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!

Fall/Winter Brewing Roundup and Spring Forecast

It's a new month so I better post a new entry.

Smack pack round 2!

I started this blog four years ago to share my love of homebrewing and to document my own adventures. I initially posted an entry for every batch of beer I brewed, but that slowed down when I wrote my PhD dissertation at the end of 2013, and again when I moved across the country to start my first post-graduate research job. I still photo-document every batch, but those images are stored on my personal laptop, which I don't have ready access to as my wife uses it regularly for her graduate coursework. I barely get to use it for more than 5 minutes at a time when I download podcasts and sync them to my iPod a couple times a week. Before my current work travel to the Black Hills, I uploaded the photos from my past four homebrew batches to Facebook galleries and now feel right posting about those brewdays as I have access to their images. Three of the batches I described in my previous homebrewing post have been tasted and are almost gone, so I now have the opportunity to give a wrap-up report on them.

New yeast, old hops, milled grain for a porter.

New Month, New Year, New Post!

Hey everybody!

Welcome to 2016! I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and joyous New Year. I know I did, and I even got to do some Brewouristing while in St Louis for a conference between the holidays. This month has been so busy, and it's barely half over! But let me give an update of my recent beer-based activities.

Like I said, I did some Brewouristing while in StL. My wife and I had some drinks while around the city and I aimed to sample local favorite. While at lunch at The Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar I had a flight and finally got to taste Prairie BOMB! SO GOOD! Now I understand the hype. This is a great imperial stout aged on coffee, cacao nibs, vanilla, and chilies, and well worth the wait. At the hotel bar I greatly enjoyed Urban Chestntut's STLIPA, a wonderfully hoppy, floral and fruity, lightly bitter double IPA. And at another lunch we ate at Morgan Street Brewpub, a neighborhood joint serving their own fare. A disappointment on that trip came from Schlafly, another StL stalwart. Their pale ale is an amber, and not that great, and the kolsch was merely acceptable. Bummer, but not every brewery can produce high quality beer, something I hope won't be said if I go into brewing professionally.

Upon returning to Berkeley I bottled the milk stout with coffee I brewed earlier in December. That was my 2015 closeout brew, which I'm calling "Little Lebowski." I mentioned brewing it in my triple-beer weekend Dec 5-6, and a fuller post about it is coming after I take the first taste. If it's good I'll submit it to a competition due the last weekend of January, and no matter what I'll be sharing it with friends during a viewing of The Big Lebowski as it's my favorite film and inspiration for the original The Dude Abides. But since this one came out at 6% ABV, and my goal was a less heavy beer than the original, I hope it's good and I feel confident competing with it.

My first brew of 2016 was a stripped down saison using the recipe for the Spicy Jalapeño Saison with none of the extra sugar or added peppers. My 2016 brewing plans are to perfect my brewing of basic recipes, and I've been wanting to do this with this saison recipe for a couple of years now. The brewing went well and primary fermentation felt like it went fast, but I purposely kept it nearly 69°F to aim for traditional warmer saison fermentation temps. I've got the controller set to that during the remaining fermentation and conditioning, and don't even have the cooling output plugged into the temperature controller so that it stays as warm as possible. OG came out to 1.040, one of the lower gravities I've ever had. Depending on overall attenuation, it could come out to 3.5-5% ABV. Fingers crossed that it'll be tasty and good enough for competition, as well!

That same weekend I had my second professional brewing experience. During the BAM brew day we teased with Dan the CQ brewer that he should get beer nerds to help him regularly. I emailed him that following week with that proposal and he jumped on it. So January 9 I headed down to San Leandro's industrial neighborhood and helped the CQ guys package a saison for SF Beer Week. I assisted in the sanitization, CO2 purge, and filling of two firkins, and then manned the sanitization and CO2 stations for 20 cases of 750-ml champagne bottles (that's 240). I only squirted myself once with pressuring sanitizer, and got to know Dan and Peter. I had plans with my wife that night so I couldn't stay too long, otherwise I would have kegged the finished beer in their other bright tank. Dan was happy with my help and when I'm back in the Easy Bay I'll hit him up to see where I can be assistance in February.

Since it was announced last summer, I've also been in regular communication with two gentlemen starting a new brewpub in Berkeley. I have yet to meet them, but we've maintained email correspondence, and with any luck our schedules will line up in February. I want to brew as much of my own beer this year, but I also want to get professional experience to bolster my resume. I now have two brewery job applications out there. 2016 is the year of beer. Here's to whatever my future holds!

How were your holidays? Any fun beer adventures? What do you hope that 2016 holds for you?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!

