It's been a slow beer week for me. Only new consumptions of note were a few bottles at Chumleys, as I rush to finish my passport before my year is up (30 beers to go, November 9th is the deadline). This makes for interesting times since they won't mark passports on Thursday through Saturday. Basically I just flipped to a page and killed the beers on the page...unfortunately for my productivity I flipped to a belgian page. I killed Chimay Blue and Chimay White. Every Chimay I've had has been really good for the style. Their trippel isn't as good as Westmalle trippel, but it's infinitely more available.
Thursday I managed to kill the last keg of Amazon Princess at the Peoples tasting room. There are still a few kegs scattered around the greater Lafayette area, but they are the lone survivors...and God help them if I happen to be around that establishment. It was a great beer and will be greatly missed until next time.
The Pig of McLuckey ale carbonated in 2 days (have I mentioned that I friggin' love the pig?). This beer is so good. I'm really actually kind of angry that I have to give it all away. I like it so much that I'm actually moving the Zwier Ale back in my queue so that I can repeat the McLuckey ale for personal consumption. Both of my first 5 gallon batches have been primarily handed out (about half of Hop Scare was intended for the family 4th celebration). I feel I can pound out a second McLuck ale for myself and not fall behind too far. I will need a second secondary before I start my Christmas/Winter ale anyways. For batch 2 of the McLuck ale I'm going to get even a little more aggressive. I'm thinking of moving the first citra addition to 10 minutes left in the boil, adding the hallertau with 5 mins and dry hopping the other 1/4 oz of citra. This will make for something that's even a little more aggressive, and potentially even more aromatic.
The Zwier ale is going to be an Amarillo hop based American pale kit from Midwest, with the addition of citra hops in there somewhere. I'm still debating between using them as bittering or aroma hops. The amarillo is supposed to be the highlight of the flavor, but I'm such a huge fan of the citra hops as an aroma hop, and am intrigued by using them as a bittering hop.
At this rate, I'll be looking to go all grain before I can afford to...may have to start some really weird experiments next spring/summer.
-James
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
McLuckey Ale bottled
Finally got the house cleaned up enough (and delabeled enough bottles) to lay the McLuckey ale down for a couple weeks.
The secondary really worked wonders on this beer. The primary fermentation had stalled at 1.006 (corrected), and the citra hop character was a touch stronger than I wanted. I also did notice a little sweetness I didn't mention earlier, because I was afraid that was going to carry through to the finished product.
Well, final gravity out of the secondary (~1 week) was 1.003 (corrected), sweetness is gone and the hop character is tamed to just a gentle citrusy finish. This raises expected ABV to be 4.5-5%, and as soon as it carbonates, it'll be ready for consumption. This turned out so good I almost don't want to share it with the group, lol. But instead I think I'll just have to repeat this brew again as soon as I knock out the Zwier and winter ale brews. I also had much more efficient recovery with this beer, with final volume being ~4.5 gallons (24 bottles and a full pig).
-J
The secondary really worked wonders on this beer. The primary fermentation had stalled at 1.006 (corrected), and the citra hop character was a touch stronger than I wanted. I also did notice a little sweetness I didn't mention earlier, because I was afraid that was going to carry through to the finished product.
Well, final gravity out of the secondary (~1 week) was 1.003 (corrected), sweetness is gone and the hop character is tamed to just a gentle citrusy finish. This raises expected ABV to be 4.5-5%, and as soon as it carbonates, it'll be ready for consumption. This turned out so good I almost don't want to share it with the group, lol. But instead I think I'll just have to repeat this brew again as soon as I knock out the Zwier and winter ale brews. I also had much more efficient recovery with this beer, with final volume being ~4.5 gallons (24 bottles and a full pig).
-J
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
"McLuckey Ale" report
Finally got back to Lafayette after plenty of shenanigans in MI (final count was 88). Finally racked the McLuckey ale into the secondary and stole myself a hydrometer reading and taste.
Final gravity was 1.005@77F (awesome friggin' yeast). Flavor was more or less exactly where I wanted it...a blue moon style sweetness with a nice dry, floral finish. This was accomplished simply by taking a Belgian Wit recipe and adding 1/4 oz of Citra whole leaf hops at 10 mins and directly after the boil. Citra was a risk with the ridiculous AA content, for such a light beer, but it worked out perfectly. Color is off, but that's something I've noticed with all abstract kits.
I'm probably only going to let it sit in secondary for a few days to drop clear a touch. Need to clean the bottle meanwhile.
