AHS American Red Ale

First post in a while. 

Just a follow up on this homebrew: Austin Homebrew's American Red Ale, mini-mash method. It turned out pretty good (maybe it will get even better). It's less muddy than my picture makes is seem, but not very red (certainly not as crimson as the copy of The Crimson Petal and the White upon which it sits). A definite Cascade hop flavor comes through, although much subtler than in so many American pale ales. But this isn't a pale, it's a red ale. 

I might have liked a touch more malt flavor, but this is really more of an easy drinker, a good warm weather beer at that. It seems to appeal to "civilian" beer drinkers, though hop heads might find it a little dull. No idea how much of a difference mini-mash makes versus extract + specialty grain.

For my sixth brew, I took a chance on all grain, more or less. I'll try to post soon.

Green Brewing

I've been really busy at work and home, so not much posting recently, and maybe a light load in the future.

Here's a piece from the Center from American Progress (a left-wing think tank) about environmentally friendly brewing practices at New Belgium, Brooklyn Brewery, and others. A lot of this we beer geeks have heard already, but I didn't know, for example, that Brooklyn pays farmers to pick up their spent grain to feed to their livestock.

Dieu du Ciel Corne du Diable/Nils Oscar IPA (CAN/SWE)

Two IPAs from unexpected parts: Quebec and Sweden. Accordingly, both are on the pricey side.

Dieu du Ciel Corne du Diable: The devil's horn. It's in the style of "la cote ouest de l'Amerique du Nord," and it tastes it. Pretty golden amber with lacy head, it smells of Cascade dry hopping. Medium-to-full in body and lightly carbonated. Malty, hoppy (though nothing ridiculous), grapefruit and pine. Tingles the ribs afterwards. 

Nils Oscar India Pale Ale: A classier label, I think, although possibly a bit dull. This one also claims a US influence, with "American Amarillo hops to give the exotic aroma of tropical fruit." It seems lighter in color and in body (I didn't drink them side by side), and fizzier. It is in fact vaguely fruity tasting (not citrusy, as I tend to think of Amarillos), and maybe spicy/earthy. No IPA hop blast, but it's pleasant. What semi-spoils it for me is the finish, which is dry and in fact chalky. The effects of a less than fresh bottle? I don't know. I don't regret that it isn't an American-style hop bomb, although others may, but it loses points for the powder. 

For me, this is now two winners from Dieu du Ciel.

Brewhouse Honey Blonde

Just in time for the warm weather, my Brewhouse Honey Blonde, modified for five gallon rather than six, and with WLP008 yeast rather than the enclosed Cooper's.

It turned out good. Orange-tinged, slightly hazy (though more clear than my picture lets on). It has what I consider to be more of a soda pop carbonation -- plenty of what feel like bigger bubbles -- which is more appropriate for this style.  The honey flavor is actually buried underneath what I think are yeast flavors. I probably should have used a cleaner yeast; then again, I kind of like this taste. Without it, it might be kind of a boring beer.

So thumb's up on the easy to make, but pricey, Brewhouse Honey Blonde.

  

Mel Kiper Drinking Game

For diehard NFL fans who intend to spend all weekend watching the draft (I would be one but the weather supposed to be great): the Mel Kiper Drinking Game. 

Some of the rules:

1) Anytime Mel says this player is productive take a drink
2) Anytime he says this player is great value take a drink
3) Anytime a general manager says Mel Kiper has never worn a jock strap take a drink.

The "jock strap" debate was over the Colts taking Trev Alberts over Trent Dilfer in 1994. On hindsight, I'm not sure who was right. Alberts had his career ruined by injury, Dilfer kind of sucked (the Colts seemed better with Jim Harbough), but then piggybacked his way to a Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Kurt Warner went undrafted that year, so I suppose no one knew what they were talking about.

