Author: brewster

Boise Brewpub

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A part of this site will be to plug and review the local Brewpubs of the Boise and Treasure Valley area.

The first on the list is Sockeye Grill and Brewery on Cole road.  Their Dagger Falls IPA is a regular and a favorite of mine.  I also particularly liked the Hopnixious Imperial IPA and the Split tail Stout, the latter of which I think has not returned since it’s debut in early ’08.  Josh King, the brewer keeps the regular line-up going and new seasonals are usually posted out front on the reader board when they come on.

In side it is a bit dark and has a kind of old, comfortable feel.  A couple of TVs are over the bar and are not obnoxious to those that don’t care about PAC-10 “whatevers” going on.  Friendly staff and an over all relaxed atmosphere where you are not bombarded by neon, brass, 32 flavors of Margaritas and 60″ plasma TVs.

At 8 o’clock on Tuesdays and Fridays, local bands perform and the place gets pretty rockin’.  especially in the Summer when the usually full house spills out in to the patio.

I consider it my home BrewPub.  Especially on Tuesdays where it is 2$ Pints.

Lambic Progress

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A couple weeks ago I tried my hand at one of my more ambitious Homebreing projects to date.  A Lambic.

Lambics, are a style that traditionaly are fermented using the natuarlly occuring micro-organisims in a particular region in Belgium.  technically it is an infection, something that most Homebrewers have at the top of thier list of what not to do.

Duplicating this classic technique is not very practical here in htis part of the owrld so the major HB yeast vendors have available a blend of bacteria cultures that closely simulate the same effect.  I went with the WhiteLabs offering, WLP655.

I made an otherwise typical ale with about 50% wheat and fermented with a standard clean ale yeat.  When primary was finished after a bout 10 days, I racked the beer into 2 3gal carboys and split the Bacteria blend between them.  One of which had 3.5# of raspberry puree’ added as well.

Early Lambic without and with raspberries
Early Lambic without and with raspberries

I am leveraging pretty closely with the process/recipe on DJ’s blog, “Fermentarium”

As I understand it, they will need to sit for 6-12 months, at which point I will likely keg either or both, possibly blending them.  At least a portion of it will be further flavored with raspberries and sweetened a bit somehow.  I haven’t decided for sure yet on that.

It (they) have been in secondary for about 3 weeks now at about 68F and there are now some white fuzzy patches speckling the surface of each.  If it goes OK, I should have something nice for Christmas 2010.

BrewBlog Kick-Off !

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This will be the repository of my homebrewing efforts, trials, victories and defeats.  Hardware reviews, techniques, recipes and anything else I find interesting and or amusing in the field of fermented beverages.  As of yet, I do not even have a catchy title for this site.  Nor am I sure what, if any, custom domain name I will adopt for it.

We will see what I can come up with.