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Tuesday, April 26, 2016

April Update

Hey all!

Man, my current work situation doesn't give me a lot of down time. No, I don't work more than a 9-6, but I travel regularly for two-week stints and this calendar it's been about every 4 weeks, so the time I have at home is spent catching up on what I have to put off because I'm not in Berkeley. Early spring is also usually full with the end of Lent and Holy Week/Easter, my wife's birthday, and taxes. None of those things takes a lot of my time, but all together with the normal life stuff I found that between my last trip and this one, March 10-April 11, I could hardly find the time to bottle the batch I brewed before leaving and I ended up brewing back-to-back the last day I was in town to keep on the schedule I'm trying to set for myself. My porter has yet to go untasted, but since I bottled it two weeks later than planned it has now had plenty of time to bottle condition so I'm expecting it to be fully ready by now. I also submitted it to a homebrew competition without tasting it so I doubly hope it turned out tasty!

Besides that, I have had time for beer in my life, of course. Just check my Untappd account ;-) (@TheBrewourist). Friends invited us over for dinner one Friday night for homemade Chicago deep dish pizza and asked me to bring a 6-pack so I made it a mix of my homebrew, and had exactly 6 different varieties to share! Using small glasses four of us shared six 12-oz bottles of Dr Bradley's finest (well… one of the batches was the S'More of What? (v2), which still isn't that great). The rest of the menu was Zorba's OPA!, Plain Ol' Saison, Gold Medal IPA (v2), Little Lebowski, and the last bottle of Grapes & Grain - Scuppernong. The S'Mores and Scuppernong were overcarbonated and despite trying my hardest to slowly release the gas I had to just get it over with and lose half of each bottle to the sink. The Scuppernong was pretty tasty, but the S'Mores had just gone blah. I really want that brew to be good, but it might take more practice and bad batches than I'd prefer. As for the Grapes & Grain, those who were able to try both versions preferred the Muscadine, so if I can get my hands on those grapes again I'd definitely brew with them for a full 2-gal batch. Everyone loved the Zorba's OPA!, which I've unofficially renamed Award-Winning Oat Pale Ale since I won a third place prize with it. What? You didn't know? Well, if I wrote more regularly you'd know, so let me share.

Apparently spring is homebrew competition season, and I've now submitted my beer to four Bay Area competitions: North Napa Rotary Homebrew Competition, World Cup of Beer (put on and hosted by the Bay Area Mashers), Alameda County Fair Bay Area Brew Off (BABO2016), and the Sonoma Beerocrats American IPA Competition. I've talked about Zorba's OPA! before, so I don't need to reiterate what I thought about it, but everyone I've given it to loved it, so it was quite the surprise to have won third place in the Specialty Category. I entered it in that category of the 2008 BJCP Guidelines because that was the suggestion I found in researching submitting a pale oat ale into competition since it's not an official category. I also submitted Little Lebowski to that category because of all the coffee-ness in it I couldn't submit it to the milk stout. That milk stout scored well, but not as well as the pale oat ale. Since that recipe has been so popular I'll keep it, but it wasn't what I was trying to brew, and I know how I'll change it for next time.

For the World Cup of Beer I submitted the Plain Ol' Saison and the Little Lebowski to two categories: milk stout and spiced/herb. In that latter category Little Lebowski passed preliminary judging, as did the Saison. I never would have thought I could have entered the same beer into two different categories, but BAM's January meeting focused on entering competitions with a panel discussion and one thing mentioned was entering one beer into multiple categories (which means multiple physical entries). So my milk stout went into the cream/sweet stout category, but the coffee was too much and overpowered any other flavors; and it went into spiced/herb where it did well! The feedback was appreciated, and as the Plain Ol' Saison was a stripped down recipe from the Spicy Jalapeño Saison, I have ideas of how to modify it to meet the judges' comments and suggestions.

As I described above, I didn't have the luxury of 5 hours of freedom for brewing the month before my current work trip, so I wasn't going to have something fermenting while I was away, but the last Saturday, April 9, I took the chance. My wife was in class that day and I had made the decision that week to brew that day. Ostensibly I was to help prepare for her birthday party that night, which I did and everything turned out amazing, but I also brewed not one but two batches back-to-back. Because my previous brew was a porter I wanted something lighter for the warmer weather. I plan to do a Kölsch this year, but as that will be my first lagered beer I wanted to be at home with it during fermentation. I've thought about rebrewing my brown ale, but since I just did a porter that would be too close a style. I looked through my list of basic beer styles and decided to rebrew my California Common It's always been a hit and it's light enough but also flavorful enough to be a tasty warmer weather brew. But then again, I live in Berkeley, so warm weather might not be until September/October. I also brewed a gluten-free beer, something I've been interested in producing for my GGF friends. The Beer Making Book has a GF recipe for every season of beer, but three of them involve malting your own buckwheat, something I'm not keen on doing myself. The GF recipe for the spring uses carrots, red quinoa, basmati rice, and table sugar, easy enough! That was my second brew on April 9, and both fermentations started well. I look forward to packaging both and seeing how they turn out. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll actually get 2 gal of CA Common in bottles, as opposed to the first two times I brewed it.