Ellicottville Pantius Droppus (NY)

I noticed that Beerjanglin' gushed over this foray into big beer from Ellicottville Brewing Company (EBC), so I figured I'd give it a try. Pantius Droppus is an Imperial Pale Ale --  not an Imperial IPA. I wondered what that distinction meant, and then recalled that I didn't even like EBC's grapefruit rind pale ale.  So would this be just more of a bad thing? In addition, it's claim of a "robust Cascade dry hop" made me think I knew what I was getting into, nothing particularly original.

But then there's the sour, enough so that I wondered whether my bottle had gone bad. It turns out, others have noted the sour notes as well, so I'll assume it's intentional. Here's the thing: I have yet to "appreciate" sour beers, but I like Pantius Droppus a good deal. The sourness isn't overwhelming, but stands on top of other aspects of the beer: citrus and sweet-leaning malts, slight grapefruit bitterness underneath. The high alcohol doesn't comes through. It still leans more to sipper than gulper, but isn't oppressively heavy. 

About $7.50 a bomber for 22 ounces of 11.5% ABV isn't a bad price at all, and I greatly appreciate the uniqueness of Pantius Droppus, a beer that Biggus Dickus would have loved.

AHS American Red Ale

This is my fifth batch of homebrew, although I haven't tasted my fourth batch yet (maybe tomorrow; I'm pretty patient). My first partial mash, using a kit from Austin Homebrew.

American Red Ale

5 lbs. Munich LME

1.5 lbs. Munich malt

1.5 lbs. 2-row

0.5 lbs. Cara-Munich

0.25 lbs. Special B

1 oz. Cascade (7.5%) each at 60, 15, 5. 

Windsor yeast

The grains smelled like Grape Nuts flakes.

The AHS instructions specified using a stockpot (and large grain bag) for the partial mash, but I used a 4-gallon cooler (and grain bag).  I figured this would hold the heat better, but (a) I forgot to pour hot water into the cooler ahead of time to raise the internal temperature, and (b) the grains and strike water (two gallons) barely filled half the cooler. So I lost more heat than I think I should have, finishing the 45 minute mash rest just below 150 degrees. But I don't know if that's a big problem with a mini-mash. My OG was 1.057 instead of the expected 1.053, but I don't trust my gravity readings that closely. 

The whole thing has smelled strongly of Cascades from the first day until bottling day (today). That's the "American" part, but I wonder if AHS adjusts its recipes for AA, with 7.5% is on the high side for Cascades. Windsor yeast is known to leave a fairly high FG, which is part of the reason this isn't an APA, I guess. The yeast was slow to get going, which worried me a bit. Last known gravity was 1.020 (expected 1.014), but my hydrometer broke so I didn't get a bottling day measurement.

Four weeks in primary, no secondary, and now it will be three weeks in the bottle before I crack one. I do like this mini-mash procedure and look forward to using it more, probably with more grains and less extract. Possibly I could try an all-grain half batch, but my weak electric stove limits my ability to boil too much wort.

Lake Placid Ubu Ale (NY)

This beer's claim to fame is that Bill Clinton tried it and liked it so much he asked the brewery to send a few growlers to the White House. Clintons successor drank so much alcohol as a young man that he lost his privilege by the time became President. Somewhat predictably, this has lead some to think there's a rule that the President should never drink. And all this after Obama was accused of disliking beer, and drinking anti-union beer, and lord knows what else.

Ubu was (is?) the name of a chocolate labrador retriever. The beer is described as a strong ale (7% ABV), which I think is a fairly open style. It's dark -- slightly ruby -- and comes across as a bit stout-like, but not of the dry, highly roasted variety. There's chocolate malt evident and a slight sweetness that doesn't stay around too long. Medium-bodied. Ubu is an easy-drinker, a session ale despite the ABV. Tasty, if somewhat nondescript.

Thomas Hardy's Ale 1998 (ENG)

L@@K VINTAGE! 1998! 

Looks like a bottle of this recently sold on ebay for $17.87. It's expensive, but not that expensive, though in auctions it only takes one person to overpay. 

