Hops!

my hop shoots began emerging last week! a welcome sign of Spring for sure. this year I built a bigger trellis to support them, as the ones I had last year blew over twice! I was still able to salvage and get about 3oz of the Glacier variety. I brewed with them but it wasn’t enough as I later found out. Looking forward to a harvest ale this year, and hopefully getting some Cascades as well. Four years and not a single cone from them… !!

BJs Grand Cru

Stopped by BJs after my run yesterday for a recovery beer (did a 5k at Sharon Woods after work if you must know) and was in search of Grand Cru. My brother had mentioned it was back so I knew I had to get out there soon. Served up in a fancy hurricane style 12oz goblet and was a birght golden orange color, cloudy and with a small but persistent head. Aroma was of citrus fruit and some spicy yeast phenols. They always serve their beer WAY too cold and I didn’t have a lot of time to let it warm and open up. Flavor was similar to a witbier but stronger with lots of spiciness. Overall I very much enjoyed this one.

BJCP

Finally! I’ve been looking forward to taking this class for 3 years now! It’s the Beer Judge Certification Program or BJCP.

Life in general (that means kids) prevented me from the opportunity, but classes start tonight and run for 15 weeks. We run through every style of beer there is, drink samples (5-7 a night), talk about them… what’s right, what’s not… discuss variations, etc. Yep… tough thing to do… especially for all 80 styles of beer! Yeah, I said 80! 

Tonight I’ll do something I haven’t done in a VERY LONG TIME… I’ll be drinking Light Lagers! That means Bud Light, Budweiser, MGD and hopefully a good Dortmunder or two to wash them all down.

Studying throughout this class is going to be a real bitch!

__________________________________________________

Update to post:

Last night’s class was fun, but wowwo wowwee was it overwhelming! Probably by design but the first thing we did after 5-6 large handouts of booklets/study guides was a freaking Quiz! Straight off the bat… damn! Of course I had read through the first couple of pages, but I wasn’t “studying” it by any means. My expectations were shot down immediately, and then he hands us all a beer and says to judge it as a German Pilsner. Of course it was a trick but the format was very frustrating. One person got up and damn near gave up but we talked her into staying. 

That said… I will actually have to study and remember descriptions, values and specs for every style… whoa…..

What’s This? A New Post!!

well then, since our last episode not much has happened beer wise… just a few incidents of brewing mixed with many incidences of drinking!  Let’s start with the brewing portion… Over the last 4 months I’ve made 12 gallons of Robust Porter + 3 gallons of a Mild Porter with the second runnings; 3 gallons of Double IPA (10%!); and just recently did 8 gallons of an experimental beer using a single new hop variety called Nelson Sauvin. The latter is still in the fermenter and from some samples it has a very smooth grape flavor, which is a characteristic of this New Zealand hop. It’s a strong hop too with 12% alpha acids so it will be bitter and very aromatic. Alcohol is a mere 4% so this should be interesting to say the least. Of the other two beers (Porter and DIPA) I’ve nearly drank them both dry and need to pull the taps so that I can save some for the club’s competition in May. That will be tough as I have little homebrew to drink on if I do that! All that means is I need to get my but in gear and starting brewing a few utility beers. 

As for drinking incidents, well they have been quite good. Gebs was in town a couple times and that always means it’s party time. We did some backpacking and shared a Bigfoot 2008 in the woods of Shawnee State Forest (an area known for it’s Bigfoot sightings). We did some partying with the gang and even managed to hit a few bars (like the great Dilly Deli). 

Till next time!

Catch All

so, Beer & Sweat was a few weeks ago. Planning two major homebrewing events/competitions in the same year, let alone less than 60 days apart, was fun but I don’t recommend it! One will be enough for the future thanks. Anyway, we had 245 kegs this year and overall it was a great success. We were WAY more organized this year than we had been in the past. Like dishing out awards a full 3 hours earlier type of organized. 

