October 25, 2008

Surly Darkness Day

Posted by amm002 under Beer Events | Tags: |
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Five in the morning. Am I really waking up to go stand in line for seven hours in 35 degree weather to get the chance to buy six bottles of beer? Considering it’s one of the ten best beers in the world, you bet your ass.

Darkness Day was a success. I got my allotment of Surly’s finest, a couple commemorative snifters, and a seriously sore back standing around all morning talking to fellow beer geeks and enjoying fantastic beer brought from all corners of the country.

When I showed up at 5:30 a.m., there were already 38 people camped out ahead of me in line. And I mean literally camped out. There were several tents spread out near the brewery, and a massive mobile home parked near the front gate with Missouri plates. As I walked to my spot in line, I noticed most of the cars parked up and down the street were from out of town…Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin. These were serious beer lovers. My mild discomfort waking up extra early to drive less than two miles to get to the brewery paled in comparison to the dedication these beer nomads exhibited.

As soon as I settled into what would be my home away from home for the foreseeable future, I tried striking up a conversation with the beer freak in front of me. Within 10 seconds I realized it could have been one of the biggest mistakes of the day. Nice guy, but seemed to be suffering from Aspergers, so for the next seven hours I was locked in to awkward and strange conversation about the virtues of Leinie’s Summer Shandy, and how he had never tried an Imperial Stout in his life. Quite a place to start.

Around 7 a.m., Omar walked out of the building wheeling a keg of Coffee Bender, compliments of the house. Everyone grabbed a cup and enjoyed what was one of the freshest samples I’d ever tasted. Fantastic.

Thankfully, I also met a very nice couple who drove up just hours earlier from Chicago, and they knew their beer. We chatted about home brewing, beer styles, and all the different beer trips they’d taken. At about 9 a.m., a slew of beer traders came around corralling everyone’s samples together, popping bottles and pouring with reckless abandon. Old Rasputin. Kentucky Breakfast Stout. Dark Lord. Supplication. You name it, it was probably there.

Having nicely solidified my place in line, I decided to take a stroll down the street to see exactly how many people were hoping for a shot at Darkness. I was amazed to see the line snaked nearly five blocks, with more and more people streaming in. It was at that moment I appreciated my decision to wake up when I did.

The anticipation kept building throughout the morning. We waited several more hours, until we were greeted at 11:30 with a set of bag pipers ringing in the beginning of Darkness Day. Somehow along the way, about 50 additional people snuck up in line ahead of me, so when the gates opened I was actually more at about the 100 position. But it didn’t really matter. We fairly orderly walked through the gates, and made our way to the merchandise stalls to get our beer and swag. I plunked down my money, grabbed my box, and made my way home. It was 12:15.

So, mission accomplished. Can’t wait to try it. But first, I’m going to take a nap.

 

October 24, 2008

Getting Surlier by the Minute

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October 22, 2008

Omar in the Produce Section

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So I stop off at the local grocery store on my way home from work to pick up a few things, and who do I bump into in the produce section but The Man himself…Mr. Omar Ansari, founder of Surly. I chatted him up for a couple minutes, trying to get the lowdown on Darkness Day. But he didn’t offer much, other than to say to get there early. He said he wrapped up bottle preparation today, and was expecting numerous folks driving in from all over the country for the event, including Maryland and Ohio. I feel fortunate to live but a mere two miles from the brewery. So I should have no excuse in being one of the first 700 in line.

Check out an interview with Omar on our local FOX affiliate.

 

October 21, 2008

Forecast Calls for Cold and Lots of Darkness

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Surly Darkness Day is almost upon us. And the weather isThe Perfect Dip looking perfectly appropriate for the occasion…cold and overcast. If I’m actually out there by 7 a.m. as I’m planning to be, I’m bundling up for a long day of standing around. It’s supposed to be about 36 degrees at that point, with a high of 50 for the day.  

Apparently a local TV news producer has his own beer blog too, and shared some video and photos from his friend that volunteered time helping the Surly crew get everything bottled and ready for the event. Man, what a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?

 

October 18, 2008

Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Posted by amm002 under Rating: B Plus | Tags: |
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My buddy Dave over at The Drunken Polack just reviewed this one, so I’m piggybacking on his comments. We’re in pretty consistent agreement on this one.

