Homegrown Hops IPA - Thought and Review

I will get some pictures up when I can. The homegrown hop IPA is not the beer that I hoped it would be. The grist seems to be alright and I am going to brew this up with the same commercial bill to see the difference, which I suspect to be quite substantial. The homegrown hops are not very potent, they lack the bitterness that I was going for, that alone would not have been a big deal, the biggest problem with the beer is the taste that the hops imparted. I think that this is a two pronged issue, one I think that the hops just are not very good as they are first year hops and were probably not dried as well as they could have been, also I used notty as the yeast and it just plain sucks if you ask me, I will never use it again, a real fruity odd taste that I can tell is coming from the yeast. The fermentation temps were on the high side, but they were no outrageous (lower 70's) and all of the other liquid and dry yeast that I have used has not had a problem like that. The beer is nice and malty with some roasted overkill from the biscuit but the beer has an overwhelming sour fruit flavor that I just don't like, I can drink it but I just am not crazy about it. The nice thing is that this beer is really strong (9.7 ABV) so I only need one any way. The hop taste is really hard to describe, it is a sort of vegetative sour fruitiness that just doesn't belong in beer. On an A to F scale I would give this beer a C- D+.

Enjoy! Eyedea,P.O.S and DoomTree

If you are into hip-hop or spoken word type stuff or if you are into local music then you should already know about these three, but just in case you don't here are three of my favorites, not only in Mpls, but just in general. I highly encourage you to check out P.O.S, the range of his music is just amazing and all of it has a vibe that I just dig, so check it out, also doomtree is a local conglomerate of artists and they follow in that same trend. Check them out and go catch a show at first ave or another local venue, you will not be disappointed. Eyedea is a lyrical genius and will truly be missed, I hope the other side finds him well. Some of my favorite lyrics of all time are in the hook of Burn Fetish, writing at its best. Cheers!

Brewclub Single Hop IPA

My contribution to the great hops experiment is in the fermenter. I did the simcoe edition. Here is the grist:

10 lbs Rhar 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb cara-pils

Hop schedule (All Simcoe Hops)
.75 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1 oz @ 10
2 oz @ 1
2 oz Dry Hop for 7-14 days

OG 1.056

Brew day went smooth, mashed at 152 for 1 hour, sparged 167 for 30 min. I did a much better job hitting my temps with this brew so I am excited about that.  I also had some efficiency gains taboot. I got 6.75 gallons of wort, all of the simcoes in the boil at the right times, and I also got my wort really nice and chilled down and fast, I guess that is the one advantage to MN in the winter! Got it cooled down to 68 in 20 min and pitched my starter of 1056. I pitched around 5 and there is slow activity now @ 9:20 and the fermenter is 66 degrees. Looks like it will be right on track. Also a big shout out to SWMBO for the time!! Check back for the latest on the Nordeast Brew Clubs single hop experiment.

NE Homebrew Club Single Hop Brew Off..The Great Hops Experiment

So my next batch will be for the Northeast Homebrew Club's first ever single hop brew off. There are five of us in the club that will be brewing the same grist and using a single hop for all of the additions. I am excited about this and Dank Brewer and I have talked about doing this for awhile on our own so it is very cool that there are more people involved. I am obsessed with hops and I am really excited to see how different all of the beers turn out. Here is the grist:

10 lbs American 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb carapils

Hop Schedule is:
@ 60min  1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 20min 1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 1min 2.0 oz Simcoe
Dry Hop 2 oz Simcoe
 
I will be using simcoe! Real excited about that as that is my favorite hop and one that I have wanted to do a single series on for a while and now I have a reason to do so. The other hops in the mix for the other four people are:
 
Sorachi Ace - Really interested to try this one as it is a newer variety that I have never tried
Fuggles
Citra
Saaz
 
I will report back with brewday updates and also tastings sometime in January.  Cheer to good beer!

Brew Haus Update....

I just realized that I have been slacking when it comes to posting. This is due to many things, for one it has been really cold here in Minnesota, the holiday season is upon us, and we have had many project going on with the house. The house project is a curse and a blessing. The curse is that I should have done the work years ago, the blessing is that I get to craft my perfect fermentation/beer storage room! The basement in my house used to be wet, not super bad, but the first spring thaw was always a bitch, usually involving hours with a shop vac and dehumidifier, but that will be no longer as I just had an interior drain tile system put into my basement! Good bye dank and dingy basement and hello to drier days ahead! SWMBO has given me carte blanche on the back room in the basement for my inhouse brewery! I am going to get some shelving, and also going to be putting in a nice epoxy floor. Look for some pictures in the upcoming months. I will also try to get some video projects off the ground after the holidays so be on the lookout for those. So there are bright days ahead for the NHB! I will try to post updates as things get completed. Here is what the back room looks like now and in a few months it should look much better! Cheers!

Amarillo American Pale Ale - Update

The amarillo american pale ale is now in the sweet spot. The beer is crystal clear and all carbonation problems have worked themselves out. Time is really the key when having carbonation issues, this batch was bulk primed and I did not get the sugar mixed in well enough, so the last few bottles were gushers and the first ones bottled took over 5 weeks to prime. Another thing to note is the taste difference between the beer that were lightly carbed and the ones that were over carbed. The over carbed beers, at least early on, tasted so much more complex and fruity, the ones that were under carbed we harsh and extremely bitter. Strange to say the least as I thought that priming with dextrose did not change the flavor of the beer. That still may be true, if you wait long enough. Two things that I have had to admit to myself are that I am impatient when wanting to drink my beer, another is that I over bittered this batch a bit. Here is the true review of the first all grain batch I produced, the Amarillo American Pale Ale:

Pour - Pours a bright orange, almost crystal clear with a nice white two finger head.

Aroma - Citrus/spicy hop aroma. No sweetness in the aroma, a nice match of the spicy chinook hops and citrus fruity notes from the amarillo and simcoe hops, smells really nice.

