Tastings and catching up with some random crap

In a feeble attempt to make it look like I keep this blog up to date, here are a bunch of photos taken over the last few weeks, accompanied by some coffee-fueled gibberish.

Above is a sampling of all the sour beers I have in carboys right now. From left to right: Berlinner Weisse, Flanders Gold, Flanders Red, and Deliverance. The Berlinner has a lot of brett going on as well as a fairly sharp lactic twang, and also a funky menthol flavor. I'm not really sure where the menthol flavor is coming from. Maybe hop choice or one of the random bugs that made it in from the un-boiled grains. I think I'm going to keg it soon, let it cold condition for a few weeks or so and see if it gets any better. I don't think it's going to improve.

The gold is tasting really nice, quite hoppy and on it's way to becoming a nice sour in a year or so. The red is pretty clean still with lots of caramel malt, toastyness, and a little lactic zing. The Deliverance was my favorite to drink right now, having some funk and also some roasty coffee notes from the dark grains. I think this comes off as slightly metallic early on but the last batch seemed to aged this flavor out, so I'm not worried. I should probably stick them all except the B-weisse in the crawlspace soon to weather out the hot months.

Here's some pickled asparagus Clarissa and I made. It's a great garnish for bloody mary's. I wish we would have thought of it sooner as we just got the tail end of the season and just enough asparagus for 3 jars. We basically used the recipe from this site.

This is some wonderful raspberry jam we made, using some really nice farmers market berries and the recipe inside a packet of Sure-jell. It was pretty easy to make and it is probably better than the Bon-Maman stuff we usually buy, and half the cost. We need to get a pair of canning tongs, I kept burning my hands trying to get the jars out of the hot water bath! Very frustrating.

Here's a tasting of the strong brett saison I brewed in December and bottled in late March. It's come a long way in the bottle and I think it has not peaked in flavor yet.

Aroma: Brett, acidity, lemon & pineapple esters, barnyard, hop-spice, and some malt sweetness.

Appearance: Dark gold, hazy glow, nice frothy head and high carbonation. Unfortunately, it may have been a slightly dirty glass but the head fell rather quickly. Will see if that is the same in future tastings.

Flavor: Dry, spicy, hoppy with a middle candy-like sweetness that transitions into a dry, sourish finish. Hops again but well integrated into a very dry, crisp finish with some horse-hair flavor from brett. Noticable alcohol from strength but not hot.

Mouthfeel: Very carbonated, with some acidity on the sides of tongue, just a slight touch of astringency due to extreme dryness of the beer and carbonation. Some alcohol warmth.

Overall: I'm very impressed with this this beer, it seems to have a lot going on for it and it's incredibly close to what I imagined it would be. We'll see if there is a foam-stand issue on the next sampling. For now I assume it was the glass.

On a non-brewing theme, we went down to the Eureka California area for my friend Lou's wedding. After the wedding we got a day of rock climbing in with another good friend, Eli, and his girlfriend Carla.

Above is Eli leading a 5.10C sport climb. I taught Eli to climb but he has kept up with it whereas I haven't! So he is way better than me now. This is a crag out near the Trinity river about 45 minutes east of Aracata.

I followed the 5.10C, it was a good climb with a slightly tricky crux. I also lead a 5.8 which was pretty scary for be because 1) this was my first roped climbing day in about 9 years and 2) it was off vertical, on sharp rock so I really didn't want to fall!

Clarissa and Carla also did some climbing but unfortunately I did not get pictures of that. It was C's first day on a rope and I thought she did great once she got used to taking falls and trusting the rope / belay.

On the way back to Oregon we stopped in the Redwoosds and got a day of swimming / cliff jumping in on a pristine river. It really felt like vacation! When we got back to Oregon it was shitty out still, but now it seems we are breaking into our first heat wave of the summer and it is sunny, finally!

