Krausen Rising

The Lady and I ventured out of the safe confines of North Oakland this Saturday, through a tunnel carved through the hills and into the outer reaches of the Bay Area, to Concord, under the shadow of Mount Diablo, beneath the dancing tarantulas that have probably already finished mating and eating each other for the year, surviving females sleeping snug and well-fed in their bewebbed hidey-holes. Normally, we’d be on our way to the Black Diamon Mines, or Mt. Diablo, or some similar place to hike, then make our way, hungry and full of thirst, to EJ Phair, Schooner’s, or Ed’s Mudville Grill for a pint or two and some pub fare.

This past Saturday, though, was Oktoberfest in Concord, and the potential for tarantula sightings on Diablo was too much for Jen, who really, really doesn’t like spiders, so we went to Beer, Beer, and More Beer, instead. I picked up a very nice thermometer that can be calibrated and that I can clip to the side of my brew kettle, along with some other essentials, and the ingredients for an all-grain pale ale that I guess will be my next brew. I heard from an employee that hop prices are about to at least double, partially confirming apocalyptic rumors that anyone who’s been following beer in the past few months has heard a lot. I bought an extra four ounces of hops just in case. Not much of a buffer, but there’s always gruit.

The Oktoberfest was small but fun. Very family-oriented. Off the top of my head, I remember Rubicon, Stone, Lagunitas, Drakes, Lodi Brewing, Blue Frog, Firestone Walker, Schooners, and I’m pretty sure EJ Phair had a booth. It was set up like a beer fest, with 6 ounce taster glasses and tickets to fill them. The very kind folk at Rubicon seemed less excited about taking tickets than they were about pouring, which was okay by me. I had both their offerings, and they were solid. I had to have some Stone Pale on tap, so I did, and somehow managed not to make it back for the Arrogant Bastard.

There were two big surprises for me at the Oktoberfest. Lodi Brewing was one. They make very solid, well-crafted and well-balanced beers. I had the porter, amber, and a very small taster of their award-winning American Light lager. It tasted like high-end rice crispies and easily beat PBR, the best American Light I’ve had until Lodi came along.

The second surprise was Firestone Walker’s IPA, which according to the guy behind the keg, is their first IPA, and will be released Tuesday, 10/22. I loved it. Very citrusy, huge beer, with good malt character and a lot of alcohol. Supremely drinkable despite a somewhat high ABV (somewhere in the 7% range).

It was very nice to be able to talk to the actual brewers at the Oktoberfest. Another 10 or 20 brewers and the beer nerds would have showed up in force. With only 10 or so there, the crowd was mostly just enjoying a nice family outing in the town square, and I was able to harrass the people behind the kegs, one of which was often the brewer. Yes!

After the six tickets worth plus two, we were getting sick of th sun, so we went to EJ Phair (across the street from the Oktoberfest) and sat inside for a while. I had their red ale, which is another great beer. Very malty and pretty hoppy at the same time. Loved it. We sat there about an hour, then made our way home. Another beery Saturday.

I bottled my rauchbier Saturday night, a week later than I’d planned. Made a mess of it, as usual. Golly do I hate bottling. Some day, I’m going to clean up the apartment and install a kegerator, so I can leave at least some of these bottling woes behind. This brew’s bottling disaster occured when I couldn’t find my air filter (I blow through it to start the siphon, an idea and product I got from Beer, Beer, and More Beer). I ended up finding the filter exactly where I’d left it, but not until I’d first gargled some rum and tried to start the siphon orally. Which didn’t work, though I got a mouthful of delicious, smoky beer. The floor is still a little sticky from my lackluster mopping.

Assuming I didn’t manage to contaminate the beer with my siphoning attempts, it should be very tasty. I ended up with 10 22 ounce bottles, five or so 12-17 ounce bottles (one regular and assorted British bottles), an approximately 1.5 gallon plastic “pig” (for the tap-a-draft system), and a 64 ounce growler, all full up with a dark, somewhat sweet, smoked, quasi-lagered, just about 4.0% ABV beer fermented with SF Lager yeast. All it needs now is two weeks to carbonate and a name to latch on to it.

