IBD Mash Parameters

Optimum Temperature:  65° C / 149° F

pH:  5.4

Water: 1.2-1.68 qts / # or 1.44 qts / #

Time: 30 min.

Proteolytic Rest for undermodified malts: 50° C / 122° F

Rogue Nation Crisis

Today I received this e-mail from Rogue, which sealed the nail in the coffin of my dislike for their beers and their business in general…

I’m not sure what the presence or absence of “hoes” within the fictitious Rogue Nation has to do with craft beer but then again, I don’t really care, because I’m not buying their beer anyway. It’s just another in the long line of gimmicks Rogue has employed to build their brand’s sex appeal (or sexist appeal, in this particular instance). I mean, really? Free-range coastal water? “Rogue is a revolution…”? Rogue is arguably doing some things to advance the maturity of American craft beer, such as planting their own barley and hops, and listing the ingredients of their beers on each label. Then again so much of what they do is simply marketing. And this… did I say maturity? Who was the ad-wizard that decided women don’t drink beer? Perhaps Steve Swan was in the throes of an OREgasmic Ale bender when he sent this across the wire.

Sierra Nevada awarded “Green Business of the Year”

Recently I was asked what is my favorite brewery and my answer came without hesitation. It wasn’t one of the five breweries each within 20 miles of my home. It wasn’t one of the hop-dynamos whose beers I so sought-after back before I moved to the West Coast. It wasn’t any of those American breweries so often credited with pushing the envelope and changing the American palette. Yet, and this is why I chose them, Sierra Nevada has done more for beer in their brief 30-yr history than any other American brewery. That’s not opinion, just fact.

I believe Sierra Nevada is often overlooked by those of us who’ve been drinking craft beer for a while now because we were breast-fed, so to speak, on their eponymous Pale Ale. Send me to the store nowadays for an APA and I’m after Fish Tale, Mirror Pond, Lagunitas, Stone, Firestone Walker… anything but Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Benchmark for the style, sure, but I’m so over it.

Still, a quick overview of their ale offerings is enough to bring any self-fashioned connoisseur to his or her knees. With the release of Torpedo IPA in early ’09 they introduced the world to Citra hops. Their Harvest Ale marked them as the first American brewer to experiment with adding fresh hops to beer. Southern-hemisphere Harvest Ale brought fresh hops to market in the Spring and then Chico Estate Ale showcased a profile of hops grown entirely on brewery premises. Kellerweiss is their worthy intrepretation of a German Hefeweizen and in the years to come I predict it will thwart the current mindset that many consumers new to craft beer need an “entry-level” (read: bland) wheat ale as an introduction to the world beyond mass-produced lagers. Then we have the 30th Anniversary lineup, their upcoming collaboration with the Abbey of St. Clairvaux, and the list of stellar beers that Sierra Nevada has been putting out in just this last decade goes on and on…

However, it wasn’t simply their beer that I admired when I proclaimed them my favorite brewery. Sierra Nevada is unparalleled in their implementation of imaginative technology and sustainable brewing practices. From oxygen-blocking crowns to solar panels to tracking carbon emissions, a zero-waste policy, and the Wild Rivers Campaign… Sierra Nevada does more than just produce world-class beer, they’re a conscientious steward of their environment, community, and friends – the list of breweries using equipment passed on from SN is seemingly endless – and a exemplary business model to boot. It should come as no surprise then that the Environmental Protection Agency pronounced them Green Business of the Year for 2010. Let’s all congratulate them and raise a pint of Celebration Ale in their honor!

Bottled-on Dates

I’m having a problem here in Humboldt County. We’re just too damned out of the way.

There is a great appreciation for craft beer here. Hell, I live within 30 miles of five distinct breweries. California and Oregon’s finest micro-brews rock the display cases and new offerings from Stone or Lagunitas invariably fly off the shelves. Yet increasingly I find myself bringing home stale beer.

Now I’m a savvy shopper. I frequent those few local stores that carry the best selections. I take notice when something new appears and I get a feeling for what might not be moving. I avoid items that are on sale as they’ve usually collected dust. I know what’s in season and what in a given brewery’s lineup is likely the biggest seller at any particular time of year. I’ve been burned on imports enough to know that we simply aren’t geographically located in a prime location for receiving fresh European ales, so I don’t bother. All in all, I’m making the most logical decisions I can at the store, sometimes in direct opposition to what my taste buds are craving.

