The Captain's Chair

I seem to be spending alot of time lately at The Happy Gnome.

My uncle and I swung in there this weekend on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the kind of early Spring day in Minnesota that brings people out of doors in T-shirts and shorts even though it’s 45 degrees*. I needed to drop off several entries at Northern Brewer for this year’s National Homebrew Competition, and since we were already in the neighborhood I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to grab some lunch and maybe a couple nice beers to wash it down.

The scene at your typical neighborhood pub on a lazy afternoon is about as perfect as it gets, in my opinion. Nobody’s in a rush, you don’t feel like an annoyance for striking up a conversation with the bartender who otherwise might be in the weeds, and it seems as if you’ve got the beer world at your fingertips with a plethora of interesting craft offerings to sample. That is, if you’re lucky enough to have a local watering hole that cares about craft beer. 

As usual, the draught selection at the Gnome was great. A handful of nice Belgians, local stuff from Lift Bridge and Summit, some limited release and seasonal offerings from dozens of others. But Great Divide’s Yeti Imperial Stout caught my attention. I’d tried a small glass of it at the recent FirkinFest, and was impressed, but I wanted to give it a real test drive to see how it stacked up to some other stouts I’ve been trying lately.

Yeti is the kind of stout that immediately puts a big smile on your face. Poured with a creamy mocha head into a bowled glass, filling out with a beautiful jet-black body. Comforting aromas of chocolate and roasted barley in the nose, with a hint of earthy hops. For the great chocolatey nose you get up front, it’s surprisingly bitter in the taste. Not as much of the malty sweetness as you might expect for the style. But I think the bitterness is more of a “bittersweet” quality from the specialty malts as opposed to an excess of hops. You also get a touch of alcohol in the finish, as it comes in around 9.5% ABV, but it’s subtle enough not to distract. Great carbonation level too, gives it a full-bodied mouthfeel that reminds you what kind of beer you’re drinking.  

A very enjoyable, aptly named big beer. Would love to get my hands on the Oak-Aged version of this at some point. 

Rating: A-

* The National Weather Service is predicting a massive blizzard bringing up to a foot of snow in parts of the state on Monday…so you never know what you’re going to get in Minnesota this time of year.

Minnesota is known for its hockey. But the hockey stick-like growth chart representing craft beer sales in the state last year may make it more synonymous with quality beer.

While craft beer sales nationally were up about 6% last year according to the Association of Brewers, an article in the March issue of Twin Cities Business Magazine states year-over-year craft beer growth in Minnesota was a staggering 74.5% in 2008 thanks in part to strong efforts by several local breweries like Flat Earth, Lift Bridge and Surly.

Despite the tremendous uptick in the craft beer category, the state’s two largest brewers, Summit and August Schell, only saw relatively modest sales increases last year. This was in part due to rising commodity prices for ingredients, and because a more significant portion of their distribution is tied to local restaurant and bar sales (and in this economy, people are opting to save some money by eating and drinking at home). From the article:

“Bob DuVernois, head brewer at Great Waters Brewing Company, a brewpub in St. Paul, says Great Waters sales are slightly down from January 2008 to January 2009, but it doesn’t seem to trouble him. ‘In general, people aren’t going out so much, but they are still going out—they’re just going out more economically,’ he says. Consumers are buying more local beer due in part to the rising ‘eat local’ movement, which places importance on eating and drinking food grown and produced near the end-users table, he says.”

I think all around, good news for craft brewers in the state, as well as craft beer drinkers that are likely going to be rewarded with more and more new offerings as the market matures. You have to think major craft brewers outside of the region like DFH or Stone are taking notice of the huge opportunity here.

Nobody likes drinking orange juice after brushing their teeth. The same general principle can be applied to beer…call it the Craft Beer Tiered Approach. Drinking massive beers with overpowering flavors and aromas followed up by relatively lighter offerings usually isn’t how most people do things. But sometimes, you just need to put the cart before the horse.

I’ve had a number of New Glarus offerings sitting in my cellar for a while, but for one reason or another haven’t gotten to them yet. Not sure why, since I’ve always heard pretty good things about these guys out of Wisconsin. I picked this one up from Chicone’s in Hudson, probably during the same run where I procured a handful of Dogfish Head, Stone and Tyranena stuff that’s either non-existent or hard-to-find around here. The day some of those breweries are distributed in the Twin Cities will be a good day indeed. I’ll be able to save on gas money, too. 

