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The bulletin I got from the co-op the other day was good news indeed.   A couple of arrivals that I am excited about.  The annual release of Deschutes  “The Abyss” and the Boise debut (as far as I know) of Goose Island “Bourbon County Stout” The latter is one of the best beers I have ever tasted.  Had it one time in June of 2006, and I can’t wait to pick one of these up and see if it is as good as i am remembering.   These would be an excellent choice to cellar for a year or 3. 

The Abyss is very good as well and I still have a few from the last couple of years in my “cellar”.  Compared to other highly rated imperial stouts, this one is quite sharp bitter and char-coaly.  I’ll get a few of this years as well to save.  It’s fun to bust out 3 different “editions” of the same beer and compare what age has done to each.  I will have to look into a way to post my cellar inventory on this blog somehow.

Armed with a Jumbo sized bag of Costco tortilla chips and plenty of ice water,  a friend and I are going to try to get though several eastern European beers, some of which, quite frankly that we don’t have that much hope for.  One of which claims to be a “Premium Belgian Beer”.  It must be, with a screw top and a plastic bottle.

These are the first 3…

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The Japanese IPA (no, I’ve never heard of one before either) is not bad.  Ugly but fairly tasty…

And this Baltic Porter has potential.  Ratebeer.com has panned it so far though.

These pics are taken 1 week after the last ones.  Some distinct island matts of… whatever that is, making gross little bacterial bio-domes of undoubtedly noxious gasses.  I think I will need to set up some sory of more reliable camera configuration.  That way I can more precisely match the angle and light for each picture.  Ten I can put together a basic little time lapse thing.  I suspect this might be fairly entertaining process to watch.

Even though there was a rating for this beer posted on Ratebeer.com in April of 2008,  Alaskan’s Baltic Porter has been available in bottles only since about last November.   I noticed them at the Boise Co-Op this evening and never having seen it before and At nearly 6$ it is a bit spendy for a 22oz but not when compared to other upper tier, “big”  beers, like Stone’s Russian Imperial Stout, for instance.  In my opinion, all of Alakan’s offerings are good, if not remarkable and this one does not disappoint.

It pours a dark but clear deep brown with a modest tan head  Lots of brown sugar and lots of dark pitted fruit notes are evident.  Prunes, raisins and plenty of vanilla.  There is a nice woody, slightly charred smell as well.  the flavor is a modest roasted maltiness that has a distinct toasted oak flavor.  I am a home brewer and the toasted oak cubes I have from an online HB supplier taste and smell exactly like this. Ina way, I am smewhat disappointed that I recognized a component from my own repetiore, in a commercial brew.  I guess I either I expect something more complex from a professional, or maybe I am not giving myself enough credit.

The body on this beer is nice, not the full heaviness of an Imperial stout, but some of the same roasted, very dark, slightly sweet maltiness shared of its Impy brethren.  I can’t pick out the cherries so much that are said to have been used in this, but the vanilla and oak are pretty strong.

A good beer, and I must say that I continue to be encouraged at what seems to be an increased effort at the Co-Op to expand their selection of good regional brews.

Recommended

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.

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.

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.