Some (grainy cell phone) photos from my first week at Alameda

I've been taking some photos of things I've been doing at Alameda this week. I've been doing a lot of cellar work, preparing the weekly beer order to go out tomorrow. I kegged up a shitload of beer! (for a brewery of this size).
I set up to keg the beer outside, which is nicer than shuffling kegs in a narrow walk-in with serving tanks that also serves as the kitchen walk-in. That was Eric's idea and they have just been doing that for the couple months.
Here's a couple of shots of the fermenter room. There are 3 10 barrel fermenters and 6 grundies, which can hold 7 barrels but we just use them for single 5 barrel batches. We only have 1 tiny floor drain, so spilling stuff on the floor makes a mess! But all the essentials are there to make great beer.
After a day and a half of kegging and other projects, I had the tiny outdoor walk-in full for shipping out on Friday morning. I got a lot of practice lifting a keg on my own. Not easy, but there is a technique to it which involves squatting and lifting with your legs just enough to get the lip of the keg onto the top of the one it's stacked on.
Paul and I are doing a re-brew tomorrow of the Scottish 70 (actually Dale's Mild) that placed 3rd in category in the first round of NHC. We are going to try some different yeasts this time and enter whichever one turns out better. I have a slurry of Cali ale yeast going, and we are going to use Alameda's house yeast for the other batch which is Scottish ale yeast. I haven't brewed with it but I find it to be very clean on the esters and more malty than Cali yeast.

This just in: I'm working for Alameda!

I've got some awesome news. I was recently contacted be Carston Haney, the brewmaster at Alameda Brewhouse, about working part-time in the brewery. This is really, really cool! First off I really like Carston and Eric, the 2 brewers. Second off, it's a first of sorts for me. Not my first paid work for a brewery (I've been paid to help with bottling runs at Upright and Cascade Brewing), but my first "permanent" position in a brewery. I'll be starting off at the bottom, washing a ton of kegs and doing beer transfers, CIP's, and kegging and that sort of thing. All stuff I could use the practice on, except keg washing, but I really don't mind keg washing at all. If you don't like cleaning, don't become a brewer because it's at least 75% of the job, unless you are one of those high-end suit brewers like Garret Oliver (wink).

I had to go through OLCC training, since their brewhouse sits behind the bar. I did the online course, and boy that stuff will scare the bejezus out of you! I had dreams about drunk drivers and state troopers for a couple of nights and when Clarissa went out to a "girl's night" last Wednesday I was like "call me if you can't drive home!!!" Anyway, the online class is super easy, I got a 100% on the test.

Alameda maxes out their 5 bbl system at the brewpub, so they are currently brewing at Roots in addition to meet the demand. It's not a contract brew. Carston brews the Alameda beers on Roots' 10 bbl system.

My first day on the job was spent washing a mountain of kegs at Roots. I think it was 9-10 pallets worth, and the keg washing machine is not super fast. It's a home-made job where you line up the kegs in a daisy chain for the washing cycles. It took me about 15 minutes to do 4 kegs, and I could have done them faster, but I wanted to be thorough

and make sure they were super clean.

Here are some more pics of the keg washer. It's not romantic, but hey, that's what goes into making beer. I didn't screw anything up but there was one minor almost-incident during the day. There is a long exit hose that we snake down the gutter drain to drain out leftover beer, yeast and caustic. We usually keep a keg over the end of the hose because the spray gets a little violent as the last of the liquid and air is pushed out the hose. Well on the last batch of kegs

when I was washing the keg we keep over the hose, I accidentally got the air pressure up to 50-60 psi while pushing out the caustic. I heard a loud noise, and looked over to see a geyser of hot caustic and yeast blowing out of the drain about 8 feet in the air in all directions. Imagine the blowhole of a whale as it surfaces if you are having a hard time picturing this. Well, everything was fine and it didn't make too bad of a mess, but luckily no one was standing over it!

I guess the obvious question to those of you who have been keeping up with my progress into the brewing profession is "What about Breakside?" I'm still planning on working for Breakside too, but we have not received our TTB approval so we cannot legally brew beer yet.

I've been homebrewing too. Just brewed up the 3rd batch of Meetification pale ale last week, and I'm hoping to brew an alt beer tomorrow with the yeast-cake of Cali ale yeast. I'm going to use a proven alt recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, but ferment with Cali at 60-62, and see how that works out.

Deliverance: Part 2

About a month ago I brewed up the second batch of the "Deliverance Kentucky Sour" with my friend Forest. The beer has changed a bit this time but remains true to the original idea. First off, I'm no longer calling it a "Kentucky Sour". Taking a cue from Cascade Brewing and their excellent "Northwest Style Sour Ales", I'm simply calling it an Appalachian style sour ale. As you will see in the recipe, a few things have been done to actually authenticate this. Namely, I used aged Cascade hops that were grown in Ohio, and at least half of this batch will be aged on American oak, possibly soaked in bourbon for some extra flavor. I have 10 gallons this year so I get to play around a bit with using different oak, spirits, or possibly fruit. I used a carafa for color this time as opposed to chocolate rye, and I found a great 80-90 L crystal rye malt to use instead of regular crystal 80.

