On a recent vacation, I was lucky enough to try a Caribbean secret, the dark beer! Often times on a vacation to a warm climate, you’re stuck drinking yellow fizz or some umbrella garnished fruity concoction. While I personally subscribe to the “when in Rome” theory of drinking, it’s always nice to learn a little about the local flair and be pleasantly surprised.
Pictured above is a Dragon Stout brewed by Desnoes & Geddes Limited and is one of two stouts I had the chance to try while in Jamaica. I picked this one up out of a cooler on route to our resort. Perhaps my judgement was impaired by the glorious feeling when I expected to find a Red Stripe and I was lucky enough to get something with a little bite, but I really enjoyed this beer. Initially there was a very smooth creamy mouth feel that really hid the 7%ABV and made this taste a lot like a rich creamy yoo-hoo than a stout. For a beer of this ilk, it had a clean finish and didn’t coat the mouth with gummy coffee feel you get from a heavier stout, a must for hot weather dark beer drinking. As I came closer to finishing the beer, the alcohol burn began to push through the experience and made the beer a little more intolerable. With that said, I give this a lot of praise, it’s a great example of a stout that fits the realities of being a hot weather stout.
The second stout I was lucky enough to try was the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout brewed by the same brewery as the Dragon Stout. This one was actually available behind the bar at my resort (Couples Swept Away) and I was able to have them on demand! Weighing in at a more modest 6.5% abv, this brew had a lot of esters that gave the rich chocolate and coffee notes the background treatment. The fruitiness in the front end really drowned out the other flavors on the early sips, but once my pallet settled in, it was a smooth creamy brew. I drank a few of these and was never unhappy with the experience. Again, when you consider the warm climate, I thought that these beers fit the ambiance a Caribbean stout should have. Smooth, clean, refreshing and potent.
The only bad experience I had was when a few jack-ass tourists (obviously not as cool as my self) ordered a “Red Bull and Guinness” because there was no vodka or Jager for them to mix it with I guess. Normally I would just scoff at this kind of abuse and move on, but in this case, they used the last cold Guinness on their absurd concoction and left me drinking Red Stripe. Tisk tisk tisk…
Living in Upstate New York means great apples! Great apples means great hard cider! It’s been a few years since I’ve done a hard cider, so I figured it was about time. Friday I made a special trip out to Abbott Farms in nearby Baldwinsville, New York. I picked up five one gallon jugs of UV pasteurized cider for a total bill of about $25, not too bad.
With the cider in hand, I decided to start the process today. I crushed up five campden tablets (one tablet per gallon of cider) and sealed up my bucket. The campden tablets are for killing all the wild yeast and bacteria that exist in the cider. UV pasteurization is a process of killing some of the dangerous bacteria, without the full pasteurization that is necessary for a lot of commercial products. This is the “good stuff” because when they do the full pasteurization process, there are sugars and such added to the product to restore some of the lost sweetness.
From here, I will wait 48hrs and pitch a yeast to the cider. Simple. In my limited experience, there are always some yeasts and bacteria leftover even after the addition of the campden tablets so expect a full and aggressive fermentation. That is why I use a bucket on these and not the bottle.
There are other options on how to treat the cider, one is to heat it over 180f but be sure not to boil the cider, it’s bad.
More to come, but my fall brewing is in full effect.
This past weekend I broke out the two tap cold plate setup and had two beers on tap for the big “Colgate Vs. Syracuse” showdown. We had an epic tailgate party with plenty of beverages, food and happy people. It’s events like these that the cold-plate and all the extra fixings come into effect.
Interestingly, the Noble Pils had a totally different flavor (hops wise anyway) than my one at home on tap. I really felt like I had a full hops flavor, where the one I have on tap at home was a little soapy tasting almost. The one that I tapped at the party though really tasted like Saas hops, which was what I was going for. Maybe I didn’t rinse one of my kegs well enough or something. Who knows.
