April Update

Hey all!

Man, my current work situation doesn't give me a lot of down time. No, I don't work more than a 9-6, but I travel regularly for two-week stints and this calendar it's been about every 4 weeks, so the time I have at home is spent catching up on what I have to put off because I'm not in Berkeley. Early spring is also usually full with the end of Lent and Holy Week/Easter, my wife's birthday, and taxes. None of those things takes a lot of my time, but all together with the normal life stuff I found that between my last trip and this one, March 10-April 11, I could hardly find the time to bottle the batch I brewed before leaving and I ended up brewing back-to-back the last day I was in town to keep on the schedule I'm trying to set for myself. My porter has yet to go untasted, but since I bottled it two weeks later than planned it has now had plenty of time to bottle condition so I'm expecting it to be fully ready by now. I also submitted it to a homebrew competition without tasting it so I doubly hope it turned out tasty!

Besides that, I have had time for beer in my life, of course. Just check my Untappd account ;-) (@TheBrewourist). Friends invited us over for dinner one Friday night for homemade Chicago deep dish pizza and asked me to bring a 6-pack so I made it a mix of my homebrew, and had exactly 6 different varieties to share! Using small glasses four of us shared six 12-oz bottles of Dr Bradley's finest (well… one of the batches was the S'More of What? (v2), which still isn't that great). The rest of the menu was Zorba's OPA!, Plain Ol' Saison, Gold Medal IPA (v2), Little Lebowski, and the last bottle of Grapes & Grain - Scuppernong. The S'Mores and Scuppernong were overcarbonated and despite trying my hardest to slowly release the gas I had to just get it over with and lose half of each bottle to the sink. The Scuppernong was pretty tasty, but the S'Mores had just gone blah. I really want that brew to be good, but it might take more practice and bad batches than I'd prefer. As for the Grapes & Grain, those who were able to try both versions preferred the Muscadine, so if I can get my hands on those grapes again I'd definitely brew with them for a full 2-gal batch. Everyone loved the Zorba's OPA!, which I've unofficially renamed Award-Winning Oat Pale Ale since I won a third place prize with it. What? You didn't know? Well, if I wrote more regularly you'd know, so let me share.

Apparently spring is homebrew competition season, and I've now submitted my beer to four Bay Area competitions: North Napa Rotary Homebrew Competition, World Cup of Beer (put on and hosted by the Bay Area Mashers), Alameda County Fair Bay Area Brew Off (BABO2016), and the Sonoma Beerocrats American IPA Competition. I've talked about Zorba's OPA! before, so I don't need to reiterate what I thought about it, but everyone I've given it to loved it, so it was quite the surprise to have won third place in the Specialty Category. I entered it in that category of the 2008 BJCP Guidelines because that was the suggestion I found in researching submitting a pale oat ale into competition since it's not an official category. I also submitted Little Lebowski to that category because of all the coffee-ness in it I couldn't submit it to the milk stout. That milk stout scored well, but not as well as the pale oat ale. Since that recipe has been so popular I'll keep it, but it wasn't what I was trying to brew, and I know how I'll change it for next time.

For the World Cup of Beer I submitted the Plain Ol' Saison and the Little Lebowski to two categories: milk stout and spiced/herb. In that latter category Little Lebowski passed preliminary judging, as did the Saison. I never would have thought I could have entered the same beer into two different categories, but BAM's January meeting focused on entering competitions with a panel discussion and one thing mentioned was entering one beer into multiple categories (which means multiple physical entries). So my milk stout went into the cream/sweet stout category, but the coffee was too much and overpowered any other flavors; and it went into spiced/herb where it did well! The feedback was appreciated, and as the Plain Ol' Saison was a stripped down recipe from the Spicy Jalapeño Saison, I have ideas of how to modify it to meet the judges' comments and suggestions.

