It isn’t all that often that I have a day to get stuff done and actually relax besides. Luckily today is one of those days.

What exactly do I mean? Well, that is easy. I have done work around the house: picked weeds, hoed the garden, sprayed weeds, and hung up my hop plant (Centennial and more to come this week). I have also gone shopping to about three or four stores with the wife and kids to get our weekly groceries among other things. Vacuuming is still on the docket.

That’s the work, now the play. I am currently on my fourth beer and the temperature outside (about 70 with low humidity) is perfect for just about any beer. So I started the day with a New Glarus Unplugged Cranbic, which is so damn refreshing it took me about five sips to put it away. My palate still desired a refreshing beer. So I opened a bottle of Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA.

While appreciating the Union Jack, the wheels started to turn and as another front went through, with the temperature dropping into the 60s, I thought it was time for something with a little bit of size to it. Founders KBS you say, perfect! That didn’t last long but damn that is mighty tasty. What beer can out do a KBS?

Not many, but along came Pliny the Elder by Russian River. Oh, I think I am about a sliver away from heaven.

I see that Rich is doing some reviewing of his own, so after PLE, it is time for some serious reviews and a great finish to Sunday. Enjoy!

I know I have written about this before but Flossmoor Brewery continues to crank out IPAs every six to eight weeks. Why is that so special? Each one is different, released once, and never to be seen again. Each has it’s own personality and idiosyncrasies, making them fun to get and something I look forward every other month. This month is the release of Diesel Rellik. From the site:

We will be tapping our Diesel Rellik on Tuesday, May 25th at 8pm (7pm for Mug Club). This beer is coming along nicely and will be dry hopped today with more than 20# of hops! Designed to be a piney, resinous, IPA with a decent malt backing. This IPA will probably be around 7.5% abv as it is still bubbling just a little today

Now I have to work on old Mom to go get me a bottle of it after release. Enjoy!

I used to be an avid collector of baseball cards up until the beginning of this century. The last ten years of my collecting I still purchased the new, shiny cards but I was really an avid collector of vintage cards pre-1970. Starting in the ’80s new manufacturers of cards entered the hobby and in the ’90s it exploded.

In the late ’80s, due to great sales, the manufacturers produced a huge amount of cards that are still considered junk over 20 years later. Well the industry changed, got smarter, and started to take into account what the “public” wanted: they made cards more and more rare. Inserts became the norm and 1-of-1 cards are now expected. The price of the product has sky rocketed, “hobbyists” no longer collect sets, but bust packs to try and get those ridiculously difficult inserts and rare releases.

Is he heading to next years release of PLY at Russian River?

Now it is time for me to make a beer reference and make the connection…

It seems that every brewery now makes at least one big beer that is a single release or a small batch each year. People flock to the releases, get upset over not getting “their” beer, and run to the front of the line. They are seeking the rare beers. Beers like Dark Lord are bought for $15 and sold on ebay for $50 or more days after they have been released. PLY selling out in five hours, pissing off the people whom made the pilgrimage to the brewery to not get any. Beer like Kate the Great are 900 bottle release. Local breweries, to me, like Flossmoor release Hi-Fi Rye to the tune of 288 bottles, and the list can go on.

What is next? Sealed six packs that might contain a beer that is 1 of 10 made; creating a frenzy to purchase six packs for the sake of the golden goose possibly sealed inside. A lottery that costs $20 per person with 1,000 tickets and 5 winners being drawn at random to receive a super rare beer. 1 of 1 beers that one person drawn out of hat has the chance to obtain if they can live on an island for a week without help.

Oh, it can and I believe it will get ugly. The industry will have to continue to draw new people and keep the “old” guys in, which can cause some uncanny thoughts and actions.

None of us can deny that this is where the industry is headed. Are we really fans of craft beer or the idea of scarcity? If my past hobby gives any indication, scarcity will win out and the true fans of craft beer will be lost in the shuffle. Enjoy!

We all seem to have a brewery that seems to hold this niche place in our minds that is almost like a crush from our younger days: perfect, flawless, and for some reason, seemingly unattainable. Ever since I noticed a bottle of Kate the Great at Mark’s house, I have had an affinity for Portsmouth Brewery. No, it isn’t the fact that it was a bottle of Kate the Great, but how simply they made their labels, how you could tell they were small, how you could see the dent in the crown from where it was manually sealed. Sort of an ode to the small brewery.

Since that night at Mark’s, he has shared his ’09 Kate the Great and I have had their Bottle Rocket IPA. I also had a bottle of Oatmeal Stout that had been sitting in the cellar for a couple of months.