Last night was the 16th Anniversary Celebration at Barclay’s Pub, about half a mile from my house. Maybe a bit more. Jen and I met up there after work, at 5:30. There were four or five tables available - about half the space. By 5:45, there were people waiting for tables to clear up. Pints at Barclay’s are Imperial (20 ounces). I’ve been very ADD about beer lately, drinking four half pints on a typical weekend afternoon at Barclay’s, all of them different, usually two at once. Unfortunately, the buy one get one for $.16 didn’t apply to half pints, so I ended up drinking several full-size pints, each one about six ounces more than what you get at a typical bar (14 ounce pints are far too standard around here). Raffles started at 6:30. People were winning hats, mirrors with brewery logos printed on, and at least one large, glass drinking boot with what appeared to be a mouse pad inside.

All but one fellow member of Beercraft (warning: myspace link) showed up around 8:30, along with some guests whose names are eluding me, most likely lost forever in the haze that is last night after 11:00. I coaxed Brad out of his post-work funk with a simple four-word message: Stone Pale on tap. Susie is a hardy traveler completely unphazed at the prospect of BARTing from the Mission all the way to Rockridge. And Christy lives just a half mile further down the hill from Barclay’s than Jen and I.

Jen needed some sleep, so after winning a large, irregularly-shaped mirror proclaiming “Beamish Stout!”, she happily coasted home on her bike. That was the last prize we got, unless you count the beers. We stayed on, drinking, scheming, and blabbing, until 12:30, an hour after last call.

And for the record, the beers, in order:

16th Anniversary Ale, 21st Amendment
A wet-hopped pale-like beer. Maybe an IPA, maybe a DPA. I dunno. Not bad at all, but a little weak finish.

Blind Pig IPA, Russian River
Russian River’s Blind Pig IPA. Need I say more? Second of the night out of strategy. See, Barclay’s has three chalkboards displaying their current pours. The one next to the bar is the canonical list. The other two slowly go out of sync with reality as the day wears on. Jen and I usually go to Barclay’s on a weekend around 4:00 or 5:00. By the time we get there, the two other boards are quickly losing accuracy. And if there’s a Russian River beer listed on the side boards, you can guarantee it won’t be on the main board. It was gulped down long ago.

Pale Ale, Stone
I love Stone’s Pale Ale. Slightly sweet, nicely hopped, perfectly balanced. I usually prefer IPAs, but Stone’s pale is so spectacular, I often choose it instead.

At this point in the night, my palate is rapidly losing accuracy and range, so please excuse it.

Kill Ugly Radio, Lagunitas (cask conditioned, hand pumped)
I’m not liking this on cask as much as in the bottle or on C02. It has a strange, not entirely-pleasant bite in the cask. Still good, though.

OH!Fest, Schooners
A small brewery near Mt. Diablo. Jen and I went there once after a hike and dug the beers. A little bit of a country-club atmosphere, but just a little bit. This was a change from other Oktoberfest beers I’ve had. They’ve all been malty, with not a lot of hops. This was that, but with some roasted malt, as well. Darker than usual because of that, of course, but the roasted malt was not too out front. Another well-balanced beer, I thought, and enjoyable.

Big Sky IPA, Big Sky Brewing Company
A great ending to the night. Strongly hopped, bitterness-, flavor-, and aroma-wise. I don’t recall the malt, but I’m pretty sure it’s good. I shouldn’t have had this last one, but I did, anyway.

After that, I careened downhill, mirror in-hand, back home. I managed to make it upstairs and eventually ended up in bed, snoring happily. Around 4:00am, I wasn’t so happy any more, as my head started throbbing. Fortunately, Christy has taken to carrying B complex vitamins around, one of which may well have saved my day today.