So I got home from work recently and wasn’t really in the mood for your standard IPA, or even easing into something a little more sessionable like a brown or ESB. No, I felt a little self-destructive. Like getting things started off on a big note. I turned to New Glarus Iced Barleywine, part of their Unplugged series where they let their brewers run amok and push the stylistic boundaries (similar to Tyranena’s Brewers Gone Wild line). Going back to the Tiered Approach concept, some might argue kicking off your evening with an extremely potent barleywine is the equivalent of palate-suicide, since every beer you have afterwards will taste distorted. But I said to hell with convention. I was going to pickle my senses with what was sure to be a unique beer experience.

New Glarus takes an interesting approach with this one, partially freezing the barleywine over a 12-week fermentation period to help concentrate and distill the flavor and alcohol. The result is a hugely intense beer, what I’d consider one of the sharpest tasting brews I’ve had in quite a long time.

Poured with a surprisingly big head considering the beer is 13.5% ABV. Deep ruby coloring and a massive nose of dark fruits and alcohol. Hops also in the mix, trending toward the American Barleywine side of the stylistic spectrum as opposed to more subdued English versions.

Taste up front is bready with significant overtones of the alcohol, which unfortunately is probably the dominating characteristic. I think in a couple years the alcohol will subside and reveal all that’s likely going on in the beer’s complexity. The bittering hops hit you pretty hard as well, especially in the finish. But aside from the alcohol and hop bite, there are some nice hints of prunes and anise floating around. Mouthfeel is OK, a little thin from the alcohol but I’m sure it will improve with time.   

Compared to other barleywines, not as balanced and smooth as Stone Old Guardian (basically my all-time favorite beer), but yet not nearly as horribly sweet and cloying as Rogue Old Crustacean. But I’d definitely try this one again, and plan to age the three other bottles I still have in my cellar for a few years to come.

Rating: B

Word to the wise: if you’re fermenting an imperial stout with a 1.150 starting gravity, make sure your primary has enough head space. Otherwise, you’re likely to get the CSI-type murder scene that awaited me when I came home from work today.

It was unbelievable. I brewed this beer on Sunday, and the build-up of CO2 pressure in less than 24 hours of pitching the yeast literally blew the entire top off of the 6.5 gallon plastic bucket I used for primary. Forget about the air lock…I found the actual lid laying six feet away from its original location tightly secured atop the bucket. Massive chunks of dark krausen sprayed over a 15 foot radius of my dining room, with huge arcs of wort splattered all over the walls and nearby closet door. In fact, fresh krausen was still violently spewing over the edges of the bucket rim as the stout underneath happily fermented away. It looked like a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb perched atop the vessel.

Frankly, I was a little pissed about the massive clean-up job that lay ahead. But the experimental homebrewer in me was also very excited at what a great job I’d done getting the gravity up and yeast population so healthy by using a starter. 

Instead of freaking out and dumping the stout for fear of bacterial infection, I looked at this homebrew-gone-wrong as a fun little experiment. Breweries like Sierra Nevada, Anchor, and many English and Belgian brewers use open fermentation tanks to make their beer…why couldn’t I? Granted, some of these brewers use special air filtration systems in their fermentation chambers to minimize the bacteria problem. But in many ways open fermentation could be considered a more traditional way of crafting an ale or lager, if you think about the way beer was made over the past several hundred years in monasteries or small breweries in 19th century Bavarian villages. My stout of course isn’t a lambic, and I clearly am not interested in wild yeast spores or other nasty air-borne creatures getting in there. But I thought I’d at least roll the dice, let it ferment out and see where we ended up.    

I dragged the bucket down into a corner of my basement, and put it in a larger plastic container to catch the spill-over. The bucket is still frothing as I write this. I’ll give it the standard two weeks and check the gravity again before I rack to secondary, and probably wait a little longer since it’s such a huge beer. Very interested to see how this one turns out.

For those interested, here’s the recipe I used for the 5 gallon batch. Just be sure to get a blow-off tube or huge fermentor before you brew it:

18 lbs. Maris Otter
2 lbs. Roasted barley
1 lb. chocolate malt
8 oz. flaked barley
8 oz. Crystal 60
8 oz. Crystal 120
8 oz. Black patent
8 oz. flaked oats
3 oz. Chinook (in boil at 60 min.)
1.5 lbs. honey (in boil at 15 min.)
8 oz. molasses (in boil at 10 min.)
Wyeast London Ale III (1000 ml yeast starter)

Mashed at 148 for 90 minutes

Had a great time at yesterday’s FirkinFest at the Happy Gnome. Lots and lots of great beers, and very good conversations with some of the local brewers and other craft beer lovers.

