Relying on one of our favorite brewers–Dogfish Head–we will first be drinking their popular (best IPA in America, Esquire magazine) 90 Minute IPA.  90 Minute IPA is an IPA that is continually hopped during a 90 minute boil, so that there is an unavoidable hop presence that doesn’t feel like it’s burning a hole in your esophagus.  This beer is also uniquely dry hopped:  please see the video at the end of this post.

After drinking the 90 Minute IPA, we will be swishing our mouths out with water and pouring a Dogfish Head Burton Baton, which is a blend of the 90 Minute IPA and an oak age English Strong Ale.  You and I will be looking for the 90 Minute IPA in this mix, the qualities of the English strong ale, oak characteristics, and any other unique notes that your tongue deciphers.

Both of these beers should be available at any decently stocked beer store.  If you can only find one, pick it up and stop back to let us know what you thought of it.  We do encourage trying to find both of these, as it can provide a nice introspective palate test!  We want to give an advanced warning though, 90 Minute is 9% ABV and Burton Baton is 10% ABV, so drink on a full stomach!  Cheers!

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The Pour:

Describing beer is as subjective as personalities are unique.   Described by Wychwood as Golden in color, I expected a a blonde hazy liquid to enter my glass.  On the contrary the color was more along the lines of an English Pale ale, only a tad lighter in color.  There was a slight haze and a rich white head that left great lacing designs as it slunk into the beer.

The Nose:

Up front are classic toasted/biscuit malt aromas.  Buttery and coppery aromas mingle with floral and grassy hop notes.  There is a hard to pinpoint fruity aroma in there too.  With my nose in the bouquet of smells, I can imagine the summery, hay like nature of this beer.  But at the same time, there is a richness to it that screams of fall.

The Taste:

Like the appearance, the beer was less “wheat like” and summery than anticipated.  In fact, it reminded me almost of a lite ESB.  Very bready with distinct caramel and buttery tones that I have come to love from certain English yeast strains.  These diacetyl qualities, mixed with the light and crisp wheat tones, yield a more complex beer than meets the eye.  The deliciously light and fruity (I thought cherries) hop flavors did make for refreshing beer.  However, perhaps because I am not British and lived in hot and humid (in summer) Missouri, I thought this to be more of an early fall day.

Overall Thoughts:

Like other Wychcraft beers I’ve had, this beer doesn’t disappoint.  While refreshing, and a great session beer, it didn’t blow me out of the water, though.  Were it priced better, I’d stock up on these for an early fall camping trip.

Nate’s Rating:

Overall Satisfaction: ★★★¼☆ 

Among other English Pale Ales: ★★★¼☆ 

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What are you looking forward to?  What were your bad Christmas Ale experiences?  Tell us your mindset when it comes to the Christmas Ales.

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As a crop, hops have only really been widely used in beer for a few hundred years.  Some will point to their incipient and early uses, but they are a recent phenomenon in brewing.  Be that as it may, they are certainly now the premiere crop for giving beer aroma, bitterness, fermentation health and life span. Since they are now one of the basic building blocks of beer, let’s see what role they play in the cost of a beer.

The first thing to remember is that hops only grow well in certain climate types.  Since that is the case, land space for hop vs. other crops is somewhat competitive.  It may interest the reader to know that the U.S. and Germany together account for about 70% of the hop production worldwide.  They are roughly 50/50 on amounts (although the U.S. is massively larger than Germany).  The remaining 30% of the world hops are split among other nations with no country accounting for even 10% of world production.  (Essentially, the market is cornered between Germany and the US.)  While this might mean cheaper prices for U.S. or German brewers (even though this is not always that case), it also means that a bad year of hops crops, like the most recent two years in Germany, can be very detrimental to world hops levels.  Thus, prices can sky rocket in a hurry, even limiting the amount that brewers can utilize.  Simple economics dictate that supply and demand have correlative effects.  Less hops equals higher prices.  So, the field itself can dictate cost.

