Dank Brewing

Ithaca Brute Clone and first Open fermentation

2012-02-05T21:36:00.014-06:00

I’ve been trying to make a trade for Ithaca Brute for quiet some time now with a guy on Beer Advocate. It’s literally been 4 months and I haven’t had contact with him in over a month now. I decided that I might as well brew some myself! I was initially intrigued by this beer mainly from the name “Brute” but also because of the rave reviews. Brute traditionally represents a dry Champagne so I was under the assumption that this would be a very dry beer which typically is a result of the addition of sugar and/or long term aging in barrels on various Yeast and Bacteria.

Then recently The Mad Fermentationist did a post about how to brew a sour beer using the Ithaca Brute style. This is part of a series he had mentioned in an even earlier post about the differing methods US brewers take for making their sour beer. His research and subsequent blog post really inspired me to go for it on this one.

The final gravity of my Saison’s, Saison Bretts, and Flanders beers always are in the 1.000- 1.006 range which I’d consider dry and worthy of the Brute name. The weird thing is…Ithaca Brute’s final gravity is 1.016. It seems more like one of my favorite wines which is a little sweeter then Champagne…Prosecco! I guess they call it brute because it’s light in color and finished with Champagne yeast for bottle conditioning?

From my research, here’s my understanding of how to brew a clone of Ithaca Brute.

1. Grain Bill – Pilsner, White Wheat, Acidulated Malt(13%), Red Wheat, Raw Wheat, and Corn(12%).

2. Lots of Acidulated Malt and Corn- Sour with a huge of portion of Acidulated malt (13%)

3. Mash - Mash high in the 160-162 degree range. This, in combination with a low mash ph from the acidulated malt should produce a wort that is rather turbid and hard for regular brewers yeast to ferment.

4. Hops – Use Aged Hops like a Lambic, preferably locally grown Willamette, Hallertau, and Cascade like they do for Brute.

5. Primary Fermentation- Primary fermentation is done at high temperatures with an English ale strain. Crash once it hits 50% attenuation or 1.035- 1.030.

6. Secondary Fermentation- Pitch Brett Drie into secondary with Light American Oak Spirals and age for 6-12 months. FG of Ithaca Brute is 1.016 (which is why I question the name Brute but I suppose the acidity enhances the dryness of the beer)

7. Bottle Condition - Finish with three types of Champagne yeast.

There are a lot of interesting techniques in creating this beer. They use tons of Acid malt to sour it instead of Lactobaccilus and Pedioccus. High Mash, aged hops, Cold Crash the Sacc. yeast, secondary with Brett Drie which is impossible to get a hold of, and then finish with three different types of champagne yeast. There must be reasoning behind using three types of champagne yeast? Phew…that’s a lot going on.

Here’s my recipe as brewed on Saturday 2.4.12 –

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
67%	9	8	Rahr Pilsner	37	2
23%	3	4	Acidulated Malt	33	2
4%	0	8	Rahr Red Wheat Malt	37	3
4%	0	8	White Wheat Malt	40	2
4%	0	8	Flaked Corn (Maize)	40	1
	14	4

Batch size: 5.5 gallons

Original Gravity

1.066 measured

Final Gravity

1.016 estimated

Color

5° SRM

Mash Efficiency

70% measured

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	60+ mins	0.5	Aged Palisades	pellet	6.0
boil	30 mins	1.0	Aged Vanguard	leaf	4.4
boil	1 min	0.8	Aged Homegrown Cascade	leaf	5.5

Bitterness

20.7 IBU

yeast

Wyeast NB NeoBritannia - 1945

medium to high flocculation and 75% attenuation

Brettanomyces Drie

Alcohol

6.7% ABV

Calories

217 per 12 oz.

On top of all of that….I also decided to do an Open fermentation because I didn’t have an extra air lock hanging around. It made sense to me for many reasons and kinda happened organically. I wanted to use a top cropping English Ale strain. I also wanted to ferment hot in order to have increased esters for the brett to play with in the long secondary. I decided to simply set the top on lightly for the first 6 hours until I saw active fermentation. Once I saw active fermentation I took the lid of completely and every few hours skimmed the yeast, hop residue and other volatile substances hanging around in the huge kruesen. This should have done a few things. First it should have allowed more oxygen to enter the wort to help the English yeast’s cell wall formation and help it multiply. It also results in less pressure which allows the yeast to be healthier, work harder, and produce additional esters.

18 hours at 75 degrees and there was a very noticeable Tropical Fruit aroma coming from the fermentor and the gravity was down to 1.035. (pictures to come)

I top cropped the yeast into a sanitized jar for later use, put the lid on the Ale Pale and brought it to my basement for cold conditioning.

I’m sourcing Brett Drie from a homebrew blogger friend out in San Diego who has been kind enough to send me a vial of Brett Drie in the mail. I told him, once I receive the Brett, I’ll officially label him as a bona fide yeast wrangler.

Once that arrives, I’ll create a huge starter. Transfer to secondary and pitch with the Brett Drie and add some light toast American oak spirals or cubes to be aged for 6 months to a year!

I doubt I’ll bottle condition with three types of champagne yeast, but who knows, 6 months from now, I just may get that crazy!

Hope you enjoy, and I hope this inspires others to expand your brewing horizons and try something new every once in a while!

Galactic Butterfly - Galaxy Single Hop IPA

2012-01-27T13:30:00.001-06:00

I was watching some show on TV a few months back that was talking about the Mayan culture and I was so intrigued by the show that I watched the entire thing. One part stuck out more then any other though...Hu Nab Ku. The Mayans speak of the Galactic Butterfly or Hu Nab Ku as the supreme god and ultimate creator located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The Mayan's fascinate me to no end and for some reason I knew that when I finally brewed my IPA with Galaxy Hops, some Mayan name was going to have to be involved. At the time I was watching the show about the Mayans, I had already procured the Galaxy Hops. I had gone into Midwest Brew Supply looking for some Citra hops and the dude suggest Galaxy hops as a good replacement. I was and still am extremely skeptical to think that one hop could replace or be a substitute for Citra hops. I decided on a Single Hop IPA with these Galaxy hops and to create a similar beer as Bell's Two Hearted. I guess you could say this is a Bells Two Hearted Clone but using Galaxy Hops instead of Centennial. Can't wait to give it a taste in a month or so!

Galactic Butterfly – Galaxy Single Hop IPA

malt & fermentables

Original Gravity

1.059

Final Gravity

1.012?

Color

6° SRM

(Yellow to Gold)

hops

yeast

Alcohol

6.3% ABV

Calories

193 per 12 oz.

Flanders Red finally on Cherries! Weird ass dream!

2011-12-19T13:57:00.000-06:00

I had a really weird dream on Friday night. In my dream, I went to my fermenter to take a look in at my first sour beer (still in carboy) and it was completely clear like water. Not so much like water, but more like that clear Crystal Pepsi. Also (in my dream) it had half a pumpkin and some other random vegetables floating in it that presumably soaked up all of the color. Anywho...I realized upon awaking that Saturday morning that I should probably do something with that beer.

My first sour beer I ever brewed was an American Style Flanders Red Ale that I brewed 11 months ago. It's been in secondary (an Ale Pale) for the last 6 months and has been getting more and more sour, at least as far as I could tell from sniffing the air lock. After my weird ass dream, I decided to take a taste and figure out how it's doing and where I want it to go from here. The sample was a nice ruby, brown color. Smell was nice and tart with caramel and cherries. Taste was a little tart, malty, oaky, not sour on the end but actually a little sweet. I don't exactly know what the different acids taste like, but I don't get a lot of vinegar at all (which I believe is acetic acid). The bottom line is, it tastes good!

I decided that now was the time to split it up.
3 gallons to Rest -
I siphoned 3 gallons into a 3 gallon better bottle for longer term storage. I'm hoping that this will get nice and acidic over the next year or longer. If not, I'll end up bottling this portion as is. It definitely tasted pretty damn good right now, but not as acidic as I'd prefer.
3 gallons on Tart Cherries -
The second 3 gallon portion was sitting in the Pale and I dumped 4 lbs of Tart cherries into that mix! I tasted a tiny bit of the cherry juice and it was definitely very tart. I think this will complement the beer very well as I don't think it's going to be as tart and sour as I want on it's own! The first pitch of Rosealare tends to not be extremely acid. Should be ready for bottling in about 6 months. June is the perfect time to be drinking a Flanders ale with Cherries!

Nordeast Brewers Alliance Homebrew Club Meeting this Sat!

2011-12-16T13:50:00.000-06:00

ECY 03 Farmhouse Brett and ECY 02 Flemish Wild and the Brewday from HELL!

2011-12-12T15:50:00.021-06:00

So I started off my Sunday all bright eyed and ready to go. I'd finished one complete week of p90X! I'd recommend p90X to anyone who's gotten a little loose around the edges from brewing and drinking. To reward myself (for this small accomplishment) I decided that I deserved a Brew Day! Remember.... 90 is for 90 days...and X is for Xtreme! Bring IT!!!

The Disappearing Yeast
In my head I wanted to do a 10 gallon batch of what I had planned on being a Saison Brett experiment that could be drank next summer. I was going to pit WLP 670 American Farmhouse Blend (presumably The Lost Abbey strain (brett. b.) against the ECY 03 Farmhouse Brett. I know at one point a few months ago I had that damn vial of WL hanging out in my keezer but for the life of me I could not find it, and it probably was a little old any ways. That throw a little monkey wrench in my plans. Luckily I had another vial of East Coast Yeast sitting in my fridge, ECY 02 which is a flemish blend. I didn't think the Flemish blend would be appropriate for the Hoppy Siason Brett I had been planning so I ended up boiling two separate pots and leaving out the 60 minute hop addition for the Saison turned Flemish Wild Ale (too many IBU's can restrict Lactobacillus). What started out as a Saison Brett experiment turned into a East Coast Yeast experiment and I can't wait to taste that ECY02 eight to twelve months from now! So... I had that yeast/changing up my recipe at the last minute issue.

The Stuck Mash
Then I had the whole stuck mash issue. This was a fun one to deal with...really fun. I have never had a stuck mash or sparge before in almost 50 beers. I've heard of them, dreaded them, learned to deal with them from horror stories, but had somehow eluded one for almost 3 years. This was a 10 gallon batch so it wasn't exactly a small issue. I don't know why I had a stuck mash since I've used unmalted wheat, wheat, oats, spelt, and lots of gelatinous stuff in my mash's before and never used rice hulls. My guess is because I threw in a pound of unmalted wheat at the last minute. I knew that I needed to either do a more complex mash schedule or do a cereal mash on the side if I really wanted to get much of anything from them, but I decided to just throw them in and hope that they create some long chain sugars that would be available for the brett, pedio, lacto, and whatever else is in these yeast blends from Al Buck. Anyways, as I tried to run off my first runnings the grain bed would get so compact that it would slow my run off to a trickle. Since I usually batch sparge, I ended up switching it up a bit. As the wort would slowly drain off I would pour some of my hot sparge water in the top and stir it up to hopefully thin out the mash some. Then I'd vorlauf again and continue the process. I did this a few times, and eventually it started flowing a little better. I ended up eventually doing my first pseudo fly sparge as I trickled sparge water over the top of the grain bed. I ended up with 10 gallons of sugary water in the end so I guess everything worked out. I made it happen and that's all that matters.

The Truth Will be Told
I heard this quote (not word for word) from one of the brewers on the Surly website at one point and it stuck with me. "Any brewer can make a fantastic beer under perfect conditions, but it takes a great brewer to make a fantastic beer when everything goes wrong." Hopefully I prove to be the latter.

My original recipe was a sort of, psuedo Boulevard Saison Brett clone so the Saison portion should be something similar to that. The Flemish funk portion should be something like a barrel aged Lambic type version of Boulevard Saison Brett. And then I had an extra couple of gallons of 2nd runnings and added about .75 ounce of 3 year old Celiea hops. Hopefully I'll be able to pour the dregs and propagate Boulevard Saison Brett yeast for future batch's!

The Wedge - Saison Brett

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
60%	8	0	Rahr Pilsner Malt	34	2
26%	3	8	American White Wheat	39	2
6%	0	12	Corn, Flaked	37	1
4%	0	8	Belgian Candy Sugar Light	36	0
4%	0	8	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
0%	0	1	Carafa III	32	525
	13	5

Original Gravity

1.052 measured

Final Gravity

Color

8° SRM / 15° EBC

(Gold to Copper)

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	60 mins	0.7	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	20 mins	0.6	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	15 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	10 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
dry hop	10 days	2.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0

Boil: 6.5 avg gallons for 90 minutes

Bitterness

41.3 IBU / 23 HBU

ƒ: Average

BU:GU

0.77

yeast

ECY03 Farmhouse Brett

ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation

Alcohol

6.4% ABV

The Great Divide - Flemish Golden Wild Ale

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
60%	8	0	Rahr Pilsner Malt	34	2
26%	3	8	American White Wheat	39	2
6%	0	12	Corn, Flaked	37	1
4%	0	8	Belgian Candy Sugar Light	36	0
4%	0	8	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
0%	0	1	Carafa III	32	525
	13	5

Batch size: 5.5 gallons

Original Gravity

1.060 measured

Final Gravity

Color

8° SRM / 15° EBC

(Gold to Copper)

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	20 mins	0.6	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	15 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	10 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
dry hop	10 days	2.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0

Bitterness

15.8 IBU

yeast

ECY02 Flemish Ale

ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation

Alcohol

7.3% ABV

***I mashed high, in the 158-160 range.

Apollo Hops - Need to get me some of these hops!

2011-11-21T13:21:00.004-06:00

I need to get me some Apollo hops. They sound amazing. Dank, Orange, Citrus, Pine, tons of oil, and super high AA%! I think I'll get me some of these! Sounds like Amarillo on crack!

I recently heard about these hops because I had listened to a podcast on The Brewing Network show Can You Brew It where Jamil and crew breakdown a homebrewers beer called "The Dankness". What initially interested me was the fact that they were going to talk about scaling up a homebrew recipe created by Nathan Smith to a recipe for commercial production. This has been of particular interest to me because I've been wondering about hop utilization and how that will change (presumably increase) on a larger scale. While their podcast fell a bit short in that, they did talk about these Apollo hops that I think I'll need to be using in my next version of The Chronic.

On a side note of my hop utilization questions.   I ended up getting a pretty decent answer to this question.   Last week I attended a "Technical Tour" put on at Harriet Brewing by Owner/Headbrewer Jason Soward. This was the first technical tour at Harriet and since Jason was a homebrewer-turned-Pro I figured he'd have a lot of answers to the few questions I have left about professional brewing operations.    Obviously one of my biggest concerns is scaling up a recipe.   On the tour I think I asked 10 times more questions then anybody else...but hey...I needed clarification...and that's what I do...ask questions (I am in sales).   Jason has a 10 hectoliter(8.5 bbl) bavarian brewhouse and he said that the hop utilization didn't change too dramatically from his homebrewing set up (keggle system). If anything, he said his hop utilization increased 5-10%. This was much less then I had imagined. My research on larger systems had come up with people saying that they get 3 times more hop utilization going from a homebrew to a 15 bbl system (which didn't make sense in my mind).   Another thing I learned was how to do a decoction mash on a professional style brew house as Jason explained his process to me in depth! It basically requires the monster of all brewing pumps!

