This DIPA is essentially a re-brew of a beer that I made almost two years ago that my friends absolutely freaked out about. In my mind it is a combination between Bell's Hopslam and Pliney the Elder. I lowered the IBU's on this because I wanted this to taste less bitter and more like juicy hop candy and the result is amazing. It's more on the same page as Lagunitas Sucks actually. It's a very tasty beer, and I also did a partigyle which is something I've been doing lately with all of my big beer. For the 3 gallons of Pale ale I got out of the second runnings I used the hops from the DIPA to hop stand this pale ale while it was chilling. The DIPA got 3rd place on our Lagunitas Mpls/St.Paul Homebrew comp, that we did within my homebrew club and got dinged for it's clarity (it was very hazy) and then some non experienced tasters give it very low flavor rating which was just crazy. Either way, the winner was a Black IPA that apparently was the clear winner.
Here is a quick review of the Wee Heavy that our club did for the Red Wine Barrel. I sampled this a month in and it is beautiful. Caramel, sweet, slight Oak. This will probably remain in the barrel for 6-9 months!
The clubs recipe was very simple...
Golden Promise
Half pound of chocolate malt.
Then take 2 gallons of the first runnings and boil that down to one quart to get a nice caramelization.
I accidentely bought the ingredients for the recipe below. I did do the kettle caramelization as well, and figured it wouldn't be a huge deal.
Terroir- loosely translates to"a sense of place". Yes this is a french word (so stick your nose up when you say it) and a word that is typically associated to wine, cheese, coffee, tea, but most times with wine. You see, grapes are grown all around the world, and since wine is simply fermenting grape juice, you get distinctly different wines based on the land that you've planted your grapes. Even from one hill to the other on a given vineyard will produce very different characteristics in a grape and ultimately the wine. The climate, the geography, the soil composition, the amount of rain you receive in a given year. These all effect the end product of how your wine is going to end up.
You see, in brewing today, you don't really have terroir. The grains we brewers get are typically from MN, ND, WI, Canada , Belgium, Germany, or England. The hops we use are from the West Coast (Willamette Valley), or overseas. The yeast are typically sourced from other breweries and then sold through White Labs or Wyeast. These are the products that all US brewers and brewers worldwide use to make their unique beers. The only real aspect that is different amongst brewers is the water supply. And for that very fact you have your historic beers that were brewed in certain regions because those beers work well with the water supply of that specific region.
There ARE a few things that I've done to incorporate some terroir into my brewing. I don't do anything to my water other then use camden tablets to kill the chlorine. I try to use Rahr or Breiss malt which is mid-west grown. In the past, I've tried to utilize my own homegrown hops albeit with little success. In my cider this year I let it undergo "native" fermentation utilize the local yeast that was present on the skins of the apples. I also used local "hand picked" tart cherries in my Kriek. It's not easy expressing the terroir, but these are some ways that I've tried to do that. Whenever I'm at the farmers market I buy local honey for my IPA's and DIPA's. I also plan on using other locally grown fruits in my sour beers.
The idea of using local "wild" yeast is something that a select few homebrewers have tried, and even a more select crew have had success with. You can read about homebrewers taming wild yeast and about some of these experiments HERE and HERE and HERE.
Now, on to what brought me to this point....The idea of utilizing old wine barrels is a pretty cool thing to me. Not only to you get out of it what you put into it, but you also get the additional flavors and terroir of the residents that are in the barrel from it's previous owner. In my homebrew clubs case, we have french oak red wine barrels from Lodi, CA. The winery that we recieved the barrels from practice native fermentation so we will hopefully be getting some california terroir out of these barrels, hoping that some of that local yeast has remained alive with in the wood of the barrel. Surely some of the wine produced by that yeast, and juice from the grapes are going to come through in the finished beer as well! In addition to the terroir from the Wine barrels I also took it a step further for this beer. I had saved the yeast from my cider that underwent "native" fermentation. In one of the 5 gallons of Flanders Red I pitched this slurry of local cider yeast. Now, there were some definite differences from this cider trub as opposed to what you see from brewers yeast trub. It was more compact, and a dark yellow color. I can't say if it can or will ferment any sugars, but it did kick up fermentation faster then my other batch of Flanders that was sitting right next too it. Either way, we will have some local terroir in these barrels and hopefully it has a positive effect on the resulting package beer!
Here is the recipe that I brewed for the Flanders Barrel project. 13 of us are brewing 5 gallon batch's to be put into the barrel in a few weeks. I actually brewed 1O gallons although this is a 5 gallon recipe below. I fermented mine with ECY20. ECY02, and a portion with local cider yeast!
Flanders Red Ale to be Aged in French Oak Red Wine Barrel
I recently had a gluten free beer that tasted really good. In fact, it tasted….LIKE REAL BEER!