The Kaffir Lime Imperial Lager was a big hit and we kicked a whole keg of it. It took a little bit for my brews to get settled out and for some of the folks to break into the homebrew, but once everyone did and the beer was flowing, it was on!
Finally, I racked over my harvest ale and tasted it. Very good so far, but really muddy. It needs some time to settle so I may pull out some tricks to get it good and clear by the end of October.
I’m back! Today was my first brew day since June, wow, it’s been a while. This year I decided to try out a harvest ale, this one I am calling Hog’s Back Pale Ale as it’s football season and this should make for a great Sunday session beer.
My recipe was simple enough, I had some 2-row English Pale malt and some domestic 2-row pale malt left over from past brew days so I used those supplies along with my hops from time past. The recipe is here:
11.5lbs English 2-row
7.7lbs Domestic 2-row
1lb 90L Crystal malt
.25lb flaked barley
2oz Cascade hops 60 min
2oz Cascade hops 30 min
12.5oz fresh picked Cascade hops from my yard!
Wyeast 1056 – American Ale
After doing some research, I found two consistent aspects of a harvest ale; one is that the base recipe is generally a pale ale, two is that the fresh hops are added at flame out. Now initially I was going to just put all my cascade hops I had grown into it just because I figured with them being wet, I would need a lot to get something out of them. However, after researching more, I found that most people used a 5-1 ratio for adjusting to the wet hops from normal dried hops, this means that if you would normally put 2oz of hops in at flame out, add 10 of wet hops.
One important aspect to keep in mind is that the fresh hops really suck up the wort, because of this, I squeezed out the hops when I was done. I did this by using a hop sack for my hops.
This was a 9.5 gal target batch where I was looking for somewhere in the 1.04’s for my gravity, I wanted something light that would really accentuate the fresh hops flavor. In the end, I wound up with about 10 gal and was 1.041 for my OG. It reads at about 38 IBU’s but hopefully the only thing that you get is a big fresh hops bunch in the mouth.
Over the summer I’ve been catching up on my Basic Brewing Radio episodes while mowing the lawn. I just listened to the August 12th episode from James Spencer’s visit to the 2010 National Homebrewer’s Conference Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a panel discussion with five professional brewers discussing their stories of going pro with brewing.
The crux of this post is that one of the professional brewers, in the process of describing how he attracted the necessary funding to start a brewery, made a comment about being aware of where you were located and that will dictate your brewery. While I am never a supporter of backwards pro habitation style limits to alcohol production, the comment was directed towards the general business environment in New York State. It was a comment in passing about never taking an investor from New York because of all the hell in the process of satisfying state-based requirements to take the investment.
Anyway, prior to the comment, I was listening to my iPod mowing my lawn thinking “hey, you know, I could do this, I could maybe do a brew pub” but that comment brought me crashing back to reality of living in New York State. It’s a sad state of affairs here in NY and honestly there is no end in sight. For anyone that reads this from another state, the reality of New York is that we are dominated by New York City’s interests as it’s the home of over 65% of the state’s population. You see, in NYC, there is no need to create a good business environment because you have Wall Street and one of the most dynamic cities in the world. However, in Upstate New York, the interests of NYC cripple the business environment in an area where we need to work to be competitive.
Even LeBron James decided that the tax-free shelter of Florida was a more attractive option than New York. While anyone here in New York is extremely familiar with the term “most dysfunctional government in the country”, it’s times like this that I am reminded of the real consequences of this reality. It’s a sad state of affairs that we in New York are stuck and there is nothing we can really do. I know, you’re thinking “go vote your politicians out” blah blah blah, but unfortunately it won’t change a thing. New York City has the vast majority of the state’s population, money and elected officials. They will always have the interests of the city in mind over the rest of the state and this will continue to be a state with a very poor business environment.
That means fewer brewers and brew pubs opening, those that do start will face a state that sees them as a problem more than a benefit. They’ll be forced to clear the violations on a property that have nothing to do with the new owners, pay taxes and fees that dwarf those of other states, face a state alcohol regulation bureau that assumes guilt over innocence, and fight countless local regulations.