I also wanted to say that I was extremely impressed with Jason as the tour went along. He was extremely technical and could rift back and forth from subject to subject with ease. You could tell that he knows his shit inside and out and I'm extremely excited for Harriet's continued success. I know that he will be around for a long time and that is a great thing for Minneapolis!    If you haven't tried any Harriet beers, SEEK THEM OUT!

Azul - because I'll be getting wacky this weekend!

2011-11-11T16:16:00.000-06:00

pLambic - Turbid Mash brewing!

2011-11-08T09:15:00.012-06:00

“The lambic family are not everybody’s glass of beer, but no one with a keen interest in alcoholic drink would find them anything less than fascinating. In their “wildness” and unpredictability, these are exciting brews. At their best, they are the meeting point between beer and wine. At their worst, they offer a taste of history.” quote by Michael Jackson (the beer hunter/writer)

I did it! I finally brewed a Lambic style beer! The majority of people have never tried nor even heard of a Lambic. This is because the style is practically extinct. There are a handful of breweries in the Lambic(Lembeek) region of Belgium which is the only region that you can actually brew a beer of this style and call it a Lambic. It's kind of like how you can't call Sparkling wine made in California Champagne. To be called Champagne it needs to be from that region of France. This style is essentially being resurrected by homebrewers and and a handful of US micro-breweries who have patients enough to age beer for 2+ years and then eventually blend the aged beer with younger beer.

There are a lot of crazy weird practices for making a traditional Lambic beer that go against everything I've learned about brewing.

Turbid mash (purpose is to create wort that normal brewing yeast has trouble fermenting on it's own so that that various Brett and Bacteria have something to chew on over the long fermentation)
Hot sparge (over 170 degrees) to extract tannins(?)
Super long boil
Usage of old aged hops
Traditionally left out to cool overnight in a cool ship so that it takes on wild yeast and bacteria.
Fermented in an old wine barrel that harbors yeast, and bacteria
Left in primary fermentation on the dead yeast for 2-3 years. (dead yeast is food for the funk!)
Finished beer is typically blended with younger less sour versions or aged on various fruits.

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Recipe-

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
63%	5	0	Belgian Pils	37	2
38%	3	0	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
	8	0

Original Gravity

1.040

Final Gravity

1.00?

Color

5° SRM

Mash Efficiency

68%

hops(three year old Celeia hops)

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	240 mins	2.5	Celeia	pellet	1.0

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Yeast-
I'm extremely excited about this yeast. I acquired it from Princeton Homebrew Supply where the owner Joe Bair has hooked up with a bona fide yeast wranglers named Al Buck. Here is Al Buck, talking about the yeast he cultures.
ECY01 BugFarm 5 - Lambic Blend
A large complex blend of cultures to emulate sour beers such as lambic style ales. Over time displays a citrus sourness and large barnyard profile. Contains yeast (S. cerevisiae and S. fermentati), several Brettanomyces strains, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. The BugFarm blend changes every year and can be added at any stage of fermentation. Now producing Bugfarm 5 for 2011 (includes a newcomer – Brettanomyces nanus & naardenensis). Also, B. lambicus/Dekkera bruxellensis known to produce citric acid.

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Turbid Mash -

Here is the process I went through for doing the Turbid Mash. I found that the most comprehensive information on traditional Lambic production was written by Jim Liddel here who based his turbid mash schedule on the way Cantillon still brews their fantastic beer today. I also referenced The Mad Fermentationist blog who put together a great step by step Turbid Mash brew day with pictures!

I simply followed these 8 steps and used about every pot and pan I had in my house! The good news is that I hit all of my temperatures within 1 or 2 degrees!

1.) In kettle #1 add water at 144 F(62 C) to the crushed grain to achieve a temperature of 113 F (45 C) (about 2.4 quarts of water). Mix grain and water thoroughly and allow to rest at 113 F for 10 minutes. This amount of water is enough to just wet all the grain and flour. The mash needs to be stirred very well to make sure all the grain is wetted and no clumps of flour are present. Total time for this step is about 20 minutes, with the temperature rest included.

2.) Next, add 3.5-4.5 quarts boiling water (212 F)(100 C) to the mash to bring the temperature to 136 F (58 C). Do this over the course of 5 minutes making sure to mix thoroughly. Allow the mash to rest for 5 minutes at this temperature. Remove about a quart of liquid from the mash and add to kettle #2 and heat to 176 F (80 C). It will take about 3.5 quarts of water to raise the temperature to 136 F and you will end up with a very soupy mash with plenty of excess liquid. The liquid taken off should have the appearance of milk. Once heated it will clear up and large particles of hot break will form.

3.) Add 5-6 quarts water at 212 F (100 C) to the mash over the course of 10 minutes to bring the temperature to 150 F (65 C), again with constant mixing. It will take about 5 quarts of water to achieve this temperature. Allow the mash to rest for 30 minutes at 150 F (65 C). At this point the mash will be very soupy and the liquid much less milky in appearance.

4.) Next remove 4 quarts of liquid from kettle #1 and add to kettle #2. Continue to heat kettle #2 at 176 F (80 C). The liquid removed from kettle #1 will be very cloudy but not quite as milky as the liquid previously removed.

5.) Add 5 quarts of water 212 F (100 C)water to kettle #1 to bring the temperature to 162 F (72 C) and allow to remain at 162 F for 20 minutes. Again it will take about 5 quarts of water to reach the rest temperature. The mash should be very thin and soupy with a great deal of small particulate matter in the liquid portion of the mash.

6.) After the 20 minute rest the liquid in kettle #1 is run off and brought to a boil in a 3rd kettle (#3). Enough of the liquid in kettle #2, at 176 F, is added back to the mash in kettle #1 to bring the mash to a temperature of ~167 F (75 C). The mash is allowed to rest at 167 F for 20 minutes. Any liquid left in kettle #2 can be added to the previously collected run off in kettle #3. It will take most all the liquid in kettle #2 (~1.25 gallons) to raise the temp of the mash to 167 F.

7.) After 20 minutes the wort in kettle #1 is recirculated to clarify it and the sparging with 185 F (85 C) water is begun. Sparge until run off gravity has dropped to less than 1.008 and boil it with the previous run off from kettle #1. Boil the wort, now in kettle #3, until the volume is reduced to ~ 5 gallons.

8.) As the wort begins to boil it is hopped with approximately 4 ounces of aged hops as described in the Hops section. With all the water additions and sparging you will end up with about 9 gallons of wort. Total boiling time to reduce this volume to 5 gallons depends on your system. It took me 4 hours to boil from 11 gallons to 5.5 gallons.

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****My advice, have a trusty thermometer and a bunch of pots full of boiling water and you should be fine! There were a couple of instances where I had to add an extra few quarts of boiling water to bring the temp up to where I wanted it!

****Also, double check the day before you brew to make sure you have enough Propane!

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I plan on adding 1-1 1/2 oz o f French Oak cubes soon after the initial fermentation is done. In about 8-12 months I'll sample the beer and most likely take a portion of it into another vessel and add 4 lbs of Wisconsin cranberries that I have in my freezer! I'm hoping to have something similar to New Glarus - Cranbic at some point, but less sweet.

I'll update this post as I see it progress over the next couple of years! Should be drinking this one by 11/8/2013!

1.29.12 - Sampled this with Kevin. It smelled barnyardy. Taste was just simply gross. It tastes very similar to my Flanders Ale when it was young. That Flanders is tasting amazing now at 1 year old.

Wild Cider + French Saison yeast

2011-11-07T21:56:00.002-06:00

For years now I've wanted to get myself some cider to ferment and turn into hard cider.   I'd always heard that getting pasteurized cider just doesn't do the trick. See the pasteurization process requires you bring the cider to a temp above 170 degrees which also alters the flavor slightly.   In MN and most of the US it's illegal to sell unpasteurized Cider do to health concerns. Unpastuerized cider contains bacteria, yeast, and potentially mold.

I decided that I was going to try and get my hands on some unpastuerized cider this year and so I called up Pepin Heights and they told me that I could drop off a bucket and they'd fill it up the next time they press apples. That just wasn't gonna happen as Pepin is too far away and I'm just not that dedicated to doing this.   Then the next week I got an email from a member of the MN homebrew Club, Jonathan Beckel, who was doing a group buy from a local orchard. When all was said and done I believe he picked up some 150-200 gallons of cider of which I took home 5 gallons!

Distribution was set to be at Barley John's this Saturday during the national "Teach a Friend to Brew day"!   It was a great event. I brought my boy down there (Leo) and we hung out for a while.

I believe Al Boyce was brewing one of the batch's, a Russian Imperial Stout.   I'd never met him so it was interesting to talk to him a bit, look at his recipe and ask him a few questions about barrel aging. He informed me about the "two thumbs" rule when doing a barrel aging project. When multiple people contribute beer, everyone samples it and gives either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Two thumbs down and you're contribution didn't make the cut for the barrel!

I also ran into Don Osborn whom I've corresponded over e-mail a couple times but had never met. His video "Easy All-Grain Brewing - Batch Sparge Method" was what inspired me to take the jump from extract to all-grain brewing some 2+ Years ago! I sampled his Fresh Hop IPA (with his Homegrown hops) as well as a cider (2010).   Both were fantastic! He gave me some good advice on my cider that I took.   I had planned on using 4 lbs of brown sugar, and he said that would be pretty extreme as his was 9% and he used 2 lbs of brown sugar.   He also back sweetened his with 3 cans of frozen Apple Juice concentrate. Being that his was about exactly how I'd want mine to taste, I'll probably try and replicate what Don O done did!

For making cider you have so many options with yeast as well as process.   Here are some of the what I was considering.

What yeast should I use?

Leave it alone and let the natural yeast that is already in the cider go wild? Jonathan Beckel did this to 5 gallons last year and said that it fermented beautifully and that it had the most body and natural apple flavor out of all of his batch's. I think he had something like 35 gallons last year!
Ferment with a clean wine yeast. Cuvee? Not sure, but any LHBS will usually recommend the same wine yeast strain. This will produce a very clean cider that ferments almost completely and is tolerant to fermenting in a wide range of temps. (you can't go wrong)
Ferment with a beer yeast. I know Crispin uses a bunch of different varieties of beer yeast for various products.
Ferment with some Funk (Brett C. would probably be really tasty!)

Do I want use camden tablets first to kill any wild yeast or bacteria that may be in the Cider before I pitch some yeast?

Yes, this would be the safest route, but you have to let it sit for 24 hours before pitching yeast then and what if the camden tablets aren't 100% effective?
No, brewers yeast is so strong that it will out compete any other yeast and the alcohol will kill all of the other yeast and bacteria first...so no worries.

Do I want to add sugar? If so what kind of sugar? How strong will it be?

Cider -

5 gallons of freshly pressed unpastuerized Apple Cider -(update on types of apples and orchard to come)
1 lb. of dark brown sugar
1 lb. of brown sugar
Pitched it with Wyeast 3711 French Saison (I thought that this may complement the Apple because it's fruity and spicy)
Wild yeast and bacteria should be out worked by the yeast I pitched but I didn't use a camden tablet to hopefully retain some of the rusticness of it!
ABV - Should be somewhere in the 9% range although I didn't take any readings
I'll age this for at least 6 months until spring and most likely keep it on tap for my wife and friends that can't handle fantastically flavorful malty, bitter or funky beers!

Finally brewed a Belgian Tripel / Double IPA! Houblon Chouffe Clone

2011-10-29T21:28:00.010-05:00

I've been closely watching my Cream Ale Split batch to see how the different yeasts performed (American Ale 1 vs. Belgian Ardennes). To be honest, I thought that the Belgian batch may have been infected because it was giving off some odors that made me wonder. I decided to chill out, not jump to conclusions, shake up the carboy a bit and get the yeast back into suspension and let them clean up whatever funkyness was going on. My first thought was, shit, brett, pedio, lacto, or all three were still hanging out in the carboy from either my saison bretts or my flanders beers.. Luckily all it needed was a bit of time like I suspected. The main reason I was worried about infection was because I had been planning on using the yeast cake for a big Hoppy Tripel!

Finally I brewed a Belgian Tripel / Double IPA! A year and a half ago when my wife and I found out we were pregnant I celebrated with a fantastic beer, Houblon Choufe's: Dobbelen IPA Tripel. If you haven't tried this beer, you really should. It's essentially a Belgian Tripel with American hops. When I first tasted this beer I immediately declared it my favorite beer of all time! I love american hops. I love belgian yeast (unless it has banana flavor going on, for some reason I don't dig on banana in my beer.) I guess I could swoon about Houblon Chouffe all damn night and how it's the perfect beer for me....maybe not for you who even knows. It really is a great beer...for me. If you don't like it that's your own damn problem.

Here's what I ended up doing for my attempt to create something similar to Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel. It should be a little more assertive on the hops then Houblon Chouffe but very similar concept and recipe basics. Mash at 144 degrees for 30 min. Step up to 154 for 30 minutes. Batch sparge and collect 8 gallons for 90 minute boil rigorous boil.

Rock Stead Easy - Dobbelen IPA / Tripel

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
68%	13	0	Belgian Pilsner Malt	34	2
21%	4	0	American Two-row Pale	37	1
11%	2	0	Belgian Candy Sugar Light	36	0
	19	0

Original Gravity - 1.088

Final Gravity -1.011

ABV: 10.1%

Color 5° SRM

Mash Efficiency

70%

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	90+ mins	1.0	Columbus	pellet	15.4
boil	30 mins	0.25	Saaz	pellet	3.5
boil	30 mins	0.25	Sorachi Ace	pellet	13.7
boil	7 mins	1.0	US Fuggles	pellet	4.5
boil	5 mins	0.75	Saaaz	pellet	3.5
boil	5 mins	0.75	Sorachi Ace	pellet	13.7
boil	1 min	1.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	1 min	1.0	Glacier	pellet	5.6
dry hop	10 days	3.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0

11.20.11 - Transferred to secondary and took a sample. Lots of orange citrus. Tasted a little bit hot, maybe a little fusel but other then that it tasted really good. Put it on 3 oz. of Amarillo hops. Gravity reading is 1.020.
12.4.11 - Gravity reading is 1.011 after shaking up the fermenter and raising temp from 68 to 77 over 10 days. Terminal Gravity is 1.011 which is a little higher then I was hoping for, but the fusels are completely gone now and this seems to be ready to drink! I'll crash cool, and then keg in the next couple of days!
12.15.11 - First tasting- Yum!
Appearance: Golden crystal clear. nice head and decent retention
Aroma: Yeast is not present. I'll stress the yeast next time instead of overpitch like I did on this batch. bready initally which surprises me. sweetness in the nose. I'm not getting the Amarillo dry hops and I'm not getting the Amarillo, Glacier in the nose. Maybe I have a cold. All I smell is bread.
Flavor: starts of with sweet lemons, and mixes with maltyness in the middle. Finish's citrusy sweet on the finish. Really smooth and extremely drinkable. No alcohol present what so ever.
Mouthfeel: smooth creamy mouthfeel. light bodied.

Blonde Ale split batch (American Ale 1056 vs. Belgian Ardennes 3522)

2011-10-10T10:57:00.004-05:00

Busted out a 10 gallon batch last night as the leaves fell around me on a warm Minnesota Autumn evening!