Unfortunately, some larger breweries are in the position to demand and dictate their own hop levels and squeeze out some of the smaller guys, who may not be able to obtain any of a hop variety they want or may even have to pay more for what they get.  Even in good years, hops can be costly if you are one of the smaller guys.  Why?

There are various ways to utilize hops.  I think it goes without saying that larger quantities can reduce the purchasing price of most items.  Hops are not immune to this principle.  Who is in the position to buy tons and tons of hops?  Not small brewers.  So from an immediate purchasing power stand point, smaller brewers are at the disadvantage of having to pay more on the dollar per hop price.  So, let’s assume that they use the same amount of hops per barrel than do larger breweries; their cost is immediately higher.

But craft and micro brewers don’t use the same amount of hops that the big guys do.  In fact, they are making beers that have more hop aroma and bitterness.  Why?  Because they believe that the character added by using more hops is imperative to making good beer.  IPAs, pale ales, and even small brewery lagers utilize much higher hop levels than macro beer makers.  Not only do they use more hops, but some even use hops in a different way.

Hops can be added into a beer as a liquid extract, powder, pelletized form or whole flowers.  Some of these are cheaper than others.  (Guess which one the big guys use.)  To be honest, even most craft and micro brewers use hop pellets because of the shelf-life.  Yet, when special aroma types or beer are brewed, they might switch to whole flowers because their delicate aromas are often lost when they are pelletized.  Of course, the pellets still work for the job, and this is actually a matter of conviction.

Another point of conviction that many craft brewers hold and the big guys don’t is that idea that it matters which hops one uses for bitterness.  Some brewers simply use the highest Alpha Acid hops (highest bittering capabilities).  The more bittering capability of a hop, the further it stretches and the cheaper it is. This is not good enough for some brewers.  Even if the hop is only for bitterness, they are convinced that it does add overall quality and character to their beer (this is not true of all brewers).  As a result, they might use a lower Alpha Acid hop in lieu of a higher one, causing them to use more hops.  More hops equal more money.

But hops aren’t only for bitterness.  Beers like IPAs require a significant amount of aroma hops.  The big guys may or may not make IPAs. When they don’t, they don’t have that cost figured into their brewing costs.  Where they do, they use much less aroma hops than craft and micro guys.  Think about it.  A macro brewery lager has some bittering hops and might have a minimal amount of aroma hops (even though some “triple hop”…give me a break).  A micro brewery bitters their beer with their more expensive hops, using more with which to bitter.  Then they take their more expensive hops and add a plentiful amount for the aroma of their beer.  Who in their right mind would say that this wouldn’t affect (sometimes drastically) the price of a beer?

I hope this is starting to paint a picture as to why craft beer costs more.

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I’ve recently grown weary of my attempts to find anything out about some particular yeast strains. For instance, I recently tried to investigate wlp655 (White Lab’s Sour Mix).  White Lab basically repeats on their website the information that is on their tube, which is frustrating.  Almost every site that I searched pretty much quoted the White Lab site.  Don’t get me wrong, White Labs makes good yeast, but the functionality and resourcefulness of their website stinks.  As for their chart, I know that people might think that looking at it would be helpful.  Yet, even the information on that is fairly limited.

The other way to find out about the yeast performance is to search through a Cambridge University student’s doctoral dissertation on a particular yeast strain.  Believe me when I say that I know the research is invaluable to getting a better understand of yeast, beer, etc.  But sifting through that information to find out a respiration period of a yeast is time consuming.  I guess I’m simply grousing about the problem, right?  Wrong!

This is where this series comes in.  Here is what I plan to do from now on when I brew: I’m going to name the yeast and company that I’m using, how long it took until I started seeing fermentation, what sort of performance I got out of the yeast, and possibly mention the basic gravities and alcohol ranges within which I worked.  Of course, style and taste qualities will be included in my assessment.  In addition, methodology will be a part of the equation. Sorry, I probably won’t include most of the recipes (although I might occasionally include one).  I’ve gotten fed up with not being able to find this stuff in many places, so I’m doing something about it.