Taste - Well carbonated, nice mouthfeel may be a bit thin, the bitterness is aggressive and a little over powering but not bad. Next time I would just do the 1/2oz chinook FWH and not add the other 1/2 oz @ 60. This beer would be much more balanced without the extra 1/2oz. But if you are a hophead you will like the bitterness, to an untrained palate it may taste a bit harsh and overbitter.

Finish - Lingering bitterness and some spicy notes, not sure where those came from simcoe/amarillo or just the combo? I really like the aftertaste and the flavor/aroma hops, this is a solid beer, not a competition beer. On an A to F scale I would rate this a B+!

Cheers to good beer!



Biscuit Malt

In the homegrown IPA I used a pound of biscuit malt. I like malty beers and figured that a pound of biscuit and a pound of Munich 10 would add some really nice malt complexity. I did a lot of reading and the line with biscuit seems to be do not use for more that 10% of the grist. I ended up using it at 6% of the grist and I feel like that is WAY too much. I kind of knew that I was high on the biscuit but I figured that it never hurt to experiment so off I went. Now the problem here is two fold, one is that I did not get the bitterness from the homegrown hops that I wanted that would have balanced it out and two is that I just plain used too much of it. I will be bottling this beer hopefully this weekend so that I can let it sit for awhile before I start ripping into it. All of the samples that I have tasted are just different, the biscuit stands out way too much and it threw the beer out of balance in my opinion. I am curious how this will taste after it has been aged for some time. I am really interested to see how this tastes in say January/February after 3-4 months in the bottle. If you are looking for a flavor reference for biscuit malt think fat tire, you know that really nice maltyness that you get in that beer, the flavor that kind of stands out, I am not sure that it is biscuit malt in that, but that is the flavor that I have picked up in my beer, and it is dominate! I will update you and let you know how the tasting goes and we will see if this is a beer that I will never ever brew again, of if it is a beer where I can stand it and like it as a change of pace and a beer to lay down for a while. Only time will tell! Cheers!

Homegrown Hop IPA Brewday Update - Updated

This is kind of odd, I have not had a fermentation like this yet, here is the deal. As you can see in the video below the fermentation was really active and some krausen had formed. The video is about 14 hours into fermentation and I pitched on Saturday night. I went and checked it yesterday morning (10/26) and the krausen had already fallen. So I sat there and scratched my head as I usually have fairly long fermentation's and the krausen takes a while to fall for the majority of my beers. Also this was a fairly high starting gravity so I was really surprised. So I sanitized the thief and pulled a sample and took a gravity reading and this beer went from 1.075 to 1.025 in about 60 hours! Whoa! I am using two strains of yeast in this thing and I don't have any experience with either strain. I used Notty and WLP051.  I think the Notty took off early and then the WLP051 took over as I could definitely tell the difference in smell from the first time I checked it and how it smells this morning. Since I mashed high I am thinking that this beer is almost done, I am expecting it to finish around 1.020 - 1.015 so five to ten more points to go. I will leave it in primary and rack to secondary this weekend and start the dry hopping. Another thing that I found interesting is that when I tasted the sample of the cooled wort right after the brew session it tasted really super sweet, not a huge suprise but I thought that I would get more out of the 2oz FWH with the homegrown magnums. I did not get any bitterness in the first tasting. When I tasted it yesterday I defiantly got the bitterness, not quite as bitter as I wanted, but still enough to balance out the amount of sugars form the grist. I still have my fingers crossed but I think that this beer will turn out just fine! It tastes a little hot from the fast fermentation but it is not bad and it should mellow fairly quickly. Be on the lookout for more updates soon! Cheers.

P.S. Also congrats to Dank Brewer on getting his single tier set-up up and going! Cannot wait to see that thing in action!

SO the homegrown hop ipa is brewed up and happly fermenting. The post below has all the details, I will just tell you that brew day went extremely poorly, I started late and was rushed, but I know that I will end up with beer so it should be alright. My gravity is nice at 1.075ish and it is really sweet wort. I mashed a little high so there should be some nice sugars left over. The homegrown magnums did not get the bitterness that I was looking for but I will let you know how it turned out in about a month. Below is a pic of the sweet wort out of the kettle and a video of fermentation. Cheers!

Homegrown Hop IPA on Deck for this weekend!

I am really excited about this brew, my first with the nordeast homegrown hops! I will repost back with pics and notes from brewday.  Here is the bill for the HomeGrown IPA:

GRIST
65% 10lbs Golden Promise
6% 1lbs British Crystal 50-60L
6% 1lbs Biscuit Malt
6% 1lbs Munich Malt - 10L
3% .5lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine

With 10-15 min left in boil
13% 2lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose)
1 Whifloc Tablet
Yeast Nutrient

HOP SCHEDULE (ALL HOMEGROWN)
FW 60+ 2oz Magnum
1oz Cascade @ 20
1 oz Cascade @ 10
2 OZ Cascade @ flameout to 140 degrees
2 oz Cascade Dry Hop

Pitched a tube (no starter) of WL051 Cal V and
Since I didn't do a starter I also pitched a pack of Nottingham dry yeast (was worried about underpitching with a high SG)


Cheers and look out for the updates on brewday.

Celebration Stout Tasting

Ahh the crisp air of fall has arrived and so has the dark beer! If you remember a while back my brother-in-law and his wife are expecting an arrival in a few months. I decided we should brew up a celebration ale so that he has something to sip on when he can't get out the door to get some more beer. This was my last extract beer and one of the best extract brews that I did.  When the beer was young I had two of them and they were good but needed a little more time to come together. Well that has happened and it is ready for a proper review.

The pour - A nice black oily looking brew with an awesome head which is visible above. The head took 20 minutes to die down and a nice frothy cap lingered until the last sip!
Aroma - Dark malt, molasses, coffee, brown sugar tones dominate and it smells like a nice dry Irish stout and I felt a little like Pavlov's dog when I was taking in the aroma.
Taste - Fits in perfect with the aroma, a really nice coffee, molasses dark malt taste with just a hint of hops and a really nice dry twang finish that should be present in a dry irish stout. It is not extract twang, it is from the yeast and while I was not happy with the yeast when it was fermenting, I gotta say that it did a great job and imparted all the flavors that it should.
Overall impression - This is a nice winter beer, the mouthfeel is a little thinner than it should be but it is close, this is a highly quaffable winter warmer at around 5.8 abv. If I did brew this up again I would add some more hops for bittering and aroma, but that might upset the balance that is happening here, but I would love to give it a try. Over all I am extremely pleased with this beer and I think that the brother-in-law will be as well. So raise a glass in celebration and cheers to the expecting couple!

