Afternoon Delight

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Now, before you get any Starland Vocal Band thoughts let me just say that having a flexible schedule, allows me to visit my favorite and oft-visited bottle-shop/bar, Brewforia Beer Market during times of the day when most folks are at work watching the clock waiting until 5PM.   Today is one of those days.  My favorite seat, one with a power outlet nearby lets me, with respect to Timothy Leary,  plug in, turn on and tune in.

Sipping a pint of RedHook Mud Slinger, a “Spring Ale” that I am not sure if it is 10 months late…or 2 months early.  As I drink it down a bit more, I think is is more likely the former.   A brown ale, with a bit of brown sugar and vanilla but both are faded quite a bit and it and it is not much special anymore.  If it was to begin with.

My trip out here today did have an underlying motive however…  This past month was the annual release of Big Sky Brewing’s “Ivan the Terrible” imperial stout.  I have not had this one before and this years batch is 10%ABV and is one of the beers that I have been most anticipating lately.   According to the label on the bottle I have now, there are only 3800 bottles produced of it this year. Mine is #482.  Limited release beers are a good thing, mostly I suppose.

I love Big Sky Brewing.   They are small, out of the way, practically “Outpost Charlie” or “Ice Station Zebra” if you will, in Missoula, MT.  Their production is small but the last few years they have really been pushing the envelope of big or extreme beers. Old Bluehair, Beer de Noel and Heavy Horse Scotch are good examples.

Limited quantity creates more attention, more speculation, a bigger blip on the craft beer radar.  But as a bit of  beer nerd, they are a bad thing sometimes as it means that I can’t get another bottle after the few weeks it is around, until next year.

This “Ivan” is going to be good I’m sure.  These kinds of beers generally do well in a basement or cellar for a few months to a few years.  Sometimes more.  I would prefer to wait a while to drink this one as I bet it will only get better.

….thinking about it is working up an appetite though….

Hey Porter !

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The classic old school Johnny Cash tune never fails to stick in my head for a bit when i settle down for a glass of the so named style of beer.   Today’s example is the Bridgeport “Cafe Negro”.  this will be my first time trying this particular Porter.  Coffee is a common added ingredient with Porters as the coffee flavors and aromas seem to me a match made in heaven for the dark roasted slightly bitter style.   Whom ever first thought of the idea is probably rich right now, possibly even reading this blog post, maybe even at this very minute… as it warms the cockles of his heart.   Well…maybe not that last part…

Bridgeport is another Portland, OR brewery that in my opinion is safe in the “Craft Beer” fold.  That is to say, while widely known to be a craft brewer, they are not so known for extreme or risky beers.   Their “Stumptown Tart” series are interesting if unimpressive particularly the dishwatery Framboise variant.   The IPA is solid and is a mainstay in the PNW and a good example of a west coast IPA.  The Blackstrap Stout and the ESB are also good example of their respective styles and are regulars in a lot of refrigerators in the Northwest.   But I digress….

This porter is growing on me.   As it warms a bit, it is getting softer, something that it can barely afford, and the roasted notes are getting sweeter.   Definitely an easy Porter to drink, even if you are not a huge coffee fan.  But it for sure would help if you were.  Bridgeport’s website says that the custom blend of coffee from local Portland area roasting houses is infused after fermentation while the beer is “cold conditioning” or settling in cold storage.   Presumably this helps to maintain a fresh pressed flavor and maintains more of the volatile flavor and aroma notes that they are trying to capture.   Which they do.

Like I mentioned, even though the coffee flavor is very pronounced, showcased even,  it is soft, smooth, not bitter and easy drinking.  At 5.5% it is a middle weight in this area, and downing a couple of them would be no problem.

Because it’s mine…I’ll walk the line.

Start it off with Apple Jack(s)

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You need a good beverage, that’s a fact, and for a long time I have been intrigued with the possibility of distillation but put off a bit with the legal ramifications.  “Fractional Freezing” at first glance seems to find a fine line between them and as such eases my conscious a bit.  While distilling spirits at home is illegal according to the ATF, unless it is for fuel, freeze-distilling seems to be not quite so certain.  There are multiple articles and blogs about this and I wont go into it here.  Maybe it is a case of don’t ask, don’t tell, but the friend that I have that is into this, is not making it for himself to sell, only to experiment with the process itself.  Or so he tells me….

