The Captain's Chair

Preparing to Rack

Post-Rack

Really interesting article in the libertarian magazine Reason about the rise, fall, and triumphant resurgence of homebrewing in America. Many may not realize, but throughout much of our nation’s early history homebrewing was as common to folks as farming. George Washington did it, as did Thomas Jefferson. 

According to the story, by 1872 there were 3,421 commercial breweries in America, or roughly 17 times as many per capita as there are now. I find that fascinating. Thanks to Prohibition, the industry largely went away, or at least incognito, until President Carter in 1978 signed the bill that decriminalized the practice of homebrewing, paving the way for a burgeoning U.S. craft beer industry thanks to folks like Sierra Nevada and Boston Beer Company.

Maybe that’s why beer and peanuts go so well together.

With my recent acquisition of Westvleteren 8 and 12, it dawned on me that I now have representation in my cellar from each Trappist brewery, six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands.

Got me thinking that I should plan a “Trappist Week” series of tastings and reviews. Might be a fun and educational way to celebrate the innovation that makes up the Belgian beer scene, in many ways spearheaded by these seven beer-producing monasteries over the past couple hundred years.

Stay tuned…
 

…and the U.S. craft beer segment continues to rise in market share, as cited by the Brewers Association’s recently released industry sales figures from 2008.

But the shift to more fully flavored, locally produced beers doesn’t come without its challenges. According to the group, smaller microbreweries and brewpubs continue to face hurdles such as:

• Access to ingredients and raw materials
• Increased pricing for materials and supplies
• Access to market (competition for shelf space at the retail level)

The cost of operating a small brewery also increased more than 39 percent in the period of November 2007 to November 2008, according to the industry tracking firm.  

So while it’s getting tougher to be a smaller brewer, it seems the hard work is paying off, at least when taken as a whole. Take that BudMillerCoors.

Cracking open one of your homebrew creations is a pretty cool experience. Ideally, it tastes great and impresses your friends and family. But sometimes it doesn’t, and you take a close look at what could have gone wrong somewhere throughout the process. Either way, you learn something, which is pretty cool.

Tonight I had the pleasure of enjoying my Belgian Dubbel, or the “Dubbel Deuce” as I nicknamed it while it quietly fermented. I actually brewed this late December, so it really didn’t take too long to ferment and carbonate in the bottle, all things considered. I was sort of hoping this would come out somewhere in the vicinity of Chimay Red (don’t we all wish that), a beautiful dark fruit and yeasty aroma paired with a rich and complex maltiness. What I got was a little different, more in line with say New Belgium Abbey. But very nice, nonetheless.

My Dubbel Deuce pours with a very frenetic head that slowly dissipates into a calm and placid white sliver of carbonation. Would be nice if the head stuck around longer, but it doesn’t detract too much. Right away you get a nice aroma of fruits, maybe dark cherry, as well as spicy clove. The slightest hint of banana ester hangs out in the background, rounding out the nose. No hops to speak of. Color is a nice dark amber with a decent amount of clarity. Some yeast are present.

The flavor is very similar to the aroma. Very malty sweet, more of the cherries or possibly raisin, but not sweet like crystal malt. You also get a subtle tinge of alcohol (about 7.5% ABV) in the relatively dry, yet smooth, finish. Mouthfeel is a little on the light side, but the carbonation does help to fill it out.

Overall, a nicely complex and very drinkable example of a dubbel. I have about two cases of the stuff that I’ll age for some time to come, so I look forward to giving this another shot over the coming months to see how the character changes. I am very happy with this one.  

Rating: A-

So I’ve been waiting for this one to hit the Twin Cities market for quite some time.

I ran across a note on MNBeer.com that Sierra Nevada’s new year-round offering Torpedo Extra IPA was coming to a select handful of local craft beer stores on Tuesday, including my favorite The Four Firkins. I emailed Alvey late that morning to see if they’d already been picked clean, but he received more than a dozen cases worth and didn’t anticipate running out. So after work, I swung in and got myself a six pack…and might I add a very reasonably priced six pack considering this is such a high quality beer.

