Catholic Beer Review

The Original Pilsner

2011-06-09T20:55:00.005-05:00

When most people think of the pilsner style of beer (if they even know what that means) they think of wimpy, flacid American mass-produced brews. What a shame. Those of you who don't know about the original example of this style of beer, which is widely available, let me tell you about it.

I've posted before on the distinction between lagers and ales. And I'm an ale man myself. Almost all of the styles I like to drink and pretty much 100% of what I brew are ales. But there is one lager that really stands out for me and it happens to be the original pilsner-style beer: Pilsner Urquell, first brewed in 1842. The difference between this pilsner and a BudCoorsMiller is like the difference between a fine artisanal loaf baked in a wood-fired oven and Wonder Bread, between morels delicately sauteed in butter and canned button 'shrooms, between fine prime rib and Salisbury "steak".

Pilsner Urquell pours a rich straw color and is dominated by an impressive hop character, derived from 100% Saaz hops. The bittering is solid, the hop flavor decidedly spicy, the aroma prickly and enticing. The beer is highly carbonated, which brings a sharpness to both nose and palate that is rousing and engaging. While most ales are better served at just below room temperature, in my opinion this beer does better started out quite a bit colder. It goes beautifully with many foods, but I consider it best paired with spicy Thai stir fry, a hearty steak, or barbecued ribs.

Even though it comes in those evil green bottles, I have had pretty good success getting it fresh. Its price has come down recently too, so it competes nicely even with good domestic beer. And hey, the Czech Republic is (or at least was, when this beer was first created) a Catholic country. So there's your Catholic angle!

Highly recommended.

Beer for the Holy Days

2011-01-17T20:19:00.003-06:00

If you are a homebrewer, one great gift you can give is your own brews. I've done this several years now. It takes some forethought, since you really need to brew the beers a month or more before Christmas, for them to be ready to bottle and give. But at least in our circles the effort and thought has been much appreciated. Here's what I made this year for our friends and relatives:

Holyday Brews from the Palm Family Brewery

Fuller’s 1845 Small-scale Edition (1845)—Fuller’s is my favorite English brewery, hands down. Their London Pride Pale Ale, London Porter, and Fuller’s ESB are absolute classic British ales. But my favorite of their line-up is the Fuller’s 1845 Celebration Ale. Here’s what they say about it:

1845 Celebration Ale is a true landmark in British beer history. Although brewing dates back to 1654 at Griffin Brewery on the banks of the River Thames, the partnership of Fuller, Smith And Turner was formed in 1845. In 1995, to commemorate the company's 150th anniversary, Fuller's commissioned special, celebration bottled ale. 1845 was the result. A more auspicious beginning the brew could not have had; the inaugural beer's hops were added to the copper by none other than HRH Prince of Wales, during a royal visit to Fuller's!

Now the brewmaster of Fuller’s has given out the exact recipe for the 1845 ale on the podcast, Can You Brew It? Starting with a base of Maris Otter pale malt, this brew also calls for medium British caramel malt and Simpson’s amber malt. The last ingredient is available in only one homebrew shop in the United States, Northern Brewer in St. Paul, MN. But yours truly made that arduous trek to obtain it just for you (well, actually I was on a business trip and providentially passed within ten minutes of the shop.) Liberally hopped with East Kent Goldings and fermented with the wonderful Fuller’s London ESB yeast, this beer exudes loads of authentic British ale character.

I cannot promise that my version will be anywhere near as good as Fuller’s, but I hope you will enjoy it. I recommend letting it sit at cellar temp for another month or two before trying it, as it is a bit young and should improve with some aging.

Maison de Bourbon Porter (BVP) —This porter starts with a complex robust porter base consisting of American 2-row pale malt, Munich malt, medium caramel malt, chocolate malt, and black patent malt. It is hopped with British East Kent Goldings hops and allowed to ferment. After the primary fermentation has subsided, whole vanilla beans are added to the brew and allowed to steep for a month. Then at kegging, fine Kentucky bourbon is added for a special touch.

Denny Conn’s RyePA (RyePA)—Denny Conn is a great and generous homebrewer. Indeed, if it were not for Denny’s “cheap and easy” batch sparging method, I would not be brewing from all-grain malt and may have abandoned the hobby altogether. He is a great and patient teacher. His RyePA recipe is well-known in homebrewing circles. It is an IPA (Imperial Pale Ale) by style. Starting with a base of American 2-row pale malt, this brew builds on that base with a liberal addition of rye malt, which lends the beer a distinctive, spicy character. Medium caramel malt, carapils malt, and a dash of wheat malt round out the grain bill and the brew is liberally hopped with Columbus, Mount Hood, and Cascade hops.

St. Nicholas, patron of brewers, pray for us.

The Blessing of the Beer, Assumption Feast 2010

2010-08-23T12:00:00.008-05:00

Finally, we had the traditional Blessing of the Beer, from the Rituale Romanum at our annual Feast of the Assumption Mass, procession, and picnic. Every year at our apostolate we celebrate this great feast of our Lady with a special Mass, followed by a Eucharistic procession and then a huge feast. I supply the beer. This year the line-up consisted of three brews by yours truly. The first was a Southern English Brown and the recipe I used was taken from Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew, which is truly a great resource. All of the recipes I've brewed from that book have been marvelous and this caramelly English Brown was no exception. Then I had a Honey Blond Ale, brewed from a recipe I got over at the TastyBrew forum, posted by a guy who goes by the online moniker of CLB (now chaselakebeer). Look at this thread and scroll down to the second recipe he posted. I changed the hops in this one (I used East Kent Goldings for bittering and Hallertau for flavor and aroma), but I've brewed it twice and it's really a crowd-pleaser. I made 10 gallons and fermented one half with American ale yeast (US-05 dry yeast) and the other half with a Belgian yeast (T-58 dry yeast) and called it a Belgian Blonde. The only difference between the beers is the yeast and they are radically different. I like them both, but the nod actually goes to the regular Honey Blond half with the neutral yeast. Very yummy. This is a super beer for those who aren't really into beer, lean toward the CoorsBudMiller end of the spectrum, and are hesitant to try new beers. But believe me, even if you're really into special beers this is a nice one.

I don't know if the traditional blessing makes the beer taste any better, but it was enjoyed by all and that is a great satisfaction. If you are ever in the vicinity of southwestern Wisconsin near the Feast of the Assumption (August 15, ya know), then by all means come out and join us for the great time to honor our Lady and have a wonderful time together.

Tower of London Porter, Recipe

2010-06-29T14:24:00.007-05:00

As promised (well, a little later than promised), here's the recipe for the Tower of London Porter which won Best of Show at the Between the Bluffs Beer, Cheese, and Wine Festival 2010.

I have mentioned before on this blog that Fuller's London Porter is one of my all-time favorite beers. Just fabulous. So I have wanted for a while to try a homebrewed version of it. I found one on the 'Net, ostensibly adapted from the recipe provided by the Real Ale Almanac, by Roger Protz.

I actually brewed 11 gallons of this, but the recipe below is proportioned for the more common 5.5 gallon batch (accounting for some loss in the kettle and the fermenter, with 5 full gallons in the keg):

8 lbs. British 2-row pale malt (I used Crisp Maris Otter)
1 1/2 lbs. Brown malt (this is the essential ingredient for this beer)
1 1/4 lbs. 40L crystal malt
4 oz. Chocolate malt

1 1/2 oz. Fuggles hops, 4.5% aa at 60 minutes
1/2 oz. Fuggles hops, 4.5% aa at 15 minutes

Starting gravity is 1.056. Bittering is 30 IBUs.
Mash at 154 deg F for one hour.

I split this batch into two fermenters. I pitched Safale S04 dry yeast into one half. Into the other half I pitched some WYeast 1968 London ESB slurry I had saved from a previous batch. The S04 half took off right away. I don't know what happened, but after three days the London ESB half showed no activity, so I pitched a packet of Munton and Fison dry yeast. Then it took off within a few hours. I thought this part of the batch was going to suffer from the lengthy lag time before fermentation started, but it turned out that this was the award-winning beer. I really think that the WYeast 1968 did contribute to the final flavor and I think it's the right yeast for this recipe.

The final beer was lucious--rich caramel, slightly roasted, and with a subtle smokey flavor which really surprised me since there is no smoked malt in the recipe.

I will definitely be brewing this again.

Between the Bluffs 2010, Best of Show!

2010-06-08T10:59:00.007-05:00

I have been brewing for about ten years and have had to work very hard to make good beer. My early batches were—not to put too fine a point on it—horrible. Several of them were literally fed to the pigs. I had to study and practice, finding out what I was doing wrong, correcting it, trying again, failing, correcting, trying again.

Some batches started out okay, but turned nasty within a few weeks (I was oxidating the beer as I bottled it, by not siphoning carefully enough.) Others got infected through careless sanitation. Others—especially those featuring Cascades hops—had a distinctively soapy taste. This, I finally determined by way of a professional water analysis, was caused by my extremely hard well water. And even when I had things more or less figured out using malt extract and switched to all-grain brewing, I encountered harsh bittering in my pale ales, which was also caused by the very hard water.

Several of my friends thought for sure I would give up. But it just seemed to me that making beer was not rocket science, that others were successful and that there was no reason why I could not be successful as well. So I kept at it, correcting one problem at a time.

I have gotten to the point where I can pretty consistently make beer that I enjoy and that my friends tell me they enjoy (and some of them would indeed tell me straight up if it wasn't good.) But there's nothing like a homebrew competition, judged by certified judges, to see if your own perceptions are accurate.

I recently entered four brews in the Between the Bluffs Beer, Wine, and Cheese Festival in La Crosse, WI to compete against a total of 80 other entries. And one of them, which I called Tower of London Porter, won first place in the Dark Ales and went on to win Best of Show out of the other first place category winners.

I won a very nice prize package, including brewing grains and malted milk balls from Briess Malting Company, two beautiful stained glass picture frames from a local artisan, a giant planter, two VIP tickets to next year's event (a $100 value), and a very (ahem) interesting crown and sceptre as La Crosse brewmaster. But mostly, I took great satisfaction in having my beer evaluated and appreciated in such a venue.

So thanks to the judges, my fellow brewers, and to the intrepid martyrs who were held in that dark Tower, to whom this brew was dedicated. Sancti Ioannes Fisher et Thoma More, orate pro nobis.

Now That's Penance!

2010-02-19T08:56:00.004-06:00

A friend to whom I sent some of my Holyday Brown and Icicle IPA sent me an e-mail reminding me of former days, when some of my fermented beverages didn't work out quite so well:

Thanks for the nice ale. Last Saturday after a long week, I consumed the IPA you made. You’re in the big leagues now. The hop taste had a bit of a pine flavor, my favorite. I haven’t tasted the brown yet. All of a sudden Lent came; that great time of suffering with no ale. (what a wimp I am) . . . .
I hope you will try your hand at Russian Imperial Stout one of these years. I’m aware of how difficult good brew making is. I know you're busy enough. Don’t worry about a few early mistakes like the Palm's vintage apple wine that had a clear vinegar start with a hint of chlorine after taste. My Dad never knew the difference. I tolerated it too, during Lent a few years ago.

Hoo boy, apple wine with a vinegar start and chlorine finish. Now that's a Lenten sacrifice!

The Catholic Church Did What?

2010-02-08T07:31:00.011-06:00

A while ago a reader alerted me to a strange sentence in the Wikipedia article on "Lager". Now by way of background, speaking very generally beer is divided into two broad categories: ales and lagers. Ales are fermented with what are known as "top fermenting" yeasts, which ferment at warmer temperatures and generally exhibit at least a certain amount of yeast-induced flavor characteristics. Lagers are fermented cooler, using different, "bottom fermenting" yeast strains which throw fewer flavor compounds; thus lager beers are considered "cleaner" tasting. Lager beers are also typically aged at very cold temperatures for a time to further smooth out the beer.

The need for mechanical refrigeration to achieve these colder temperatures, at least for year-round brewing, meant that commercial production of lagers became widespread only in the late ninteenth century. "By the 1870s breweries had become the largest users of commercial refrigeration units, though some still relied on harvested ice" ("Refrigeration").

Back to the Wikipedia article on Lager, a reader asked me about this curious sentence: "As a new variety of beer, its production faced opposition from established brewers as well as the Catholic Church" (my emphasis).

Huh? Why the heck would the Catholic Church be opposed to the brewing of lager beers? Well, there's no knowing exactly why the original author put that in, but I suspect that this is just an example of free-floating anti-Catholic bias out there—we all know that the Catholic Church is the great enemy of free scientific inquiry and technological progress. Right? Don't we?

(Well, lots of people might "know" it, but that doesn't make it so. For the other side of that coin, see How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, at least for starters.)

Thanks to the editing feature on Wikipedia, the sentence now reads: "As a new variety of beer, its production faced opposition from established brewers." Because the Catholic Church doesn't have a dog in this hunt. Drink all the lagers you want—pilsner, bock, doppelbock, schwartzbier, oktoberfestbier.....as long as they're not just the "tinted waters" that pass for beer here in the United States. (You know, we really should see if we can get our beer-loving German Pope to oppose those, just on principle.)

Making and Giving Beer for Christmas

2010-01-04T12:23:00.013-06:00

This year my family decided to try and moderate the consumerism of the Christmas season by making as many of our gifts as possible. It was a joy to tally up the list of fun and creative things made: rosary hangers, packets of handmade stationary, stilts, windchimes, doll dresses, a kitchen apron for our youngest, and more.

Back in November I valiantly did my part by brewing two batches of beer, an American brown ale which I called Holyday Brown and an American IPA called Icicle IPA. I've sent out some bottles of each (and there are some of you who have not yet received your bottles, but Epiphany is not here yet, you know, so I still have some time!) The Holyday Brown, in particular, has gotten some nice comments and I thought I'd share out the recipe for you homebrewers. Think about this as a nice Christmas gift for next year. For my part, I'm contemplating a vanilla bourbon porter and perhaps a nice Belgian dark strong ale to bring some holyday cheer in 2010. Now, here are the details for Holyday Brown (I brewed an 11 gallon batch, so modify amounts accordingly):

18 lbs. American 2-row malt

2 lbs. Munich malt

1 lb. honey malt

1 lb. pale chocolate malt

1 lb. Special B malt

1/4 lb. black patent malt

I mashed warm, at 157 deg F, in order to try and get a nice, thick mouthfeel....which I did! I bittered this with 1 oz. of Magnum hops (13.5% AA) for 60 minutes and then added 2 oz. of Northern Brewer (8% AA) 15 minutes from the end of boil for flavor, for a total of 36 IBU. I used US-05 American ale yeast and fermented at around 62 deg F for three weeks, then kegged. Original gravity was 1.061 and it finished at 1.020.

This is a malty, viscous brew, very dark brown with a rough-and-ready hoppiness from the Northern Brewer hops, plenty of dried fruit and caramel, and just a wee hint of roastiness on the finish. If I would change anything, I might back off just a bit on the bittering hops, but overall it's a pretty nice beer. It reminds me of Summit's Winter Ale, which is a fine beer itself.