Poured from a 650 ml bottle with not much head. What was there was very dark khaki. Lightly carbonated. This beer smells very nice. Very malty, with lots of cocoa and bitter chocolate that comes through heavily. It’s what I’d expect from a cross between an oatmeal and Imperial stout, as described by Stone. The oatmeal gives it a nice and creamy mouthfeel. The heavy malt is balanced with a hoppy bitterness, Galena or Ahtanum, perhaps? As Dave describes, this stout is “different.” The bitter chocolate combined with the slight hint of hops makes this a pretty unique beer. Not one I’d look for on a regular basis. But on a cold, Minnesota winter evening, I’d take it any day of the week.

Rating: B+

 

October 13, 2008

Busy Brewing Day

Posted by amm002 under Home Brewing, Recipes | Tags: , , |
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It was another busy weekend. But Sunday I took the opportunity to brew a Spiced Pumpkin Ale for the upcoming holidays. Here’s the grain bill and hop schedule:

10 pounds 2-row
1.5 pounds Carapils
1.5 pounds Light Munich
4 ounces chocolate malt
1 ounce Mt. Hood (at 60 min.)
1 ounce Cascade (at 30 min.)
1 ounce Mt. Hood (finishing)

To make this a true pumpkin ale, I also dropped in the following midway through the boil:
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks (in boil for 30 minutes)
2 cups brown sugar
30 ounces of canned pumpkin filling

The mash/lauter went very well, hit my OG of 1.068. I had the garage door closed during most of it since the wind was causing issues with my propane heater, so things got extremely hot during the boil. After adding in the pumpkin and spices, the place smelled like a bakery with pumpkin pie in the air. Chilled, racked, and pitched Wyeast 1056 with no complications. It’s bubbling away nicely at about 70 degrees. I’m a little concerned I used too much brown sugar and the beer will be too sweet. But I’m hoping some of that is tempered during the fermentation. Target FG is 1.017, giving this a nice little 6.6% ABV kick. Grandma won’t know what hit her.

Once I got done with my Pumpkin Ale, I decided to keg the Spider IPA that’s been dry hopping for a few days. I realize I just brewed this one less than two weeks ago, but I just couldn’t wait. It smelled nice coming out of the secondary, and after turbo-carbonating the keg for a couple hours, it tasted good. Much better than my previous IPA attempt. Definitely aromatic with Simcoe coming through in the nose. I’ll review this one over the next couple weeks once the “green” wears off a bit.

In other homebrew news, I cracked a test bottle of my Oatmeal Coffee Stout that’s been bottle conditioning for about two weeks now, and it was pretty well carbonated. I’ll let the two cases hang out for another week, then refrigerate. Look for the review soon.

 

October 7, 2008

Fishing, Brewing, and Getting Stoned

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It’s been an eventful several days. First, I was up in northern Minnesota over the weekend trying my luck at catching some walleye with my dad, and we were pretty successful. Growing up in Minnesota, most of us are naturally drawn to the north, like a magnetic compass. Many go to recharge, connect with nature, get centered again. It’s why I like spending time there. But when it’s butt ass cold, you’re not so much interested in taking in the autumnal leaf changes, but rather trying your best not to slip into a hypothermic state as you whip across a barren lake at 6:30 a.m. in a boat. Such was the case with me and my dad. The thermometer read 27 degrees when we put in Saturday morning, and it didn’t break 50 until high noon. Not that those temps are that cold for us true, hardy Minnesotans. But when you’re on the water, and there’s a slight wind, and the clouds give a little overcast cover, things can get interesting pretty quickly.

After a solid fishing trip, I spent most of Sunday out in the garage making a nice little IPA. Used 2-row pale, a bit of medium crystal, and plenty of Cascade and Simcoe. Interestingly enough, during the boil a huge spider came crawling up the side of the pot, and I took it as a sign. So this one is going to be The Captain’s Spider IPA. Or maybe ArachnoPalia. Cheesy names aside, everything went pretty smoothly, and I was able to pitch the yeast and get the wort fermenting before the Sunday night football game. And it’s been bubbling away very nicely ever since. The sharp hop smell coming out of the air lock is fantastic. I’m debating on whether I dry hop with some Cascade to give it a little extra aroma, or toss in some Simcoe for a crisper bite. We’ll see how I feel when racking day comes.

Which brings us to this evening. I’ve been anxiously awaiting a nice little package from my friend Joey at South Bay Drugs and Liquor in San Diego. Some really nice beers I’ve been looking forward to trying. The Fedex guy tried delivering it over the weekend, but since I wasn’t here, and it required an adult signature, they had to postpone the drop. But it was waiting for me tonight. I ripped open the box, and found an expertly packed set of some of the coolest beer bottles I’ve ever seen. You might say I have my work cut out for me. Here’s what’s chilling in the beer fridge: 

Allagash Curieux
Russian River Damnation
Russian River Pliny the Elder
Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal
Stone Arrogant Bastard
Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard
Stone Cali-Belgique
Stone IPA
Stone Levitation Ale
Stone Pale Ale
Stone Ruination Double IPA
Stone Vertical Epic Ale 08.08.08

Yeah, so there’s alot of Stone. I’ve just heard great things about the brewery and wanted to try a wide variety of what they have to offer. Look for the reviews in the coming weeks.