I brewed on the 9th, a basic IPA recipe, but feeling experimental I added two yeasts to the ferment! One was a pretty standard American Ale yeast (1272) and the other was a Trappist High Gravity (3787). It fermented out quickly and due to the amount of yeast and trub, along with a poor mash efficiency I only got about 2.5 gallons. I let it age another 10 days in secondary and just bottled it yesterday. Sampling a bit while I brewed another batch, even warm and uncarb’ed it was pretty damn good! With only 14 22oz bottles I have high hopes for this American IPA turned Belgian.

Yesterday, the 24th I did something I found quite exciting. I brewed a 5gal batch of a blonde… but the difference in this was that I FRESH HOPPED! Yes, my Glacier hops were plentiful enough this year to actually use. I mashed in shortly after 2 and of course at this point it rained (it hasn’t for like 3 weeks!) and I was getting quite pissed. The hops still needed to be picked and the idea of being on a ladder in the rain was very exciting to me! Luckily it cleared up after a short pour and I was able to share the duties of picking hops with my daughter (and her two friends who helped too). I ended up with 3 oz of fresh hops with which to work. I decided to use purchased hops for bittering and used half of the fresh for flavor additions and the other half for aroma additions. I don’t know what to expect but my mash efficiency rocked on this batch… a nice 76%. So ABV will bump up a few notches and we’ll just have to see what kind of effect the hops had…. can’t wait!

AB-InBev

this is all I have to say that the merger (other than I think it’s a bad move, and quite unAmerican)

Of the Big Three: Bud, Miller and Coors, not one is American owned. Bud is now part of the Euro conglomerate of InBev, Miller has been owned by South African Brewing(SAB) for years and Coors is owned by Molson of Canada.

That makes Boston Beer Co (Samuel Adams) America’s largest brewery with Yeungling and Sierra Nevada making up the new Big Three. So, if you are an American and a beer drinker who typically chooses an American brand you should start searching out your regional, and local craft breweries.

But then again you should be doing that anyway.

AHA National Homebrewer’s Convention 2008

Brewin’ Down The Haus in Zinzinnati!

Where to start?

PART 1 (posted 6-30-08)

Wow. Now *that* was a huge party! I’m quite sad it’s over really. After 15 months of planning and organizing such a large event those 4 days seem so short now. The many items I had the pleasure of being part of all were received extremely well and for that I’m feeling rather pleased with myself. We sold out of the logo shirts within 2 days and did well with sales of the commemorative beer and mead shirts.

Pre-Conference events began Tuesday with a Beer and Food specially paired dinner at JeanRo’s downtown. The menu looked quite intriguing on the food side and sublime on the beer side. Events continued Weds with tours of historical breweries and bars in Over-the-Rhine’s Brewery District and also a Bourbon Barrel Trail that extended south into some of Kentucky’s best distillers. I unfortunately did not attend any of these and thus began the conference with the BJCP Judges Reception dinner on Weds night.

The food was rather basic but OK (meatloaf, mashed tatoes and veggies) but the star of the evening was a special treat from across the pond. Well know in homebrew circles Ant Hayes (http://www.anthayes.com/) is a homebrewer and beer lover from London. He gave a talk on the underappreciated Southern English Brown Ale and with the help of many folks in the industry was able to have 12 cases of Mann’s Brown Ale shipped over just for us! I have to say for a beer with just 2.8% alcohol it was just as delicious and complex as beers 4-5 times its strength. Made for all-day drinking sessions this was a beautiful brown color with a small head and a sweet, brown bread grain flavor. Quite lovely and quite the treat too. I even managed to sneak my empty bottle for my collection.

PART 2 (posted 7-9-08)

ah, so with dinner and brown ales out of the way, the broke out the ciders and perrys. Two fermented beverages I’ve not explored. For reference, Cider is fermented apple juice. Perry is fermented pear juice. We went through many different styles and examples, some with defects to illustrate what is expected and what is not when drinking these complex liquids. I learned quickly that these take a vast amount of knowledge to not only make but to drink and understand! Most of it was way beyond me but I tried to pay attention and not get blasted in the process. I actually ended up leaving fairly early considering they were going to break out the meads after the cider session. 