Am I an expert on yeast behavior?  No.  I’m just looking to help the reader know what happened in my case, get some feedback from them, and help others know what to expect.  I’m not going to write on something I’ve not used.  This will be a highly subjective understanding of what I’m seeing…but sometimes experience is the best teacher.

My greatest hope is that I can make someone else feel better about what and how their yeast is doing.

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As many of you know, form and functionality are both important for a website. Nate and I have felt, for a while, that our functionality is pretty decent. However, our form is not quite what we would like it to be. Don’t get me wrong; Nate did our header design and I think it’s terrific. But we do want to fill our site out a little bit and make it a little more pleasing to the eye. We feel our content has filled the intellectual side of our site…but beauty is nice as well.

Either way, this is my attempt to prepare our readers for new look to the site.  I hope that yo enjoy it when it does happen.  We just want you to know that it is.

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It seems that every brewery has some sort of unique interest that becomes their marketing focal point.  Wychwood is no different, drawing from English folklore.  From the Brewery’s website:

Wychwood Brewery is named after The Royal Forest of Wychwood which was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, and covered much of what is now West Oxfordshire. Much of the artwork for Wychwood beer labels depicts characters from myths and legends associated with the ancient medieval forest.

The term ‘forest’ referred historically to areas where hunting rights were reserved for the Sovereign and included in this area would have been meadows, cultivated open fields, heaths and downs as well as woodlands.

You can just imagine the Hobgoblin trundling past and jeering at The Circle Master as he scamps around the fields looking for trouble.

Fiddler’s Elbow is an English pale that utilizes Styrian and Northdown hops with a malt makeup of Pale wheat and Crystal malt, with an ABV of 4.5%.  Hobgoblin is a tad darker with it’s use of chocolate malt alongside Pale and Crystal.  Hobgoblin uses Fuggles and Styrian malts.

I’d encourage sipping with us this Saturday.  If rarely stray from the American craft beer ales that use more citrusy hops, these beers my be a refreshing trip from the norm.

By the way, Wychwood brewery’s facilities perfectly accommodates my mental picture of what an English Brewery named “Wychwood” would look like.  Cheers!

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Why?

First off, your sense of taste changes.  Physically speaking, as you get older your taste buds become less sensitive, so at 29 that Flemish sour is less overpowering than at 21. In fact, children are born with taste buds not only on their tongues, but on the roof and sides of their mouths.  Oh how I would love to swap bodies with my six year old for day and attack the beer aisle!  Also, your sense of taste is malleable at the mental level.  There is not a beer geek on the planet who will not attest to the fact that many style of beer are an “acquired taste.”  A wide-ranged palate usually doesn’t just happen.

Second, there would have been “third party” elements that made that particular beer less appealing.  Chemicals in other foods that may have been consumed alongside a given beer can have taste enhancing or detracting effects.  Perhaps that last beer you swore off was at a disadvantage due to morsels of garlic left in you cuspids from dinner.  Miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, has chemical properties that tricks the mind into believing that even the sourest of flavor is as sweet as a sugar drop.  For the record, keep the miracle fruit away from my beer.

Thirdly, beer changes.  Far from static, our hailed beverage is not immune to the effects of time.  Lower alcohol beers may be adversely affected and oxidized over time.   Light and temperature fluctuations are never good for a beer.  But a beer kept in cool temperatures may become more desirable.  A beer can increase in complexity over time, as the chemical composition is altered to accentuate different flavors.  Hop flavors tends to decrease, and sweet flavors become more apparent.

Recently, I gave a beer that I had not rated very highly another try.  With an infant less than a week old, and budget gasping for air, instead of heading to the beer market, like the ant that toiled all summer, I am enjoying the fruits of my beer cellar.  The other night, for some odd reason, I impulsively grabbed a bottle of Dogfish Head’s Aprihop off the shelf.  Last time I tried this (and put it in my cellar) was in March.  The beer didn’t fare to well in my review, and I remember thinking, “I am not buying this again!”