For this beer I took my inspiration from Northern Brewers: Cream Ale kit. This kit was the fifth batch of beer I ever brewed almost 3 years ago now. It turned out really well and the toasty, bready quality was something that I really loved and still remember. I switched it up a bit in that I used Simcoe instead of Cluster hops and I FWH'd it as I thought the fruityness of the Simcoe would work well with both yeasts, but still hopefully let the biscuit and honey malt shine. We shall see!

Here are the details:
Crushed the grains really fine (thought I'd get better efficiency but didn't)
Mashed 10 gallons of Nordeast Mpls tap for 60 minutes at 153 degrees
Sparged 6 gallons of Nordeast Mpls tap for 15 minutes at 169 degrees
Used 5.2 stabalizer
Collected 13.5 gallons

malt & fermentables

Original Gravity

1.040

Final Gravity

1.007 - American Ale @65 degrees
1.009 - Belgian Ardennes @65 degrees

Color

5° SRM

Mash Efficiency

68%(crap!)

hops

My tap water is actually still really warm because of the unusually warm fall weather in Mpls, so I could only get the wort down to 77 degrees. I decided to put the carboys in my lagering chamber. I taped the temperature probe to the side of one carboy and set the Johnson Temp control to 65 degrees with the lid slightly open. I'm hoping that I have a nice solid fermentation going in both vessels when I get home from work today.

I pitched each carboy with different yeast as glorified yeast starters. I've been wanting to brew a Houblon Chouffe type beer for over a year now, so I pitched Belgian Ardennes 3522 yeast onto 5 gallons to get a nice supply ready for my Belgian Tripel/DIPA that I'll be brewing in a few weeks. I also pitched American Ale II onto the other 5 gallons and I'll most likely be brewing another version of The Chronic in a few weeks. ***Update..American Ale II didn't get started (old smack pack) after 24 hours so am pitching 1056 tonight!

Rant: Most of you are brewing Stouts right now, but me, me...I'm brewing a session beer. I also have a bunch of ECY (East Coast Yeast) I recently acquired so I'll be brewing a bunch of sour beer very soon. In planning is a 10 gallon batch of Lambic (half on ECY Lambic Blend and half on my 3rd generation yeast cake from my Flanders Red Project). Also, I will brewing another Flanders 5 gallon batch and Pitching ECY Flanders Blend. Then, I'll be doing a 10 gallon split batch of Saison, half with the American Farmhouse blend (The Lost Abbey blend) and half with the ECY Saison Blend!

US Sour Beer Guide: Sour, Brett, and Funk Beers of the US

2011-09-23T15:50:00.006-05:00

Belgian is the king of Sour beers.... at least that's what I thought before doing some research on Breweries in the US that are diving into the barrel of funky, sour, and brett beers! Yes Belgian is king when it comes to sheer volume, consistency, quality, and taste. But sour beer is definitely picking up steam in the US.

I for one would love to be able to go to the liquor store and find a whole section of Sour or Brett beers made in the USA. Supply definitely isn't keeping up with demand. Case in point, last week I was at the Lost Abbey in San Marcos, California. I was extremely stoked in anticipation to try some of their sour offerings. I walked up to their taps and bottles and to my dismay couldn't find a single sour beer available. Yes their other offering are amazing, both from The Lost Abbey and the Pizza Port. But with almost 1500 Barrels full of sour beer across the street in their warehouse, clearly the supply is not able to keep up with the demand. The US market mainly is in "experimentation mode" with their sour beer production. Only a few breweries in the US are consistently putting out sour beer with most of the beers produced being "one offs" never to be seen again and drank by a select few. Right now Belgian is an extremely mature market while the US is in it's infancy. It'll be interesting to see the US sour beer market mature!

If you haven't tried any of these wild beers, I highly recommend it as they can be some of the most unique, refreshing, tart, complex, amazing beverages you will ever try in your life. Think tart apples, grapes, wine, tart cherries, and refreshing fruit

Allagash Brewing Co.	The Grumpy Troll Restaurant and Brewery

Confluence	Ginger Tart
Gargamel	Cherry Brew
Interlude	Peach
Larry	Raspberry
Vagabond	Sunshine
Victor Francenstein
Avance	Goose Island Beer Company
Coolship Cerise
Coolship Red	Juliet
Coolship Resurgam	Sofie
Indigenuts	Amara
Mattina Rossa	Athena
Vrienden	Blackberry Dominique
Kinison	Bourbon Barrel Aged Lolita
Little Big Beer	Bourbon Barrel Aged Sour Raspberry Matilda
My Other Brother Daryl	Cherry Dominique
	Dominique
The Alchemist Pub & Brewery	Grapefruit Sofie
	Lolita
Bacchus	Madame Rose
Celia Framboise	Mae
Mis-information	Pepe Claussenii
Petit Mutant	Pepe Nero
Whonky	Pomegranate Juliet
Wild Child	Sour Grapes
	Sour Shimmy
Alpine Beer Company	Wilder
Chez Monmee
Ichabod Ale 2009	Great Lakes Brewing Company
Ned
	The Dalai Lambic Wild Ale
Arbor Brewing Company
	Half Acre Beer Company
Brasserie Greff Kriek
Demetrius	Barrel Aged Rainbow Rye
Flamboyant Wild Red Ale	Pear Goss
Penumbra
Sodibo Barrel Aged Blond Ale (Sour Series)	Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant
Special Reserve 2005
Velvet Hammer	Cassis de Hill
Framboozled (Sour Series)	Berliner Weiss
	Du Armand
Avery	Flemish Red (Fred)
	Framboise De Hill
Avery De Vogelbekdieren (The Platypus)	Funkin
Dihos Dactylion	Kriek De Hill
Dries Ellies	Lambic De Hill - Unblended
15	Mondo
Brabant	Oud Bruin
Dépuceleuse
Quinquepartite	Ithaca Beer Company
Sui Generis
Eremita	Brute
Immitis	LeBleu
Meretrix	Frute #1
Opus Altar Boy	Frute #2
	Geektoberfest
Ballast Point Brewing Company
	Jackie O's Pub & Brewery
BC Hout
Beachwood Blend (Hout Series)	Berliner Weiss
Gueuze (Hout Series)	Brown Recluse
	Cab Cherry Man
Bear Republic Brewing Co.	Chunga's Old Bruin
	Cuvee De Jackie
Cuvee De Bubba	Dynamo Hum
Old Scoutter's Call of the Wild	Funky South Paw
Prickly Pear Grizz	Proto Blonde
Sotoyome Amber	Pygmy Twilight
Sour Crazy Ivan	Quincedence
	The Grand Wazoo
Bell's Brewery	Vulcan Faunus
	When Life Gives You Lemons
Wild One
Oarsman	Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

Boulevard Brewing Co.	Bam Bière
	Bam Noire
Saison-Brett	Bam With Jasmine
	Bamagranite
Bootlegger's Brewery	Bambic
	Baudelaire Ale Absurd
76 Barrel Aged Sour With Cherries	Baudelaire IO
Blackberry Mother Pucker	Belipago
Bluebonic Funk	Biere De Goord
Fresh Lambic	Bière De Mars
Kentucky Wild	Bière De Mars - Grand Reserve
Knott Sour Lambic	Calabaza Blanca
Lambic #1	Calabaza Blanca With Hibiscus Flowers
Lambic #1 with Kombucha Cultures	Collababeire Special holiday Ale
Lambic #2	E.S.Bam
Lambic #3	Fuego Del Otono, Autumn Fire
Lambic #4	La Parcela
Lambic #5	La Roja
My Cherry Amour	La Roja - Grand Reserve
Olallieberry Lambic	Lambicus Dexterius
Olallieberry/ Acia Lambic	Luciérnaga, The Firefly
Pink Funkasaurus	Luciérnaga, The Firefly - Grand Reserve
	Madrugada Obscura, Dark Dawn Stout
Brewery Ommegang	Maracaibo Especial
	Noel De Calabaza
Biere de Mars	Oro De Calabaza
Ommegeddon	Perseguidor
Rouge	Project Greenleaf Heavy Nettle
Zuur	Project Greenleaf Hummocky Lick Sumac Sensation
	Raspimical
Brooklyn Brewery	Roja De Kriek
	Weizen Bam
Wild 1	Weizen Bam With Hibiscus Flowers
Brett Ops
	Leelanau
The Bruery
	Golden Ale
Cuvee Jeune	Whaleback White
Hottenroth Berliner Weiss	Ptoskey Pale Ale
White Zin
100% Brett Autumn Maple	Lift Bridge
BeRazzled
Blue Palms 3rd Anniversary Sour	Raspberry Lambic
Bottleworks XII
Carmen With Cranberries	Lost Abbey, The / Port Brewing Co.
Carmen With Raisins
Collaboration Series: ISO:FT	10 Commandments
Collaboration Series: Marron Acidifie	Amazing Grace Ale
Gueze Style Ale with Blueberries	Anti Ox
Kriek	Cable Car
Oude Tart	Carnevale
Oode Tart with Sour Cherries	Cuvee de Tomme
Sour in the Rye	Double Cherry Red Poppy
The Wanderer	Double Cuvee De Tomme
Vitis Series: Pinotlambicus	Double Raspberry Framboise De Amorosa
	Duck Duck Gooze
Bullfrog Brewery	Duck Duck Guava
	Framboise de Amorosa
Beekeeper	Isabelle Proximus
El Rojo Diablo	Le Woody Brune
Frambozen	Red Poppy Ale
Liquid Sunshine Reserva	Just Another Barrel #2
Magic beans	Saints Red Barn
BeeSting Gone Wild	Russ
Busted Lawn Mower Kegs Gone Wild	Sinners Blend 2010
Citra-Delic Wheat Gone Wild	Soured Avant Garde
El Diable Deluxe	Veritas 008
Hop Harvest 2009 Gone Wild	Veritas 009
Inspiration Wild
SamO Blend #667 (aka The Neighbor of The Beast	McKenzie Brew House
The Jaspers
Tim and Kathy's Strawberry Fields	Black Et Bronzage
Water of Life Kegs Gone Wild Version	Irma Extra
Wits End Gone Wild	Tristessa

Cambridge Brewing Company	Midnight Sun Brewing

Benevolence	Pride
Berliner Kendall	Open Container
Cerise Cassee American Sour Ale	Whatever
Consternation
Creaky Bus	New Belgium Brewing Inc.
Double Happiness
Honey Badger Lambic	La Folie Wood Aged Beer
Kriek Du Cambridge 2009	Le Terroir
Nom De PlumPisser Mauvais	Transatlantique Krie
Reckoning	Black Folie
Resolution #9	Felix
Rose De Cambrinus	Eric's Ale
	Erics Ale Bourbon barrel Aged
Captain Lawrence Brewing Co	Fall Wild Ale
	Imperial Berliner Style Weisse
Barrel Select Batch 1	Vrienden
Cuvee de Castleton	Love (Apple Whiskey Barrel Aged)
Flaming Fury	Love (Blackberry Whiskey Barrel Aged)
Little Linda’s Liquid	Love (Foeder #3)
Rosso e Marone	Love (Peach Whiskey barrel Aged)
Funky Sour Cherry #2	Oscar
Gueze	Shadow of the Foudre
Saturday's Sour Blend 2011	Tart Lychee
Xtreme Blend 2011	Trip III
	Trip VII
Cascade Brewing @ Raccoon Lodge	Twisted Spoke 15th Anniversary

Apricot Ale	New Glarus Brewing Co.
Blackberry Ale
Cuvee du Jongleur	R & D Golden Ale
Kriek Ale	Raspberry Tart
Nightfall Blackberry	Unplugged - Berliner Weiss
Sang Royal	Unplugged - Imperial Saison
The Vine	Unplugged - Old English Porter
Vlad the Imp Aler	R & D Bourbon Barrel Kreik
2011 Kriek Blend With Bourbon	R & D Gueze
80 Shilling Sour Scottish Ale	Unplugged Cranbic Ale
Apple Pie
Bahri Date Bain	New Holland Brewing Co.
Barrel 323
Bourbon Belgium Quad	Blue Sunday
Beck Berry	Moxie Sour Ale
Blauw Van Der Jon Berry
Bourbonic Plague	Odell Brewing Company
Cherry Gold Yeller
Funk II	Saboteur
Gold Yeller	Flagship in Oak
Noyeaux	Friek
Sang Noir	Hiveranno
Sang Rouge	DeConstruction Golden Ale
Sang Royal	Shenanigans
Spring Gose	Sour Olde Ale
Straight Bourbonic	The Revolution
Summer Gose	Weiss Versa
Winter Gose
Bourbon Double Red W/Bourbicide	Pizza Port / Port Brewing Company
Figaro
Flanders Red	Le Woody Brune
Honey Ginger Lime	Mo' Betta Bretta
Honey Ginger Rye	Pizza Port Synergy
Lipsmacker Gose	Synergy
Port Reserve
Pre-Bourbonic	Russian River Brewing Company
Sweetartz
Vintage Red	Beatification
	Compunction
Cigar City	Consecration
Grandma's Funky Sour Berry	Deification
Guava Grove -Wild	Depuration
Jolly Guava	Deviation - Bottleworks 9th Anniversary
Vuja De	Framboise For A Cure
Vuja De - Red Wine Barrel Aged	Sanctification
	Sour Pumkin
Cisco Brewers Inc.	Supplication
	Symposium Sour Brown Ale
Cherry Wood	Temptation
Dark Woods	Toronado 20th Anniversary Ale
Feral Barrel
Full and By Rye	Saint Somewhere
Lady of the Woods
Monomoy Kriek	Lectio Divina
Pechish Woods	Lectio Du Chene
White Woods	Pays Du Fleurs
Winter Woods	Pays Du Soleil

Craftsman Brewing Co	Santa Fe Brewing Company

El Prieto Sour black Ale	Wild Ale #1
Extreme Braggot	Wild Ale #2
Flanders Red	Wild Ale #3
Honesty Ale	Wild Ale #4
Sour Grapes	Wild Ale #5
Summers End Sour	Wild Ale #6 Bordeaux Barrel Series
	Wild Ale #7 (Surf Mountain Sour)
Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project
	Sixpoint
Good Glory
Pure Guava Petite Sour	Sour Diesel
Wild Wild Brett "Rouge"
	Ska Brewing Co.
Dark Horse Brewing Company
	Ska Sour
Lambeak Wants Peachy
Richard in Mouth W/ Kumquat	Stillwater Artisanal Ales
Whiskey Richard Lambeak
Lambeak Wants Raspberry	Red 33
	Chardonnay Barrel-Ages Stateside Saison
Deschutes
	Surly
The Dissident
Green Monster	Pentagram
Solace Rose	Five
Sour Cherry Porter
	Telegraph Brewing Company
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery	Gypsy Ale
	Obscura Amber
Festina Pêche	Obscura Arborea
Fungus Tea'Mungus	Obscura Volpine
Midas Touchstone	Petit Obscura
Goser The Gosarian	Reserve Wheat Ale

