First Brew of the Year

Well I finally broke out the brewing equipment this year. I decided to try something simple and basic in order to get my method down. I chose a TrueBrew brand German Continental Light. I'll have to get rid of my last too brews which are still hanging around. I messed something up with them and couldn't get myself to finish the 90+ beers I made. After talking with a guy at Beer Crazy in Urbandale, IA (I think his name was Randy I'm terrible at remembering names), I think that the problem was pitching the yeast at too high of a temperature. We'll see if this helps out. Alright I'll break down how I whipped up this beer.

Cleaning and Sanitation
Cleaning and sanitation is one of the most important steps in brewing beer. You don't want to have any nasty bacteria hanging around. Not really because of health reasons (alcohol in beer will kill almost anything that will hurt you), its because the dirty stuff can creates off flavors in the beer. After talking to Randy I decided to change from Chlorine Bleach to a cleaner called Five Star: Star San.

Sanitizing Solution

Its a cool product because you don't technically have to rinse it off when you are done. Also it actually becomes nutrients for yeast instead of creating those off flavors. Very cool. I soaked all of my equipment in a 6.5 gallon food grade plastic bucket. A lot of my equipment came from a TrueBrew starter kit. Here's the equipment that needed to be sanitized.

Brewing Equipment Part 1

Brewing Equipment Part 1 (from top to bottom):

1. old siphon stick -- came with the kit
2. new auto-siphon -- new purchase and what I used for this brew
3. floating thermometer
4. hydrometer -- for checking specific gravity and estimating alcohol content
5. large plastic spoon

Brewing Equipment Part 2

Brewing Equipment Part 2:

1. Top is the cylinder for using the hydrometer
2. Below that is the bung for stopping up the carboy
3. Next is the two chamber air-lock, I usually use a one chamber lock
4. Left is the sanitizer described above
5. Right is the transfer hoses

In order to clean the hoses and auto-siphon, I set the 6.5 gallon bucket on the counter and the 6 gallon Better Bottle on the kitchen floor. I set up the auto-siphon in the 6.5 gallon bucket and siphoned the water and cleaning solution into the 6 gallon carboy like so:

Cleaning hoses and siphoned

I repeated this process a couple of times in order to make sure I accomplished the three minute contact time minimum for the cleaning solution.

Brewing

In order to brew up this German Continental Light I first had to make sure I had the necessary ingredients. This included:

1. Top Middle - 1 oz. U.K. First Gold hops
2. Left is the Light Malt Extract Syrup
3. Top Right - 1 lb. Corn Sugar
4. Bottom Middle - 1 lb. Rice Syrup Solids
5. Bottom Right - Yeast

The brewing process starts by boiling about 1.5 gallons of water in a big brew pot. It's a lot of water to get to a boil and it takes about 10-15 minutes to get the water hot enough. While the water is getting going it is important to warm up the Light Malt Extract. The easiest way is to boil a smaller pot of water and put the can in it until the syrup softens up and is easier to pour. When the water began to boil, I took the pot off the boiler and slowly stirred in the ingredients in the following order: Light Malt Extract, Rice Syrup Solids, Corn Sugar, and Hops. The order really isn't important. After all the ingredients were dissolved it was time to bring it all back to a boil. Once at a rolling boil the mixture was boiled for an additional 25 minutes. Very simple no problems.

Boiling up the brew

Fermentation

The first step in starting fermentation is cooling down the wort (unfermented beer). The first three times I brewed this step by far took the longest. Sometime several hours. That was because I was being stupid. My method was to pour the wort mixture into cool water in the big plastic bucket then put that in a bigger bucket and pack ice around it. Turns out plastic holds on to heat quite well. This time I got smarter. I put the brewpot in the sink and packed ice around that instead. Then I poured in the extra cooling water. It looked a little something like this:

Cooling Method

This method cooled down the wort in minutes rather than hours. A temperature drop from 100+ degrees to approximately 76 degrees. At this point I took the opportunity to check the specific gravity of the brew using the hydrometer. To do this I scoped out some wort using the cylinder and threw the hydrometer into that. It turns out my specific gravity was a little higher than advertised. We'll see how it turns out when its all said and done.