This brew is a very special one for a couple reasons. First, I started around 11:00am on Sunday, and so didn’t down a single beer during the process until the boil, around 2:00pm, and had only one beer throughout the whole process. In other words, I was much more sober than usual. And wow, was the brewing process much smoother. I suspect I’d begun to take “Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew” a little too much to heart, particularly that last clause.

The other reason this brew was special was my first ever use of a yeast starter. Which kicks ass! I’m very stoked that I did this, as it wasn’t all that much work and I ended up with a lag time of less than three hours(!!!), as far as I could tell (we went to Barclay’s Oktoberfest celebration directly after pitching the yeast at 5:00pm, and by the time we got back at 8:00pm, the bubbles were bubbling through the airlock).

I don’t know how starters should be done to be safe and professional about it, but I used info from Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide. I didn’t quite do it to his specs, but I will probably eventually try his method (which involves a canner or pressure cooker to sterilize several bottles of wort, to be stored and used as necessary).

Yeast starter method

On Saturday, about 20 hours before I needed a starter, I boiled 3 quarts of filtered tapwater and added enough DME to make a wort of SG 1.025. I was aiming for a final volume of two quarts with a volume of 1.025. I cooled the wort down to 72 degrees Farenheit with an ice bath in the kitchen sink (my usual cooldown method - much easier with 1/2 gallon of wort). I ended up with about three quarts of wort at 1.025, so a bit more volume than I was hoping for. After cooling down the wort, I poured it into a gallon jug, covered it in foil, and shook it for five minutes to aerate the wort. I thought I’d be able to fit an airlock onto the jug, as I have stoppers for large carboys and small bottles. Turns out, I don’t have stoppers for gallon jugs, dammit. So after aerating the wort, I shook up the yeast (which had been sitting out of the refrigerator for about an hour), and dumped it into the jug. Unfortunately, I didn’t shake the yeast enough and I ended up with a bit of sludge still in the beaker. I covered the jug with fresh foil, shook it gently to remove some yeast that had stuck to the side of the jug, recovered the jug with more fresh foil, and placed it on the living room table for observation. Bubbles were observed around 12:00am 10/7/7.

Mash-out

One other minor bit of novelty in this brew was the mash-out, which I haven’t done before. Miller claims mashing out (raising the temperature of the mash from 15x to 165 or so after conversion is done and holding that for 15 minutes) kills the enzymes responsible for conversion and makes the wort less viscous. I forget why the first bit is important. The less viscous bit is for an easier runoff without as much danger of clogging. I just figured I’d give it a go.

I also used my 20 quart kettle for mashing, rather than mashing in a plastic bucket with a spigot. So I had separate mash and lauter tuns for this brew. It’s my third mini-mash, and the first where I mashed in the kettle. I’ve had problems with rapidly dropping mash temperature in the past, so I wanted to be able to easily heat the mash if necessary. In the end, it wasn’t necessary, though it would have been in the plastic bucket.

Sparge

Sparging only took about 35 minutes, 10 less than recommended, but by the time it was done, I had so much wort (~4 gallons at 1.049) that I had to take out a quart for the first hop addition, after I’d added the five pounds of extract and started the boil. I slowly added that extra quart of wort back in as the boil went on. I’m thinking of drawing five gallons of wort in the future, and giving that extra gallon a separate boil, so I can at least add wort instead of water to make up the five gallons in the fermenter. That, or just buying a new, 7.5 gallon kettle for a full boil.

Cooling

The final step, cooling, is my least favorite. As mentioned earlier, I use an ice bath in my kitchen sink, and cooling down 4.25 gallons of wort takes 30 to 45 minutes and is a bit nerve-wracking. I used two bags of ice, added in half-bag increments. First, I’d pour some ice into the water surrounding the kettle, then stir briskly with a sanitized plastic spoon for 10 to 15 seconds, then cover the kettle and start stirring the cold water around the kettle by hand. After I got bored with that, I’d open the kettle up, take the temperature, and start stirring again. Etc., etc.. I fucking hate cooling down the wort. Next on my to-purchase list - an immersion cooler.