Oregon Homebrewers threatened by new legal interpretations

I just got back from a 5 day trip to California to find a slew of new emails in my inbox over a new interpretation of Oregon laws that would effectively illegalize homebrewing competitions and ban the consumption of homebrew anywhere other than in the home. This new change has the homebrewing community in a panic, and rightfully so! I have no doubts that this law will eventually be changed, but it's not going to happen without our help. Here are a couple of articles outlining the recent happenings:

http://www.katu.com/news/97269679.html

http://lisamorrison.hoppress.com/2010/06/29/oregon-homebrew-threatened/

If you live in Oregon, please write your local representative, RIGHT NOW, and ask them to re-write the law and legalize the consumption of homebrew outside of the home, according to the same laws that commercial beer may be consumed under, as long as it is not being sold.

You can send a message to your local representative here.

Thanks & Brew Strong,

Sean

Mr. T's 30 lb. Necklace: Part 2 Sucka!

Mr. T's first incarnation was pretty darn good, but it's latest incarnation will hopefully kick even more ass. It has kind of evolved from a Golden Strong ale that tasted more like a Tripel, to actually being a Tripel, and hopefully a much better one at that.

For numbers on ABV and IBU's I stuck pretty close to Westmalle, my favorite Tripel. I also used the Wyeast equivalent of their yeast. I did however use what ingredients I had on hand, so most of the base grain is organic 2-row instead of pilsner. For sugar I used sugar in the raw. I was a little worried about the unrefined sugar adding too much of an odd rummy flavor, and I considered splitting the huge sugar load between that and corn sugar, but in the end I just went for it. The sugar does have a noticeable aroma that I really like, so hopefully it will work well with the beer and not throw it too far off the style. If this beer turns out really well, I could see it being a great beer to do for Christmas presents again, because it will be even stronger and better aged by the time Christmas comes along. I'm planning on bottle conditioning this, most likely.

Mr. T's 30 lb. Necklace, Part 2 Sucka!

Brewed on 6/14/10

Recipe is for 6.75 gallons pre-boil before sugar, 5.9 gallons post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.083 F.G. ABV IBU's 38

9 lb. Great Western organic 2-row

2 lb. Weyermann Pilsner

.5 lb Munich

2.5 lbs (!) organic cane sugar, like Sugar in the Raw

30 gr. Sterling pellets 7% AA 90 min

21 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% 30 min

21 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% 3 min

26 gr. Sterling pellets 7% AA loose dry hop

16 gr. Simcoe pellets 12.2% AA loose dry hop

Mash: 4 gallons + 3 gr. gypsum + 3 gr. calcium chloride

Mash in to 148, fell to 145 over 45 minutes.

Raised to 160 over 10 minutes, rest 10 minutes and begin sparge.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 6.75 gallons at 1.055 = 89% efficiency.

Boil 90 minutes, sugar at beginning of boil.

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

Chill with plate chiller to 70 degrees, oxygen for 90 seconds.

Pitch 1/2+ cups thick yeast slurry of Wyeast 3787 generation 2.

Chill to 65 in the next hour, slow ramp to 72 over 12 days. Left in the primary at ambient temp for 4 weeks.

7/14/10 Racked to keg, flavor sample was good but gravity was stuck at 1.020. First time I've had an under attenuated beer in quite a while! I pitched a little of a krausening starter of Cali 001 for the IPA brew into the keg, attached a blow off hose, and it seems to be slowly fermenting the remaining sugars at room temp.

8/9/10 Racked to a second keg which will be my bottling keg. This beer tastes great but the mutherfucker still won't dry out! It's sitting at 1.018 currently. Think I'm going to have to have a talk with Mr. T, maybe he is just getting too old. Next step will be to add a little Dupont yeast from the latest saison and give this sucka another month to dry out. I'm in no hurry and I won't be happy until it's under 1.012.

6/9/11 This beer was kegged off and refrigerated for the move in October but it never fell below 1.016. Must have been unfermentables from the raw sugar? The beer tasted very cloying so around February or March, I decided to pull it out, de-carb it, and add brett. Added bottle dregs from 2 750's of my strong brett saison. This dropped it to about 1.010, and tasting it tasted really good. I decided to add the dry hops, after that I'll either keg or bottle.