Drake's Brewing Co.	Trinity Brewing

Brett Butler	Old Growth
Brett Soul Glow Sour Ale	TPS Report
Brettamber	Buddha Nova
Imperial Stout with Brett	The Flavor
Bi-Pod
Chardi's Trippel	Tröegs Brewing Company
Dark Diggler
FrankenBerry	Splinter Blue
It's Fity	Splinter Gold
Simian Sour	Splinter Red
Tropic Thunder
Dark Duck	Two Brothers Brewing Co.
Volte-Face
Wyld Stallyns	10
	Askew
Dry Dock Brewing Co.	Moaten
	Public Domaine + 10
Apricot Lambic
	Upland Brewing Company
Flat Earth Brewing
	Blackberry Lambic
Extra Medium	Blueberry Lambic
Rode Haring	Cherry Lambic
	Kiwi Lambic
Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery	Strawberry Lambic
	Dantalion Dark Wild Ale
Candor	Peach Lambic
Cranky Nate	Persimmon Lambic
Decadence	Raspberry Lambic
Kyra Festiv-Ale Sour Blend
Roselare Saison	Valley Brewing Company
Rosie Pom
	Calambic
Freetail Brewing Company	Chelie Wonka
	Decadence Grand Cru 2009
Ananke	Dysfunktion Ale Part Deux
Ate	Fat Freddy's Freaky Kriek
Bandito	Olallieberry Sour
Bareliner Weisse	Stockton Sour (Phil's Mild Wild)
Figgy Wood'n
Fortuna Roja	White Birch Brewing
Self ReGarde
Solera (All Batch Numbers)	Commemoration Ale
Solera Fin	Barrel Aged Brewers Reserve American Wild Ale
Woodicus	Elysium
	Indomitus
Funkwerks	Morning Breaks
	Night Falls
Wild Apricot	Rye Four
Chardonnay Barrel Blonde	Berliner Weiss
Bastille	Haystack Havoc
Belgian Resistance	Night Falls
Casper	Wild AKA
Cherry Saison	Wild Ale
Cochon
FC Collusion 2011	Weyerbacher
French Resistance
Hibiscus Resistance	Riserva
Key Lime Rye	Rapture
Maoir King
Saison	Victory
White
	Wild Devil
Grand Teton Brewing Co.	Helios

Who's Brett?? *This list isn't complete and most of these beers you will never ever be able to get but it gives you an idea of what breweries are gettin their funk on! If I'm missing a brewery that you love that makes Funky shit please let me know and I'll add it to the list. Eventually I'll have links and all sorts of good stuff on this page. *Gotta give credit to Where The Wild Beers Are for starting me down this quest. To create this post and compile this list, I originally looked at their list, and then realized I wanted to update and expand the US section which is what I have here. Three years ago I attended this event in Minneapolis and it's created an acid beer obsession for me. It's a great event that is held in October in Minneapolis. If you get cold hanging outside at this event, just wrap yourself in a horses blanket and try not to shiver like a wet dog. Cheers!

Trip to San Diego...family time and West Coast beercation!

2011-09-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

Just got back from an awesome, refreshing, weeks vacation visiting my brother and his family in North Park, San Diego. Besides going to the beach, surfing, crashing a hotel pool downtown, more beach, San Diego Zoo, short trip to PB, and the strongest Margarita I've ever had at Ponce's, I also made time to check out The Lost Abbey/Pizza Port! I know, you probably think that I should've checked out Stone and I probably should've. But, I wanted to check out the barrels at The Lost Abbey!

I was hoping to taste a bunch of their sour beer and do a little reconnaissance on their Barrel Room! This brewery has barrels stacked everywhere! Although they have 1800 barrels filled to the brim and oozing with sour beer, there wasn't any sour beer to be had on this day. Oh well. I didn't realize that The Lost Abbey was only 5 years old. Similar to my hometown hero Surly who is about 5 1/2. There sour beer release's are much like any small brewery with exeptional beer. When they bottle it, it goes fast and sits in peoples cellars or is drunk right away. The Lost Abbey stores 1000-1200 barrels of sour beer across the parking lot in a warehouse...oh man I was pushing for someone to walk me through there, but it just wasn't happening. Overall, this is an awesome brewery and i can't wait to eventually get my hands on some of their sours!

As soon as I convince my wife of it, I'm definitely going to be putting a huge wine barrel in our basement and aging sour beers in there. It's gonna be quite the project, a huge risk (55 gallons of beer risk), but should be extremely educational. As my first batch of Flanders Red is souring nicely on oak cubes, and my second batch is on it's way as well, the next logical step is to buy a huge wine barrel right? I think so! If you are even in the San Diego I highly recommend checking out The Lost Abbey!

Dank Funkhaus - Flanders Style American Wild Ale v.2

2011-08-09T10:06:00.002-05:00

This is a continuation of my Flanders Project which I hope to brew a Flanders Style Ale every 6 months for 3 years and then start blending. I have a Flanders Style Ale v. 1 that I brewed 7 months ago that I had left in Primary on a huge yeast cake. This is more similar to how a Lambic is aged, as Flanders Red's are typically fermented in Primary for only a few weeks, and then transferred off the yeast cake.   See, the Bretta eats up the autolyzed(dead) yeast and I wanted to increase the amount of Bretta for this beer.   I'd created a nice Funk Factory for this to age on.......In this yeast cake was Wyeast 1056, Wyeast Roselare blend, dregs from various sour beers I've drank in the past 7 months(Jolly Pumpkin, Trinity, Russian River, Le Proef), a full bottle of each of my Saison Bretts containing Brett L., Brett C., and Wyeast 3711.   I'd say I have a dozen to two dozen different strains of Yeast and souring bacteria in this Yeast cake.   I had this in a Better Bottle and surprisingly no pellicle had formed at all over 7 months although the brett aroma is very strong.   The acidity is still not as high as I'd like it so I thought I'd add some fresh wort to kick things back up a notch.

With my second batch of Flanders Red Ale or Flanders Style American Wild Ale I brewed something very similar to Jamil's Flanders Red Ale recipe again.   I made a couple of small but notable changes.
1. I brewed 6.5 gallons (so I could pour 1 gallon into my aging flanders to hopefully help the Pedio and Lacto work on something to acidify that beer in the next year or so.)
2. I transferred v.1 to a plastic bucket (to let more oxygen in) and poured v.2 directly on top of the 7 month old yeast cake from v.1. Now...I hope that 7 month old yeast cake with dozens of yeasts, and bacteria will ferment this bad boy out how I want. I have no idea about the proportions of brewers yeast, bretta, pedio, and lacto, in that yeast cake, but I've read that reusing yeast cakes from sour beers produces an increasingly sour product.
3. I used a small portion of unmalted wheat, did a cereal mash with that to hopefully create some extra food for the funk. (long chain sugars that aren't easily consumable by brewers yeast, but over a long period will get eatin 'tag team style' by Brett, Pedio, and Lacto.)
4. Mashed at 158 for 90 minutes for the same reason as using unmalted wheat.

Here's the recipe as brewed.

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
30%	5	0	Vienna Malt	36	3
30%	5	0	Belgian Pilsner Malt	34	2
18%	3	0	Munich Malt - 10L	35	10
9%	1	8	Light Dry Malt Extract	45	8
3%	0	8	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
3%	0	8	Aromatic Malt	36	26
3%	0	8	Caramunich III	34	56
3%	0	8	Special B Malt	30	180

Batch size: 6.5 gallons

Original Gravity

1.068 / 16.6° Plato

Final Gravity ?

Color

16° SRM / 31° EBC

(Light Brown to Medium Brown)

Mash Efficiency

73%

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	60 mins	1.5	Celeia (aged 2 years)	pellet	1.4
boil	60 mins	1.0	Goldings, East Ken	pellet	5.0

Bitterness

15 IBU

Alcohol

7.5-8.5% ABV

Rant: I've been slowly trying to figure out how to make a proper sour ale....it takes time and I can understand why many brewers don't even want to deal with it. I absolutely can understand why a professional brewer wouldn't want to deal with aging beer for months to years. You see, brewing sour beers takes anywhere form 1-3 years. Most beers take 2-4 weeks before you can bottle them. It's quite the difference. Fermentation space is a huge consideration for professional brewers and most try to push fermentation as fast as possible by pitching huge amounts of healthy yeast and utilizing constant and accurate temperature control fermentation. Keeping the yeast happy helps them eat sugars. I'm lucky to have a bunch of extra Carboy's and Buckets and can't wait to keep brewing Flanders Red's every 6 months to eventually blend and drink. My Saison Bretts although not sour beers, are fantastic! Let me know if you'd like me to send you a bottle as I've got a ton!

Guess what's about to get a little more Dank.....Iron Brewer!

2011-08-03T11:58:00.005-05:00

That's right people. I was accepted into the next round of Iron Brewer! Not sure if you know about this competition but it's pretty cool. Peter Kennedy at Simply Beer started a contest called Iron Brewer. With this contest he tests the recipe formulating skills of homebrewers across the nation by giving them 3 secret ingredients which must be incorporate into a unique beer recipe. The beers are brewed, shipped, and judged a month later by a panel of tasters, and then the winner is decided!

It's kinda like the show Chopped on the food network. For this challenge, I opened up the basket and the secret ingredients are...

Galena Hops (never used these before)
Melanoidin Malt (never used this before)
Rose Hips (never even heard of this)

Upon discovering that Galena hops are more of a bittering hop, and that Rose Hips actually provide a citrus note and the timing of this contest, I decided that I'd use the heat of my upstairs bedroom to bring together an extremely complex, malty, yeasty, hoppy, sour Rustic Saison! Melanoidin Malt was the only thing out of wack for the style so I decided that I'd balance that with some Acidulated Malt.

My plan is to use all of the ingredients, but not have any one ingredient stick out to the tasters. This is how I brew Saison's. Extreme complexity, but hopefully a headscratcher as to how I accomplished it. Reach out to me if you want me to send you a couple of bottles so that you can listen in on the final tasting and compare notes!

Here is my recipe. Hope it turns out well.

Nordeast Farmhouse Ale - brewed for Iron Brewer: Batch 2 Round 6

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
53%	7	0	Belgian Pilsner Malt	34	2
15%	2	0	Vienna Malt	36	3
8%	1	0	Spelt	34	5
8%	1	0	Acidulated Malt	33	2
8%	1	0	Honey	35	1
6%	0	12	Biscuit Malt	36	23
4%	0	8	Melanoidin Malt	37	20
	13	4

Batch size: 5.0 gallons

Original Gravity

1.058

Final Gravity

1.002

7.7% ABV

Color

8° SRM

(Gold to Copper)

Mash Efficiency

63%

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	90+ mins	0.5	Galena	pellet	13.0
boil	15 mins	0.5	Galena	pellet	13.0
boil	10 mins	1.0	Hersbrucker	pellet	4.0
boil	5 mins	1.0	Hersbrucker	pellet	4.0

Boil: 6.0 avg gallons

Bitterness

35.2 IBU

yeast

Wyeast French Saison (3711)

ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 81% attenuation

Alcohol

misc

Pitched the Yeast at 85 degrees and set upstairs in my 75 degree upstairs attic. Should cool down a bit tonight and then kick back up into the 80's for the first two days of fermentation. It looks and smells exactly as I want it too!

8.22.11 - Shipped my bottles out to the Iron Brewer judge and the 8 other brewers. Cost a pretty penny. I think it's a bit under carbonated, but still really fantastic beer. Wish it was carbed on the upper level rather then lower level for the style...but oh well. Crossing my fingers!

The EssenceX2 - Double IPA

2011-07-11T12:10:00.009-05:00

This weekend I needed to rack my SMASH beer to secondary for dry hopping so I decided that I'd brew a bigger beer to rack on top of the yeast cake.   The SMASH beer is going to be a 3.6% sessionable Pale Ale. It should have a nice big mouthfeel due to my higher then normal mash temp (158 - 160?). I thought that would help give such a simple beer a little bit of body.

For this next beer, a Double IPA, I poured that chilled wort directly on top of the yeast cake, trub and all, to make a bigger version of my IPA - The Essence. I intended it to be about double the size of my original version but, like when I made my first Russian Imperial Stout, my efficiency went way down to 65%. Apparently it ain't that easy making big beers because you're using the same amount of water on twice the amount of grains.   My recommendation and what I should've done is add a couple extra pounds of base malt to compensate for your lowered efficiency.   My efficiency seems to go down below 70% on anything above 1.065. You could double sparge and then do a long boil...or....you could just buy a couple more pounds of grain. Here's how Don Osborn makes Big Beers on a batch sparge set up.

I did a couple of things different in this beer. I mashed pretty dang high...158 degrees. I did this because I'm adding a bunch of honey which tends to dry a beer out and I wanted it to have a medium mouthfeel. Hopefully it doesn't turn out like syrup as some DIPA's tend to. I also added some earthy Fuggle hops towards the end of the boil to hopefully balance out the abundance of citrus hops in this recipe!    I also FWH'd the shit out of it which tends to help the hop aroma last longer then dry hopping. I also whirlpool hopped it at 170 degrees while I was chilling it.   Keep in mind that this is a 6 gallon batch...which I did intentionally since I'm primarily using leaf hops that will soak up a bunch of the beer.

Here is the recipe. I think it's gonna be mighty tasty!

The EssenceX2 - DIPA

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
72%	13	0	American Two-row Pale	37	1
11%	2	0	Vienna Malt	36	3
8%	1	8	Honey	35	1
3%	0	8	Flaked Oats	33	2
3%	0	8	American Crystal 40L	34	40
3%	0	8	Cara-Pils/Dextrine	33	2
	18	0

Batch size: 6.0 gallons

Original Gravity

1.074 / 18.0° Plato

Final Gravity

1.013 / 4.25° Plato

Color

6° SRM / 11° EBC

(Yellow to Gold)

Mash Efficiency

65%

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	60+ mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
first wort	60+ mins	1.0	Citra	leaf	11.0
first wort	60+ mins	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	20 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	20 mins	0.5	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	10 mins	1.0	Fuggles	leaf	4.5
boil	5 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	5 mins	0.5	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
post-boil	5 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
post-boil	5 mins	0.5	Simcoe	leaf	13.0

Bitterness

81.6 IBU

dry-hop

10 day

2 oz

Amarillo

dry-hop

10 day

1.5 oz

Simcoe

dry-hop

10 day

Galaxy

dry-hop

10 day

2 oz

Columbus

yeast

American Ale

medium flocculation and 75% attenuation

Alcohol

8% ABV

***tasting notes: 10.3.11
Rating: A (I really wish you all chould try this and please brew it and let me know what you think!)
Appearance: Orange with a little bit of haze either chill haze or haze from the abundance of hops that went into this beer. Nice head that starts of at two fingers and stays around for a while. Great sticky lacing! - B+
Aroma: Citrus, Tropical fruits, mixed in with honey and caramel. Really fantastic aroma on this beer! A+
Flavor: Flavor profile changes from the aroma. Starts off with a burst of Pine and citrus, the middle hits you with some honey and malt, and then the end finishes off with earthyness and piney hops. Bitternees is present but not super aggressive, and the alcohol warms you a bit as you wait for your next sip. Very well balanced flavor profile. - A
Mouthfeel: Mouthfeel is medium and carbonation is medium. I've always felt my beers that I've used honey in always end up too dry, and this one ended up being perfect. Not thick and syrupy, not too sweet, just right in the middle where I wanted it! - A
Overall: This is a hop bomb but with slightly restrained bitterness (by restrained, I mean, under 100 IBUS's. With all of the hops that I put into this, the Fuggles actually lay a nice organic, earthy background at the end of the sip. It actually really complements all of the fruity, citrus, piney hops that went into this brew. Probably the most well balance DIPA, or IPA I've ever brewed! - A

Who is Brett Lambicus?