BAM Brew Day at Cleophus Quealy

Oh no! It's Tuesday!

The CQ taproom.

Beer! Barrels! Brewery!

Sorry for the late update. I had another craft beer-y weekend, and I can't wait to share all about it. This is kind of a sequel from the events of last weekend at the BAM Christmas party. One of the prizes for the winning IPA brewer was to brew a version of it at Cleophus Quealy nanobrewery in San Leandro, CA, just south of Oakland in the East Bay. But not only did the winner get to brew with them, all of BAM was invited to CQ for the day! We were guests of the brewery and were treated to beer and pizza. What a better Sunday Funday?

Brief Update

Hey all!

I have a brief update for you. I've been traveling and sick the past two Mondays, respectively, so haven't been able to get a new post written and up. But I haven't been lax in my brewing and craft beering!

Everything I've been working on in the past few months has been bottled, and I've even tasted a few of the batches. The first I tasted was my oat pale ale. Not impressed. It tastes like green apples, which means acetaldehyde, a precursor to ethyl alcohol in the fermentation process. The yeast is supposed to clean up all the acetaldehyde by the end of fermentation, but if you remove the beer from the yeast too early, or allow the yeast to go dormant and fall out of suspension, that step can be arrested. Apparently that's what I did! Even though the beer sat on the yeast for a month before bottling, maybe the yeast just didn't finish its work. I talked to Tom at Oak Barrel and from what he could gather from books they have on hand, there's not much I can do once it's on bottles. So I've placed my case of OPA near the heater in my apartment and shake them up every few days to rouse the yeast so that it can do some more work. Hopefully that works. If it doesn't, I've got a cidery beer on my hands, and a bit of a disappointment in my work. After the off flavoring of the S'More Of What?, another not great beer is kind of a slap in the face, and has me questioning my desire to go into brewing professionally. Oh well, ever onward…

The #w00tstout is amazing! Can not wait to try this. I'm having some friends over in a two Fridays to sample the latest of Dr. Bradley's Brewing Co., and this will be the star of the show. The hydrometer sample was quite good, so I know the conditioned product will be great, and I will slowly mete out this batch over the next year-plus.

I dry-hopped and bottled the Almost Gold Medal IPA, cold crashing for 1.5 days in between, and it smells great. I barely got to taste it having to use some of the hydrometer sample to fill the 20th bottle, but what I did taste was quite good. For an IPA it could be a bit bitter, but it's hoppiness is sweet, floral, fruity, and a light touch, very well balanced. I hope only 11 days in bottle will be enough to meld and condition the flavors for competition at the BAM Christmas party this Saturday. Even if it doesn't place, I expect this batch to be a good one, and the happiness should mellow into something nice while this batch lasts. Definitely a leg up on my IPA making, and I will be researching the temperature variance of the fermentation schedule to understand the why and how of what I was directed to do following that recipe.

I finally tasted the Grapes & Grain, and it's good! The yeasty esters are a bit much, for my tastes at least, but it's good overall. I drank the mixture of the two versions, and it was plentifully carbonated without  being a gusher or having too strong of a carbonic taste. Having this batch turn out this good, after two disappointments this year, was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I won't be ashamed to serve it to my friends next Friday. I'll also be shipping some to the grapes' provider in Atlanta, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of them.

This last weekend I had a triple-beer experience. A new friend of mine from BAM was brewing a Mexican milk stout using Abuelita tablets, and we collaborated on adapting a recipe he found to his 5-gal system. After that I headed over another friend's house where he and his husband were hosting a house warming holiday get-together after their recent nuptials, and shared a batch of nut brown ale they recently brewed. Then Sunday morning I got up and brewed a lower ABV version of my Imperial White Russian milk stout w/ coffee, The Dude Abides. I like what I've produced before, pushing it up to 9.1% ABV, but I'd rather have a more drinkable beer, especially with the #w00tstout I'll have around for the next year-plus. My aim was to get something about 5.5%, but I believe this batch will be about 7%, which is fine. I already have an idea how to modify it more to reduce the ABV and keep the body and mouthfeel full and smooth. After pitching around 1:30PM, fermentation began by midnight, and by this morning it was bubbling away. I'll "dry hop" the whole beans, although I'm considering coarse grinding them and putting them in a muslin sock for greater area exposure

And that should take us up to today. I am working on my overall brewing plan for 2016. Having some friends over next week to sample my beers will be the inaugural event in what I hope to be an every 6ish weeks series wherein I serve my friends my beer and they give me honest, open feedback. I hope to use this next year to push my brewing to the next level with consistent, positive results. I will also be seeking any and all local homebrewing competitions to start getting official recognition under my belt.

