Best East Coast Brewery?

Best East Coast Craft Brewery? | thefullpint.com - Craft Beer News, Reviews and Event Coverage.

A poll at TheFullPint.com wants to know who you think the best East Coast brewery is. Quite a tough choice in my opinion, and it's nice to see good breweries on the list. At the posting of this blog entry, Dogfish Head leads with Victory Brewing Co. a close second. With all due respect to Sam Calagione and while I agree that Dogfish Head is stellar in terms of innovation, creativity and is an industry leader, could they produce a well-made Helles? A clean, malty Dopplebock? Where would they be without megadoses of alpha acids (Raison d'Etre notwithstanding)? In their own defense, their name does include the phrase "Craft Brewed Ales".

My money is on Victory. Equally adept at hoppy ales like HopDevil and Hop Wallop, malty lagers like St. Victorious, and estery Belgians like V-Twelve and Golden Monkey. There's a reason why they have a German-born 50 barrel Rolec brewhouse and yes folks, they do decoction. But that's just my opinion.

EDIT: TheFullPint just added Flying Dog, presumably excluded initially because Flying Dog Brewery is still "new" to the area. That'd be a close call for my vote as I do like Flying Dog!

So get over there and cast your vote!

Cheers!

We Have the Technology

This morning I did a little browsing add-ons for FireFox and grabbed a few that made reading RSS feeds

First off, if you don't already know that FireFox is---in beer terms---like Avery Hog Heaven Barleywine to the Coors Light that is Microsoft Internet Explorer: lots of people like the latter because of mass-marketing and cheap production, but the former is light years better. And I'm only speaking in terms of functionality at this point, nevermind security.

What motivated my search was the need to incorporate my RSS feeds into FireFox to make single-platform viewing easier. Fortunately, there is an add-on called Brief that handles that task well. I have quite a few feeds (many beer-related of course), seen in a screen shot here.

(And if you can recommend any beer RSS feeds you don't see there, please let me know!!)

Also, you'll see TwitterFox in the lower right corner. Another great add-on that posts to Twitter and receives feeds from people you're following.

Finally, I've just started using the ScribeFire add-on to compose and publish my blog. Pretty neat!

Tonight I'll raise a pint to the Mozilla and FireFox add-on developers. Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

Equipment upgrade

Speaking of improvements to make things run better...

I'm a gear head. One thing I love doing nearly as much as homebrewing is modifying my system. Fortunately, moderation is brought about by fiscal and practical concerns. Short of three Boilermakers, 30-plate chiller, a 14-gallon conical and a winning lottery ticket, my options are limited. Finishing my basement and brew room have primarily fed this addiction, but lately I've realized that my system as-is could use some improvements.

Some time back I received the HopStopper as a Christmas present. It worked wonderfully initially but after some time, it's claim of being able to strain out pellet hops seemed to be questionable. Even trub would clog mine, leaving precious wort at the bottom of the kettle. Because I use a plate chiller, it's absolutely imperative that as much particulate matter is left behind in the kettle as possible. In my brewery, it soon came to be known as the HopClogger. I'm still using it (even after 2 years), although placing hop pellets in muslin bags and accounting for wort losses in the kettle.

In terms of the mash tun, I initially started off with a Sanke kit from MoreBeer. Grain particles easily got around the screen edge and clogged the plumbing. So I made a manifold out of stainless steel braid and retained the screen to help keep weight off the braid. This too worked well for a while but it's performance dwindled over time. Searching for the better way (again, the gear-head motivation), I grabbed the Bazooka T I used to use in the kettle and married it to the stainless steel diptube from the old MoreBeer kit. Because of piping size differences, the T would move freely, despite a rubber grommet. This too caused lautering issues, leaving wort behind in the mash tun.

Recently I ordered a Sanke adapter for the Bazooka T in an attempt to solidify the mash tun manifold structure and hopefully leave less wort behind. Yes, I could just account for the losses in the mash tun and kettle, but where's the fun in that? Again, gear head! If you're a supporting member of HomeBrewTalk, you already know the story behind the snafu in ordering the part; if not, we won't rehash it here. Suffice it to say things didn't exactly arrive as expected.

Short of ordering a Bazooka T Sanke adapter, I'm thinking of cannibalizing the HopStopper and using the copper tubing to connect to the Bazooka T. Leaving the kettle to be addressed, I'll use either the stainless steel diptube from the mash tun or the errant Kewler adapter kit and the screen from the HopStopper to create a pick-up tube. Instead of picking up directly from the center, the side near the wall would help reduce hop and trub in the chiller. I do have the ability to whirlpool.

Comments? Ideas? Other suggestions? I'd love to hear 'em. I'm not doing any brewing right now, it's too @#$%^& cold!

Cheers!

Beer Pong competition, Vegas

Beer Pong competition in Las Vegas, Baltimore Sun

From college dorms and apartments and bars to a nod on the big screen, and now to the Vegas strip! Bring your A-game though, this is serious business. 400 teams vied for the top prize of $50,000 that eventually went to Ron Hamilton of New York.

$50,000 would buy some sweet homebrewing gear! Although exemplified in Beerfest, I'm sure they weren't playing with liter Maßkrug steins. But hats off to 'em!

"Und...TRINKEN!"

Happy New Year!

Some of us have to work the holidays, so this Happy New Year wish is a day off...

Hopefully the holidays were good to you. I managed to spend some time in Warren, Michigan (northern suburb of Detroit) at Dragonmead with a few other brewers, enjoying their expansive tap list. Drinking with other brewers, even ones you've never met before, carries a comfort that just isn't possible with strangers otherwise. It's like putting on an old pair of shoes. Comfy, familiar.

Here it's life as usual. Work, brewing here and there, and enjoying a beer or two. I need to catch up on a few Beer Appreciation 102 beers now that I'm back in town. My Oatmeal Stout is carbonating and I'm patiently awaiting ingredients to brew a Best Bitter---time to celebrate 6 years of brewing! 6 years ago I was boiling wort on my kitchen stove, making a pale ale with a Brewer's Best kit and wondering what this was all about. Here's the recipe:

Brewing Date: Sunday January 12, 2003
Recipe: First Ever Pale Ale

Batch Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Extract (Lbs): 5.80
Anticipated OG: 1.045
Anticipated SRM: 7.9
Anticipated IBU: 13.3
Wort Boil Time: 30 Minutes

3.30 lbs. Muntons LME - Light
2.00 lbs. Muntons DME - Light
0.50 lbs. Crystal 60L

1.00 oz. Cascade (Pellet, 5.30% AA) 30 min.

Danstar Nottingham yeast

From what I remember it actually turned out pretty well. The second batch...well, we won't get into that right now.

Brewing will at least keep me occupied and kept from thinking about how dreary and underwhelming January is---no holidays, cold, dark, naked trees. Rock-hard ground. Time to brew some Maibock and Pilsner for Spring!

At any rate, Happy New Year to you and yours!