Thomas Hardy pours a dark amber -- clear unless you tip the yeast in as well -- but I can't get much of I head. I could smell the underside of the cap all night: raspberry-chocolate, mmm! First taste of the ale is nothing like that, however. In fact, I primarily detect licorice. Also, a strong peppery, spiciness distinguishes this from other barleywines I've had (its 12%). Brown sugar, fruit, slight sweetness, just a whole lot going on. All in all, an excellent barleywine, but not above and beyond all the others I've had (e.g., Old Foghorn).

BTW, here's a piece from the late William Brand on the history of this beer. It looks like my bottle was in between Eldridge Pope's and O'Hanlon's brewing. The bottle only says 'Thomas Hardy Brewery Ltd." I'm somewhat proud to see, as is the case with Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, there's an American distributor at the heart of the fight to keep this ale flowing.  

When my time is up...

Just so you know, when I go, if this woman shows up a my wake, let her stay: 

Sheriff's deputies said a Texas woman started a brawl at a wake in Arkansas when she arrived with a beer can in her hand. The woman, 52, faces a third-degree domestic battery charges, as does another woman, 46, over the March 29 fight. Deputies said the first woman arrived at the Christies Chapel Church with a beer can in hand and that she refused to leave.

People in Arkansas are just so prissy about stuff like this.  

Coney Island Albino Python (NY)

Some craft breweries don't even bother with lagers. Shmaltz has a whole specialty line of them. Albino Python (with its slightly salacious label art) is a singular beer: a "white lager brewed with spices," a witbier brewed with lager yeast. Who else brews one of those?

The lager yeast is bound to make a difference, but on top of that, Shmaltz uses an atypical blend of spices: ginger, crushed fennel and orange peel. No coriander? And how many other beers use fennel? (Although fennel is licoricey like anise, which isn't completely unusual in beer.) To me, the spices definitely dominate any citrus fruit elements, and I'll definitely believe it's ginger and fennel. There isn't much malty backbone here, and the hops aren't bitter, but instead appear to add a somewhat rough and dry finish. It's crisp, and would work well with grilled chicken or fish or something like that.

Albino Python is, first and foremost, different. It's also pretty good, better than most lagers. But I don't like it quite as much as a well-made white ale.

Session Reminder

Just a reminder that this Friday, Lew Bryson is hosting, and the topic is smoked beers (coincidentally, The Atlantic has a short piece on Bavarian Schlenkerla). I've been pretty busy with work and life so I don't know if I'll be able to participate. If I do, it will surely rate a fail due to Lew's one demand:

Because I'm not going to tell you that you have to like them, how you have to drink them, or whether you can have an expensive one or where it has to be from. But I do insist that if you blog on this Session, that you drink a smoked beer that day.

Which I'm sure means that some of you will fail to do that and proudly blog about it and have what you think is a real good reason. I swear, it's like trying to push string...

That's kind of tough, because I won't be home from work until after 6, and then there's dinner, and I will likely have plans Friday with people who couldn't care less about smoked beer of beer blogging. Drink on Thursday, post on Friday, I say. Still a nice topic.

Hair of the Dog Ruth (ORE)

Now you're messing with a sonovabitch. Oregon's Hair of the Dog must be viewed as one of the quintessential  American boutique microbreweries. Well, boutique might not be the right word, but they make only a handful of beers, mostly big alcohol, not huge batches. Ratebeerians drool over things like the 29% ABV Dave with its super-selective release. 

Ruth is only 4.5% ABV and predictably not as highly rated. An American Pale Ale, it claims, but it's also unfiltered and not at all in the Sierra Nevada style. It looks like a hefeweizen and tastes like fresh grapefruit juice. Seriously, drinking this blind I'd probably guess carbonated grapefruit juice as easily as beer. It's good: not bitter canned grapefruit juice, or pith or rind. It's more fruity and a bit floral. Not a lot of hop sharpness for a West Coast pale, nor a bready malt backbone, just some combination of Crytsal hops, light grains and yeast. 