Anyway, I was really optimistic listening to those stories of brew pub owners and how they got started, but as you can tell my response is more pessimistic given the reality of where I live. No I am not going to move, no I am not going to run for office, I am just pissed that if I do decide to create a business, perhaps a brew pub, it’s in spite of the environment where I live, not because of it. This is yet another reason that I am such a strong supporter of New York based breweries, especially those in upstate, you know what they say “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!” Sadly oh so true.
Time for a beer.
Anyway, I’ll be brewing this week, this will be my harvest ale and I’ll have more to come on how that will go.
As always, sorry for the lax posting efforts. The summer has been flying by and I haven’t brewed in a while now. Here is a quick update on my hops. This year has been tough on them. As you’ll see in the video the Japanese Beetles had their way with my Centennial Hops. The Cascade look pretty good and I harvested most of my Fuggles already. For the Cascade this year, I was actually thinking about brewing a harvest beer as I was really happy with a few that I tried. It might make for a good Oktoberfest brew.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video and I promise to get back on my game ASAP!
Over the years I have traditionally done a wit or some variation of a good refreshing summer brew. This year I decided to take on a saison, a Belgian farm-house ale that I have enjoyed for years. Like most Belgian style brews, this beer highlights the yeast above all other flavors and is complemented with a bouquet of understated flavors. Some of those flavors might sound like the recipe to a Belgian wit (grains of paradise, orange peel etc.), but can be used in the Saison as well.
Personally, I will be using some GOP only because I have a little left over and I am just going to throw them in, but it shouldn’t be enough to really make much of an impact. I was thinking that I would also use some orange peel just to get some citrus notes, but I would like to keep all these flavors on the back burner for this brew.
With the yeast being the key component to the brew, temperature is going to be essential here. I am going to do some scouting out on temperature predictions for the next few weeks to hopefully get a hot spell where I can ensure that I will get an 80+f temp for 5-7 days. That is going to be key to getting all of the esters and complexity out of the yeast.
I am still researching the exact recipe, but I would like to use some of the ingrdients that I have left over from brews past so I will use some 2 row and probably get some pilsner in there as well. Most of the recipes I’ve seen add some corn sugar to the wort, but I am not sure about that, I would like to be on the lower end of the 5%-8% ABV scale I’ve seen so I shouldn’t need it.
More to come, any advice on this style would obviously be greatly appreciated.
Ok, without going into a huge explanation about the last two months, I’ve been really distracted. There have been two big happenings in the past two months that have kept me busy, the first is a new man toy!
Yup its the often criticized Triumph TR7 which I have been working on getting back into operation the past three weeks. I know what you’re thinking, drinking and driving don’t mix, not kidding. However, in some weird way, beer and old cars do, don’t ask me how, they just do. Why is the Tr7 criticized? Well many believe that it led to the downfall of the British Leyland and it was voted one of the 50 worst cars ever built due to its under-powered engine and over protective bumpers. However, with all that being said, it’s had a bit of a resurgence in the past 5 years in Europe and with many (including mine) getting after-market engine upgrades to more powerful v-6’s and v-8’s, it’s actually a nappy ride.
Mine is a 1976 with a 231ci 3.8L V-6 engine and automatic transmission. Over the past few weeks I’ve tore out the interior and installed new carpet, changed the valve cover gaskets, the manifold gaskets as well as tinker with the carb. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s distracted me for brewing.
The good news is that I was sick for about two weeks and didn’t touch my beer so there was little to no hit on my supply from the end of April until about a week ago. Currently, Bobby Brown is still hanging out on tap, my Noble Pilsner is tapping (although I really may have over hopped with Saaz on that one, the hops flavor on it is a little intense), along with my latest IPA and Japanese Kaffir Lime Imperial Lager ( just realized I didn’t make a post for this one, I will have to write something up ASAP!).