 

October 1, 2008

The Underbelly of Home Brewing

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This is a process post, for those out there interested in understanding how you get beer into a bottle, then into your belly. As any home brewer out there knows, making beer is mainly about avoiding bacteria and germs. I always thought those people who use Purell twenty times a day and touch door knobs with the outside of their shirt sleeve would make the best home brewers. Home brewing is also about lots of waiting. You spend most of your time prepping and sanitizing equipment, sitting around waiting for your boil to finish, quickly cooling the wort to a desirable temperature for yeast pitching, then a whole bunch of waiting as it ferments, more sanitizing and prep work to bottle or keg, and finally some more waiting as the beer carbonates. All told, the ratio of brewing to cleaning/waiting is incredibly lopsided. That’s where tonight comes in, as it’s time to bottle my Oatmeal Coffee Stout.

The stout has been cold conditioning for a little over a month now. I’ve been kegging most of my beers lately, but decided to switch it up for this one, primarily so I could more easily share some of it with friends. Also, I still have a couple gallons of my IPAin’t in the corny, and I’m getting tired of seeing the stout sitting in the carboy every time I open the beer fridge to pour one. The stout was one of my better brews from last year, and I tweaked the recipe a little this time around, adding some more oats as well as 16 ounces of Starbucks Breakfast Blend.Sanitizing the bottling bucket and siphon

So step one of bottling is sanitizing the bottles and caps. I use my dishwasher, which has a sanitization setting that washes everything with extremely hot water, then dry heats to kill off any bacteria. I don’t use any dishwashing liquid, of course, as that could introduce unwanted fragrances and residue that could mess things up.

Racking from the carboy to bottling bucketOnce the bottles and caps are sanitized and cooled, I start the siphoning process from the carboy into the bottling bucket. Again, I sanitize the siphon and bucket before it touches the beer (and it’s now accurately referred to as beer, since it contains alcohol). I also dump between three to five ounces of priming sugar into the bottling bucket before I start racking the beer, as it mixes more thoroughly with the full 5 gallon batch to provide the remaining yeast something to munch on and naturally carbonate the bottle. I take care not to splash the beer as it fills the bottling bucket, as excess oxidation can wreck the batch instantly.

The racking typically takes 15-20 minutes. Then it’s simply a matter of filling up each bottle, leaving about an inch to inch and a half of head space, which gives the yeast just enough oxygen to do their thing (sounds counterintuitive, but remember in the primary, aerating wort before you pitch is essential for proper fermentation). The actual bottling is the worst part of the process, in my opinion. You sit there for what feels like an eternity, monotonously watching each bottle slowly fill, one after the other after the other. After the bottles are filled, I use my capper to securely crimp each cap, resulting in a professional looking, nicely bottled beer.

As is the theme with home brewing, it’s again more waiting, between one and two weeks before most beers naturally carbonate in the bottle. Until that day, I’ll be impatiently waiting to enjoy this year’s Special Release. And man did it smell good coming out of the carboy…the coffee is definitely there, with lots of smooth, oatey malt. I’m keeping my fingers crossed this is gonna be a winner.

 

September 24, 2008

Guinness Draught

Posted by amm002 under Rating: B Minus | Tags: |
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I’ve been in NYC a few different times, and have never seen so many cops in my life as I have on this trip.

On my way to the office this morning, I was abruptly stopped at 3rd Ave. and East 50th St. by an entire platoon of New York cops that quickly cordoned off all the bustling pedestrians walking to and fro to their places of work. They set up metal guard rails lining the entirety of 50th as far as the eye could see, not allowing anyone to pass north or south. It was amazing. Thousands and thousands of people penned up at each street corner, asking each other what the hold up was. I think I had some idea, since the UN General Assembly is going on. I either expected Bush or Ahmadinejad to come hurtling by in a cavalcade of cars, flanked by an equal number of security officers on motorcycle. But when a handful of black cars quickly drove by with little fanfare, and the cops quickly pulled the metal blockades away from the corners, life returned to normal like nothing ever happened. Just another day in New York. I still have no idea who that was.

