer in our series of dark-funky-fall saisons, Alex and I created this earthy fig and buckwheat honey permeated batch late in 2010. The brown honey produced by bees collecting nectar from buckwheat smells like nothing so much as dark malt extract that has been left out too long, pungent. Overpowering on its own, we hoped that a small amount would add depth and complexity to the funk provided by the Brett. We also added a few grams of anise and cinnamon, our attempt at sub-threshold saison spicing.

Complex recipes are hard to learn from. Alex and I combined a bunch of malts, adjuncts, fruits, oak, spices, an expressive yeast, and it is terrific, but I am completely lost on where most of what I taste is coming from. There is definitely dark fruit, but is that the figs or the Special B? I think most of the funk is from the Brett, but I’m sure the buckwheat honey is boosting it. I like the beer, but it would be a hard recipe to refine.

Fantôme has been a big inspiration for this series of beers. Not any of their beers in particular, but rather the notion of making a seasonal beer, like their Hiver or Noel, that evolve from batch to batch. It is a lot more fun to have a general concept to brew towards, rather than trying to recreate the same thing each year. Hopefully Alex and I can keep up this project; it shouldn’t be too hard given all of the dried fruits and spices we have yet to experiment with. Last fall’s Batch #4 is still aging, although I had to rack my share off of the wine-soaked oak stave and dried Zante currants sooner than anticipated when, after just six weeks, the wood character was already becoming too evident.

Dark Fruit Saison III

Appearance – The meager off-white head puts up a good fight, holding on to the last sip. It sits atop a beer has a dark molasses color at the top, but turns transparent Newcastle brown near the bottom of the fluted glass.

Smell – The aroma is dark, port-like, with plenty of dried fruit (although not specifically figgy). There is some dusty Brett funk as well, backed up by some toasty malt (or is that buckwheat honey?). There is so much going on that the peppery yeast and spices get lost in the shuffle.

Taste – Fresh cherries or plums right off the bat, before transitioning into dark fruit in the finish. The acidity is soft and complementary, the saison yeast didn’t leave too much for the bugs. The flavor is dry, but it isn’t grating. The buckwheat honey has calmed down from its once potent position, although it is still there at least in the distinct barnyard finish.

Mouthfeel – I’m usually a fan of low-moderate carbonation, but this one could use a little more oomph. The body is medium-thin, about right for a dark-funky-Belgian.

Drinkability & Notes – I think each year our dark saisons have gotten a little bit better, although this one is probably closer to a funky dubbel. Still waiting to see how the most recent version turned out, but I have high hopes.

Brewing Lambic: Mythbusters Style

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 01 May 2012 01:38:00 +0000

Lambic is the beer style who production is most plagued by myth, misinformation, and archaic procedures. However, the problem is that all of those unsubstantiated methods produce some of my favorite sour beers. After submitting an article about spontaneous fermentation in America to BYO for the July/August issue that was more of a “How To,” I thought it would be fun to make some bold statements about the evidence both against and in support of four things that everyone KNOWS about lambic.

1. Belgium (and the Senne Valley specifically) is the only place on Earth where the correct wild species of yeast and bacteria needed to ferment lambic live.

While it makes for nice marketing, this simply isn’t true. First there is the sensory analysis of the similar flavors produced in various spontaneously fermented American beers (Russian River Beatification, Jolly Pumpkin Lambicus Dexterius, and Cambridge Imperial Lambics). While I haven’t had one yet that is a dead ringer for a lambic, this is a type of beer that even in Belgium demands decades of practice brewing and blending to get right.

There was a study published earlier this month (Brewhouse-Resident Microbiota Are Responsible for Multi-Stage Fermentation of American Coolship Ale) that indicated that one brewery's American spontaneously fermented beer (specifically one brewed in New England using a coolship...) shares many of its fermentation characteristics with Belgian lambic. The authors used DNA analysis to show that many of the same key families, and even many of the same species (including Brettanomyces bruxellensis), are found in both. They also showed that the progressions of the two fermentations share strong similarities. There were subtle differences, but these may alternatively be a result of differences in process, or the length of time these microbes have had to ingrain themselves into the breweries.

2. A turbid mash of a grist including 30-40% raw wheat is the only wort production option for spontaneous fermentation.

While a turbid mash does extract starches into the wort, it is no more necessary for brewing a lambic than a decoction is for a Bohemian Pilsner. In Belgium, 30-40% unmalted wheat is part of the legal definition of the lambic/gueuze style, so that is a large part of why there is so little variation. Luckily, there is a beer like Cantillon Iris that proves a 100% malted barley wort can work equally well. While turbid mashes are employed at most of the best lambic wort producers, this may be a result of the fact that brewers who value traditional wort production are also the ones who value adequate aging time, and appreciate classic dry flavors.

This past Saturday I helped brew lambic at Dave and Becky Pyle’s house. If you don’t remember, I attended a blending session they hosted a couple years ago, and their lambic earned them NHC Brewer of the Year honors in 2005. Their wort production method doesn’t deviate far from a standard ale. This batch was half Pilsner malt and half malted wheat, mashed for 75 minutes in the low 150s F. There was no intensive near boiling sparge, and it was followed by a standard 60 minute boil.

3. A large quantity of aged hops is a requirement of the style.

The problem with aging hops to debitter them is that while their alpha acids are oxidizing into insoluble compounds, beta acids oxidize to become potent bittering compounds. The main role of hops in a spontaneous fermentation is to inhibit heat tolerant Lactobacillus that would lower the wort pH before the Saccharomyces can complete its initial fermentation. Most of the compounds that are anti-microbial are also bitter. Russian River uses around 25 IBUs of fresh hops in most of their standard sour beers with good results, this should be more than enough to inhibit even wild strains of Lacto.

While sour and bitter do clash, just a year of aging cuts the IBUs in half. By the time most spontaneously fermented beers are ready to be consumed, about two years after brewing, the IBUs in the wort will be below the flavor threshold even if you start around 30. However, the large quantity of aged hops may provide other compounds, glycosides, which can be stripped of their glucose molecule by certain strains of Brett and contribute unique aromatics.

4. You can’t start a spontaneous fermentation without a coolship.

Back to the Pyles. After the standard boil, with aged hops added at the start and mid-point, they run the wort through a plate chiller to drop the wort temperature to 68 F. From there it is pumped directly into the barrel (the water which had been hydrating the wood until a few minutes prior, remarkably had a pellicle). They started their house culture a decade ago with commercial pitches of the key microbes, but since then they have relied on the yeast and bacteria resident in the barrels, and from 750 ml of beer from one of their established barrels, to induce fermentation. The result is finished gueuze and kriek with an amazing, almost savory mushroom/loam aroma, along a sharply acidic lemon funk.

While Belgian lambic brewers do get some activity from the wild microbes that land on the wort as it slowly cools, so too does their house character develop from the reuse of barrels. In particular the air invites enteric bacteria, which produce a wide variety of funky fatty acids (along with alcohol and acid) that form the basis for some of the fruity esters formed by Brett over the months and years to come.

Big Boom?
The problem with experimenting with lambic production, and sour beers in general, is that the waiting time is so long. Most brewers, myself included, are hesitant to take a risk that saves a few hours on brew day if there is any chance it could detract from a finished beer that takes years to ferment and age. It is also hard to say how much the subtle effect of these shortcuts may cause because controlled research is basically impossible with spontaneous fermentation (even using identical processes and microbes the variation fermentor to fermentor can be gigantic).

My first spontaneously-fermented-turbid-mashed-aged-hop-infused-lambic should be ready to bottle in a month or two. I'm just waiting for the mulberries on the tree in my backyard to ripen, so that I can harvest them and rack half of the batch onto about two pounds per gallon. I just gave a small sample of the base beer to Claudio, who is going to see what microbes he can isolate from it. Look for a post about it on his blog, DC Yeast Lab (Plating DCambic).

Apple Brandy Barrel Solera Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:49:00 +0000

My friend Jaime and a couple of his friends are planning to fill a wine barrel with lambic this coming weekend. He was looking to get some additional microbes to add complexity to the Wyeast Lambic Blend he is pitching, so I offered to pull a quart of microbe-rich slurry from one of our barrels for him. To help him decide which one, I pulled samples of the beers in the red wine barrel and the apple brandy barrel and opened bottles from the first pull of each.

Jamie and his friend John both leaned towards the slightly sharper, funkier flavor of the apple brandy barrel (ECY Bugfarm IV) over the softer, fruitier flavor of the wine barrel (ECY Bugfarm III). So I used my auto-siphon, which just barely reaches the bottom of the barrel, to suck out some of the accumulated sediment. I removed the small cap from the end that reduces the amount of sediment transferred, and slowly dragged the tip around the interior. As an added benefit, occasionally removing trub should help stave off autolysis flavors from developing as dead yeast cells continue to pile up with each pull.