Still I find myself drinking beer that’s definitely seen better days, and not just once in a while but routinely. There simply isn’t enough demand in Humboldt County, coupled with us being located half a day’s drive from any major urban area. It’s enough to make me want to give up bottled beer altogether and drink only from draught.

It’s time that the craft brewing industry took notice of this slackening in the distribution line. I’m sure that I’m not alone in my woes. Despite being set apart from the rest of the country, Eureka is still the hub of this little area that I live in. One can only imagine how often the beer supply cycles through Petrolia.

Budweiser brought national attention to the bottled-on date more than a decade ago. As the nation’s top-selling beer, chances are they had little reason to worry about their supply going bad.  But it gave them an edge against all those other companies that couldn’t afford to print such a thing on their beer for fear that in certain markets it would reveal that their beer was in fact past its prime.

Craft beer has come to this crossroads. I understand that the infrastructure to accomplish such a thing is beyond the scope of most small breweries. It likely costs $5,000 – $10,000 for a printer capable of the task and that’s money that could go a long ways toward other projects more influential on beer flavor. Or could it?

Arguably the greatest threat to beer flavor is oxidation. Increased shelf-life equals increased exposure to the effects of oxidation. Your beer might taste great at the brewery but if you’ll have the audacity to ship it to my neighborhood grocery I want a guarantee that it’ll taste the same. Brew me a single-malt, Cascade-hopped pale ale and serve it fresh and I’ll have nary a complaint.

In other words, it doesn’t matter to me whether your beer has seven different malts or one hundred pounds of hops per barrel or this or that. It’s not about the packaging, the arrogance, the sloganeering.  It’s what’s in the bottle that counts.

So I’m desperate. I love beer but it’s beginning to test me. What exactly do I want from beer? Can I be content with a limited offering of local brands? Is there good reason to try and sample everything out there when the risks are so high that such beer has already turned the corner? I don’t know.

It’s just ever the more reason to homebrew: beer guaranteed fresh.

Good Beer Is Crafted So

Is there such a thing as bad beer?

This might seem like a dumb question but I’ve heard it said more than once before that there is no such thing as “bad” beer but rather only beer to suit individual taste. As example, until a few years ago bitter beer was to be avoided, it was popularly defamed in advertising, yet today Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the number one selling craft beer in America. In fact, we’re witnessing what many have dubbed an “arms race” as modern breweries compete to stretch the limit of what the savvy beer drinker will appreciate in terms of hop bittering. Meanwhile sour beers are the trend, beers that almost by definition would be considered to have “gone bad”, except that increasingly we’re learning to love them. How is it that what was once perceived as bad beer can taste so good? And what does it mean then to qualify beer as either bad or good?

Taste is subjective and taste is subject to change. None other than Jean-Pierre Van Roy of Cantillon in Brussels has suggested that success with spontaneous fermentation requires simply that one develop a taste for their local micro-fauna. As I see it, there’s no reason to quibble, we’ve all had what might be described as “bad beer” at one time or another. I will even admit to having personally brewed bad beer in my day, beer that for particular reasons did not strike my fancy. And there’s the rub, because in my humble opinion, what separates good beer from bad is intention.

I’d like to turn the focus away from the literal object, beer. For surely any beer, if made from malted grain with some form of bittering agent, then fermented by brewer’s yeast and served when ready, ought to be good in that it affirms its sense of beerhood. In other words, there is nothing right or wrong, good or bad about it, it just is. It is beer, plain and simple. This same definition of beer can even be amended to include sour and other wild beers.

Good and bad are qualitative terms used to evaluate the harmony of relationships that has brought a particular beer to our lips. Budweiser is not a bad beer in terms of the pains that its makers have gone to in order to ensure that their customers have access to a stable product. Budweiser is neither a bad beer in the sense that its customers generally know what they’re paying for and it fulfills their expectations. Where both parties are agreed, Budweiser is good beer.

On the other hand, Lost Cause Brewery puts out a product that has cultivated quite a following of loyal consumers despite its being a bad product. How can that be so? Because it is not the intention of Lost Cause to promote the ideal of beer and they will fly in the face of their own wisdom if only for short-term gains as to their profit margin. The result of this bad intention is bad beer, time and again. What Lost Cause lacks is quality, integrity, care, respect, and all those other predicates of craftsmanship. Of course, subjectively not all will agree that Lost Cause produces bad beer. And too, not all of the beer that Lost Cause sells should be considered a bad product according to common quality standards. What makes it bad beer is the simple philosophy behind the beer’s production, which has nothing whatsoever to do with beer.