PCTBB Recipes & "Round Table" Tasting

A few months ago my buddy Angelo, a local beer writer and founder of Brewpublic, asked me to be an contributor for the website. I think it will be a cool opportunity to add a homebrew-y perspective to an already great craft beer publication. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to write about, but I'll just write when I get an inspired idea. I don't really want to do the "Brewery X releases yadda-yadda limited release" thing, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's being done plenty well by plenty of beer writers already.

For my first piece I invited some local homebrewers to my place to do a "round table peer review" of our Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers homebrew entries. It was a lot of fun for everyone involved, and you can read the full article here, including a tasting of the 2 recipes below.

Here are the 2 recipes I submitted to the PCTBB competition. Neither of them placed, but they scored well and I am happy with how they both came out. I'm not sure how many Belgian Specialty ales were entered exactly, but it was probably around 20.

The first beer, which I entered as a "Dry hopped Belgian Bitter", was inspired by De Ranke XX Bitter, but it tastes more like a super hop-fruity saison, a lot of tangerine and citrus going on with some bitterness and also some residual sweetness.

Brewed on 3/5/2010

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.067 F.G. 1.010 IBU's 63 ABV 7.5%

6.5 lb. Great Western Superior pilsner malt

5 lb. Belgian pale malt

.25 lb. aromatic malt

11 gr. Nelson Sauvin (2008) pellets 11% AA 60 min

28 gr. American Perle pellets 7.5% AA 20 min

28 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% AA 10 min

28 gr. Czech Saaz pellets 3.1% AA 0 min

21 gr. Hallertau pellets 3.1% 0 min

14 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% 0 min

42 gr. Sterling pellets dry hopped cold for 12 days

Mash: 4 gallons + 4 gr. gypsum + 1 gr. calcium chloride

150 for 1 hour

Sparge with 5 gallons

Collect 7 gallons at 1.054 = 84% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes, with additions of whirlfloc and wyeast nutrient at 15 minutes

Oxygen for 75 seconds

Pitch Wyeast 3724 Farmhouse Ale Yeast at 66 degrees

Raise to 80 degrees over 10 days, then finish ferment at 75

Racked to secondary after 13 days to harvest yeast for the second batch.

Racked to keg on 4/10/10 and force carbonate, also dry hop in keg.

The second brew I did was a "Cascadian Dark Saison", which is basically very similar to the "fresh-hopped black saison" I did last October. Of course I used the Farmhouse yeast strain to make it eligible for the competition, as well as lowering the amount of base grain to get the alcohol down a bit. I used all dried hops this time, concentrating on American varieties that I thought would compliment a saison yeast but also be very up-front in the aroma.

Brewed on 3/18/10

Recipe is for 7.1 gallons pre-boil, 6 gallons post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.063 F.G. 1.008 IBU's 55 ABV 7.25%

6.5 lb. Great western Superior Pilsner malt

2.5 lb. Weyermann Pilsner malt

1.5 lb. Munich malt

.75 lb. caramunich 60L

.5 lb. Carafa Special III 600 L

28 gr. Magnum whole 12% AA 60 min

28 gr. Amarillo whole 8.6% AA 15 min

28 gr. Crystal pellets 3.2% AA 15 min

28 gr. Amarillo whole 8.6% AA 0 min

28 gr. Crystal pellets 3.2% AA 0 min

Mash: 4 gallons H20 + 5 gr. chalk, 3 gr. gypsum, 1 gr. calcium chloride, 2 gr. baking soda

148 for 60 min, then raise to 160 over 8 minutes, rest 15 minutes.

Sparge with 5 gallons, collect 7.1 gallons at 1.053 = 86% efficiency.

Boil 90 minutes with whirlfloc and Wyeast nutrient at 15 minutes

Oxygen for 75 seconds

Pitch 1/2 cup thick yeast slurry of Wyeast 3724 from the first recipe.

Warmed to 74 over 3 days and left it there for 7 days.

Finished out at 80 and racked to keg on 4/14/10, force carbonated.

Just for fun here are some photos from the PCTBB event hosted at Hopworks. It was a really fun day! I got drunk. Lots of great beers to taste and a few bad ones.

Belgian Ale with lemon verbena, yarrow, and grains of paradise

Herbs from top, clockwise: Lemon Verbena, yarrow, grains of paradise.