With the moderately thick slurry safely in a mason jar, I topped-off both barrels with three gallons of the amber base beer that we had left over from the first refill. Since the first pull from the apple brandy barrel is pushing the upper limit of my tolerance for acetic acid, we are hoping to minimize the keep the head space to limit further Acetobacter activity.

Here are my tasting notes from the first pull, without the addition of Amarillo, acorn squash, or blackberries:

Apple Brandy Barrel Sour Solera

Appearance – We were aiming for golden, but the color ended up a brilliantly clear burnt-orange. The uneven white head exhibits pretty good retention.

Smell – Big complex fruity aroma, with a bit of Brett funk. Fresh vanilla-laden American oak, despite the fact that the barrel is probably pushing 15-years-old. The aroma is slightly sharp, with a suggestion of cider vinegar.

Taste – Bright acidity, mostly tangy lactic, but there is also a touch of acetic that hits me on the back of the throat. The finish is deceptively sweet, with more of that sugary oak char and some caramel from the malt. It is acid/malt/barrel forward with funky Brett supporting, a balance that shares many commonalities with the best Flemish reds.

Mouthfeel – Average body and mouthfeel, surprisingly full despite the 1.004 FG. The body is thanks to the saison yeast primary fermentation, which added extra unfermentable-body-enhancing glycerol. Solid carbonation, about right for a strong-ish sour beer.

Drinkability & Notes – Every time I open a bottle of this batch I like it a little bit more than the previous one. It has a similar balance to something like La Folie or Rodenbach Grand Cru, with a sharp sourness, but some sweetness as well. Hopefully our efforts to minimize the head space ensure the next pull does not have a sharper acidity.

"Imperial" Berliner Weisse Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:02:00 +0000

Last Saturday I went to a party at my friend Bill’s house. The theme was German beer, and he, with the help of a few other people, had six homebrewed lagers on gravity cask. This included some standard styles, but also more obscure things like Bill's great rendition of Landbier. The closest thing I had to contribute was a bottle of my Berliner weisse. While people seemed to really enjoyed the beer, I had several people comment that it was too interesting to qualify for the fat part of the style guidelines.

My Berliner recipe does turn out a beer more reminiscent of a lambic-lite. So when I brewed the most recent batch, in May 2010, I left half of it at a higher gravity (1.045). My goal was to produce something lambic-like, with the no-boil method (shaving about six hours off the usual turbid mash and extended boil). After more than a year in the fermentor on oak, and now close to six months in the bottle, it is finally ready to drink.

A few American breweries have released strong Berliners, such as New Belgium Imperial Berliner Style Weisse (7% ABV), White Birch Berliner Weisse (6.4% ABV), and Southampton Uberliner (6% ABV). From the flavors (of the ones I have tasted) and reviews it is hard to call any of these a major success. While the Southampton has the highest ratings of the three, the scores on Beer Advocate and Rate Beer are much lower than their standard Berliner Weisse. It is hard to double the strength of a beer and still retain a balance that recalls the original style. Boosting the strength of bold beers, such as IPAs and stouts, of works but beers known for their light/refreshing character, like Pilsner or hefe weizen, often do not translate.

Berliner Lambic

Appearance – Brilliantly clear golden yellow. The dense white head dissipates very quickly. It’s a pretty beer.

Smell – The aroma is complex, with lots of fruit, but not that much funk. Like a standard Berliner you can almost smell the lactic sourness.

Taste – That firm lactic acidity leads off, tailing into a slight worty malt sweetness. The malt doesn’t have the fresh dough character that the standard version has. A bit more sweetness than I like in either Berliners or lambics, but it is still drier than most darker Belgian sours. The fruity esters from the Brett come across as white wine. Very mild vanilla from the oak.

Mouthfeel – Medium-light body, with medium-high carbonation. I don’t expect it to have the light spritzy body of its little brother, but I think it could be a bit livelier.

Drinkability & Notes – On its own this beer is not objectionable, but I’d take the standard gravity version any day. However, it is a good beer for blending since it has that bright sourness without much else going on. I think next time I'll skip the big beer and brew 10 gallons to the standard Berliner gravity.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Imperial Stout

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:23:00 +0000

I've been falling behind on posting beer tastings. With all my batch splitting and blending over the last year I've generated a backlog of 18 different beers in bottles and kegs that I have yet to post a tastings for... as a result this week I'm hoping to knock out one a night.

To start, I’ll take advantage of one of the last cool nights of the year to taste the “Mexican Hot Chocolate” version of my Kate the Great clone. If you’ve never smelled an ancho pepper, it smells like lightly spiced raisins. Dried peppers make so much more sense to me in a big dark beer than the grassy flavor of fresh chilies.When you spice a beer try to think like a chef, try to match them to the other flavors of the beer.

Mole the Great

Appearance – In a bulbous snifter the beer looks pitch black. The thin light brown head has great retention and lacing, I’m sure at least partly thanks to the extra protein contributed by the wheat malt.

Smell – The dried peppers lead the aroma, complex sweet smelling spice. There is a bit of toasted malt and some chocolate as well. Otherwise it is a clean aroma that doesn’t hint at the strength of the beer. When this beer was first in the bottle the peppers provided a big cherry aroma, luckily that has since died off.

Taste – Where the “plain” Kate the Great lacked complexity, this beer has layers of toasty, roasty, chocolaty, malt with just a hint of capsicum heat in the finish. The cinnamon and vanilla play supporting roles, adding to the sweetness without being readily apparent on the first few sips. It does still lack the sharper char that most Russian Imperials feature, but with the added flavors I don’t really miss it. Relatively dry for the style, but not overly.

Mouthfeel – Moderate-thin body for such a big beer. The carbonation is medium, which is marginally more than I prefer in a big dark beer. This is the one aspect of this beer that could use some work. The 149 F conversion rest is a few degrees lower than I would mash next time.

Drinkability & Notes – Hard to complain about this beer, loads of complexity without any one of the flavors walking over the rest. I would take the cocoa and vanilla just slightly higher next time, but otherwise I think the amounts are spot on. I like it a bit more than the similar Breakfast Stout variant I brewed, although I enjoyed the base beer of that one more than the base of this recipe.

Nelson Nectar IPA Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Hoppy beers are the best type to homebrew since they benefit the most from being served fresh. It is amazing just how quickly a bright fresh hop nose begins to deteriorate, even under the best possible conditions (stored cold in a flushed keg). I made some reasonably good hoppy beers before I started kegging, but during those two to three weeks spent warm bottle conditioning you are missing out on the best hop aroma the batch will have. Force carbonating while the beer is cold and on dry hops, has made a big improvement in the freshness of my hoppy beers.

The folks at Indie Hops summarized an experiment that shows that some of the key hop aromatics peak just a few hours after the dry hops are added, although that was with continuous agitation. At some point I really will have to get a HopRocket and try out the torpedo method of dry hopping that Sierra Nevada uses for their IPA of the same name. In that case, cold crashing the beer first would be the best way to go to remove as much hop-oil-stealing yeast cells as possible.

For Nelson Nectar, despite being in the keg for less than a month, I’ve already noticed the hop nose begin to fade. It has not become off or oxidized, just mellower than the big fresh notes it had two weeks ago. Friends suggested that part of the blame may rest on the Nelson Sauvin hops, they cited the rapid decline of Alpine Nelson. I’ll be interested to see how this batch progresses, although I doubt it will last too much longer.

Nelson Nectar IPA

Appearance – In a pint glass the beer occupies a spot right between amber and golden. For the next batch I’ll go slightly darker, to make it a true India Amber Ale. Using a standard ~3.5 L Vienna malt compared to the ~2.5 L MFB version may be all it takes, but I may boost the pale chocolate malt as well. It is a bit hazy, but not surprising given the more than five ounces of hops in the keg. Reasonable head retention, and it leaves beautiful white lacing.

Smell – The aroma has lost the sort of hop nose you can smell from a few feet away, but it still has a wonderful combo of citrus and melon. As it warms I get more of that signature Nelson character, which I find simultaneously fruity and dank.

Taste – Coating, resiny hop flavor. It finishes with a solid, clean bitterness, but it isn’t quite as firm as I wanted for a beer this big. I’ll be going to a full 10 ml of hop extract for bittering next time (two HopShots). The lightly toasted malt is there in support, but this is still a hop bomb. I like the combo of malt and hops, without much sweetness. Super clean fermentation, several people have mistaken it for a hoppy pale ale despite more than 7% ABV.

Mouthfeel – Medium-light body, just what I like in a double IPA. Good carbonation, just slightly prickly.