Black IPA Tasting

I tried one of the Black IPA's last night and I am extremely pleased with the results. There are definitely things that I would change, but overall I truly think that this is my best beer yet. The pour is a nice dark brown with a nice creamy off white head. The aroma is of coffee and dark malts with a nice hint of hops. Nothing is really overpowering in the aroma and it is nice and balanced. The taste is hard to describe, I will attempt to take you through my thoughts as I drank this, I thought wow nice bitterness but is it the hops or the dark malts? It the hops, no the malt, you can see where this is going...it is a highly drinkable beer with a really nice mouthfeel and a nice lasting bitterness from the hops and malt. The finish is spot on and begs for another sip. Again, I am extremely pleased with this beer. Things that I would change are I think that next time, and there will be a next time, most likely fairly soon, I would be more aggressive with the bittering hops and also with the aroma hops. I would dry hop this either another ounce of Anthum hops or change the dry hop and go with either cascade,centennial or simcoe. I would also mash longer to get some more color out of the black patent as I would like this to truly be a black IPA and not a brown IPA. Other than that it will stay the same. Cheers to good beer and don't drink swill.  I am planning on doing some more videos in the nearer future and there are a few projects in the works. I will let you know more when they finally happen but the should be right around the corner now and I should have those project in full motion with a few weeks! Check back for some updates!

Homegrown Hop Harvest is Complete!

The first year plants had their ups and downs, two bines, the Willamette and the Northern Brewer's were non-existent, grew just enough to ensure some action next year. The other two bines, the Magnums and the Cascades went nuts and produced BIG TIME! With those two bines I got almost a pound and a half of homegrown organic hop goodness!  1.43 pounds or 23 ounces! The tallies are 12 ounces for the Magnums and 11 ounces of cascades. The cascades were a nice late surprise as we had the nice warm October weather here in Minneapolis and the matured in those two weeks and headed to the drying racks. Both plants matured late but since mother nature was kind so were the plants. I cannot imagine having two more mature plants as I feel like I have been picking and drying hops for the past two months, but once I get to brew with the hops all of that pain will be forgotten. I think that I am going to brew a nice American pale ale with the homegrowns, I will probably brew something similar to the Amarillo pale with the homegrowns for a nice comparison. I also have a breakfast stout waiting in the wings to be brewed which I will probably use the magnums for bittering. So there you have it, homegrown hops pay off big time and they are not that much work. For those of you wondering, I ordered the rhizomes online and got them in march and planted in Late April early may. I dug a nice big hole, placed some bone meal in the hole, filled the hole with compost, placed the rhizome in the hole and covered it with about 2 inches of compost and a thin layer of mulch. I also grow bushes along the fence so I already had drip irrigation there so I just moved the hose to be near the hops as well and watered them about for a few hours every week or two and bam! Please let me know if you have any questions about the hop setup! Cheers!

Homegrown Cascade Hops!



2 Bags Homegrown Goodness


My cascade hops have finally matured. Mother nature held up nicely the past few weeks with temps in the upper 70's to mid 80's over the past two weeks! I got my rhizomes in the ground pretty late in the spring (mid may) so these needed the nice warm October weather that we had in Minneapolis to fully mature. I was worried that I would not be able to use these hops, but with the nice warm weather they came along nicely. I picked an insane amount over the weekend and I finally completed my second drying rack for them since I needed it. I went out and bought a scale yesterday to weigh the hops and they were less than I thought but with the first round that is dry I ended up with 6 ounces of homegrown cascades. I have one more drying rack that is full of hops that probably has 2-3 ounces on it when they are fully dry and I have a few more ounces left on the bine that I am going to try and get to this week! Cheers to good beer and homegrown hops! My next brew will most likely contain either some of the magnums or the cascades!




6 oz Vacuum Sealed for the freezer

 

Homegrown Magnum Hops!

UPDATE to the UPDATE:
The hops are finally weighed and I came in with 12oz of homegrown magnum hops! That should keep me busy for a while, I still have more to pick but I am guessing that I have about another ounce on the bine. My cascades are starting to mature and as long as we don't get a freeze I think that I may have quite a few ounces of cascades to pick as well. Only mother nature can tell, but it looks like the weather might hold out long enough for me to get a nice bounty of fresh hops. I cannot believe how well these two plants did for the first year! Also as of 10/10 my cascades are maturing and ready to be picked. I picked a first round on Saturday and I believe that I will get at least 5-7 ounces of cascades and I am only about 50% complete with the harvest. I think that I could quite possibly end up with a pound or more of the cascades. They went nuts and I will be picking them as long as the weather holds out, I am on the fast track but I am not sure if I will be able to get all of them off the bine in time...we shall see!  Cheers!!


UPDATE:
I have finished picking the magnums and with the second pick I got another bag full like you see below. I am estimating that the dried weight of these hops is around 1/2 to 3/4 of a pound! Cannot wait to see how these do next year! I showed them to Dank Brewer and he was the one who estimated the weight of the hops, once I get them weighed I will let you know the exact amount that I ended up with. Also I would like to congratulate Dank Brewer and his wife on the birth of their son which is their first child, life is about to get a lot more interesting for them and I wish them nothing but the best and I am glad that baby, mom and dad are all doing well! Cheers!

The first pick of my Magnum hops are dried! I will need to weigh them but this is what I have so far. I want to package them in usable weights so I am waiting on the vacuum sealer until I can weigh them out. I have at least another batch of this size on the bine and maybe more, I have at least twice this amount in cascades on the bine that will hopefully mature soon and hit the drying rack. I did not expect anywhere near this amount for first year bines so I must be doing something right! Here are some picks of the magnums.

