Brewing as Art Form? / NHC 2012

Labeled, rubber-banded and ready to be shipped.

I've always harbored suspicions about the role of competition in a creative act.  If you are using your creativity to make something, you're likely doing it because you're driven by some inner need to express yourself in that medium.  Why should the influence of outside entities have relevance to a person who creates for the sake of just doing it?  While I don't claim to be an artist by any stretch of the imagination, I like to think that I brew beer for me and those close to me, making beer that satisfies my palate and pushes my understanding of what beer should be like.  Brewing definitely can be associated with creative people, and one can argue that creative people are artists to some extent.

In any case, entering a beer into a competition always seemed far from important to me.  I always focused on the idea that there was some vanity in the act of submitting my beer for evaluation.  What did I hope to gain?  Validation?  Recognition?  Maybe I was just afraid that the feedback would be negative.  My thoughts on the matter have changed somewhat recently.  Feedback from someone with a discerning palate, whose connection to me is nonexistent could be the most valuable, constructive assessment of what I do.  Sometimes you're blinded by your own absorbed involvement in something, and it takes someone with a fresh take and a penchant for honesty to reset your course.  I guess that's what I'm hoping for by entering Low Country Pale Ale into the 2012 National Homebrew Competition.  The recipe evolved based largely on a beer made by Jeff at Bikes, Beer & Adventures.  Almost everyone that tasted it had kind words to share.  Pretty soon it was almost gone.  Then a few weeks ago, Lewy ordered a Blichmann Beer Gun and encouraged me to enter it in the NHC.  I hesitated at first, but I realized that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.  I'm an idealist, but not to a fault (I hope) so why not expose what I do for better or worse?  All of the entries were taken in San Diego so I entered in a different region with a drop off point in Illinois.  Today I mailed a 12 ounce bottle away for critical consumption by a trained BJCP judge in the First Round of the NHC.  I guess I'll soon find out if what I do in my garage deserves consideration by a wider audience.  Either way, I'll always brew because I love to.

Irish Brew Day Tomorrow!

The next Brew Off! homebrew competition has been hashed out, with Irish Red as the style chosen.  I've never made an Irish Red before, but I have always wanted to experiment with Nottingham Ale Yeast.  I know that there are plenty of other yeasts suitable for brewing a beer like this, but Nottingham has intrigued me for years. I think it's because it seems like its been available for a long time (in homebrewing years) and has been used for some of the recipes that I read about when I first started brewing.  Also, as I start to think about the different ways that beers are fermented and maintain an open visage in regards to the creation of flavors using different microbiological cultures, I think it's appropriate and essential that dry yeasts make their way into the conversation.  I'm a huge fan of Safale yeasts (both because they work great and are relatively inexpensive) and I'm excited to try Nottingham and see if it's reputation for a clean fermentation can help bring out the sort of nonthreatening maltiness that one might expect in an Irish Red.  With Nottingham in mind, I went ahead and formulated an additional recipe for a Milk Stout-another style I have yet to brew.  So tomorrow, Ben and I are going to bang out two Irish ales.  Maybe the milk stout will be ready for St. Patrick's Day.  Link to the recipe's below:

O'Schroeder's Irish Red Ale

Forsythia Milk Stout

A New Homebrew Competition

For as long as I've been homebrewing, there's never been a shortage of excuses to get together and share beer.  While weekend nights at someone's house are always fun, local homebrew competitions among friends take that comaraderie to an elevated level.  There's been various incarnations over the years.  Red Off! 1, Red Off! 2 and Red Off! 3 really started the whole thing, getting bigger and bigger each year.  The Brown Ale Competition last year brought another large group of homebrewers into the mix.  Now, a new competition has been devised with a special twist.  Here's the way it went down:

1.  Participants selected their two preferred BJCP styles and submitted them via email.  

2.  All of the different styles were placed in a container and chosen from.  

3.  The selected style provides the parameters for the next homebrew competition.  

The whole rationale behind this method is that styles submitted by multiple brewers would have a better chance of being selected.  However, there's also the possibility that a challenging or unpopular style could be selected, adding some intrigue to the process.  Lewy came over a few nights ago with some Mission beer to share and we made the selection.  A date for the competition hasn't been set yet, but we're shooting for late April.  See the selection video below (that's my daughter, Claire, picking the style):

  

Senne Valley Saison

The weather has been weird lately.  It's either hot and sunny with clear cloudless skies, or overcast and rainy-no in between.  When you wake up each morning, you never know if you'll need your umbrella for walking through a downpour or for shade at the beach.  I'm going to spin the wheel and make a saison and hope for more heat to assist in a hot fermentation.  I put my last saison outside, wrapped in a towel in the hot sun in July last year, and the taste did not disappoint.  For this one, I want to do something a little different.  Here's the recipe for Senne Valley Saison.

Brasserie Cantillon - Senne Valley

When I first started thinking about souring beers at home, I bought a vial of White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, figuring that I would use it to make an all Brett-fermented beer of some sort.  It's been sitting in the fridge for the past few months, waiting for some attention.  While I still think that an all Brett beer would be interesting, I plan to pitch the neglected vial into secondary when I transfer this saison off the primary yeast cake.  The Brett should impart a clear mild sour flavor that increases with age and dries the beer out nicely, which goes well with traditional saison style parameters.  I'm hoping that the combination of the Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast and the Brett will make for a very complex and interesting result, with the 3711 enhancing the spiciness of the grains of paradise and helping some of the characteristic of the Czech Saaz shine through for a different twist.