Hydrometer Reading

I was able to get ready to put the yeast in within about 20 minutes. MUCH easier. The thing to remember is to be careful not to introduce to much air into the wort. So keep splashing to a minimum. Next I auto-siphoned the wort from the brew pot into the 6 gallon Better Bottle carboy. To pitch the yeast I opened up the package and sprinkled it into the carboy and let it sit for 10 minutes. When the ten minutes was up I put the bung in the top to cover it and rolled the carboy a little bit to move the yeast around. I then put the carboy in Jenny's bathroom because:

1. she isn't here
   
2. there is no direct sunlight
   
3. easy to regulate the temperature

Finally, I put the airlock in through the whole in the bung. The airlock allows the air produced by fermentation to escape without allowing air to enter back into the bottle.

Fermentation in Action

Well I hope it all turns out this time. I have my fingers crossed!

Left Hand Brewing Company's Milk Stout

Tonight I'm enjoying a beer from the Left Hand Brewing Company. Check out the website it's looks to be a good one. Watch out for the crazy verify age page before you can access the site. It's extremely difficult to beat. I believe you simply click "YES." It's very tricky. Left Hand Brewing Company is out of Longmont, CO which is just outside of Denver I believe. Right in the brewery breadbasket that I described from my summer travels. Anyways Left Hand has a really cool story about how they began. I would check it out.

It looks a little flat with no head but I probably poured it wrong

The point of all this of course is to discuss the Milk Stout. This style is kind of similar to the Imperial Stout I discussed the other day but much less intense. The official style is termed a Sweet Stout. Here are the stats from Left Hand's Website:

Style -- Sweet Stout
Color -- Black 47 SRM
Body -- Full-bodied
ABV -- 6.00%
IBU's -- 25
Plato -- 16°
Pkg -- 6-pack, 12-pack, Keg and Nitro Keg
Malts -- Pale 2-row, Crystal, Munich, Roast Barley, Flaked Oats, Flaked Barley and Chocolate
Hops -- Magnum and US Goldings

Another cool thing about Left Hand's website is that it has meal pairings and food/sauce recipies using each of the beers that they brew.

This is a good stout. Like I said I've been getting into stouts lately. Jenny doesn't exactly share my love of the style. She's more of a wheat and IPA kind of girl. With this brew you get some of the coffee like taste. It leaves a little of that taste in your mouth as well. The difference with this beer is that it is a little sweeter, most likely from the milk sugar added in. This is different than the sweetness of the Imperial Stout due to the bourbon taste/smell. All in all it's a good one. Any Stout is better than Guinness haha.

ENJOY!!

Hoegaarden!

If you are a fan of wheat beers than I highly recommend Hoegaarden. Hoegaarden is a Belgian White or Wit (pronounced Vit) beer. They are a Belgian creation much like the waffle. However although being similar to American and German they are their own style. Wikipedia's definition for Witbier goes a little something like this:

Witbier, or white beer, is a barley wheat top fermented beer style started in Belgium. It gets its name from the suspended yeasts and wheat proteins that give it a cloudy look when poured into a glass. These beers are flavored with a blend of spices most notably is coriander and orange.

I love this beer. I was first introduced to it while I was still wondering the world of American mass produced cheap light beers (they are fun to drink though). Jenny was the one who showed me the light. Last summer I got even more familiar with it while I was in Europe for the summer. It was available everywhere! Here in the US you usually have to find a specialty beer shop but it is getting more popular especially with Anheuser-Busch being absorbed by InBev. Here's some beer facts from the Anheuser-Busch site:


Hoegaarden is brewed using natural ingredients – mineral spring water, unmalted wheat, barley malt, hops, yeast, coriander and Curaçao orange peel. Hoegaarden is unfiltered, giving the beer a soft body, cloudy white appearance and thick, frothy head. Hoegaarden is 4.9 percent alcohol by volume (ABV).



Anyways its a great summertime beer. It is light and spicy. Very refreshing on a hot day. It is similar to a blue moon but the spices work better. It is also lighter and less orange tasting.

Jenny in Belgium with the 0.5 L Hoegaarden Glass (it weighed a ton!)

ENJOY!!