Besides all of the above, I’ve been out exploring beers in the greater Syracuse area…oh yea, and I was lucky enough to see Pearl Jam AGAIN in Hartford CT, here is a little taste:
Thanks for sticking with me! More to come, cheers!
Big Red Jeff Foote meeting fans (Ryan Whittman is cutoff on the left)
I apologize for the letting my posts go this month, March Madness has me going a little crazy because there are still TWO CNY teams in the tourney, SU and the Cinderella story of the year, the Cornell Big Red. With all that said, I am still going to find some time to brew this weekend.
The last time I brewed an IPA it was November so I figured I am due for another one. It’s always great to have an IPA on tap. So Bryan and I will be brewing a 20gal batch. Here is the plan as it stands:
44lbs American 2 row
2lbs Cyrstal 20L
1.5lbs Crystal 60L
1.3lbs Cara-Pils/Dex
Simple enough base recipe that has worked for me the past few times, it’s a target OG of 1.056 so I am trying to keep this one on the lower scale of alcohol for the style. Here is what I have for the hops schedule:
4oz Magnum 60min
2oz Centennial 60min
2oz Cascade 30min
2oz Cascade 20min
2oz Cascade 1min (cool down)
4oz Cascade dry hopping
Keep in mind that there are two 10 gallon kettles and four 5 gallon fermentation vessels so it will only be 1oz per vessel on the dry hopps. I am going to get a fresh pack of 1056 American Ale yeast to use and we’re on our way.
So, tonight I will be up at the Carrier Dome watching the Cornell Big Red try to upset the Kentucky Wildcats in the
Picture from a game at the dome this year
Sweet 16 after the Syracuse Orange put another team to bed. It’s a great time to be in CNY with a basetball jones!
With the winter of Upstate New York beginning it’s long decline, it’s time to start thinking about summer beers. I had originally wanted to squeeze a doppelbock into the lager season, but that’s not going to happen this year. It’s probably a good thing though as I have been on a bit of a “big beer kick” and I need some more session beers.
This weekend I decided to tackle an old favorite, the pilsner. Only this time, I wanted to really do one that I wanted, not just one that I thought would fit a style. This is meant to be a hoppy pilsner, inspired by Mammoth Brewing Company’s Golden Trout Pilsner. A friend brought me a bomber of this from Cali and I really enjoyed it. It was a hoppy interpretation of the pilsner style that is listed as a German Pilsner, but I would call it a modern-American Pilsner. While it didn’t receive a lot of “BA love”, I thought it was a great brew. They listed it as being made up pilsner and vienna malt with all Noble hops. Not a lot of really useful information. So I used the ingredients and went forward.
My brew came out something like this:
18.5lbs UK 2-row pilsner
3lbs Vienna
60 min – 3oz Saaz
30min – 1oz Hallertauer, 1oz Tettnag, 1oz Pearle
Cool down – 2oz Saaz
Dry hopped – 2oz Saaz whole-leaf
For the actual brew, I decided on a protein rest and a double decoction. The second decoction was for getting the mash-tun up to mash out temps. The protein rest was 122f for 35 min followed by a 20min decoction consisting of 4.5 gallons. When the decoction mash was added back to the mashtun the temp was 155f where it rested for 45mim. The second decoction was only for 13min and consisted of 2.5 gallons, but still brought the temp up to the desired 168f mash out.
I sparged for about a half hour and at the end, I was a little light in my volume so I topped off with two gallons of water before the boil. After the boil, I was a little low in my volume, but I was high on the gravity so I topped off with some water to get to my desired 1.044 OG.
The idea here is a simple pilsner with a great hop profile, some tradition with a more modern smack. Hopefully it comes out. It might not be in any styles, but it’s going to be cooling me down this summer.
CNY stands for Central New York for anyone who doesn't know. I am located in the Syracuse area and enjoy homebrewing beer. I've been brewing since 2002 and currently I all-grain brew most of my beer. I make a lot of gadgets and try to document them as well as possible on this site. I also try to document recipes and brewing techniques. Hope you have fun and remember to relax and have a homebrew!