As usual, I didn’t quite cool the wort down as much as I should have (I cooled it down to about 95 degrees), so even though I added two quarts of cold, filtered tapwater, and then added in three quarts of 70 degree yeast starter, the final temperature of the wort was about 78 degrees - a little too high. Also, that three quarts at the end knocked the volume up to about five and a half or five and a quarter gallons, and knocked the gravity down a bit (I think - not sure since I didn’t take a pre-yeast sample), to 1.065.

Fermentation

Fermentation started, as I said, within a few hours. It went completely nuts for about 36 hours, remaining at about 76 degrees despite being in a cool, dark room (the sweet heat of gorging yeast). The fermenting room (aka the computer room) and the hall leading to it smelled like fermenting beer, there was so much gas being released. As of the third morning, the bubbles were down to one every second or so, and the yeast was starting to flocculate and settle, though there was still a decent crust. By the fourth morning, most of the yeast cake was gone from the top, there was an inch or two of sediment on the bottom, and the airlock was bubbling about once every 30 seconds.

Funk

One worry about this beer - it has a distinct hop funk smell and some funk flavor, as well. This isn’t an off flavor, really, it’s the way certain strains of hops taste to me. I’m never sure which they are, though. On a positive note, this kind of funk goes away over time, and since this IPA will be around 7% ABV, it should age well for several months, maybe even a year.

Madhouse IPA Recipe

Grain:
7 lbs. Maris Otter 2-row malt
1 lb. Cara-pils
12 oz. Dextrin Malt

Extract:
5 lbs. light extract

Yeast:
California Ale Yeast

Hops:
1.25 oz. Homegrown Nuggets, bittering (60 minute boil)
.5 oz. Chinook flowers, bittering (60 minute boil)
2 oz. Centennial, flavor (30 minute boil)
.5 oz. Chinook, flavor (30 minute boil)
.5 oz. Chinook, aroma (5 minute boil)

Mash water = 3 gallons
Mash-in 156 degrees Farenheit, 60 minutes (temp drop to 152)
Mash-out 165 degrees Farenheit, five minutes

Sparge water = 3 gallons

The Bistro’s Wet Hops Fest took place this past Saturday, October 6th. Jen and I attended. In fact, this was a very beer-oriented weekend. Saturday was the Wet Hops Fest, Sunday was brew day (more on that later) and the Oktoberfest celebration at Barclay’s (which was basically just a few Oktoberfest beers, so far as I could tell).

For those unsure of the meaning of wet hops, an explanation. First, it has nothing to do with dry hopping. It isn’t the opposite, or an alternate method of hopping. Dry hopping is a method. Wet hops are hops that have not been dried. Some of the beers at the Wet Hops Fest were dry hopped with wet hops, a phrase which has an almost religious feel to it, I think, like contemplating the Holy Trinity. Except of course, that dry hopping with wet hops is completely logical. Dry hopping is adding hops in to the secondary fermenter to impart a strong hop aroma to beer. I think the first modern, well-known, dry-hopped beer in the US is Anchor’s Liberty Ale, an IPA that is nowadays pretty mild-tasting. A whole lot of West Coast beers are dry hopped today. Not so many wet hopped beers, though.

The Wet Hops fest at the Bistro was the first festival we went to there, I think that was back in 2005. Maybe 2004. Time goes by faster the older I get. We’d just heard of wet hopped beer, and had a couple at Jupiter in Berkeley. I wasn’t very into the beers (some hops give a strong cat-piss stench to my nose, that is exacerbated when added wet), but the idea of wet hopped beers sounded interesting, so we went, and fun was had. We didn’t go back the next year or two, though we have gone to the Bistro’s IPA and Double IPA festivals.

