Chumleys and Princess...

Intriguing title, once again. I might finally be getting the hang of this.

Tried two more beers for my passport at Chumley's, Magic Hat #9, and Maudite Red.

Starting with Magic Hat. This is a beer I've seen lots of people drink, but never ventured to try, mainly because it's a middle tier beer on their price list (remember, Bud Light is 3.75). Also, it's listed as a fruit beer....Don't fruit the beer, man. Well, on a whim I decided to knock it out on the passport, and I was definitely rewarded for the risk.

#9 is an interesting beer. I had no idea what to think of it. It looks like a pale ale, it smells like a fruity pale ale, and it tastes like, well, it tastes like Magic Hat #9. There is a hint of what may be either cranberries or cherries, impossible for me to tell since it was actually an undertone of the greater flavors, which were those of a quality American Pale. There was smooth, hoppy and tart all going on in the same sip...it was truly bizarre. But, more importantly, it was good. I'm not sure I'd start with this beer, but it's a decent beer. I do admit, this was beer number 3 of the night, and the previous two were Oberon and an IPA, so I definitely did things in the wrong order which probably made the fruity flavor more mild. Now...beer number 4...that was another story.

Beer number 4 was Maudite Red. This was a bottle, and I'd seen it on the list because I always figured it was a red ale or some such nonsense. Then I glanced at the passport description and kicked myself. By "Red" they mean according to belgian traditions, where Doubles are typically referred to as Reds. This was a BIG belgian double, almost 8% big. And it was delicious. The smell and flavor are both of big, sweet malts. Lots of malts. Tons of malt. However, the finish was nice and dry with just the gentlest hint of some hoppy goodness. This was an awesome beer, well worth the premium price. I may search for this, and it's trippel brother in the shops.

Peoples Amazon Princess is BAAAAAAACK. I love this IPA. I love single (wink) hop variety IPAs. And this one is all Simcoe, which is kind of a strange hop variety to make a single variety beer. Regardless, this beer is spectacular, which is why it is so hunted for in the area. While hanging out in the tasting room I saw around 20-30 pints poured (conservative estimate), and 90% of those were Amazon. This was day one of this batch. The ABV was actually up to 6.8% (from 6.5) without any recipe changes, simply because the yeast was drawn off of another beer. The flavor was very very good, although I am looking forward to it mellowing out a touch. It's definitely smoother than mound builder, and there aren't any truly dominating flavors, allowing you to sample all of the ester-y goodness of the Simcoe. I can't wait for this beer to start being distributed. I'm also happy to see that even though they're bottling and have established "flagship beers," Peoples can still go out there and introduce a small batch which is still different.

Home brew update tomorrow...

-J

Back from Ohio State

Back from June conference number 2, and my brain hurts. Once again, much "networking" occurred...at various watering holes.

Two new brews to report, both from Great Lakes Brewing out of Clevelend. First beer was the "Burning River" pale ale. I'm really not kidding about the name. I guess if you have to live in Ohio, you have to be able to make fun of its disgusting past. The beer was good but not great. It was a maltier American Pale style beer, but balanced pretty well with the cascade hops when you smelled it. Unfortunately, when you drank it, you realized that the Cascades are basically there for aroma only, because they didn't bring a whole lot to the palate (see what I did there? Who all read "plate"?). Price was reasonable, so this goes down as a very good value APA.

The other Great Lakes beer, I'm lucky to remember. This was the night we went on a "Spirit quest" after each and every one of us (except Zach) ran up $40+ bar tabs...at the second bar. This was Tuesday night. That goes to show how seriously we take this whole group bonding thing. (we had baklava at 3 am for the love of all that's sane in this world) Wednesday morning was exactly like the Hangover (first one). None of us had complete memories (except Zach), but we all had partials of the entire night and Zach helped us get it all in the right order.

OK, back to the beer. It was called "Dopplerock," and was, of course, a big German Dopplebock. (yeah, I had a big ass beer before the spirit quest...how am I alive) This was a beautiful beer. Color, mouthfeel, smell and flavor were all spot on for the style. Absolutely wonderful dopple.

Over all, I was impressed with the Great Lakes beers. They're all overpriced here in IN, so I typically don't buy them. But if you have to be stuck in OH, do it with a 6-pack of Great Lakes and life won't seem so bad.

And now for an update on my most recent baby. The Party pig carbonated nicely over the week, so it went in the fridge. I couldn't wait for it to cool so I poured some into a frosted glass. It's slightly warm, so keep that in mind.

The mouthfeel is what really strikes me. I got so used to the rough edges of anything but an ice cold Mr. Beer brew that I began to doubt my own skills. This mouthfeel is velvety. That's right, velvety IPA. The malt flavor is acceptable, could be a little more aggressive. Once again, I point at myself on that. The hop flavor is amazing. It may be light bodied for an IPA, but it's got all the flavor...which means I have created a sessionable IPA...God help us all.