-James
Final gravity was 1.005@77F (awesome friggin' yeast). Flavor was more or less exactly where I wanted it...a blue moon style sweetness with a nice dry, floral finish. This was accomplished simply by taking a Belgian Wit recipe and adding 1/4 oz of Citra whole leaf hops at 10 mins and directly after the boil. Citra was a risk with the ridiculous AA content, for such a light beer, but it worked out perfectly. Color is off, but that's something I've noticed with all abstract kits.
I'm probably only going to let it sit in secondary for a few days to drop clear a touch. Need to clean the bottle meanwhile.
-James
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
I'm up to 80!
I've sampled/imbibed in 80 MI microbrewed beers since my start last Thursday at MBC. The only brews now consumed at the brewery was the one Shorts brew (Huma-lupa-licious, a 140 IBU single IPA) and I got 3 different New Holland beers from Cork 'n Ale to shave some gas money off the trip. The breweries I've visited consist of: Midland Brew Co, BARTS, Mt. Pleasant Brew Co and Mt. Town Station (same owner), Founders, Hop Cat, Hideout, Sullivans, Frankenmuth, and Bell's. I may hit Arcadia on my way out of the state, depending on timing.
Strange spices/adjuncts (so not including things like coriander, orange peel, etc.) I've tried include molasses, french wine oak barrel chips, carrots, parsnips, hemp seed, a ginger beer, and probably some that I'm missing.
Someone at Bell's asked me today if there were any highlights, my answer was simple. I've not yet had a beer that I sent back to the bar. I've had some that I've had some friends finish, but they were true to the style...it just wasn't a style I enjoy a lot. I've has so many good IPAs (both of the Frankenmuth breweries had excellent IPAs) that I've lost track (except for my notes). I've noticed that the French Farmhouse style is coming back into favor here in MI, and I expect that to start spreading through the midwest.
As far as Bells...it was almost a religious experience. The Eccentric Cafe is a must go for any midwest beer geek. Plain and simple.
Done with new places for this trip (probably). Time to wind down, make my brothers bonfire Friday night awesome and accept that it's time to go back to lafayette and get back to work.
-James
Strange spices/adjuncts (so not including things like coriander, orange peel, etc.) I've tried include molasses, french wine oak barrel chips, carrots, parsnips, hemp seed, a ginger beer, and probably some that I'm missing.
Someone at Bell's asked me today if there were any highlights, my answer was simple. I've not yet had a beer that I sent back to the bar. I've had some that I've had some friends finish, but they were true to the style...it just wasn't a style I enjoy a lot. I've has so many good IPAs (both of the Frankenmuth breweries had excellent IPAs) that I've lost track (except for my notes). I've noticed that the French Farmhouse style is coming back into favor here in MI, and I expect that to start spreading through the midwest.
As far as Bells...it was almost a religious experience. The Eccentric Cafe is a must go for any midwest beer geek. Plain and simple.
Done with new places for this trip (probably). Time to wind down, make my brothers bonfire Friday night awesome and accept that it's time to go back to lafayette and get back to work.
-James
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Post GR update
So, yesterday I took a day off of traveling, went down to a good beer store and bought a few New Holland varieties so I could strike them off the list. Today was the great GR adventure, with Founders, Hop Cat and Hideout being stricken from the list.
But this isn't a post about the 28 different beers I've sampled over the past 48 hours. This is a post about why I'm doing this MI beer tour. It's the event that is big on my list. It's the same reason I'd drive down to K-zoo and thrash a bunch of underprepped, unexperienced civics in Western MI region races. It's the stories, the people, and the ride across the state. I love the ability to walk into any brewery, belly up to the bar, order a sampler and chat with the folks around me and the guys behind the bar. You meet so many different types of people dealing with so many different life scenarios. I've hung out with everyone from hard up unemployed factory workers, to multi-store business owners worth well into the 7 figures. I've chatted with beer geeks who are years ahead of my knowledge, and explained how a growler works to total novices. I've given beer suggestions to recent 21 year olds, and some folks well into their 60s. How awesome is all of that? And there was beer...can't forget about the beer. The beer was awesome too.
I'm sure I'll write up my notes from Founders at some point...but I felt like the beer was the less important part of today's trip.