I've been planning the next few brews and need to figure out when to line them up. To help me I've created a spreadsheet weekly calendar to better plan and track my brewing. I realize there's software that could do this, but I like DIY and knowing how it all comes together. Plus, coding in spreadsheet is oddly satisfying. These are my brewing plans for the summer:

  • My BAM friend Fernando has a 10-gal all electric system and he wants to do a joint brew. With his larger system he suggested I take home two 3-gal carboy's of wort, and he keep 5 gal, then we use different yeasts or dry-hopping. He's become a master of IPAs so I suggested we brew a basic IPA recipe. He'll use the usual American Ale yeast and known hops for good IPA dry-hopping. I'll use a Belgian yeast and match his dry-hopping in one batch, and in the other I'll use simple English Ale yeast and maybe dry-hop with a more subtle, less US West Coast styling. We have yet to schedule this, and I'm looking forward to it.
  • The BAM Style of the Quarter (SOQ) for 2016Q2 was announced as wheat, and the 2015 BJCP Styles allowed are American Wheat, any of the German Wheat beers, Wheatwine, Berliner Weisse, Witbier, and Gose. I don't care for wheat beers. I'll drink them, and I brewed one at the start of my second year of homebrewing, but I just don't like the taste of wheat malt. However, I have been getting more into Goses, and a Craft Beer & Brewing email this week had a Gose recipe. The Beer Making Book also has a Gose, so I'll compare the two recipes and brew one for the competition. I like that I've found this way into the SOQ since I don't like wheat beers. I was afraid I'd have to miss out on this one, as I want to compete as much as sensible, and now I'll get to. It'll also be the first sour beer I'll brew, via kettle souring, and I'm excited for how it could turn out. The entry deadline is June 2, so if I get the brew started by the first week of May there will be enough time since this style should be drunk fresh, like a super hoppy IPA. The CB&B recipe calls for rice hulls, and I still have plenty from the GF ale, and I think I have enough of the suggested hop, too! The grain bill is fairly simple, and I'll the Lactobacillus or drop a dollop of plain yogurt in the pre-wort.
  • Belgian quad rarity Westvleteren 12. My friend and I were going to cultivate the yeast from that tasty Trappist treat, but learned that they just use the commercially available Westmalle yeast variety. Knowing that this should be much easer. It has a very simple grain bill, and with a 20% off coupon Northern Brewer sent me I purchased the European hops and dark candi syrup needed. This brew will age in secondary for 3 months, and depending on when I start it and the IPA experiment with Fernando, I might have to buy another 3-gal carboy. I want this beer for the colder weather next fall and winter, so starting this later in the spring or into the summer might not be out of the question.
  • And finally I want to try my hand at lagering with a Kölsch. As the lagered ale complement of a California Common, it will be interesting to see how the lagering goes. You might have come across the quick lagering method, and I will likely attempt that  method just to not tie up my temperature controlled fermentation chamber for over nearly two months if I want to lager. During the summer I could quick lager in my mini fridge and ferment ales just sitting in my living room. We'll see how things turn out.

As for my Year of Beer 2016, I've been brewing beer as much as I can, and I've also been searching for and applying to brewery jobs as I can find them. I've gone on a few interviews but nothing's come from them yet. If any of you readers are out there in the Bar Area, particularly the East Bay or SF, send jobs my way.

And that's what I have for now! 
How's your brewing coming along this year? Any interesting batches, past of future? Have you competed and done well, or better than you expected?

Until next time, friends, happy brewing!

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Fall/Winter Brewing Roundup and Spring Forecast

It's a new month so I better post a new entry.

Smack pack round 2!
I started this blog four years ago to share my love of homebrewing and to document my own adventures. I initially posted an entry for every batch of beer I brewed, but that slowed down when I wrote my PhD dissertation at the end of 2013, and again when I moved across the country to start my first post-graduate research job. I still photo-document every batch, but those images are stored on my personal laptop, which I don't have ready access to as my wife uses it regularly for her graduate coursework. I barely get to use it for more than 5 minutes at a time when I download podcasts and sync them to my iPod a couple times a week. Before my current work travel to the Black Hills, I uploaded the photos from my past four homebrew batches to Facebook galleries and now feel right posting about those brewdays as I have access to their images. Three of the batches I described in my previous homebrewing post have been tasted and are almost gone, so I now have the opportunity to give a wrap-up report on them.