What have you been up to before and since Thanksgiving? Any fun autumnal or wintery brews coming up? What are your plans for 2016?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!

2015: A Year of Brewing

As I mentioned before, while I was quiet here on the blog I was not absent in my brewery, I mean kitchen. I plowed forward, re-brewing previous batches and attempting new recipes while making my own. I also joined the Bay Area Mashers homebrewing club in the summer, and they run a quarterly in-house brewing competition, so some of my batches were to compete in that, and will be in the foreseeable future. Additionally, I've been doing my own sampling of the pros, and continue to seek out neighborhood breweries and brewpubs wherever I travel.

I'm back!

Hey all,

I don't know who reads this, or who has been reading this in the nearly year since I last posted. I last wrote about fall 2014's brewings, started a post about online resources I use for my homebrewing, and then 2015 happened. As you may know, my wife and I moved to Berkeley, CA from Cleveland, OH summer 2014 for my first post-graduate research position. Within months my wife found a seminary program to attend and takes classes full time on top of part time work in the morning and teaching piano  lessons afternoons throughout the week. I still brewed, at an even more aggressive rate than before, but just didn't have the energy or made the time to write about it and other beer and brewing related items.

Rye Ale, Porter, and Double IPA, Oh My!

I brewed three batches this fall, two rebrews of previous batches and a simple new one, putting me at four brews deep after my move to Berkeley. My first brew here, the annual Spicy Jalapeño Saison, is another rousing success. The next three brews were a first-time rye pale ale, which has been bottled, conditioned, and is currently being enjoyed; a rebrew of the peanut butter porter I brewed in the 2012-2013 winter; and a rebrew of the single-hop IPA recipe I augmented into a double IPA and brewed on July 4, 2013. I've been enjoying the rye pale ale and have noted a maturation from the first bottle I drank. The PB Porter was tasted at the end of the first week of December and the double IPA was bottled November 29 to be tasted before year's end.

Bridging the Gap: Cleveland to Berkeley

In this post I will cover my last batch brewed in Cleveland and my first batch brewed in Berkeley. They are both repeats so I don't feel like they deserve they own posts, and even though they are repeat brews they still stand on their own uniqueness with lessons learned during the brewing. I had hoped to brew one more batch before leaving cleveland, but that was untenable, and my first batch in Berkeley was a few months in the making and turned out great.

Going to California

This post was started back in April, before I moved across the country. It's now October and I'm finally finishing and posting it.

"Spent my days with a woman I love, 

Smoked no stuff and drank all the beer.... 
Made up my mind to take a new job, 

Going To California with an aching... and some fear."

That is a parody of the opening lines to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." As I've mentioned before, I'm moving to the Bay Area for a research position, so I wanted to open this post with a little something that spoke to moving out west, changing the lyrics a bit for my situation. When I prepared to brew this batch I didn't have a recipe ready so I thumbed through my recipe books and found this one: a California Commons, called "Spring Lager" in the recipe book. Also known as Steam Beer, this style is a lager brewed at the low end of ale temperatures, about 64°F. It was invented in San Francisco, CA during the Gold Rush when Central Europeans came out west to make their fortune. To capitalize on the new immigrants, beer makers attempted to make a draught the miners were familiar with, lagered pilsners, but without the ability to cold ferment and cold store the beer, the drink was fermented warm with lager yeast and Steam Beer was born!

Very basic brew, no fancy additions.

"Today is the Greatest (Day I've Ever Known)"

No, I'm not contemplating suicide. But this beer is loosely named after the '90s Chicago grunge band The Smashing Pumpkins, and their song "Today" always springs to mind when I think of Billy Corgan's greatest art performance ever. I would like to brew a pumpkin beer every fall from fresh baking pumpkins, but last autumn I was writing my thesis and not brewing, so I was unable to brew my 2013 pumpkin beer. I did buy two baking pumpkins at the end of September, roasted them, and froze 3 lbs. of flesh for my later use. This sat in my freezer since mid-October and I finally got to brew my pumpkin beer. 2012 saw a pumpkin porter, and this year I planned to mimic Dogfish Head's Punkin, starting with my Brown Jewel's Ale from last year and morphing it into a pumpkin brown ale using how DFH labels Punkin: Brown ale brewed with pumpkin and brown sugar. From there came this brew.

First runnings (left bottom), straining out second runnings (top right), and pumpkin (bottom right).

Hoppity hops!

"Careful man, there's a beverage here!"

