Posts Tagged ‘home brewing’

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Emphasis On Family Still Includes Beer

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

This past week has been an interesting one when it comes to my ability to taste and review American craft beers. My cousin from California and his family were in for the week. In order to help them afford the trip, we put them up in our house. My cousin is a craft beer noob and I have been working slowly to convert him to real beer.

He had one simple mission in order to “pay” for his stay at my house: bring some Russian River Pliny the Elder. Unfortunately, the two week search in southern California turned up empty. Oh, well, I will hopefully be making a trip out there and visiting all the great breweries of southern California in next year or two. He even mentioned taking a side trip up to the San Francisco area. How beautiful would that be?

Now down to the goods. After picking him up at the airport we headed over to Revolution Brewery. The wife and I stopped there in early January this year, before they had opened, and she said how much she would like to stop by. The later afternoon found it mildy filled up, gaining easy seating for the eight of us. Service, food, and the beer were all really good. Each of the adults had a different beer. I had Anit-hero IPA; a solid representation of an IPA that I would recommend to anyone who stops in.

The rest of the week found us each night having beer from my cellar, mostly light beers, and some really good New Glarus unplugged series beers. Nothing out of the ordinary and I tried to keep anything that I hadn’t tried out of his reach. :)

Friday night was the big hurrah: family was invited over to have an informal get together and say hi to my cousin; he hadn’t been in town for 12 years. My family isn’t close, but they do like beer (Lite and Bud Light), and we have a great time the few times we get together. Luckily, but unfortunately, only a few of the relatives made it out. They finished off my macro beer, which I only keep for those occasions, and the just about finished off all my home brew. Some took a few of the extra bottles to enjoy at home on another day.

I am glad they liked my beer so much. I busy running around filling glasses all evening with a big smile on my face. I have been waiting for such an evening for a long time. The only bad news: the 20 gallons of beer I brewed in April for the summer, is all gone and I have a good month of summer left.

What to do? What to do? Start brewing again! Enjoy!

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Home Grown Hop Plant

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

I thought growing my hop plant would be this wild and exciting adventure that I could fill up my blog with, at least, weekly updates. My world came crashing down on my quickly.

My first year Centennial hop plant was slow to get started. First year hop plants are busy growing roots and getting established, so being patient is the name of the game. Still, it is my first plant; I wanted to grow and be bountiful, all in a week. :)

The first few months saw nothing fantastic happening. I read forums to make sure my little hop plant had a chance, asked advice of others, and did my diligence to help the plant along as much as possible. In spite of that, the beginning of June didn’t leave me with a 20 foot bine on the side of the house. I had a two foot bine that was still growing slowly.

By the time July came around, some message boards were full of guys already harvesting from their 2nd, 3rd, etc year hop plants. Mine: a measly 4 foot tall on it’s tip toes.

Early July saw the family make a trip to the Minneapolis area. We were only gone a few days but I asked the neighbor to water the hop plant while we were gone. It was in the 90s and humid each day so I didn’t want the plant to suffer. Oh, it did suffer! I have no idea what happened but the main bine, that was about five feet tall, had been broken at the bottom and withering, badly. At least the next bine was only 1.5 feet behind.

The next day I decided to clean away the quickly drying out hop plant material. In my haste, I broke my tip off the longest bine!!!! Yeah, shitsville. In the back of my head any chance of getting my one wet hopped beer out of this plant were going down the toilet.

At that point, I just left it. The next bine was about six inches shorter, so it wasn’t far behind. July turned out to be a good month as up until this week, it had been growing a good two feed each week. For those lacking math skills that is a little better than three inches of growth per day.

This week the growth has slowed as the flowers have come out in force. The total height is in the eight foot range. I guess you could say it is a dwarf. But, I still may get enough hops out of this sucker to have a wet hop IPA come this early fall. Fingers crossed.

What have I learned? Don’t let your neighbor watch your hop plants, be patient, and wait for the second year for the hop plant to really go nuts. Enjoy!

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Project Finished – Time for Beer Again!

Monday, June 28th, 2010

It is hard for me to believe that it has been two weeks since I said how busy I have been and that I would be writing on a regular basis. So much for that idea. I will not apologize as life brings us all the unexpected; learning to deal with it is part of life.

This past Friday, while speaking to Rich, I told him that I was done with this huge project, so I stopped by to discuss beers and he went and did it: grabbed a bottle of 2010 Three Floyds Dark Lord from the cellar. Unfortunately, my wife gave a call and we had to put the tasting aside for another day. Just so the wife doesn’t get a bad name, she didn’t ask me to come home, I wanted to.