New yeast, old hops, milled grain for a porter.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

The Two SF Beer Week Events I Could Actually Attend

Hey all!

Another 20 days, another set of beer and brewing experiences.

SF Beer Week was at the end of January this year (thanks to the "Big Game"), and again I spent the week in lovely South Dakota enjoying as much of the local craft beer scene as I could. I didn't want to miss SF Beer Week, but I couldn't help it. I missed most of the events, but there was one on the last day of the "Week" on Sunday January 31, and as I was flying home January 29, I knew I could make it. Hopyard Alehouse in Pleasanton hosted Beer Judging 101, two hour-and-a-half sessions intended to introduce beer drinking and homebrewers to the basics of beer judging.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

New Month, New Year, New Post!

Hey everybody!

Welcome to 2016! I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and joyous New Year. I know I did, and I even got to do some Brewouristing while in St Louis for a conference between the holidays. This month has been so busy, and it's barely half over! But let me give an update of my recent beer-based activities.

Like I said, I did some Brewouristing while in StL. My wife and I had some drinks while around the city and I aimed to sample local favorite. While at lunch at The Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar I had a flight and finally got to taste Prairie BOMB! SO GOOD! Now I understand the hype. This is a great imperial stout aged on coffee, cacao nibs, vanilla, and chilies, and well worth the wait. At the hotel bar I greatly enjoyed Urban Chestntut's STLIPA, a wonderfully hoppy, floral and fruity, lightly bitter double IPA. And at another lunch we ate at Morgan Street Brewpub, a neighborhood joint serving their own fare. A disappointment on that trip came from Schlafly, another StL stalwart. Their pale ale is an amber, and not that great, and the kolsch was merely acceptable. Bummer, but not every brewery can produce high quality beer, something I hope won't be said if I go into brewing professionally.

Upon returning to Berkeley I bottled the milk stout with coffee I brewed earlier in December. That was my 2015 closeout brew, which I'm calling "Little Lebowski." I mentioned brewing it in my triple-beer weekend Dec 5-6, and a fuller post about it is coming after I take the first taste. If it's good I'll submit it to a competition due the last weekend of January, and no matter what I'll be sharing it with friends during a viewing of The Big Lebowski as it's my favorite film and inspiration for the original The Dude Abides. But since this one came out at 6% ABV, and my goal was a less heavy beer than the original, I hope it's good and I feel confident competing with it.

My first brew of 2016 was a stripped down saison using the recipe for the Spicy Jalapeño Saison with none of the extra sugar or added peppers. My 2016 brewing plans are to perfect my brewing of basic recipes, and I've been wanting to do this with this saison recipe for a couple of years now. The brewing went well and primary fermentation felt like it went fast, but I purposely kept it nearly 69°F to aim for traditional warmer saison fermentation temps. I've got the controller set to that during the remaining fermentation and conditioning, and don't even have the cooling output plugged into the temperature controller so that it stays as warm as possible. OG came out to 1.040, one of the lower gravities I've ever had. Depending on overall attenuation, it could come out to 3.5-5% ABV. Fingers crossed that it'll be tasty and good enough for competition, as well!

That same weekend I had my second professional brewing experience. During the BAM brew day we teased with Dan the CQ brewer that he should get beer nerds to help him regularly. I emailed him that following week with that proposal and he jumped on it. So January 9 I headed down to San Leandro's industrial neighborhood and helped the CQ guys package a saison for SF Beer Week. I assisted in the sanitization, CO2 purge, and filling of two firkins, and then manned the sanitization and CO2 stations for 20 cases of 750-ml champagne bottles (that's 240). I only squirted myself once with pressuring sanitizer, and got to know Dan and Peter. I had plans with my wife that night so I couldn't stay too long, otherwise I would have kegged the finished beer in their other bright tank. Dan was happy with my help and when I'm back in the Easy Bay I'll hit him up to see where I can be assistance in February.

Since it was announced last summer, I've also been in regular communication with two gentlemen starting a new brewpub in Berkeley. I have yet to meet them, but we've maintained email correspondence, and with any luck our schedules will line up in February. I want to brew as much of my own beer this year, but I also want to get professional experience to bolster my resume. I now have two brewery job applications out there. 2016 is the year of beer. Here's to whatever my future holds!

How were your holidays? Any fun beer adventures? What do you hope that 2016 holds for you?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

BAM Brew Day at Cleophus Quealy

Oh no! It's Tuesday!

The CQ taproom.