Anyway, so this friend decided to try a few tests and I will do my best to document his/her efforts here.

A fresh pressed unknown variety of apples, fermented with standard California ale yeast.  After a week or so, the resulting cider was poured off into a a pair of 2L PET bottles an put in to a chest freezer set to about 25 deg F.  After a day or so, interestingly one of the bottle was mostly frozen and the other was not at all. The “frozen” bottle was shaken and squeezed a bit to break up everything inside so as to make a coarse slush and then slowly the liquid was poured out into another bottle.  it worked out that almost exaclty 1 quart of ice was left behind meaning that the decanted solution was very nearly double concentrated.  The “snow” left behind in the original bottle was nearly colorless and it tasted nearly flavorless.  My hunch is that it’s alcohol and sugar content was effectlvel nil.

The second bottle strangely needed a freezer temp of several degrees colder to get the same effect.  When it did, the same procedure was used with very similar results as far as quantity of water (ice) extracted.

Soo Now there was a single 2L bottle nearly full of this “Double-Strength” Cider, affectionately now known as “Apple-Jack”.  With the understanding that this was an experimental projeect, my friend figured that to stop now would be contray to some deep-down primal need to push the envelope ever further.  So, the freezer was bumped down to about 15F and the same thing happened.  the bottle looked completely frozen…but on taking it out and shaking and squishing, the contents were “worked” into a slushy.  Removing the cap and inverting the bottle produced a steady trickle of a decidedly deeper colored golden amber elixer.  It took 10-15 minutes but the remaining liquid barely fit into a 1L flip-top bottle. I didn’t check the melted “slag” after the second round of fractional-freezing as itis called but I suspect the efficiency dropped a bit and a little alcohol and flavors came out with that ice.

So, we have a gallon of very sweet fresh pressed apple juice, initially fermented to about 7.5% ABV due to its rather high sugar content to start, concentrated to 15% in the first round, then, allowing for a loss of efficiency in the second round, 1 Liter of approximately 25% ABV “Apple-Jack”.

The finished product is definitely drinkable, tastes a bit “Hoochy” but not nearly as much as a sample did after the first round.  Much more reminiscent of lighter-fluid and jet-fuel then, not nearly so much now.

My friend is considering a type of “back-sweetening” with frozen apple concentrate and maybe a little spices for a sweeter more flavorful sipping beverage.

Staring into the Abyss

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Every year, many micro-brewers produce something that they are especially proud of, something that is eagerly awaited and often bragged about by the fortunate few who have had it either on tap on bottled.  Showing up at a party or a beer tasting with a bottle of this, is akin to being the guy that drives up to the 20yr High School reunion in the BMW.

Deschutes,  has one of these…It’s called the Abyss.  While technically not a “MicroBrewery”,  as they produce several times the 15,000 barrel output that defines the upper limit of a brewery than can be called “Micro”, Deschutes is/are still considered an outfit that adheres  to the craftbeer standard and philosophy of adjunct free, quality ingredients meaning exclusively Barley, Water, Hops and Yeast, and (relatively) small batches .   In a way, an extension of the German Reinheitsgebot law Germany passed in the 16th century that specified strict requirements on what could be called “Beer”.

Abyss, an imperial stout that was first made in 2006 and since then made itself known as a top tier Imperial Stout in the country.  Certainly in the west.   There are a dozen or so “Impys” that belong in the discussion of some of the best in the country.  Stone, Oskar Blues, 3 Floyds, Alesmith, Bells, and several others, all are worth mentioning in this stable.

I am having an Abyss as I type this and it is the first time I have had it on tap in a couple years at least.   I have a few bottles of the ’06 and ’07 stashed in my “cellar” but on tap is the best way to truly experience the subtleties of what the brewer intended.   My oft mentioned fvorite beer outlet, Brewforia Beer Market put his little gem on its tap line earlier today and my day-timer was immediately adjusted to allow for this window of opportunity.

At first I was concerend that the tap would run out any minute so I orderd a snifter of it right away, and drank it witha friend rather quickly and as it was quite cold, some of the subtle complexity was lost on my haste.   Later on my second one of the night, I was able to let it warm up a bit, since a littel closer to room temperature is better to experance the full flavor profile of this beer.