Is there a better Minneapolis hip-hop artist?

Mind = BLOWN!  I never saw this clip before and it has everything that I love about one of my all time favorite hip-hop artists! I just love the way his songs are so personal and almost all of them have some kind of duality in them, a true master in our own backyard! 612!

NE Brew Club

Hey y'all, if you are in NE or have ties to NE and you ferment you have to check out the new homebrew club that is just starting to get its feet off the ground. We don't have an offical name but we are working on it, if you are interested you can check out the details and blog here! Cheers to good beer! I will have some pics and a tasting of the Amarillo pale posted in the next few days, I think that I will try to hook up with SIR DANKNESS for a joint tasting.

Peace!

Black IPA and Home Grown Hops Update

UPDATE:
Chalk one up to not thinking things through! The black bitter with the homegrown hops went down the drain last night. I am bummed as this is the first time that this happened, but hindsight is 20/20 and I don't know what the heck I was thinking! I was harvesting some of the cascades and I didn't dry them and just threw them into the bitter, well that is really dumb as I tasted a little bit last night and it tasted like drinking a blended up plant with some malt in it, man it was gross. Guess I will just chalk this one up and not repeat the same mistake again.

I have racked the Black IPA into secondary and I added 1 oz of Ahtanum plug hops. I also got the Amarillo pale bottled as well (I will be sure to do a tasting of this one!). I also was able to rack the black bitter with homegrown hops into secondary and I picked some of my cascades and threw those into secondary. It looks like I will have a few ounces of cascades and magnums to use up straight from the NE Mpls soil! I am excited about this and I am also excited to try the black bitter and see how the homegrown hops stack up.  Here is a pic of some of the hops that I picked last night.  Cheers!



HomeGrown Goodness!



Ghostland Observatory

SO SWMBO and I decided to head to first avenue last Friday to catch Ghostland Observatory. I can quite honestly say that this show was some of the most fun I have had at a concert.  I love first avenue and the electro-funk-disco-soul-rock that is Ghostland Observatory had both of us shaking our butts for an hour and a half.  Definitely give them a chance and DO NOT miss them live! Here is a clip from the show!

All Grain Black IPA

I love dark beer and I love hoppy beer so why not put them together. It is worth a shot, oh to be drinking a dark but hopalicious beer in the fall time in MN! Here is the bill for the Black IPA:

12 lbs Rhar
.5 lbs carmel 80L
.25 lbs dehusked carafa III
.25 lbs chocolate malt

Hops:
1 oz Summit 60
1 oz Simcoe 15
1 oz centennial 10
1 oz cascade 5
1 oz amarillo @ flame out steeped until 140 degrees

WL001 saved/washed yeast from Amarillo Pale!

Mashed for 1 hour @ 154
Sparged a little cool ended up with 8.5 gallons of wort (Uh Oh)...

So this beer went better than the first all grain, but I still need to get my efficiency up I am hovering in the low 60's and want to get to 70-75 (barley crusher here I come), I ended up boiling the extra 2 gallons in another pot in the kitchen. I knew that I collected too much wort so I did a mini batch and used all home grown hops in this and pitched the same yeast.  I am anxious to see how that turns out! I am expecting it to be much more malty as I have no idea what the AA content of the homegrowns are, but I threw in two handfuls (getting scientific here!) of Magnums for bittering and three of cascades at flame out.

Here are some pics of the brew day:

All of the ingredients

Draining the first runnings

Look at that color!

All grain trinity, from the left, Amarillo Pale Ale, Black Bitter with homegrown hops, Black IPA

Homegrown Hops in NE...Update

My hops EXPLODED over the past moth or so. Two of the bines went absolutely nuts.  Two did not produce at all.  I planted Willamette, Cascades,Magnums, and Nothern Brewer. I did not expect this many hops for first year bines so I am quite happy. Some of them are ready for harvest and some are getting close, I think that I will pick and dry some in the near future. I used some of them on Monday in a brew which you will hear about asap.  Here are some pics of the hops.

All Grain Amarillo Pale Ale Update..

Here are some pics of the amarillo pale ale.  It is not quite ready for a "real" tasting but it is good and I am excited about it so far!

Nice Color with some chill haze but that should clear up

Nice head and some lacing

I have transferred the Amarillo Pale Ale into secondary with an ounce of simcoe for dry hopping. The beer looks and smells great and I am really excited as this is my first all grain beer. I should be bottling next weekend then 2 more weeks until I can taste the sweet nectar. One other first is that I saved the yeast from this batch. I still need to wash it, but I was really surprised at how easy it is and how much yeast I got! Since I whirlpooled in the kettle and siphoned into the better bottle I got almost no break material and very minimal hop sediment. When I checked on the yeast this morning in the fridge it settled nicely and there was a super small layer of hop trub in the saved yeast. I will decant and try to get all the yeast and use it on my next batch or the one after that. I don't want to hang onto it too long, but it is in a nice sanitized sealed mason jar for safe keeping. I am hoping to brew another all grain beer in the next 2-4 weeks and it will most likely either be the same recipe as Dank Brewers Dead Guy Ale Clone or a black ipa.  I am leaning toward the black IPA as WL001 would work really nice in that one and I will then have two really nice all grain hoppy ales to drink on for a while. We will see and I will keep you updated.  The bottling of the celebration stout went really well and I am looking forward to enjoying those with my brother in law when his new arrival comes this winter!  Here are some pics of the Amarillo in secondary!  Cheers!

Ale Asylum Hopalicious Review and More...

Ale Asylum Hopalicious is an American Pale Ale brewed with all Cascade hops.  There are 11 additions of cascades to this tasty beverage. This ale is unfiltered and according to the bottle brewed in sanity (love that tag line by the way!).  It pours a slightly hazy orange copper with a nice white cap. The aroma is citrus with some grapefruit and orange and maybe a little lemon? It smells like it is going to be a small hop bomb.  The taste is not entirely like the smell. There is a faint bitterness, but the character of the cascades really shines through. This is a great beer for people that really want to know what cascades can do for a beer.  The mouthfeel is good and where it should be and the hops linger on the tongue and the back of the pallet. This is a very sessionable beer and one that I would keep in the fridge as a go to in the summer. My only complaint would be that this beer needs to be drank young, I had a few on tap and it was WAY better, but it still tastes good out of the bottle. This beer leaves some nice lacing as shown here.  On an A-F scale I would rate this a B+.