While my return to homebrewing and blogging began on Dec 20, two days after my PhD thesis defense, I still haven't posted anything since earlier in January when I announced my return to homebrewing and blogging. My first post-defense brew was bottled on Jan 12, and as it's a new recipe of a high gravity style with a complex flavor palate, I have yet to give it a try because I want to allow it plenty of time to mellow and meld so my first taste won't give a bad impression. That said, I do owe you, my readers, a post detailing its brewing, especially since I'll be brewing two batches in the next two weekends and I want to get this off my plate.

"I got a rash, man.  I got a rash..." 

I had the idea for my most recent batch, an imperial milk stout with coffee, from The Big Lebowski (TBL), the Coen Brothers' 1998 cult hit and my all-time favorite movie. I first saw this movie when hallmates of mine in my first year of college invited me into their room on Wednesday night in January 2001, handed me a cheap beer, sat me down, and pressed play on their DVD player. I was subjected to 2+ hours of a rambling shaggy dog detective story that melded elements of bowling noir, Raymond Chandler, LA-ness, and all the rest, and loved the heck out of it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Only the relationship with my wife has been as rapidly strong and long-lasting. I made a costume of one of the main characters for Halloween 2003 and have worn it every time I've seen it on the big screen since, even when meeting Jeff "The Dude" Bridges after a Q&A following a showing of the film at UCSB. I try to bring it into conversation, have sat people down with a white russian in hand and turned them onto one of the greatest films of the later 20th century, and even worked it into a short answer midterm in a college course on human sexuality ("a natural, zesty enterprise"). It's my favorite movie.

Peaches Come In A Bottle, They Were Put There By This Man...

The last beer I brewed before taking a thesis break was one from The Beer Making Book.  It was described as a beer form of peach cobbler, and I had to wait for peach season this past summer to brew it.  I haven't had great success with the brews from that book, but they've all turned out drinkable.  The last fruit-infused beer I brewed from it was a red ale with blueberries, and it was one of my least favorite homebrews.  That said, I wanted to give this one a try since peaches were in season in late summer and I like peach cobbler.  I peeled and roasted fresh peaches to go in the boil, and was excited for this once I bottled it after a couple weeks fermenting.  That excitement was stifled with the first bottle, and will be discussed at the end of this entry.  On to the peaches!

Grains, oats, hops and yeast...

... Plus peeled and roasted peaches.

A Brew the Founding Fathers Would Be Proud Of

My wife was out of town the week of July 4, and I worked my usual work hours, 9-6, but took the 4th off for some me time because it was America Day, I hadn't played disc golf since January, and hadn't brewed since May.  I woke up and drove out to Sims Park in Euclid, OH to play a solo game of disc golf.  I almost got into a fight with some local idiot who thought it was fine to park his grill exactly in front of the 10 basket.  When I alerted him to this fact and suggested he move 30 feet to the right he responded with an obscenity and threatened my health.  I let him be after reminding him that not only was I ruining his holiday, but he was ruining mine.  My day was overshadowed by this, but I let it go and finished my game.  When I got home I began brewing preparations while I made and ate brunch and finished watching Fight Club from the night before.  Then it was time to brew.  I played The Magnificent Seven on my laptop in the dining room while I brewed, and when that finished I put on The Bridge on the River Kwai; favorite western and war movies to enjoy on America Day while my wife was out of town because she doesn't care for those genres.

American-grown grain and hops, English ale yeast.

So what did I brew on America Day?  An American Pale Ale?  A crappy, rice and corn mashed pilsner?  A bourbon barrel stout?  None of the above, but a single-hop double IPA using a proprietary Hopunion hop; an American craft beer-style super-hopped IPA, bigger and bolder like everything else in the US.  I found the original recipe here, where Hopunion implies that they give a new recipe every month, but this has been up since February 2013.  As I brew in gallon batches I adjusted the original recipe to my needs, and then when I purchased the grains I increased the base 2-Row Pale Malt grains from 2.4 lbs to 3.0 lbs because I wanted to make a stronger beer.  I prepared my recipe the night before so when I went to brew I was ready.  However, I remembered the suggestions from the Beer Craft 1-gallon homebrewing book for turning a pale ale into an IPA, then into a double IPA, so while I mashed the grains I modified my recipe on the fly, increasing the sparge amount and boil time, as well as the hop amounts.

I Like My IPA Black as Night

Malt, yeast, hops, hops, hops!  This is an IPA, after all.

It's been two months since I brewed this batch, another five weeks since I've bottled it, and have already tasted two bottles.  Why the wait for this post?  Well, as regular readers know, I am unable to spend a lot of time on this blog, and I recently finished the long-in-waiting post on Christmas/Winter themed beers, and since that's been waiting for months I wanted to get that out before this one.  But I've just brewed another batch, whose brewing post probably won't be written until after I bottle it in two weeks, so it's time I get this one out.  

