San Diego Beer Haul | Sour Beer | Saison | DIPA

 

A few weeks back I talked about my trip to San Diego and my trip to The Best Damn Beer Shop.   It was a truly great experience as I asked for some assistance so I wouldn't have to spend an hour browsing beers that I had no intention of buying.   A dude came down from the little upstairs office and helped point me in the direction of local Sours!   Boy-o-boy did he hook me up!

I grabbed the last Lost Abbey-Red Poppy on the shelf which is a beer that I've been trying to get my hands on for a long time.   My understanding is that this beer originated from an English Mild ale called Dawn Patrol Dark that Tomme Arthur created a long time ago to appease his Pizza Port drinkers that would request Newcastle Brown Ale.   He then took this recipe, tweaked it, put it in a barrel with funky Brett, and sour bacteria and dumped in a shit ton of cherries! 

The creation of Red Poppy reminds me of another story that I've heard rumored about.... New Belgium La Folie.  I'd heard that they had a barrel of Fat Tire go funky and they liked the results so much that they created a Sour beer recipe based on that accident which eventually turned into the amazing La Folie!   I guess the thing that I take from all this is that when you make a sour beer you must first start with a solid base beer and then figure out how to tweak the recipe in order to produce a phenomenal sour beer. 

Back to my beer haul....I picked up another bottle of Russian River Supplication (another beer aged in a barrel on cherries).   At the Whole Foods in Encinitas I stumbled upon a HUGE score...a Logsdon Brewery Seizoen Bretta!  Logsdon Farmhouse Ales is the brain child of Wyeast founder David Logsdon who opened up his Organic brewery about a year ago and took the time, money, and hassle of shipping traditional Lambic region Schaerbeek cherry trees from Belgium (or France)?   Anyways...pretty crazy and I couldn't believe I got me a bottle of this!

I got me a bottle of He'Brew Funky Jewbelation with is a Blend of a bunch of different beers aged in whiskey and bourbon barrels.   I just found out we'll we seeing that locally hear in Mpls...but oh well.

I got a Funky Tripel from Anchorage brewing, Saison Rue and Saison De Lente from The Bruery, Upright Four and Seven, Pizza Port Mongo DIPA, and Green Flash Palate Wrecker!   

Bam!  What a hook up!

Punch You In The EyePA & mr. minor | Partigyle

This beer all starts with my buddy Justin who wants to brew a big beer for the upcoming Phish tour.   He doesn't have brewing equipment, at least all-grain equipment and wanted me to brew up a big IPA to bring to a few Phish shows this summer.   He created a recipe called Punch You In The EyePA.   He wanted a really bitter bad ass DIPA and sent me over a recipe to make.  I ended up tweaking it a little bit to even out some of the hop flavors and aromas.  Justin loves big Stouts, Barley Wines, DIPA, and just anything really big and flavorful.   The recipe he created is probably more like a Barley Wine then a Double IPA but it'll definitely Punch You in The EYE.

We ended up getting about 6.5 gallons of Barley Wine (I guess I should've boiled a bit longer).   And then we took 4 gallons of 3rd runnings and created about 3 gallons of a Pale Ale that we Hopbursted with 4 oz of Cascade hops.  Luckily at the end of the day I had a huge starter of Wyeast German Ale 1007 and everything was fermenting about 4 hours after the pitch!


Punch You In The EyePA aka Big Barley Bitch

Batch size: 6.5 gallons

Original Gravity: 1.083 

Final Gravity:  1.016

Color:  16° SRM (Toffee Caramel)

Mash Efficiency:  62%

Bitterness:  94.4 IBU 

Alcohol: 8.8% ABV

 

 

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
57%	13	0	American Two-row Pale	37	1
13%	3	0	Victory Malt	34	25
9%	2	0	Munich Malt - 10L	35	10
7%	1	8	Turbinado	44	10
4%	1	0	Flaked Barley	30	2
4%	1	0	American Crystal 80L	33	80
4%	1	0	Oat Malt	34	4
1%	0	4	Dry Malt Extract	45	1
	22	12

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	75+ mins	1.5	Centennial	leaf	10.0
first wort	75+ mins	1.0	Warrior	pellet	15.0
boil	15 mins	1.0	Northern Brewer	pellet	8.5
boil	10 mins	1.5	Centennial	pellet	10.0
boil	5 mins	1.0	Willamette	pellet	5.5
boil	1 min	1.0	Vanguard	pellet	5.5
dry hop	7 days	2.0	Cascade	pellet	5.5
dry hop	7 days	1.0	Vanguard	pellet	5.5

_________________________________________________________________
mr. minor - Single Hop/ Hop-Burst 3rd Runnings

Batch Size: 3 Gallons

Original Gravity: 1.034 / 8.5° Plato

Final Gravity: 1.009  Color: 7° SRM

Bitterness: 69.4 IBU

Alcohol: 3.3% ABV

 