Now, let's talk about the rest of the year. I have lots of homebrewing adventures planned and am also hoping to update this blog a bit more frequently. Given the present state of our nation's economy I want to do a series on the "Economics of Homebrewing". Over the Christmas vacation I finished reading Brew Like a Monk, by Stan Hieronymus and hope to do a review of that book on Belgian-style beers. And per reader requests, I hope to delve more into the Catholic roots of brewing as well as highlighting various patron saints of brewing.

Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year and Blessed Epiphany!

The Great Dane, Best in Wisconsin

2009-12-09T10:54:00.013-06:00

First off, let me say that life is beginning to settle down and as a result I am back to brewing again! After a long hiatus, I was finally able to put up two batches which I hope will make nice Christmas presents. The first was ten gallons of what I'm calling my Holyday Brown, made with black patent, pale chocolate, Special-B, and honey malts. Northern Brewer is the featured hop variety. I had the first chilled and carbonated pint with dinner last night and it is tasty indeed. The second batch is an American IPA, but it's still fermenting so I haven't tasted that one yet. It feels good to brew.

For today's posting, I need to highlight one more great Wisconsin brewery. I consider this the best brewery in Wisconsin and, in fact, probably the best brewery I know of anywhere. The only downside of it all is that their beer is not available anywhere in cans or bottles, so you'll just have to come to Wisconsin to get some.

The Great Dane Brewery has locations in downtown Madison, Fitchburg, Hilldale, and most recently Wausau, WI. The ambiance in each location is great, full of rich, polished woods. The food is very good too, solid and tasty pub fare. But ambiance and victuals are merely the setting. The diamond at the Great Dane is the beer.

These brewers are incredibly talented. They seem incapable of making a bad beer. Every beer I've tried there—dark or pale, lager or ale—you name it, it has been perfect. My particular favorites have been the Emerald Island stout, the Black Earth porter, and the Old Glory American Pale ale. Yes, I'm an ale guy, but their lagers—such as the delicious Peck's Pilsner—are great too. But I think my very favorite has been the Stone of Scone Scotch ale, with a thick, lucious mouthfeel and rich caramel finish.

Now that they have a location in Wausau, WI, how about a pilgrimage to St. Mary's Oratory, followed by a few celebratory pints?

The Beer Scene in China, Redux

2009-10-27T11:45:00.014-05:00

Back in April of 2008 I posted my comments on The Beer Scene in China, based on tastings during my second trip to Shanghai. I've just returned from my third trip and have new and different tasting adventures to share.

The old standbys remain the same. Tsingtao is readily available and quite good for its style, a dry Austrian pilsner. I also tried several other beers in this same vein: Asahi, Carlsberg, and Heineken. The last one is commonly available here in the States as well. I had it for the first time from a can while in Shanghai and I must say that it is much better from that superior container than from its more typical green bottle. Boo to green bottles. It tasted much more fresh and had a better malt to hop balance than other times I have tried it. Even better was the Heineken I had for the first time on draft in the Minneapolis airport. This was even better, tipping well over toward the malt end of things and really quite enjoyable. The Asahi and Carlsberg were just ordinary; nothing worth commenting upon.

I tried the microbrew scene of Shanghai for the first time at the Boxing Cat Brewery. They had four of their ten beer line-up on tap, so we got a sampler. Unfortunately for my palate, I started with the Sucker Punch Pale Ale. This was a juicy, citrusy American style pale ale. It didn't really stand out, but was okay. We got an order of french fries to cleanse the palate and then tried the other three. Of these, it seemed to me that there was clearly something wrong with the Title Belt Altbier. This was decidedly tart, which seemed totally wrong for the style. Of the four, this was the only one that was downright unpleasant. The Standing 8 Pilsner was a good specimen for the style, earthy and crisp, but lacked any of the spicy notes that make a great Czech pilsner. And the Brewer's Choice was okay, but again not really noteworthy. This is billed as a "malty libation not on our list"; to me it lacked any real character. It was as if the brewmaster just dumped a bunch of caramel malts together without much regard for balancing the final product. So I was relatively underwhelmed by the offerings at this establishment.

We left the Boxing Cat and went to the Paulaner Brauhaus for a bit of supper and, we hoped, some better beer. They were gearing up for the kick-off of Oktoberfest that evening and were expecting a seriously large crowd. The wait staff (lovely Chinese maidens attired in traditional German dress—somewhat incongruous to be sure) were able to seat us in the biergarden which was fine on such a lovely warm evening. I ordered a half liter of the Oktoberfest with great expectation. This is one of my favorite styles and I have enjoyed the Paulaner version before. But alas, as I experienced the last time at the Paulaner in Shanghai, there was a problem. There was a distinctive astringency to this beer, exactly like that I experienced in the München I tried last time. Basically, I think that either the water in Shanghai is not conducive to brewing these German styles, or they are pressing their extraction rates too hard and getting some tannins in the beer. Or both. The ambiance is lovely, the food is fine, but the beer just isn't. Too bad.

The real highlight of the trip was a new find. I have heard of a Tsingtao Dark, but have never seen a specimen while in China. But while perusing the shelf of the local equivalent of a 7-Eleven, I did spy some bottles of Tsingtao Stout. This I had to try. It was quite good. A very sweet stout, it leans much more toward the molasses and brown sugar than roasted coffee. And upon first taste I definitely detected a distinct but not unpleasant alcohol note--sure enough, it comes in at a respectable 6.7% ABV. Rich, slightly syrupy, satisfying. I went back several times for more.

So, the bottom line is that there's beer in China. There's even good beer in China—and happily one of the best is from a Chinese brewery. But ultimately it's just not the place to find great beer.

The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company

2009-05-27T08:22:00.019-05:00

To continue our look at the breweries of Wisconsin we'll head up to Chippewa Falls, home of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company. Leinenkugels Brewery or "Leinie's" as it is affectionately called here in Wisconsin, was founded in 1867, making it one of the oldest continuously operating breweries in the United States. Unlike the vast majority of Wisconsin and other American breweries, Leinenkugel's managed to weather the storm of Prohibition by switching to flavored sodas and low-alcoholic "near beer". You've got to admire that sort of resiliance.

As with real estate, so with brewing, a huge aspect of a successful venture is location, location, location. Jacob managed to find a place where the water was abundant and eminently suitable for brewing:

Jacob located his brewery near the Big Eddy Springs, from which poured nonacidic, nonalkaline water that the brewery uses without treatment to this day. . . . Water is the key to the brewing process, and most brewers have to treat their water in one way or another in order to make it suitable for brewing. Jacob never seemed to have this problem, and the brewery's water is still of high quality today (The Breweries of Wisconsin, 142.)

The brewery was a family owned and operated enterprise with a fiercely loyal customer base for over 100 years until it was bought out by the Miller Brewing Company in 1988. Some of the top executives at the brewery continue to be in the Leinenkugel family, but in today's world relinquishing of control to a major conglomerate like Miller could very easily spell the end of Leinie's at some time in the future. There won't be any more retooling to put out soda and near beer to weather some future economic storm; rather it will be the standard story of American industry: You're not making the cut any more. Goodbye. Lights out. And that would be a sad day.

Now, as for their products, I must confess that I would not call any of Leinie's brews "great". But quite a few are good. In addition, they are reasonably priced. And because of the Miller ownership the distribution range is broader, so you may stand a better chance of being able to sample one or more in your area.

Leinie's Red Lager is a very solid entry, much better with food than by itself. By itself I find it a bit too bitter, but offset that bittering with some good beef or lamb and you have a great combination. The Creamy Dark is not so much creamy as crisp and snappy, but with a nice roasted backbone and good malt/hop balance.

The Honey Weiss—light, crisp, with a delicate but noticeable honey note—is very popular around here, especially dispensed by the keg at larger gatherings like picnics and wedding receptions.

The Classic Amber, a new brew in the line-up, is really quite good. I expected it to be fairly sweet, catering more to the popular crowd, but it actually has a fairly dry quality and an unexpected, subtle, and very nice roasted note to it.

On the other hand, there are several of their beers that leave me cold. The Leinenkugel's Original is unpleasant to me. Strangely, this is the beer that they used to establish themselves, but I find it over-hopped and a little strange. The Berry Weiss is basically a chick beer, lotsa berry and only sorta-kinda beery. And their Sunset Wheat tastes to me like a blueberry PopTart. Blech.

One that may come in along those same lines is the Summer Shandy—a mix of beer and lemonade—but I have not tried it. On the other hand, a lemonade shandy is one concoction I frequently make for myself on warm summer days (try it!) so it actually stands a chance of being good, if they don't make it too sweet.

But all in all I say Bravo to Leinenkugel's, especially for hanging tough through all sorts of trials. That's great Wisconsin spirit for you.

New Glarus Brewing Company

2009-03-27T13:00:00.008-05:00

New Glarus is a fairly young brewery here in Wisconsin, but its products are top flight. Let's be very clear, Dan Carey is a very, very talented brewer. What's all the more cool is that this brewery was started as a collaboration between him and his wife, who is a talented entrepreneur and raised the capital to start the venture as a gift to her husband.

Jerry App in The Breweries of Wisconsin has this very short blurb on the original New Glarus Brewing Company:

This brewery opened in 1866 and became known as the . . . New Glarus Brewing Company in 1911. The brewery did not reopen after Prohibition. Today the building is part of a grocery and meat market. (p. 184)

Well, that's all the information we have for history, but it's interesting that this town has a long-standing tradition of beer brewing.

Anyway, there are a lot of great beers coming out of of the new New Glarus Brewing Company, but I might as well start with a couple I don't care for very much. Lots of times around here you'll hear people say, "Oh, I like the New Glarus Spotted Cow." Well, I really don't like the Spotted Cow, not because there's anything wrong with it but because it's pretty light and (to me) non-descript ale. But as we say here on CBR, de gustibus non est disputandum. I also did not care for their Edel Pils, which I thought was a bit out of balance to the bitter side of things and had a kind of overbearing malt presence. But, this beer has won its share of awards, so that may just be my personal taste speaking.

However, the company's Fat Squirrel is absolutely wonderful. This brown ale is rich and spicy, a top example of one of my favorite styles. It must not be drunk too cold, in order to really catch all of its nuances. This is a beer you can really savor. The great thing about this beer, for me, is that I can be pretty certain that I'm going to get a really fresh bottle, since the brewery isn't very far from me and the turn-over on our local store shelves is pretty high.

Organic Revolution is a wonderful American style pale ale, snappy and crisp with great balance and a very smooth malt palate. It's nice to see breweries make this move into the organic market.

Some of the breweries specialty beers are also impressive. The Coffee Stout is roasty and rich, the Staghorn Octoberfest has an especially nice caramel and hop spice mix and my wife, who is not an avid beer drinker, really appreciated the malty smoothness of the very drinkable Uff-Da bock (if you are not Scandanavian you may not know what "Uff-Da" means; this will be left as an exercise for the reader.)

Lots of Dan's beers, including the delectable and unique Wisconsin Belgian Red (each bottle made with over a pound of Wisconsin Door County cherries) has earned a very impressive list of awards

Dan also has an "Unplugged" series of over-the-top beers that he brews as specialties for a given year. I have had several of these, including the Imperial Pilsner and the Imperial Stout. I am very much looking forward to trying his Olde English Porter later this year.

There are a couple of New Glarus brews that I have not tried but that beckon me. The Totally Naked sounds intriguing in its simplicity and the Snowshoe Red Ale represents one of my favorite styles and I have a hunch I'll love the New Glarus offering.

Unfortunately, again, the distribution of these great beers is limited, but if you come through Wisconsin or Minnesota, I'd highly recommend grabbing a six pack or three.

Tyranena Brewing Company, Lake Mills WI

2009-01-27T12:33:00.026-06:00

In tackling the task of highlighting the many fine and some not-so-fine breweries in Wisconsin, I might as well start with my current favorite, the Tyranena Brewing Company in Lake Mills, WI. I have already highlighted one beer from this fine brewery, the absolutely wonderful Bitter Woman IPA, as described in Ten Beers I Go Back to Again and Again:

A very complex malt palate (the brewery lists 2-row, Vienna, Carapils, Wheat, Caramel malts in the grain bill) is supported by a very assertive but absolutely clean bittering. Citrus and pine notes prevail on the nose and the palate. An outstanding American IPA (India Pale Ale).

This is a beer for which one's mouth literally waters. But the Bitter Woman is by no means the brewery's one hit wonder. A while back I was able to secure a sampler pack of a variety of Tyranena's products, so I got a crack at each of the brews in their standard line-up. Some of these aren't my favorite styles, but believe me there's not a bad one in the bunch. For example, Three Beaches Blonde is a light ale perfect for those who aren't sold on the intense bittering of an IPA or fear the dark roast of a porter or stout. This beer has a wonderful fruity quality and a nice hint of honey on the finish.

Still on the lighter side of things, but more my style, is the fine Headless Man Amber Alt. This eminently drinkable brew strikes a fine malt-hop balance and finishes clean and smooth, with a pleasing caramel sweetness. The Stone Tepee Pale Ale is a nice example of an American pale, with plenty of juicy citrus hop flavor and aroma, dry finish, but a more subdued bittering than the IPA.

Very, very interesting is the Rocky's Revenge, a brown ale aged for a time in bourbon barrels. I've had examples of this from what I surmise were two different batches. The first, I would say, was a little over-the-top in terms of the bourbon essence and I caught what might have been just a hint of astringency (from the oak?). The second try, though, was wonderful, with a creamy vanilla and oak essence blending beautifully with the nutty goodness of the brown ale. Fabulous.

The Chief Blackhawk Porter is a fine example of the style, roasty and pleasingly bitter, with a very nice coffee note which I can never quite get in my porters and stouts.

But the best of all that I have had comes from their Brewers Gone Wild! series. Unfortunately, I have only had one in this series, but it's a doozy; indeed, I currently have two left of a four-pack that I bought just to verify my initial impressions (research trials, you know. Must be scientific about these things.)

The Devil Made Me Do It! Imperial Oatmeal Coffee Porter pours intensely black with a dark, compact head. It bears its formidable alcohol level with grace and goes down with a wonderful, silky smoothness. Many brewers and drinkers attribute this to the oats and I have to say that there does seem to be something about the mouthfeel of an oatmeal stout that is truly special. This beer presents its porterly goodness in an intense roasted coffee rush followed by an astounding denouement, a lingering smoky note wafting gently away like a ring blown from a fine cigar. Incredible.

According to their Web site, their beers are as yet only available in Wisconsin and Minnesota. But if you are in either of these two states, I encourage you to try the excellent brews from this remarkable brewery.

The Breweries of Wisconsin

2009-01-13T12:15:00.023-06:00

I have the privilege of living in southwest Wisconsin, an area described as the "Jewel of the Midwest" by one of my friends who does not have the good fortune to live here. Wisconsin has a venerable history of brewing. And it currently has some really outstanding breweries (none of which rhyme with "filler", by the way.) So I'd like to start a series on the breweries of Wisconsin and what better place to start than with the impressive book, Breweries of Wisconsin, by Jerry Apps?