I did a short write-up on the event for Heavy Table, which was a lot of fun to do and a nice way to spend a beautiful Spring afternoon.

In no particular order, here’s the full list of the beers I tried that may not have made it into the article:

• Steamworks Oak-Aged Conductor IPA – nice and oaky, well-done
• Dark Horse Plead the 5th Russian Imperial Stout – solid chocolate notes, nice finish
• Surly Bitter Brewer – haven’t had this one before, and really enjoyed it, nicely balanced biscuit flavoring
• Tyranena Dirty Old Man Imperial Rye Porter – excellent, one of the better beers I had all day
• Lift Bridge Kimono Girl Saison – very enjoyable, nice and citrusy
• Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA – a hop blast
• Brau Brothers Sheap’s Head Imperial Lucan Ale – very nice hop character, could be the best offering I’ve had from them
• Bell’s Hop Slam – it’s Hop Slam…what else is there to say
• Big Sky Dry-Hopped Scape Goat Pale Ale – smooth and refreshing
• Summit Dry-Hopped IPA w/Amarillo - great hoppy nose balanced by caramel malt
• Summit Dry-Hopped IPA w/Kent Goldings – more earthy and subtle version, enjoyable
• Rush River Bubblejack IPA – have had this once before, not too impressed
• Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout – surprisingly hoppy for the style, enjoyed it
• Lagunitas Old Gnarlywine – not sweet enough for me, a little too much heat from the alcohol
• Harviestoun Ola Dubh 12 Year Reserve – definitely get the scotch cask in there, really liked it
• Surly Tea-Bagged Furious - good, but not as hoppy as I’d expected it to be
• Surly Oak-Aged Bender – fantastic
• Left Hand Milk Stout – very enjoyable
• Furthermore Three Feet Deep Dry Irish Stout – smokey and peatey, pretty good
• Surly 16 Grit – amazing beer, slightly different than the first time I had it

Darkness and 16 Grit

The scene at Stub & Herb’s was raucous for Surly Tasting Night. 

Patrons packed into every available booth, standing two and three deep at the bar, and hovering over high-top tables sipping on one of eight Surly offerings on draught — Mild, Furious, Cynic, Bender, Coffee Bender, Smoke, 16 Grit and of course Darkness. It’s not often you’re granted access to such a wide variety of Surly stuff all at once. So when you get the opportunity, you need to take advantage of it. And by the increasingly intoxicated sounds of the pub as the night wore on, people certainly were.

I met my friend Ryan there who had thankfully already secured a booth for us. We perused the formidable craft beer menu, knowing full well we’d both just end up ordering Darkness to kick off our evening anyway. When the waitress arrived, I threw my friend a curveball and opted for the 16 Grit, which ended up being especially tasty on draught, even better than a fresh growler. Nicely hopped, a hefty malt backbone that lent some balancing sweetness, and a smooth finish that made you think for a moment that you weren’t actually drinking what was likely a 9% ABV double IPA.

My friend, a Darkness virgin, philisophically stared at his glass with each slow pull of the imperial stout. He couldn’t get over what a complex ale it was, at the same time mind-bendingly malty while also offering a surprisingly nice touch of hops in the nose. He ordered a second one after he worked his way through the first, just to make sure it qualified as one of the best beers he’d ever had.

We pressed on, ordering several others including Smoke, which seemed to go well with my simple burger and fries, and Cynic, which made my friend quickly realize that his palette had been destroyed by the crushing weight of Darkness. It’s a tough act to follow, no matter what beer it is.

Coincidentally ran into some craft beer-loving high school friends I hadn’t seen in more than a decade, including Brian over at East-Lake.net (nice work on eight years of blogging, by the way). He posted a nice write-up on his evening, as well.

Fun night all around. Darkness made such an impression on my friend we decided to try our hands at brewing our own version of it this weekend. Definitely going to do a double mash on this one to get the gravity as high as I can (this 5 gallon mash tun thing is getting old). I’ll let you know how it goes.      

Another great article, this time in the Small Business section of today’s Wall Street Journal, discussing the rise of microbreweries and brewpubs even during today’s lean economic times. Seems more and more people are turning to locally-produced, high quality craft beer instead of alternatives like wine or spirits, and smart entrepreneurs are recognizing the opportunity. Recent sales numbers from the Brewers Association seem to back that up.