The Dogfather

Tonight I'm enjoying the Dogfather. The Dogfather is an Imperial Stout from the Laughing Dog Brewery where the make "Fetchingly Good Beer." Laughing Dog is based out of Ponderay, ID. They make six unique year round beers which include mostly Pale Ale's and India Pale Ales. They make two seasonal beers both seem to be fall to winter seasonals. Then they make two Reserves. This is where the Dogfather fits in. The other reserve is the Devil Dog IPA.


An imperial stout (or imperial Russian stout) is a style of brew is a strong dark beer with a high alcohol content. The style began in the 18th century in England. The English brewed the beer to export to Catherine II and the royal court of Russia. The beer needed to have a higher alcohol content in order to protect the beer from freezing on the trip through the Baltic Sea (see Wikipedia article for the entire article on stout brews).

Laughing Dog uses this to describe the Dogfather:

“I've got a brew You Cant Refuse”

The Dogfather is one of the biggest brews we have made.
Weighing in at a hefty 11% percent, the Dogfather has 7 malts and 4 different hops giving it a complex flavor profile.

Over 11 months in the making some of the Dogfather is bourbon barrel aged.

Stats for the Dogfather
11% ABV 71 IBU’s
7 different Malts 4 hops

What do I think?

The stout that most people are familiar with is probably Guinness. This is nothing like that. Where Guinness tastes mostly like burnt water or coffee, the Dogfather still has a hint of that taste but more sweet. You definetely get a bit of that bourbon taste from the barrel aging. Its a good beer to have with a meal or if you are just sitting down for a hockey game (like me right now). It comes with a hefty price however so grab a friend and share or have one sparingly. It's about $8 for a 24oz bottle. But since it's alcohol content gives it the kick of 2 regular beers, it's about the equivalent of 4 beers in one. The imperial stout is becoming one of my favorite styles because you get the hoppiness and that smell/taste of bourbon. I would recommend one. It's label is way cool as well.

Enjoy!

Peace Tree Brewery

We thought it was appropriate to start our beer blog with a few brews from our home state of Iowa. Peace Tree Brewing Company in Knoxville, Iowa is fairly new as far as I know. Their beers come in unique bottles with detailed and creative labels, which adds to the microbrew experience. We haven't been to the brewery itself yet, but we are excited to make the trip this summer! It's about 45 minutes southeast of Des Moines.

Peace Tree Hop Wrangler

Type: IPA

ABV: 6.25%

Notes: Extremely hoppy and aromatic beer. I wish I knew the IBU's (hoppiness rating) for this one.

Peace Tree Red Rambler

Type: Red

ABV: 5.8%

Notes: Slightly hoppy but very smooth. Beautiful amber color. IBU's around 35 according to the Peace Tree website.

*** This brewery has limited availability as of right now. Distribution is limited to cities and towns in Iowa. It has become much more available just in the last year. Until last fall I had never even heard of Peace Tree but one of my friends tried the Cornucopia, a seasonal beer made from Iowa Sweet Corn, at a local bar. Since then I found it in a specialty beer store down town called John's Grocery. Now it is available wherever there is a good selection of beer or where organic beers are sold.

Welcome to the Brewski Experience

The blog that follows is Jenny and my trip through the great experience of beer and everything that goes with it. We were mostly inspired in our trip to Europe last summer. Not only were there tons of great beer that you could purchase anywhere, but we were also able to go to several breweries while we were there. When we got back from Europe we made the drive from Iowa to Denver, CO, ground zero for at least five breweries including the Coors and New Belgium breweries. Coors isn't exactly what we are going for in this blog but it does have its place in the beer drinking world. Most notably football tailgates, camping trips, and I guess just if you are valuing quantity over quality. New Belgium was more what we were after. New Belgium was started by a beer enthusiast who also took a trip to Europe. He started in his basement providing some good home brews to his friends and now New Belgium sells beers all over the United States and is getting bigger all the time. This trip didn't make me love beer, I did already, but it did make me appreciate that there is a ton of great beer out there you just have to find it.

With this blog Jenny and I are going to critique some of the beers we have tried and the beers that I cook up in the house. Hopefully they all turnout. I've had some mixed results lately.

I hope you enjoy it.

Cole