Seven months later, I found myself enjoying this beer.  I still wouldn’t give it a five star rating, but it was much better than I had expected.  There the apricot flavor, while subtle, was not being contorted by the citrus (grapefruity) hop flavors.  A mildly pleasant sourness that I had not picked up on before, and some rich brown sugar flavors made my day.  I wish I had picked up a few more  to save for a rainy day.

On the other hand, some beers, when given a second try still let me down.  I recently gave Santa’s Special Reserve (Rogue) another go around after over a year of aging and found myself saying, “ugh,” again.

Have you had similar experiences?  Do you cellar your beer?  If not, you really ought to give it a try!

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The Pour (Stone Pale Ale Pour):  

Manlandsite.com Stone Pale Ale Beer Pour in HD! from Manlandsite on Vimeo.

In terms of color, this looked like a Pale Ale should.  It was clean with a copper body.  Atop the body rested a stable white head.  Stone’s Pale Ale appeared to be very drinkable, indeed.

The Nose: One thing I have to applaud Stone about is resisting to use the ubiquitous Cascade hop for this brew.  When I took the first whiff, it was noticeable that Cascades were not the hop of choice.  Don’t get me wrong, there was still a citrus tone to the beer–there is no mistaking that.  However, the piney/grapefruity tones associated with Cascades were not there.  In fact, the citrus aroma gave way to some very nice tropical fruit tones, which were produced by the two hop varieties in this brew.  The caramel sweet malts were noticeable but mostly overpowered by the hops aroma.  I did note a nice yeast tone to the beer, though.

The Taste: Of course the hops played a major role in this beer, especially up front.  However, there was a fairly nice mouth-feel to Stone’s Pale Ale.  As the sides of my tongue tingled and the hops receded, the beer starting becoming a nicely bitter and dry experience.  Amidst the fading hops and impending bitter came the nice touches of caramel and darker roasted grain tones.

Overall, I really enjoyed Stone’s Pale Ale.  Although not as good as a British version, it stands up pretty well against other American styled selections.  If I had to choose between this and their IPA (the basic IPA, not Ruination), I’d pick this one almost every time.  Pick a six pack or a bomber up and give this a whirl.

(Thanks to Manland for the pour video.)

Mike’s Rating:

Overall Satisfaction: ★★★¾☆ 

Among other American Pale Ales: ★★★★¼ 

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I’ve written before about how important a beer selection is to me vs. simply having a large quantity on tap. Although these guys don’t have the number of beers to match corporate models, what they do have is what one might call a deep cut.  So, when Dan told me that they didn’t have tons of beer on tap, I wasn’t too deterred…and that’s a good thing.

When we arrived, I immediately took note that the Back Abbey had a display above the bar of bottles from every Trappist Ale, even the rare Westvleteren selections.  That is the one Trappist coveted by beer drinkers that can’t be obtained very easily since they do not distribute or sell their beer commercially (most people are either out of luck or become one-armed and one-legged).  At any rate, every other Trappist was available for purchase.

Having already eaten, Andrea and I did not order any food but did eat some Fritz, which were pretty good (thanks for sharing, Dan and Samantha).  The Back Abbey served food, which looked very nice in presentation and even better in my mind’s tasting eye.  Yet, I was more than content to order a beer or two.

Andrea ordered Carmelite Trippel and I order Schneider Aventius and Saison Dupont…all on tap.  (I didn’t know where else to start, so I went for some things I’d never had on tap before.)  I also tasted Dan’s draught Celebrator, which is already great in the bottle.  I’m not going to give you a full list of the beers, but their tap list was wonderful and their bottle list was great, too.

As I side note, I do want to mention that Dan ordered Kwak on tap.  He literally had to give up his shoe to get the Kwak glass (some thievery has brought about this state of affairs).  But the ambience of the place is also very nice.  The interior had a rustic, almost older German/Belgian pub feel.  No music was blaring, only lively conversations.  The wait staff was friendly and knowledgeable.  There is also something re-assuring, from a quality perspective, when the glasses are inspected with scrutiny before beer ever touches them. Anyway, it was one of the more enjoyable nights that I’ve had for $15 worth of beer.  Check out the Back Abbey if you are near Claremont, CA.

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