Abyss is moderately sweet, plenty bitter and rather smokey.  Licorice and to a lesser extent, molasses are up front and a nice smokey almost fireplace or campfire soot and smokiness is a main player as well.   Carbonation is rather lively for the style, as Imperial Stouts are typically a little on the soft side.  A bit of a Tootsie Roll calng card is left behind as the soothing sting of semi-sweet chocolate sizzles the palatte on the way down.

There are lots of very good beers in this style, some of which I have mentioned earlier.  Abyss is near and dear to my heart as a Deschutes fan and a PNW native, and I am always glad to see it come out each winter.   It is very tempting to secure another case of this years edition but at the 13-14$ per bottle price tag that it demands these days, that is a little hard to do.  I still have several from the ’06 edition that still have the 5.99$ price tag on them.  That in itself is evidence to the skyrocketing popularity that this beer since it’s inception and elite craft beer in general has come to in this country.

Jubiliation

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Trying a new beer tonight.  Avery “Old Jubilation”  touted as a winter seasonal and classified as a English Strong Ale it came to me in a very full pint glass.  Clear and a deep mahogany with a small light tan head I was glad to see that I had at least 14 or so to enjoy after a couple of 8oz snifters earlier of some other brews.

Malty and a little sweet.  Kind of like a light Barley Wine or a hoppy/bitter Scottish Ale it is a “Winter Warmer” if you will.   It has a little of a papery chalky trailer at the end, but it is pleasant and a nice end-cap to my evening of beer tasting and blogging.   At 8% it is pretty hefty even though the ABV  doesn’t come through very strongly.   The rather robust malty profile offsets this enough to balance the beer.

Avery, at least in my impression has a rep for being daring and adventurous. Consider the several high gravity beers that it regularly produces.  Samael’s, Mephistopheles, The Beast, all are good for impressing your beer nerd poser friends that spout off “beers can’t be made over X percent alcohol.  As a homebrewer, I can attest taht depending on the variety of yeast that is used and the mount of sugars in the pre-fermented sugars an ABV of 10-12 is not a problem and with some special techniques somewhere around 16-18 can be achieved.   The second beer I ever made was about 13.5% and a few bottles that are still around after 3 and a half years, got some pretty positive reviews from some fellow home-brewers recently.

This Avery beer is pretty good, malty, a little sweet, fairly strong and satisfying.  A good, “sit by the fire” brew and I bet that is pretty close to what the brewer had intended.  As it warms up a bit, I am picking up the acohol a bit but am not put off by it.

Decent.

Wax off

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4 Months ago I wrote about a beer I was trying that was made by a new local brewer. Crescent Brewing, out of Nampa, ID. Then it was an Amber, and had it not been for the nearly flat carbonation and a possible slight infection, it would have been decent. I have not tried it again since, but I will as I don’t want to give either of my 2 readers a poorly researched or premature conclusion.
Today, I am at Brewforia Beer Market and on one of their 9 taps I see..l.ow and behold another “Crescent” beer. A Scotch Ale. This style is commonly named and referred to as a “wee heavy”. Typically Scotch Ales are fairly dark, brown, softly carbonated and have a malty somewhat sweet character. Often they are a bit high on the ABV, frequently 6-8%. Not to be confused with “Scottish Ales” which are not called “wee heavy” and have a more moderate alcohol level.

The Crescent example is definitely malty and a little on the sweet side per the style. Also lightly hopped. 15-25 IBUs or so I’d say. It is carbonated softly, like it should but there always seems to be a little film of superfine bubbles on the top. I Love that. It’s a little smokey and peaty, with some caramel notes as well. Lots of toasted malt and a creamy soft palate. I am much more impressed with this than I was the Amber a few months ago. Partly I think due to the flaws I saw in the last one happened after it was brewed.
This one is rich, filling, malty and just…nice. I wish I had time to have another.
I am excited to see further efforts from Crescent Brewery.

Pumpkin II This time it’s Chocolate

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+++ Well, it has been a month and it is still technically Autumn, so I am having another Pumpkin ale.  This time we have for our evening sipping pleasure, something called “TREAT” from Midnight Sun Brewing, out of Anchorage, AK.

+++ It is very highly rated for is style on RateBeer, and as i am about to open it, I can only hope that it has calmed down suffeciently from me droping it when I got out of the car.  It banged a few times as it fell eventually hitting the pavement with a loud “Clink”.  The head space was solid foam when I got it inside so I put it in the fridge for an hour before I dared get it out and open it.  Here goes….  We’re good.

