Thirsty travels

Merry Christmas/Happy Hannuka/Kwanzaa/whatever! Hoppy Holidays!

Just got back from an out-of-state run to visit the family. One of the best things about being 500 miles away is the regional beer varieties. I think I drank barleywine just about every night for the past week! My liver's thanking me for the rest.

Two places of note: Arbor Brewing and The Beer Depot in Ann Arbor, MI.

Ann Arbor is a neat town in and of itself. Home to the University of Michigan. Nice college town feel and the huge U of M signs at the stadium are big enough to bring down small aircraft if they were to fly just a little too low. Arbor Brewing is right down the street from the stadium, 114 E. Washington Street. Parking's ample; a few spots on the street and an at-least-5-story parking garage right across the street. They have the typical brewpub 7 barrel system but they crank out some very tasty beers! This was my second visit and I decided to try their Milestone Cask Porter (absolutely delicious!), their Sacred Cow Cask IPA (very smooth hoppy flavor and nose) and their Terminator Dopplebock. Their selection is only upstaged by the taste of the beer. To boot, the place is pretty kid-friendly as a handful of little ones were scampering about. Nice family place. The food is darn good as well.

After feeling full and pretty buzzed (the wife was driving), we make a quick hop over to The Beer Depot. After reading a few sparkling reviews on the net of this place, I certainly was intrigued.

Let's just say this: over 650 different beers (two dozen of which are brewed right in Michigan) AND it's also a homebrew store. That's right. A huge selection of beer---and homebrew supplies.

You can't get much better than that!

The guy behind the counter was the owner of the store, proudly wearing an Ann Arbor Brewing Guild shirt. We talked for a few minutes before the wife's started to glaze over with boredom, and then headed out.

So yeah, I restocked my cellar barleywine complement and grabbed a few interesting brews too. Hope whatever you're drinking, it's good.

Happy Holidays!!

Victory!!

First, lately there's been a lot of traffic to my humble blog from all over the US and even as far away as Venezuela. Gracias!

Now on with the show!

If you just happen to be within driving distance of Philadelphia, you'd really be letting yourself down if you didn't stop by Victory Brewing Co. in Downingtown. Any beer lover that has tasted Victory's beers would agree and I promise you: a visit to the brewpub makes their beer taste that much better.

Like some HopDevil IPA...on cask.

Besides some cool gear and cases of bottled beer in their gift shop, a tour of the brewery is a must-do. Last summer they installed eight new 200 barrel fermenters to complement the 2004 upgrade, a 50 barrel Rolec brewhouse. Believe me when I say it's very impressive!

In addition to their already-diverse lineup of brews, they're working on some more seasonal and specialty beers. Currently available at the brewpub is their Scarlet Fire Rauchbier. Last time I visited, they even had a Baltic Porter on tap; something you're not going to find in the beer store.

So print out the directions and hit the road! You won't be disappointed.

'tis the season!

...for drinking barleywine. But I'll soon be brewing up 10 gallons of it, 'cause I'm totally out!! By far, my favorite beer style is barleywine. Malty, hoppy or not so (American/English) , and an alcoholic wallop in the range of 8-10%+. Great on a cold night. My favorite commercial examples include Avery Hog Heaven and DuClaw Devil's Milk.

The Hog Heaven is an American barleywine with a delicious Columbus hop aroma.

Recently DuClaw released its barleywine in 1-litre wax-sealed swing-top bottles. I grabbed two, one for the vintage collection for aging and one to take to the inlaws' for my brother-in-law and I to enjoy.

Anyway, here's my English barleywine which I will (hopefully) brew on Saturday:

Old Excavator Barleywine

Batch Size (Gal): 10.00 Wort Size (Gal): 10.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 40.50
Anticipated OG: 1.106
Anticipated SRM: 19.9
Anticipated IBU: 54.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 55 %
Wort Boil Time: 120 Minutes

25.00 lbs. Marris Otter
9.00 lbs. Generic DME - Light
3.50 lbs. Crystal 60L
1.50 lbs. Biscuit Malt
1.50 lbs. CaraVienne Malt

1.50 oz. Northern Brewer (Whole, 9.00% AA) 90 min.
1.50 oz. Northern Brewer (Whole, 9.00% AA) 30 min.
2.00 oz. Challenger (Pellet, 8.00% AA) 15 min.
2.00 oz. Challenger (Pellet, 8.00% AA) 5 min.
1.00 oz. Northern Brewer (Whole, 9.00% AA) 5 min.
1.00 oz. Fuggle (Pellet, 5.00% AA) Dry Hop
1.00 oz. E.K. Goldings (Pellet, 4.75% AA) Dry Hop

White Labs WLP001 yeast

If I get it brewed Saturday, it should be ready to drink in...maybe August, but probably closer to September or October, just in time for the cool weather. It's worth the wait.

Who wants another IPA?

Not me.

Don't get me wrong, I love IPAs but they've become a brewing cliché in the homebrewing world. Everyone makes an IPA.