I guess when you finish a tough project, luck is on your side. The wife and I found our way over to Rich’s house around 10:00pm on Saturday night. This time the total and complete intent of the visit was to have Dark Lord. And have Dark Lord we did.

Outstanding is the easiest way to describe it. The aroma and flavors are deep and complex: dark fruits (raisin, plums, cherry), roasted malt, coffee, chocolate, some booze, and even smoke. It is thick, heavy, and a meal in a bottle. I will have to have another soon as I didn’t review the beer, I just wanted to savor the beer.

Now that that episode of my life is over, I can get back to more home brewing and American craft beer reviews. I think I might still be on target for 365 reviews this year. If not, it is catch up time. This weekend will find me in Minnesota for a Surly tour and a visit to Flat Earth, Town Hall, and Summit. Enjoy!

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Last Home Brew Beer Bottled

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

It has been a roller coaster of home brewing for me over the past three months or so. It finally came to a head yesterday with the bottling of my last five gallon batch of beer: a wheat beer.

The arduous brewing journey began with the brewing of a robust porter that was followed by bi-weekly brewing: Russian imperial stout, ipa, wheat beer with orange and coriander, and finally just plain wheat beer.

I did take a gallon of the robust porter and put it on oak and bourbon and one other gallon on vanilla. The RIS, I took one gallon on oak and bourbon. The robust porter turned out middle of the road, while the vanilla wasn’t even apparent, and the oak/bourbon one could have had either a little more of each and/or more ageing. I haven’t tasted the RIS as I am still letting it age.

The IPA turned out fairly well, while the first batch of wheat beer is ready and is probably my favorite beer to date that I have brewed. I only have the newest round of wheat beer to bottle condition after yesterday and then the fruits of my labor will completely ready to go.

I don’t mind waiting for the beer but sometimes it does seem to take a while. :) I probably won’t brew much during the summer as there are so many other things that perk my interest. Enjoy!

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Bottling Home Brews

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Two handed bottle capper.

There for about two months I was brewing every other weekend. I brewed an IPA, RIS, a wheat beer with orange and coriander, and the same wheat beer without the additives. It made for a fun time having four beers at some point or another fermenting, dry hopped, brite tank, etc. Especially since it was only batch six through nine for me. Seemed like I was checking stuff with the beer almost everyday. Only if brewing everyday could become a reality.

After this past weekend, I am one batch of beer away (the wheat without additives) from having all these beers bottled. The RIS was actually split into a four gallon batch, that was bottled right away, and a one gallon batch that was aged on oak and bourbon for a week. I can’t wait for all of these beers to be carbonated.

I will be picking up the ingredients this Friday for brewing on Saturday or Sunday. I am making a Hefe that will have the name of Club Pro. From what I understand the beer is simple, just fermenting at the correct temperature is the trick. We shall see since this is one of my favorite styles.

One more thing: Ladies Day IPA is now drinkable and is just about exactly what I was desiring from this beer. Enjoy!

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Home Brew Day #9: Grass Cutter (Batch 3)

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

It seems like I have been racking up the frequent flier miles when it comes to home brewing lately. Asking me if I mind is like asking an alcoholic if he needs another drink. Home brewing is quite addicting and I am in deep. I am already contriving my plan to get the wife to allow me to upgrade to all grain. She likes that I will save over $20/batch but not the initial expenditure to get up and running with all grain. Did you hear birthday gift! :)

This brew day seemed to go extremely well and was quiet: no wife and kids. There didn’t seem to be any hiccups on the process, hit my gravity, and the beer was fermenting away this morning with a nice krausen. The batch of this I brewed two weeks ago had coriander and orange peel, I will be bottling that in two weeks with this batch to follow two weeks after that. So I will have 10 gallons of this beer ready and prepared for the ravenous neighbors.

After cleaning up the brew day mess, it was time for yard work before continuing with the bottling of a Double Bogey Russian Imperial Stout that I had brewed a good two months ago. My wife helped with the racking of the beer to bottling bucket and one gallon into a one gallon carboy so it can sit on oak bourbon chips for a week before it will be bottled. The kids helped with the caps. I stole a small sip out of the bottle of bottling bucket: it was blessed with a great coffee flavor and some bitterness while there was some heat from the alcohol.

Unbelievably, a hectic day in which I took no photos: I guess I will only have my memories and some tasty brew in a about a month. Enjoy!