+++ Alaska is famous for, among lots of other things, giant pumpkin growing.  Apparently the long daylight in teh summers and the lack of most of the pests and diseases that the lower 48 states have just do not exist in AK.  a 700 pounder was grown up there a few years ago.  I wonder how many of those Midnight Sun Brewing would need to make a batch of this beer.

But I digress….

+++ Very dark Brown/Black pour with a small milk chocolate colored head that quickly faded but maintained a thick ring around the edge of the snifter.  Like onof those oil spill clean-up floats they use to corral spilled crude oil onthe ocean.   A roasted aroma but sweet, like chocolate cookies and instant cocoa, and some classic pumpkin pie smells as well.  Cinnamon and allspice maybe.   Lots chocolate imediately on the first sip, that quickly morphs into a more smokey, scalded chocolate milk or like the little bit that burs on teh bottom of the pan when you forget about the chocolate pudding you are making.  The spices a re mild, and the pumpkin even milder.   I guess they are ballanced.  it is not a pumpkin pie bomb, that’s for sure,  but I was hoping for a little more.  Quite heavy, thick pallate that seems to coat your mouth.  Softly carbonated. Very low bitterness, the lable says 30 IBUs, that even seems high.  But with these big sweet roasted flavors, they would taste knocked down a bit I suppose.

+++ Last month when i had one of these Pumpkin ales I asked “where’s the Pumpkin” we I can’t say I found it but this one is pretty good but closer to a sweet British porter than a pumpkin ale.

What Cider you on?

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I don’t often quote Ned Flanders, but I cant help it this time.  Attributed to the nerdy do-gooder neighbor of Homer Simpson is the following:  “If it’s sweet and yella, you’ve got juice there fella’…if it’s tangy and brown, you’re in Cider Town !”  I suppose that is true but this is a beer blog and Homebrewing is the topic today.

At one level, the absurdly simple recipes for making Apple Cider can be very attractive to novice and experienced home-brewers alike.  I mean think about it.  Adding yeast to apple juice that doesn’t have preservatives in it and wait and…  And Nothing  That’s it.

When compared to brewing beer, you’ve got the first several steps already done for you.  you don’t have to grind the apples into grist, you don’t have to soak the apple pulp in 150F water, you don’t have to lauter, sparge, vorlauf  any of that.  You start, with what you work a few hours to get with beer.  Namely a solution of simple sugars at interestingly about the same specific gravity that an Amber, or Hefewizen or pale ale would be.  1.05ish

Now to be fair, saying that making hard cider is a simple as what I laid out in the beginning would be kind of like saying playing the guitar is easy. You just pluck the strings at this end and move your fingers up and down the neck on the other end.   I play a little guitar and I am sure even those who do not, would agree that it is just simply not that easy.  Technically you are playing the guitar..but noone would want to listen to you long, and in the same way, making cider that tastes like something you would want to share or even show off a little, takes a little more work as well.

I made a batch the other day and I complicated matters a bit, trying to get a more easily shared finished product.  I wanted a dry cider, which is not the hard part, as the sugars in Apple juice ferment so completely you can easily end up with a gravity of 1.000 and a very dry tasting beverage indeed.  I also wanted a lot of classic apple flavor.  Almost a sour apple candy flavor like a Jolly Rancher almost.   My first thought was that I would have to have some sugars remaining in the cider for it to taste like this and this would mean somehow stopping the fermentation process early, or by sweetening it after, which also has some complications.

I then stumbles across a thread in one of my favorite HomeBrewing websites where someone had used several different kinds of yeast with an otherwise identical recipe.  His results suggested that this fruity apple candy flavor could e achieved, or nearly so, simply by using the right kind of yeast.  You can read his experimentation parameters in the first post of this thread.

So, encouraged by this, I rounded up the ingredients for my cider.

  • 3 Gallons of  “natural” apple juice.  Costco’s Kirkland brand.  No preservatives.  Not from concentrate.
  • 1# of raspberry  Honey (I am assuming the name is from the kind of flower, not from adding raspberries to it)
  • 2# of Granny Smith apples.  Chopped and blended to a puree

The honey was mainly just for  another source of fermentables, hoping for it to be a little less 1 dimensional, and the Grannys were also just to add a little complexity and tartness.   I split it into two kettles and added the honey in to one and the crushed Grannys into the other and brought both to a low boil for about 10 minutes.  Partly to kill off any bugs I may have introduced with the other two ingredients and also to get this back down to 3 Gal.