As I’ve mentioned a handful of times previously on this blog, Sierra Nevada — while of course highly deserving of the respect they’ve earned as one of the pioneers of the U.S. craft beer industry – has generally underwhelmed me with most of their stuff. And underwhelmed might not even be the right descriptor. How about failed to blow me away…predictably and safely impressed. Their Pale Ale is a very good beer…clean, bright and full of Cascade hops. As one of the first beers of its kind back in the early 1980′s, I can only imagine what folks must have thought of it. Original, innovative, groundbreaking. But compared to what’s coming out today from folks like DFH, Surly, Three Floyds and many others, Sierra Nevada has generally stayed the course with their archetypal ales.     

So enter Torpedo Extra IPA, their first new year-round beer in more than a decade. And for me, quite possibly the beer that nudges Sierra Nevada back into the “innovator” category. They call it an extra IPA, which seems pretty accurate considering it’s somewhere in the middle of the IPA spectrum…slightly more aggressive than your standard IPA from an IBU and ABV perspective, but yet not quite bold enough to call a DIPA. According to the company’s press release, the name derives from a device the brewers invented called a “hop torpedo” that acts like an industrial espresso machine…forcing beer in the fermentation vessel through a filter containing whole hop cones. The result is the clean extraction of hop oils and resins without the grassy bitterness that often can occur when using traditional dry hopping techniques.

Torpedo Extra IPA poured with a nice two finger head, off-white tightly knit bubbles. Really nice aroma, they use a handful of hop varieties in this one and you get a complex and layered nose of citrus and spice. Coloring is also excellent, beautiful golden amber, and holding it up to light it even came off with the faintest shade of burnt sienna. Interesting. 

From the first sip, you get a bitter blast of 80 IBUs that roll off the sides of the tongue. I hate to use the word, but it was really reminiscent of grapefruit. Nicely intense and well-balanced with a solid malt backbone that masks the 7.2% ABV. I wouldn’t go so far as session, but I can easily see hanging out with a few of these in the back yard on a hot Saturday afternoon. Or, as is my current situation, a bitter cold Minnesota evening huddled for warmth in my basement family room.

Rating: A-

There’s a few Surly offerings out there on draught that have been around a while, but for one reason or another I’ve yet to try (such as my recent sampling of Mild).

Walking in to The Blue Nile at the recent Surly Three release party, I was pleasantly surprised to see they had Smoke on tap, Surly’s version of a Baltic Porter. So in between delicious mugs of Three, I gave it a shot. 

Poured from the tap with a deep, inky coloring and very little head. First thing you notice in the aroma is a healthy dose of smoked malt, but not overpowering like some strong rauchbiers can be with that “beef jerky” quality. I’d say it’s more equivalent to a peaty scotch. Subtle and sophisticated. 

Taste is more of the smoked malt combined with rich coffee and molasses notes. Kind of like a nice imperial stout mixed with a well-balanced rauchbier. The hops don’t come through much in the nose, but you get a sense of them in the taste as there’s a definite bitterness toward the finish (45 IBUs), combined with more of the smoked maltiness. 

Drinkability is pretty good, you don’t even notice that the beer is 9% ABV. But the smokiness did sort of dull the senses after a couple glasses of the stuff. Not a knock, it’s just a very different type of beer that may not be for everyone (which is why they also brew the more approachable Bender and Mild, I suppose).  

Overall, another solid offering from Surly. I’d definitely try it again.

Rating: A-

This morning I cracked the lid on my fermenting Belgian Brown Ale and pitched an installment of lactobacillus, a bacteria found in some lambics. I got the 500 ml starter put together yesterday, and it fermented out very quickly, leaving a nice and healthy population of bacteria to work with.

With the lactobacillus, the goal is to complement the sweet malt and aromatic hops with a nice balance of  both traditional Belgian yeastiness (from the initial strain) and a slight sour acidity. Add on top of that the oak chips currently soaking in port that will be dropped into the secondary, and this one is sure to be a very unique, complex ale.

I also checked in on my Furious clone that’s been in primary for almost two weeks now, and while the bulk of fermentation has taken place, I can still smell a bit of diacetyl coming out of the air lock. I’ll give it another few days to rest so the yeast can clean things up, then rack to secondary where I’ll dry hop for a week with a couple ounces of Simcoe and one ounce of Amarillo.