The story highlights Metropolitan Brewing in Chicago, who I’ve been following on Twitter for a while (@MetroBrewing), as well as Cigar City Brewing, a start-up down in Tampa, Fla. Interesting to note that most of these folks raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000-800,000 just to get off the ground with their breweries, even more if it’s a brewpub. Not a small sum when banks these days are more intensely scrutinizing business plans and distributors are balking at untested brands.

I think the luck of the Irish was with me yesterday.

Managed to secure two Golden Tickets for the upcoming Dark Lord Day on Saturday, April 25th at the Three Floyd’s brewery in beautiful Munster, Indiana just outside of Chicago. They cut off the online sale of the tickets just a few minutes after I made my purchase, so it seems I got in right under the wire.

Unlike past Dark Lord Day festivals, they decided this year to use a ticket system to guarantee the 2,000 or so ticket holders their allotment of Dark Lord (I’m guessing 5 or 6 750 ml bottles depending on yield), and discourage the inevitable line cutting and general chaos that ensues at these types of beer release events. Anyone without a ticket can still show up and buy beer, but they’ll need to stand in line and try their luck with the rest of the mob. All in all, I think the new system seems to make sense, and is supposed to make for a more orderly and enjoyable day for everyone.  

For those out there wondering what would possess me to drive 7 or 8 hours to stand in line for a handful of beers, Three Floyd’s Dark Lord, a masterfully designed Russian imperial stout, is considered by many to be one of the best beers in the world, currently rated #4 on Beer Advocate’s “Top Beers on Planet Earth” list. I was able to get a very small sample of it at last year’s Surly Darkness Day thanks to a fellow trader who poured some for us as we stood there freezing our asses off in the October morning chill. From that small sip, and based on reviews and discussions with fellow beer geeks, this legendary beer is deserving of every last bit of credit it gets. If this year’s version is anywhere near Surly Darkness 2008 (and I’m certain it will be), the drive to Chicago to get it will seem like a relatively insignificant hurdle to contend with.

My brother and I are planning to make the drive down on the 24th, and possibly hit up some other Chicago breweries that same evening like Goose Island. We’ll head out to Dark Lord Day on Saturday morning, enjoy the festivities and probably load up on other great Three Floyd’s stuff like Alpha King, then drive back into the city and take in a White Sox game Saturday evening. Sounds like my buddies Dave over at The Drunken Polack and Stu at Friday Night Beer are making plans to attend, so I’m sure we’ll meet up for a few.  

Really looking forward to what should be a great weekend.

This past weekend I ended up racking my smoked porter into secondary after a vigorous two-week primary fermentation. After I shot that video, the yeast took off in a big way, and nearly had me running out to Home Depot to find myself a blow-off tube to prevent any eruptions out of the air lock. But thankfully, the krausen crested just shy of the carboy neck and slowly subsided over the course of a few days. Pain in the rear to clean, though, which is why I usually stick to the 6.5 gallon food-grade buckets for primary.

Final gravity reading came in at 1.015, which will put this one right around 7% ABV. The aroma coming out of the carboy as I siphoned was out of this world. The nearly three pounds of cherry wood smoked malt I used in the recipe seem to give it a real distinct aroma, reminiscent of a distant campfire or fresh jerkey. I’m hoping the smokey nose doesn’t overpower the Crystal, chocolate and black patent malts I used to help balance and provide some complexity in sweetness and color.     

I’ll let it sit in secondary for at least a couple months, maybe cold condition (but probably not necessary), then bottle. Should be ready by mid summer. This will certainly complement a nicely marinated NY strip steak or BBQ-slathered rack of ribs on the grill, augmenting some of the char and tangy flavor. Can’t wait.

Pretty sweet promotion going on over at the Four Firkins right now for any Twin Cities craft beer afficionados interested in picking up what I’d consider to be one of the rarer styles around right now.

Between March 16 and 21, all you need to do is mention the Heavy Table – a new online magazine dedicated to giving folks in the Upper Midwest the latest morsels of food news, reviews and information — and you can be the proud owner of Malheur Dark Brut, a biere de champagne, for only $12.99. That’s nearly half off regular price. Not bad. 

From the Heavy Table article:

“Sensual notes of chocolate, ginger and coffee make this beer an ideal companion for dessert or a special celebration. And its 12% ABV and 750ml size make this bottle of beer more akin to a fine wine in terms of potency and size. … ‘This beer is a perfect example of what we are trying to do here at The Firkins, it’s one of the rarest styles in the world,’ says Jason Alvey, the shop’s proprietor. ‘It’s of outstanding quality and something most people will enjoy.’”

You can bet I’ll be in there, as I’m genetically incapable of passing up good deals on craft beer.