Drinkability & Notes – I go back and forth on this beer. A few friends who are objective enough to tell me when they don’t like my beer gave it good reviews (abandoning a half bottle of the well rated St. Arnold Endeavor to go back for more of mine). Jacob and I have discussed taking this recipe completely down-under, replacing the Ahtanum and Simcoe with the bright fruity aroma of Australian Galaxy (assuming the pellets are better than the old whole hops I used in my last Double IPA). That would certainly be a unique combination, but it would be fruity with less pine/citrus than hopheads are accustomed to. There are so many great hoppy beers on the West Coast it almost seems mandatory to try a new spin on the hopping.

Adding Oats to the Boil - Coffee Stout

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:25:00 +0000

For many brewers the basic procedure for every recipe is the same: grind the grain, single infusion mash, sparge (or not), boil the runnings with hops, chill, pitch, ferment, package. Sure there are subtle variations to temperatures and times, but essentially the same process can yield either an Imperial Stout or a Pilsner just by altering the malts/grains/hops/yeast. I still enjoy my “standard” brew days, but after brewing nearly 200 batches over the last seven years, it is more fun when I get to try a new technique.

One of my goals is to brew a moderate gravity stout that drinks with the thick body of an Imperial Stout. Rather than simply mashing really hot, or loading up on crystal malt, I was alerted to another option, adding quick oats to the wort near the end of the boil. I have been told that The Alchemist has used this method to add a thick body to some of their beers without increasing sweetness. Oats contain beta glucans (a type of soluble fiber) which are responsible for the smooth viscosity they add to oatmeal stouts.

I know, one of the first things that new brewers are taught is to avoid steeping grains that contain starch. The common thinking goes that adding starch to a beer is just asking for trouble since it is unfermentable by brewer’s yeast, making it an invitation to spoilage microbes. The problem with this line of thinking is that so are dextrins, which add body to beers. In fact, dextrins are a much easier to ferment source of carbon for common spoilage microbes like Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus, which usually lack the enzymes required to tackle (hydrolyze) longer chain carbohydrates like starch. Since flaked oats do not contain a husk, there is also no major concern about tannins (as there would be adding malted barley to the boil).

After sprinkling the half pound of quick oats into the boiling wort, I let them sit in there through chilling. I strained them out of the cool wort, along with the hops, when I transferred to the fermentor. Rather than the thick gloppy mess I expected, each flake had contracted into a neat little pellet. Hopefully this means that the starches and beta glucans that usually provide the thick texture in a bowl of oatmeal are suspended in the wort. Fermentation exhibited a dense krausen, but the Fuller’s strain I pitched is known for that as well. I was happy that I used an eight gallon wine bucket for primary fermentation, rather than one of the six gallon Better Bottles I have used in the past. It is nice not to worry about attaching a blow-off tube.

For the rest of the recipe I drew inspiration from the Munich Porter that Nate and I brewed a couple years ago. It relied on dark grains that were lighter than the usually 500+ L versions of Roasted Barley and Black Patent. Our porter was good, but the roast character was too mellow/smooth with only a half pound each of Briess Roasted Barley and Chocolate malt. So for this batch I doubled the roasted barley and edged up the chocolate malt. Hopefully the higher amounts will produce a smooth cocoa and coffee roast, without a burnt/acrid edge. If the roast still isn't potent enough, I'll have to go to a combination of lighter and darker roasted grains to get the effect I am looking for.

I will be steeping a few ounces of roasted coffee beans in the beer for about 24 hours prior to kegging. This is a technique I’ve used a couple times in the past (like the Coffee, Chocolate, Maple, Imperial Oatmeal Stout) because it delivers a nice aromatic character without getting bitter or harsh in the same way that hot-side additions sometimes do. I also find that its flavor is more persistent than coffee additions cold steeped in water, which start to fade after just a few weeks.

After the India Amber Ale, this is the second test batch I’ve brewed for Modern Times. Although I overshot the gravity, I’d like to bring it down closer to 5% ABV mark in future iterations.

Get Out of Bed Stout

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 11.75
Anticipated OG: 1.059
Anticipated SRM: 39.3
Anticipated IBU: 32.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain
-------
76.6% - 9.00 lbs. Maris Otter
8.5% - 1.00 lbs. Roasted Barley (~300 L)
5.3% - 0.63 lbs. Chocolate Malt
4.3% - 0.50 lbs. Quick Oats
3.2% - 0.38 lbs. Crystal 90L
2.1% - 0.25 lbs. CaraMunich Malt

Hops
------
1.25 oz. Hallertau Tradition (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ 70 min.
0.75 oz. Hallertau Tradition (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ 5 min.

Extras
--------
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
0.25 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
2.00 oz Coffee Beans for 1 day

Yeast
-------
White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Water Profile
---------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest - 75 min @ 153 F

Notes
-------
Brewed 4/8/12 with Elena

Cut mash water with 1 gallon of distilled.

Fly sparged. Collected 7 gallons of wort.

Added the Quaker quick oats for the last 10 minutes of the boil. Chilled to 66, strained out the oats/hops, pitched a .75 l starter of yeast, and shook to aerate. Overshot the gravity slightly.

"I've heard good things about adding quick oats for the last 10 minutes of the boil" - Re: Alchemist

Fermenting well by 18 hours. At ~62 F ambient for the first week.

4/14/12 Fermentation appears finished.

4/15/12 Temperature warming close to 70 F, so I roused the yeast by twisting the bucket back and forth for 30 seconds to ensure it eliminates any remaining diacetyl.

4/22/12 Only got down to 1.019, guess that's the oats. Added 2 oz of coarsely crushed Mocha Java Blend coffee beans in a weighted stocking.

5/10/12 Reasonably happy with the results of this first try, but the oats didn't add the creaminess I was looking for. I'll be moving them to the mash and boosting them in the next batch.

Amarillo Dry Hopped Sour Solera

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:15:00 +0000

One of my favorite flavors in a beer is the right mix of sour beer and dry hops. I’ve only done it a couple times in the past, but the results have all been great. In particular the combination of citrusy hop aromatics with acidity can be terrific, but is only available from a couple breweries (New Belgium’s Le Terroir being the most prominently). The key is waiting until the beer is ready to bottle before giving a couple weeks for the hops to infuse. Add the hops too early and you’ll end up with aromatics reminiscent of an old IPA by the time the beer is ready to drink. In this case Nathan and I blasted five gallons of the base beer with 4 oz of Amarillo pellets for three weeks in a carboy right before bottling.

This first pull from our apple brandy barrel solera is already pushing the high end of my preference for acetic acid (vinegar). The key to reducing acetic acid is limiting the amount of oxygen (from the air) that comes in contact with the aging beer. Hopefully we will be able to control the production for subsequent fills by topping off to reduce head space, controlling the temperature, and using a hard bung when fermentation is complete.

Amarillo Apple Brandy Barrel Solera

Appearance – Amber in the glass, but burnt orange when held to a light. It has a decent white head and even leaves some lacing, which is better than most sour beers.

Smell – Big citrusy Amarillo aromatics, still pretty fresh. Tropical. Has a bit of dankness that I don’t normally get with this fruity hop. There are hints of the sourness in the aroma, some of the signature fruity Brett esters. I also get some apple, maybe from the barrel (I get apple cider vinegar in the nose of the plain version).

Taste – Sharp lactic sourness, with just a little acetic burn in the finish. The hop character takes a primary role as it did in the nose. The Amarillo covers up some of the more complex notes from the barrel and microbes, but I really like the combination of citrusy (pineapple and lemon?) hops with the sharpness.

Mouthfeel – Relatively light mouthfeel for a strong beer, but it does not taste thin despite finishing at 1.004. Restrained carbonation, which is about right for a bigish sour beer.

Drinkability & Notes – I think the dry hops actually cut through the sourness of the base beer slightly. After a few months in this bottle the hops are already starting to fade, but it is still a solid beer. I’m trying to work through the bottles I have left before they oxidize completely.

Modern Times Beer - Pro-Brewing Here I Come

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:23:00 +0000

If there is one question that I get asked more than any other, it is some variation on "Why don't you open a brewery?" While I love the idea of brewing professionally, I also like having a stable salary, health insurance, and a comfortable life. What I enjoy doing is brewing, not running a brewery. When I first started working for the government, I would occasionally trawl ProBrewer.com classifieds looking for entry level positions. After sending a few dozen resumes and getting a couple interviews, I was offered a job by Flying Dog. After considering their offer to come on as a cellarman for $10 an hour, I decided I was happy being a homebrewer. Over the five years since then I haven’t applied to work for a brewery, or even seriously thought about changing careers.