However, taking the expressway to JFK this afternoon to catch my flight home, it dawned on me as I sat in the back of the cab that on each bridge we passed under, there were a number of NYPD officers perched near the rails, watching us go by. There also were cops positioned on random hills near the shoulder of the highway, and police sitting in cars near on and off ramps. Clearly, someone important was coming through. A few minutes later, I heard police sirens from behind us, forcing every vehicle to pull over to the right. We came to a slow crawl as the lead car passed us. I saw an Iranian insignia on one of their license plates. Had to be from their local embassy. And of course, they were escorting Mr. Nuclear to the airport. A bevy of heavily armored bulletproof vehicles were also in the mix, as well as an ambulance bringing up the rear. It was pretty damn impressive, all told about 20 different vehicles. The kind of protection only afforded to crazy fuckers that have a deathwish agenda on half of humanity. I couldn’t help but wonder what the NYPD cops “protecting” this guy were thinking as they watched him go by. 

As soon as I checked in and got through security, I decided to settle down at the little bar in my terminal and kill some time before my flight with a nice Guinness. The dark stuff. My classic standby. Even though it’s technically a macro, it’s just about the only one of its kind that I look forward to drinking now and again. There’s nothing like watching a nicely poured pint settle into itself, building the anticipation until it’s ready to be enjoyed. I always found it funny that places like Bennigans actually had Guinness on their menu under the appetizer section. 

Poured into a standard pint glass with its typical blackish red coloring. Nice tan head. Compared to most other beers, I’m always impressed with the fantastic, thick lacing left on the glass after each sip. I suspect that has more to do with how it’s pushed through the draught line, using nitrogen, versus something inherent with the beer itself. Roasted malts dominate the nose, also coffee. The taste is nice, but contrary to how most people perceive it, I’ve never looked at this as a heavy beer. In fact, the mouthfeel is pretty thin. I think the most positive characteristic of this beer is actually how refreshing it is. At least to me. I would rather sit down and drink 10 of these guys before drinking the equivalent in some light beer. Maybe it’s the lighter carbonation. But I’ve always enjoyed the stuff.      

Rating: B-

 

September 3, 2008

Just a Little Patience

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I hate waiting. My IPA and Oatmeal Stout have been beckoning me from the basement beer fridge for a little over a week now. I know I should let the IPA sit a little longer in conditioning. But screw it. I’m out of beer. It can continue aging in the keg. The stout will sit on standby while I slowly work my way through the 5 gallon corny. And that’s fine, because that one needs a little extra time with all the fermentable sugars in there. In fact, I saw a bubble escape from the airlock yesterday. So the non-flocculated yeast must still be slowly working away.

I think I’ve gotten better at carbonating my beers. I started off bottling everything, which is perfectly fine. And in the case of some styles, desired. It’s just that (consistent with the theme of this post) I got tired of waiting at least another week for bottle conditioning. So I invested in a Cornelius keg and CO2 regulator. More control over the carbonation levels, and less sanitizing. Best home brew purchase I ever made.

Here’s how I do it…first, I clean my keg with boiling hot water and rinse-free sanitizing powder, giving it a few good shakes to get the previous beer’s smell and residue out of there. Using the built-up steam pressure from the hot water, I reattach the picnic tap, and let it run out to clean the line. I’ll refill the keg with cold water to bring it back down to room temperature or lower, then sanitize my siphon and rack the beer into the corny.

Once the flat beer is in the keg, I pop the top back on and attach the CO2 hose. Crank the regulator up to about 25 psi for 10-15 seconds, and turn it off. Then burp the keg by depressing the release valve to get rid of any oxygen in the head space (don’t want to spoil the beer). Turn the regulator back up to 25 psi, and shake the hell out of it by turning the keg on its side and rolling back and forth. The more surface area, the more CO2 absorption. You can hear the gas entering the keg and mixing with the beer. After a couple minutes of that, I drop the CO2 down to about 10 psi, and put it in the fridge.

After a few hours, I’ll close the CO2 tank, depress the release valve again, and let most of the CO2 escape from the keg’s headspace. This is where you can begin adjusting your levels…I’ll pour a small glass of beer, and if it has the right carbonation, everything is good to go. If it’s still a little low, I’ll turn the tank back on and give it another few good shakes. Again, once I hear the dull hissing stop from the CO2 mixing with the beer, I put it back in the fridge and let it sit again. Repeat process until you get the head you’re looking for. I typically pour my beers between 6-8 psi (Belgians a little higher), and am considering drilling a hole in the door of the fridge to hook up a cool draught handle.

So the IPA should be ready to go very soon. Stay tuned for my first home brew review. Gotta come up with a cool name for it though…

 

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