2011-07-11T11:14:00.002-05:00

I bottled up half of my Saison Brett experiment last night in nice champagne bottles. I carbonated (him) to 3 volumes so (he) should be nice and highly carbonated.

Funny thing though...while I was cleaning off the carboy which had a label on it identifying it as Brett Lambicus my wife came up to me and said...."Who's Brett Lambicus?" Brett Lambicus is YEAST.

I'm Brett Lambicus..so WHAT?

Smash Hopburst Simcoe Vienna IPA

2011-06-17T13:03:00.039-05:00

As a gift to myself for Fathers Day, I decided that I wanted to do some brewing. I'd also like to make it down to the Stone Arch Art Festival in Nordeast as well. I haven't done much brewing since my boy was born almost 9 months ago now. Over the last three months since that last time I brewed I've been contemplating brewing a thousand different beers. There are so many things I want to try brewing. Mainly simple experiments...or styles...or variations on styles that I want to do. Today at Midwest Brew Supply I bought up a whole bunch of yeast. Belgain Ardennes for an upcoming Belgian triple/Dipa, some American Ale II, and also a cool find, American Farmhouse Ale blend (Lost Abbey's blend of Saison and Brett yeast!) In addition the new yeast I have, I also have a bunch of Organic 2-row to use up, some Crystal, Oats, Carapils, and some other random grains. Looks like it's time for a kitchen sink dipa as well! Oh yeah, I forgot about the pound of Simcoe and the pound of Amarillo plus a couple extra ounces of simcoe and citra! Wowzers. I think this weekend is going to be a crazy weekend of brewing.

To start things off though I decided that I need a sessionable IPA for the summer. I combine two concepts that I've wanted to do for quite some time. Smash (single malt and single hop) and Hopburst (adding all hops with only 20 minutes left in the boil). I'm also mashing this one really high to give it more body since it only has one malt. I think it's gonna turn out amazing because I'm using Vienna Malt, and Simcoe hops!

Simcoe Vienna SMaSH Hopburst

5.0 gallons

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
100%	9	0	Vienna Malt	36	3

OG/ FG

1.043 / 1.016

Alcohol by Volume

3.6%

Color

5° SRM / 9° EBC

(Yellow to Gold)

Mash Efficiency

70%

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	20mins	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	15mins	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	10mins	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	5 mins	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	1 min	1.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
dryhop	10days	3.0	Simcoe	leaf	13.0

***I'm also going to be adding an ounce while chilling just above the 170 degree mark and hold it for 5 minutes at that temp to really get some simcoe goodness.

Weighing out the whole leaf hops and now my hands smell like straight up dank!

7.28.11 - Sampled out of the keg. Aroma is fantastic with Simcoe hops dominating. Start of the sip has a weird soapy flavor to it. Middle of the sip is great, little bit of malt, bread, fruity hops, and of the sip is a little grassy, mouthwatering. Bitterness on the lower end probably 40 ibu's. Definitely not 55. It's very fresh and green. Not sure if the soapyness comes from the Simcoe hops, or if my tap line had a little Star-San residue left in it. Not lovin it at this point. I'll let it sit for a week before I sample again and see how it changes.

7.30.11 - Sampled again after pouring a full glass down the drain just in case there was some sanitizer in the line still. It tastes fantastic. No off flavors to speak off other then a little grassy on the finish. The mouthfeel wasn't as thick as I thought it would be. It's a very sessionable American Pale Ale. Since it's only Vienna malt, it's interesting to finally see the complexity a little bit of Caramel Malt can add to a beer as this is fairly one dimensional in the malt department. Simcoe hops are a great stand alone hop though!
8.10.11 - This tastes like Hop Juice. Mouthfeel is big and thick and juicy from the the high mash temp! Just how I wanted it. Probably only 30 IBU's but super juicey, and fruity! Straight up hops! Malt is nowhere to be found so maybe not the best SMASH experiement.

Bearded Brewer - Brewer Spotlight and Beer Tasting!

2011-05-26T10:22:00.002-05:00

Two years ago I started brewing beer, and once I started All-Grain brewing I decided that I wanted to journal all of my beers for my own personal knowledge. This was mainly because my memory is extremely bad. Also, this way I'd be able to look back, evaluate what I'd done in an effort to learn what different ingredients, processes, and factors contributed the different flavors to my beers. That desire to document my brewing sessions led me to start the Dank Brewing blog. I really had no idea what I was getting into and soon realized that I had catapulted myself into a crazy universe of beer bloggers! Once I got going on the blog I started finding other homebrew blogs, and bloggers, etc and reached out to some of them. Eric at Bearded Brewing was the first blog I came across that I was extremely impressed with and in fact inspired me to make my blog mo betta. I based my original template off of what Eric was doing at his own blog Bearded Brewing! I liked that he mainly just dealt with his own brewing and didn't muttle it up with all other things craft beer related. I really wanted my blog to mainly be my recipe's, my beers, and not much else.

The Bearded Brewer, and his blog are exceptional in many ways. First off I was drawn towards him and his blog because of his use of primarily if not exclusively organic ingredients. This is very unique in the brewing world, and I'd imagine when he started, not an easy task to do. It's extremely hard to create a recipe using ONLY organic ingredients. It really lends to the more artistic side of recipe formulation! Second off he makes all of his own Bearded Brewing beer labels which are really well done. He's developed his own brand!

I had the pleasure of meeting Eric Vernon aka Bearded Brewer about a month ago at Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis and we talked for a while and exchanged some homebrews. We've already talked about exchanging more beers, and I'm extremely excited to sample El Muerto, The Gringo and The Funky Monk! Hook me up man!

Here are the beers that I got to sample of Eric's and my tasting notes and thoughts!

Stout Chocula - Bourbon Barrel Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Stout.

Aroma- great aroma of bourbon, oak, and chocolate. I was expecting to get more coffee in the nose, but the chocolate and bourdon is really working for me!

Appearance-Nice dark appearance with a beige head that sticks at about a finger and then a slowly dissipates.

Flavor- Bourbon, Oak, chocolate, and a tiny bit of roast coffee.

Mouthfeel- Smooth mouthfeel, and a perfect amount of carbonation. A little bit thin but that actually makes this a more sessionable beer.

Overall- This is a super well balanced Stout. For all of the complex ingredients el beardo does an amazing job of balancing all of these flavors. The oak and bourbon are fantastic in this one. Typically oak and bourbon completely overpower beers and this is a true example of blending complex flavors to achieve a cohesive product!

Burning Beard-Belgian Pale Ale

Aroma- spicy yeast in the aroma, peppery, with a citrus and slight banana coming through as well. The yeast dominate this beer

Appearance-Nice orange appearance. Not a ton of head and doesn't stick around too long. Maybe a little under-carbonated for the style.

Flavor- Flavor is almost like a dreamsicle, smooth orangy citrus, creamy,a little bit of spice. Very complex and extremely well balanced.

Mouthfeel- Light bodied with low level of carbonation. Would be nice with a little more carbonation to intensify some flavors.

Overall-This is a beer that I could drink every single day. It's so drinkable! It's soo well balanced. If you like a spicy belgian ale, with citrus, maybe some pepper, orange then you got to get your hands on some Burning Beard! Finely crafted ale!

Frozen Beard- Winter Ale

Aroma- Loads of anise in the nose, a little bit like fennel. It's really the only aroma I get.

Appearance - Dark chocolate appearance with an off white head that dissipates quickly.

Flavor- Flavor is primarily caramel malts. The hops balance it out nice, as it warms the sweetness and caramel come out much more into the forfront. The anise and the sweetness work really good together. The back of the throat finishes with a bit of roast. I think a little chocolate malt would really complement this beer.

Mouthfeel- Medium bodied with low level of carbonation.

Overall- I really enjoyed this unique Stout. I've only had star anise in a Saison in the past and I think it works really well in a Stout so kuddos to el beardo for piecing that part of the flavor puzzle together. There is a lot going on in this beer and it's really tasty. The anise in the aroma is pretty overwhelming and I wish the flavor had a little more roasted malt complexity. A little less star anise, and a little more roast and this would be amazing!

Embrace the Darkside - American Black Ale/ Black IPA

Aroma- great aroma citrus, pine and some earthiness.

Appearance-Nice dark appearance with a beige head that sticks at about an finger and then a slowly dissipates.Nice dark color with a two finger head.

Flavor- Flavor is a little bit off for some reason. Very earthy, a bit astringent, and just kinda a bit off. Not sure if the black malt was steeped a little high, or the warrior hops are too earthy. Possibly the extract was not so fresh?

Mouthfeel- This was a little bit thin and would benefit from a little bigger mouthfeel.

Overall- This one probably didn't turn out how el beardo wanted it too. I can't put my finger on it exactly but something was a bit off in this bad boy. The aroma was great but things went a little weird after that.

I'm really happy that Eric and I finally met up! I can't wait to exchange more beers in the future.

***My favorite beer of this swap was by far the Burning Beard - Belgian Pale! Damn that is one fine ale! Another example of this style is New Glarus - Stone Soup and I'd take Burning Beard over Stone Soup any day...and that's saying somethin! Nice Work Eric! Keep up the good work, and keep spreading the word of Organic Brewing!

Isoamyl acetate .... Beer that tastes like banana's

2011-04-25T14:50:00.004-05:00

So we all know that yeasts create different esters and phenols during fermentation. Some of the common esters and phenols produced from fermentation are fruity, clove, bubblegum, pepper, and certainly one that many people know and love is the banana flavored ester that people enjoy in their Hefe's. Isomyl acetate is the ester that creates this banana flavor. If you want to increase isomyl acetate in your hefeweisse, belgian, or any other beer that you want to taste like liquid banana bread you can do a few things. You can certainly ferment on the upper range of that yeasts temperature range. If you're brewing a Hefe and want lots of banana, ferment that sucker in the low 70's. You also could under aerate your wort which causes yeast to be more ester-y(that's a technical term.) Another way to really kick it up a notch would be to add some zinc to your recipe. Zinc aides in the production of isoamyl acetate. The more zinc you add, the more banana you shall receive.

Bananas in beer = no thank you

This banana flavor is the one that I hate the most.....so if you're like me, your going to try and figure out a way to decrease this ester, either by yeast selection, or fermentation temperatures, or fermentation procedures. I just don't dig on banana's in my beer, or in my banana splits, or in my malts. The only time I like banana is in bread, or by itself. Definitely not in my beers. Maybe in a hefeweiss, but never in my Belgians!

I, for one, will look to reduce isoamyl acetate at all costs. If I ever do a Hefe again, or a Dunkel, or a belgian wit, or certain belgian strains, I'll definitely be fermenting a well aerated wort, with a large yeast starter, and at 60-65 degrees (at the extreme low end of the temp range).

My recommendations on way's to reduce this ester..

Yeast's to aviod or ferment in the low 60's. Any Hefe yeast.like Wyeast 3068, or the white labs equivalent White Labs WLP300, Wyeast 1214, and many other Belgians and Hefe yeasts.
Use Wyeast Belgian Ardennes -3522, or Wyeast 3787 - Trappist High Gravity for Belgian Dubbels and Triples (I used is for a Patersbier and it turned out amazing). Try Wyeast Belgian Wheat 3944 for your Hefe's and Wits or WLP380 and keep those temps in the low 60's while fermenting the first few days!

Olvalde Farmhouse Ales...Minnesota's newest brewery!

2011-04-13T21:14:00.001-05:00

Not sure if everybody knows about this new brewery in town so I thought I'd put up a quick post about it because I'm extremely excited about this brewery and can't wait to visit them! I was instantly intrigued by Olvalde when I heard about them because it kinda reminds me of the small French farmhouses in Wallonia. Olvalde Farm and Brewing Company is a small farm brewery in Rollingstone, MN. It's fairly close to Lake Pepin on Hwy 61 in between Hastings and La-X(crosse),WI. They release one beer in belgian bottles in March of 2011 to select locations around the cities. I picked up the Auroch's Horn a Braggot at Dennis Brothers in Cottage Grove which is an absolutely fabulous beer store. These brothers Dennis know good beer, and better then that, they know how to get their hands on it and sell it at a reasonable price!

I did a review of Olvalde's first offering the Auroch's Horn here which is a Braggot. I was absolutely blown away by the complexity of this beer. I'm even more impressed that such a brewery would hit the market with this style of beer in MN!

------------$----------

2011-03-29T10:35:00.008-05:00

Bustin out of Trenchtown Album = The best ever!

2011-03-22T10:58:00.005-05:00

The lips of the righteous teach many,
But fools die for want of wisdom.
The rich man wealth is in his city;
Do you hear, do you hear, can you understa-and?!
Destruction of the poor, is poverty;
Destruction of the soul, is vanity.
The righteous' wealth is in his Holy Pla-ace.
do you hear?
Those who have eyes, to see will see!
The rich man wealth is in his city;
do you hear, do you believe, do you understand?!
Destruction of the poor is poverty.
Destruction of the soul is vanity,
well hear me children!
The righteous' wealth is in his Holy Pla-ace!

My cup is running over
I don't know what to do
My cup is running over
I don't know what to do
No I don't know [no I don't know] no I don't know
[No I don't know] Yes I've got to cry, cry, cry
People let me cry, cry, cry
Said I fell a little bit better [cry, cry, cry]
If only I got to cry, cry, cry
Now that I, lost you
I've lost the best friend
That I ever knew
Now that I, realize
It makes me [makes me] it makes me [makes me]
So mad, tell you, my cup, running over
I don't know what to do
My cup is running over
I don't know what to do
No I don't know [no I don't know] no I don't know
[No I don't know] Yes I've got to cry, cry, cry
People let me [cry, cry, cry]
[Cry, cry, cry]
[Cry, cry, cry]
Now that I, lost you
I've lost the best friend that I ever knew
Now that I, realize
It makes me [makes me] it makes me [makes me]
So mad, tell you my cup, cup, is running over baby
And I don't know what to, don't know what to do yeah
Tell you my cup, running over
And I don't know, don't know, don't know what to do
Eh
No I don't know [no I don't know] no I don't know
[No I don't know] Yes I've got to cry, cry, cry
People let me [cry, cry, cry]
I'll feel a little bit better [cry, cry, cry]
But I got [feel like crying] [cry, cry, cry]
Ooh yeah [feel like crying] [cry, cry, cry]
Ooh yeah [feel like crying] cry, cry, cry [feel like crying]
Cry, cry

¸¨°º¤¤º°¨ ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¸„ø¤º°¨
¨°º¤ø„¸ Bob Marley,„ø¤º°¨
¸„ø¤º°¨ LEGEND ¤ø„¸
¸„ø¤º°¨¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸ ¨°º¤ø„

Mr. Chatterbox how long will you live?
Always to receive but never to give
Always carry news all over the place
Mr. Chatterbox you are a big disgrace
You cheek and you tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around
Bif, baf, boof, those are the blows you're gonna get
Mr. Talkative, I know you will regret
Mr. Chatterbox how long will you liv
Always to receive but never to give
Always carry news all over the place
You cheek, cheek, cheek, and tounge, tounge, tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around, hey
Bif-an, baf-an, boof, those are the blows you're gonna get, hey
Mr. Talkative I know you will regret
Mr. Chatterbox how long will you live?
Always to receive but a never to give
Always carry news all over the place
Mr. Chatterbox you are a big disgrace
You cheek and tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around
Bif-an, baf-an, boof-an, thats the blows you gonna get
Mr. Chatterbox, I know you will regret
Ooh yeah
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah
[Watch him] Mr. Chatterbox
[Who's-he, who's-he, who's-he, who's-he]
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah

French Saison Brett: Brettanomyces Experimentation...the funky train!