Now on the the Gran Cru that I brewed a few months ago.  This beer really surprised me as I am not usually a fan of these types of belgianesque beers.  I am not really a huge fan of beers with coriander in them, but this beer might persuade me to rethink that.  This beer pours a clear yellow/straw to slight copper. The head retention is somewhat problematic with this beer, but it does leave some nice lacing. The smell is yeasty with the orange peel and coriander shining through, I can also smell the honey. The thing that I love about this beer is that none of these flavors dominate and they have all come together nicely.  The S-33 fermented in the upper range to get some esters out of the yeast and I am really happy that I fermented this hot around 75. I don't really pick up a ton of fusels which is great and the yeast definitely gave it some of that nice Belgian flair that I do like. Overall I am really happy with this beer and it is one that I would consider putting in standard rotation.  Here is a pic of the beer after a few sips. Cheers to good beer!

New Glarus Moon Man No Coast Pale Ale Review

I am sure that many of you have tried this beer if you live in MN and frequent WI.  I picked this up a few weeks ago when I was in Madison. To be fair here, I am a huge New Glarus fan, I love their beers and love the unchained series as well. I did not want to spend a ton on beer so I got a sampler pack of the New Glarus and it included one of my favorites Moon Man. This beer pours a solid copper to orange with a nice but small white head. The aroma is of citrus hops with a small hint of some pine resin. I can also pick up on the malty side of the brew, a slight sweetness in the nose. The taste is not all in line with the awesome aroma, the bitterness hits you but it is nowhere near overwhelming. You get just a hint of sweet at the finish to cut the hop bitterness. A really nice toasty malt flavor to tame the pallet of the bitterness.  The mouth feel is nice, not to thick or to thin. Over all this is one tasty beer. The claim of it being a nice hoppy session beer is definitely the case as I could drink quite a few in one session!  Cheers to good beer!

First All Grain Batch in the Fermenter!

UPDATE:
I am going to transfer from primary to secondary tonight as the brother in law and I are bottling the celebration stout. I took a gravity reading last night and it finished off at 1.008! Some great attenuation from the WL001!  I tasted the hydro sample and it tasted really really good, the bitterness is nice and the maltiness is nice as well, I am super excited to try this. Only about 3-4 more weeks and this beer will be in the belly and I cannot wait! I will update the post with some pics when the racking is completed.

Sweetworts first all grain batch is in the fermenter. I brewed an Amarillo American pale here is the bill:

10 Lbs domestic two row
8oz carapils
8oz crystal 60

Doughed in mashed at 152 for an hour, only lost one degree!
Collected a little over 2 gallons
Sparged with 5 gallons and collected 6.75 gallons of wort

1/2oz chinook first wort hop
1/2 chinook @ 60
1oz Amarillo @ 20
1oz amarillo @ 5
1oz amarillo @ flame out
1oz simcoe dry hop

I had a few issues but that is to be expected as this is the first go at all grain.  It took only 4 hours so it was not that bad.  My gravity was a little low at 1.048 but I am positive that had to do with my sparge, I used too much water and it was too hot as well so I sparged really fast and collected my first runnings a little too fast as well.  I also pitched a 1/2 gallon yeast starter of WL001! Here are some pics of the brew day!

Grain Bed

First runnings

The boil

Fermentation at 24 Hours

All in all it went well and I am happy, I cannot wait to taste this tasty beverage!  I will report back in about a month with the tasting!

First year Hops from NE Minneapolis!

Here is a video of my first year hops growing on the fence.  SWMBO wanted something to cover the fence as I planted some hops, a nice dual purpose compromise!  They look great and I am hoping to get at least a few ounces of hops this year!  They are budding like crazy and it looks like a good year for the magnums and cascades.  Cheers!

Epic - Phish Alpine Valley and Ale Asylum Beer

All I can really say is that the wife and I had a great trip to see the show and relive some memories in Mad town.  The show was pretty sick!  I was skeptical to see phish after the hiatus and this was my first show in almost 10 years!  I can honestly say that the musical vibe felt like this was 1997 all over again, they sounded great and this show ranks up there with some of the best music I have seen them play and I have seen some pretty solid shows over the years.  Here is a fine example:




On the beer front I brought some great Sconnie beer back with me. We brought back some of the standard New Glarus offerings and I also was able to try some of the Ale Asylum beers.  Those beers are out of sight and some of my favorite beers that I have had in a while.  I brought back a sixer if the Hopalicious that has 11 additions of cascades, it is super hoppy but not bitter and is absolute nectar!  I also tried their stout which was really really good and the bartender at breakfast was nice enough to hook me up with a nice sample of the Satisfaction Jackson DIPA which was damn tasty, look for a review of the hopalicious soon! UPDATE: The Ale Asylum beers while they are good they are not as good when you are not having a great time out and about in a place that holds A LOT of nostalgia.  Also the hopalicious is a good beer but it does suffer when it has been in the bottle for who knows how long. On tap the beer was outstanding but the sixer I brought home is not neatly as good.  IPA's are to be drank young and this one is not fresh enough for the nice taste that I had on tap. Also reflecting on the Phish show after listening to it a bunch is that it was even better that I thought. They were on fire that night and I am so so happy that they seem to be really getting their form back!  Cheers

60 Quart Igloo Ice Cube Mash Tun

My mash tun is completed, tested and just about leak free. I was really surprised how easy it was and being that I can now do 5 AND 10 gallon mashes I am pretty excited. I already had the cooler that I bought for a party last year and used once, but I think that I paid somewhere around 22-25 dollars for it. The manifold and valve cost about $19.  Here is the parts list:

10' CPVC 1/2" pipe (I only used about 6 feet) - $2.50
1 1/2" Slip to Male CPVC Adaptor - .35
5 90 degree CPVC elbows - .27 each
3 CPVC Tee's .72 each
1 1/2" brass ball valve female to female - $7.00
1 1/2 mip to 3/8 barb fitting - $2.75
10' 3/8 ID tubing - $4.25
1 Hose gasket

I then measured and cut the pipe with a copper pipe cutter, fit it all together and used a coping saw to cut the slits into the manifold. I filled up the cooler the first time and I had a leak on the outside of the ball valve.  I replaced the gasket before the second run and it was just a drip or two, so that will do for me. One problem/concern that I have read about with these coolers is that it won't drain all of the water from the tun. Well in my 3 tests that most water I was left with was less that 1/2 cup so I am not worried. Here are some pic of the tun, let me know if you have any questions...all grain here I come!