Apps' book is a remarkable piece of research and a fascinating look into Wisconsin beer making's humble roots, its expansion throughout the state, the establishment of certain Wisconsin cities as major brewing centers, the massive decline brought about by Prohibition, and the on-going resurgence of commercial brewing in the state:

Wisconsin's brewery history began thirteen years before Wisconsin became a state and a year before it became a territory. By the late 1890s, when dairy cows began grazing in Wisconsin fields and dairy barns began gracing the rural countryside, nearly every Wisconsin community already had an operating brewery. Wisconsin was a beer state long before it became known as America's dairyland (p. xiv).

In an appendix, Apps enumerates a partial list of Wisconsin breweries he has catalogued in his own studies and, by a rough count, there are at least 325. But this list is mainly comprised of those large enough to be noticed and surely does not include inumerable smaller, local breweries. Today, according to the latest update at Wikipedia, the count of breweries in Wisconsin is around twenty five, with another few dozen brewpubs. This is actually a large increase from twenty or so years ago when the count would probably have been more like ten in total. What happened between then and now to cause this enormous decline? Prohibition, of course.

Apps hits the nail on the head with one of his chapter titles: "From Temperance to Prohibition". Indeed, the whole "Temperance Movement" is inaptly named. The Catholic Church teaches temperance, that is, moderation in all things including the consumption of alcohol. Certain elements of Protestantism manage to glom onto all of the passages of Scripture that condemn drunkenness, while weaving around all of those passages of Scripture that speak positively about the moderate consumption of alcohol. It's sometimes called "Puritan", but that is perhaps a bit unfair since many (most?) of the Puritans enjoyed a good pint of ale as much as anybody (although cf. the article "Puritans & Alcohol" for a slightly different view.)

Anyway, long and short of it is that the "Temperance Movement" was not about temperance at all but about total abstinence. And this movement finally had its way with the enactment of full-blown Prohibition in this country in 1919. One effect of this was to devastate the vast network of local Wisconsin breweries.

As in other parts of the country, a few mega-breweries were able to survive, by switching to products such as malt extract (as a nutritional supplement) or soda pop. One of the really fascinating parts of Apps' book is how a number of smaller Wisconsin breweries—most notably Point and Leinenkugel's—were able to weather the storm.

Now, of course, the country has shaken off Prohibition (as a constitutional amendment, although not entirely as a mindset) and a certain renaissance of craft brewing, starting in the 1970s, has led to the establishment of a number of very fine new breweries in the state. In a series of upcoming posts I'd like to give my views and reviews of the many fine and certain not-so-fine brews that gush forth from the breweries of Wisconsin.

If you have a favorite Wisconsin brewery or Wisconsin brew, please share that with us in the comment box. And if there is one you're curious about, ask. I will do my best, as daunting as it may be, to secure a representative sampling of their products and report back here. ("What do I need with another six pack of beer? It's research, Honey, research! My readers are counting on me.......")

A Mystery Solved

2008-12-27T11:52:00.018-06:00

Life is full of mysteries, great and small. A small mystery for me has been why coffee made in a French press requires so much more coffee to achieve the same strength of brew compared to a drip coffee maker. It just seemed intuitive to me that if you take nearly boiling water, dump it straight into the ground coffee and let it steep, you have the maximum possible exposure to the surface area of the coffee and therefore you're going to get the strongest possible brew. But it just ain't so. In fact, you have to use almost twice as much coffee in the press. Hmmmmm.

Well, I was discussing this mystery with a couple of my nephews the other day and in the context of that conversation one of them asked a question about beer making (there had to be a connection, to make it onto this blog, right?) All of a sudden, enlightenment! The mystery was solved.

As I've laid out before on this blog, beer is made by adding hot water to ground malted barley (a process called mashing) and then, after the resulting activated enzymes have done their work to convert the starches in the grain into sugar, the sugar is washed away and fermented. That washing process is called sparging. Broadly speaking there are two main sparging techniques--batch sparging and fly sparging. In batch sparging you drain off that initial infusion of hot water from the malt, then add another slug of hot water, stir to dissolve more sugar, and run off again. In fly sparging the brewer sprinkles hot water onto the malt at a steady rate and collects the sugary run-off.

Now I personally batch sparge because it's faster and easier. But guess which method extracts more sugar from the mash? Yup, it's the fly sparging. (That's why all commercial beer makers fly sparge; they have to maximize their yield of fermentable sugar from a given measure of malt.) The reason is that water can only hold so much sugar in solution and so adding the water gradually and continuously allows the sparge water to extract the maximum amount of sugar from the mash.

Obviously, the same principles are at work in coffee making. The French press makes a wonderful, rich, flavorful cup of coffee, but the single infusion of water can only take up so much extract from the coffee grounds. Just as in beer making, a slow, continuous stream of hot water extracts much more from the same volume of coffee.

Now that all may have been immediately obvious to everybody but me. Still, it was fun to think it all through. Another of life's little mysteries solved. Now if only beer making could help me understand how a neatly coiled rope can get knotted in fifty seven places just by being laid on the ground.........

Waste Not, Want Not

2008-10-27T12:06:00.009-05:00

A question that comes up a lot on various homebrewing forums (or is that fora?) is what to do with the spent grains from brewing. First, for those who don't brew themselves, I should explain what I mean by "spent grains". Beer's backbone, its main ingredient, is malted barley. You can use other kinds of malted grain (like wheat), but barley is the principle grain in most beer. Malting is the process of just barely sprouting the grains, then drying and lightly kilning them to halt the sprouting process. As a kernel of grain sprouts, its chemical composition changes. Most important for us, if you take sprouted (malted) grain, grind it up, and add hot water to form a porridge at just the right temperature (typically you end up with something in the 150 deg F range) the enzymes in the malted grain will be activated and they will begin to crack down the starch in the grain and convert it to malt sugar (mostly maltose). Further on in the process this sugar, in turn, is converted by yeast into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

What's left over after the enzymes have done their thing and the sugar has been washed away into what will become your beer is called "spent grain". But it's only spent from the standpoint of being able to get more sugar out of it. The grain still retains almost all of its protein and, of course, its fiber content. That means it's dynamite animal feed. And so here at the Palm HQ it's easy to know what to do with spent grains -- we feed our animals. Both cows and horses absolutely love the spent brewing grains. I just let the spent mash from a batch cool down and then feed it out over the course of three or four days.

Homebrewers who don't keep farm animals will sometimes add the spent grains to their compost pile, make dog biscuits, or sometimes even cookies or other baked goods for human consumption. I haven't tried any of those other things, so Ican't really comment.

Commercial breweries routinely sell their spent mash to farmers as animal feed. They do the same with spent hops and the enormous quantity of yeast that is left over after their large-scale fermentation. I have usually just dumped my leftover yeast onto the lawn. One time I thought it would be a healthy fertilizer, so I dumped some at the base of a maple sapling I had started that year. Over the course of the next few weeks all the leaves fell off and the poor thing almost died. It's doing okay now, but I've gone back to just dumping them out. But yeast is highly nutritious and commercial breweries sell the yeast. They also sell the carbon dioxide that is generated during fermentation. So you see, nothing much goes to waste in the brewing process.

Some homebrewers are concerned about their water useage. Brewing requires a fair amount of water, not only to mash and rinse the grains but also to chill the boiling wort before you add the yeast. Again, here on our farm I don't really waste anything. I use the very hot water that first comes out of the wort chiller to clean my equipment. Then, when it starts to cool off, I capture it in 5 gallon buckets and use it to fill the water troughs for the animals.

Overall, then, brewing is a fabulously efficient process -- nothing is "wasted" except, I guess, the fuel needed to heat the water and boil the wort. But then again, it's awfully hard to claim that anything is truly wasted when it results in something as wonderful as beer.

Assumption Feast 2008

2008-09-26T15:21:00.012-05:00

Our annual Assumption Feast was held again this year on Sunday, August 17 (the actual feast, of course, is on August 15, but we transferred this celebration to the next Sunday.) As always, we began our celebration of this wonderful feast of our Lady with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, celebrated according to the ancient Gregorian Rite by Fr. Glenn Gardner of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest. Here on St. Mary's Ridge, we have a sung Mass every Sunday and we tried to have some special music for this special feast. Happily Fr. Joseph Redfern of the Diocese of La Crosse was along to help our schola. Father's voice is awesome and fills out our humble attempts to give the Gregorian Chant pride of place in the celebration of the sacred liturgy.

Mass was followed by a solemn procession around the Church while saying the Rosary. We stopped at a beautiful outdoor altar for prayers and Benediction.

The highlight of the feast is, of course, the Mass. But being the synthesis of soul and body that we are, the joy and benefit of a spiritual banquet can be heightened by its carnal counterpart. Here, as is now traditional for us, a whole roasted pig was prepared by Jim Schroeder. Father Meney of the Institute of Christ the King seems to be enjoying the preparation of this delectable beast. These pork roasts are a real treat and I'm absolutely serious that any of you who are anywhere near this neck of the woods really should join us next year to try this delicacy. To go with it were a host of luscious salads and side dishes brought by the families of our apostolate as well as folks from St. Mary's Oratory in Wausau, WI.

Now, of course, this blog is about beer and one can hardly imagine a finer culinary combination than roasted pork and beer. I served up three varieties at this feast. The first was my London Bridge Brown which was an all-grain batch made, for the first time for me, with pale chocolate malt which does indeed give it a subtle and delicious chocolate note. The second was what I called Wizard of Oz Ale, another batch made in honor of our Australian priest Father Redfern, from the same Cooper's Bitter kit that is reviewed below. And finally I served out the All Amarillo Amber Ale which, again, is mentioned below. All of the beers were well received and, as always, it is a joy to be able to share the fruits of one's labors with an appreciative crowd.

Rhubarb Wine: It's fermented like beer

2008-08-25T11:02:00.009-05:00

Yeah, yeah, this is a beer site. But, the cool thing about making your own beer is that you automatically have the equipment you need to make wine too. I have not had much success in the past making decent homemade wines from my homegrown fruits, but hope springs eternal.

"They" say that one of the most successful homemade wines comes from rhubarb. Well I happen to have a very large and prolific rhubarb patch, so this year I gave it a shot. The recipe was pretty straightfoward (I'm reproducing this from memory, so I may have to edit this when I can check my notes): Six pounds of chopped rhubarb to five pounds table sugar, water, wine yeast. I froze the rhubarb to help with juice extract, added everything to one of my plastic fermenters, and let it bubble along for a few days. Then I racked the still-fermenting wine off into a two gallon glass fermenter. As you can see, it was still very cloudy with yeast.

Now that has been sitting in my basement for a couple of months and much of the yeast has dropped out. Just last week I racked into two, one gallon glass jugs. I'll let it age in there for a few more months, then put it into bottles. I have it in mind to bottle half of it still and slightly sweetened and the other half carbonated, for rhubarb "champagne".

As I said, with your beer-making equipment you can make all sorts of fermented beverages at home. I have some cranberry mead that will be one year old this coming Christmas and I'm rather anxious to crack into that. I'll let you know how that and the rhubarb wine turns out.

Two Great Books on Homebrewing

2008-07-24T12:39:00.007-05:00

Brewing your own beer at home is not difficult, but the process does require a certain amount of specialized knowledge in order for your brew to turn out good, let alone great. It is a hobby that requires significant attention to detail. I have hit many of the landmines that end in not very good beer, so I know of what I speak.

The path to good homebrew is knowledge. So to that end, I would like briefly to review and recommend the two books which are, in my opinion, the "must haves" in the homebrewer's library.

I consider How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time by John Palmer to be the best single book on how to brew beer at home. For me, at least, this book has all the right stuff. It starts at a very basic level for the beginner. But it contains considerable intermediate and advanced material as well; Palmer is a metallurgist by profession and so he brings what is to me a pleasing amount of scientific background to the topic.

The book is written clearly and the layout is easy to follow. There are great examples and photos throughout which the lead the homebrewer through every phase of brewing, from initial set-up to final consumption. Really, at least the early chapters of this book should ideally be read carefully a couple of times before the homebrewer forges into the hobby because it will cement the basic principles that will hold him good stead throughout his brewing "career". But even if you are an intermediate or advanced brewer, you should have this book. Palmer's grasp of the hobby is impressive and I guarantee that you will learn something, probably a lot.

Palmer also had a hand in this second volume, Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew, which he coauthored with award winning brewer Jamil Zainasheff. But as the subtitle of this book indicates, this is primarily a book of recipes, not a "how to" volume. Palmer's contributions of "how to" material in the first and final chapters are fine, but inadequate by themselves. It is the main body of the book, containing the recipes crafted by Zainasheff, that make this book shine.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of recipes available in books and on the Internet for different kinds of homebrew. One of the potential problems with this embarassment of riches is that one does not always know whether the recipe is any good. And you don't necessarily know whether the recipe really conforms to its purported style.

This books contains a recipe for each of the 80 formal beer styles recognized by the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP). Well and good. But what really makes these recipes special is that they have all won at least one award at a homebrewing contest (Zainasheff is the most highly awarded homebrewer in the world). That at least brings a level of objectivity beyond, "I brewed this once and thought it was great!" and other similar comments that may accompany the random recipe.

I've brewed four or five of these recipes and they have all turned out quite good. Are they foolproof? Well, perhaps not. I brewed Zainasheff's oatmeal stout recipe and found it not nearly as "roasty" as I would have wanted. On the podcast for that style, someone wrote in with that very same observation. So here there is either some variation in the ingredients we're using (quite likely) and/or the recipe perhaps needs a little tweaking.

That being said, if I could only retain two books on homebrewing, there is no question that it would be these two. Get either one or both of them and you won't be disappointed.

The Blessing of Beer from the Rituale Romanum

2008-07-09T15:08:00.008-05:00

Oh what a nice find! From Fr. Schnippel's Called By Name blog, drawing in turn from Sanitas Contra Gentes:

Blessing of Beer:

V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.

V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Oremus.

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

R. Amen.

Et aspergatur aqua benedicta.

English translation:

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, + O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

And it is sprinkled with holy water.

You had better believe we'll use this prayer at this year's annual Assumption Feast (scheduled for August 19 at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, just outside of Cashton, WI. If you're in our neck of the woods, e-mail me about joining us for a sung High Mass, procession, and feast afterwards featuring abundant victuals and homebrew.)

Thanks for the link, Father Schnippel!

Clearly the Wrong Container

2008-07-02T12:26:00.008-05:00

I have mentioned my disdain for beer in clear bottles several times here on the blog, but a reader's recent comment prompted me to elaborate on this.

Fairly early in my beer tasting adventures I noticed certain beers, like Newcastle Ale and Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, would get high marks and sometimes (especially in the case of the latter) even rave reviews. But I bought these products a couple of times and found them lackluster at best and, at times, downright distasteful. I continued to encounter the rave reviews, so I figured I must be missing something. Eventually I tried samples of both which displayed all of the fine qualities that others had been highlighting. What was going on?