Depending on the sophistication of one’s palette, past experiences, present expectations, and I’m sure many more minor details, any beer on any given day will taste good to some and bad to others. Therefore I do not feel that such a subjective measurement as individual taste is entirely accurate at determining the quality of beer. Instead I’d like to propose a different way of evaluating beer.

Beer should be the pinnacle of intention, thought, and care of a dedicated craftsman. Where the flavor profile of its various components achieves balance, it ought to be deliberately so as concerns the artistry of the brewer. Where it is known that certain production or storage methods have negative consequences for the beer and these can be avoided, it must never be otherwise. In short, good beer is a carefully considered phenomenon. It is not a mass-produced and forgotten commodity; not a cartoon character or a clever name on the label; not how many pounds of hops can be shoved into the kettle; not a rare, exotic spice; not ramped-up alcohol content; nor is it a competitive sport.

Good beer fulfills the potential it was destined for at the hands of its skilled and attentive maker. Good beer is crafted so. Bad beer is anything less.

 

“Three Sheets to the Wheat”

13° Plato / 3° Plato
27 IBUs – SRM 7 – 5.2% abv

3 # / 50%  Rahr Red Wheat malt 2.8° L
2.5 # / 42%  Rahr Pilsner 1.8° L
4 oz / 4%  Simpson’s Golden Naked Oats 6-14° L
4 oz / 4%  Weyermann CaraWheat 38-53° L

0.5 oz / 4.1 AAU  Amarillo pellet hops, 8.2% a.a. (45 min)
0.5 oz / 4.1 AAU  Amarillo pellet hops, 8.2% a.a. (0 min)

Wyeast ACT3068 Weihenstephan Weizen
(1 L starter, 1.030 o.g., 2 pouches dated 21 wks old; pitched to wort at 36 hrs)

Wyeast 1056 American Ale
(60-120 mL slurry, via Lost Coast Brewery, pitched 24 hrs into fermentation)

0.34 g / gal Calcium Chloride, added to mash

20 g Corn Sugar / gal, to prime in bottles

…

75 min boil
pre-boil vol:  4.25 gal
post-boil vol:  3 gal

70% mash efficiency
77% apparent attenuation

mash pH 5.4

mash-in:  113° F, 12 min, 0.67 qts / lb
step 2:  131° F, 10 min, 0.92 qts / lb
step 3:  148° F, 35 min, 1.42 qts / lb
mash-out:  156° F, 20 min, 1.75 qts / lb

continuous lauter:  168° F, 45 min

…

Ferment at 64° F for 48 hrs
Raise to 68° F over next 48 hrs

…

Tasting notes:  The Weihenstephan strain of yeast is known for its estery profile but with this beer that impression was quite subdued and the aroma was decidedly phenolic with a touch of tart citrus from the hops. The phenol character was medicinal when the beer was young but after a few weeks of aging this harshness subsided and a finer, more clove-like character emerged. The toasted flaked oats provide a grainy bite that also takes a period of conditioning to mellow but their subtle berry-like flavor adds considerable interest. The CaraWheat adds a depth of color that would liken this beer to Schneider-Weisse, so if you want a more golden, straw wheat beer omit this ingredient. In all, my best German-style Hefeweizen to date. Whence I brew this again I’m not sure how I’ll achieve the same fermentation character but vastly underpitching seems paramount.

“Wheat Beers”

The Session is a monthly blog happening that was started by Stan Heironymous. This month’s topic is, vaguely, “Wheat Beers”. To see what others have to say about wheat beers, including Stan (hell, he wrote the book on wheat beers), check out BeerTaster.ca, who plays host to this month’s Session and should post a roundup within the next few days.

…

It seems appropriate to enjoy a wheat beer while on the subject and so I’m partaking of a homebrewed German-style Hefeweizen. I’ll include the recipe and details in a later post. If you do truly want to imitate my beer, however, you’ll have to subject your yeast to a trip halfway across the country at temperatures likely exceeding 80 or 90 deg F and wait until the culture is five months old prior to pitching. I wasn’t sure that the yeast would even be capable of fermenting beer after such mishandling, and it showed no signs of life in the starter I prepared, yet it seems this particular strain (Wyeast 3068) likes to be treated badly. I’ve shown the same strain greater care and seen lesser results. I dare say, the fickleness of traditional weizen yeasts is enough to make one wring their hands and reach for a Schneider-Weisse instead.