2011-03-10T15:48:00.027-06:00

_____________________________________________________________________

Dank Funk: get your freak on people cause we about to get extremely funky up in this shit!

_____________________________________________________________________

Most of the beer world thinks beer is beer and for the most part...yellow fizzy beer. When I explain Lager yeast, and Ale yeast to a non craft beer drinker I typically get a "does not compute" and overwhelmed look on their face, or they just don't care. Talking Lager and Ale with an unknowing person will certainly put you into "beer geek" status in a lot of peoples minds. Obviously this is very basic shit in brewing and in the craft beer industry. With Ale's and Lager's now you have Brett.

Just so you now...

Brettanomyces is also yeast!

I'm about to make another beer in the ever expanding Dank Funk series line up. My first one in the line up is my Flanders Style Red Ale that is currently getting funkier and funkier by the day!

Now....I'm looking to try some isolated Brett strains to understand their capabilities as funktifyers! I'm a huge fan of Goose Island - Sofie, and Boulavard - Saison Brett...so I thought I'd give it my best shot at creating a funky saison like this.

I do have White Labs Brett C in my fridge though so that will definitely be one of the experiments. I've read from Michael at the Mad Fermentationist that Brett C can give Pineapple flavors to a beer and I think that may work really well with this Saison. Ryan over at Ryans Brews has recommended Brett L. as a nice fruity Brett that I think will also work extremely well with this recipe!

I don't know a ton about Brett, but what I do know is from reading those two "funky" blogs, and also tasting a bunch of commercial funky beers over the last couple of years. Some of these beers have been fantastic, some good, some not as good, and some down right nasty (IMO).

Here is my recipe. 10 gallon batch. 5 Gallons with Brett C, and 5 gallons with Brett L.

French Saison with Brett (C and L)

Batch size: 10 gallons

malt & fermentables

Original Gravity

1.040

Final Gravity

1.000

Color

4° SRM / 7° EBC

(Yellow)

Mash Efficiency 71%

hops

Bitterness

26.8 IBU

Alcohol

5.25% ABV

I'll mash at around 149-150 degrees so I have a highly fermentable wort. I want this to finish really dry!

Here is my plan for fermentation.   Create a small starter of Wyeast French Saison to be pitched with the equivalent of one smack pack into each 5 gallon batch. Create a large starter of WLP645: Brett C. and a large starter of Wyeast 5526: Brett L.   Oxygenate as usual.   Pitch each 5 gallons with a small amount of WY French Saison and the large starter of Brett. I want these to come out funky, and I think that this is the best way to go about it.   I'll let these both ferment in primary for about 2-3 months at around 65-68 degrees.   Sample and bottle them when they are ready.   I may dry hop them depending on how the flavor is at bottling time.

Bottle with sugar to have medium to high carbonation, and bottle condition to age for as long as possible.

3.27.11 - Brew day went really well.   Beautiful spring day in Minneapolis. Brewed in the garage with assistant BrewDog - Nala.   March pump worked awesome with the shut off on the 'out' side!   Mashout, Sparge, all worked great!   Evaporation rate was pretty huge and I ended up with only 9 gallons so I split it into 4.5 gallon portions.   I had created a yeast starter of French Saison yeast from one smack pack. I like to under pitch this yeast.   (basically the equivalent of one smack pack per 4.5 gallons) I also did starters for the two Brett strains but I don't think I got much activity out of it in the two days it had before brew day.   Hopefully it woke them up a bit so that they are ready to start eating away at the sugars. Mashed in at 151 and after 70 minutes it was at 149. Sparged at 167 for 20 minutes.   70 minute boil. Didn't take a gravity reading but it's most likely around 1.045.   I really hope that this turns out!
***only thing that I'm worried about is that I strained the keggle right after the boil into two Ale Pales with out chilling it first. Then I brought them downstairs and chilled them with the chiller like normal. It only took like 20 minutes to chill both of them! My only worry is that I may have introduced some O2 into them while the wort was hot and draining. I did my best to keep the tubing at the bottom of the Ale Pales and it should be all good!
4.20.11 - Brett L. batch is smelling extremely sour. Brett C. batch is much more restrained. I might blend these in the end. We shall see.
4.27.11 - ONE MONTH since BREWDAY. I smelled my Brett L, and C Saison's last night, and the Brett L is much more complex with fruity, tart, sour smelling, and the Brett C is more barnyardy right now, and not a ton of fruit, citrus, or tartness in the smell. That Brett L Saison is going to be amazing!
5.23.11 - Both have finished at 1.000! Pellicle forming on the Brett L. It smells amazingly fruity and tart with a little bit of barnyard. Tasting the Brett L and the flavor is not as much fruit but more brett and finishes very dry and thin. Brett C. batch doesn't have any pellicle, and has a pronounced barnyard, horseblanket brett smell too it but the taste and flavor is more sweet pineapple and tropical fruit with some funk in there as well. Finishes more sweet then the Brett L. I'm wondering if I should bottle them, and let them sit in the bottle for a long time until they "finally come around" or if I should just dry hop the shit out of them with 75% Amarillo/ 25% Simcoe, and bottle it up!
6.21.11 - Sampled both again. Brett C batch definitely has some tropical fruit, pineapple going on as well as some brett funk. Brett L has massive pellicle now and mixed that up with the dry hops which should help to create a barrier for the oxygen. Not quite sure about this Brett L yet. Definitely funky brett going on. I decided that the orange spicyness of Amarillo would be a good dry hop mix as well as a little bit of Citra which will complement the tropical fruit. Citra smells like pure Mango and I think it'll complement this. Bottling in champagne bottles in 10 days and carbonating to 3 volumes.
7.12.11 - Bottled primarily in champagne bottles to 3 volumes of Co2. Plastic champagne caps seemed to fit extremely tight as well as the cages so I'm hoping for great results and proper carbonation in a couple of weeks.   They will carbonate and condition at 75-80 degrees in my upstairs attic until they are ready to drink!
7.27.11- First Sample of the Brett C. version - Fully carbed after 2 weeks in the bottle. Funky cheese in the nose to start off with. A little bit of citrus and fruity hop aroma getting through but not a ton.   I did dry hop it with Citra and Amarillo but the brett seems to have overpowered it. The taste is fantastic in the beginning through the middle with caramel, bread, wheatyness and hits you really dry and fruity on the end.   Not a ton of brett in the flavor. It finish's a bit weird, maybe astringent (I really don't know what astringent means though) It's got some kind of twang on the very end of the sip.   It'll be interesting to see how this ages.

1/29/12 - Only about half of the cheap plastic corks have help the carbonation.   These corks from Midwest brew supply don't work consistently for bottle conditioning. They do work for force carbonation though. I pulled All the plastic corks out. About half of them had held their carbonation. For those that were flat, I dropped 3 sometime 4 coopers tabs in them.   I had experimented with 2 coopers tabs but they were way under carbed.   For those that were still carbonated, I simply pulled the cork out, and crimped a bottle cap on really quickly.   These are going to be fantastic in the summer!

_____________________________________________________

Funk (music): funk is a state of mind...."Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, cause y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe...I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit."- George Clinton of P-funk

Funk (smell): a usually objectionable musky odor emanating from human underarms and genitalia, especially in the male but to a lesser extent the female, resulting from glandular secretions and bodily functions. Infrequent washing and rapid bacterial growth intensify the odor.

Funk (general): Soul + drugs = Funk

Dank: an expression frequently used by stoners and hippies for something of extremely high quality.

Decoction vs. Infusion Mash experiment with Abominable Snow Pilsner (v. 2011)

2011-03-06T13:28:00.006-06:00

So there is a ton of debate on homebrew forums about decoction mashing and the importance of decoction mashing for certain styles of beers.    Traditional Pilsners, Bocks, Wheats, etc. On one side there is the debate that it increases the melanoidins and "maltyness" that can't be attained other then with a decoction mash. On the other hand, there are those that believe that with today's fully modified malts, the decoction has no real purpose and an infusion mash does a perfectly fine job. While I do believe that today's malts don't need the traditional acid rest, and protein rest, I do think that there is some benefit to boiling the grains to gain traditional maltyness.

I decided that I'd find out for myself if it's worth it for me to do a decoction mash.   Since I already had brewed the Abominable Snow Pils with a decoction mash, and another tSnownami came around supplying me with another fresh batch of snow.....I decided that I was going to brew another batch of Abominable Snow Pils since it was very popular and 5 gallons went really fast last year.   I contemplated doing a Pilsner Urquel clone, or replicating my 2010 version, or even possible doing something like the Noble Pils, but the experimental, inquisitive part of my brain let me into the direction that it almost always does, which is experimentation to gain knowledge and experience.   This is why I decided to get the exact same ingredients and do the Abominable Snow Pilz with an infusion mash at the same step temperatures at which I did them for my decocted version. (148 degrees for 60 min, and 158 degrees for 30 min).

Double Infusion brew day.

Mashed in at 148, had come down to 145 by 60 minutes.
Stepped up the mash temp to 157 with 2 gallons of boiling water. Rest 30 minutes.

Batch sparged at 166, so a little low there. Wish I would've hit 168 like I did with the Decoction.
Overall, very close to what I had done with the decoction mash
I collected a little too much wort so I boiled some down in a seperate pot. This is going to be the main difference. It may lend some caramely flavors, but it shouldn't be any more then what was produced during the decoction steps.
I ended up with about 5.5 gallons. Dumped the yeast cake from the decoction batch onto to this batch at 57 degrees.   Sitting in my fridge at 49 degrees and should take off much faster then decoction batch.

OG: 1.057
FG: 1.012

Difference's: (for experimental purposes)
1. Snow water from two distinct snow storms. One that swept all the way across the nation, and then another that was an Alberta Clipper.
2. Infusion: Second mash-step and sparge were both one degree lower then the decoction brew day.
3. Infusion: I collect extra wort to boil down a little bit. Boiled down 1 1/2 gallons down to a thick 2 quarts then poured back into main boil at the very end of the 75 minute boil
4. Infusion: I ended up with about 5.5 gallons.
5. Decoction: I used three smack packs. Infusion I used the yeast cake from the Decoction batch.
6. Surprisingly, the effeciencies turned out pretty similar. I was expecting the decoction to end up at a much higher effeciency. Infusion mash 71% vs. Decoction 74%

***I'll update in a few months when we do a side by side (blind) tasting of this beer!

TASTING NOTES-   It was decided that the infusion mash was the better of the two beers in a blind taste test by my homebrew club.   It's safe to say that you can make a great Pilsner without doing the decoction step.   It isn't exactly safe to say that I'm the best at even performing a decoction mash...yet. Here are my notes as I remember them.

Infusion Version: A-
Appearance - Extremely clear dark straw colored Pilsner. Fluffy white head that dissipated and leaves a sticky lacing. Looking good!
Aroma -Malty and bready with a bit of citrus in the nose.   Very pleasant. I'm always amazed at how much aroma FWH (First Wort Hopping) provides to a beer.
Flavor - Flavor hits you up front with some caramel malts and slight toastyness. Middle of the sip is really smooth (assuming from the Snow as the water source), and the finish of the sip hits you with a nice bitterness from the Saaz hops.   About exactly what I was going for!
Mouthfeel - Mouthfeel is nice and smooth, Thin to Medium Mouthfeel, and Medium carbonation.
Overall - This version turned out really well!   I'd probably ton down the FWH's a little bit and maybe take it down 5-10 IBU's.   Also add a little more toastyness, maybe a small portion of biscuit malt (?)   This was absolutely the better batch of the two. You could also increase the body a tiny bit by adding the Melanoidin Malt.   My homebrew club thought that this one was by far the better version and they all assumed it was the decocted version. It was darker in color, clearer, and just all around more balanced.

Decoction Version: B-
Appearance - Hazy light straw colored Pilsner even after months of lagering. Fluffy white head that dissapated and leaves lacing on the side of the glass.

Aroma -A bit bready but the malt is really overpowered by the Hops (?) Did I use US Saaz or something(?).   This is not exactly what I was looking for.

Flavor - Malty up front, but not as smooth in the middle as the infusion. The end of the sip is much more bitter and astringent then expected, and the hops are citrusy, but also have a vegetal quality (jalapeno?) I'm wondering if I didn't quite do the decoction right and that I possibly got some astringent tannins.
Mouthfeel - Mouthfeel is nice and smooth, Thin to Medium Mouthfeel, and Medium carbonation.

Overall - Not sure what happened to this beer.   My hop schedule was the same, but for some reason the hop profiles of these two beers are extremely different.   This beer definitely has some off flavor going on that I can't put my finger on. Not as smooth as the infusion version, more bitter, and something just off. Not clean and wonderful, and malty like I was expecting.

Conclusion (1) - It's possible that I used US Saaz(?) accidentally for this version which would account for the higher bitterness.   Not sure what that vegetal flavor was from though(?)
Conclusion (2) - I guess it's possible that I didn't boil all of the DMS out, or possible infection could have created that vegetal flavor, but it didn't really taste like DMS.
Conclusion (3) - It's also possible that my process was not exactly perfect for the Decoction.   The only thing that I can think of is that I didn't pull decoctions from the absolute thickest part of the mash and somehow this contributed to extra tannins and bitterness and somehow interacted with the hops differently then the infusion mash version.
Conclusion (4) - and this would be the worst case scenario. (1) + (2) + (3) = (4)

Either way, this experiment didn't come out exactly as planned and I'll most likely be doing something like this again.   What I plan on doing is to do a few more decoction batch's to get my decoction mash process down pat! If these turn out the way that I want them, then I'll do another side by side at that point.

Bell’s Hopslam vertical tasting! 2007_2010_2011

2011-03-04T09:39:00.003-06:00

Okay, I know what you’all are thinking right away. A Bell’s Hopslam vertical tasting? Who is this idiot? Who ages Bell’s Hopslam? Well…it’s a bit of a long story. It all started off when I bought three-6 packs of Hopslam last year. My uncle had been raving about it as the best beer he’s ever had. I thoroughly enjoyed my Hopslams but as a homebrewer I have a ton of beer around and at 10+% it took me a while to get through even two of the 6-ers, so after a month I had it sitting around my bar. Then, my buddy came over to my house and saw the Hopslam sitting around and he says…

JJ- You like that stuff?

Nick – Yeah it’s fucking fantastic, why?

JJ- I got a six pack of that stuff at my house from a couple of years ago.

Nick- Oh really?.. I say.

