Out Of Key Brewing

Once again I had the opportunity to brew for our annual St.  Patricks day party that we attend.  Friday night I had about six different beers on draft at the house.  The big winners were The Harry Knuckle Rye closely followed by the ctrlALTdelete.

For the actual party on Saturday I brought along 3 kegs, South Side Pride – The Irish Red,  Seven Degrees Of Wilfrod Brimley (Oatmeal Stout), and The Winter Wader Patch Wit (Rye Wit).  In addition to my beers they had a keg of Miller(?).  The beers were all pretty well recieved but the wit proved to be the least popular.  Of course I need to work with my Bartenders a bit on selling the beverages, given that one of them described the wit as:

“Yellow, Fizzy, and you know, Yeasty”

Needless to say, that person passed on trying it.  Given that the crowd was more of a BMC group, I can understand that the wit was not popular.  One gent tried the first two and liked them.  Then he tried the thrid and said “This is not even drinkable” – Fair enough, my Wit’s have a tangy flavor from the acidulated malt that alot of people find unusual in beer.  Add a solid blast of fresh indian coriander and they are in the “This doesn’t taste like beer” range.

I did have a great discussion with a husband and wife who tried all the beers. The gentleman was telling me that he used to live in Colorado before moving to New Jersey and told me about how they used to love Coors.  They are not currently beer drinkers.  They tried the Wit, then the stout, and then the Red.  She liked the wit the most while , he loved the the red.

One last ancedote from the night.  The following week I recieved an email from Bridget and it contained this:

We realized that no one, and I mean NO one, drank any of the green beer. My mom said that Patrick brought a pitcher upstairs to serve the “older crowd” and they all shook their heads and said “No, no, we’re not drinking THAT. We’ve got the good stuff”.

I just love that.  These are not people that would find themselves wandering the craft beer asile or trying different beers.  In my book thats my beer evangelism for the year (ok fine the month).

The biggest thrill though was that at the end of the night all of my beers were gone (Thanks Patrick) while 3/4ths of the Miller keg remained.  I recieved a call from the host of the party the next week to ask if I would be open to brewing all the beer the next year.

Quite an honor.

And Quite a Pleasure.

Just got word from Jay that the government is doing its job in keeping us safe from Beer Terrorists.   Don’t we all feel so much safer now.

If we really want to get the economy moving again how about removing some of this fu_king government bureaucratic bull_hit.  I think its safe to say that there are much better uses of resources than putting a cage around a couple fermenters.  Again way to go Homeland Security.

What a joke.

This is a great discussion regarding wyeast 1318.  I recently brewed an IPA with this yeast and will be reporting back the results as soon as it is compelete

London ale III – ProBrewer Interactive.

On Saturday night I had a chance to taste popskull from the cask.

There was a quite alot of hype about Popskull.  It was the first beer that I tried.  It was the first beer that alot of people tried.  Perhaps it was the excess hype around it.  Perhaps when two great brewers get together, you expect more.  I cant say for sure.

While this beer is not a bad beer it is not great either. It is certainly not something that I will be hunting out.  Nor will I be spending $15 for a deuce of it.

The beer exhibits quite mild flavors.  It tastes of caramelized fruits and is quite smooth.  There is little hop aroma.  It pours a reddish brown with a small quickly dissipating head.

Thats it.  Thats all I have.

Now that being said.  I have thought a lot about posting this and whether my view of the beer is as a result of too high expectations.  I made every attempt at being objective in tasting this beer.  Is it possible that my expectations were too high.  Maybe. Only time will tell how well it will be received.

I was not blown away by it.  Its a good beer.  Not Great.

On a cool and rainy early spring day the environment inside Goose Island Wrigleyville was the absolute opposite.  The backroom in the pub was closed off for the party and the garage area was converted into a beer cellar for the 41 cask beers in attendance.  My brother and I met some great people and had some great discussions regarding beer drinking and brewing.