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Grass Cutter Home Brew Batch #2

Monday, April 19th, 2010

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

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Hop(s) Planted

Monday, April 12th, 2010

I planted my first hop plant yesterday out in the yard. Centennial. That is actually 50% less than I wanted to plant. I had another plant but the wife started to freak when I showed her were I was going to put the eye hook to hold the rope. Until that point she was fine with me having two, until that point she was fine with me having ropes hanging from the house, until that point I wasn’t going to be only growing one plant on a trellis. I guess my wife is a little spatially challenged. :)

I plan on doing a little bugging of her so that I can hopefully get the one trellis turned back into one eye hook, one rope, and one hop plant growing to its’ full potential. Only time will tell and I don’t think I will have to worry about growth for a least several more weeks, while it continues to warm up.

Of course I read a ton of information before planting so that I can have a successful growing experience. Internet, books, forums, and friends received a grilling. If you haven’t figured this out yet, I can be a little compulsive and go somewhat over board with my interests.

Hopefully next year the one plant will give me enough to brew a batch with: dry hop or wet hop will be the conundrum. I will continue the hop growing saga. Enjoy!

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Idlewild Creek Robust Porter Tasted

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

idlewild creek robust porter

Not being a patient person, I have a hard time giving my beer enough time to carbonate after bottling. Two weeks or more, usually since the basement is only 57 degrees this time of year, is tough to deal with after waiting at least four weeks after brew day to bottle.

Sunday marked the fourteen days of bottling and conditioning for Idlewild Creek, a robust porter recipe I made up. I had take one gallon ageing it on oak bourbon chips, another gallon ageing it with a vanilla bean, and the rest was just left alone. Being fourteen days conditioned and my bourbon loving neighbor was over, I thought there would be no more of perfect scenario to try the beer than that moment.

After a bottle each, I can say the beer needs another two weeks conditioning but the oak and bourbon are nice an subtle. Miles, my neighbor, said that he would and could have gone for a much bigger bourbon presence.

After a little bit of talking about bourbons, we went over to Miles house to smell his collection. He is donating bourbon for my Russian Imperial Stout, yahoo. I will be putting one gallon with five ounces of Crown Royal (nice oak aroma and is actually Canadian Whiskey), another gallon with five ounces of Corner Creek, and one more gallon with six ounces of Corner Creek. That will be called the Miles edition. :)

Personally, I am really happy with this beer and wished that I would have added just a touch more bourbon (maybe two ounces per gallon more, which would put me in the five ounces per gallon neighborhood). I will have to try the normal and vanilla versions in the next week or so but, based on the bourbon version, I may have brewed the first batch of beer that I have liked. Enjoy!

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Brewing Day #7: Ladies Day IPA

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Let me start off by saying that I find myself very fortunate to have a wife that puts up with my home brewing and allows me to play brewer about every three weeks. So brew day #7 was back to the beer I brewed as my third beer. IPAs are probably my favorite recipe but I am not brewing because my first go around was so outstanding. I am brewing because of how terrible it turned out.

This brings on the one difficulty I have with home brewing: the waiting process. I am not by nature a patient person but somehow, someway, I have found the intestinal fortitude to keep my beers in primary for four weeks and, if need be, throw them in a brite tank for a while longer. After that, the beer needs to go to bottling: at least another two weeks. Waiting almost two months or more (based on the beer) is not an impatient mans cup of tea.

When I brewed this beer the first time, I pitched my yeast, by the end of the second day nothing was happening. So by the end of the first day, I was on the forums, contacting friends, and researching why yeast doesn’t start. I impatiently came to the conclusion it was my yeast, so on my way home from work the second day I picked up a new package of yeast. Since it was only my third brew I made sure I followed directions precisely. Much to my shagrin, the yeast failed a second time and on the evening of the third night day, I was a mess. I thought the beer was doomed.

I called a brewing friend, who had some yeast. He did let me know the yeast was used on a different beer and wasn’t sure if the profile would come throuhg in my beer. Well, to cut this story short, it did. I didn’t like it and I have had a hard time choking it down.

Fast foward to yesterday: I made the same recipe but this time the yeast is working fine and I will not be injecting some crazy yeast this time around. I can’t wait for it. Eight weeks is a long time to wait.

I still have one dilema: I orginally dry hopped with one ounce of Amarillo hops. I found some cheap hops so I have an ounce of Amarill, Centennial, Cascade, and Chinook laying around. Would this cause hop aroma overload in a regular IPA or just the right amount? Enjoy!

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