Ever notice a lot of successful brewpubs/breweries do make an IPA, but also make a few more styles that differentiate themselves from others?

How about lagers? For that matter, how many craft breweries make lagers?

I know, I know. Can't afford the chest freezer/refrigerator and $50 temperature controller. But you can afford the conical for your IPA.

I don't get it. Conspicuously and constantly missing are lagers at my homebrew club meetings. I'm not saying lagers are the be-all, end-all of homebrewing. But how about something a little different than the brown, stout, Belgian pale and IPA offerings for a change?

Give me a Munich Dunkel over an IPA anyday, my taste buds are bored.

137-year-old beer found

According to a news story on Yahoo, a 137-year-old beer was found at Worthington's White Shield brewery in Burton-on-Trent, England! It was part of a cache of vintage bottles, so they popped one open to take a sip. Those are some lucky bastards!!

The beer was about 10% alcohol and got rave reviews. Just goes to show, big beers like barleywine age well. The wine crowd no doubt hasn't lowered their noses enough to see the headlines yet...

December 5th, 1933

Besides being the anniversary of my 1 year-old son's birthday, it's also the date of the ratification of the 21st Amendment, the repeal of Prohibition!! Utah finally got onboard, despite the efforts of their most fanatical. Just as well, Pennsylvania and Ohio were late-comers too that ratified it the same day as Utah and their votes would've completed the 3/4 requirement (which probably explains why Pennsylvania's liquor laws are still so screwy).

So grab a drink, toast FDR and enjoy!!

20 gallons bubbling!

I took advantage of the holiday weekend and the fact that both my wife and I were off and with her good graces did some brewing. On Wednesday I brewed B3's Christmas Ale. Nice malty pale ale with some all-spice, cinnamon, and ginger. Should come in at about 6% abv.

Then on Friday it was 5 gallons of Porter, with a little something extra: 8 ounces of Hershey's dark cocoa. Smelled wonderful, can't wait until it's ready! That'll end up at a modest 5% abv.

Finally on Saturday, it was time to keep the kegs filled with Kölsch. 10 gallons, about 4.75% abv.

This brings me to 56 batches and 415 gallons over the past 4 years! Feels good to brew like a monk!

Now that the cellar temperature is dropping, it's time to start brewing lagers. Next up is a Munich-style Dunkel with the grain bill being mostly Munich malt and Vienna Malt and a conservative charge of Hallertauer bittering hops. After that, it'll be 10 gallons of Maibock for the Spring and will be trying to work in 10 gallons of barleywine, 10 gallons of dopplebock, and maybe even a Bavarian Helles too.

Cheers!!!

Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA

Made a trip to the bottle store the other day (no, not in PA...PA has no idea what "variety" means), grabbed a sixer of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2006 and as I was perusing the cooler, a 22oz bomber with "SIMCOE" on the lable caught my eye.

Simcoe of course being a fairly-new high-alpha hop varietal that's popular in double IPAs, pale ales, etc. Pretty tasty. This brew aparently uses Simcoe all the way through; bittering, flavoring, aroma, maybe dry-hopped as well.

Wow!! Damn tasty brew. I admit I was a little hesitant to buy a Weyerbacher beer...last year I got a sixer of their barleywine that was pretty young. Tasted like they just dumped the yeast and bottled the brew, no aging whatsoever. High fusel alcohols, etc. Terrible. I was relieved in a way.

I'm not going to rate this like a BJCP judge, since I ain't, but I will say that for a double IPA, this is surely a tasty, worthwhile brew. It scored in the 99th percentile on RateBeer.com, not suprisingly.

Hats off to the Weyerbacher brewers. Prost!

Rain delay

So much for brewing today. Mostly cloudy with a 100% chance of not getting shit done.

A little rain is no big deal but a driving rain like this is bad, considering it's even seeping around the garage door (thanks to the asswipe who built my house). If I'm brewing in the garage I try to keep the garage door at least cracked a few inches, if not fully open. Open propane-fueled flames, you know.

Looks like brewday is getting pushed---*sigh* yet again---to Saturday. I did, however, get a chance to make a yeast starter.

"A what?"

Yeast starters are a easy way of getting your yeast ready for the big party. I never brew without a starter---unless I'm using yeast that I humbly and gratefully got from a local brewery. There is a way that you can "kick it up a notch", and that's by using a magnetic stir plate.

Fortunately I got mine as a gift, since they're about $100. Otherwise I'd still say it'd be money well-spent, since more yeast means:

• a stronger, faster fermentation
• a full, complete fermentation
• less chance of off-flavors
• a strong, happy yeast that you can use on the next batch!

The process is simple. Bring ~1800mL of water to a boil, carefully add 1 cup of dry malt extract (DME), boil (watch for those boilovers!) for 15 minutes, cool to pitching temp, pitch the yeast and let it do its thing. You don't have to have a magnetic stir plate or 2000mL flask to make one. I used to make 'em in growlers.