The flavors should continue to mature for a while in the bottles before I take them home for the 4th.

-J

Hop Scare IPA final

Finally bottled my brew today. As I feared originally, I lost about a gallon due to the woefully insufficient stand off on my autosiphon, and my cobbled together primary stand. These will be fixed for the next brew.

Final gravity ended at around 1.014 (really it was 1.0135ish), which put the final ABV at 4.6-4.7%. I was hoping for more, but I'm guessing I just didn't get good conversion of the specialty grains. This problem will also be fixed before the next brew. I also used the cheap dry yeast, which was probably the reason for the high final grav.

The flavor is outstanding, this turned out better than I could have imagined. Straight from the secondary it is already well balanced. Basically as soon as it's carbed, I'll be drinking it.

Final count was a close to 2.5 gallons in the pig and 18 bottles.

Next brew will be the McLuckey ale. I'll order the kit as soon as I get back from OSU, and try to get the brew done before I leave for MI. Timing will leave it in the primary for a touch longer than necessary, but nothing too absurd.

-J

Thursday...Peoples...need I say more?

So, this is essentially a follow up to the Notorious BIP post. Chris Johnson, being the madman he is, decided to take 10 gallons for Notorious and keg it on bourbon barrel oak chips. They tapped the first of the two kegs today, and it died today. Second keg is tomorrow. I had some of the first.

The first thing that hits you is "Hey, where'd the hops go?" But then you are serenaded by the smooth smooth vanilla mellowness on the finish. That's right, apparently the silky vanilla oak flavors will overpower the hoppy bitterness. For hopheads, this is a sad thing....until you realize that by simply aging on lightly charred oak chips you can mellow out even the biggest, most abusive IPA you can imagine. Awesome.

I'm bottling my IPA tomorrow. Hoping the gravity came down a bit.

-James

2011 ASMS in DENVER

So, ASMS was in Denver, so I got to try a few local brews, although not as many as I'd hoped.

The hotel bar served Breckenridge brewery beers, which included the excellent hazed and confused, and several mediocre attempts at the standard styles which don't warrant any comment in this blog. Hazed and confused, however I will comment on. This was an unfiltered, dry hopped, aggressive American Pale Ale. Yep, lotsa qualifiers there that made for a very good beer. Of course the first thing you notice is the color. It's a deep copper, definitely hazy beer. The smell is like any good American Pale, lots of malt, hint of hops. The flavor follows in that balance, good malty taste followed by a hoppy dryness which encourages another gulp immediately. Awesome session beer.

The other Breckenridge worth mentioning was only at the hotel bar, and Glish's suite. The Mojo IPA. IBU wise, this wasn't much for an IPA, but flavor wise it hit the spot. The secret was in the use of only the most floral of hops, which made it kind of feel like you were drinking awesome soaked in rose petals. Definitely citra hops in there, and I'm not sure what else, but it was awesome. Smooth smooth smooth, and at a little over 6%. And when you burped, you burped roses, which was awesome.

As to my brew...I was considering letting it sit in the secondary over OSU, but I've been advised that may be a bit too long, so I will probably bottle in the next few days. Look for an update.

As for my next brew. I'm thinking of doing a belgian wit style (think blue moon), and trying my first hand at labeling. I'm thinking of calling it "McLuckey Ale" and trying to get it bottled before the McLuckey BBQ later this summer so that I can distribute it to the group. I mean, seriously, what other group has their own beer? I think that'd be cool as hell.

A Zwier group ale would have to follow, although I think there's enough fellow beer connoisseurs in that group that I can get away with a bigger beer.

*sorry...thought it best to edit out the angry part of this post*

-James

Notorius B.I.P.

Yep, I spelled the title right. Peoples produced a Black IPA, which is a style I had never heard of before. The first pint I had was actually a nitro tap at Black Sparrow, then Thursday I finally got over to the tasting room for a proper introduction.

Essentially a black IPA is just that, a very dark version of an IPA. What differentiates it from an Imperial Stout is that the color is just color, not an indication of flavor. How can that be? would be the next logical question. Well, with such a new style there is no set of how to make it happen. Peoples employed a cold steep of the colored grains. With a cold steep only the color gets extracted since there is no conversion of the starches. Thus you get a lot of color (this beer is very black) but you don't really bump up the body of the beer. There is some sweetness added just due to the simple sugars already present in the grain, and a lot of those highly colored compounds are flavanoids.

The end result was a delicious beer. Definitely takes the edge off of their Moundbuilder IPA, which is a little rough. However, it's not just a shift in the balance that is brought to this brew, it is a new complexity. You aren't just drinking a maltier tasting IPA, it's more like an IPA with a dash of stout on the front end.

It's a great time to be in the hobby, and this beer proves it.

-James