I can't prove it, but I think it may have something to do with the clear bottle. Beer has compounds in it from the hops that are light sensitive. Try this experiment: pour a beer (pretty much any beer, but try it with a pale variety) into a clear glass. Set it in the sun for twenty minutes or so. Now, take a sniff, take a taste. If the old factory and your tastebuds are well calibrated, you will probably detect a phenomenon which beermakers call "skunking", an off-aroma and flavor slightly reminiscent of the odor/flavor of skunk (anybody here know what skunk tastes like?) The ultraviolet light in sunlight reacts with chemicals in the beer to produce this skunking.

Brown bottles filter out the light at these wavelengths and so protect the beer. Clear bottles don't; neither do green bottles. And although commercial beer isn't likely actually to sit out in the sun for any length of time, there is UV light in indoor florescent lighting as well. So although the required exposure time is longer, the effect can be the same: a degraded product over time.

Why do breweries use clear bottles, then? I understand that the move to package these fine brews in such containers has to do with marketing appeal, meshing (I think) with our Western fetish for "white". White sugar, white flour, white eggs, and beer in clear bottles....they're all of a piece (and they're all bad, except for the white eggs, I guess, which are nutritionally equivalent to their brown counterparts.)

The last straw, for me, was a (clear) bottle of Old Speckled Hen I had a couple of years ago. I had had this ale once before (out of a can.....more to say about that in a moment) and it was wonderful. This bottle was horrible. I'm ashamed to say that I drank the whole thing, because it literally made me sick to my stomach. That was the last beer I've purchased in a clear bottle.

Now, I cannot prove that all of my disappointments stem directly from clear bottles. But at least in my experience my chances of getting a decently fresh bottle of beer go up dramatically if it comes in brown, rather than clear or green, bottles. Some of these beers are pretty pricey and I'm just not interested in playing those odds anymore.

There is a container for beer that is superior in every way, namely, the can. There is a lively debate going on in wine circles about the abandonment of the natural cork (an inferior way of capping wine) in favor of other approaches such as synthetic corks or screw tops. The screw tops, like the can, are vastly superior in terms of preserving the wine over time. But I have to throw my vote in with those who contend that there is something très romantique about uncorking a wine bottle, so my nod goes to the synthetic corks.

I don't think there's quite that same dynamic with beer containers. Cans are tacky to drink from, but you shouldn't be drinking good beer directly from can or bottle anyway. Once the beer is decanted into an appropriate drinking vessel, its freshness and full flavor are vastly more important, in my opinion, than what container it came from. So by all means, drink wonderful beers like Newcastle and Old Speckled Hen, from a can. But boycott the clear bottles.

Ditch the Siphon: This is a Better Way

2008-07-01T07:17:00.015-05:00

One task of homebrewing that I really dislike is siphoning. There are guys who don't think starting a siphon is any big deal; they wonder why I have a problem. Well I don't know why I have a problem with it, but I do.

A siphon, of course, uses a tube and gravity to transfer a liquid from one container to another. Set one container lower than the other, get the liquid started running through the tube, and gravity will do the rest of the work to empty the higher container. In brewing, you normally using a curved piece of rigid tubing (either plastic or stainless steel) called a racking cane, to reach down to the bottom of your fermenter. Then you attach a piece of flexible tubing to the racking cane, start the siphon, and direct the beer into whatever second container you want.

But that's the problem--starting the siphon. In a brewing environment you have to maintain strict sanitary conditions, or your beer will get infected and taste nasty. I once thought I could "get away with" taking a sample from a beer that was aging in my cellar using an unsanitized turkey baster. It looked clean enough. I just dipped the tip of the baster in, took the sample, and recapped the beer. But over the next few weeks, a white scum started to grow, creeping out until the whole surface was covered. By the time I dared try it, the batch had turned distinctly sour. I fed all five gallons to a hog that we butchered a week later for our annual Harvest Fest (at least his last days were happy.) Yes, you must sanitize everything that will come in contact with your beer. You will pay for your shortcuts in both dollars and disappointment.

Another big key to making good beer is to be sure that you do not, repeat, do not get oxygen into your beer after it has fermented. This was a big problem for me when I first started brewing. Some of my early batches tasted fine when they first went into the bottle. But about three weeks later they developed a strong, sherry-cardboard taste. I was not siphoning carefully enough and the splashing was incorporating oxygen into my finished beer.

So it can be tricky to start a siphon without infecting or oxygenating the beer. Some guys just suck on the tube; I've done this too and never had a problem, but obviously it's not sanitary and I'm just waiting to get an infected batch from this. Some guys fill the siphon tubing with water, attach it to the racking cane, and let that initial outrush of water start the siphon. That has only worked about 33% of the time for me, which is why I've ended up sucking on the tubing the other 67%. Another way that works well for me when using a glass carboy to ferment the beer is to use a carboy cap with two holes; the racking cane goes into one and you blow into the other to start the siphon. Works like a champ. Finally, some folks use an auto-siphon. You just give it a pump and the siphon starts automagically. I'm sure this works just fine.

But I have found a Better Way. Last night I transferred the all-Amarillo amber ale that I mentioned in a previous posting from the fermenters into kegs using the invert tube backnut and spigot from Williams Brewing.

If you ferment in plastic buckets, as I am doing more and more, you just drill a hole in the bucket, install the spigot and backnut which then sits just above the yeast and trub that settles out of your beer when it's done fermenting. To transfer your beer into a keg or bottling bucket, just sanitize a piece of tubing, squirt some sanitizer up into the spigot, attach the tubing, turn the handle, and Presto! your beer runs effortlessly into your keg. No messing around with siphons. As I've mentioned before, between a family of six, a full time job, a farm, and church responsibilities I'm trying to optimize my brewing set-up for speed. This is another nice notch up for me.

And oh, by the way, the All Amarillo Amber Ale is Awesome!

À votre santé!

Free Beer! A Cooper's Kit Reviewed

2008-06-16T06:41:00.008-05:00

Back in April I brewed a batch of beer from a beer "kit" that I received, happily enough, for free. Basically, I was reading a thread on a beer forum at just the right moment to send in my name to receive the kit from a representative of the Cooper's Brewery, who kindly sent out "Cooper's Bitter" kits to the first ten folks who sent him an e-mail (the whole story can be found here.)

I got the kit in January and finally got around to brewing the batch on Friday, 11 April. I was planning on doing a regular all-grain batch that Saturday, a process that takes about five hours from start to finish, but when I got home from work on Friday I realized there was just no way I was going to have time to brew the next day. But the family was at the library, so I thought what the heck, this is a perfect chance to try the Cooper's kit. Some beer is always better than no beer.

This kit was super-easy to make. I pre-heated the can of malt extract for ease of pouring, then added half of the 1 kilogram package of "brewing sugar" (corn sugar and maltodextrin mix) that came in the box, then the prescribed amount of boiling water. I topped this up using my tap water, which was an experiment in itself. I'm on a well and I did not sanitize this water in any way before using it in this brew. My (original gravity) OG was 1.038. I used my new MixStir for the very first time to oxygenate, pitched the Cooper's dry yeast that came with the kit, and fermented at about 68 deg F. The whole process took me less than an hour--I had everything cleaned up and dinner started before the family got back.

I kegged this exactly two weeks later. Final gravity (FG) was 1.012. The beer was much darker than I expected. Once I got it chilled and carbonated I took a taste and was very pleasantly surprised. It has a firm, balanced bittering and a prominent but nice molasses note. The body is light but not overly so--it's nice for such a low gravity beer. There is no hint of any infection problem from the well water. The change in gravity represents a beer at approximately

3.4% ABV, so you can see that it's a relatively light beer, but with a very full flavor.

I took this keg to church on Sunday, April 27 (our Mass is at 3 pm and we always have potluck supper afterwards). Serendipitously, we had a visiting priest, Fr. Joseph Redfern, who hales from Australia and he was very familiar with Cooper's products. Everyone who tried the beer enjoyed it. The beer smoothed out very nicely over the next weeks, but for a two week old beer it was really quite nice.

I still have a little of this batch left and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't think this kit makes an award winning beer, but it's darn good--great for everyday drinking. It's the cat's pajamas for those times when you don't have time for an all-grain batch. Would I use a Cooper's product again? Absolutely.

You can find their products for sale here, here, and here. I think this is a great way for a beginner to learn the basics of brewing. Get a good book on brewing, like How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time by John Palmer, start with ingredients from a reputable maltster like Coopers, pay close attention to sanitation, and I think you'll be very happy with the results.

Pope Benedict XVI Loves His Beer

2008-05-30T14:48:00.002-05:00

It is not clear from this press clipping whether the Holy Father actually ordered 185 gallons (!) of this German beer for his household or whether it was delivered as a gift from the brewery. Either way, it appears that Pope Benedict XVI loves his beer. God bless him!

The Politics of Beer

2008-05-29T12:10:00.015-05:00

Beer isn't political. But beer companies certainly can be. As soon as I started this blog, I was made aware of several instances in which beer companies had been openly supportive of some very unsavory activities. For example, Miller Brewing was taken to task by the Catholic League for its support of some homosexual advocacy and the appropriation of its logo to an advertisement what was openly offensive to Christians. Thankfully, this particular controversy ended with Miller doing the right thing by publicly apologizing.

The Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams products, was directly involved in promoting the incredibly crass "Sex for Sam" publicity stunt hosted by radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony which ended in a couple being arrested for seeking to copulate in a vestibule of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. While the radio station pulled the show and suspended the hosts, to my knowledge the Boston Beer Company has never indicated any regrets over its direct promotion of the sacrilege. My own request to their customer service department for clarification went unanswered. [Update: But thankfully, I'm wrong. Jim Koch did indeed apologize for his participation.]

A reader of this blog sent me information on Sierra Nevada Brewing Company's support for The Womens' Health Specialists, a notorious abortion provider in northern California. Sierra Nevada stood by its support for this death mill, sidestepping the fact that WHS murders innocent human beings with the typical refrain that they do a lot of good things too (see here and here.)

On the other hand, another reader (Ray from MN) noted in the comboxes that:

If you accept nominations, I would like to nominate beers from the Summit Brewing Co. of Minneapolis.The Chairman of the Board is as Catholic, and as Pro-Life going back many years, as they come (well, he is a convert) and their beers are well rated in secular contests.

I am thrilled to hear that Summit is run by a solid Catholic. In fact, I think I will try to contact him for an interview for this blog. Ray is right that Summit products are absolutely top notch (their Winter Skäl and Winter Ale are particularly good) and as a nod toward drumming up more business for them I think I will begin the grueling process of purchasing and sampling a variety of their offerings to be reviewed here (it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.)

Okay, back to the bad guys. Miller products don't interest me anyway and they ended up doing the right thing, so if you must drink Miller beer then you can buy their products in good conscience (the only pang of conscience one might have is whether it's really fair to call Miller Lite "beer".) But Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada products are top flight and represent some of my favorite beers. This is harder. What is a Catholic to do? Well, in the face of Sierra Nevada's unrepentant support of a notorious abortion provider, I think they need to face a Catholic boycott. If you agree with me, let them know that you're not buying their stuff any more. The Boston Brewing Company's involvement in one scandal may or may not be sufficient for you to decide that you need to skip their products entirely. At the very least, it puts me on the look-out to see what else they might be involved in. [Update: But as mentioned above, they did the right thing on this one. So that leaves just Sierra Nevada.]

This raises the much larger question of a Catholic consumer's responsibility in the face of corporate behavior that runs directly counter to Catholic moral teaching. In general, I would say that we can't really be responsible for everything that transpires in every company with which we do business. Still, if Catholics en masse got serious about not supporting that which runs counter to our faith, it could make a significant difference in what companies do and don't support.

I'd really like to hear from you in the comment box. Please let us know how you make these decisions. What are your criteria for doing business or not doing business with a company that behaves in ways like these?

Hop Shortage? Grow Your Own!

2008-05-06T11:53:00.023-05:00

If you appreciate good beer but don't brew your own, you may not be aware that there is a significant worldwide hop shortage that is driving up the price of hops, the main bittering and significant flavor component in beer. I just priced one of my favorite bittering hops varieties, Magnum, and found that in the past year this has jumped from around $1.00/oz. to a whopping $7.00/oz., a 700% increase. Brew Your Own magazine has a good article on how things got so bad, but the main question for homebrewers is, what can you do about it?

Well, one alternative is to change the varieties of beer you brew. There are lots of beer styles that use less hops or use hop varieties that are in greater supply. But another great way to face the hop shortage is simply to grow your own. I have been growing my own hops for several years, but until this year I have not been serious about cultivating, harvesting, and drying them for significant use in my own brews.

I'll be posting several more times on this as the season continues, but right now is planting and training time. First, planting. Hops are propagated from rhizomes, chunks of their robust root systems that send up spiny shoots called bines. Rhizomes are still available from a number of sources on the Web, including http://www.freshops.com/. And if you get them out soon, you still have time to get some hops started this year. Plant the rhizomes in cultivated, weed-free soil to which you've added some good organic fertilizer or compost. Above are three new "hills" that I've created on my place, with Liberty, Mt. Hood, and Nugget hops. I also have Cascade, Chinook, and Willamette planted elsewhere.

Then, when the hop bines appear above ground, you will need to train several of them onto some sort of vertical support, so that the vines can grow out to a length of twenty or even thirty feet and then set the hop cones which will be harvested and utilized in beer. On my place I have set a tall pole in concrete out in my garden area and each year I run lengths of baling twine down to stakes in the "hills" of hops. I train three or four hop bines onto each string and let them climb. (You might want to wear gloves for this, since hop bines will sting your hands and arms a lot like stinging nettle.) Cut off all the rest of the emerging bines so that the root system puts maximum vigor and productivity into just a few bines. Keeping the hops well watered will help ensure a good set of cones.

As the season unfolds I'll talk more about harvesting, drying, and using homegrown hops. An excellent resource on growing hops, as well as utilizing other garden-raised produce in your beer, is The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs. I'll be reviewing this book in more detail in another entry, but the book covers not only growing of hops, but also barley (including how to malt the barley yourself, which I definitely want to try sometime), and other herbs and spices that can be used in beer for bittering and flavor.

Russian Imperial Stout

2008-04-28T12:14:00.012-05:00

It was another brewing weekend at the Palm HQ. This weekend I did my first all-grain Russian Imperial Stout. Technically speaking it was my second batch of this style, but the first one was an accident. Two years ago I spent the better part of a Saturday making two batches of beer slated for our annual Assumption Feast at our Latin Mass apostolate.

One was supposed to be a simple pale ale, the other a simple stout. Well, somehow I got mixed up on how much a cup of dry malt extract (DME) weighs, so I ended up adding exactly twice as much DME as the recipes called for. I didn't find out until both beers were in the fermenters and I took a hydrometer reading. So instead of pale ale and stout, I had "barleywine" and "imperial stout".....sort of.

I was concerned that there would not be enough hop bitterness to offset that amount of malt and that the end results would be too sweet. But in fact both batches turned out well. The stout was pretty good and I enjoyed it, although it was not nearly roasty enough. But the Faux Pas Barleywine, as I called it, was actually quite excellent and a big hit at the Assumption Feast of 2006 alongside a cherry wheat and a chocolate stout.