Over the last couple years I've received a couple offers to work for upstart breweries, but none of them have been enough to change my mind. I’m always happy to talk to brewers and lend my opinion informally when someone asks. So when Jacob McKean sent me an email a few months ago saying he was opening a brewery, I was happy to hear what he was up to. He and I had swapped beers a couple years earlier. I couldn't say no to exchanging a six-pack of my homebrew for bottles from Alpine, Lost Abbey, and Alesmith. Until he left to start filing paperwork, Jacob was employed as Communications Specialist at Stone Brewing.

We talked on the phone for an hour about his plans for Modern Times Beer. He offered me a job as a brewer if I was willing to relocate to San Diego. I was reluctant. I have a comfortable life. I don’t mind my job, I like my friends, my house is full of carboys and barrels, and my girlfriend will finally be returning to DC in a couple months after two years at grad school. "No problem.” he said, “how about being a consultant?" Being paid to travel to Southern California a few weeks every year to brew beer at a cool brewery, how could I refuse that?

The more I have talked to Jacob since then, the more I'm convinced that I waited for the right opportunity. Whether it is the impassioned op-ed he wrote for BeerPulse.com a few weeks ago, his emphasis on putting quality first, his business sense, or his spot-on analysis of the homebrew I’ve sent him. Jacob’s plan is to open with a 30 bbl brew house, canning line, and tasting room (including a pilot system). He is looking to places like Surly Brewing in terms of the business plan.Of course all of this depends on a much money he can raise, a process that is just now beginning in earnest.

As I wrap up the research for my book on American sour beers, the more I am cognizant of the limitations imposed by my homebrewing batch sizes. Especially the ways they constrict my blending options and ability to introduce controlled variations (different microbes, barrels, fruits, etc.). Helping develop a decent sized commercial barrel aging program is the next step logical step in this craft for me. In addition to working on this aspect of Modern Times, I will be helping to develop recipes for clean beers. I will also have a hand in writing for the brewery’s blog/website.

Jacob and I have been kicking recipe ideas around and I've started to brew some test batches (like the India Amber Ale) that will end up in the hands of some potential investors. Jacob is still scouting locations. While San Diego already has a dense local beer scene, most of the breweries are well outside the city. His plan is to locate the brewery within the city's limits. Jacob is also vetting potential brewmasters. Hopefully the person he hires will be able to juggle the demands of making consistently excellent year round beers, with all of the fun stuff I’ll be pitching.

If anyone is, or knows someone, looking to invest a substantial amount of money in a brewery, let me know and I’ll pass on the information. If all goes well, then the first Modern Times beers should be available in mid-2013. As for a full time role at the brewery, we'll see where consulting leads, but anything like that would still be years away.

I’ll certainly be posting the occasional update here, especially when I brew test batches (like the coffee oatmeal stout I brewed yesterday), but if you want to stay completely up-to-date you should follow Modern Times on Twitter or Facebook. Cheers, and thanks for all of the encouragement over the last five years!

Collaboration, McKenzie’s Irma Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 23:35:00 +0000

This bottle came from the five gallons of wort that Nathan and I took home from our brew day with Ryan Michaels and Gerard Olson at McKenzie’s Brew House in late 2010. The rest of the batch of Irma was sold at the brew pub as Irma (stainless steel fermented) and Irma Extra (soured, barrel aged). In addition to the White Labs Saison II pitched at the brewery, we added the dregs from a couple of the spectacular sour beers that we were given from McKenzie’s cellar.

Since then Gerard has opened up his own brewpub, Forest & Main in Ambler, PA, where he is brewing a wide variety of American saisons. For example, Saison a l'Ancienne: "Brewed with barley grown and malted in Southeastern Pennsylvania by our own maltster, fermented partially with wild indigenous yeasts, this farmhouse ale reflects our regional terroir more than any beer currently on the market." Hard to say no to that.

I think the best Belgian beers are the ones that have flavors that you can’t quite identify, even when you brewed the beer. Irma was a simple recipe, but the aroma and flavor have notes of wood, spice, and other flavors that I can’t put my finger on. A combination of malt, hops, and yeast (cultured and otherwise) can give a wide range of surprising flavors given enough time.

McKenzie’s-Fermentationist-DesJardin Irma

Appearance – In my wide Tripel Karmeliet tulip the beer appears dark amber, almost red. Clear, like most sour beers. The thin white head lasts for a few minutes, but is quickly reduced to a thin wispy covering.

Smell – Lambic funk, damp basement, boozy oak, cooked apples, and slight floral/perfume. It is a soft aroma, but with lots of complexity.

Taste – The flavor has many of the same elements as the aroma, but the Munich malt adds a great bready malt flavor in addition. The beer is dry, but the saison yeast we used for primary fermentation prevents it from being thin. It is amazing how much the beer tastes like it was aged in an apple brandy barrel even though it never touched wood. As it warms I even get a hint of licorice.

Mouthfeel – Moderate carbonation. Could be a couple notches higher, especially if we really wanted to call this one a saison. There is some body there, but not much.

Drinkability & Notes – Terrific beer, lots of complexity, but not aggressively sour/funky/dry or otherwise difficult to drink. I would put this up against the better bottles of Fantôme's highly variable saisons (which have been too few and far between lately). Sad I haven’t had a chance to try the versions fermented at the brewery, but the reviews on BeerAdvocate have been pretty positive. It would be interesting to see how ours compares, hopefully I can find an excuse to get back to Philly soon (I need to make it to Forest & Main as well).

What is Your Favorite Yeast Lab?

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:59:00 +0000

Wyeast - 44%
White Labs - 35%
East Coast Yeast - 7%
Fermentis - 7%
Danstar - 2%
Wild Microbes - 0% (4)
Brewing Science Institute - 0% (3)
Lalvin - 0% (1)
Red Star - 0% (1)

Of course choosing a favorite yeast lab is like picking a favorite restaurant, there is never one that does everything best. Rather than selecting a yeast based on the lab, what I really do is pick the best strain for the beer that I am brewing. With that said, there are certainly some labs whose cultures tend to make better beers than others.

The first question to answer is, do you want a dry or liquid strain? I tend to keep dry yeast in my fridge as a backup for when a liquid culture fails, or I wake up in the mood to brew. While there are some great dry strains from Fermentis especially (and Danstar to a lesser extent) they represent only a few of the hundreds of strains available as liquid cultures. This is especially true when it comes to more expressive strains like saison, and weizen etc. I also find the clean strains to be not quite as clean as their liquid alternatives. Dry yeast is a great option for beers with a strong malt or hop character, or for beginners who do not want to bother with making starters (although as someone pointed out the last time I suggested the same thing, according to Fermentis’ own material their 11.5 g sachets start with a minimum of only about 60% of the cells of the liquid cultures - although other sources put the actual number as high as double). I realize that homebrewers in some places, especially those who live in other countries, don’t have easy/cheap access to liquid cultures, but in most cases I find them more reliable.

When it comes to the liquid strains, as a general rule, I like Wyeast more than White Labs. I have had better luck with WY1728 than WLP028, WY3787 compared to WLP530, and WY1968 over WLP002. For Brett I also tend to prefer Wyeast (especially their super-cherry forward Brett lambicus WY5526 compared to the horsey White Labs WLP653). There are strains I prefer from White Labs, like WLP833 Bock Lager and WLP650 Brett clausenii, but in general when the two labs offer the “same” strain I tend to prefer the Wyeast version. The cell counts are similar for the ale/lager yeast strains, so I’m not sure if the differences in the results are due to propagation technique, packaging, particular isolate, or some other factor. For the Brett on the other hand Wyeast starts with ~25X the number of cells as White Labs, making their cultures ideal for making 100% Brett beers.

I’m done hyping East Coast Yeast until they seriously increase production. The last shipment Al dropped off sold out less than 10 minutes after the announcement email went out! I need his crazy bug blends for myself! Brewing Science Institute banks some interesting strains as well (including Brett brux var. Drie, as isolate from 3 Fonteinen that is being used heavily by Russian River, Ithaca, Avery, and several other craft breweries). While BSI only sells commercial sized pitches, White Labs will be releasing their version of Drie this summer as WLP644 Brett bruxellensis Trois.

I am excited about the way my first, now year old, wild microbe fermented beer is tasting. The primary fermentation was strong, and the earthy funk that took over after the initial tropical fruit is good enough that I made it the primary component in the gueuze blend I sent to National Homebrew Contest (on its own the acidity is still too soft). I am also impressed by what American breweries like Jolly Pumpkin and Russian River are accomplishing with their spontaneously fermented beers (I still have not tried any of the true Allagash Coolship beers). In fact, I’m so interested in the topic that I am writing an article on American spontaneous fermentation that will appear in an issue of BYO Magazine in a couple months. However, the time, effort, and risk that goes into fermenting with wild microbes keeps them as an occasional thing for me.