Historically
gluten free beers have been brewed with buckwheat, sorghum, or other
alternatives to grain which give the beer a distinct “gluten free” taste that
is just not very pleasant. Personally I had never had a gluten free beer that I'd ever want to finish the whole bottle. Fear not because that’s not how it has to be any more. That’s right, a buddy of
mine, Paul Mott, who is a long time employee of Widmer Brothers was in Minneapolis recently and
we stopped at a liquor store and pick up some beers.He picked up a Pale Ale that I hadn’t heard
of and upon first sip I thought, this is a nice beer.It’s definitely more sessionable of a craft
beer compared to what I typically drink, but, a well crafted hop forward Pale
Ale non the less.Citrus, and Mango aroma's are lifted instantly to your nose and are very
present and pleasant. The malty and caramel backbone in the flavor, and medium to light body with restrained bitterness creates something that I could easily drink all
night. Upon my approval of his choice, he went on to tell me that the beer I
had just drank was “gluten free”.I was absolutely blown away. I decided that I want to make sure that everyone knows
about this beer and can spread the word to there gluten intolerant
friends!Spread the word...kid!
The story behind this line of beers (they also have a lager) stems from the fact that
Widmer CEO, Terry Michaelson, was diagnosed with Celiac some years ago.In addition to that, brewmaster
Joe Casey’s wife is also a celiac.This
drove the company to look at crafting a gluten free beer that tastes like
beer.They can’t technically market
Omission as gluten-free since they use low-protein barley and are
able to remove the gluten during the brewing process using an enzyme (or something like that, and I probably said too much).The result though is a real beer that is low
on the gluten level perfect for people who suffer from Celiac that has been tested by the
CEO and brewmasters wife as well as the lab.According to my buddy Pauli, if a beer has levels of gluten as high as
20 parts per million (PPM), it’s technically gluten free.But, Omission typical is much lower then
that, clocking in at 5-10 PPM and suitable to drink for most gluten intolerant
people!!!That being said, they also
date each bottle, and you can go to their website http://omissionbeer.com/ to
the “test results” section and see exactly how many PPM of gluten are in the 6
pack of bottles in your hand!!!
From their website:
Bold and hoppy, Omission Pale Ale is a hop-forward American Pale Ale,
brewed to showcase the Cascade hop profile. Amber in color, Omission
Pale Ale’s floral aroma is complimented by caramel malt body, making for
a delicious craft beer
MALTS: Pale, Caramel 10, Dark Munich, Carapils HOPS: Cascade, Citra
My club is starting to brew beers for our four(4) French Oak Red Wine barrels that we acquired from a dude who brought them back from Lodi, CA! Currently all of the barrels are at another dudes cellar filled with an acid wash waiting the day when 30 brewers in the Nordeast Brewers Alliance gather with primary fermented beers to fill them all up. That time is nearing and this post is about on of the first installments of this series that I brewed recently. The Russian Imperial Stout...to be aged in a French Oak - Merlot Barrel!!! We smelled all of the barrels and tried to come up with beers that would complement the characteristics in the nose. The barrel that we chose for the RIS had notes of dark berries, vanilla, and cocoa and so we though that would complement a RIS very nicely. We plan to let this age in the barrel for 6-9 months, but completely dependent on what the beer is telling us. If it gets too oaky we will pull it out immediately.
Here's my portion of the recipe. There are 13 or 14 of us brewing 5 gallon batch's. The recipe designers actually created two similar yet different recipes that we will be blending together when we fill up the barrel. I chose the recipe that did not include adding cacao nibs. I also didn't follow the recipe as close as I maybe should have. I couldn't find any Warrior hops for bittering and I couldn't find the Northern Brewer hops for flavor. So, I went Nugget through and through. I also mixed in a little Scottish yeast for good measure.
I ended up collecting a ton of wort pre-boil, almost 9 gallons and then boiled it down over a long period to get almost 6 gallons. This allowed me to achieve a respectable efficiency as well as additional caramel flavors!
Batch Size: 5.75 gallons Mash Efficiency: 70 % Specific Gravity:
1.104 OG
yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation
and 72% attenuation
Edinburgh
Scottish Ale (WLP028)
yeast in liquid form with medium
flocculation and 73% attenuation
****I'm a little nervous because I've never had a Red Wine Barrel aged RIS
before and figure that if it is a good marriage, then someone would have
done it before.
****I'm also a little nervous that the barrel will have some bugs in it and it won't turn out to be a clean beer like we want it to be. The wineries that we got these barrels from employ "native fermentation", essentially letting the grape juice ferment naturally from the yeast that has gathered on the skins of the fruit. Could there be Brett? Yes. Could there be other critters? Yes. We shall soon find out.
****Sampled this 2 months into the barrel aging process. It's actually very dry, and not juice and thick like I expected. A little hot and definitely some vanilla coming through in the nose from the oak.