I picked up a lemon verbena plant from the farmers market recently, and its incredibly perfumey, lemon-oil aroma (Paul calls it baby wipes, but we'll have on disagree on that) had me inspired to try it out in a beer. I have only seen one lemon verbena reference in brewing, made by Ron Jeffries in his blond recipe in Brew Like a Monk. Actually I was thinking that a light pilsner base Belgian ale of not too high gravity would be the perfect base beer for this herb, and maybe I was thinking back to that recipe when I came up with my recipe idea. I also think it's a great idea for a beer to have during the supposedly warm months coming up, although I am starting to wonder if they will ever actually come...

I don't use spices or herbs much in my beers. I tend to really enjoy playing with malt, hops, and different yeast strains, sometimes bacteria and brett too, and I get a little scared of brewing failure when it comes to using other culinary spices. But I have become a much better brewer since my first over-spiced hombrew attempts, so I think I have a better chance of brewing a well-balanced spiced beer than ever before. What I tried to do was keep the spice additions low, and use complimentary spices. The lemon verbena has a high fruity note, so I looked for spices that would hit on some other flavors. I had some wonderful smelling grains of paradise that also have a lemony note, but also a spicy kick that could add a nice finish. And I had some yarrow, this is still the same yarrow that I picked at Brewery Ommegang 3 summers ago and dried for brewing use. It has been kept frozen all that time and smelled pretty much exactly the same as when I dried it: Tea-like, bitter and herbal, with also a funky slightly medicinal note.

I made individual teas of all these botanicals to get a feel for how much to add, and I kept the additions really restrained, at least I think I did, we'll see. I would highly recommend making some spice, herb, or even hop teas next time you are planning a brew to get to know your ingredients better. It can be really enlightening.

Here's the recipe, whose name comes from some funky Mambo music that came on while I was weighing out the grains.

Mambo-Mambo: Spiced Belgian Spring/Summer Ale

Recipe is for 7.1 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.055 F.G. 1.011 IBU's 21 ABV 5.8%

8.5 lb. Weyermann Pils malt

.5 lb. carafoam malt

.5 lb. turbinado sugar

17 gr. Sterling pellets 7% 60 minutes

14 gr. Sterling pellets 7% 10 minutes

2 gr. grains of paradise, crushed in mortar & pestle, 0 min

2 gr. fresh lemon verbena, finely sliced, 0 min

3 gr. yarrow leaves, dried, 0 min

Mash 4 gallons H20 + 4 gr. calcium chloride + 4 gr. gypsum

Mash at about 150 for 60 minutes, then raise to 160 over 10 minutes.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 7.1 gallons @ 1.041 = 88% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes with sugar at beginning of boil

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 minutes

Spices added at flame out, with a 10 minute rest while hooking up plate chiller

Chilled to 70 and pitched a starter of Wyeast 3787 "Trappist High Gravity" (Westmalle)

Fermentation peaked at 74 at 24 hours. kept at 70 degrees after that.

Racked to keg on 6/6/10. Flavor was good, still a bit sulfury, but I think that will go away in the next week. The most dominant herb is the yarrow, which is funny because it's 1/2 the amount I used in the last batch. The lemon verbena is subtle but there. Should be interesting to see how the flavor develops in the coming weeks/months.

Oh yeah, this yeast really is a rambunctious top-cropper. I didn't use a blow off tube at first and ended up with an incredible mess! I really want to use this yeast more, I have a feeling I will like it a lot more than the "Chimay" strain.

Saison Dupont vs. THE "CLONE"

(I apologize for the crappy photo. Clarissa has her camera with her in Barcelona and all I have is my 4 year old Nokia cell phone!)

It's a beautiful sunny spring day, and I just finished working a 3-day streak. Spent Sunday washing kegs for Alameda, Monday hand-bottling 8 cases of Yellow Wolf Imperial IPA with a counter pressure filler, and Tuesday helping bottle 250 or so cases of Cascade Brewing's "The Vine", a blond sour ale aged on white grapes in wine barrels.