Also, I fermented this beer with the Rodenbug blend mixed by Al B. That should help it get sour and more complex sooner and better than the berlinner weisse blend I started with last year.

Deliverance: Appalachian-style sour ale

Brewed on 3/18/10

Recipe is for 12.8 gallons pre-boil, 11.4 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.064 IBU's about 17

14.5 lb. Glen Eagle Marris Otter malt

4 lb. 3 oz. Rye Malt

2 lb. 2 oz. Crystal Rye 80-90L

1 lb. Carafa Special II 550 L

2 lb. Munich malt

.5 lb. Rice Hulls

84 gr. Cascade homegrown hops (aged 1 year at room temp, guestimated at 3% AA) 60 minutes

Mash: 7.5 gallons water with the following additions:

5 gr. chalk, 5 gr. baking soda, 2 gr. gypsum, 4 gr. calcium chloride

Mash in to 153 for 60 minutes

Sparge with 8.5 gallons at 170

Collect 12.5 gallons at 1.058 = 85% efficiency

added 1 qt. top-up water

Boil 60 minutes

yeast nutrient at 10 min

Chill to 68 and pitched 1/2 cup thick slurry per carboy of the Rodenbug blend (3rd generation)

Fermented at about 68.

Racked to secondary on 4/12/10. 1.022, only a light trace of funk so far, but tastes good!

12/14/10 Racked half the batch onto 6.5 lb. seeded Montmorency cherries. It also got some of the dregs from the E-Z Lambic. 1.012, and tasting like a stout with a nice little sour cherry character already. Should be interesting.

Tasting: Parti-gyle stout / porter

LEFT: Smoked Russian Imperial Stout 9.8% ABV, 91 IBU

RIGHT: Peat-smoked session Porter 4.1% ABV, 23 IBU

Time to for a taste evaluation of the "2 Stouts, 1 Mash" parti-gyle beers. I realize that I have been slacking about doing tastings of my brews and it would probably serve readers better if they knew my opinion on the final product. For what it's worth, sorry. I'll try to do better!

Smoked RIS (sampled at 55 degrees):

Aroma: Rich chocolate / sharp roasted malt up front, rich sweetness, light American hop profile, Alcohol warming and spice, and an earthy, subtle smokyness. Smells nice already but time should improve it as alcohol and hops recede a bit.

Appearance: Jet black with a light reddish-brown head, good lacing. Fairly low on carbonation, but good for style and for a slow-sipping beer.

Flavor: Rich sweet caramel malts countered by a healthy dose of chocolate and burnt character, fairly smooth for such a young strong beer. Balance is toward the malt, with a light resiny bitterness after swallowing. Some hop flavor noted. The smoke flavor is low and mainly towards the end. Clean but present alcohol warmth.

Mouthfeel: Creamy, full bodied, nice roast bite and hop resin at the end, warming alcohol. No astringency.

Overall: I'm pretty impressed with this so far. The components blend very well together. There does seem to be a slightly "meaty" aftertaste to the beer which may be from my over-addition of brewing salts in conjunction with the smoke flavor, but it is fairly subtle and I'm still hoping it goes away with time. I was expecting just to sample an ounce or 2 and pour the rest out but it's drinking pretty easily. Can't wait to see where this goes in the next 6-12 months.

Peat-smoked session porter (sampled at 40 degrees):

Aroma: Porter aroma with notes of chocolate, a lightly sharp roasty twang, caramel malts, clean fruity esters, and some peat-smoke towards the end. No hops noted. Very clean but complex aroma for such a low gravity beer.

Appearance: A very clear dark brown with red highlights when held to the light. Tan head with good retention.

Flavor: A light but complex blend of chocolate, dark-fruit caramel malts, and a woody peat-smoke funk at the end. Low bitterness, really lets the malts come through. Clean fermentation, dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Fairly dry, but some body. Enough to not be thin. nice roasty dryness at the end, but nothing I would go so far as to call astringent.

Overall: I think my own positive response to this beer has been greater than that of other people who drink it, but I love this beer! Maybe it is the fact that it is a small beer, a bonus beer if you will, that happened to turn out really great. It's so drinkable and sessionable. I drank about 3 pints of this during the Superbowl when other good commercial beer was available. Other people have liked it well enough but only a few folks have been really impressed with it. Maybe in part it's because its a low alcohol beer?