A little over a week!

I cannot wait!  Saturday Aug 14th @ Alpine Valley, this will be my 25th show at one of my favorite venues in the country, I haven't seem them since pre-hiatus so I am pretty stoked, enjoy!!!

Cream ale in its prime...

The cream ale has been bottle conditioned for two months now.  Man what a difference time can make.  The flavor is way better and the hop aroma has really mellowed but is now in the sweet spot.  This is a highly quaffable session beer at 5% abv.  When Dank Brewer and I had a tasting there seemed to be a little twang in the beer, that is now gone and the finish is really nice.  The 1056 had great attenuation, by my calculations this yeast attenuated at 91%!  That is crazy!  The SG was 1.044 and the FG was 1.004.  The yeasties really liked this sweet wort!  The result is a really dry finish.  The beer has a really nice aroma, a little malty with the nice hop aroma from the 3oz dry hop, 2oz of cascade whole leaf and 1oz of centennial whole leaf.  The bitterness up front is mild, I used 1oz of cascades pellets for 60min and split a second ounce at 20 and 5 and 1 minutes.  This beer is really in its prime now and is really tasty!  Here are some very crappy pic of the 12oz I cracked last night.  There seems to be a little chill haze in this bottle, it was only in the fridge for about 90 min so maybe all of the yeast didn't drop out, I will try to get a better pic later, but here is what it looked like.  Cheers!

ALL GRAIN HERE I COME!

I have finally decided to get the cooler MLT set up.  I have a 60qt igloo ice cube cooler collecting dust in my basement and all I need to do is spend 20 bucks and I can start doing all grain!  I am planning on getting the cooler completed in the next week or two!  I have decided that I am going to do an all grain version of the celebration stout so that I have something to compare it to.  One thing that I would like to point out is that I will still brew extract beers as well.  Being the father of a 19 month old time is of the essence.  I don't have 4-6 hours for every beer that I brew, I can get an extract beer completed in about 2.5-3 hours so I can come home from work, play with my daughter, get her to bed and then brew and get to bed at a decent time.  But for those days when I do have the extra time, I want to have a setup that can allow me to do all grain.  I will post pictures and step by step process for converting the cooler!  Keep and eye out for that!  CHEERS!!

Celebration Ale in the Fermenter!

If you want to just read about the beer skip to the third paragraph.

On Friday I had quite the day.  First off I took a few hours off of work to get everything ready but was thrown a curve ball when I got home.  I entered the yard and my dog Marley greeted me as he usually does, then I was sitting on the deck with SWMBO and the dog started to have a seizure.  Now this is not totally out of the norm, my dog has had two of them before about a year a part and it has been about a year of so since his last one.  The odd thing was that once the seizure ended he ran around the yard for about a minute or two, came back up on the deck and immediately started having another, more intense seizure.  This made me quite nervous so off to the vet we went.  To make a long story short he is fine and after spend a frw hundered dollars at the vet they basically said to just keep an eye on him.  He has seemed fine since then so I am not too worried, I just hope he continues being well!  Here is a picture of him with Dank Brewer's yellow lab Nala:

Crazy thing part two is that I encountered quite the road rage incident that same time on the way to pick the dog up at the vet.  I was the recipient of the rage and it was quite the specticle.  I was ducking through some neighborhood street on the way to the vet.  I came to a stop sign (this is in NE Mpls) STOPPED and looked, there were cars on both sides of the street, I did not see any cars comming and I preceeded through the intersection.  Another SUV was going through the residential area at a pretty good clip and I had to gun it to avoid it.  I gave a wave as an apology and was greeted by a nice long rip of a horn, no big deal I thought...how wrong I was.  This person got on my bumper, pulled along side me and gave me the business.  I calmly stated that I didn't see them and that I am sorry, it is not like I want to get into an accident.  I have never in my 32 years seen such rage, I was called every name in the book and threatened.  When they reached into the glove box I took off with abandon, only to have them keep pace on the wrong side of the street, I stopped and told them that I did not want any trouble, and I still got screamed at so I told them to go and blank themselves.  This was crazy and the first time that I almost got the cops involved, they followed me for a few miles to the vet then ducked off so the cops were not called.  Whew, that was NUTS!

THE BEER...that is what we are here for anyways right!  The Champ, Spanky and I brewed up a celebration stout for Spanky's coming offspring.  The brew went off without a hitch and smelled really awesome, some really nice roasted aroma along with some caramel and coffee notes.  Man those dark ones always smell the best to my nose!  One little boil over that was corrected quickly and all of the hop additions went smooth and chilling went smooth as well.  Cooled the wort down to 75 and pitched around 72.  Fermentation was active and smelling nice the next morning.  We will most likely flavor a small portion during bottling as an experiment.  I will let you know how that goes!  Cheers!

Wheat Summer Ale - With a twist - UPDATE

UPDATE Part 2:
The lemon basil wheat is in secondary conditioning.  It has cleared well.  When I took a sample for a gravity reading and to see where the flavors were at it tasted pretty good.  The lemon was there in the background but I could not taste the basil at all.  I have since soaked the zest of 4 lemons in 4 oz of vodka, I also soaked about 20-30 basil leaves in vodka as well. I let that sit for a few days and added some of the lemon and basil extracts and that will sit until next week at some point.  I will then batch prime it and give it a taste and add more extract as appropriate to get the taste that I am hoping for.  I am not expecting that this beer will win over everyone, but this was a really fun experiment and it seems that so far it has gone well.  I will do a full tasting and let you know.  Cheers!