 

 

 

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
80%	3	0	American Two-row Pale	37	1
7%	0	4	American Crystal 60L	34	60
7%	0	4	Victory Malt	34	25
7%	0	4	Munich Malt - 10L	35	10
	3	12

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	60 mins	0.5	Cascade	pellet	5.5
boil	15 mins	1.0	Cascade	pellet	5.5
boil	10 mins	1.0	Cascade	pellet	5.5
boil	5 mins	1.0	Cascade	pellet	5.5
boil	1 min	1.0	Cascade	pellet	5.5

San Diego Beer Trip | Stone Brewing | Pizza Port Carlsbad | The Best Damn Bottle Shop

Alright...so I thought I'd do a quick recap of my most recent trip to San Diego.  Wednesday through Friday consisted of lots of events, schmoozing, and entertaining for the ERE Conference which I attended with the company that I work for Linkup (who by the way is taking over the world).   We have the best Job Search Engine on the planet because ALL of the listings on our site are aggregated directly from corporate career pages.   If you are looking for a job, or know someone that is..... Linkup is absolutely one of the websites you should be using if you want relevant opportunities and don't want to deal with recruiters, staffing companies and all of the typical problems that are associated to Job Boards (ie, Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, etc).  But I digress...this is about beer after all.

My brother moved up north of San Diego to Encinitas which is a really cool community.    It happens to be fairly close to Stone Brewing, and is sandwiched in between two Pizza Ports.    After my conference I got picked up by my brother and we proceeded to spend the next two days spending time with his family, drinking beers, surfing, and lounging cali-style! 

My Beercation started on Friday afternoon when the conference finished.  At that point my brother drove down from Encinitas (North County) and picked me and my boy Lucky up from the Hard Rock.  Our first stop...The Best Damn Bottle Shop in Downtown San Diego!  This place is amazing.   I bought a ton of great beers from Green Flash, Russian River, Logsdon, Upright, The Bruery, Pizza Port, and The Lost Abbey!   I'd say my biggest scores were Red Poppy and RR Supplication.

We decided to then high tail it right to my brothers place in Encinitas to see his wife and two girls and have a nice Spaghetti Diner.  My family has a Spaghetti and Meatball recipe that has been in the family for 70 years and you can only get it if you marry into the family.  It's just one of those things.

The next day started off with Surfing at Beacons (one of the local Encinitas breaks) and then going to Stone Brewing for lunch!   Stone is a bomb ass -  trend setting brewery with some amazing beers.  They built a "Destination Brewery" a few years back and I must say...they did it right!  When we pulled up to the brewery it was hopping!   I mean...we thought there was some kind of fucking special event because the place was so packed.  Turns out...it was just an average Saturday afternoon.   After seeing that, I get why Surly is pushing so hard to have a place like this to call their own!  I had an oaked Arrogant Bastard, Ruination, and their Barley Wine.

 The Stone Brewery is an amazing place.  The feel is intimate yet expansive, industrial yet organic.  Really cool atmosphere!  The gardens out side are absolutely beautiful.  The place was packed with so-cal hipsters, families, and all walks of life.

That night we were deciding on what to eat...Mexican or Pizza...Pizza or Mexican. I made the executive decision to head to pizza at Pizza Port - Carlbad.   Pizza Port has some bomb ass beers.  My favorite is their Mongo DIPA.  To me, it's one of the best DIPA's on the market!   It actually reminds me a bit of Surly Furious.  Pizza Port is noted for having won numerous awards at the GABF, year after year.  They went as far as opening up a sister brewery, The Lost Abbey.    Anywho....Pizza Port was a great time...it has huge family style seating which was a bit stressful with a 2 and 5 year old in tow.   The pizza was OK, but they had Pliny on Tap.  Yes, they had Pliny the Elder on tab.   Oh my god...they had Pliny the Elder on tap!   Pliny is a good beer...it's very well balanced.  It isn't abrasive, it's not especially huge, it's not that bitter really, but fresh it was just about as well balanced of a DIPA as I've ever had.    I've had it before, I'll have it again, and it is a very finely crafted hoppy beverage! 

That was about it for my San Diego beercation and work conference trip.   We drank a ton of beer, we caught a few waves, schmooze downtown with business peeps for a few days, read books to my neices, and had a nice spaghetti dinner.   The only thing that I didn't do was hook up with my "brother in funk", Jeffrey Crane.    Good thing is...I'll be back.
 
Stay classy San Diego!

Russian River Temptation Clone | Belgian Blonde Ale | Barrel Aged Project

On Tuesday I brewed up 10 gallons of beer for my Homebrew clubs Barrel aged project.   We are the Nordeast Brewers Alliance and we are really into experimentation, collaboration, and constant improvement!  The Barrel project is a project that I'm heading up and I'm extremely excited that we are all finally brewing the base beer that will be bulk aged.  We have 14 brewers contributing to this barrel.    Here's an update on where we are at with the project.