Happy Easter! (Yesterday)

Just a few photos a really excellent meal that Clarissa and I cooked for Easter dinner. She was the chef for most of the meal, roasting the organic chicken and baking a rhubarb crisp. We are very stoked to have the PSU farmers market open again, and all the produce for this meal was bought there. I put together a classic au gratin potato dish, and a broccoli raab dish with brooks prunes, red pepper flakes, cumin, garlic, and a touch of vinegar and sugar. This might sound like an odd combo but it was really, really tasty.

I racked my first PCTBB beer to a keg while Clarissa was cooking the chicken, and took a little flavor sample which seems promising. I decided to dry hop it in the keg. Other than that, I didn't have a beer all day! We made a nice apertif cocktail with Bulleit bourbon, homemade ginger syrup, soda, and mint (I love a good bourbon cocktail). The rose was great with the main course.

Oh man, we slacked on our opportunity to make an Easter day "Cadburry Egg Nog" from This Is Why You're Fat, which we might have to do as a belated easter cocktail soon. It looks like a sugar-induced belly-ache in a glass!

Happy Easter!

I sent in 3 beers to NHC - 1st round

In all my years of homebrewing I have continuously procrastinated, chickened out, or gotten sticker shock at the thought of entering the NHC. Well this year might be my last real chance, as I am hoping to be a full time pro brewer by this time next year. I brewed a lot of beer this year, but in the end, I only sent in 3 beers, which I think are really excellent. I probably would have sent in 5 or so, but my AHA membership expired and I didn't have the money to renew it at the time, so the entry fee was a whopping $14 per entry (it's $9 for members).

These beers made the final cut:

Dale's Mild: Brewed by myself and Paul, I actually entered this as a Scottish 70 shilling because the yeast is very clean. It just tasted and smelled a lot like a Scottish 70. We'll see if the judges agree.

Woody: The American oak-aged Barleywine. This was tasting killer 6 months ago, and I haven't had a chance to try it since then, since I had exactly 4 bottles left. I might get to try it if my buddy Fritz breaks out the bottle I gave him while we are in NYC this weekend. 6 months ago, there was a little too much of a harsh oaky finish on an otherwise stellar beer, so I am hoping that the time has been good for it and mellowed it out a bit.

Fresh-hopped Black Saison: The hops have faded substantially, so I called it a black farmhouse ale at 8.1% ABV. Personally I think it has only improved with age.

Other beers that almost made the cut were the Belgian Dark Strong, which is still a little too alcohol-hot and needs some time, and the Belgian Blond, which is pretty darn good, but has too much banana in the nose, and just isn't quite the easily drinkable Belgian ale that a blond should be.

Unfortuanately both the pilsner and the smoked helles that I had such high hopes for have a DMS issue, but the third lager, the Baltic Porter I did with Paul is tasting great and just went in to lagering in a corny.

Who else is entering beers? If you are on the fence, it's time to shit or get off the pot (nice mixed metaphor there)! All entries must be in by April 1st. Good luck!

Brewing for PCTBB

9 full carboys! And only one open keg. Time to do some drinking! (And bottling.)

• Starting at the left: PCTBB beer #2, Baltic Porter
• 2 cornies: Flanders Red (brewed in Brooklyn), Berlinner Weisse
• Back row: Flanders Red, Berlinner Weisse, Flanders Pale
• Middle row: Deliverance Kentucky Sour x2, Brett strong saison
• Front: PCTBB beer #1

I just finished brewing my second beer for the homebrew side of the Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers festival / competition. This is one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen for a beer event, and one that could only happen in a brewtopia like Portland, Oregon. I will be entering at least 2 beers, and I want to keep the recipes secret until after the competition because I know of at least one local beer judge that reads this blog. Since they will be entered in the Belgian specialty beer category, I will have to specify the "style" of beer I am brewing, and I want to make sure my beers are judged without a clue of who brewed them. I'll post those 2 recipes after the competition on May 1st, along with a tasting.

My friend Forrest was in town this week, and he helped me brew a 10 gallon batch of the Deliverance Kentucky Sour, which I will post soon, along with catching up on some tastings of recent beers. I also need to try my saison Dupont "Clone" against the real thing, and let me tell you, although I'm wild about the bottle conditioned version, it's very different from Dupont.

Work is going well, I've helped out at probably 8 different breweries bottling beer with Green Bottling recently. Things are going slow but steady on opening for Breakside. We just took a look at the brewery space yesterday. The floors still need to be sealed and we need to build a temperature control room for the 60 gallon plastic conicals, since they are not jacketed. I'm going to try to find fittings for them this week so we can attach a blow off and CO2 line, drill a hole to fit a racking arm, and construct a dump valve for the bottom. We are probably going to put the stand on casters so the conicals can be moved in and out of the cool room, taken out to room temperature for the last few days of fermentation, and then crashed in the walk-in. I'll try to post some pics of the Breakside setup as soon as I get my girlfriend's camera battery fixed and the place gets a little better set up.

EDIT: If you are brewing for PCTBB I'd love to hear what you are brewing or your experience with the yeast in the comments.