More on subject, what I find truly speculative about “wheat beers” is just what exactly defines them. I know brewers who include a pinch of wheat in all their beers, yet to them this fact hardly seems worth mentioning. Then there are those beers where wheat makes up the majority of the grist, upwards of 65% in some cases, that do call themselves wheat beers, and perhaps rightly so.  But still, isn’t this just “beer”? Beer as defined by many sources is made of “malt”, or, “malted grain”, but not any in particular. And where is the beer that feels it necessary to make clear it is a barley-based beverage? Then I wonder, just what percentage of the beer-drinking population (especially here in America) even knows what exactly goes into their beer?

This will likely seem finicky to most but in my defense, where am I supposed to go with this topic? Anyhow, the American craft brewer is really to blame for my confusion. Many of the so-called wheat beers advertised in this country are, in fact, predominately made of barley. Deference to some foreign tradition might be excusable were it not that these same beers are typically brewed by untraditional methods with untraditional ingredients. If I slipped into a brewpub here on the West Coast and sampled a “wheat beer” that tasted of banana esters and clove phenols I’d conclude it was done well and true to its name. Instead, I’m given A Lil’ Sumpin’ Sumpin’ (or if I was in the midwest, a Gumballhead), and I’m told it’s a wheat beer but my palate is saying, no, no, no,  American IPA.

Not that I really care. They’re both fantastic beers and I enjoy them immensely. I guess what really perplexes me is, why do American brewers feel it so damn necessary to coat their products in thick layers of ploy and fluff? Whatever ingredients you choose to implement, do so with style and grace, and let the beer speak for itself. I’m so done with the whole chasing after rarities and boasting about the beers I’ve tried. In the end they all wind up down the drain and I’m left searching for more. The real charm of our rising beer culture has to be something more concrete, like being on a first name basis with the local brewers, or hell, just plain having a local brewery. So I guess this all leads back to that hackneyed debate about styles and categories and what they really say about beer. In this case I conclude, very little.

Ommegang Hennepin

Bottle is dated 01/20/10 but says it is best by 01/2012.  Seven months seems too long to age a saison, especially considering the cross-country trek that this one took, but I’m trusting that the brewers at Ommegang would know better than I…

Plenty of carbonation left as the cork practically jumped out of the bottle. Pours transparent and appears a clear, straw-gold in the glass. The head on this beer is like gently frothed egg whites and it lingers. Peppery nose with a bit of isoamyl esters in the background. Earthy, woody, with a vinous musk and a trace of leather. A hint of acidity is suggested in the aroma.

The flavor seems muted. Full-bodied, sweet. Perfumey, spicey, and bitter. Suggestions of grain and oak, maybe from highly kilned malt. All in all it’s reminiscent of sauvignon blanc but not as bright. I’d swear I’ve had versions that were fruitier and more crisp but this particular bottle seems to sit heavily on the palette and the flavors are almost brutal.

Verdict: Sadly disappointing. This has in the past been one of my favorite beers. Perhaps Three Philosophers could stand up to the treatment this bottle received at the Eureka Co-op but I’m regretting not trusting my judgment on this one. Forget pairings, this beer is best FOLLOWED by a fresh, homebrewed IPA.

On What I’ve Learned

I’ve been reading my past posts, the first of which dates back to my first batch of beer, December 2008. And it is astonishing what I’ve learned, or more accurately, it’s astonishing what misconceptions I had then. So I have this urge to go about correcting those illusions and false statements. Firstly, I can’t believe I ever thought it possible to cool wort in my kitchen sink with only handfuls of snow. What a frustrating time that was, and how quickly the snow melted, until eventually I wrung my hands in the air and brought the kettle itself outside, where the temperature was near freezing, and left it there for a few hours while I ate Thanksgiving dinner with my family. But all in all that first beer wasn’t bad. When by chance a few months later I tried St. Ambroise Pale Ale I found the two were remarkably similar. I might have been happier in those initial stages of brewing had it happened more often that my beers tasted like commerical beers but instead they usually tasted like the dregs of some wonton basement chemistry experiment gone horribly awry, which  wouldn’t have been far off the mark.