I chilled the kettles by immersing into an ice water bath and poured it all into a 3G Glass carboy, Granny sludge and all, and it barely fit.  I poured off a little to taste and take a gravity check.  1.066  A little higher than I had hoped/expected.  I was definitely sweeter than normal Apple Juice and it was apparent that Honey was part of it.

I had activated a Wyeast smack pack a couples hours before of 3068, typically used for Wheat Beers, and it was ready so I poured it right in the fermenter.  No starter.  Zero activity until about 6 hours and then it really took off.  There was not much head room in the fermenter so I am glad I used a blow-off tube. It has been going strong for a couple days now and I can see about 3-4″ of loose apple trub at the bottom.  I am a bit worried that I will loose to much cider in all the muck when I transfer the batch to secondary.  I guess we’ll see.

Cleaning out the cellar…again

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Over the years I have neglected my modest beer cellar to the point that I have lost track of what I have.  Commercial brews, some that I intended to save and age a bit, others I planned on trading to other beer nerds.  Homebrews that weren’t that great but couldn’t bring myself to throw out (not that they weren’t likely to get any better sitting in my basement for a year or more) and other odds and ends.

I recorded everything I found on a simple spreadsheet and came a cross a few gems that I was pleasantly surprised by, and lots others…not so much.  For instance, a 2004 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine.  Legendary for how it ages gracefully, and a  Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic that also is legendary…for how terrible when it was new…over 5 years ago.

Part of this organizational “shake-down” is to throw out some losers, drink some tweeners and continue saving the gems.  this Anderson Valley Winter Solstice Ale is of unknown vintage but probably around 2005 as that was when I was at my peak of buying regional brews for trades and cellaring.

RateBeer lists it as a “Spice/Herb/Vegetable” beer meaning it has some unusual flavorings that can be anything from Coriander, to Spruce tips.

It opens with a disappointingly subtle “hiss”, I hope it has not last much of its intended carbonation.  Pours  a slightly hazy moderate to light mahogany with a distinctly yellowish tan head.  Aroma is a very nice malty caramel with some cinnamon and milk chocolate. Actually very nice.  If there was any hoppiness when it was fresh, it is long gone now.  Flavor is not unpleasant, remember my expectations are far from lofty here.  Soft fairly sweet malt flavors, a little woody and earthy some very mild notes of apple-butter and caramel.  Carbonation is moderate and likely at the intended level.  Finishes with a slight brown paper bag that may be due to the accumulated oxidation that had to have been taking place while it sat on my shelf in the basement since G.W. was re-elected.

All in all, not that bad considering the deck that was stacked against it.  I’ll probably finish it, and move on to the next mystery.

Waltzing Matilda

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Goose Island is a brewer in Chicago, IL hat makes some really great stuff.  their Bourbon Country Stout is a favorite of mine and is highly regarded among craft beer nerds like myself.  I have had 9 or so Goose Island brews and have enjoyed all of them,  With the possible exception of their Christmas Ale which I dint quite get and the Pils which again just didn’t do it for me.

Today I am having one of the Belgians that they make, called Matilda.   I have had it before at Brewforia, when it was on tap there and enjoyed it, but his time it is in a 12oz bottle.   It pours a nice orange peach color with a very small short lived head, settling quickly to a ring around the edge of the glass.  A soft mild fruity aroma of apples, pears and a fairly pungent bite.   Light malt medley of some of the similar pale fruits in the aroma.  A little peppery, fairly sweet and the typical Belgian yeast character is moderate.  More bitter at the end that I expected.  the commercial description says  that it is profusely hopped.  Maybe that extra hop bitterness is what I am picking up that is throwing me off a little.  I wouldn’t say that this is a classic Belgian, but one that has been Americanized a bit.

I expect examples of the style to be more light wispy, spritzy and less up front bitterness. Still I am not opposed to creative tweaks and artistic license.  There are several Belgian Sub-Styles, Belgian Strong, Belgian Dubel, Belgian Strong etc, this one is just “Belgian”.  I guess in a way that means you cant say it is not to style when it is in a bit of a catch-all sub genre.  Orval is the classic and highly rated example of this style.   I’ll have to have one of those to compare with this.

I am still a big fan of Goose Island though.