The only time I use wine yeast (other than in wine or the odd experiment) is for bottle conditioning sour beers. Wine yeast from Lalvin and Red Star (which I just realized is tied to Fermentis) tend to be cheap, acid tolerant, and decently flocculent. I am still mixed on the red wine yeast fermented Flemish red I brewed last year; sometimes samples of it have a wonderful clean fruity flavor, while others come across as yeasty and muddy.

It is a great time to be brewing beer in America with so many yeast (and bacteria) strains available. While I enjoy the seasonal releases from Wyeast and White Labs, it would be nice if they gave us access to all of the strains year-round (as breweries do).

Elderflower Sour Golden Ale

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:39:00 +0000

This elderflower infused sour ale is last of the four beers that Nathan and I made from the first pull from our solera wine barrel. This version was inspired by the aggressively flavored Cantillon Mamouche lambic. We recently did a tasting of this beer, and the two of the other versions, with James and the rest of the crew on Basic Brewing Radio.

Elderflower Golden Solera

Appearance – Looks similar to the other versions of this beer (other than the one on Cabernet grapes) brilliantly clear golden-yellow with a quickly receding white head.

Smell – The elderflowers add a soft fruity/floral character that blends nicely with the wine barrel. It is amazing how dissimilar the aroma is from the unexpected green pepper character I smelled in Cantillon Mamouche. Not sure if that is a result of the amount of flowers added or that we used dried and they used fresh. There is still some fruity-funk from the bugs as well.

Taste – The acidity comes across as almost citrusy. It is very front of the tongue, bright, crisp, and sharp. Reminiscent of lemonade, minus the sugar. The fruitiness is really nice from the barrel, Bugfarm, and flowers. The finish lingers with the floral character featuring more prominently.

Mouthfeel – Firm carbonation, although well short of being spritzy. The body feels surprisingly full for a dry/sour beer.

Drinkability & Notes – Very enjoyable, although I could stand a slightly more aggressive elderflower flavor than the one ounce for three weeks delivered. The flowers do obscure some of the more complex fermentation flavors of the plain version, but their flavor makes up for it. Interestingly, the floral character seems to have built as the beer as aged in the bottle, with some of the “young” flavors cleaning up over the last few months.

Bourbon Brett Oatmeal Barley Wine

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Barrel aging is a lot of fun, and really isn’t that much more challenging than using a carboy or bucket (if you have the space for it). After three beers each aged for a year each in our first barrel, which previously held bourbon at A. Smith Bowman, the oak and spirit characters it once imparted are now almost completely depleted. It could certainly continue to age beers that benefit from a lighter touch of oak, but we thought it would be more fun to start over with a fresh barrel from the same distillery (originally we were hoping to score a port barrel from a local vineyard, but their timing didn’t match with ours).

I’ve received a couple emails recently requesting a detailed explanation of the process that we go through when preparing a new barrel. So here is is:

1. Remove the wooden bung
2. Rack beer into the barrel
3. Affix a new bung that allows carbon dioxide to escape

We do not rinse, burn a sulfur wick, or otherwise clean or sanitize the barrel before filling. The most important thing to do is have the beer ready to go into the barrel as quickly as possible after the barrel is emptied. If you obtain a barrel which previously held wine or beer and are not able to fill it within a couple days, then it would be a good idea to rinse the barrel. If you need to hold the barrel for longer than a couple weeks, then you should consider either burning a sulfur wick or filling with a holding solution composed of water, citric acid, and metabisulfite. Your goal is to prevent the growth of microbes like Acetobacter and mold which can cause off-flavors. Spirit barrels are safer for longer (which is good since burning a sulfur wick in one can have explosive consequences), but they too will eventually dry out which can cause them to leak when finally filled.

For the closure, previously we have used standard #10½ rubber bungs affixed with water-filled airlocks. However, after recently talking to Vinnie of Russian River, I picked up a couple of these that convert between waterless airlocks to solid silicone bungs. It will be nice not to worry about a dry airlock allowing a free flow of oxygen into the beer (virtually guaranteeing acetic acid production).

Since we were starting over with a clean barrel, we thought it was a good opportunity to also pitch a new culture. The previous barrel had a resident culture that produced a wonderful, mostly lactic, sourness and did not completely dry out the base beer. The character shares a lot of similarities with beers from Raccoon Lodge, where they pitch their sour beers with a house strain of Lactobacillus in the absence of Brett. Nathan is planning to use our retired barrel to help start his barrel program at the brewpub where he'll be brewing, Right Proper.

Most of the oud bruin we transferred out of the old barrel went into bottles, but as usual some people put part of their shares onto fruit. I moved one of my two shares (4.5 gallons) onto 2 lbs of sour cherries, Nathan went with raspberries, and Alex is considering peaches or pumpkin. One of the most enjoyable parts of these barrel days is getting to try variations on the beers that other people have done previously. This time Jeff brought both cherry and raspberry versions of the wine barrel aged Belgian single, both of which were very nice.

For the new barrel we wanted to pair the vanilla and coconut aromatics we got in the first beer aged in the original barrel with the cherry-pie aromatics of the Brett lambicus strain from Wyeast (the White Labs version of the strain is much funkier, and would not meld as well). To support the bold character of the fresh barrel the six of us agreed on an oatmeal barley wine recipe that included a hefty dose of crystal malt. Since we are not pitching lactic acid bacteria, we were able to add more hop bitterness than we would want in a truly sour beer. For subsequent fills we may pitch additional microbes transitioning to sour beers, but it will be another year before we have to make that decision.

For the primary fermentation on my 10 gallon share I didn’t have enough ale yeast to pitch, so I augmented it with some lager yeast. As strange as an ale-temperature lager yeast fermentation may sound for a barley wine, it is actually how Thomas Hardy’s Ale is produced according to Barley Wine. When I tasted my portion of the beer after primary fermentation was complete it had a slightly fruity character (along with big caramel), but otherwise tasted unremarkable. On top of that, the Brett will both destroy and create esters, making the primary fermentation character far less important than it would be in a clean beer.

Barrel Brett Barley Wine

Recipe Specifics
---------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 10.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 42.00
Anticipated OG: 1.090
Anticipated SRM: 21.0
Anticipated IBU: 45.3
Brewhouse Efficiency: 62 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain
-------
81.0% - 34.00 lbs. Maris Otter
10.1% - 4.25 lbs. Crystal (Various)
8.9% - 3.75 lbs. Quick Oats

Hops
-------
3.01 oz. Crystal (Whole, 6.15% AA) @ 70 min.
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ 70 min.

Extras
--------
1.00 Unit Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
-------
Safale US-05
Saflager S-23
White Labs Southern German Lager WLP838

Water Profile
-----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
-------------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 153 F

Notes
-------
Brewed 2/20/12 Used a blend of several medium to dark crystal malts including CaraMunich, CaraVienna, Valley Malting Dark, Simpsons Dark, and Golden Naked Oats.

Collected 9 gallons at 1.102 with a batch sparge. Collected 3 extra gallons of final runnings and boiled those separately for 20 minutes.

Chilled to 70 F, shook to aerate, and pitched a blend of rehydrated US-05, S-23, and a passed its best by White Labs Southern German Lager.

Left at 63 F, good fermentation by 24 hours. At that point I moved it to the basement to restrain the lager yeast from getting too fruity.

3/22/12 Kegged, flushed with CO2, sealed.

3/25/12 Racked into new bourbon barrel. Alex made 5 gallons with Wyeast Brett lambicus (WY5526) that will serve to get the rest of the batch going. The barrel was about 3 gallons short of being full.

Nelson Nectar - India Amber Ale

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:12:00 +0000

Some beer nerds talk as if the only hoppy beers worth drinking are from the West Coast. It is hard to argue that anyone brews better hop focused beers than Russian River, Alpine, Lagunitas, and Ballast Point. However, there are a number of great East Coast beers that are nearly as good. While they are still packed with hop bitterness and aroma, they tend to have a bit more malt flavor than the West Coasters. Recently I got to drink an Alchemist Heady Topper and a Hill Farmstead Edward next to each other. Despite the differential between their alcohol contents, I though both beers had similar balances of bright American hops noses with a subtle bready malt.

It is also the time of the year for one of the more established East Coast hop bombs, Tröegs Nugget Nectar. As much as I enjoy it fresh, the high finishing gravity (1.018 by my measure) means that Nugget Nectar tends to fall off quicker than drier IPAs. The residual sweetness is in spite of a grist that contains no crystal malt (the color comes from darker base malts - Munich and Vienna). I decided to brew a batch loosely inspired by it, but drier and with a unique hop bill.