Advantages of rapidly cooling wort post-boil:

1) Bacteria and wild yeast are more active at elevated temperatures, though not above ~ 140 F
2) As the beer cools dimethly sulfide is still being produced but not driven off by the boil
3) Above ~ 80 F oxygen will readily combine with various wort compounds and over time these will break down, freeing the oxygen to cause oxidation problems, notably off-flavors
4) Rapid cooling will thermally shock certain proteins and precipitate them out of the wort, while slow cooling will not cause them to settle out. Called chill haze, this will lead to stability problems down the line.

… My first batch of beer fermented in 30 hours! With my current methods, using fresh White Labs American Ale yeast from Lost Coast Brewery, typically within 8 hours of harvesting it, I ferment at 62 F for the first 48 hours and then gradually raise the temperature to about 68 F for another day or two and strive to extend attenuation past 3 or 4 days. It is my belief that a slower, cooler fermentation produces a cleaner, better tasting beer. Frenzied fermentation at higher temperatures can produce some interesting results but I often don’t want a lot of esters or other character from my yeast.

… It’s funny, or sad, that I once considered dry-hopping to be an American convention I was taking to my English-style beer. My current understanding is that it is standard English practice to dry hop ales, though not always enough to present a noticeable effect on aroma or flavor, but more as an afterthought, at least in cask-conditioned beer, for the hops antibiotic properties.

… It’s interesting to note how similar the recipe for my second batch, an Oatmeal Stout, looks in comparison to what I might toss together today. It wasn’t as bitter as I like nor did it have adequate late-addition hops for my tastes but it goes to show that the hardest part in brewing is certainly not recipe formulation, which was a major focus of mine early on. In fact, nowadays I brew impromptu, tossing whatever grains I have on hand into the beer, not concerning myself with SRMs, etc., etc. Most any recipe, if it’s balanced, can produce a tasty beer, provided the brewing process is sound. And there’s the rub… What seperates good beer from great beer is not Munich malt or Citra hops, it’s the brewer, his or her process, their skill, attention to detail, craftsmanship.

… What irks me anymore about homebrewers is their always speaking in absolutes. Never use more than 5 % Crystal malt or Six-row is shit or Bigger is better. Often homebrewers have no idea what they’re talking about, it’s not rooted in science, it’s not borrowed from professionals, it’s probably something they read on the internet, or heard from a friend, or it relates only to their particular tastes, their particular set-ups, and so on. You would do well to do as the pros do, is my mantra. Everybody has their opinion, and then there are those who have proven what works. For instance, I just read about a hop grower who shuns the common notion that cohomulone contributes a harsh bitterness as dogma passed on from one unscientific paper written nearly 40 years ago. Somebody said it, others repeated it, and suddenly its common homebrewer wisdom, but it’s basis isn’t really rooted in reality. Isn’t it interesting how we can willfully deceive our senses? It makes truly tasting beer difficult because we can project expected flavors into the beer. When I read the label porter I often expect some tannic, licorice, candy-like flavors. When I try to describe a beer I fall back on common descriptors. And I’ll drink the same beer the next day and notice a character wildly off what I perceived the day prior. Not approaching the beer as a critic but simply pouring it back provides a new, ocassionally more lucid, perspective on the beer.

New Year’s Resolutions

A new year is just around the corner and my enthusiasm for brewing is becoming obsessive. I’ve read enough about homebrewing to feel I’ve made significant advancement within the craft even though I’ve only brewed maybe a dozen beers. However, my latest beer is relatively superb for it’s cleanness, even if the recipe still needs tweaking. So here are my “resolutions”. More or less, these are reminders of steps I feel I must take to improve the quality of my beer, to advance my knowledge, or simply because it’s something every homebrewer should try.

1) Perfect my “signature beer”

2) Enter a homebrew competition (AHA Session Challenge – English Brown Ales, entry deadline 2/16/2010, hosted by impalingalers.org of Kent, WA)

3) Cultivate/reuse yeast

4) Grow my own hops

5) Brew a high-gravity beer

6) Brew a sour beer

7) Brew a lager

8) Upgrade equipment (grain mill; fridge with thermostat control; aeration equipment; boilermaker kettle; kegging system; propane burner; sparge arm and pumps; blichmann top-tier stand, brutus ten, or sabco brew-magic; rims or herms system; glycol-jacketed conical fermenter; beer-engine; miniature oak cask; used bourbon barrel)… Hey, we can always dream, right? To some extent this equipment will improve my beer although a few items merely add convenience or novelty

9) Enroll in microbiology, chemistry, and sensory evaluation courses

10) Join or start a homebrew club

11) Find work at a brewery someplace