JJ- Yeah man….I’ll give em too you, you can have em for sure.***

***The reason my buddy had a 6-er of Hopslam lying around is because of his first experience with the stuff. He bought it in 07, the second year it was released. In Minnesota, DIPA’s were non-existent at that time and not knowing the strength of this high alcohol, yet extremely drinkable beer, drank an entire 6 pack of Hopslam in one sitting. That’s like 15 regular beers! Needless to say, he didn’t feel too good the next day, hell, the next couple days. I’m pretty sure this is what went down….

He felt so crappy that he didn’t want to touch another Hopslam ever again. Hench his 6-pack sitting at his house with his fine wines for 3 years!

That is how I came across vintage Hopslam and the reason why I hid some of the 2010 vintage from last year. Long story right?

2011 2010 2007

Here are the juicy details and results of this epic tasting of arguably one of the best beers in the world.

Appearance –

2007 – Dark orange in color with a murky haze. Darker then the rest. Foams up initially and then head dissipates quickly.

2010 – Orange in color and a little cloudy but fairly clear. Not as dark as the 07, but darker then the 11. Once again, the head builds up and then dissipates quickly.

2011- Brilliant orange color, Crystal clear, pours with a nice head, but once again dissipates quickly.

****As this beer ages, it definitely gets more haze, a shade darker, and looses head retention.

Aroma -

2007 – This smells a bit like a barley wine, malt, caramel, and honey is ever present. Almost smells like a mead at this point. Hops are not there at at. Can detect a bit of oxidation in the smell. A bit musty, but very complex. Inviting!

2010 - This smells basically like a barley wine. Not much hops in the nose, but the malt comes through very well with caramel, toffee, and honey.

2011 – Pineapple, citrus, and slight bit of piney hops are ever present. As you pop the top on the beer, a rush of hops essence is sent dancing around the room.

Taste -

2007 – The flavor of this one is all malt, caramel, and honey. A slight bitterness on the end that doesn’t exactly taste like it’s from the hops. The alcohol can’t hide behind anything as the malts have definitely mellowed leaving mostly the honey in the flavor. Hops are non-existent.

2010 - Tastes like a barely wine that’s been aged. Malty, caramely, honey. The hops are still there a little bit on the end. Definitely good but lacking the hop complexity.

2011 – Starts of with juicy hops, malt, and caramel, and through the middle you get the nice thick burst of tropical fruits, mango, pineapple, grapefruit, and then towards the end you get the rush of piney bitterness mixed with the slight alcohol. The alcohol is mostly overshadowed by the bitterness when it’s this fresh.

Mouthfeel

2007 – thin

2010 – Medium-Full bodied mouthfeel, okay carbonation. Sweet and dry

2011 – Medium-Full bodied mouthfeel with good carbonation- not syrupy like most DIPA. It’s also sweet and dry on the end with a slight touch of bitterness

Overall

2007 – Very interesting to taste this beer aged for so long. It’s almost like it’s a completely different beer. . It’s an extremely unique aged beer that you couldn’t even come close to replicating in a fresh beer. Since it’s brewed with a large portion of honey, the malt, and honey especially take the forefront of the flavor over time as the hops fade. It’s thinner and mellow, and very drinkable.

2010 – This is a tasty beer still as the malt base is definitely really good. It’s drinkable

2011 – This is absolutely amazing. Fresh hops take the cake on this one. The honey restrains the bitterness by giving a nice sweet punch at you. The honey also dries the beer out a bit and leaves it tasting thinner in the mouthfeel and less syrupy.

Conclusion-

Although this was a fun experiment and learning experience in aged beer, my only conclusion is that HOPSLAM IS BEST AS FRESH AS POSSIBLE!!! Yes, the aged versions were fantastic. But fresh it is truly something special. I will be drinking up all of the hopslams I have right away starting with the 2011 first. If you do accidentally have some hopslam in the cellar, my suggestion would to wait to drink it for 3 or more years. By that time it’s a completely different beer!

March 31st Meeting for the Twin Cities Coop Brewery at Grumpy's in Roseville (7pm-9pm)

2011-03-03T09:32:00.002-06:00

Twin Cities Coop Brewery is putting together another exploratory meeting on March 31st at Grumpy's in Roseville from 7-9pm. This a pretty nice central location for all in the Twin Cities, so please come on out to the meeting. This will happen much faster if we get a lot of people interested, and a lot of people involved. Especially if you have skillz! Come on out!

Facebook page for Twin Cities Community Brewery

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Headwaters Ale Wyeast ACT1000 vs. Wyeast American Ale II - 1272 for Black IPA

2011-03-01T14:17:00.007-06:00

We as homebrewers we like to experiment......er.....At least I do. And I'm constantly splitting batch's and experimenting with different aspects of beer. I've been trying to be more scientific about it so I actually learn something. That means, only changing one variable at a time. I got some wort from the Brau Brothers Black Ale and split it into two batch's. With the Brau Brothers beer, I'm doing a yeast experiment. I thought, is there a better time then now to try the new Midwest Brew Supplies new yeast strain. now that I think about it, I should've done a Midwest Brew Supply vs. Northern Brewer yeast strain competition...I guess that's for another time! I used 2 smack packs each of the new Midwest Brew Supply strain - Headwaters Ale and then also a favorite yeast of mine American Ale II - 1272.

Here are the initial details-
10 gallons at 1.058 or 14 Brix
2 smack packs each (Headwaters / Amer. Ale II)
Fermented at 64 degrees for 3 weeks
Transferred to secondary

Here are my initial observations:

Both the 1272 and the Headwaters 1000 took off in about the same time frame..12 hours. The wort was properly aerated. Both had massive blow-off issues.

I didn't observe much difference in the fermentation. Both varieties had large krausens and blowoffs for almost a full week. Huge 4+ inch krausens on both. Then they both chugged along for another few days.   I made sure that they both fully fermented out by giving them an extra long primary fermentation and carefully shaking them a bit to get the yeast back into suspension.

Transferring to secondary there were definitely some differences.

Headwaters Ale -FG (1.008) 6.4% ABV- Seemed to be a Low to Medium Flocculation that produced a very murky looking beer that definitely needs some additional conditioning.    The FG may have come down lower because more yeast was in suspension for a longer period of time. This makes me think that it will produce a dryer end product then a typical American Ale yeast, ie, 1056, 1272. Taste was similar to the 1272 but was a little bit less full in the mouth-feel and less malt characteristic shined through.
***There was a thin layer of slime, like krausen at the top of the beer. At first I thought...shit, it's infected. Tasted perfectly fine though.

American Ale II - FG (1.010) 6.3% ABV- Seemed to be a Medium to High Flocculation that produced a very clear beer. Taste was nice and malty, a bit thick, hops shined through as this was a highly hopped Black Ale

Black IPA SIDE-by-SIDE tasting results -
4.16.11- Sampled side by side at the Nordeast Home Brew Club monthly meeting. The Headwaters poured extremely cloudy even after 2 months in carboys and cold crashed for 3 days. The 1272 was extremely clear. The hops shined through much more in the version of with the cleaner, crisper American Ale II. The malt dominated the Headwaters Ale yeast.   The room was fairly divided as to which version people liked for this particular style of beer. Some thought that the Headwaters mellowed out the hops which was a good thing. Others felt like the American Ale II let the hops shine through and that was desired for this style.   So, the general consensus was that if you want the hops to shine through then utilize a highly flocculent yeast like Wyeast Amer. I or II. If you want to go with a more malty beer, then the Headwaters Ale will do just fine.

Surly Brewing Company – FIVE year Anniversary and EXPANSION plans!

2011-02-23T15:21:00.001-06:00

This is a post I did for a national beer blog that I'm writing for now, I thought I'd share it on the Dank Blog as well! It's a little bit more formal then I usually get, and i typically just write about my own brewing and shit, but I'm hoping to get some free beers out of this new venture! Cheers! Nick

Surly Brewing Company is a local Minnesota brewery which sent the Minnesota beer scene into a frickin frenzy 5 years ago and they’re still shakin things up to this day. Minnesota in 2006 at the time Surly began brewing, had only a few big breweries that were putting out very traditional beers. Summit (Ales) and Schell’s(Lagers) were the only real players in the Region. Surly had a unique situation in Minnesota, they didn’t strive to put out traditional beers that people wanted, they strove to put out beers that people didn’t realize they wanted.   Five years ago you couldn’t find a 100 IBU IPA on the shelves in Minnesota until Surly’s Furious hit the shelves and freaked everyone’s palates out.   Thus the beer revolution of Minnesota began!

Now, Five years later this month and Surly is putting on parties all across the Twin Cities area at Pubs and Restaurants that were early adopters of their bold products.   Not only do they have casks of their normal line up, but they are also releasing my favorite Surly beer to date, Pentagram, a 100% Brett Barrel aged beer that reminds me of a slightly less sour Flanders Red Ale.   It’s a fantastic beer by Surly and a direction that I hope they continue in.   It’s obvious to me that the new direction the craft beer is heading is towards Sour/Funky beers.   Surly’s first foray into this territory is extremely successful and ended up pulling in a first place “The Great Snow Shoe Award” at the Minnesota Brewer’s Guild – Winterfest earlier this month!

In addition to all the hoopla about Surly’s five year anniversary, Surly also announced this month that they are planning a $20 million dollar brewery expansion project that includes a new huge brewery connected to a brewpub, outdoor patio, and event center. They are calling it a “Destination Brewery”. The only issue is, Minnesota state legislation currently won’t allow them to sell beer on site.   Surly is getting Surly once again and looking to change the local laws and regulations.   All they want to do is sell beer, that they produce, on site at their own brewery. Nothing more, nothing less.   I hope that Surly is allowed to build this destination brewery as it would be a huge boost to our local economy with a projected 150 new jobs created.

A $20 million dollar brewery expansion, after only 5 years of being in business! Now that’s a success story!   A success story that tells you that not only do you need a great product, but you also need great marketing, communication, and vision in this industry!
If you’ve never had a Surly beer before, hopefully this expansion happens and they are able to manage greater distribution while maintaining their high quality.

Breaking NEWS….If you are a homebrewer, good news, Todd Haug (Surly’s Brewer) recently put out a Pro-series of beers with local St. Paul homebrew store Northern Brewer where you can re-create most of the Surly line of beers including Furious, Cynic, Bender, Smoke, and Bitter Brewer!

Brau Brothers - Ring Neck Braun Ale Vertical tasting...

2011-02-07T18:57:00.003-06:00

So, I was at the Brau Brothers Brewery / Farm this last weekend and I was raving to the Brau's about how I feel that their Braun Ale is my favorite locally made Brown Ale.   If you haven't had it, it's extremely flavorful and very intense on the malt specifically raisin, and rum flavors.   As a brewer I associate these flavors with Belgian Dubbels typically and either Begian Special B or Crystal 120 to impart this type of malt characteristic in a beer.   While I was talking to Dustin about the beers of his that I really like, I remembered that I have an 09 Braun Ale, and an 10 Braun Ale in my cellar.   See in 09 they had a really simple label, and when they came out with their new labels I bought up a 6 pack of the new version and my 2 remaining with the old label.   Not sure why I cellared them...I guess because it's a big robust flavorful brown ale that I thought would age well and mellow.   Here we go... I'm gonna drink em and see what happens to an aged Brau Brothers Ring Neck Braun Ale.

2009 Braun Ale vs. 2010 Braun Ale

Appearance-
A beautiful brown color with ruby highlights. The 09 looks a little darker. The head is really low on the 09 and falls away quickly, and the 2010 is a little bigger and sticks around a little longer.

Aroma -
Both of them are of boozy raisins. The 09 is a little more melow and woodsy, and musty smelling.

Flavor -
2010 -The flavor is mostly really sweet malt, raisins, but the underlying flavor is chocolate raspberry. Like you are biting into a piece of chocolate with a raspberry filling.
2009 - The flavor has mellowed, but still sweet malt of raisin. The raspberry flavor has subsided now and the plum, raisin dark fruit is shining through more.   More sessionable since it's mellowed.

Mouthfeel-
Both of them have a medium bodied mouthfeel but maybe a little thin. Helps make it more drinkable though. Carbonation is a bit lower on the 09 version.

Overall-
This is a really smooth Brown ale that is nutty, fruity, like rum raisins, and with a very unique taste of raspberries.   Really not much changed in the appearance, and aroma from aging this one, but the flavor definitely mellowed, and the raspberry flavor almost completely subsides with a year or more in the cellar. This is a fantastic Brown Ale, and I can't wait to finish these two pints!

Brau Brothers group brew day!

2011-02-05T21:13:00.059-06:00

Today I drove down to South Western Minnesota to an exeptional brewery, Brau Brothers, in Lucan, MN. The brewery started out as a 2 BBL brew pub many years ago, 11 years ago maybe, as the brain child of Dustin Brau. At the Brau Haus they couldn't keep up with demand so.... they bought up a 15 BBL brewhouse and now after 5 years are really picking up steam! Literally, they use steam to boil their beer!

Today started off with a nice drive through rolling hills from Minneapolis. Actually, there wasn't one hill along the way until I hit Redwood Falls. It was a nice easy drive though. The Brau Brothers had a Group Brew day which I was lucky enough to get involved with. The Brau's put on a Homebrew contest each year where they take the winners recipe and brew up on their own equipment for distribution. This year the distribution of the winning American Black Ale, (CDA, Black IPA, etc) will primarily be distributed in South Dakota, with a few select locations in the Twin Cities receiving kegs, and 750 bottles. Dustin Brau lead the show, and encouraged all 20-30 of us to dough in, stir the mash, clean the lauter tun, and basically...if you wanted to participate in the brew day, you really could. It's a fantastic idea. You can only learn basic concepts from most brewery tours, but this hands on approach really helps you understand the intricate steps within the process demystifying a typical brew day! I can't say enough about the Brau Brothers family. They are just straight up, really good, story tellin, card playin, easy going brewers, just doing a really good job brewing quality beer. They are also growing hops, barley, and rye, and I'm sure some other things. There hops are on their 4th year of growth and they clearly are doing a good job as hop farmers because their Wet Hop Ale this year was frickin fantastic. If you haven't tried their 100 Yard Dash - fresh Hop, you may still be able to find a random 6er on the shelves of your local liquor store if you're lucky. It was extremely bitter, flavorful, and a slight aroma of locally grown hops. I will say that they could've been a little more heavy handed on the hops at the end of the boil on that one. Their Ringneck Braun Ale is my favorite Brown Ale brewed in Minnesota by far.

Look for this Brau Brothers American Dark Ale to hit the shelves in a month or two, as well as new and more consistent seasonals from Brothers Brau. There was talk of a Saison in the near future being fermented at extreme temps so def excited for that! Keep up the good work beer brothers and fam. Can't wait to come out in the Summer and see the farm and brewery in it's summery glory!

I ended up walking away with a bunch of this sweet wort. I'll be doing some experimenting with this wort. I'm currently fermenting some on Wyeast 1272 which I think will complement this beer very well. The other portion will be fermented on the new Midwest Brew Supply yeast, Wyeast Headwaters Ale. Can't wait to see the difference between the two yeasts. In addition to that, I may split the wort for a dry hops experiment. All to be sampled at the March NE Homebrew club meetings!