Anyway, this past Saturday I made my first intentional batch of Russian Imperial Stout, a viscous black brew originally created by the British for sale to the Russian Czars. This is an intense brew for a pretty intense people. I used the Old Rasputin Imperial Stout clone recipe from Beer Captured by Mark and Tess Szamatulski. Old Rasputin from North Coast Brewing is my very favorite commercial Russian Imperial Stout. This dude has won a lot of awards and they are well justified. It is powerful in every way--intensely black, roasty, bitter, thick, and complex. As you can see at the Beer Advocate site, this one gets very high marks from just about everybody who tries it.

It is rather on the pricey side, though. So what better than to try to homebrew this thing? I did an overnight mash, which means that about 9 pm on Friday night I dumped the pre-measured, pre-heated water into my ground grains, stirred it up, shut the lid, packed thick bats of insulation around it, and went to bed. What you're shooting for is to prevent the mash from losing so much heat that it goes below 140 deg F, which is where bacteria can start souring your mash. I mashed in at about 151 deg F and the temp was right at 140 deg F twelve hours later. This really helps the brewing on Saturday from intruding too much on other chores.

The long and short of it is that I now have 5 1/2 gallons of imperial stout bubbling away. The wort (unfermented beer) tasted fantastic--intensely roasty and intensely bitter, but very smooth. You can't always tell much about the final beer from the wort, but in this case I was encouraged that the wort tasted so smooth, without any harsh bitterness, astringency, or acrid flavors poking out.

One of the great beauties of homebrewing is that, once you have mastered some basic skills, you can make whatever kind of beer you want, whenever you want it.

A few other commercial Russian Imperial Stouts are Bell's Expedition Stout and Big Bear Black Stout, both of which are really exceptional as well, and Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout which I now refuse to drink because the maker does not have enough respect for their own beers or those who drink them to put it in something besides a clear bottle.

Two that I would love to try are the Founder's Imperial Stout and Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. They are highly rated beers from top-notch breweries, but unfortunately unavailable in my area.

On the docket for next Saturday is an 11 gallon batch of American amber ale using all Amarillo hops.

The Stout Float — not quite a PalmHQ original

2008-04-21T11:40:00.015-05:00

This was a brewing weekend at the PalmHQ. I tried out my new grain mill for the first time—so far, so good on that. I put 11 gallons of British bitter in the fermenters, so that's bubbling away and should be on tap in a few weeks. Currently on draft I have the last of a maibock which is absolutely delicious, the last of the Scotch ale reviewed below, and an oatmeal stout. In the fermenter I have an ordinary bitter made from a Cooper's kit that I got for free (story and tasting notes in an upcoming entry) and the bitter I made yesterday. Yet this spring I hope to do an 11 gallon batch of an American pale ale, which is a wonderful easy-drinking beer for summer, and 5 gallons each of British barleywine and Russian imperial stout. These last two beers require extensive aging—a fellow homebrewer here at work told me today that he cracked a three year old barleywine over the weekend and it was spectacular—so I'm keen to get them started.

Today's posting is about a drink you've probably never heard of before, the stout float. I tried this combination of black beer and ice cream several years ago, while making rootbeer floats for my children. I had a nice Irish stout on tap so......why not? I thought that perhaps I was the inventor of the mix, but alas a quick Web search showed that I was far from original.

Original or not, it's well worth trying. The bitterness and coffee notes of the stout blend beautifully with the sweet creaminess of the ice cream. Still, it is not everyone's cup of tea or mug of beer, by any means. Probably only one in three or four of the people who have tried it at my place think much of it. I love it. My lovely model is presenting the stout float I had this weekend, made with chocolate rather than vanilla ice cream and an oatmeal stout made right here at the PalmHQ.

I've not yet been brave enough to try, say, a pale ale float, but a porter float is good too. So give it a try with a nice, roasty, black beer and tell me what you think.

The Beer Scene in China

2008-04-15T17:28:00.003-05:00

I returned a few weeks ago from my second of probably-annual treks to China on business. So obviously I need to post on the beer scene in China.

The intermediate stops don't really count, but I'll mention them anyway. The staggeringly expensive Business Class roundtrip from La Crosse to Minneapolis to Tokyo to Shanghai features as much as you care to drink of a great variety of beers, wines, and spirits. But you've got to be really careful about drinking very much when flying long-distance because it can end up as a serious double-whammy: the flight dehydrates you and the alcohol does as well, so you could come out on the other end pretty raisinesque and miserable if you're not careful. I was careful and the only beer that I had in transit was a glass of Sappora, a very crisp, dry Japanese lager served, appropriately enough, in the Tokyo airport on the way there, and a glass of Summit Extra Pale Ale in the Minneapolis airport on the way back.

In China itself there is frankly not much of a variety to choose from, at least in the normal vendors near my hotel in downtown Shanghai. Sure, at an upscale restaurant you can get pretty much anything you want. But there is nothing like the microbrew revolution taking place in China, so in the equivalent of our 7-Elevens the options are fairly limited. Heineken is the only Western import that is regularly available. But I don't care for that particular brew here and I'm even less likely to get it when it's almost certain not to be fresh.

There are a few very light, gassy Japanese beers like Suntory that are frequently available in China, but these lack any significant character. There was one dark Chinese beer I could find in just a few shops which was called, appropriately enough "Dark Beer". One dimensional, a slight molasses note, no malt character at all--it was like mediocre homebrew. There are three Chinese beers that I could get consistently: Harbin, Yanjing, and Tsingtao. All three are pilsner style lagers, very pale and highly effervescent. The Harbin is the least notable of the three--the hop bittering is subdued and there is not much malt character either. I had it once and didn't bother with it again. Yanjing, particularly popular in Beijing (that city's native brew, I understand), is better, but nothing really to write about.

Tsingtao distinguishes itself from the pack. This beer has a nice, upfront malt presence which melds nicely with an assertive, slightly spicy hop bittering. The carbonation level is high and, as with all lagers, this is much better drunk on the cold side. It goes extremely well with Chinese food and is readily available here in the U.S. as well. While I would probably never actually buy a six-pack of it here, I frequently order one in a Chinese restaurant. Tsingtao is available in both a regular and "draft" version. In Shanghai, at least, the draft version costs twice as much and is inferior, to my taste, so I stuck with the regular. The beer that I would really like to try but never saw there is Tsingtao Dark Beer. The next time I go back I'm going to keep my eyes peeled and perhaps even ask around for that one.

The only other beer experience I had was a liter of Paulaner München at the Paulaner Brauhaus in Shanghai on Xintiandi Street. I took my colleagues there for a traditional German meal, something as completely foreign to them as many of their indigenous dishes were to me.

Now I love Paulaner beers so I was rather excited about the prospects of this liter. But it was a disappointment. The menu said that the beer was "homebrewed", probably an awkward translation from Chinese which I took to mean brewed either on the premises (although I saw no evidence of such equipment) or at least in country. Whatever it meant, the result was disappointing. The beer did not taste fresh. The characteristic malt profile of a German beer was entirely missing and the hop character was out of balance, with a sort of "edge" to it that made the drink rather unpleasant. And it was darn expensive to boot.

Obviously, one doesn't go to China for the beer. Tsingtao is very good, but I was happy to get back to the incredible variety available here in the U.S.

Two of My Brews Reviewed

2008-04-11T14:46:00.001-05:00

Well, we've reviewed a bunch of commercial brews on this blog, but what about my own beers? I sent bottles of two of my homebrews—an American-style India Pale Ale (IPA) and an 80-shilling Scotch ale—to a couple of friends for Christmas. Here are the recipes for these brews, followed by their tasting notes.

Easy as PI P.A.

This homebrew was a super easy batch to make and the results were really nice. I used a pre-hopped can of Munton's Ironmaster IPA liquid malt extract, two pounds of Munton's dry malt extract, and a cup and a half of table sugar (ironically, to avoid the final product from being too sweet. The yeast eat up all this sugar, the final beer has a little more alcohol and so tastes a little less sweet.) I fermented this beer with a package of Fermentis US05 dry yeast and dry hopped it in the keg with half an ounce of Willamette hops. I agree with MF on the distinct honey note in this beer and I think it came from the sort of resinous quality of the Willamette hops. I thought it turned out great and I was sad to see it go.

Review by MF:

Before reviewing this particular beer, I have to confess that I've never been a fan of this variety of beer. IPAs are usually too bitter and "pangy" for my tastes. However, I've finally found an IPA that I'd gladly reach for at a bar or in my refrigerator.

Palm's IPA poured a pleasing light orangish-red. The carbonation was at a nice, balanced level, not overpowering. The aroma of citrus, grapefruit really, promises and delivers the same upon the palate along with a wonderful pairing of honey which perfectly softens the edge or "pang" that so often accompanies IPAs.

My First Scotch Ale

This batch has been my very favorite of everything I've brewed. I brewed an eleven gallon batch and at the time I'm posting this, I still have about a gallon left. It is just wonderful. I brewed this on 11/10/07 from a recipe I got from Jamil Zainasheff's book (to be reviewed soon), with a few tweaks based on what I had on hand: 11 lbs. Maris Otter pale malt, 5 lbs. Breiss pale malt, 2 lbs. Munich malt, 1 lb. 120L crystal malt, 1 lb. honey malt, 1 1/2 lb. 60L crystal malt, 1/4 lb. chocolate malt. I mashed this dude at 155 deg F. I hopped it with 2 3/4 oz. of Fuggle hops for 21.5 IBU of bittering. My OG was 1.066 and I fermented it pretty cool (61 deg F ambient) with a WYeast 1968 London ESB slurry that I had saved from a previous batch. I had a pint yesterday and it was simply incredible. I've worked for years to learn to brew something like this. This beer is what homebrewing is all about.

Review by MF:

This hearty ale pours a nice, rich, reddish brown. I had two samples of the ale and drank them about a month apart. I thoroughly enjoyed both. However, there were slight differences in the bottles. The bottle I sampled first had a slightly higher level of carbonation. Not excessive, nice. And it was slightly sweeter, what some have described as toward "toffee" or "caramel". It's a rich beer, but still "clean." As expected, the flavors became more pronounced as it warmed in my glass.

The second bottle evidenced slightly less carbonation (still very nice) and the flavor had moved toward a very yummy molasses. It seemed to feel a bit heavier, richer with age. All in all, I slightly preferred the younger version to the older, although both were very enjoyable. As a side note, and this is especially true of all ales in my opinion (and somewhat less true of lagers), I would never recommend drinking either of these directly from the bottle. The narrow opening doesn't allow the wonderful aromas to complement and enhance the flavor. In this, I find that beer has much in common with wine.

Holyday Beers, continued

2008-01-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

Epiphany is not here yet, so there's still time for more holyday beer reviews. In fact, you may wish to grab one (or more!) of these for your Epiphany party.

Samuel Adams Winter Porter (reviewed by JM)—It seemed against my better judgment to include a "commercial" brewer like Sam Adams in this series of reviews, but since this was a somewhat unique brew that I had not sampled before, I went against my instinct. This Holiday Porter came as part of a 12-pack of Samuel Adams' "Winter Classics" (also included: Cream Stout, Old Fezziwig Ale, Boston Lager, Winter Lager, and Cranberry Lambic).

As you would expect for a porter, the pour was dark black, with a respectable head that dissipated after about seven minutes, leaving some good lacing in its wake.

The scent was a muted caramel and molasses mixture, with a touch of hops buried deeper in the mix. Not overpowering at all, just a nice and soft presentation of Christmas smells. The first sip was very, very good. Creamy mouthfeel, and a fair bit more depth than the scent had revealed. While the scent tended more toward the sweeter and brighter side, the flavor mixture presented a strong showing of cocoa, chocolate, coffee, and brown sugar, with a light dusting of spices and nutiness. I thought I picked up a bit of cinnamon on the finish, but I can't be sure.

All in all, this Porter was exotic and rich. It presented very well for a Christmas beer, including all of those necessary elements that make a brew fit for the holiday season: nice aroma, plenty of spice and sweetness in the taste, lots of power to evoke Christmas memories. I would like to sip on this Porter some winter's eve by the fire, perhaps with a warm slice of gingerbread.

Hats off to Samuel Adams for pulling this off. For being a mass-produced beer, it certainly holds its own against any of the micro-brews I've tried this year. This will definitely find a place in my Christmas brew offerings next year. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Bell's Winter White Ale (reviewed by JM)—Bell's Brewery down in Kalamazoo, MI, has a pretty good reputation for putting out some outstanding brews. I have enjoyed their Java Stout, their HopSlam IPA, their Octoberfest beer, and their Two Hearted Ale IPA, among others. It was with some excitement, then, that I looked forward to tasting their winter offering: the Winter White Ale. This would be the seventh beer I had sampled in the 2007 Search for the Best Christmas Beer.

At the crack of the cap, I caught the strong smell of yeast right away, a smell that was heavily tempered by the light fragrance of citrus fruit (possibly oranges or lemons, or both).

This "Witbier" poured very cloudy, with a light golden-orange color, and it stayed cloudy throughout. It lacked any substantial head - just a bit of fuzz that melted away pretty fast. From the thousands of bubbles running up the side of the glass, I could see that this brew was very carbonated.

The first several gulps featured a biting, carbonated mouthfeel that was very light and poppy. The flavor was even a bit bitter, or tart, no doubt due to the strong presence of the citrus flavors. However, it had a nice yeasty finish that provided a pleasant end-note to the experience.

As this beer warmed, it got much better. The flavors balanced out and actually felt better "mixed"; the harsh citrus notes became warmer and more cooperative with the wheat base, and the end result was a very smooth and seamless presentation.

However! This was supposed to be a Christmas beer, and it tasted more like a summer wheat beer. I would really enjoy this brew on a hot summer's day, but it really didn't make sense in the context of winter. There were no real spices of which to speak, no ginger or nutmeg, no molasses or figs.

It was a fine beer. I should probably buy a six-pack and leave it in the fridge until the summer rolls around. [Editor's Note: Nope, a light-bodied beer like this will have lost its freshness by then.] But as a winter beer in a Christmas contest, I have to give it a 6 out of 10.

Abita's Christmas Ale 2007 (reviewed by JM)—This was my first experience with the Abita Brewing Company, out of Abita Springs, Louisiana. The marketing presentation was rather bland: plain silver label with some red text. No matter - it came as part of a winter beer sampler six-pack that my local beer store was putting together and selling this season. Boring label or no, I figured I should give it a try.

Featuring a heavy floral fragrance, mixed with some citrus and a strong "hop factor", this Amber Ale produced a "two-finger head" that stuck around for just a little while, and left lots of nice lacing.

It poured a deep-dark amber color, and came with mild carbonation. The taste was as dark as the hue - strong prominence here of sweet malts, bitter hops, some wood-smoke, a bit of caramel, and just a whisper of some spice.

A highly drinkable beer, to be sure. It got 100% as it warmed, and the "darkness" of the flavor began to emerge even more. Very, very enjoyable experience. I give this an 8 out of 10.

Tommyknocker Cocoa Porter (reviewed by JM)—As Christmas brews go, this one was by far one of the most interesting of the bunch. The label promises an "ale brewed with cocoa powder and honey", and the contents of the bottle do not disappoint. This was my first experience with the Tommyknocker brewery, but based on the results of this sample, I will definitely be trying more of their product offerings.
As might be expected, the bouquet was heavy on the dark sweets: chocolate, molasses, toffee, and shades of coffee here and there. The scent was far more on the sweet side than on the sweet-tart side, as opposed to, for example, the "Special Ale" put out by Anchor Brewery.