This is my first Black IPA, or IBA (Indian black ale).  It's a recipe from my friend and college roommate Sean Lewis that is reminiscent of Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.  It's also the first time I've dry hopped and the first time I ever heard of first wort hopping, and had to do some research to figure out what that is and how to carry it out; this will be covered later.  The recipe Sean gave me was for 5-gallon brewing, as that's his wont, but I'm a 1-gallon brewer, so I took out my trusty slide rule, filled notebooks with advanced calculations, and got a smaller-yeild recipe for my 1-gallon brewing.  I also use dry yeast so what I used is different from his recipe, and made hops substitutions to use what I already had in my freezer.  But that's the glory of homebrewing! You don't have to follow a recipe to the letter and you'll still get beer.  Relax, have a homebrew.

Never Be Late for a BBQ

I see that I haven't posted anything since April 2.  That's nearly two months.  When I started this blog I thought I'd post every week, then it became every month, and even that has not necessarily been the case.  I still brew, and still enjoy new beers, and still try to visit breweries and dine at brewpubs.  I still talk to my friend Pete about homebrewing and read as much as I can about techniques new to me and ingredients.  I just haven't bothered to take the time to write about it all.

"Why?" you ask.

I'm busy.  I'm trying to finish my PhD by November.  When I get to the lab I aim to spend most of my time working and the few times I screw around to unwind my head before I dive back into my work I try not to get too distracted by a blog post which will occupy me until it's finished.  But now I'm in a phone meeting starting this blog post instead of paying attention because I'm unable to do the work I've been focusing on today.

So what's this post going to be about?  Brewing!  The title points to a recent batch I brewed on St. Pat's back in March, nearly two months ago.  I won't go through all the detail of the brewing since nothing of note happened (and anything that did has been long forgotten), but will talk about it generally.  I've brewed it, racked it, bottled it, conditioned it, and have tried two bottles.  It's good.  Not my best, but good.

You're Killing Me Smalls!

Fans of one of the best coming-of-age movies produced in the '90s will instantly recognize the title of this post.  Those who don't should navigate away from this blog, somehow get a hold of "The Sandlot," and watch it.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you grew up in the Valley in the 1960s, but most importantly you'll understand the plight of newcomer Scotty Smalls when asked if he wants a s'more.  For those of who will always answer the question, "Do you want s'mores?" with a resounding, "yes please!" then this beer might be the one for you.

Milled malted grains, cocoa nibs, hops, yeast... BEER!

Spicy Beer?! Yes!

So this post's title isn't the punniest I've come up with, but that's ok because the batch of homebrew written about isn't that original.  This is the second time I've repeated a recipe and this time it was because I really enjoyed the beer the first time I brewed it.  The beer in question is a Saison, a continental beer brewed during the winter from the leftovers of the harvest and let condition until the summer.  Saisons are traditionally low in alcohol and light of body and were drunk by the fieldhands during their working hours to quench their thirst and keep them hydrated.  This recipe ups the alcohol content by adding Clear Belgian Candi Sugar and Agave Nectar at the end of the boil.  This additional sugar is more food for the yeast to ferment without adding more body, keeping the beer light but increasing the kick.  And this recipe has another strength: jalapeno!

Hops, Agave Nectar, more hope, yeast, jalapeno, clear Belgian Candi sugar.  All this make a mighty fine brew.

A Hipster in Winter Wheat

Grains (mostly malted wheat this time), hops, yeast, plus water, give us beer!

And again it's been a while since my last brew post.  I've brewed, fermented, racked, settled, and bottled my latest batch, a darker wheat, and now I find time to write about it.  Now the only update will be the first tasting by the end of February.  I used the Brooklyn BrewShop's Winter Wheat recipe, with some slight modifications, of course, and I hope it turns out well.  Fermenting conditions went a bit haywire toward the end so who knows how that affected the batch.

I'll Have a PB&J and a Beer, Minus the J

Happy New Year fair readers!  How were your holidays?  Do anything fun for Christmas and/or New Years?  My wife and I went to Poland, and we came back!  Had a local beer there, Zywiec, which is a lager and so wasn't my favorite, but my foray into beers this past year has taught me to respect the styles I don't normally drink, and I enjoyed tasting a local 1/2-L of cold-fermented gold.  But I'm back now and have some time to spend crafting a post about the batch I brewed back in December, before things got crazy trying to tie things up and prepare for our 10 days in Eastern Europe.

Milled grains, hops, PB, and yeast: Together they form yummy beer!