It's unusual and refreshing, I think, but a little too pricey on this side of the country to be properly drunk as a warm-weather session ale. Still, I'm sure I'll drink this again.

NYT on Wine in Supermarkets

Eric Asimov has written about the governor's plan to permit wine sales in New York State grocery stores. Opponents to the measure includes liquor stores of course, but also both the Teamsters (who have a stake in distribution) and Baptist ministers. With supporters like that....

But Asimov makes a good point:

Nobody supporting the bill would begrudge some concessions to wine and liquor stores, which right now are not permitted to sell cheeses, bread and other foods that would naturally pair with wine. They can’t even sell beer, which is sold in groceries, delis and convenience stores. If groceries are permitted to sell wine, perhaps wine shops ought to be able to sell cheese and beer.

A few weeks ago, my local Wegmans was asking people to sign an in-store petition on this measure. I wanted to ask the guy whether they supported allowing liquor stores in New York to sell beer. Perhaps at this point, they would, as they're big enough not to worry about Joe's Liquors poaching their six-pack sales . Nonetheless, it's important to recall that no one's motives are pure. Liquor stores have doubt been harmed by their inability to sell beer. I don't begrudge them their complaints now.

Cricket Hill American Ale (NJ)

I think this is my first New Jersey beer, and I believe Cricket Hill -- founded in 2002 -- is only just starting to sell outside their state. The label design is very attractive, although it looks more suitable for a telecommunications company than a brewery.

American Ale is clear gold/copper in color, nice head. The body is on the light side of medium, and carbonation is held in check. Grassy and slightly citrusy hops, but not too many of them (East Coast restraint). Some might want more bite, others a different a "brighter" approach. I think it's a nice easy drinker.  I see Lew Bryson quotes the brewer singing the praises of sessions beers, and this offering follows suit. 

St. Patrick's Day

I have nothing interesting to say, and to be honest, St. Patrick's Day is starting to grate on me as I age. FWIW, it currently loses to its evil twin (good twin?) Valentine's Day in a Googlefight, but it's close.

Brew House Honey Blond Ale (modified)

For my fourth batch of homebrew, I decided to give a Brew House kit a try. If you're unfamiliar with these, they describe themselves as "premium all grain beer kits" from Canada. But this isn't all-grain brewing; it's no boil brewing. You get a four gallon bag of wort brewed to high gravity (~1.080) and add two gallons of water, and pitch yeast. To prevent spoilage, the bagged wort is acidic, which you rectify by adding potassium bicarbonate (included) to raise the pH. This is the big idea that allows you to avoid the use of extract and its corresponding problems (e.g. dark color, extract twang).

Supposedly these kits make the best beer short of all-grain brewing, plus are as simple to use as no-boil canned beer kits from the likes of Cooper's and Mr. Beer. This raises an interesting conundrum. You'd think ease of use would be a great selling point, but I don't want the process to be too easy. I mean, if I want easy, I'd just buy beer. On the other hand, it does seem silly to want to go through extra steps of steeping grains and boiling wort if it still produces inferior beer. (Though at this point, I can't vouch for the quality of the Brew House kits.)

Fortunately, The Brew House kits are hack-able, allowing brewers to put their own stamp on the beer. You can swap yeasts. You can add less top-off water to produce stronger beer. You can boil hops of steep grains in the water before topping off. The manufacturer's website gives a few interesting recipes, and I found a few more here.

Although I was tempted by the Duvel clone built upon the neutral American Lager kit, I instead opted for the Honey Blonde kit with two modifications: I used liquid yeast, and I added only enough water to make a stronger, five gallon batch (note: the kits say they produce gallons, but those are imperial gallons). The yeast I used was White Labs East Coast Ale, WLP008. In truth, I might have been content using the enclosed Cooper's dry ale yeast, but I wanted to give liquid a shot for the first time. WLP001 (West Coast) would probably have been a more natural choice for this style of beer, and I can't say why I chose WLP008 instead. 