It poured a dark and thick brown-black, like chocolate syrup or molasses, and left little-to-no head. The taste and mouthfeel was very smooth and sweet: the cocoa and honey were immediately noticeable on the top-end, and these two flavors stayed dominant throughout the life of the beverage. Once those dominant flavors faded, a heavy dark chocolate, toffee, and roasted coffee flavor lingered on the finish.

Some would undoubtedly find this brew too sweet, but it is what it is, and there are no surprises: the label clearly says that this is a cocoa porter brewed with cocoa powder and honey. It is entirely true to its promise, and I found it to be a smooth and pleasant experience from start to finish. I will definitely be buying this in six-pack form next year for handing out at my Christmas gatherings. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Holyday Beers

2007-12-21T07:26:00.000-06:00

Now that we are just about out of Advent (you did give up alcohol for Advent, didn't you ;o)?), here is a lineup of reviews to help you decide what beers to drink between Christmas and Epiphany. Thanks to JM for the delightful reviews of an impressive line-up of Christmas/Winter ales. I tacked on a few of my own tastings to round things out.

I want to wish all of you a blessed remainder of Advent, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Goose Island Christmas Ale (Reviewed by JM)—This was the first beer up for review in the 2007 Search for the Best Christmas Ale. Initial thoughts: this ale is definitely a keeper, a nice "middle-of-the-road" beverage that goes well with winding down on a cold winter's eve. It didn't knock my socks off, but it was certainly pleasant.

It poured a nice deep amber color, even a touch of brown. Had a respectable head at first, but it evaporated too quickly. The carbonation was just this side of "heavy", but this too passed before long. Included in the tapestry of flavors, I detected hints of orange peel, some all-spice, vanilla, perhaps a touch of ginger, and a faint whisper of raisins. The flavors that dominated, however, were strong hops, brown sugar, caramel, toffee, and nuts. This beer is classified as an English brown ale. Mouthfeel was very crisp, and surprisingly light, given the complexity and richness of the flavor. Perhaps the thing that was missing in this ale was a stronger presence of Christmas spices - granted, there was a dusting of all-spice, ginger, and orange to be detected, but these flavors needed to present themselves in a more striking fashion for this ale to really feel like "Christmas". I give it a 7 out of 10.

Wychwood Brewery "Bah Humbug" Christmas Ale (Reviewed by JM)—The second beer I sampled in the 2007 Search for the Best Christmas Brew was an unheard-of (for me, anyway) brew called Bah Humbug! (Wychwood Brewery, out of the UK). I paid $4.00 for the pint bottle, but the package seemed worth it - apparently the guys in marketing had done their job. The label featured an endearing cartoonish sketch of Ebenezer Scrooge in night-clothes, holding a candle and being haunted by Marley's Ghost.

Ah. Dickens. The Christmas Carol. Bring on the Yuletide. The description on the back of the bottle, written by the head brewer, promised a "rich, full bodied, Christmas Ale, brewed from the choicest hops and malts." Ok! We'll give it a try! This Winter Warmer poured a murky reddish-orange-brown with a respectable head, but the head vanished rather quickly. The label did not mislead - the malts were right up front from the first sip. It was a bit difficult to untangle the tapestry of flavors at first. The "close-your-eyes-and-smell" test suggested baking gingerbread and orange peel. Maybe a shade of dark molasses as well ... yes, definitely something dark, and sweet, and bitter. But also comforting - Grandma, baking holiday goodies in the kitchen.

Still, the flavors were sufficiently blended that none of them overpowered, or even really stood out, for that matter. The top notes were fruity and even a bit tart, but these quickly vanished into the malty mist. At various points I thought I detected just a hint of pine, which was quite nice. Lower in the mix, near the bottom, was the suggestion of butterscotch, toffee, molasses. The hop-malt-yeast foundation remained strong throughout, and made this a little like eating a special loaf of Christmas bread. The mouthfeel was more creamy than smooth, which, in my opinion, is befitting a Christmas beer. The drawback of this Winter Warmer was that it occasionally tended in the direction of "too sour", or even "chemicalesque." This was not the rule, mind you, but one sip in about every ten took me to the edge, and I had to concentrate to "listen" for the flavor hidden in the almost-offensive. It never achieved sourness or a full chemical taste, it just leaned in that direction once in a while, for some reason. I can only assume that this is because of the alcohol content or the malt-dominance - but the beer was only a 6.0% ABV. That shouldn't have posed any kind of a problem. On the whole, a tolerable beer. The packaging and overall presentation added quite a bit to the experience, and even made up for some of this beer's lack of pop and shimmer. It's a good beer, but a quiet beer. Nothing flashy, just some nice Christmas flavors subtly imprinted on a large malt canvas. I give this a strong 7 out of 10.

Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic (Reviewed by JM)—The third beer of the Best Christmas Beer review, this Cranberry Lambic by Samuel Adams was probably the most quirky - and disappointing - of the lot. Poured light pink with a large frothy head, quickly fading down to what, in the end, looked like a glass of sparkling berry champagne.

This is classed, officially, as a Fruit Beer, but it barely qualifies as a real beer at all. True, there was a strong presence of yeast throughout, but this beverage was ultimately very one-dimensional and bland. True to the name, the most dominant flavor was that of tart cranberries, with perhaps a hint of plum, but overall smothered in yeast. It was a lot like I imagine it would be to drink a loaf of cranberry bread - lots of yeast, lots of cranberry.The mouthfeel was crisp and sharp, with lots of bubbles - again, very like a champagne. The aroma was almost an exact match for the taste - very, very powerful scent of yeast and tart berries. I won't say that this wasn't an enjoyable beer - I had no trouble drinking the entire bottle. It would be a nice beverage to serve at the end of a large meal, as a kind of liquid dessert. But as a stand-alone beer, it lacked severely. No real complexity of which to speak, and any more than one-to-two bottles would undoubtedly lead to a sugar-induced headache. Most people, I think, would find this beer too tart. The clash of the yeast and tart berries can be a bit much, admittedly. The finish is very dry, leaving the lingering taste of the sour cranberry. I give this a 5 out of 10.

Delirium Noël (reviewed by JM)—This was the beer I had been anticipating. After falling head-over-heels for Delirium Nocturnum, I was very excited at the prospect of trying the Delirium Noel, a dark Belgian ale. The familiar pink elephant that is the mascot of the Delirium products sports a Santa hat and winter scarf on the label of this bottle - a nice touch, I thought.The pour was a cloudy and rich amber color, with a good thick head that showed some staying power. On closer inspection, there was some sediment swirling in the glass, a constant stream of bubbles running up the side.

The smell was very yeasty, as you would expect from a Belgian ale. Now and then, I thought I caught a whiff of apple cider mixed in with the yeast. And then, the first taste. Wow. Creamy, creamy mouthfeel, with a lovely blend of apples and malt/yeast. Perhaps a hint of cherry in there somewhere? What was most amazing is how well this brew masked it's 10% ABV. I expected some of this to come through in the flavor, but it was barely noticeable - aside from the warming sensation it created, of course. Although it was definitely fruit flavor that spoke the most loudly in the initial tastes, it would be misleading to call this a fruity beer. This is a rich Belgian ale with plenty of meatiness to it, a substantial body, a nice apple-slanted top end, a thick yeasty bottom end, and a heavy carbonation that makes the whole presentation sparkle and pop. However. This is not really a Christmas ale. It lacked the necessary dimensions of spice - the ginger, cinnamon, orange peel, clove, etc. - that would make it a true yuletide brew. It's not a bad beverage by any stretch. I would drink it again, for a special occasion (but not more than one, due to the ABV and richness). But in this particular contest, it was holly and plum and cocoa and spice that I was looking for, and I just didn't find it in this beer. So-good beer, even better-than-good, but even though I might normally rate this a strong 7 out of 10, for the purposes of this series of Christmas beer reviews, I give it a 5 out of 10.

Anchor "Our Special Ale" 2005 (reviewed by JM)—And now for something completely different. The next beer in the 2007 Christmas brew review was actually a 2005 bottle of Anchor Brewing Company's Our Special Ale (2005). As the bottle explains:"This is the thirty-first Our Special Ale from the brewers at Anchor. It is sold only from early November to mid-January. The Ale's recipe is different every year, but the intent with which we offer it remains the same: joy and celebration of the newness of life."So how does a "vintage" 2005 brew hold up to scrutiny after two years? Pretty darn well.

It poured a dark, muddy brown - just this side of black, in fact. A small head that quickly faded, and some nice lacing finished out the presentation. The smell was immediately strong and recognizable: molasses and vanilla, dark malt and brown sugar ... sweet, but with just a hint of tartness. Buried deeper in the bouquet was a suggestion of pine - very interesting. The fragrance was actually quite amazing - I don't remember the last brew I had that smelled so strong. The taste was incredibly complex and, for that reason, enjoyable. It took my breath away at first, but finished with an eye-opening "ah-ha!" as I began to recognize the various flavors in the tapestry: pine again, brown sugar, ginger, smokey molasses, roasted malts, some light spice, a certain kind of "woodsy" backdrop, dates, perhaps a bit of cocoa or dark chocolate, and ... figs? Yes, yes, figs. What a pleasant surprise!I was certainly impressed with this beer. After all the adjectives have been spent, and all the similies used up, there is one thing left to say: it was just plain good. No real carbonation to speak of, which meant a very smooth drinking experience. Great creamy mouthfeel, and those wonderful smatterings of eyebrow-raising flavors that evoked all sorts of nostalgia. This is what Christmas should taste like. This is what Christmas should feel like.For its amazing drinkability, for its unique combination of Christmas-appropriate tastes, and for properly evoking a spirit of Christmas and pleasant memories, I give this beer a 9 out of 10.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (reviewed by JM)—After the syrupy-sticky sweetness of the Anchor Our Special Ale, this brew by Sierra Nevada - Celebration Ale - was an amazingly refreshing contrast. This IPA poured a lovely dark orange color, and left some nice lacing. The smell was quite powerful: lots and lots of hops, lots and lots of citrus (more grapefruit than lemon, say), and a strong dose of floral to balance it out. The scent reminded me very much of Founder's Red's Rye. It's a beautiful scent, and very inviting.The taste was not much different from the scent. Immediate splash of citrus and hops (bitter and tangy at first, like biting into a grapefruit peel), followed by a medium-body malt. There may have been a touch of pine in this one, but it was hard to tell with all of the citrus hops blazing away in the forefront.

The mouthfeel was snappy, with a good deal of carbonation - which played an extremely effective complementary role to the citrusy flavor. The whole ensemble felt very light and refreshing, while not at all lacking depth or character.The 6.8% ABV made itself present in the mix once in a great while, but for the most part, the alcohol stayed quiet in the background. Still, the hard citrus-and-hops character makes this beer good for sipping, not for gulping. I noticed that, as the beer warmed up a bit, the flavors got a bit more balanced, and the citrus splash settled down quite a bit. This, of course, only made it all the more enjoyable. Perhaps the next bottle I get will stay out of the fridge altogether.As a Christmas brew, this IPA was acceptable. I would definitely serve it at a Christmas party as a special holiday drink. The shades of orange peel in the top end of Celebration Ale make it work as a Christmas beverage, but it would also be nice if there were a few more spices thrown in - perhaps some ginger and all-spice, to round it out.Great beer, good winter drink. I give it an 8 out of 10. (Editor's Note: I concur with JM that this is a wonderful brew and gets at least an 8 out of 10.)

Thanks again to JM for some great reviews. Now here are a few I tried this season.

Point St. Benedict’s Winter Ale (reviewed by DP)—Great label, with a likeness of St. Benedict reading an illuminated manuscript by candlelight. The beer pours a beautiful rich brown with a slight orange cast. Clean nose with just a hint of clove. But the taste, alas, does not match up with the look. The bittering is out of balance and is a bit too aggressive. But the real problem is a pronounced, lingering astringency in the mouth and on the finish. They had to have tasted this at the brewery. I think they got some tannin extraction on this one and couldn't bring themselves to dump the whole batch, so they just went ahead and bottled it up anyway. Bad move and quite unpleasant. I dumped out more than half the bottle. St. Benedict definitely deserves better than this. Rates 0 out of 10. (Reviewed by DP)

Schell Snowstorm Ale (reviewed by DP)—Pours a light brown with a nice stable head. Clean but very faint malt on the nose. Faint spice. A tiny bit of astringency on this one too. Also a bit of a chemically finish. Rates 3 out of 10.

Anchor "Our Special Ale" 2007 (reviewed by DP)—First off, good for Anchor Brewery for cutting through the PC junk and saying “Merry Christmas & Happy New Year” on the label. This beer is very dark brown, with a huge, billowy, long lasting head. Smells like dark dried fruit, chocolate, rum, and cinnamon on the nose. A sip…..Wow! This is different. The spicing is unlike anything I’ve had in a beer before. I'm pretty sure there’s some cinnamon in there. But what is the rest about? I confess, I had to look around on the Internet and one other reviewer got it, I think—a hint of anise. And to me it tastes a little like Concord grape - but let's just call it plum, in keeping with the season. Nice thick mouthfeel, in keeping with the style. Very good. Rates 8 out of 10.

Avery Old Jubilation Ale (reviewed by DP)—Wonderful stuff. Thick, sweet, molasses, raisins, and caramel. Great malt backbone with a perfect hop bittering. This beer carries its formidable 8.0% ABV very lightly. So forget the spices. All you need for a great winter ale is plenty of chewy caramel and raisins. Loved it. Gets a 9 out of 10.

A New Favorite and a Couple of Oktoberfestbiers

2007-11-01T16:47:00.001-05:00

I have recently discovered a beer that easily takes a place in my Top Ten Beers I Go Back To Again and Again (something will have to get knocked out of that list.)

It's Abbot Ale, from the Greene King Brewery (http://www.abbotale.co.uk/the_beer.htm). I stumbled onto this beer by accident—bought it on a whim while scanning the shelves—and am I ever happy. Basically, British pale ale is my favorite style of beer. And Abbot Ale is a really distinct and enticing example of this style. You will often hear British ales described as "fruity" or "estery". Well, if you want to know exactly what that means, taste an Abbot Ale. You may love it and you may hate it—remember, De gustibus non est disputandum—but at least you'll know exactly what distinctive British ale character is like.

It pours a rich mahogany, with a slightly orange cast. The taste is incredibly complex—slightly spicy, fruity, estery, and bold. This beer holds together to the very end, even as it warms to room temperature. You can sip away on one of these all evening (if you have that sort of will-power) and the last warmish sip will still be delicious and satisfying. I buy it in cans and don't let that scare you off—modern cans are a great way to package premium beer; they're much better than those crazy clear bottles. If you are a British pale ale afficionado like me, or if you want to try a striking example of the style, I highly recommend Abbot Ale.