Thursday morning I woke up excited, like a kid on Christmas, packed up all of my gear, signs and kegs and took off for my 3 day beer-cation. Judging took place ALL DAY Thursday, and I mean 8-5 all day. This is work people! So after a nice buffet break-feast I headed over and got my stewarding designation. Sour Ales… cool! Stewards pull the proper beers for the judges (9 total judges in 3 sets of 3) and help tally scoresheets, etc. That all might sound complicated but really I spent the morning finishing off the bottles of Flemish Browns, Straight and Fruit Lambics, Gueze’s and Berliner Weisse’s. Really tough job, I know! Consider also that these are the best of the best at this point of the homebrew competition, having taking the top spot in their categories at the regional qualifier competitions. Things wrapped up and we had a short lunch break. About 1PM the Toastmaster Jim Tarbell entertained us with a rendition of God Bless America on the harmonica to kick off the festivities. His point coming at the lyric … oceans “white with FOAM.” He felt it worked and though it was a bit of a stretch he did keep us intrigued even if we were a bit confused by his ramblings at times.

The afternoon brought the final round of competitions and though I was not scheduled to judge, I was recruited as a third judge at a short table. How there was a shortage of judges in the IPA category I will never understand but I was more than happy to lend a hand, er a mouth to the cause! At this point it was down to only 5 IPAs so not much work and we found a clear winner rather quickly. From there another break as the REAL judges went to work judging best of show beers. One beer from each of the 23 categories with only one taking the crown. But we weren’t to know any of that classified info until Saturday night’s Awards Banquet! Oh, the suspense! 

A group of us decided to head out for dinner to Glendale Pub before the REAL party kicked off. Thursday night was Pro-Brewers Night where the pro’s come in and bring their best stuff for sampling. This was cool as shit because most of the breweries participating we’re semi-small and the brewer’s themselves were there to pour you the beers they made! My favorite was easily from Jolly Pumpkin Artisanal Ales (http://www.jollypumpkin.com/) from Dexter Michigan. They had three belgian styles to sample and all were excellent. My favorite being their Bam Biere, a farmhouse style. They also had their Amber and Golden which were great too. I also had Goose Island Matilda on tap, Great Lakes Commodore Perry on tap, and tons of other great specialty brews. Dogfish Head was there but for whatever reason I did not find my way to their booth. After all of this great commercially brewed beer, we had one other special brew… the conference beer done up a little different. So the Conference beer (so called because every attendee gets a bottle) was very aptly Cincy themed, but with a twist. We did a Cream Ale but did it Imperial style, so it came out about 9%! It’s supremely drinkable for the size of it. Well, this particular version had been barrel aged, adding another layer of deliciousness and about another 1% of alcohol to it. One of the other guys and I walked around with a growler of it and served it to those lucky enough to still be standing. Needless to say, after such a night full of drinking, after a day full of drinking, and then imbibing the Bourbon Barrel Imperial Cream I was toast. The next morning was R-O-U-G-H! I couldn’t eat, walk or even keep my eyes open. I napped on the couch in the hotel lobby and when i came to about noon I decided to head home for a few hours and see the kiddies and recover before the Keynote Speech kicked off at 3PM.

more to come as I have the chance to write….

Beer Labels

hey, I won a small award for a label design I did. I could have probably won 2 but I didn’t enter the second label. I’ll explain why later.

So, last year on 07-07-07 a group of us got together and brewed 3 beers to the tune of about 18 gallons! One of those was a big IPA at the request of a doctor friend, DrGebs. So Doctor’s Orders IPA was born using a number of malts and 5 types of hops! It was big and delicious to boot. Naturally it needed a cool label. Oddly this would be my first true label design after years of brewing and many more years of design experience! So here’s a look at what I created.

My favorite part about the label are the abbreviations and “doctor speak.” It basically says to take as prescribed by mouth and the OD (overdose) treatment is YOYO meaning You’re On Your Own. Ha!