Here is the recipe as I converted it to 5 gallons at 70 % effeciency.

malt & fermentables

Original Gravity

1.060

(1.054 to 1.063)

Final Gravity

1.015

(1.013 to 1.016)

Color

24° SRM / 47° EBC

(Brown to Dark Brown)

Mash Efficiency

70%

hops

Alcohol

6.0% ABV

Calories

198 per 12 oz.

The Brau Brewery

American Black Ale, contest winning homebrew recipe that was then brewed by the Brau Brothers!

Hop farm (1300 bines!?!)


Fantastically delicious Brau Beers! Very well done!

The beautiful serving vessels.

Dustin explaining the mash procedure

Spent grain after brew day

Dustin Brau ( Brewmaster Extraordinaire) and Myself after brew day!

Dustin racking out wort for the brewers to take home and ferment!

2011-02-04T15:08:00.001-06:00

Snow Beer (v.2011), Abominable Snow Pilz' slightly bigger and hoppier cousin

2011-01-31T14:19:00.012-06:00

Here we go again. So, this year in Minnesnota we've had a bit of the white stuff falling down. Tonight I'm gonna go home after work and start collecting snow for my annual freak of a beer, Abominable Snow Pilz! I wasn't sure if I'd get er done this year, but my wife encouraged me to do it again, and anytime the little lady encourages brewing is a good day! This is still the only beer that I've brewed that my mother has liked. Not only did my mom like this, it was liked by all. This year I'm lookin to make it a little bigger, and a little hoppier...which unfortunately, my mom probably won't like. Sorry Barb.

I'm looking at doing a decoction mash this year, but I'm gonna try a little different decoction schedule then the Mai Bock I did during tSnownami, (why didn't I use snow then?!?)

Here's the new recipe. Brew day shall be, as soon as I can get 10-12 gallons of water out of locally harvested snow from my front yard! I'll be using that snow (water) as my brewing water for mash/sparge! Probably this weekend!

malt & fermentables

Original Gravity

1.062

Final Gravity

1.011

Color

5° SRM / 10° EBC

(Yellow to Gold)

hops

yeast

Alcohol

7.0% ABV

Brew day notes 2.5.11
I did a double decoction:

infuse 6 gal to get first step of 148F for 60 minutes
with 30 minutes left, pull 2 gallons for decoction 1 of thick mash, heat decoction 1 to 158F, let it rest for 10 minutes, then heat to a boil for remaining 15 minutes of Mash rest.
return decoction 1 slowly to main mash, until you get to 158F in main mash. Any remainder should be cooled to 158 then added in but I ended up getting it perfect with the full decoction.
Immediately pull 2 1/2 gallons for decoction 2 and bring it to boil during this 30 minute 158F mash rest.
Returned decoction 2 to main mash, to reach 170F.

I ended up with 4 gallons so I sparged another 2 1/2 gallons tap water.

6 gallons MN snow water + 2 1/2 gallons Minneapolis tap water

***It should have a very nice smooth mouthfeel, and my process was not that much different then last year. I used about the same amount of Snow-to-tap water. Last year I did an infusion mash with a protein step. This year I skipped the protein step and did a decoction mash with saccrification steps.

I'll ferment this in primary for 2 weeks or so at 48 degrees. Then I'll take it up to 70 degrees for a diacetyl rest which is pretty essential with the Bohemian Pilsner yeast. Then I'll transfer to secondary and lager it at 35 degrees for a month or two.

Flanders Style - American Wild Red Ale

2011-01-20T15:38:00.043-06:00

Okay, here we go! This will be my first foray into the sour beer brewing world. 2 years ago I didn't even know that a sour beer existed. Then I had a Berliner from New Glarus, and my world turned upside down. Then I had that New Glarus Old English Porter and the vinegary flavor of that freaked me out and I got turned upside down again. The next month I stumbled upon an awesome event thanks to mnbeer.com and went to Where the Wild Beers Are. The month after that event,I thought....those people are crazy. Then something happened inside of me...deep down, bugs were growing, and multiplying in the very depths and the soul of my palate. I starting craving these funky, funky, wild ales. My brewhouse (Sir Dankhouse) has been worried about this moment that is about to commence, the moment the relentless bugs will come in contact with the beauty and shine of his clean and shiny surfaces. He(Sir Dankhouse...my brewhouse) has feared these creepy, sour bugs for fear of completely turning it's master to the darkside of the funk. Due to his valid concerns...I have made a promise to my beloved brewhouse to always keep my new found dichotomous nature in tact, only bringing the funk and the clean together when completely necessary to blend and mellow, and always with careful deliberation.

Okay...that was weird. Anyways. Here's what's up.

Recipe- Jamil's Flander's Red Ale recipe, but with American ingredients.

***I'm planning on Making this recipe, and then making the actual version of Jamil's recipe with imported malts and hops in order to try and taste the difference between American equivalents of Imported grains. Probably not the best beer to try that on, because this is going to take a year and a half to finish. Maybe I'll try that with another recipe. A Belgian Dubbel maybe.

Dank Funk Red Ale

%     LB OZ Malt        ppg   °L
54% 8   0 Briess Bonlander Munich      30     10
29% 4   8     Rahr Pilsner Malt                    34   2
7%    1 0     Rahr Flaked Corn (Maize) 40    1
3%    0   8     Briess American Crystal 80L 33    80
3%    0 8 Briess American Crystal 120L 34   120
3%    0   8     Rahr White Wheat Malt           34    5
         15

Original Gravity
1.070? (oops, spilled the glass that had my sample)
Final Gravity
1.008? or lower hopefully
Color
19° SRM / 36° EBC
(Light Brown to Medium Brown)

hops
time oz    variety           form    aa
FWH 60+ mins 1.0     US Goldings pellet 5.0
FWH 60+ mins 1.0    Willamette     pellet 5.5

30 IBU

Alcohol
8% ABV

Yeast
Wyeast 1056 yeast cake and Wyeast 3763 | Roeselare Ale Blend - Belgian style ale strain, a sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus culture, and a Pediococcus culture.

I've got everything I need. The malt, the hops, the yeast(bugs), and the water. Empty better bottle, check. Time, check.

Brew day to come very soon. Please chime in if you have any knowledge of Wild Ales.
I'm planning on mashing this at 156 degrees so that the Belgian yeast doesn't have as much to work with, and so that the Funky yeast/bacteria have some complex sugars to break down for a nice sour ale. Planning on fermenting this at around 68 degrees for 12-18 months.

1.26.11 - Brewed last night. I came out to be exactly the color that I wanted it. It's a beautiful orangish-redish hue, kinda like Red Rock in Utah. Mashed at 156 for 60 minutes, sparged at 167 for 30 minutes. Boiled for 70 minutes, and cooled it down to 70 degrees with a wort chiller in about 15 minutes, maybe less. I had a sample ready to do a gravity reading and I knocked it over so I don't have a gravity reading unfortunately. It was very sticky though! I pitched it on top of the yeast cake of Wyeast 1056 from my American Dark Ale as well as the pack of Wyeast Roeselare Blend. It was actively fermenting 2 hours later! This beer is INFECTED!

2.6.10 - Drinking a New Belgium La Folie and dumped the dregs of this sour brown into primary with the other bugs to up the diversity and complexity.
2.25.11 - Kevin and I took a sample and a hydrometer reading. It's only down to 1.026 which was a little surprising. I really was assuming it was going to be down to around 1.015 or lower already. As expected, it doesn't taste great. It wasn't sour at all, but did have a bretty horseblanket flavor. Smelled a little bit like funky cheese as well. Hopefully my IBU level isn't too high which may prohibit the souring bugs.
3.4.11 - Have this sitting in my basement at 59 degrees and all of the sudden it has vigirous fermentation action again....hmmm wonder what's going on in there?
3.16.11 - Pulled a sample out to taste and take a reading. It's definitely starting to come around and smell and taste more like intended. The sourness is coming on a bit and taking over the brett. Hydrometer reading was at 1.002 so it's safe to say that there isn't much left to ferment. Hopefully this gets nice an acidic over the next 12 months!
6.23.11 - Sampled again and tested gravity. Maybe came down one more point. Taste isn't great right now. Drank a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin - La Roja and dumped the dregs into the mix!   This isn't acidic at all right now so need to get the acid going in this a bit. Also used the dregs from De Proef Flemish Primitive Wild Ale (Demon Fish)
9.11.11 - Dregs from Surly 5 went in which has Brett A. Also one oz. of medium toast French Oak went in that had been boiled for an hour and then soaked in Chardonnay for 1 month. Took a sample and it's definitely getting more sour. Nothing crazy yet, but it's changed sooo much. It's much thinner now, much less malt flavor, and the brett is starting to get overpowered by the acidity.
12.18.11 - Transferred 3 gallons to a 3 gallon better bottle for long term aging. This 3 gallons will hopefully get pretty sour over the next 1-2 years. I may feed it some Maltodextrin eventually. I plan on using this portion to blend if it does get really sour...if not, then I'll just bottle it as is. the sample is tasting pretty dang good! Caramel, Cherries, and tartness in the nose. Flavor is a little oaky, cherries, and finish's a little sweet. I wouldn't say it's sufficiently sour yet though. It's really tasty right now and would be a good entry level sour for someone who hasn't tried one before.
With the other 3 gallons of Flanders I added 4 lbs of local tart cherries that I picked this summer. I tasted the juice of this and they are definitely nice and tart!   I'll let this sit for at least 6 months and then I'll probably bottle them up or age a little longer!
1.29.12 - Sampled the 3 gallon plain batch and it really smells, tastes, and looks amazing. It tastes so similar to rodenbach, but maybe even better. I'm going to bottle one beer out of it, and carb it up to sample. That will give me a good base line on how to bottle and carbonate the rest of the batch.

Northeast Homebrew Club - SINGLE HOP TASTING this SATURDAY!

2011-01-12T14:27:00.004-06:00

So, my people of NE Minneapolis, we've got our big Single Hop IPA Tasting this Saturday at our new NE Homebrew HQ at Pracna on Main at 4 pm. That is once again, this Saturday at 4 pm at Pracna! Hope ya'll can make it. We're gonna be making some big decisions this week about future 2011 club events. You really won't want to miss it I assure you. (completely talking out of my ass there) Hopefully Nathan has something on the agenda! SINGLE HOP TASTING COMIN TO YOUR TOWN!

Remember...bitch's ain't shit but ho's and trick's... was a total lie and fabrication. They are cool, and totally encouraged to brew and join the club.

Hops-

Amarillo
Cascade from Hippity Hops Farms
Citra
Simcoe
Sorachi Ace
Fuggles(?)
Northern Brewer

Cheers,

Nick L. Bag

American Black Ale,Cascadian Dark, Black IPA, Bitter Black Ale, Hoppy Dark ale

2011-01-11T09:16:00.008-06:00

Dark Embrace_Bitter End-American Black Ale
It's been exactly a month since my last brew day which is probably the longest I've gone between brew sessions in almost 2 years. If you've seen my blog lately it consists mostly of gangster rap, which is all good because that's where my roots are growing up in P-town in the 90's.   Nothing screams gangsta like a bunch a white boys in suburbia with bumps in the trunk.   But, I'd like to bring it back up to where this blog should be which is brewing beer.

Late last year, 2010, my homebrew club, Northeast Homebrew Club, decided to do a Single Hops IPA experiment. We'll be tasting the five IPA's on the 15th and I'm really pumped for that. Since I'm on an experimental IPA kick, I decided that I might as well do a Black IPA, or CDA, or whatever you wanna call it. I'm getting all crazy with the hops in this one with a goal of mixing Piney, and Citrus hops successfully with the flavor being more Citrus, and the Aroma being more Piney. Hopefully this hop bill will create this effect. I think that the aroma of piney and roasted malts will play together nicely, and then a backbone of burned Citrus(Centennial hops?) will really make for a nice Black IPA. I think I'll add the Carafa III in the last 20 minutes of the mash to reduce the roasted flavors typically derived from a full pound of this specialty grain.

Here's what I'm looking at!

%     LB OZ Malt      ppg °L
60% 9    0 American Two-row Pale (organic)    37   1
20% 3    0 Vienna Malt                                      36   3
7%   1    0 Carafa III (added last 20 minutes) 32 525
7% 1    0 Flaked Oats                                     33 2
3%   0    8 American Crystal 60L                   34 60
3%   0    8 American Dextrin (Cara-Pils)    33 1
        15 0
Original Gravity
1.074
Final Gravity
Color
39° SRM / 76° EBC
(Black)

hops    oz   variety          aa

first wort 60+ mins 1.0 Columbus 15.4
first wort 60+ mins 1.0 Chinook        13.0

boil 60 mins            0.5 Magnum       14

boil 20 mins           1.0 Centennial 10.0

boil 15 mins           0.25 Columbus   15.4
boil 15 mins           0.25 Centennial 10.0

boil 10 mins           0.25 Centennial   10.0
boil 10 mins           0.25 Columbus    15.4

boil 1 min              0.5 Columbus      15.4
boil 1 min    0.5 Centennial    10.0
boil 1 min              1.0 Chinook       13.0

dry hop 0.5 Centennial     10.0
dry hop                 1.0 Simcoe    13.0
dry hop               1.0 Chinook        13.0

Bitterness
100+ IBU
Alcohol
7.5% ABV

Brew day shall be, whenever I get the time in the next week! Today, tomorrow, we shall see. I'll update with actual OG, and brew day notes.

1.15.11 - Brew day went pretty dang smooth. Crushed the grains. Mashed in at 153 held for 60 minutes. After 40 minutes I added in my 1 lb. of Carafa III.   After 60 minutes temp of mash had come down to 149. Might turn out to be a lighter mouth-feel then I wanted, but should be fine. Sparged at 166 for 20 minutes. Boiled for 60 minutes and added a whole bunch of C hops! Cooled in 10 minutes.   Gotta love that MN winter tap water at 45 degrees! Fermenting vigorously after 12 hours at 62 degrees! Came out extremely dark, and will probably be dark brown to black with a slight reddish, amber hue when held up to the light.   Roasted aroma and flavor were very subdued and almost non existent. We shall see.

3.14.11 - Steve's tasting notes. Very Black-Opaque. Little foam. Subtle Aroma-Matly?, Heavy mouthfeel. Bitter and Tasty and Fruity. Lingering dry finish. He said he'd give it a 11.5 on a 1-10 scale. I guess he liked it, and commented that he liked it better then Odell's Double Black IPA.    (I was actually inspired by this Odell beer because I thought it was way too sweet, and way too roasty and was trying to create something similar but less sweet, and less roasty.)

How things have changed. From Gangsta rap to Underground Hip Hop!

2011-01-07T11:48:00.000-06:00

use	time	amount	ingredient
boil	10 min	0.25 ounces	corriander
boil	10 min	0.0 liquid ozs	Grains of Paradise
boil	10 min	0.1 liquid ozs	Irish Moss
boil	10 min	0.25 ounces	Orange Peel, Bitter
boil	10 min	1 ounces	Rose Hips
boil	10 min	0.1 liquid ozs	Yeast Nutrient (WYeast)

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
92%	11	0	Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner	37	2
4%	0	8	American Crystal 10L	34	10
4%	0	8	Dextrin (CaraPils) Malt	33	2
	12	0