I know this is November now, but I must include reviews of a couple of oktoberfestbiers that I recently tried on a business trip (and hey, Oktoberfest is held in September anyway, so there's no need to quibble about months.) The first is Paulaner Oktoberfest Märzen from that great monastic brewery (albeit no longer run by monks.) Oktoberfestbier is a lager beer, brewed using special strains of yeast that ferment in cooler temperatures and then further cold conditioned for a smooth, clean taste. This beer pours fairly light for the style and is indeed smooth and rich. Very malty, with a balanced hop finish. Good stuff.

Even better, however, is the Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Märzen. This beer has more of everything, compared to the Paulaner. It has a richer, coppery red color. It is spicier, with a distinctively sweet, caramel note. It is smooth and crisp. Hands down this is my favorite example of this wonderful German style, which is readily available as a real treat this time of year.

I haven't yet brewed an oktoberfestbier, but if I ever brew a beer even close to as good as the Hacker-Pschorr (or even the Paulaner) I'll call myself a brewer.

Pumpkin Beers

2007-11-01T12:12:00.000-05:00

Happy All Souls' Day! In keeping with the season, I thought it would be nice to review a round-up of pumpkin ales. You should still be able to get at least some of these in your local store, although you'll want to pass up at least one of them, I think........

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale (reviewed by DP): The word that came immediately to mind when I took my first sip of this beer was, "Yikes!" This beer is way too heavy on the cinnamon and the spicing in general has an artificial quality to it—in fact, it tastes a lot like an apple Pop Tart. And it has a medicinal finish that is just short of nasty. It's reasonably priced, but you'll be much happier if you pay a few shekels more for something that's actually good.

The "Pumpkin Ale" by Post Road Brewery poured a lovely dark orange/brown, and smelled fantastic - hints of pumpkin and clove spice in the bouquet. But where is the taste that goes along with this scent? It's missing. The taste is more like a slice of raw pumpkin, with a few moments of ... what is that? Bubble gum? Strange. It looked and smelled better than it actually tasted. The taste is actually a bit bland. Disappointing. (Reviewed by JM.)

Here's another review of Post Road's entry: After visiting two well-respected liquor stores in my area and speaking with the most knowledgeable beer aficionados at each, I chose Post Road first. At each store I was assured that this was “the pumpkin ale” to drink. And so, I purchased and entire six-pack, confident that I would finish it rather quickly.

Wrong. I was disappointed. While this ale could not fairly be described as offensive to the palate, neither is it particularly tasty or interesting. There were hints of pumpkin and spice in the aroma, to be sure, but precious little of anything I would have expected in terms of flavor. No pumpkin. Mild spice. That’s all. In fact, I was so perplexed after the ringing endorsements given this ale that I wondered if perhaps I wasn’t suffering from a cold. Perhaps my taste buds were off? So I tested my nose and palate on another beer. No problem. Olfaction and gustation each checked out just fine. It was the beer. (Reviewed by MF.)

On the other hand, there is this bottle from Buffalo Bill's Brewery, also called "Pumpkin Ale." It poured a bit lighter than the Post Road, a bit more amber. But my goodness, the taste ... heavy splashes of clove and cinnamon spice. Much sticky sweetness. This is the closest thing to drinking a slice of pumpkin pie I have ever experienced. A nice long finish, with a lingering aftertaste. I can't say anything bad about this beer. It came as a single bottle in a sampler six-pack - but I will definitely go back for a full six-pack of nothing but this ale. Truly amazing. (Reviewed by JM.)

Also outstanding is the "Punkin Ale" by Dogfish Head Brewery. The spicing in this beer was clean and assertive. The emphasis seemed to be on allspice and ginger with the cinnamon appropriately sitting a little more lightly in the mix. A wonderful, creamy mouthfeel and smooth, subtle carbonation contributed to the exact sensation that JM touched on above, that of eating a slice of pumpkin pie. As is typical, the perceived sweetness of this beer rises as it warms. Its higher-than-average alcohol (7% ABV) brings a nice warming sensation. This is a finely crafted beer which should be sipped and savored. (Reviewed by DP.)

Another fine entry is Southampton Pumpkin Ale. This pumpkin ale is brewed at Southampton brewery, Saratoga Springs, NY. Hitting an even 6% on the alcohol meter, Southampton describes their brew as “ale brewed with Pumpkin and Spices (Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Allspice).” And indeed, it delivered on all of the above. The aroma of pumpkin and spice was pleasing but not forced or overpowering. As expected, I found that the longer I drank the ale (and the more it warmed up), the more pronounced the pumpkin and spice became. The pumpkin was subtle and smooth, and the spices did not overwhelm the pumpkin overtones. This brew pours a very inviting golden-brown and has a nice, smooth mouth-feel. All in all, after tasting a few pumpkin ales, I would have to say that they can be very enjoyable. But it is perhaps a good thing that they are seasonal. (Reviewed by MF.)

And finally there is this seasonal entry from Blue Moon . I found this beer to be pleasant, but unremarkable. There is nothing wrong with it—the hop balance is good and the spicing is clean, albeit subdued. But to me it's a bit too dry and crisp—I would wish for more of a caramelly sweetness and a thicker mouthfeel in a beer in this style. I enjoyed this, I would drink it again if one was offered to me, but probably I won't buy this again. (Reviewed by DP.)

The tastings have definitely inspired me to have a crack at homebrewing a pumpkin ale.....but it'll probably have to wait until next year.

Hog Roast and Homebrew!

2007-10-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

Whew, I'm finally getting around to posting again. Thanks to everybody for their great comments and feedback via e-mail. I'll try to keep the updates coming more regularly.

For starters, I noticed that we got a mention on Jamil Zainasheff's podcast the other day. Check out the very start of the "Christmas Beer" episode to see what they had to say (then check out my original comments here.)

The big event beer-wise in our neck of the woods was an annual picnic that we had a week ago Saturday. When we moved here to rural Wisconsin we started holding annually what we called our Harvest Festival. It has typically been attended by well over one hundred folks and features lots of great locally grown food and, in these later years, homebrewed beer as well. A crowd of over one hundred sounds like a lot and it is, but in our Latin Mass apostolate the kids outnumber the adults by a fairly significant margin. This bodes very well indeed for the future of the Latin Mass and it also cuts down on the amount of beer that one has to provide. (If you want to know more about our Latin Mass apostolate located in the beautiful rolling hills of Wisconsin, you can check us out a bit here. The picture above is a Solemn High Mass at our apostolate on Easter of 2005. That's my son Christopher on the far right.)

Often the feast has been at our place, but this year's harvest festival (or Whoop Ti Doo, as they called it) was held at the home of our friends, the Schuh's. The featured "guest" was a whole roasted hog, cooked to perfection by our friend and fellow-Latin Mass afficionado, Jim Schroeder. (That's Jim Schroeder and Jim Schuh helping that pig off the truck and out of its cage.)

This year I supplied the beer and I had three varieties on tap. The first was a pale ale, in the British style. This was from a very simple recipe of two-row pale malt, a bit of 60L crystal malt, and a bit of biscuit malt, bittered with Fuggles hops and fermented with a British-style ale yeast (specifically, SafAle S-04 dry yeast.) This batch was made from all grain and was about three months old when consumed. In my opinion the bittering was off--I have very, very hard water from my well and I believe that this is causing some off-bittering problems in my all-grain beers--but the crowd enjoyed it anyway. I have started cutting my water 3:1 with distilled prior to brewing and it seems to help.

The second beer was a brown ale. This batch was a real milestone for me in that it was my first ten gallon batch. It takes only a fraction longer to do ten gallons than five, so if one has the equipment and limited time (like me) it's a really great way to go. It's definitely best to know ahead of time that you can consistently make decent beer, though, since it's pretty sad having to throw away five gallons of homebrew, let alone ten. In the end, I actually got 11 1/2 gallons of beer out of this batch and that will take some explaining.

This was from a recipe I got from Jamil Zainasheff's podcast on Mild Ales and indeed, this was supposed to be a mild, which is a relatively weak beer which still has a lot of flavor. This recipe has a British pale malt base and was heavy on the chocolate and darker crystal malts. But for some whacky reason, my wort [pre-fermented beer] prior to fermentation was way, way too strong. I must have gotten very good efficiency in extracting the sugars from this malt, but I also must have accidentally added too much two-row pale malt because it was physically impossible for my wort to be that strong based on the original recipe. I had to add additional water to this batch and in the end I got 11 1/2 gallons. I split this wort into two fermenters. In a 5 gallon fermenter I used WYeast 1968 London ESB yeast. In another fermenter with 6 1/2 gallons I used SafAle S-04 dry yeast. The only difference was the yeast and the two batches turned out radically different. The 1968 batch is much crisper and has less perceived sweetness, with a sharper coffee note coming through. The S-04 batch is breadier, sweeter, and the caramel and toffee notes really shine out. I prefer the S-04 batch, but I served the 1968 batch at the hog roast because I thought perhaps it would appeal more to a broader crowd. It was indeed a big hit.

Finally, I served out a very basic stout that I had made from a can of Ironmaster pre-hopped Irish Stout extract, supplemented by about 1 1/2 lbs. of dry malt extract. I steeped some additional roasted barley and chocolate malt and fermented this batch with Nottingham dry yeast. This is a very quick and easy beer to make but, after about two months of aging, really comes out smooth and creamy. At the picnic, not as many folks tapped into this stout, but those who did enjoyed it.

By the way, I'm really sold on these pre-hopped cans of malt extract. Between my wife, four kids, church, job, and farm, I don't always have a lot of time to brew. Sure all-grain beer is more challenging to make and frequently better to drink. But some homebrew is better than no homebrew. So forget about the snoots who think that brewing from extract is for yokels. Don't let the best become the enemy of the good. Just Brew It!

All three beers were a big hit and it was a joy, in the fullest sense of that word, to share my creations with a crowd of appreciative people. This is one of the things I love most about this hobby--it's not just about making beer that I can drink myself. It's about sharing something that I have crafted with pride and bringing some good cheer to others.

Kegging My Beer

2007-09-25T08:48:00.000-05:00

As this blog unfolds I will get into the details of homebrewing, in hopes that perhaps some newbies will give it a try and that some veterans can share their knowledge. Starting at the back end of the process on this entry, I kegged a batch of beer this weekend, a simple brown ale for a big picnic coming up on October 6. Bridget, as you can see, is fascinated by this process. For the beginners, the large glass container on the left is called a carboy. It is used to ferment the beer in a sealed, microbe-free environment. The one pictured holds 6 1/2 gallons. The typical batch of beer is 5 gallons, so a 6 1/2 gallon keg has plenty of head space above the beer for the foaming that takes place during fermentation.

Please notice the nylon carrying harness. I highly, highly recommend you buy one of these if you use glass carboys. They are cheap (around $12) and I have heard too many horror stories of broken carboys and trips to the emergency room with ghastly cuts. It's not worth it, mates. Get a harness or switch to plastic fermenters.

While Bridget watches in amazement, the beer is being siphoned into a 5 gallon stainless steel keg. I bought a kegging set-up about three years ago and it is fabulous. A five gallon Cornelius keg, commonly used for soft drink dispensers, can hold one whole batch of beer at a time. Just sanitize the keg and your racking cane and tubing, siphon the finished beer into the keg, and hook it to a CO2 tank to carbonate, chill it, and dispense it. No muss, no fuss. But, as with most time savers, it comes at a cost. You'll need a CO2 tank, regulator, keg(s), fittings, tubing, and at least one tap. A kegging setup will set you back about $200-$250. Still, for me it has been a great investment, since I brew at least twice as much with the kegging system as without.

Bottling is the alternative and, for me at least, it's a big hassle. You have to clean the bottles, sanitize the bottles, siphon the beer into a bottling bucket to mix with a bit of priming sugar which will generate the carbonation, fill the bottles, cap them, move them to the cellar, then clean up. With my other responsibilities I find it daunting.

There is one additional time savings with kegs versus bottles that will take a bit of explaining. If you read much literature on homebrewing you will find reference to "secondary fermentation". This means taking the beer out of the first fermentation vessel after fermentation has died down and giving it some aging time in a second fermentation vessel. This aids in the clarity of the beer and the aging gives it time to mellow. Now, as I will explain in a later posting, for lagers this secondary fermentation period is essential. But many homebrewers are finding that for your standard ales it is not. It used to be thought that too much time in the primary fermenter would cause off-flavors. But now homebrewers find that up to four or five weeks in the primary is no problem at all. So I now leave my beer in the primary for three to four weeks, then siphon it straight into the keg, saving the intermediate step of sanitizing a secondary and siphoning into that. I am optimizing my process for speed.

That being said, bottling is a perfectly reasonable option and is much less expensive. More on this in future postings.

THE big thing to remember when you are either bottling or kegging is to keep the oxygen out of the beer! Always remember that before fermentation starts, oxygen is your friend because the yeast need it to be healthy and grow. But after the beer is fermented out, oxygen is your enemy. This was the number one problem I had when I first began homebrewing--when I would rack (siphon) the beer into another fermenter or into bottles I would inadvertently introduce too much air. The beer would taste fine for a few weeks, but then would start to take on some very strong, unpleasant flavors. So now I'm very careful to siphon very gently, always keeping the end of the hose below the liquid line. In fact, when I keg I purge the bottom of the keg with CO2. That way, the beer flows in under a blanket of inert gas and is protected from the oxygen in the air.

After the beer is in the keg (note the empty carboy), I take a hydrometer sample. A hydrometer is a device that lets you measure the amount of dissoved sugar in a solution. This beer had a final gravity of 1.018 (distilled water is 1.00), which means that it will be fairly sweet. This is a little high for what I was shooting for, but should be just fine. I always taste the hydrometer sample, just to get an idea if there's any problem with the beer at this point. This one tasted fine.

Finally, I pressurize the keg a bit and set it in the cellar to age a little more. I have found that it's really not worth getting my nose into a batch of beer until it is at least two months old. Prior to that, it really doesn't taste that great. A little aging, but not too much, generally improves most beers tremendously.

Gluten-Free Beer

2007-09-20T09:53:00.001-05:00

This weekend I blew out my knee playing with my kids; don't know all the details yet, but it's probably one of those surgery things. Anyway, sitting in a chair, feeling sorry for myself, provided the perfect opportunity/excuse to crack open a bottle of Founder's Devil Dancer Triple IPA. This beer weighs in at a whopping 13% alcohol by volume and it is simply incredible. If someone hasn’t tried homebrewing they have no idea how hard it is to do a 13% alcohol beer that is that perfect and clean, with nothing poking out. Big beers like that are very hard to pull off, with a lot of technical challenges. This one was smooth and pristine, even as it warmed to room temperature which is where flaws really begin to show. It is not at all complex—my guess is that the grain bill is very simple and that Founder's utilized a California Ale yeast strain which ferments very clean. Distinctively sweet, but not cloyingly so, with a perfect high hop level to balance that sweetness—Devil Dancer has a thick mouthfeel and a distinct alcohol presence that is warming but never harsh. Absolutely incredible and by all means one of the best barley wines (or triple IPA, if you want to go with the new-fangled nomenclature) I have ever had. Highly recommended if you can get it locally (which, alas, I cannot—I won this bottle in a bet.) I do not recommend tearing up your knee just to have an excuse, but if you do then this beer certainly represents a significant consulation.