As I described above, I didn't have the luxury of 5 hours of freedom for brewing the month before my current work trip, so I wasn't going to have something fermenting while I was away, but the last Saturday, April 9, I took the chance. My wife was in class that day and I had made the decision that week to brew that day. Ostensibly I was to help prepare for her birthday party that night, which I did and everything turned out amazing, but I also brewed not one but two batches back-to-back. Because my previous brew was a porter I wanted something lighter for the warmer weather. I plan to do a Kölsch this year, but as that will be my first lagered beer I wanted to be at home with it during fermentation. I've thought about rebrewing my brown ale, but since I just did a porter that would be too close a style. I looked through my list of basic beer styles and decided to rebrew my California Common It's always been a hit and it's light enough but also flavorful enough to be a tasty warmer weather brew. But then again, I live in Berkeley, so warm weather might not be until September/October. I also brewed a gluten-free beer, something I've been interested in producing for my GGF friends. The Beer Making Book has a GF recipe for every season of beer, but three of them involve malting your own buckwheat, something I'm not keen on doing myself. The GF recipe for the spring uses carrots, red quinoa, basmati rice, and table sugar, easy enough! That was my second brew on April 9, and both fermentations started well. I look forward to packaging both and seeing how they turn out. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll actually get 2 gal of CA Common in bottles, as opposed to the first two times I brewed it.

I've been planning the next few brews and need to figure out when to line them up. To help me I've created a spreadsheet weekly calendar to better plan and track my brewing. I realize there's software that could do this, but I like DIY and knowing how it all comes together. Plus, coding in spreadsheet is oddly satisfying. These are my brewing plans for the summer:

• My BAM friend Fernando has a 10-gal all electric system and he wants to do a joint brew. With his larger system he suggested I take home two 3-gal carboy's of wort, and he keep 5 gal, then we use different yeasts or dry-hopping. He's become a master of IPAs so I suggested we brew a basic IPA recipe. He'll use the usual American Ale yeast and known hops for good IPA dry-hopping. I'll use a Belgian yeast and match his dry-hopping in one batch, and in the other I'll use simple English Ale yeast and maybe dry-hop with a more subtle, less US West Coast styling. We have yet to schedule this, and I'm looking forward to it.
• The BAM Style of the Quarter (SOQ) for 2016Q2 was announced as wheat, and the 2015 BJCP Styles allowed are American Wheat, any of the German Wheat beers, Wheatwine, Berliner Weisse, Witbier, and Gose. I don't care for wheat beers. I'll drink them, and I brewed one at the start of my second year of homebrewing, but I just don't like the taste of wheat malt. However, I have been getting more into Goses, and a Craft Beer & Brewing email this week had a Gose recipe. The Beer Making Book also has a Gose, so I'll compare the two recipes and brew one for the competition. I like that I've found this way into the SOQ since I don't like wheat beers. I was afraid I'd have to miss out on this one, as I want to compete as much as sensible, and now I'll get to. It'll also be the first sour beer I'll brew, via kettle souring, and I'm excited for how it could turn out. The entry deadline is June 2, so if I get the brew started by the first week of May there will be enough time since this style should be drunk fresh, like a super hoppy IPA. The CB&B recipe calls for rice hulls, and I still have plenty from the GF ale, and I think I have enough of the suggested hop, too! The grain bill is fairly simple, and I'll the Lactobacillus or drop a dollop of plain yogurt in the pre-wort.
• Belgian quad rarity Westvleteren 12. My friend and I were going to cultivate the yeast from that tasty Trappist treat, but learned that they just use the commercially available Westmalle yeast variety. Knowing that this should be much easer. It has a very simple grain bill, and with a 20% off coupon Northern Brewer sent me I purchased the European hops and dark candi syrup needed. This brew will age in secondary for 3 months, and depending on when I start it and the IPA experiment with Fernando, I might have to buy another 3-gal carboy. I want this beer for the colder weather next fall and winter, so starting this later in the spring or into the summer might not be out of the question.
• And finally I want to try my hand at lagering with a Kölsch. As the lagered ale complement of a California Common, it will be interesting to see how the lagering goes. You might have come across the quick lagering method, and I will likely attempt that  method just to not tie up my temperature controlled fermentation chamber for over nearly two months if I want to lager. During the summer I could quick lager in my mini fridge and ferment ales just sitting in my living room. We'll see how things turn out.

As for my Year of Beer 2016, I've been brewing beer as much as I can, and I've also been searching for and applying to brewery jobs as I can find them. I've gone on a few interviews but nothing's come from them yet. If any of you readers are out there in the Bar Area, particularly the East Bay or SF, send jobs my way.

And that's what I have for now! 

How's your brewing coming along this year? Any interesting batches, past of future? Have you competed and done well, or better than you expected?

Until next time, friends, happy brewing!