I mention that primarily because I think the Wet Hops fest was much smaller this year than the first year we went. Which kind of makes sense. I’ve read that brewers have to use several times as much wet hops to achieve the correct results for the style their brewing. Not sure why that is, but it sounds expensive and wasteful for often dubious results. But any beer fest at the Bistro is going to include a bunch of Southern California beers that are hard to get around here, so I’m happy to go.

There were 22 beers from 19 breweries represented at the 2007 Wet Hops Fest. I made it through 11 of them. It’s not fair to review beers after downing that many of them (something between 44 and 66 ounces, I’d guess, in a couple hours), so don’t take my word as law in the subsequent notes. And drunkenness aside, I’m an amateur at this whole tasting notes thing. Tasting notes are as written while sampling.

I feel like I should first get the worst out of the way. I had this one before drunkenness set in. In fact, it was the first beer I wanted. I saw it as I received my glass, tickets, and ballot (to vote for the best beer of the fest, which I always forget to do). Stone Brewery. How can you go wrong with Stone? I was warned off it, but given a small sample for free. It tasted like an awesome Stone beer, light-bodied, a little sweet, very fresh, nicely hopped, with a not-quite overbearing rotten flavor. The keg seems to have gone bad in shipping. Maybe I should leave that out, since accidents can happen, but to me, it was a tragedy, coming from arguably the best brewery in Southern California (some would say all of California).

High Tide IPA, Pizza Port San Marcos
6.5% ABV
Centennial and Simcoe

Mild hop funk. Medium dry. Mellow for its 6.5% ABV.

Confiscation Ale, Bear Republic
6% AGV
100% fresh Cascade and Chinook

Light-body, vegetal flavors. Pronounced hop bitterness.

Hop Fresca, Anderson Valley
6% ABV
Estate grown blend, dry hopped

Like their Poleeko Gold Pale with wet hops. Nice.

Absolutely Wet, Lagunitas (winner of the Wet Hops Fest)
7.8% ABV (highest ABV at the fest)
Wet Columbus in sock (their words)

Basil flavor (I pick that up in a lot of beers. Maybe it’s the Columbus). Awesome beer!! Not too sweet, loads of hop flavor and aroma. Absolutely Free/Kill Ugly Radio + wet hops(?)

Hop Patootie, Beach Chalet
5.9% ABV
100% fresh lake county hops

Reminds me a bit of Liberty Ale - British feel, but more hops. Not much
of a bouquet.

Homegrown #2, Moonlight
6% ABV
95% Wet Chinook in aging

Very much hop funk. Very vegetal, good amount of bitterness. Most
wet-tasting of all, so far.

Homegrown #1, Moonlight
6% ABV
95% Cascade in kettle

Basil flavor again. Nice, big hop flavor.

Last Hop Standing, Blue Frog
7.2% ABV
100% fresh Centennial

Bananas, black pepper, sour nose, but not sour flavor. A Belgian feel, but
not much hops.

Sublimmminal Pale, Moonlight
5.5% ABV
Cascade in aging tanks

Sweet, malty nose. Sweet, malty flavor with a funky, fresh hop note.

Hop Trip, Deschutes
5.5% ABV
Fresh hop blend added to fermentors

Malty. Funky hop flavor and aroma.

Despite this blog still half-existing, half-formed, I’m going to join in on the monthly Beer Sessions. Every month I regret not having started, so today I will do it. Besides, this month’s topic is timely - “Beer and Food” - since just this past Sunday I made beer pancakes (of which I was reminded by a recent Brookston Beer Bulletin post.

It started Saturday night. I bought a four pack of North Coast’s Pranqster, and was surprised to be unimpressed by it compared to other beers of its style. That night, I thought about pancakes, and something about the phrase “golden beer” and the word “pancake” excited me. I looked up a recipe for beer pancakes on this great interwebs we have, and found one I’m too lazy to look up. Google “beer pancake” or “ale pancake” or something, and follow the first link to a Catholic forum you see. It’s pretty simple, anyway - just substitute beer for milk (or whiskey, or whatever liquid you normally use).