When I posted my tips on brewing better hoppy beers a few months ago, Shaun Hill (of Hill Farmstead) chimed in on the blog's Facebook page to suggest that, in addition to sulfate, he thinks using chloride is key to treating the water he uses for hoppy beers. He wouldn’t give me his specific target, but I decided to try increasing the chloride in my water. I never understand why some homebrewers talk about the ratio of sulfate to chloride for water treatment. Having a beer with 10 ppm sulfate and 5 ppm chloride will not have the same character as one with 200 ppm sulfate and 100 ppm chloride, even though both have the same 2:1 ratio. After diluting my tap water to bring down the high level of carbonate, I added 8 g of gypsum and 3 g of calcium chloride. This yielded approximately 145 ppm sulfate and 60 ppm chloride. Don’t treat your water without having a decent idea of what minerals are already in it.

Many breweries (Russian River, Surly etc.) use hop extract to bitter their hoppy beers for both practical and flavor considerations. Hops suck up wort, lowering your efficiency and adding cost (but on a homebrew scale, who cares?). Some brewers also claim to taste the chlorophyll extracted from a large bittering charge contributes a grassy or vegetal off-flavor. I used hop extract in my Pliny the Younger clone, but it was not the sole source of bitterness. Northern Brewer suggests that 1 g of their HopShots, boiled 60 minutes, will contribute about 10 IBUs to five gallons of wort. I decided on 8 g at 60 minutes, with no other hops added until flame out. I'm interested to find out if it contributes a noticeably different character to the beer, and if it tastes as bitter as I expect for 80 IBUs.

The aroma hops were a bit of an experiment. I fell in love with the unique fruity character of Nelson Sauvin in my first attempt at a Micro-IPA. This time, rather than pairing it with Amarillo, I added Ahtanum and Simcoe to see how Nelson works with a bolder citrus hop character. Otherwise the process was very similar to those I’ve used on hoppy beers in the past.

Nelson Nectar

Recipe Specifics
---------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 15.34
Anticipated OG: 1.070
Anticipated SRM: 12.2
Anticipated IBU: 80.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 61 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
---------------
78.2% - 12.00 lbs. French Vienna Malt
16.3% - 2.50 lbs. American Pale Malt
2.4% - 0.38 lbs. Cane Sugar
2.4% - 0.38 lbs. Crystal 120L
0.6% - 0.09 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt

Hops
-------
8.0 ml. HopShot (Extract) @ 60 min.
1.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ 30 min Hop Stand
1.00 oz. Ahtanum (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ 30 min Hop Stand
0.50 oz. Simcoe (Pellet, 14.00% AA) @ 30 min Hop Stand
1.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ Start of Chill
1.00 oz. Ahtanum (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ Start of Chill
0.50 oz. Simcoe (Pellet, 14.00% AA) @ Start of Chill
2.50 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ Dry Hop
2.00 oz. Ahtanum (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ Dry Hop
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Whole, 14.00% AA) @ Dry Hop

Extras
--------
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
-------
WYeast 1056 American Ale/Chico

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Pliny the Water
Calcium(Ca): 90.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 5.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 10.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 145.0 ppm
Chloride(Cl): 60.0 ppm
biCarbonate(HCO3): 65.0 ppm

Mash Schedule
--------------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 154 F

Notes
-------
3/1/12 Made a 1.2 l starter on the stirplate. Seemed finished after 48 hours, so I allowed it to settle until brewday.

3/4/12 Brewed by myself.

Filtered DC water cut with 50% distilled. Added 8 g of gypsum and 3 g of chloride for the entire 10 gallons of prepared liquor. Aiming for ~90 PPM Calcium, 145 Sulfate, and 60 Chloride.

Batch sparged with 185 F water. Collected a total of 7.25 gallons of 1.058 runnings. Added the sugar to the start of the boil.

8 ml of HopShot extract added to the kettle for bittering.

Half of the flameout added for a 30 minute hop stand. The rest were added at the start of the chill.
Chilled to 64 F stirring constantly. Strained to remove the bulk of the hops. Oxygenated for 60 seconds with pure O2. Topped off with ~.3 gallons of spring water to reach 5 gallons. Pitched the decanted starter.

Left at 63 F ambient to start fermenting. Good activity by 24 hours. Ambient temperature rose slowly to around 70 by the end of the second week.

3/23/12 Bagged and weighted the dry hops, and placed into a keg. Flushed twice with CO2, then racked the beer in. Purged the head space twice, then left at room temperature for dry hopping. At 1.016 (77% AA, 7.1% ABV) the beer was slightly sweeter than I intended, although that may have also been because the bitterness was a bit lighter/smoother than I wanted.

4/19/12 Great tasting hoppy beer. Could use slightly more bitterness, say 10 ml of hopshot, and could be a few shades darker. Otherwise it is just a matter of tweaking the hop profile based on what direction I want to take it.

Hybrid Wine-Beer Sour Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:36:00 +0000

I’m not a frequent wine drinker. While I don’t mind the flavors of a big red wine, they have a tendency to overwhelm my palate to the point where I can only taste three things: dark fruit, tannins, and alcohol. The New York Times had an interesting article a couple years ago on how diluting beverages like wine, coffee, and whiskey with water can help bring out subtle flavors and aromatics.

To create this wine-beer hybrid, Nathan and I aged four gallons of our red wine barrel aged sour beer on a gallon of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes (the last of a five gallon bucket). The beer dilutes the intense flavor of the grapes, which helps my palate pull out lighter and more interesting flavors usually obscured in wine by their high concentration (oddly). Unlike water though, the beer adds its own flavor, preventing the combination from tasting thin or watered down.

Cabernet Sauvignon "Golden" Sour

Appearance – The light pink head evaporates almost instantly leaving a beer that looks more like a rosé.I'll admit that a stable head would be nice, but it certainly adds to the vinous vibe.

Smell – The aroma is rich with grapes, but it doesn’t smell like wine. The fruit is lighter and fresher than red wines tend to be. The Cabernet gives a complex blend of aromatics, grapes sure, but also cherries and raspberries. Brett funk makes an appearance as well, with more classic leathery funk than the other version of this beer. Just a hint of vinegar is released when I swirl the beer.

Taste – Solid tangy lactic sourness, along with a big fruit character. Similar grape character and level to Cantillon Saint Lamvinus, bold, but not dominant. In the flavor the fruit comes across even more like raspberries than in the nose; I'm not sure what fruit I would guess was added. Not sure if the slightly toasty flavor is from the malt or the Brett. A wisp of residual sweetness helps to balance the acidity. The grapes mostly obscure the oak flavor, but I’m sure the barrel helps the beer taste more wine-like.

Mouthfeel – Moderate body, although it feels a bit fuller than the non-fruited portions of the batch. The prickly carbonation is just about right for my tastes.

Drinkability & Notes – I couldn’t be happier with the way this portion of the solera turned out. It is interesting that diluting the grapes compared to a wine actually brings out more of the subtle flavors from the fruit. I’ll have to buy another bucket of frozen grapes the next time I have a couple sour beers ready for fruit.

What beer serving method is best?

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:38:00 +0000

On Tap - 52%
On Cask - 28%
In a Bottle - 19%

I think the answer to what is the best serving method for beer is so much more complex than my simple poll allowed. Expectations differ by the type of beer, where I am drinking, and the brewery. I think each method has times when it is the best and the worst.

When the right beer is served on cask, and it’s done correctly, there are few better drinks. However, too often in America casks are served by bars that don’t treat them correctly. My primary complaint is that casks are served too warm; there is a big difference between cellar, and room temperature. Other problems include murky, oxidized, or otherwise off tasting beers being served on hand pump and gravity pour. Not many breweries have large cask programs, so many bars around here are desperate for beers to put on cask. The result is that many have styles on that don’t benefit from the serving method; I once had a weizenbock on cask at a local bar, bad choice. Imported beer on cask are always a risk; English milds and bitters rarely travel well. The only time I order a cask is if it is a local moderate alcohol beer or at a bar that takes their casks seriously.

Draft beer tends to be the most consistent since it is usually stored cold and sold relatively quickly. However, they have their share of problems as well. Many bars only have a single serving temperature, which tends to be too cold for most beers. I really respect a bar that can keep their draft list tight and well chosen rather than having 50, 75, or even 100 taps. The more handles you have the more likely it is that some of the kegs will sit around for too long. Off-flavors from poorly cleaned lines are a big problem, although it seems like, at least here in DC, beer bars are taking the quality of their draft beer more seriously. When buying a draft, I usually go for IPAs and other beers that are best fresh. I also am a big fan of small samples, a chance to try an interesting beer without investing in the now universal bomber.