Today I have nothing important to do. So far I've spent it buying plants for the garden, looking at free stuff on Craigslist, and playing with the cat outside. The garden supply store was right next to Belmont Station so I decided to stop in a buy and bottle of Dupont, and finally get this side by side tasting out of the way.

Before I get in to this, I can say clearly that this is NOT CLONED! That's obvious just from memory. But how do these 2 beers measure up side by side? What are the differences and how could I get my beer closer to the real thing? Is there any chance that my beer is even 90% as good (even if different) from the benchmark hoppy saison that made me fall in love with the style? Well, let's see.

Here is my "clone" recipe for reference, which I will call "566" after the yeast I used, since it's not really a clone:

Appearance

Dupont: A very light gold with just a hint of red, fairly clear. Great head on the pour, great lacing, recedes to a 1/4 inch foam stand.

566: A light straw color, with decent clarity, just a bit lighter than Dupont. Great head on the pour, decent lacing, foam recedes to 1/4 inch frothy and even.

Aroma

Dupont: Very potent funky, somewhat light skunked beery aroma literally jumping out of the glass. Bubblegum, vanilla, light clove, and spice are all there. Some light boozyness adds complexity. Wow, the aroma of this beer almost knocks my beer off the table, I might have to step away to get a good whiff of mine!

566: Light grainy aroma, pepper phenols, and grassy hops. some alcohol for complexity and a much mellower ester profile. Very, very light "funk", nothing near Dupont.

Flavor

Dupont: Some light grainy sweetness up front, with some bubblegum esters, spice from phenols combined with hops, and a long, lingering bitterness and fairly mellow hop flavor. The bitterness really sticks around. Actually it almost makes that little punching-bag shaped thing in the back of my throat hurt! Moderate alcohol in finish with some warming character, but clean, not solventy.

566: Fairly clean, pils malt character that along with the hops, comes off as very grassy. Light funky flavor, some clove and a lot of pepper phenols. A dry, fairly grainy finish. Nice hoppy flavor, but not as bitter and with more hop flavor than Dupont. Clean with a slightly tart finish and moderate warming alcohols, not solventy.

Mouthfeel

Dupont: Very dry but full-bodied from what I call "mouth expanding" levels of carbonation, where the carbonation literally expands the beer as it hits your tongue. Somewhat creamy in texture, or maybe silky is a better word. Slight tartness at finish with a very present bitter hoppy bite that lingers around the palate.

566: Very dry, very close to the carbonation level of Dupont, I'd say I got that dead-on. Not as silky-textured as Dupont, I'd say a little more thin, even though I believe they are right around the same F.G. Dry finish, slightly more tart than Dupont with a light grainy astringency.

Overall

Dupont: Still one of my favorite beers ever, but maybe it's not my single favorite anymore. It may be a short-lived crush but right now De Ranke XX Bitter has this beer beat for my favorite beer in the world. What really sells me on this beer is the complexity of the aroma, and how well it sets you up for and plays through the flavor too. The bitterness is bold, almost sending you into a "snake eating it's own tail" loop of quenching your thirst just to receive another bitter punch to wash away. The aroma is more "beery" than I remember, a flavor I somewhat liken to a stale pilsner. I'm fairly certain this is from a light-skunked green bottle, and it's the only flaw I can find in the beer, although it is more and more obvious as it warms up.

566: Recipe-wise I would only make minor tweaks, but where this beer really falls flat is in the yeast and aroma department. It's not a bad beer at all, but it's not a clone. I would be happy to drink this or even pay for it, but I'm not going to be pining for it and remembering the flavor months down the line. The grainy, grassy aroma is a little insipid and needs some help from a better yeast strain, or if it was just to be a good saison and not a clone of Dupont, maybe I could use some spices to get a better aromatic complexity. I think it is 81% as good as Dupont so I'll give it a "B-". Thats forgiving the light-skunked character of the Dupont. Dammit, why don't they just switch to brown bottles already!?

Changes / Suggestions for future clone attempts:

1) Change the yeast to either the classic saison strain, 3724 from Wyeast (not Whitelabs 565, which is infamous for under-attenuation), or pitch with the re-cultured dregs of a Dupont bottle. I would only use the dregs if I tested it for bacteria or used it after the majority of fermentation was complete, because who knows what's in there, really. Everything after this is minor tweaks.