The night before "brewing," I made a 1/2 gallon starter (my first!) using DME, a pinch of yeast nutrient, and a sanitized growler. The process seemed to go well. I pitched the whole starter into chilly wort (below 60). I had stored the kit box in the garage and grew impatient waiting for its 40+ pounds of mass to warm up. I still saw bubbles that evening, and within 24 hours had a raucous ferment on my hands.

The kit instructions suggest using a 12 US gallon fermenter (!) which I don't have. So instead, I used a blow off, snipping the cross off the bottom of my 3-piece airlock and attaching 1/2 inch wide tubing to its stem.  It worked perfectly. Plenty of gunk inside the tubing suggested things would have been messy without the blowoff. 

Anyway, fermentation died down abruptly and stuck at around 1.030 (after a starting OG of ~1.060).  I tried gently swirling the pail, but ultimately opened her up and stirring with my sanitized thief. I also increased the heat a few degrees. Both of these things -- opening up the pail and warming -- have their drawbacks, but they worked, and my fermentation ended at 1.017 when I transferred to secondary 11 days after brewing. Still, not great attenuation, but I think that's what WLP008 does. 

This is my first use of a secondary. I don't know if one was really needed, but I need my ale pail for my next brew. So my 5 gallon Better Bottle is sitting in a closet and will be there for another couple weeks. It'll be some time before I see how this tastes.

Even if the taste is great, two caveats:

1. I paid nearly $45 for the kit. Your mileage may vary, but these are very heavy and thus very expensive to transport. Again, this is a kit designed to make six US gallons, or 4-5 gallons of bigger beer, but it's still pricey.
2. If you don't have a really big pail, you'll need to use a blowoff. Even then, I don't know if you can make six gallons of this in a 6.5 gallon bucket. I found that others have reported violent fermentations, so be careful. 

Postscript: here's the finished product.

Schneider Aventinus (GER)

This beer's a classic I've never tried before, and I assume it is going to be my last doppelbock until fall. "Germany's Original Wheat Doppelbock" it claims, and it's brewed with an ale yeast and not a lager yeast. A big, dark wheat beer rather than a big, dark lager.

My overall reaction is that I'm surprised at how light Aventinus is. Well, not exactly light, but it isn't weighty despite the 8.2% ABV. It's medium brown in color with a massive head, and not so far removed from a hefeweizen that you can't smell banana. On the tongue that doesn't really come through, but there's some tartness, spice, raisins, and cocoa powder. It's pretty deep, yet still almost refreshing. I prefer my doppelbocks to be more like this -- not syrupy or alcoholic or soy saucy -- and thus this moves to the top of my list of favorites. The rating sites show nearly universal love, but also a high number or ratings, so I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know already.

Beer Quiz

Trying to kill time at the office? Try the Pike Brewing beer quiz. Maybe this has been around, I don't know. It's 100 questions and I lost interest before I finished, but at least the questions aren't of the "what beer did Spuds McKenzie endorse?" variety.

Ommegang Rare Vos (NY)

Rare Vos is described as a Belgian-style amber ale, 6.5% ABV. The label says to serve at 40 degrees, but I must have gone at least 10 degrees higher. I bought this corked 750 ml bottle on sale for $4.59 I think, which isn't a bad price at all. 

I poured leaving the yeast in the bottom. The beer is on the orange end of amber more than the darker side, and the billowy head is fantastic. Light-to-medium bodied, assertively carbonated. Really, this should be drunk in warmer weather. The nose is fiercely fruity, and the taste is fruity as well -- something like peaches and apples -- and a bit spicy. All that Belgian goodness. Rare Vos finishes dry and very abruptly,  too much so perhaps, as I'd have liked to taste it a bit longer. I suppose that's better than finishing too sweet. Ultimately, a really fine Belgian-style ale. I wonder what it would have tasted like at the recommended 40 degrees?

Of Ommegang's five basic beers, I've never had one of them (Three Philosopher's) and am torn in my preference between their eponymous ale and Hennepin. Rare Vos is, to me, a shade below these two, but a bit better to Witte.  But they're all good.