UPDATE:
The Lemon Basil wheat has been brewed.  This is the first time that I felt like I actually got everything done with ease!  I steeped the grains for 45 min in 1.5 gallons of water on the stove while the other 4 gallons was heating up on the propane burner outside.  I mixed in the extract and brought it to a boil and added the 1 oz of palisades hops.  Boiled for 45 min, added the chiller and also added the zest of two lemons along with 20 or so basil leaves and let that boil for about 10 min and then added the aroma hops and steeped for another 10 or so.  Chilled the wort down to 75, racked into a 6 gallon better bottle and pitched some US-05.  Fermentation started about 12 hours later and I now have a nice 2 inch and growing krausen.  A side note here is that I was intending to pitch a smack pack of Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, but after giving it more thought and consideration, I went with US-05.  The 1010 is a voracious fermenter and I didn't feel like cleaning up a mess also I was concerned with the flavor profile.  I know that 1010 is a really clean wheat yeast, but it does have a tendency to get sulfur and also can impart the faint wit flavor.  I was thinking that I want the lemon and basil to come through but not be overpowering so I went for the clean and neutral US-05.  I am planning on making an infusion with more lemon and basil via the vodka method and add some in secondary and also add some at bottling.  I want to be careful to not over do it, bit I also want to be able to detect both flavors in the background.  I hit my OG right on and tasted the hydgrometer sample and I didn't pick up the lemon or basil, but I think it was because the hops were so prominent.  I will add the tasting to this post in about 3-5 weeks!


I have always loved to cook.  There are many new food trends every summer.  This summer it seems that it is all about infusions or herbs in drinks.  This made me think, what about beer.  Summer has inspired me to try something a little out of left field.  I am going to be brewing a wheat summer ale with basil and lemon.  If you have ever had basil lemonade then you know what I am shooting for.  I am going to steep about 20-30 basil leaves at 5 min until the wort is cool.  I am also going to add the zest of 1.5 lemons to that steep.  Then in secondary I am going to add the same amount of basil and lemon after a nice soak in some vodka to kill anything that may give me trouble in secondary.  There will be a full report of brew day/night and a full report on the tasting.  Cheers to different beer!

Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA Review

I picked up a Sam's sampler that I had while up north over the 4th.  I remembered having a new IPA called Latitude 48.  I decided to buy the sampler again since Sam's is a pretty decent beer and I really wanted to try this IPA again.  Here goes the review with pics:

Pour:  Nice amber/copper pour with a nice two and a half finger head. Medium carbonation.

Aroma:  A hint of malty sweetness with some nice hop notes.  Not an overly hoppy smell but really nice hop aroma, a little grass and citrus.

Taste:  A nice malt backbone with a hint of sweetness, then the hops come and it is a nice bitterness but not super hoppy.  If you are a hop head you will be somewhat disappointed, but this is defiantly got a nice hop kick, just not overwhelming.  The finish is kinda sweet/tart and is a little odd, but it kept drawing me back for more so that is a good thing. 

The head retention on this beer is fantastic, the lacing was great as well, here are some shots of that:

My over all impression is that this a a good IPA, not great.  It is balanced very nicely and in the east coast style.  This is not a beer to avoid, but also not a beer to go out of the way for.  I would definitely suggest grabbing one if you have to opportunity, but don't go searching high and low for it.  On an A to F scale I would give this beer a B+/A-.  On a side note, I tried a bomber of Languita's Hop Stoopid.  Reading the bottle I was intrigued, mostly hopped with Hop Extract, it was certainly bitter and hop forward @ 102 IBU's but the malt base was weak and this really hurt it.  At 8% ABV it was easy to drink but it did not leave me coming back from more.  Cheers and here's to good beer!

Celebration Beer

I have been tasked with putting together a celebration ale for my brother in law.  A beer that needs some time to age.  I asked him what he wanted and this is a direct quote "how about a chocolate banana brown."  I said that sounds a little odd but I am up to the challenge.  I am taking a chance and hopefully this one will turn out to be a really good experiential beer.  Here is the bill for the banana chocolate brown:

 8oz of Biscuit Malt

 8oz of Coco Powder

 4oz of Flaked Barley


1 lb Chocolate Malt (Briess)

6 lbs of Dark LME

1 Lb Wheat DME

1 oz Crystal Hops Pellet

1 oz Mt Hood Hops Pellet

Wyeast Weihenstephan 3068

Start fermentation around 68-70 and gradually raise the temps to get the banana esters out of the yeast.  Should be interesting, I will be sure to let you know how this turns out, it should be in the fermenter in the next month or two.

Sweetworts DIPA on deck!

So I love hop bombs, and I love complex beers.  I am already getting tired of kit beers, even when changing them up.  So I have decided to concoct my own recipe for an imperial IPA.  Here is the bill (and yes I haven't switched to all grain...yet):

6lbs Briess Gold LME
3lbs Briess Amber LME
1lbs Briess Amber DME <--Late addition
1lbs British Crystal 50-60L
8oz Amber Malt

Hop Schedule:
1 OZ Magnum @ 60
.5 OZ Warrior @ 60
.5 OZ Amarillo @ 30
.5 OZ Ahtanum @ 30
.5 OZ Ahtanum @ 1
.5 OZ Amarillo @ 1
.5 OZ Warrior @ 1

Wyeast American Ale II (1272) info


ale yeast in liquid form with high flocculation

Original Gravity


1.079

(1.070 to 1.082)

Expected Final Gravity

1.020

(1.018 to 1.022)

Color

12° SRM / 23° EBC

(Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
 
Bitterness


84.8 IBU / 22 HBU


Looks tasty and I want one ASAP!  More to come on the first sweetwort recipe!

Slide in like a broom

Ronald Jenkees is, in my opinion, one of the more original musicians in the last few years.  Many people would argue that playing keyboards with FL studio is not new.  While I would agree with them what I would argue is that he makes it work and does it so well.  A lot of people who I have said "hey check this guy out" say I not really into electronic music but I like this.  Nuff said!  Here is Ronald spittin some game!