2) Change the base malt to a European pilsner, or better yet, Dingeman's pilsner. I just can't justify buying pilsner by the pound though. I usually use Weyermann by the bag so that's probably what I'd go with and drop the Belgian pale malt completely. 100% Pils.

3) Increase the boil time to 2 hours to get more color.

4) Increase the bittering hop addition by 5 IBU's and decrease the flavor hop addition by a half-ounce.

I hope you enjoyed this side by side and if you are looking to clone Dupont, this should point you in the right direction! Just don't forget to ferment very, very warm.

Well...now I'm buzzed. Time to get these plants in some dirt!

Scottish 70 shilling: re-brew

Out of the 3 beers I sent in to NHC, one made it to the 2nd round: Me and Paul's Mild that we entered as a Scottish 70 shilling. It took 3rd place out of 22 entries in Scottish and Irish ales, scoring an average score of 34.3. It was judged by 3 judges. It was interesting to see the comments and I agreed with most of them, but there was a non-BJCP judge that didn't seem to understand the style and gave it the lowest score. OK, I promise I'm not bitter about that!

Unfortunately I did not understand that in the National Homebrew Competition, they do not let you know if you advance to 2nd round in your scoresheet packet. So, assuming I did not win, I drank one of the beers that I was holding back for second round. Doh! A few days later I received an email from Fritz congratulating me on getting a beer in to the second round, and I called Paul to set up a re-brew. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't the oak-aged barleywine.

I'm not sure of the "legality" of this, but we have made some minor recipe tweaks based on ingredient availability and tasting the beer to talk about how it could be better. The original beer, even though it is a low gravity ale, has really become excellent with a few months cold storage. Here are the changes:

• We had to use some regular Marris Otter malt in place of a portion of the Glen Eagle Marris Otter malt, because I was out and the homebrew shop does not carry the Glen Eagle. Tasting these grains side by side, there is a noticable difference. The Glen Eagle is much more toasty and dark, adding a lot more character. I really hope this change does not rob the beer of its wonderful complexity.
• We were not able to get the London Ale III yeast from Hopworks this time. Since we were doing 10 gallons we decided to pitch one carboy with 1056 Cali ale yeast, and the other one with 1728 Scottish ale yeast which I got from Alameda. We'll enter whichever one is better.
• We reduced the brown malt by .25 pounds and increased the Crystal 70 by .25 pounds. This was due to some judge comments about astringency. I do think the original beer was very grainy and had some light astringency, so between dialing back the brown malt and using the different Marris Otter I think we have tackled that problem. Also, we added a really insignificant amount of Perle hops to get the IBU's to 21, the same as the original beer.
• We will probably fine this beer with gelatin to get it very clear in time to enter it into 2nd round. We have a total of 30 days for it to get in by the entry deadline.

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Dale's Scottish 70

Recipe is for 13 gallons pre-boil, 11.5 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.040

F.G. Cali -1.010 ABV 4%

F.G. Scottish - 1.013 ABV 3.6%

IBU's 21

5 lb. Glen Eagle Marris Otter Malt

7 lb. Marris Otter malt (Crisp, I'm pretty sure)

1 lb. crystal 70

1 lb. crystal 120

.25 lb. brown malt

.25 lb black malt

57 gr. American Goldings whole 4.5%AA 60 min

6 gr. American Perle pellets 7.5% AA 60 minutes (to get the IBU's where we wanted)

Mineral additions were to get an RA of 115 for proper mash pH, and a balanced chloride:sulfate ratio.

Mash at 152 for 60 min (5 gallons of water, mineral additions were 3 gr. chalk, 3 gr. baking soda, 1 gr. gypsum, 1 gr. calcium chloride)

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 8 gallons at 1.057 = 85% efficiency

Topped up in the kettle to 13 gallons.

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

Chilled to 68, oxygenated for 60 seconds per carboy

Pitched an appropriate slurry of Wyeast 1056 / Wyeast 1728

Fermented at 68, warmed ot 70 at end. Racked to keg on 5/16/10 and force-carbonated.