Fermentation (psuedo) Friday!

Here is my belated fermentation friday post. I'll get right to it,

Question: What advice would I give to a beginner foraying into homebrewing?

Answer: Get organized, sanitize, watch fermentation tempuratures, and have fun!

Does that count as one thing? Oh' well. When beginning to brew organization is very important. Writing/printing out a brew schedule can help with staying on schedule and not becoming disorganized, which can be easily done. Without proper sanitization one could screw up an entire brewday wasting money and time. Always, start out your brew day with sanitization and have that bucket around for the entire day, so you can sanitize anything on demand as you need. And finally, watch your fermentation temperatures! Your yeast package should have directions on the temperature your yeast play well at. This can be important as my first brew fermented at 85F, needless to say it did not come out well and as a result I did not brew again for awhile. Also, brewing at different temperatures will ensure that your beer will be inconsistant and may not be drinkable.

In the end making beer whether it is extract, partial-mash or all-grain can be relatively easy. You just need to be organized, sanitized and watch your fermentation temperatures (damn it, does'nt rhyme). It's really not that hard and all you need to do is well...decide what to brew!

QUAFF meeting

Today is the monthly meeting for my beer club, QUAFF. It is always fun to go and taste the club homebrews and talk about it. Today's topic will be 2009 AHA competition. QUAFF over the last couple of years has lost out after winning 7 years in a row. I believe today is a step to move back to the winning ways.

Pics and topic discussion to come.

Update: InBev Brands

Here is an update on what brands InBev currently owns:
Prague's Staropramen
Quilmes
Jupiler
Skol
Tennent's
Rogan

These are only a few for more go to the InBev website.

Cheers

World Cup Beer #16

Pietra Biere Ambree
Chestnut Beer

Aroma - Lots of vegetable with not much else

See - Clear light bronze, with a thick white head that dissapates quickly

Mouthfeel - medium

Flavor - There is an intense bitterness with vegetable aftertaste. The beer has a typical "cerveza" flavor with more bitterness, sweetness and flavor. Note to self: Do NOT brew with chestnut flour. There is not much else to say about this beer as I do not like it and can not finish it. I recommend to PASS on this beer.

A-B goes Belgian

Anheuser-Busch is now Belgian owned. I'm sure you can read about this anywhere so I won't babble on. What I find interesting is InBev owns over 200 brands among those acquired by A-B. I will dig around and try to find some interesting ones. InBev's website is down currently, but here is what I have so far:

Stella Artois, Boddingtons, Beck's, Staropramen, Bass, Leffe, Labatt, Hoegaarden, Brahma, Budweiser and Michelob.

GOLDEN FLEECE UPDATE: Team Columbia (although only having 1 american rider) is considered an american team has now lost all jerseys after todays difficult mountain climb. They were not expected to keep the yellow jersey, but have now lost all three. The bright spot is Team Garmin/Chipotle (the othe american team) now has a rider in the top 3, Vandevelde. Just like the hostile beer climate, riding in the mountains the standings can change quickly.

World Beer Cup - Beer #15

Caldera Brewing Co.
Caldera Dark Lager Munich Dunkel
(pics to come soon)

Aroma: A light malty hints of chocolate, caramel and toffee

Sight: Dark brown with a Red/Amber tint, has an offwhite head that dissapates to a ring

Mouthfeel: Medium to full body

Flavor: Sweet rich caramel, hint of chocolate and a subdued roasty flavor. Mild hop flavor. Finishes mild sweet with an easy bitterness flavor. After taste remains clean. This beer is very smooth and drinkable, I like it. I could drink a few of these on a hot day.

Overall: This beer has a great complexity and richness due to the use of the various munich malts. It is basically a subdued bock. I like it and want more!!! Damn its a seasonal beer that they don't can. Oh yes, this brewery cans their beers.

GOLDEN FLEECE UPDATE:
Team Columbia still has the yellow, green and white jerseys. Tomorrow will be the first serious mountain climb stage, so watch it! Oh yeah, they also finished 1st and 2nd yesterday, getting their second stage win.

World Beer Cup Beer #14

Flossmoor Station Restaurant and Brewery
Black Wolf Schwarzbier

(pics will come soon)

Aroma: Coffee-like aroma with some faint malty caramel aromas

Appearance: A dark/black ruby red with small white head that dissapates and clings into a white ring

Flavor: A clean sweet malt flavor, similar to Munich malt. A clean lager with light hop flavor. Aftertaste is a smooth building dry finish with an easy hop bitterness and a clean light roasty flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium with medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: A clean smooth german style lager that blends an easy roastiness to hop bitterness and makes it drinkable. I recommend this one!

P.S. Munich Dunkel, Maibock and Schwarzbier have fast become my favorite lagers

Hamilton's Tavern

This past weekend I went over to Hamilton's Tavern located in the South Park (haha, yes South Park) a region in southern San Diego. It's on the other side of town from me, but well worth the trip. They always have an extensive tap list and an incredible bottle selection. The tavern is tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood and is the kind of place where you will find a wide variety of people downing the local suds. They have many pub games to play from which we chose foosball. No matter what team I was on I managed to to be on the loosing end, nonetheless I enjoyed every pint I had. I began the evening with: Ballast Point - Tongue Buckler (a double american amber ale), Coronado Brewing - Maibock (a dark bock & my favorite of the night), and finally ended with a Port brewing - Hop 15 (Double IPA). If you are ever in San Diego I recommend stopping by.

UPDATE:
Team Columbia [1] now has the yellow, green and white jerseys in le Tour de France. The team is doing well, but it is very early [2] in the tour.

1. Headquarted in San Luis Obispo
2. 5 days young with ~ 19 more to go

Honey Anyone?

I'm curious to know if anybody has made any beers with honey and what flavors/aromas did you get?

Avocado, Citrus, Sage, Wildflower, Buckwheat, Leathwood or any other flavor of honey.

Hhmm...Announcment...

I found out today that I was able to volunteer at the GABF. Yes, that's right the Great American Beer Festival!!! I will be working wednesday-friday. If the GABF is anything like the World Beer Cup I am in for a treat. I can't wait! I would like to thank my homebrew club, QUAFF, for helping me get in and the GABF for having me. I'm thirsty already.

The Golden Fleece

Le Tour de France

It's all about the golden fleece, aka. Maillot Juane. Which means it must be July and its the Tour de France! Turn your T.V.'s to versus and watch the tour all month. Ok, this is not really a beer post, but think about all of the cool towns they ride through that BREW good beer!

My ride:
Giant TCR carbon monocoque frame w/non-matching grip tape

Notice the bar end caps: they are belgian beer corks!
What do you ride?...

A very kolschey experiment

This weekend I finally decided to transfer the kolsch to the secondary, but in doing so I added two different types of honey to it. Currently, there is 3 gallons of kolsch, 1 gallon w/4oz clover honey, and 1 gallon w/4oz wildflower honey.

5 gallons of Kolscheyness Experimentess (or whatever)

The original taste of the kolsch was delicious. Upon initial taste it had a sweet flavor with a slight bready character and a slight wheat taste, quickly followed by an easy spalt hop spicy bitterness which quickly fades to a dry crisp flavor. With the addition of honey I noticed that the wildflower honey which was very aromatic darkened the kolsch from a bright gold to an medium amber color. The clover honey darkened slightly but not very much and was not as aromatic. My plan is to lager for 2 weeks at 45F, bottle and lager for another 2 weeks. I can't wait to taste/smell/see the difference.

(L) Wildflower Honey, (R) Clover Honey