Why? The little liquid tubes you get at the homebrew store that say they are "pitchable" are inadequate, period. For the most part us homebrewers underpitch, and that's bad for your beer. The proof is in the pudding...er, beer.

How many batches does one have to dump down the drain to make up the time it takes to make a starter? Unless you actually like your beer to taste and smell like green apples and/or butterscotch (hint: it's not supposed to, those are flaws)

Remember: brewers don't make beer, we make wort (unfermented beer). The yeast makes the beer. It's our job to provide the yeast with the best conditions possible, and that includes a shitload of yeast, my friends!

Cheers!!

Dear Santa...

Still headlong in the perpetual quest for gear. That's what gearheads do. And if necessity is the mother of invention, I'm biddin' on one of her kids.

Although not new, the HopStopper has been tested by quite a few homebrewers with promising and positive results. It's basically a fine-mesh stainless steel screen around a copper (or stainless steel) dip tube. The intended result here is separation of trub and hop debris from the wort. If you get a little of each in the fermenter, no big deal but the less the better; especially with lagers. Plus, that's less gunk in your yeast after fermentation if you plan on harvesting the yeast for another batch. Granted, you can wash the yeast, but that's a topic for another day.

So, as I currently have a Bazooka-T installed on my kettle and a Shirron Plate Chiller, I'd like to get mostly--if not solely--wort going through the chiller into the fermenters. Some homebrewers fear that hop particles will clog a plate chiller and create bacteria-harboring "pockets". As far as I know, there's never been any tests done to confirm this fear but it seems reasonable. With a little backflushing before and after use, detergent and/or boiling water use, and sanitizer use, plate chillers are a non-issue.

As for the HopStopper, you can get it in all-stainless construction for $30 over the $60 price tag. But besides being cheaper, brass and copper work fine. Stainless is more durable over the long run and looks prettier, but once passivated, brass is a team player and copper has been used in kettles for centuries. As for the iHomebrewSolutions website...well, hopefully the proprietor can get some professional web work done on the site. Looks like a beginning HTML class project. If it weren't for word-of-mouth by quite a few homebrewers, I'd never order from that site.

Anyhow, c'mon, Santa! Hook me up!

The Weak and the Hippocrites

Yep, crankin' 'em out today!

This has been on my mind for a while now. But allow me to preface the following with this: it's beer, drink what you like. If you like light beer, good for you. But if you're gonna start contradicting yourself, I'm going to make a point. And if you're the second-largest brewing company in North America and you contradict yourself, I'm going to crush it.

SAB Miller owns a ton of brands around the world and no doubt contract-brews quite a few of them. You may also know SAB Miller as Miller beer, or even Miller Lite. You may even be familiar with the recent "Man Law" Miller commercials.

One I did see recently (that magically disappeared) was the Man Law against adding fruit to beer. Maybe someone pointed out to Miller that some of their brands use fruit, as in Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss or Fusion Pineapple.

Maybe Miller could make a Man Law against using rice and/or corn syrup in brewing (yes, that's right!)

So fucking what if it uses fruit? A founding principle of the craft brewing industry (largely owing its existence to homebrewers as most craft brewers started as homebrewers) is experimentation. Like Dog Fish Head Brewing. Like Kalamazoo Brewing Co (aka Bell's). Like Boston Brewing Co (aka Sam Adams).

Maybe the Big 3 are just pissed because craft brewing grew ~10% last year whereas they actually lost some. If they're smart, they'll take notice. People are learning what beer is.

Maybe there should be a Man Law against drinking beer for its caloric and carbohydrate content. How fucking weak! Cutting carbs here is like ordering the Big Mac meal and washing it down with a Diet Coke.

Maybe there should be a Man Law about only drinking what the commercials tell you to.

In terms of beer, I say drink what the hell you want. Lots of hops/no hops, lots of malt/little malt, fruit/spices/whatever. Drink a watered-down, corn and/or rice syrup lager?

Whatever floats your boat.

What next?

Turns out I haven't brewed in---oh, almost 2 months. Been busy with a class at work a few times a week and the wife picked up a few days here and there at work. Brewing with 2 kids 3-and-under is pretty tough. But maybe, just maybe I can do it tomorrrow. I need to get some Kölsch fermenting for back-up.

After that it's a Christmas Ale that I was going to brew for a November club competition, but didn't get to it in time. Again, work, class, blah blah blah. Should be nice---a little ginger, a little all-spice, a little cinnamon at flame-out.

Then it's a little tweak on my porter. Took a trip to Chocolate Town, USA a few months ago and happened to see some dark chocolate cocoa among the miriad of offerings there. 8oz of dark chocolate cocoa at flame-out will add nicely to the porter.


Then it's back to the lager world with a Munich-style dunkel. Haven't brewed that in a year!

And finally on the list, it's time to crank out some more Barleywine!! Gonna need lots of yeast, will soon be time to barter with the local brewers.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog home of the Old Station Brewing Co. It's being moved over from the ubiquitous MySpace, just looks better and hopefully will allow a little more productivity. So stick around.

Cheers!