Birthdays and anniversaries are two occasions you need to pay special attention to. Not that I’ve ever forgotten my wife’s birthday (april 23…april 23…april 23) or anything stupid like that. But you generally need to put forth a little more effort than usual to acknowledge these types of milestones.

Which is why when I got home from work Wednesday evening, generally fatigued, and a little brain-dead from a long day of PR meetings, I knew what had to be done…for tonight was the anniversary release of Surly Three. I wouldn’t entertain any excuses from myself about “how early I had to get up the next day” or “how much my liver still hurt” from the weekend. Forget it. I was going to the Surly party, and there wasn’t anything I was going to do to change it.

After picking up one of my more reliable tippling buddies, we walked into the Blue Nile in Minneapolis a little after 8 p.m. and found throngs of Surly faithful taking up every last square foot of available space. Great to see alot of happy faces enjoying alot of quality beer. We elbowed our way to the bar, and ordered ourselves a couple glasses of Three.

I actually had no idea what kind of beer Three was before I got to the place, and after slowly enjoying my first glass, I was still having a hard time placing it. After chatting with some folks, I came to realize Three is a braggot, half mead and half ale, a style I’d never had before. Poured with minimal head, dark brown coloring with a nice malty sweet aroma. Not much in the way of hops, but fairly yeast-forward which immediately brought Belgian to mind. Also a hint of spice in the nose, possibly even cinnamon. Taste was also sweet and very complex, definitely honey and dark fruits in there. At 10% ABV, it’s an extraordinarily well-balanced ass-kicker. Very nicely done Surly. 

Rating: A

My first homebrew contest is in the books. And while I didn’t win (or even place in my categories), I’d have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I entered my Summit Winter Ale clone into the Upper Mississippi Mashout with the sole intention of gaining some real honest feedback from trained BJCP judges. Brewing beer is an ongoing journey of refinement and process improvement. And I feel that objective feedback is going to play an important role in my education and ability to maximize the quality of my beers in the long run. So from that perspective, while I didn’t get any recognition (and didn’t anticipate getting any), I feel like I came out with some very valuable insight and knowledge I probably wouldn’t get otherwise.

I placed my beer in both the “New Entrant” and “Scotch Ale” categories, and across the board, received scorings that put my beer in the “Very Good” spectrum. Which is great, and frankly better than I expected given this was the first contest I’d entered. Some general comments included: 

• “Balanced with a dry finish, malt forward but not caramel or butterscotch.”
• “Good body, warming, dry finish.”
• “Dark brown in color with good clarity, moderate tan head that persists. Creamy texture.”
• “This is a good example of a Scottish 80. Nice malt complexity.”

Very kind remarks. But what really impressed me most was how consistent the ratings and comments were, both good and not so good, across all four judges. More impressive considering these tastings were done independently of each other. It wasn’t like they were sitting around a table conferring notes. This indicated to me these folks really knew what they were doing, strengthening the credibility of the judging and giving me a very fair and objective indication of areas I may need to improve on.

The main stylistic flaw they all saw was that the beer was a little on the boozy side, which I would absolutely agree with. This one came in at about 7% ABV, which in the Scottish Ale category is certainly on the high end. I attribute this to the high fermentation temperature (this one hovered just above 70 degrees in the primary), causing the yeast to be a little more active and efficient than usual. Also, while the beer presented some mild to moderate caramel notes, a few of the judges felt I may have used a bit too much chocolate malt or black patent in the grain bill as it came off to some as “scorched”. Fair enough, and looking back at the grain bill I can already see areas where I might back off a little on the darker malt next time I brew to help give it more of that copper coloring as opposed to dark chocolate.

So now that I know what the judges thought, what was my take?

I think as a winter warmer (which Summit Winter Ale technically is) this beer is pretty darn good. As a Scotch Ale, I think it falls down a little stylistically, but it was the only category I felt the beer reasonably fit into. Pours a very dark chocolately brown with a big tan head, providing a moderate roasty aroma with little to no hops. Pretty inviting. Good clarity overall, even with the darker coloring. Taste is nice and smooth. I definitely get some of the Crystal malt I used, which lends a mild sweetness combined with a decent roasted flavor from the black patent. Not too strong like coffee, but maybe dark and bitter chocolate. Dry finish.

Rating: B+