The thing I really like about bottles is that many breweries indicate on them when the beer was packaged (I hate best buy dates, seriously a year for Pilsner Urquell?). However, many brewers' bottles still do not have this basic piece of information. Bottles have a tendency to sit around too long, especially at places with extensive selections. A deep bottle list makes much more sense for liquors, which can sit indefinitely. Like drafts, I would like to see a well chosen and frequently moved beer list, especially of things that need to be served fresh. No problem having a big backlog of stouts, strong Belgian beers, sours and others that have a long shelf-life, but don’t carry 15 IPAs in bottles on top of a deep draft list.

This is all to say that what I choose to buy and drink is highly situational. In most cases I avoid bottles when I am out because I can generally buy the same beer at a store for less than half the price (and take a look at the bottling date before I buy). There are also some breweries that just do not have their bottling where it needs to be. A beer is fine on draft, while bottles are infected or have carbonation issues.

For my homebrew, I try to keep the beers in my kegerator restricted to only those that are best consumed quickly and in quantity. I bottle anything that will not be harmed by months or years of aging. The rare occasions I put beer on cask it is for parties when I know we’ll be able to work through the large quantity of beer in a reasonable amount of time.

Easter Spiced Pomegranate Quadruppel

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:55:00 +0000

I tend to deflect most requests to brew a batch of beer for someone else’s event. So little of the cost of a batch is the ingredients, the real expense is the time and effort I spend both in brewing and planning. However, I’ve made a couple of exceptions recently. First there was the parti-gyle (should I say "combined grist brewing" as Ron Pattinson suggested in the comments) English Oatmeal Porter that I brewed with my friend Nate. However, I ended up with close to five gallons between the two batches, so not exactly an act of charity.

A few months ago I bumped into my neighbor Dan. He remembered that I was a homebrewer and offered to start rinsing and saving empty bottles for me. Dan homebrewed while he was a grad student, but hadn’t made a batch since getting married, leaving grad school to become a reverend, and having kids. He hasn't lost his interest in good beer though, he and the reverends he works with hold weekly meetings at Pizzeria Paradiso (one of the three or four best beer bars in DC). It was at one of these meetings while planning their annual Easter Vigil that they struck upon the idea of brewing a batch of beer to serve to the several hundred attendees.

I kicked a couple of ideas around with him over email. My assumption was that they’d want something light and accessible for such a big group, maybe toss in some biblical spices? A couple weeks ago he and one of the other reverends came over to drink a few homebrews and plan the recipe. Dan and Tommy were especially intrigued by my Sour Cherry Bourbon Porter. In the end they decided on a Pomegranate Cardamom Quadrupel. We chewed on a couple malts, their favorites were CaraMunich, for dark fruit flavor, and just a touch of Carafa Special II, for darker roasted coffee aromas. Pomegranate is one of the few fruits mentioned in the bible, which is why He’Brew uses it in their beers so frequently. It is also suspected of being the fruit that Eve ate from the tree of knowledge (apples were unknown in the dessert of the Middle East).

I realize religion is beyond this blog's usual purview, so I apologize. I was raised Catholic, but haven’t been a religious person for the last ten years or so. Oddly I don't have a particular memory of losing faith, it was a gradual erosion until one day it was the only honest choice remaining. However, unlike many atheists, I still think that religion can be a force for good in the world, although that certainly isn’t always the case. My central concern is that having faith in something (including, but not limited to a god) makes a person an easier target to be taken advantage of or misled. That said, faith also makes it easier to convince people to help others or sacrifice for the benefit of society. Reverend Dan seems like the sort of person who is doing things the right way. In the hours we spent together brewing, he didn't ask me about my beliefs or suggest that I come to his church. When several of his young kids came across the street for awhile to watch the brewing, they were well behaved and inquisitive about the biology of fermentation.

After a standard mash and boil, at flame out we added a small dose of white cardamom. Not to be confused with the smoky turpentine notes of the black cardamom that Noah, Alex, and I used in the second iteration of our annual Dark Saison. White cardamom is most often associated with Scandinavian baked goods and coffee (previously I also used a pinch in my Scandinavian Imperial Porter). It is always easier to under-spice, and add more later rather than risk adding too much. For yeast we used the Belgian strain from the Westmalle Trappist Abbey, White Labs 530, naturally. The pomegranate flavor was contributed by tart, raisiny pomegranate molasses that Dan's wife procured from a local Turkish market. We added a total of one pound split between the secondary fermentors. Hopefully it will be enough to add a slight tartness, à la Ommegang Three Philosophers.

My payment for the time and effort will be a six-pack taken from the batch at kegging. Talk about a selfless act, especially considering how good the sample we pulled tasted!

Russell's Quad

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 10.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 39.38
Anticipated OG: 1.091
Anticipated SRM: 22.7
Anticipated IBU: 24.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59 %
Wort Boil Time: 80 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
--------------
83.8% 33.00 lbs. American Pale Malt
5.1% 2.00 lbs. Beet Sugar
5.1% 2.00 lbs. CaraMunich Malt
5.1% 2.00 lbs. Pommegranate Molasses
1.0% 0.38 lbs. Carafa Special II

Hops
------
2.50 oz. Hallertauer Tradition (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ 65 min.

Extras
--------
0.50 Tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.
1.00 Unit(s)Whirlfloc @ 10 min.
0.5 g Cardamom Seed @ 0 min.

Yeast
------
White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 152

Notes
-----
2/2/12 Made a 1.5 l starter with 2 tubes of 530 on the stir plate.

Brewed 2/4/12

Batch Spargeed with 180 F water. Collected 9 gallons of 1.092 runnings including 2 lbs of table sugar added to the boil, plus 1 gallon of final runnings (boiled seprately on the stove).

.5 grams of ground white cardamom added in the last few seconds of the boil

Chilled to 67 F, 60 seconds of oxygen for both halves of the wort. Pitched half the starter, not decanted, into each half. Left at 63 F to ferment.

2/20/12 Fermentation appears complete, racked to secondary.

2/17/12 Racked both halves to secondary.

3/1/12 Added 1 pound of Pomegranate molasses and 1 gallon of distilled water.

Wine Barrel Golden Solera Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 01:46:00 +0000

For each of our two solera barrels we are bottling some of each pull as is for a baseline to compare all of our other variants against. This is the first pull from the wine barrel golden sour we brewed two years ago, hopefully the second pull will be in about six months.

Golden Solera - The Plain

Appearance – Clear golden with a thin white head. Looks just like the dry hopped version, right down to the mediocre head retention (not too surprising for a sour beer).

Smell – Deep oak, damp basement, and fruity Brett. There is a hint of acetic acid in the nose as well. A relatively clean aroma, lacking the layers of funky complexity that the best sours have.

Taste – Firm and clean lactic sourness on the first sip. A complex overripe apple fruitiness follows. The farmyard funk is subdued, but present. The oak is great, soft but pervasive. The wine character from the barrel is nice as well. The flavor has so much going on than the aroma, but it also has a light Flemish pale vinegar character.

Mouthfeel – Medium-thin body, with a slight tannic character. Medium carbonation, with more bubbles it might taste lambic-like.

Drinkability & Notes – For an unblended beer it has a good balance of oak, sourness, and Brett. Straight the oak and funk come out more than they did in the dry hopped version. However it is missing the aromatic complexity that even the low level of hopping provided that version. Not one of my favorite sour beers plain, but it is a good base for other flavors. It comes off as similar to Petrus Aged Pale, which is hard to complain about.

Hoppy Golden Solera Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:02:00 +0000

Having 115 gallons of souring beer split between two barrels in my basement is a bit of a risk. I mean even the best brewers blend their beer, and on occasion are forced to dump barrels. However, when I remember that it cost less than $250 to buy and fill each one, and that cost was split with my friend Nathan it doesn’t seem so bad. The fact that our two "group barrels" in his basement have had such a good track record provide additional reassurance. More than the money, it is the huge amount of time and effort it required to produce that volume of wort using our undersized gear that would be wasted if the two beers don’t turn out well.

The wine barrel golden sour was brewed about two years ago. Primary fermented in the barrel with Al's (pre-East Coast Yeast) Bugfarm III. After 20 months we pulled 20 gallons, refilling with similar wort. We plan to continue this periodically, essentially creating a single vessel solera which will evolve with each pull. For more information on solera, read Will Meyer's excellent article La Método Solera.

We split the beer from this first pull evenly four ways: plain, dry hopped, aged on elderflowers, and aged on Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. This resulted in about a case of the four varietals for each of us. I decided to do the tasting of the dry hopped (Hallertau Tradition) first since those hoppy aromas are already fading. Sadly I took most of my share of the dry hopped portion to serve on tap, but the keg immediately turned sharp and highly acetic despite the fact that I double purged with carbon dioxide.

Golden Solera - The Hoppy

Appearance – Looks like Pilsner Urquell, with a brilliantly clear, golden-yellow body. The stark white head is thin, but remains at that level until the beer is finished.