Easy Inspiration for A New Beer

Fermentation chamber with chalkboard painted doors.

With my fermentation chamber nearing completion, I don't have to try hard to find motivation to brew.  Last Tuesday, Lewy came by with a bottle of his Portsmouth Kate the Great clone beer.  The hype surrounding Portsmouth's KTG offering is at a level inhabited by a select few other craft beer releases (Pliny the Younger and Dark Lord come to mind) and Lewy's clone did not disappoint in the least. On the contrary, it made me want more.  So I decided to take the plunge, test my patience and make a clone of it myself.

Dark and roasty with a confluence of aged flavorings that are at once familiar and hard to identify with the right words.  There's apparent oak and bourbon flavors, some vanilla, currant and burnt wood as well.  It's not malty and retains some residual sweetness that adds to the warming provided by the high ABV.  Lewy based his recipe on the information provided by the brewer, Tom Mott, and publicized by way of the Home Brew Talk forum.  I did the same but made some adjustments based on recommendations made by The Mad Fermentationist.  I simplified the hop additions added additional chocolate and roasted malts and selected WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend to give it a more lager-like finish without compromising the things I like about WLP001 CA Ale.  Click below to see my recipe:

KTG   

After primary fermentation, I plan to age the beer on oak cubes that have been soaked in bourbon in much the same way that Lewy did.  Cheers to waiting 6+ months for satisfaction!

The Craft of Stone and a New Brew Session

This Christmas, my parents bought me a hard-bound copy of the new book detailing the rise of Stone Brewery as one of the most important craft brewers in the world.  The book, The Craft of Stone Brewing Co., provides a history of the company, highlights its philosophical tenets, and generously presents a wide range of information about their products, including recipes for both beer and food.   Stone is definitely the most visible and commercially successful player in the San Diego craft beer scene, and their pioneering work with hop forward beers is impossible to ignore or discount.  They do some really interesting things with food, as well, and they have a beautiful bistro/brewery in North County that is a destination in and of itself for tourists interested in all things San Diego and especially those with a love of good beer.  Despite their unbelievable success, I often find myself gravitating to other local beers instead.  Perhaps it is the ubiquity of their product in San Diego, or maybe I just want to support the smaller brewery that looks up to Stone and others as they attempt to innovate and carve a niche for themselves in what seems to be an increasingly convoluted yet incredibly forward-thinking industry.  Regardless, I was excited to read their book and get a renewed sense of how craft beer in San Diego trod toward national prominence.

Written largely in first-person and with a casual voice, the content of the book belies its sophisticated packaging.  Overall, the book comes off as a sort of a giant advertisement for Stone Brewing Co., and I don't usually have much patience for being sold, but it did have some useful and enetertaining pieces.  Part 1 begins with a basic lecture on beer genetics and history for the unexperienced that can be quickly thumbed through by most anyone with a serious interest in beer.  

This is followed by Part 2, a portion dedicated to Stone's history and growth which takes the form of a variety of stories and anecdotes connected to the brewery's rise within the craft beer movement.  You get a chance to read about the philosophy that inspired Stone's founders and ever-increasing number of employees and devotees to continually push the envelope and challenge consumer palettes.  This section of the book tells the company's story through a variety of lenses and details their numerous successes both as a business and as a brewery.  Part 2 ends with a detailed rundown of all of the beers that Stone has created both on its own and collaboratively.  

Part 3 of the book shares recipes and culinary knowledge from Stone's flagship restaurant and presents some advice about glassware and food pairings.  The final pages of Part 3 presents recipes shared by Steve Wagner and Greg Koch, scaled to home brew proportions.  I spent most of my time looking through this section and decided to brew my first smoked beer based on Stone's Smoked Porter recipe.  I decided to base my smoked porter on their recipe, but made some changes to hops and grains based on my personal taste preferences.  Stone's original recipe is as follows:

Stone Smoked Porter

10 pounds 8 ounces 2 Row

1 pound, 2.5 ounces Crystal 75

10.7 ounces Chocolate

4.9 ounces Peat Smoked Malt

.71 ounces Columbus @ 90

.60 ounces Mount Hood @ 0

.5 tsp Irish Moss @ 15

White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast

I made this beer on January 9, 2012.  The biggest change I made flavor-wise is the use of Cherry Wood Smoked Malt instead of the Peat Smoked Malt in the original recipe.  I'm hoping to obtain a mellow smoked flavoring in the final product.  You can see my full recipe here.

Fermentation Chamber Build

Having a fermentation chamber is the ultimate dream.  A device that lets you brew whatever beer you might like and wag your finger in the face of ambient temperature.  I used to pretend to be happy making just saisons in June, July and August. I convinced myself that off flavors in beers that were fermented inside my house in the high 70s F during most of the rest of the year were acceptable.  Everything came out pretty good, right?

No more.  My buddy Lewy, ever-vigilant and ever-creative when it comes to brewing acquisitions, set me up with a used commercial refrigerator that I've started to convert into a fermentation chamber.  I picked it up with the help of my dad, brother, and his future father-in-law in drizzling rain this morning and started getting it ready to make my yeast happy.  I attached casters and spent a few hours cleaning it out and disinfecting everything. Then I painted the outside green.  I plan to paint the glass doors with chalkboard paint to inhibit light and allow me to keep track of what's going on inside (it should hold 8+ carboys!).  I'll also need to build a shelf or two to allow me to use the space more effectively-I guess I'll start thinking about configurations.  

Outside painted, waiting to paint the doors.

Now I just need a new beer recipe to try out in it...