It has been hard to not open it and I really wanted to share it, but along came last night. I have been working long, crazy hours for work into the wee hours of the morning and I am finally recovering my normal head. I thought to myself: what better way to celebrate than with something special. Portsmouth Oatmeal Stout!

This is a rich, robust scented beer with roasted notes being the strongest. There is a definite chocolate and oat aroma about the beer. Hints of brown sugar and lactose are very subtle. The taste is similar while the chocolate leaves a bit of bitterness in the finish. Surprisingly, based on the aroma, the beer is very drinkable and has a great presence for drinking several as it doesn’t wear on the palate. Another great beer that is worth seeking out.

Of course after another great beer the crush for Portsmouth is still there. I have a trading buddy that goes by there once a month and checks for new bottlings. I look forward to each and everyone of their beers. Enjoy!

Two Beer Dudes had a successful Dark Lord Day. Enough said.

The Brewers Gone Wild series of beers by Tyranena Brewing has been pretty good for me. I have had only four different flavors with a fifth (Chipolte) in the cellar. I am looking forward to that one even more as I believe the base beer for Dirty Old Man is the one for Chipolte.

Dirty Old Man, a beer that the labels states is an “imperial rye porter aged in rye whiskey barrels,” is a complete home run in my book. The complexities abound creating a titillating experience for the senses.

The malts are nicely balanced to give the chocolate, coffee, and roasted experience you expect in a good porter, while the whiskey adds some alcohol, with the rye throwing in a bit of spiciness, and, on top of all that, there is a layer of dark fruit that seems to keep the beer wet even though it wants to dry.

I don’t know how easy this one is to still pick up off the store shelves but if you have a local place you can pick even one up, don’t hesitate. Keep your eyes out for their next installment as their sites mentions it will be some type of Wisconsin/Belgian IPA. Whatever they want to call it, I am sure it will be liquid goodness in a bottle. Enjoy!

I opened the closet this evening to take a look at Grass Cutter and how well it was fermenting. To my surprise my nose was greeted with a closet full of soft orange. Nothing over powering, almost serene in nature at how perfect the aroma seemed to be. No, I am not beating my chest about my beer but the aroma is candy for the nose.

This is my second brewing of Grass Cutter. This time around I added some orange zest and crushed coriander.

Now, I know from hops, that the aroma can be great in fermentation but all the aroma is blowing off through the blow off tube, never to be seen of again. So my thoughts turn to the idea that all this beautiful orange on the nose my shine brightest before it ever sniffs the bottle.

I will keep to my guns and not add anymore to the brite tank or after primary is finished, I want the true notes of the coriander and orange at the last five minutes of boil to come out.

Obviously time will tell and I hoping that some of this aroma finds it way into the bottle. Enjoy!

A recent gathering of neighbors and friends depleted my cellar of Grass Cutter a wheat ale that was made for my wife and is supposed to be similar to Oberon. Of course my wife said that I would need to brew more, requesting that this new batch have more citrus than the original. I quickly replied that I understood now why some people do 10 gallon or larger batches of beer. The gods were on my side as she agreed and said that I should brew two batches. Talk about leading a horse to water

Now the request to brew more wasn’t a problem, neither was the request to add some citrus. I figured I would just do some reading of the online forums, searchin for orange additions to a beer and her orange citrus fetish would be addressed. After a lot of reading I decided that zesting an orange late in the boil would be the best way to inject this into the beer. I also had a brew club meeting on Friday, so I inquired on this topic once more. They mentioned using coriander also. About a half ounce of coriander, crushed and added at the same time as the orange zest (about 2 ounces which can be obtained from two large oranges): the last five minutes of the boil.

I am not going to add either of these after primary fermentation is done as I want to find out what characteristics have been added to the beer without imparting additional aromas or flavors. If I don’t think it is enough I can either add more or add in the brite tank the next time I brew the beer.

The beer was already fermenting away this morning but, as I always do, I will leave the beer for four weeks before bottling. I will be brewing another batch of this beer again this coming Sunday. No orange or coriander as there were plenty that liked this beer just the way it was (including myself).

I also dry hopped Ladies Day IPA ]]> http://blog.twobeerdudes.com/2010/04/19/grass-cutter-home-brew-batch-2/feed/ 0 http://blog.twobeerdudes.com/2010/04/15/golden-tickets/ http://blog.twobeerdudes.com/2010/04/15/golden-tickets/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:05:34 +0000 scot http://blog.twobeerdudes.com/?p=1298 If you have any pulse of the American craft beer industry, you will know that Dark Lord Days (DLD) is coming up Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at Three Floyds Brewing. Tickets went on sale about a month ago raising the ire of a many of beer geek as the ordering system couldn’t handle the load/demand in the 50+ minutes it took for tickets to sell out.