The Lady was completely unimpressed with my decision to make beer pancakes, for which I can’t blame her, since she isn’t a beer drinker and particularly dislikes hoppy or Belgian style beers, of which the Pranqster is the latter. But I was undeterred.

First, I made a small test pancake, tore it in half - one for me, one for Jen. Jen thought hers was disgusting, and tasted like beer. I thought mine was awesome, and tasted like beer. The sweetness of the golden ale was there, helped along of course by the sugar in the pancake recipe. But there was also a nice, beery flavor like the old pizza place in my hometown that adds MGD to their pizza crust. Altogether, a very satisfying experiment. I made another batch of pancakes, with milk not beer, for Jen, and we were both happy.

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I should have written about this some time ago, but I’m lazy. I fell in love with Schlenkerla’s Urbock last Spring. Since then, I’ve been obsessing about brewing a smoked beer. My boss has for years been trying to convince Scott or I to brew something smoked, but it never sounded appealing. I dig the little bit of peat smoke you can taste in Moylan’s Kilt Lifter, and I like smoky porters, but a brewing a smoked beer seemed too much. Until the Urbock. Once I started brewing again, I had visions of an 8%, all-smoked malt beer. Yum! But I wimped out, using 5 pounds of smoked malt, 2 pounds of munich malt, 1 pound of caramunich, 2 ounces of German black malt, and 2 pounds of light malt extract. Seeing as it was a mini-mash, and my efficiency is for shit, I should have upped the smoked malt to 8 pounds, and used an extra three or four pounds of extract. Just to be sure.

But that doesn’t matter now. I used a few ounces of Tettnanger hops (2.7% alpha - mellow stuff, even for Tettnanger) and the SF Lager yeast, most often used to make steam/common beers. I brewed it up, made a bunch of mistakes (as usual), gave it a sip and a hydrometer reading, and racked it.

The taste was sweet and smoky. Good. The hydrometer reading was discouraging - I don’t recall the exact reading (I don’t have my log in front of me), but I remember thinking the final ABV would be between 4-4.5%. But who cares, if it’s tasty.

Fermentation didn’t want to start for some reason, so I, being a very clever guy and thinking something genius along the lines of “it’s the SF lager yeast, so it wants to be cold”, I made up a nice ice bath for the fermenter, and plunked it in. Of course, another day went by and nothing. Seriously worried now (it’d been close to 72 hours, IIRC), I made a trip to the Oak Barrel in Berkeley to buy some more yeast. They gave it to me for free, even though I’m pretty sure the original yeast wasn’t bad (another moment of genius - arguing with the clerk that I should pay for the second yeast, since I was pretty sure this was all my fault). Anyway, I took the wort out of the ice bath, per Oak Barrel’s scandalized homebrew guru’s instructions, and pitched the yeast, shocking it near to death, I am sure. Thing is, once the wort had warmed up a couple degrees, bubbles started popping up, and within a few hours, it was going nuts. I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, though I was hoping the fermentation wasn’t some friendly bacterial infection.

A couple weeks later, I racked to secondary, and the beer tasted delightful - still a bit sweet, but very smoky, and about 4.5% ABV. Beautiful.

So, now it’s been a month and a half, and this weekend I plan to finally bottle. You don’t want to know what I did to attempt to lager this beer. There’s a moldy towel that needs to be thrown out, and a 48 quart cooler that will never look at me the same again. I plan to bottle 1/3 of the beer in a 6 liter plastic container (for later tap-a-drafting) and the rest minus a six pack in 22oz bottles (I put one beer from the six pack in the fridge each week after bottling to see, taste, and smell how the beer changes over time).

Also this weekend, another, very special, brew. Hopefully, I’ll be less procrastinatory with my blog entry on it.