Smell – Big sour fruit, hard to pick out exactly what the fruit is… Plum? Pear? The hops add a nice herbal note, but it is secondary to the wild fruit. The hops were never as bold as I had hoped they would be, and they have faded a bit since it was bottled a few months ago. Luckily I don’t find faded European hops offensive like I do citrusy American hops. There is also just a hint of chalky aspirin.

Taste – Solid lactic acid with some sharpness from acetic. It gets me right in the sides of the cheeks. The flavor is similar to the aroma, a complex blend of fruit and rustic farmyard funk. The flavor is more decidedly winey, with a big contribution from the red grape juice that once filled the barrel. The oak is subtle despite the 20 months in the barrel, spicy and nothing like the lumber many “aged on oak” beers end up with. There is still a touch of residual sweetness to help balance the sourness, but nothing like the really sweet/sour beers like Duchesse De Bourgogne.

Mouthfeel – Light body, with moderate carbonation. The carbonation could be slightly higher. Slight tannic roughness on my tongue from the oak. The acidity makes it seem fuller than it actually is.

Drinkability & Notes – Considering this was the first pull it will be interesting to see if the funkiness of the Brett is able to assert itself more in subsequent years. I would have liked more character from the nearly 4 oz of dry hops, but I think we probably loaded the hop bag too full to allow for adequate circulation.

11 Mistakes Every New Homebrewer Makes

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:42:00 +0000

I was inspired by coaching one of my coworkers through his first batch of homebrew (an English bitter) to write up a list of the mistakes that many new homebrewers make. Several of these are things I did on early batches, while others I have tasted at homebrew at club meetings. Many of these issues stem from poor kit instructions, bad homebrew shop advice, and common sense that just doesn’t work out.

1. Using the sanitizer that comes with a beer kit. This powdered sanitizer is slow and not especially effective. Instead get a no-rinse sanitizer like Star-San or Iodophor, which are faster and easier to use. Sanitize everything that touches your beer post-boil, and make sure it is carefully cleaned after each use (sanitizers are most effective on scrupulously-clean scratch-free surfaces). Keeping wild microbes out of your beer is the single most important step to brewing solid beer.

2. Starting with a recipe that is strong or unusual. Brewing a big complex beer is lots of fun, but play it safe on your first batch and brew something simple. High alcohol beers require more yeast and time. Interesting adjuncts add complexity to the recipe and process. These are things you don’t want to deal with on your first batch, so keep it easy.

3. Brewing with unfiltered, chlorine-containing tap water. If you are on a municipal water supply odds are that it contains either chlorine or chloramines. To remove them you can either charcoal filter or treat your water with metabisulfite, or alternatively use bottled water. One of the most common off-flavors I taste at homebrew club meetings is medicinal chlorophenol, which is formed by the combination of chlorine in the water or sanitizer and phenols from malt and yeast.

4. Squeezing the grain bag after steeping. This releases tannins, which give the body a rough texture. Steep your grains in a small amount of water (no more than three quarts per pound) and then rinse them by either pouring hot water over the grain bag or dipping the grain bag into a second pot of hot water. Edit: I've had a couple people dispute squeezing being an issue in the comments. I've tasted some tannin-y beer from new homebrewers, but maybe it was just from a high water to grain steeping ratio. I'll have to squeeze the grain bag into a glass and have a taste the next time I brew an extract beer.

5. Using liquid yeast. "Pitchable" liquid yeast cultures barely have enough cells to ferment a standard gravity beer on the day they are packaged, and their cells die quickly from there. A high quality 11.5 g package of dried yeast starts with as much as twice the cells as a fresh package of yeast from either Wyeast or White Labs, and retains high cell viability for much longer. While Fermentis, for example, claims a minimum of 6 billion cells per gram at packaging, the actual number tends to be much higher. Liquid yeast can produce great beers, but require a starter unless you are getting extremely fresh yeast and brewing a low-alcohol beer.

6. Not aerating the wort adequately. It takes several minutes of shaking for the chilled wort to absorb the ideal amount of oxygen to allow the yeast to complete a healthy growth phase. The healthier your yeast cells are the cleaner and quicker they will complete the fermentation.

7. Pitching when the side of the pot or fermentor feels “cool enough.” Use a sanitized thermometer to check the actual temperature of the wort before you add the yeast. Pitching when the wort is above 100 F is rare, but will kill the yeast. Ideally the temperature should be at or below your target fermentation temperature to allow the temperature to rise as the yeast grows and ferments. You can pre-chill the sanitized water you use to top-off after the boil to help bring the temperature down.

8. Fermenting at too high of a temperature. Take note of the ambient temperature of the room the beer is fermenting in, but realize that at the peak of fermentation the yeast can raise the temperature of the beer by as much as 7 F. Fermenting too warm can cause the yeast to produce higher alcohols and excessive fruity flavors. Letting the ambient temperature rise towards the high end of the yeast's range as fermentation slows helps to ensure a clean well attenuated beer, but for most strains is unnecessary. If you are unable to control the fermentation temperature, then choose a yeast strain that fits the conditions.

9. Racking to secondary. I know the instructions included in most kits call for transferring the beer from the primary fermentor to a secondary before bottling, but all this step accomplishes is introducing more risk of oxidation and wild yeast contamination. There is no risk of off flavors from autolysis (yeast death) at the homebrew scale in less than a month. At a commercial level the pressure and heat exerted on the yeast can cause problems quickly, but those conditions do not exist in a carboy or bucket.

10. Relying on bubbles in the airlock to judge when fermentation is complete. Wait until fermentation has appeared finished for a couple of days before pulling a sample of wort to test the final gravity. There is no rush to bottle, and doing so before the final gravity is reached results in extra carbonation. Once fermentation is complete and the beer tastes good, you can move the fermentor somewhere cool to encourage the yeast to settle out for clearer beer in the bottle.

11. Adding the entire five ounce package of priming sugar. In almost all cases this amount of sugar will over-carbonate the beer. Even for five gallons of beer this will produce too much carbonation for most styles and most brewers will end up with less than five gallons in the bottling bucket. Instead use a priming sugar calculator to tailor the weight of sugar you add to the actual volume of beer, the style of beer you are brewing, and the fermentation temperature.

Hopefully this list is able to help a few new homebrewers avoid some of the biggest pitfalls on their first batch. If any of the more experienced brewers out there has any lessons learned that are not included on the list please post a comment. You should also pick up a good basic homebrewing book, like John Palmer’s How to Brew, especially if you want to learn more of the “why” behind some of my suggestions.

There are many other things I would suggest as best practices, but they tend to be more style specific and are not worth worrying about on your first batch. I also think fresh high quality ingredients are a big key to making good beer, but most people brewing their first batch are buying and using fresh malt, yeast, and hops.

Vienna Half IPA Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:36:00 +0000

New camera arrived today, so it's time to start catching up on a massive backlog of tastings. It'll take me awhile to get used to using the camera (my first DSLR), but even with my unskilled hand it is certainly a big upgrade over the webcam I used for the last few posts.

I've been trying not to drink too much of my Half IPA to make sure I wouldn't kick the keg before I got a chance to write up tasting notes and take a few pictures. It is one of the better batches I've brewed recently, and one of my favorite sorts or beers to drink even though it is nearly impossible to find commercially. As for the "hop standing" technique, I don't notice a qualitative difference, but the beer does seem a bit more hop-saturated through each sip than some of my other hoppy beers.

Vienna Half IPA

Appearance – Slightly hazy orange colored body. The stark white two-finger white head sinks over a few minutes, but retains a sticky 1/8 inch covering. Thanks to the no-sparge and a darker base malt it is a much more attractive beer than my last, slightly grayish, micro-IPA.

Smell – Aroma is a wonderful mix of doughy malt, and fresh citrusy hops. The Vienna malt does a great job keeping up with the generous doses of Amarillo, Simcoe, and Columbus. I think the English yeast helps to boost the malt character as well, but also leads to a slightly more muted hop aroma than I expected.

Taste – Firm, smooth bitterness lingers just slightly, with a similar overall balance to a West Coast IPA. The hop complexity is terrific with the citrus (orange) and pine of the Simcoe and Amarillo and the dankness of the Columbus. It does lack the wonderful resiny character I tasted in my first glass of Alpine's Hoppy Birthday last week, probably thanks to their use of a hop back. The bready malt and fruity yeast are able to hold their own, but this beer is all about the hops.

Mouthfeel – Moderate-thin mouthfeel, could be just slightly weightier. Moderate-low carbonation. I have found that high carbonation is the easiest way to ruin a low gravity beer. High carbonation turns a light beer into seltzer.

Drinkability & Notes – This is my favorite sort of beer, big and bold flavor, but in a small easy to enjoy package. There isn’t much to change if I brewed it again, maybe a touch of flaked oats to boost the body?