So I entered it into the Brew Your Own Magazines annual label contest and for my efforts was rewarded with a $25 gift certificate to a brewing supply company in PA. The fact that it was chosen and will be published in the next issue of BYO is worth more to me than the gift certificate.

As for the other label, well, I decided not to enter it due to the fact that it’s already placed on over 1000 bottles of Fireball Mead! This label was created for the American Homebrewer’s Conference Commemorative Mead that will be given to each attendee of this year’s convention being held right here in my backyard of Cincinnati.

That’s cool enough for me as it is! Oh and if you dig it… go order a T-shirt with this or one of my other TWO designs to commemorate this years conference and special beer.
www.brewingdownthehaus.com

The “I’m Bored at Work” and remembered I have a Blog post

things have been busy! hence the lack of a post…. that and i tend to forget about this blog.

So, what’s new in the world of beer?

I have a German Hefeweizen on tap. 

The kegerator (a chest freezer modified with a wooden collar to allow for a couple tap handles) is stocked with random homebrews from our club “Bloat Open” competition, many of which I absconded with. It’s a sweet deal really… every has to provide two bottles and only 20 or so beers go on to the second round, meaning of the 173 entries, times 2 bottles, minus 20ish, that’s like 150 leftover beers! I grabbed at least 20 or so for myself and the rest went to other organizers.

Not to mention I also scored at least a 6 pack each of Founders Red Rye, Avery 14’er ESB, and Lagunitas IPA… DELISH!

AHA is about a month away, starting June 18th… so you can certainly expect photos from that weekend. And what a weekend it will be. All of the work I’ve done over the past year for the logo, poster, shirts, glasses and other promo items for the club will culminate over a 4 day buzz of all-things-homebrew. Wednesday kicks off with a dinner for BJCP judges and a tasting of Mann’s Brown Ale, a British beer not available in the US. Thursday begins with judging at 8AM and going all day till 5PM. Then a few seminars with and PRO-BREWERS NIGHT~ with names like Jolly Pumpkin, New Holland, Founders, Stone, Upland (Bloomington, IN), Weasel Boy (Akron, OH), Anchor, Bells, and locals like Barrelhouse, BJ’s, Great Lakes, Sam Adams, Rock Bottom and Moerlein.

Friday works up to the Keynote by Jim Koch of Boston Beer along with the legendary Club Night at which we expect to have over 500 kegs of homebrew available among the 36 participating local and national clubs.

Saturday wraps up with talks and tastings on rare and ancient beers, bourbon barrel aging and then the Grand Banquet at which winners like Homebrewer of the Year and Best of Show Beer are announced.

It looks to be one hell of a weekend!

Oh, and there *MAY* even be tickets yet for Pro-Brewers Night and Club Night available!! You won’t find a better place to party anywhere in the world either of these nights!

 

check for tickets here: BEERTOWN.ORG

St Patrick’s Day

this is about all I have to say bout this farce of a holiday. Yeah, so I really am mostly annoyed by this “holiday” in the week leading up to it, but for some damn reason I always end up “celebrating” somehow. And I use the quotes a bit sarcastically because even though I can respect what it once meant, it’s now just another over-commercialized day on which to extract cash from the masses. Nice if you’re a benefiting businessperson, but as a so called “consumer” it all leaves me a bit perturbed. As in “Hey, let’s sell the crappiest and cheapest swill we can with some green food coloring and call it a party! whoohoo! Luck of the Irish to ya!” WTF?! I can guarantee the worst beer any true Irishman ever drank was light years better than that concept. Well, slightly stepping down off my high horse, yet still standing high enough to be on my soapbox… I did end up having a mini celebration for myself. I drove away the snakes by visiting The Comet and enjoyed a 9% Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout on draft and a 10.5% Bell’s Expedition Stout on cask. I figure in just those 2 beers I STILL drank WAY better than 99.9% of this beer forsaken city. So, Erin Go Braugh, and Screw You! I am partially Irish…. I just have enough German sensibility to not be a complete douche when it comes to joining the masses for a fake party.