Beer! Barrels! Brewery!
Sorry for the late update. I had another craft beer-y weekend, and I can't wait to share all about it. This is kind of a sequel from the events of last weekend at the BAM Christmas party. One of the prizes for the winning IPA brewer was to brew a version of it at Cleophus Quealy nanobrewery in San Leandro, CA, just south of Oakland in the East Bay. But not only did the winner get to brew with them, all of BAM was invited to CQ for the day! We were guests of the brewery and were treated to beer and pizza. What a better Sunday Funday?

Monday, December 14, 2015

BAM Christmas Party 2015

Hey friends!

Another Monday, another post written at the last minute because I don't plan ahead and work on it throughout the week.

I had a Saturday full of homebrew! How was yours?

Monday, December 7, 2015

Brief Update

Hey all!

I have a brief update for you. I've been traveling and sick the past two Mondays, respectively, so haven't been able to get a new post written and up. But I haven't been lax in my brewing and craft beering!

Everything I've been working on in the past few months has been bottled, and I've even tasted a few of the batches. The first I tasted was my oat pale ale. Not impressed. It tastes like green apples, which means acetaldehyde, a precursor to ethyl alcohol in the fermentation process. The yeast is supposed to clean up all the acetaldehyde by the end of fermentation, but if you remove the beer from the yeast too early, or allow the yeast to go dormant and fall out of suspension, that step can be arrested. Apparently that's what I did! Even though the beer sat on the yeast for a month before bottling, maybe the yeast just didn't finish its work. I talked to Tom at Oak Barrel and from what he could gather from books they have on hand, there's not much I can do once it's on bottles. So I've placed my case of OPA near the heater in my apartment and shake them up every few days to rouse the yeast so that it can do some more work. Hopefully that works. If it doesn't, I've got a cidery beer on my hands, and a bit of a disappointment in my work. After the off flavoring of the S'More Of What?, another not great beer is kind of a slap in the face, and has me questioning my desire to go into brewing professionally. Oh well, ever onward…

The #w00tstout is amazing! Can not wait to try this. I'm having some friends over in a two Fridays to sample the latest of Dr. Bradley's Brewing Co., and this will be the star of the show. The hydrometer sample was quite good, so I know the conditioned product will be great, and I will slowly mete out this batch over the next year-plus.

I dry-hopped and bottled the Almost Gold Medal IPA, cold crashing for 1.5 days in between, and it smells great. I barely got to taste it having to use some of the hydrometer sample to fill the 20th bottle, but what I did taste was quite good. For an IPA it could be a bit bitter, but it's hoppiness is sweet, floral, fruity, and a light touch, very well balanced. I hope only 11 days in bottle will be enough to meld and condition the flavors for competition at the BAM Christmas party this Saturday. Even if it doesn't place, I expect this batch to be a good one, and the happiness should mellow into something nice while this batch lasts. Definitely a leg up on my IPA making, and I will be researching the temperature variance of the fermentation schedule to understand the why and how of what I was directed to do following that recipe.

I finally tasted the Grapes & Grain, and it's good! The yeasty esters are a bit much, for my tastes at least, but it's good overall. I drank the mixture of the two versions, and it was plentifully carbonated without  being a gusher or having too strong of a carbonic taste. Having this batch turn out this good, after two disappointments this year, was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I won't be ashamed to serve it to my friends next Friday. I'll also be shipping some to the grapes' provider in Atlanta, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of them.

This last weekend I had a triple-beer experience. A new friend of mine from BAM was brewing a Mexican milk stout using Abuelita tablets, and we collaborated on adapting a recipe he found to his 5-gal system. After that I headed over another friend's house where he and his husband were hosting a house warming holiday get-together after their recent nuptials, and shared a batch of nut brown ale they recently brewed. Then Sunday morning I got up and brewed a lower ABV version of my Imperial White Russian milk stout w/ coffee, The Dude Abides. I like what I've produced before, pushing it up to 9.1% ABV, but I'd rather have a more drinkable beer, especially with the #w00tstout I'll have around for the next year-plus. My aim was to get something about 5.5%, but I believe this batch will be about 7%, which is fine. I already have an idea how to modify it more to reduce the ABV and keep the body and mouthfeel full and smooth. After pitching around 1:30PM, fermentation began by midnight, and by this morning it was bubbling away. I'll "dry hop" the whole beans, although I'm considering coarse grinding them and putting them in a muslin sock for greater area exposure

And that should take us up to today. I am working on my overall brewing plan for 2016. Having some friends over next week to sample my beers will be the inaugural event in what I hope to be an every 6ish weeks series wherein I serve my friends my beer and they give me honest, open feedback. I hope to use this next year to push my brewing to the next level with consistent, positive results. I will also be seeking any and all local homebrewing competitions to start getting official recognition under my belt.

What have you been up to before and since Thanksgiving? Any fun autumnal or wintery brews coming up? What are your plans for 2016?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!