Now, to the main topic of this posting. A reader "eramlow" wrote in the comm boxes:

Hi - Does anyone know of a beer made without barley/hops? I acquired a taste for beer at the same time I found out I was allergic to barley. I got emergency room sick from Hops Bar and Grill best Barley beer...Is any other grain a good substitute for barley? Would it still be considered beer? Thanks!

This a very interesting posting and it piqued my curiosity. My understanding is that usually when somebody gets very sick from beer it is caused by an allergy to gluten, which is present in the barley which is the primary ingredient in beer. If somebody was allergic both to barley/gluten and hops, well that would probably eliminate the category of beer entirely.

But a gluten allergy alone still leaves the field somewhat open. I have seen gluten-free beers on the shelf for a couple of years now and have also seen articles regarding homebrewing gluten-free beers, so this posting prompted a little more research on my part.

First, some practical exposure. I traipsed home with a six-pack of "New Grist" gluten-free beer from Lakefront Brewery (http://www.newgrist.com/). This beer won a gold ribbon in the Experimental Beer category at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival, so I thought it stood a good chance of being at least representative of what one might expect from a good gluten-free beer. (And yes, it is considered beer, which is the general label applied to any non-distilled alcoholic beverage that is made from malted grain.)

New Grist poured very pale and had a grassy aroma. There's also a faint green apple aroma there and this note carries through to the aftertaste. My wife and I agree that this beer both smells and tastes a bit like our homemade hard cider. (In fact, if I was suddenly struck with gluten intolerance I would probably switch over to hard cider.) After you swallow, way on the back of the tongue there is a faint bubblegum note. The beer has no head retention at all. Pleasant hop bitterness. It's refreshing. It's a decent summer beer.

Wikipedia has an interesting article on gluten-free beer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_free_beer) which includes the note that "Statements from brewers such as Sapporo, show that their scientists feel confident that their product is non-harmful to those who are gluten intolerant." My guess is that Sapporo relies heavily on rice as a major fermentable and it's pretty thin.

Apparently, however, there are more robust beers made without gluten and a surpisingly large number are reviewed here, http://www.glutenfreebeerfestival.com/available/available.html. I would be interested in trying some of the more highly rated ones, but they're not available in my area.

In terms of homebrewing, you can brew a gluten-free beer but it becomes a lot more difficult. A number of interesting recipes can be found at http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/brewerytap/555/gfbeer/recipes.htm and a fairly detailed article on the various techniques involved can be found at the Brew Your Own site, "Gluten-Free Brewing" http://byo.com/feature/1589.html. (By the way, I subscribe to Brew Your Own magazine and can recommend it.) Judging by that article, it looks as if extract brewing is the way to go--only the most intrepid homebrewer would brew from all grain, since at this point that involves malting your own sorghum (or other non-glutenous grain) and then conducting a very technically challenging triple decoction mash to convert the starches in that grain to fermentable sugars.

The bottom line is that someone who is allergic to barley/gluten can indeed continue to brew and drink beer, but that beer will have a decidedly different character from beer brewed from barley. If it was me, I would probably switch my emphasis to wine and hard cider and take the loss of my enjoyment of barley-based beer (and single malt scotch!) as a substantial sacrifice to offer up.

Three Reviews By JM

2007-09-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to post three reviews from a CBR veteran. I would also like to note that the CBR met recently in Chicago to taste a wide variety of beers. We tasted four from the Founder's Brewery in Grand Rapids, MI (http://www.foundersbrewing.com/home.php) — Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale (reviewed below), Reds Rye Ale (also reviewed below), Rübæus Raspberry Wheat Ale, and Devil Dancer Triple IPA (sporting a whopping 13% alcohol by volume!) Individually we enjoyed some more than others, but we all agreed that each beer was outstanding for its style. Hats off to Founder's!

Thanks to JM for these reviews and thank too for all the great comments in the com-boxes. We're off to a fantastic start!

Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale is brewed by a local Grand Rapids brewery (Founder's), and I'll be quite curious to head down there sometime in the next few weeks to actually try this beer from the tap.

The pour was very deep amber, and the initial scent was a very powerful - almost overpowering, in fact - alcoholic odor. Just beneath that scent were traces of generic "roastiness" and perhaps some caramel.

The first mouthful, as might be expected, contained a burst of that alcohol flavor that was so strong in the odor. It was almost too much, honestly - made the beer just ever-so slightly over-bitter. Fortunately, the mouth-feel was very creamy, with just a bit of carbonated bite, and the after-taste contained hints of dried fruit (mostly raisin), toffee, and that unidentifiable "roastiness" again.

It was quite addictive, actually, and I had to stop myself from drinking too much, too fast. I wanted to enjoy it, at $9.50 for the six-pack. Plus, the almost 9% alcohol content warranted a bit of patience in drinking. Something about that combination of the caramel/toffee, dried fruit, and scotch-style "zing" made me want to keep putting more in my mouth. The high alcohol content created a warming sensation in the belly, and that lasted for nearly an hour - very much like drinking real scotch.

Founder's own review of the beer is pretty close to reality: 'Dirty Bastard is complex in the finish with hints of smoke and peat paired with a malty richness, finalized with a good bit of hop attitude. This beer "ain't fer the wee lads".'

Red's Rye Ale: Wow! Hello, hops! As soon as I cracked the cap off of this bottle and started pouring this sweet amber-brown liquid, the room smelled like grapefuit and flowers. I did something a bit different this time and drank the beer at room temperature, to see if the flavors were any more pronounced. This made the mouthfeel a bit more creamy, I think, and the flavors did seem a bit more "present", as suspected.

The immediate splash of fruit and flowers in the mouth soon gave way to a very strong rye flavor, which really made this beer interesting. If the fruity-floral top notes were a bit of "mouth candy", the rye made it more mature and full. Not much of a finish on this one, though.

About 3/4 of the way through the glass, some of the malty/rye bitterness faded away and - I hadn't noticed this before - a very noticeable but not overpowering raspberry and wheaty kind of flavor started to shine through. Those last three or four swallows were wonderful. The 6.8% alcohol content wasn't really noticeable in the flavor, but I don't think I'd drink more than two in a night. Overall, a nice mix of citrus, berries, and malt. I give it a 9.5.

From the Founder's web site:

"Pours a spectacular crimson red with a creamy tan head. Brewed with four varieties of Belgian caramel malts imparting a sweet richness. Red's Rye is impressively balanced with its hop bitterness and huge citrus bouquet achieved from the immense amarillo dry hop. The generous amount of malted rye used accentuates a spicy crisp finish."

Genesis 10:10--The label is what attracted me the most, I'll admit it. The beverage description did its part to add to the seduction: "brewed with our chosen specialty malts, hops, brewers yeast and pomegranate juice." Yes, pomegranate juice.I figured, what the heck, I'm a modern Catholic who's hip to the new wave of Jewish-Catholic relations, at least, insofar as it means drinking a beer brewed by "He'brew - The Chosen Beer" company (Schmaltz Brewing Company). The brew is called Genesis 10:10 - which reads, speaking of Nimrod, "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." I'm sure the meaning of this verse in correlation to the beer's name becomes clearer and clearer the further into the bottle you get. The color is a deep shade of red. It almost looks like wine if you're not paying attention. A fair bit of lacing, and a nice creamy head tops it off.It's not too bad, but I doubt I'd buy it again. The promised pomegranate flavor is there, but its very subtle, and gets quickly overpowered by the boat-load of hops bitterness. Actually, by "pomegranate" I mean generic fruity-ness; it's not readily distinguishable as pomegranate juice. The malt is pretty overpowering as well, which makes for a slightly bitter aftertaste. Hard to describe this one, frankly, because it keeps changing the more it warms up. The fruit becomes much more pronounced the warmer this beer gets. Very interesting. I would drink it again if someone offered it to me. But I probably wouldn't spend money on it again.

Ten Beers I Go Back To Again and Again

2007-09-10T11:32:00.001-05:00

This list does not exactly comprise my top ten favorites, although it's close. If it did then certain really spectacular beers, like Fuller's 1845, Chimay Grande Reserve, Old Rasputin's Russian Imperial Stout, or several of the fabulous beers from the Founder's Brewery in Grand Rapids, MI would be on here. But those are too expensive or (for me) too inaccessible to be regulars. Rather, this list is of the ten beers that I find myself going back to time and again. They're consistently good and readily available, at least at my locale.

There are some beers that could have been on this list—notably some of the offerings from the Samuel Smith brewery. But they come in clear bottles and the CBR is officially boycotting all beers that come in clear bottles. That is a rant for another posting.

So without further ado, here are ten of my old friends:

Guinness Extra Stout—A classic. This beer is black and very assertive with roasted grain, coffee, and molasses on the palate. It's rich, tangy, well balanced. Great. Like all ales, this should not be drunk too cold. This is the foreign export extra stout version, not the more watery draft version. I like the draft version with its nitrogen pour and creamy head, but it's just a totally different animal. To my tastes, this wins hands down.

Fuller's London Pride Pale Ale— An incredibly well balanced beer. I think that for me this represents the quintessential example of a British pale ale. Smooth, not overly hoppy or overpoweringly malty. Classic British flowerly hop presence. Perfectly balanced and every sip a pleasure. Incredibly good.

Fuller's London Porter—This beer blows me away; I can hardly believe how good this is. This very dark brown (not black) beer starts with slightly thick mouthfeel that leads to a creamy, slightly roasted, slightly bitter but perfectly balanced follow-through of porter perfection. Bittersweet chocolate, coffee, and I catch a touch of licorice. The first time I tried this, I had a Fuller's London Pride and the London Porter in the same evening (12 Aug 2002) and I have never tasted two such great beers together, ever.

Tyranena Bitter Woman IPA—You may not be able to get this fabulous beer where you are. It's brewed here in Wisconsin and I love it. A very complex malt palate (the brewery lists 2-row, Vienna, Carapils, Wheat, Caramel malts in the grain bill) is supported by a very assertive but absolutely clean bittering. Citrus and pine notes prevail on the nose and the palate. An outstanding American IPA (India Pale Ale). Get it if you can!

J.W. Dundee's Honey Brown Lager—Mildly sweet, distinctive honey finish, mildly malty, and fairly low hop bitterness. Nice rich brown color. Smooth and infinitely quaffable. I have drunk a lot of this and I keep coming back for more. It is reasonably priced to boot.

Sleeman Original Dark—To my taste this is a dead ringer for Newcastle. In fact, it more often tastes the way Newcastle should taste, since it seems nigh unto impossible to get a fresh bottle of Newcastle. Sleeman, on the other hand, is brewed on contract right here at the La Crosse City Brewery, so I have an easy time getting it fresh. It's a brown ale, slightly nutty with nice caramel and a hint of molasses. Great.

Young's Double Chocolate Stout—Made with cocoa and chocolate malt (hence the double chocolate in the title) this is a silky, smooth, dessert-style beer. Very low hop bittering. It should not be consumed too cold—if you start it on the cold side it will get much better as it warms up. This beer should not, repeat NOT, be drunk with a meal. It's totally ruined by food. Drink it by itself or with a rich dessert.

Samuel Adams Cream Stout—This is not as sweet as I would expect from a cream stout. The roasted and coffee notes are pronounced, the chocolate less so. Starts almost tart when very cool, but sweetens as it warms. Nice hefty mouthfeel and a perfect malt and hop bittering balance. This is widely available and, at least in my locale, can often be had on sale for a very good price.

Samuel Adams Boston Ale—Note this is the Boston Ale, not the Boston Lager. The Boston Lager is okay—the Boston Ale is really yummy! This ale stands in the British style; it is decidedly malty, with the hop presence perfectly balanced. This beer is slightly fruity, but only mildly estery so it is more tame than some British ales. A rich mahogany in the glass with a nice stable head. This is hard for me to find locally, but when I travel I try to grab a six pack. I come back to it again and again, which is why it's on this list.

Goose Island India Pale Ale—I have not generally been a fan of the Goose Island products. Neither the Honker's Ale nor the Hexnut Ale from this Chicago microbrewery do a thing for me. Some years ago I somewhat reluctantly bought a six-pack of the India Pale Ale because it was on sale and I had never tried it. Wow! This medium bodied beer has a slightly thick mouth feel. The first sip shouts, Hops! The strong grapefruit notes indicate that there are almost certainly Cascade hops here, but probably at least two other varieties as well bringing a pleasing complexity. The finish is markedly bitter, but with a nice balance of malt and a very slight sweetness. Great!

Please share some of your own favorites in the Comments. What beers do you go back to time and again?

Some Resources on How to Make Your Own Beer

2007-09-07T16:11:00.001-05:00

Making your own beer is a lot of fun. I've been homebrewing for about six years now. It hasn't been easy for me and I've had more than a few batches that have gone to the hogs, but by sticking to it I've gotten to where I can pretty consistently make beer that I and my friends enjoy. In the photo at left you can see a batch of British bitter bubbling away in my cellar.

I'll be posting more on my own homebrewing adventures, but to kick this off I'd like to give you a few resources on how to get started.

Books:

I'll be mentioning additional books as this blog unfolds, but if I have to limit myself to one right now it is, hand's down, John Palmer's How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time. Palmer's volume is a complete and truly outstanding introduction to the hobby.

Supplies:

There are a lot of places from which to buy homebrew supplies. I have had great service from the guys (and gals) at Midwest Supplies: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/. You can download their catalog from the site and you can also get a free how-to video from them which is a great deal. I don't make anything for the referral, but tell them that I recommended them if you happen to buy something there.

Web Resources:

John Palmer has an early version of his book on-line at http://www.howtobrew.com/.

http://www.tastybrew.com/ hosts a great forum where you can ask questions and learn a lot by just browsing.

I love the podcasts available at Basic Brewing Radio, http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=home.

I also appreciate the expertise of Jamil Zainasheff, http://thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php. Note that you'll have to endure some lockerroom language and talk in some of these shows and this detracts from their professionalism. But Zainasheff has won more homebrewing awards than any other individual and he knows what he's talking about.

Welcome to the Catholic Beer Review

2007-08-10T09:29:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the Catholic Beer Review, a blog for Catholics (and all others, of course) who love their beer. I am David Palm, your blogmaster and president of the Catholic Beer Review.

CBR was formed by a few guys who share a love of great beer and started comparing tasting notes.
Beer may seem a mundane topic to those who don't venture far beyond the "tinted waters"—as the late Michael Davies (RIP) referred to the Budweisers and Miller Lites of the world. But in fact this drink is endlessly fascinating. Ostensibly it contains just malt, water, yeast, and hops. But the permutations that exist within just those basic ingredients are legion.

Beer also holds a venerable place in our Catholic history, with some of the greatest breweries in the world being founded and run by Catholic monks.

CBR is a forum for tasting notes, beer history and trivia, and information about crafting your own tasty brew. And since we are traditionally-minded Catholics here, it's important to throw in a little Latin lingo. Our motto is simple: De gustibus non est disputandum, colloquially translated, "There's no disputing matters of taste."

À votre santé!