We have at least 40 gallons fermenting already in Primary!   I can’t actually believe that we’ve come this far.  We need about 10-15 gallons more for the initial barrel fill.  We’ll fill it up in the upcoming weeks with approximately 50-55 gallons of beer to leave some head space for some initial secondary fermentation krausen.   Once that krausen settles down in a few days I’ll top up the barrel as far as I can to inhibit any oxygen and acetobactor (which will turn the beer to vinegar very fast).    The goal for the initial fill is 59 gallons (which is the capacity of our barrel).

A couple of other things to note.   When Justin and I brewed our 10 gallons for the batch on Tuesday, Andrew came to pick up his grains so I decided to pop the top on a bottle of Russian River Temptation that I had in my cellar.   Now, I’d never had RR Temptation before but once tasting it I realized that we made an amazing decision to try and clone this beer!   It is the most refreshing tart, acidic, and funky beer I’ve ever tasted in my life.   It’s truly world class and riding the line between wine and beer, and probably more like wine then beer to most peoples palates.   With the yeast and bacteria left in the bottom of that bottle (dregs) I dumped that into a 1 gallon jug along with 1 gallon of the third runnings of our brew day.   I’ll transfer these dregs eventually into our barrel to give it more authenticity!

The barrel has been prepared as best I know how.  It holds water, I power washed it, I burned a sulfur stick in it, I rinsed it again, now it’s sitting patiently full of water (59 gallons) and a blend of Citric Acid (6 oz) and Potassium Metabisulfate (3 oz).   If this barrel isn’t ready…it ain’t my fault.    On transfer day, I’ll pump out the Acid wash, give it one last rinse and then we’ll fill it up IMMEDIATELY!

This is going to be awesome!

Here is the recipe that I brewed on Tuesday with my assistant brewer Justin "Calves" George!

Here is the recipe that we brewed for our two (5 gallon) portions of the collaborative beer.  We ended up double sparging because my mash tun isn't big enough to make a 10 gallons batch of anything over 1060.   My effeciency suffered a bit, but we took that into consideration when we created to recipe to compensate for differing effeciencies.

malt & fermentables

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%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
85%	23	0	Franco-Belges Pilsen Malt	35	2
15%	4	0	White Wheat Malt	40	2
	27

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Batch size: 11.0 gallons

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Original Gravity 1.060 

Final Gravity      ?

Color

5° SRM / 9° EBC

(Yellow to Gold)

hops

---

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
fwh	90 mins	2.0	Sterling	pellet	6.3
boil	40 mins	1.0	Styrian Goldings	pellet	5.4
boil	20 mins	0.5	Styrian Goldings	pellet	5.4

---

---

Boil: 13.0 avg gallons for 90 minutes

---

---

Bitterness

28.4 IBU

---

yeast

---

	White Labs Belgian Bastogne Ale (WLP510) ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation

To fill the barrel full to the brim with 59 gallons and to have 10 gallons for topping off we bought a ton of grains, hops and yeast.  Here's the list of what we bought.  I decided to get a mixture of modified and undermodified Pilsner malt to replicate the inconsistency in malting like may have taken place in the olden days (a la Jolly Pumpkin).   I also got a variety of Wheat for the same purpose.

14 - 5 gallon batches..equals 70 gallons

• 101 pounds of Rahr Premium Pilsner Malt 
• 50 pounds of Castle Pilsner Malt
• 14 pounds of White Wheat 
• 7 pounds of Red Wheat
• 7 pounds of Pale Wheat
• 14 ounces of Sterling Hops
• 10.5 ounces of Styrian Goldings
• 7  Vials of White Labs Belgian Bastogne Ale (WLP510)
• 7 Packets of Wyeast Belgian Ardennes

Booya!  Transfering to the Honey Wine Barrel in a few weeks and dumping in the dregs from my first two Flanders beers to funktify the shit out of it!

Update:  August 2013 - Pulled out of the barrel after 15 months and distributed to our members who brewed 5 gallons for this.   Each member received appr. 4.2 gallons of beautiful Sour, Tart, Belgian Blonde.   It has notes of pear, white grape, grainy middle, and finish's with a beautiful lactic tartness.  Not acetic acid present what so ever.   It has a sweetness and body at the back end of the sip that can only have been contributed by the yeast and oak.   PH is at 3.4 and the gravity is at 1.000.    Sampled side by side with RR-Temptation it's extremely hard to tell the difference between the two.  We re-brew the original recipe and immediately filled it back up with the same base beer!!!!    I am aging 2 gallons on Apricots (4 lbs/gallon) and also 2 gallons on North Star Cherries (2 lbs/gallon)  
Check out the label "Funky Hobo"   where HOBO =  Honey Oak Barrel One