One that stands out was from a young man who called himself The Hop God.  After an extended sampling session he informed our discussion group that he managed to brew a beer with 800 ibu’s.  An amazing feat!  He also demonstrated what one’s face would look like after taking a sip of this beer.  I would describe that as a mix between your face after licking a hot lemon combined with the noise you make after drinking a shot of gasoline.  Based strictly on this I am not sure I would drink it.

A couple beers really stood out for me that night.

1. Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery – Ore-Gone IPA - This is simply an amazing IPA. It is quite hop forward while at the same time it maintains its balance.  I would love to get an idea on that hop schedule, because I would love for my beers to taste like that.  Simply amazing.  This was my vote for top beer of the evening.
2. Rock Bottom-Yorktown – E-Ville Imperial Porter – Dry, Roasty, with a massive punch of floral hops.  Amazing.  Definitely in your face with the hops and the alcohol, but in a good way.  Loved it. (#2 Vote)
3. Lagunitas Brewery – Old Knarley Wine – My notes on this beer read as follows: “Very Hoppy.  Big.  Very Good.  I don’t know the ABV, but me likey”  And I think that sums it up quite nicely.  I can only assume that this beer is the same as the Old Gnarley Wine, but same or different, I really liked it.   For me, it will be the reference for all American Barleywines moving forward. (#3 Vote)

Those three above have really inspired me to try some new styles when I brew and to continue to think outside the box when generating recipes.  While at the same time, while these beers were extreme, the remained quite drinkable and balanced.  I like big flavors but ultimately I like beer, and If I don’t enjoy drinking it whats the point.

The winners, the official beer list, and a recap of the event are available on the Chicago Beer Society’s site.

The bottom line of the event is that it was well run, a great time, and something to add to my calendar for future years.

Well done!

My brother and I will be attend the Night of the Living Ales on Saturday night.  They are scheduled to have 40 casks of real ale on hand from Dogfish Head, Emmett’s Tavern & Brewing, Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery, Gordon Biersch, Goose Island Beer Company, Goose Island Brewpub, Lagunitas Brewery, Lakefront Brewery, Lunar Brewing, Magnolia Pub, Mickey Finn’s Brewery, Moylan’s Brewing, Piece Brewing, Rock Bottom Chicago, Rock Bottom Orland, Rock Bottom Yorktown, Rogue Ales, Surly Brewing, Three Floyds Brewing,  and Two Brothers Brewing.

Additionally they are scheduled to have a cask of popskull on hand.  This is a colobration beer from 3F and Dogfish Head.  The beer was brewed in late January, so it is young and quite fresh.  Perfect for a cask beer festival.  There are currently no reviews at beer advocate so this may well be the first tasting of this beer.

The beer is described as:

“Old School, German Brown Ale with Palo Santo Wood and Botanicals”

So what is popskull?  The urban dictionary defines it as:

Poorly made moonshine that causes a severe headache, or any cheap, low-grade booze or rotgut that makes you sick the next day.

Interesting name, but for some reason I think the Urban Dictionary is probably wrong on this.

I will post my experiences next week.

It seems that the some faction of the free beer alliance has struck again. The Promash To BeerXml file converter, has been included in another application to convert beer recipes into other text based formats. Good Work Mcreale!

I just wanted to say thanks for the attribution in the wiki page and in the download.

I have a todo item to update the source to improve the converter to better handle more complex mash schedules.

We all know that water is one of the most important components of beer. When I started brewing I went out of my way to goto the local supermarket to pick up “spring” water.  After a few batches I just said screw it and started pulling water out of my tap, using the old standby “If it is good enough to drink, its good enough to brew with”.  Going into brewing for the summer I have decided to turn over a new leaf spend some time on water chemistry.

The first step in this process is getting a good water analysis.  If you live in the Chicago Metro Area you probably get your water from Lake Michigan and were always curious of what your water composition looked like the city of Chicago does quarterly analysis for you for FREE!  All of the latest reports can be downloaded from the water departments page for water analysis.  The latest City of Chicago Water Report is here.