Grand Cru in the Fermenter

I was able to get the Grand Cru brewed last night 6/16.  The process was smooth and I am getting more efficient with y processes so that is a good thing.  This was my first time using DME and I wasn't all that happy with it.  It is messy, scorches easily and is just harder to deal with in my opinion. This was also my first time using honey as well, I used a little over a pound of honey! I hope the results are good though.  No big hiccups to report with this batch.  Got the wort cooled down and pitched some S-33 and has vigorious airlock activity this morning.  My OG was right where I wanted to be @ 1.058. Cheers

Popped the Top on the Cream Ale and...

I get impatient some times. Last night was one of those nights. I decided to open up one of the Cream Ales that I bottled last Saturday just to make sure that there was something going on in the bottles. As I said before, I also used a different priming agent this time and I was nervous that it would not work right. I grabbed a 12oz bottle and threw it in the fridge and let it sit for a while. I popped the top and got a nice, and unexpected, fizz of Co2. Wow, it is carbed, and not lightly. The beer tasted extremely green and needs to sit, which is no surprise. What was surprising was that it really didn't have a ton of hop character which I found disappointing since I was a little more aggressive with the hops for the style and I dry hopped it with a very healthy 3oz of hops (2oz cascade and 1oz centennial). The other thing that I am not sold on at this point is the American Ale 1056 wyeast. It is a little to neutral for me and there were no esters to be found. That is why people choose this yeast but it just isn't doing it for me at this point. I will make sure to lay a bottle down for a few months and then decide for certain at that point, but as of right now I am not overly excited with it. What I am excited with is the color of the beer is spot on, the Muttons KreamyX priming agent seems to work well, I will also give the final verdict on this later, but all in all a learning experience.  I personally would be more aggressive with the hops next time as there is only a faint hint of bitterness, but once this beer ages we will see how the flavors come together.

Who needs to buy a guitar...

I have so much respect for Jack White, everything this guy does is close to genius.  I haven't seen the whole movie but it is in the queue.  Here are two scenes that are pretty amazing.  The first is Jimmy Page playing Whole Lotta Love in front of Jack and the Edge, the look on Jack face pretty much sums it up.  The second video is pretty cool, check it out!

Cream Ale Update with Pics

So the cream ale fermented like crazy. The OG was 1.044 and it has fermented all the way down to 1.004! I tasted the hydrometer sample and it was tasty, it has been on the dry hops for two days and man was it nice. I would classify this ale as a pre-prohibition cream ale as it is a little higher on the IBU's then the style and it is dry hopped. According to my calculations it is 37 IBU's and 5% A.B.V. Infection was not apparent from the chiller incident discussed in the brew day post. I dry hopped it with 2oz of cascade and 1 oz of centennial. It is going to be damn tasty. I am also going to be doing a priming experiment with the Mutton's KreamyX priming agent. I will let you know how it turns out. Here are some pics of the cream ale in secondary. Cheers!

Fercious (Furious Clone) in the glass

I will update this post as Dank Brewer and myself will be doing a tasting of my furious extract clone and his all grain clone. I just wanted to give you an idea of how tasty this looks in the glass. Pours a nice reddish amber with a nice off white head. It is tasty but still needs a little age on it for the best flavor.

Tasting Update:

Well Dank Brewer and I had a bit too much fun with the tasting as we were tasting well into the night.  I lost my pics of the side-by-side comparison so I will get them from DB, but here is what I can piece together from the tasting.  First off, neither of our beers tasted like furious when compared at the same time, furious is so hoptastic and malty that it will take several go's to get close to it.  The interesting thing that we noted was that both of our beers had some tropical fruit overtones on the finish from the yeast.  We both pitched Wyeast 1335 British Ale smack packs.  That was very evident in both the all grain and extract clone.  To be honest, I didn't notice a ton of difference between the AG and EX version, the one thing that does stick out is that all or most of the extract beers have the LME twang, but it was not overly apparent.  The color of the extract was really close to the real thing, the all grain was close as well but a little lighter.  Dank brewers clone had some really nice malt flavor and the bitterness was there, the extract tasted less malty but also has the bitterness.  All in all, I think that both clones were tasty even if they were not spot on.  On an A to F scale I would rate Dank Brewers clone a B+ and my extract clone a B.  Cheers!

August Alpine Valley..Can't wait

Cream Ale in the Fermenter - Updated with Video

So I got the Cream Ale brewed last night.  This was the first time I brewed completely outdoors in the garage.  What a night, minus the light rain that began falling about half way through!  The boil went well and I really boiled it hard, it was a huge rolling boil.  My thought here was increased hop utilization.  I love hoppy beer and I was brewing this one for people who aren't really into the hoppy stuff, but I still wanted it to have a kick that lighter commercial ales don't have.  I ended up with the following hop schedule:

1 oz Cascade 7.5% AA @ 60 min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 20 Min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 5 min

I just went with the flow, I intended to split it into thirds for the aroma hops, but I dumped a few too many in at 20 min so I just thought go with it.  I ended up with a SG of 1.044 which is right about where I wanted to be.  I will be dry hopping this with  2 oz Cascade whole leaf and 1 oz of centennial whole leaf hops!  I hope that they really come through.  The only thing that I am worried about is that when I started the chiller I started the water really slow, too slow, so I ran back to the hose and cranked it up, when I got back I had water leaking off the intake of the chiller into the sweet wort!  I am thinking that I am a sanitation freak and that all will be well but keep the finger crossed. I need to get another worm clamp on the hose of the chiller so I don't have this problem again. I didn't have this problem last time so it caught me off guard.  I also used my new aeration tool last night, I bought a paint mixer and hooked it up the the drill and aeration was a snap, no more pouring and shaking!  Got the wort chilled down to 78 and pitched a smack pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale.  Fermentation was extremely active this morning and I am thinking that I may need a blow off tube for the bucket by tonight but we will see.  Cheers!