-James
But this isn't a post about the 28 different beers I've sampled over the past 48 hours. This is a post about why I'm doing this MI beer tour. It's the event that is big on my list. It's the same reason I'd drive down to K-zoo and thrash a bunch of underprepped, unexperienced civics in Western MI region races. It's the stories, the people, and the ride across the state. I love the ability to walk into any brewery, belly up to the bar, order a sampler and chat with the folks around me and the guys behind the bar. You meet so many different types of people dealing with so many different life scenarios. I've hung out with everyone from hard up unemployed factory workers, to multi-store business owners worth well into the 7 figures. I've chatted with beer geeks who are years ahead of my knowledge, and explained how a growler works to total novices. I've given beer suggestions to recent 21 year olds, and some folks well into their 60s. How awesome is all of that? And there was beer...can't forget about the beer. The beer was awesome too.
I'm sure I'll write up my notes from Founders at some point...but I felt like the beer was the less important part of today's trip.
-James
Saturday, July 9, 2011
MI beer tour: Day 2
Day two of the tour was yesterday. Same people with me, different set of victims.
We went to Mt. Pleasant yesterday. While researching this trip, I was surprised that MP had two breweries. The first was Mt. Pleasant Brewing Company. Walked in, grabbed a sampler and chatted with the poor brewer who was working the bar. The tasting room and brewery were beautiful. This was another one of those warehouse district breweries, which I love, but they have significantly higher production than I'm used to. The brewery is actually owned by the same guy as Mt. Town Station (the other MP brewery), which disappointed me a little bit, but the brewery shows what happens when you start with essentially unlimited capital. It started as a 15 bbl setup, but when they started distributing bottles across the state they had to put in a 30 bbl setup to keep up with demand. Very clean brewhouse.
As for the beers, they had 8 standard beers, and the brew masters special. The standards were a Hefe, pale ale, raspberry wheat, blackberry ale, red, brown, Stout and IPA. The stout, brown, hefe and IPA were all good for the style. I personally don't get their pale, it was too whimpy on the malts to be an English, and too whimpy on the hops to be an American. It basically was just there to be unoffensive, which always results in a beer that does nothing. The Red was fantastic. I'm not a red fan, and actually the others with me (who were red fans) didn't like it that much, so maybe I liked it because it's a bit too big for a red. The malt flavors were very complex, with lots of nice roasted flavors. This beer was hopped perfectly for the style, giving it just a nice clean, dry finish that encourages you to have another drink.
Now, for the fruit beers and the special. The raspberry wheat was fantastic. Something about raspberries make for a great beer. The tartness and sweetness just play well with a light wheat base. The blackberry ale wasn't as good. Blackberries are a little more aggressive, so they were pared with a slightly darker base beer. This led to a little bit of flavor confusion as the fruit flavors fought to keep up with the maltiness of a brown ale.
The special was a "Gruit" beer which uses spices instead of hops. It was an interesting beast, with a nice light body and a hint of jager on the finish. I liked it, but I can see how others would avoid it.
Like I said, the "other" brewery was actually the same person, thus the same beers with the exception of a decent pils. After that was a good night at the dirt track (a good ole American Friday night there). I've pushed the GR trip back to tomorrow, and today I'm going to a good beer store today to grab some beers from the MI breweries I won't make it to.
-J
We went to Mt. Pleasant yesterday. While researching this trip, I was surprised that MP had two breweries. The first was Mt. Pleasant Brewing Company. Walked in, grabbed a sampler and chatted with the poor brewer who was working the bar. The tasting room and brewery were beautiful. This was another one of those warehouse district breweries, which I love, but they have significantly higher production than I'm used to. The brewery is actually owned by the same guy as Mt. Town Station (the other MP brewery), which disappointed me a little bit, but the brewery shows what happens when you start with essentially unlimited capital. It started as a 15 bbl setup, but when they started distributing bottles across the state they had to put in a 30 bbl setup to keep up with demand. Very clean brewhouse.
As for the beers, they had 8 standard beers, and the brew masters special. The standards were a Hefe, pale ale, raspberry wheat, blackberry ale, red, brown, Stout and IPA. The stout, brown, hefe and IPA were all good for the style. I personally don't get their pale, it was too whimpy on the malts to be an English, and too whimpy on the hops to be an American. It basically was just there to be unoffensive, which always results in a beer that does nothing. The Red was fantastic. I'm not a red fan, and actually the others with me (who were red fans) didn't like it that much, so maybe I liked it because it's a bit too big for a red. The malt flavors were very complex, with lots of nice roasted flavors. This beer was hopped perfectly for the style, giving it just a nice clean, dry finish that encourages you to have another drink.
Now, for the fruit beers and the special. The raspberry wheat was fantastic. Something about raspberries make for a great beer. The tartness and sweetness just play well with a light wheat base. The blackberry ale wasn't as good. Blackberries are a little more aggressive, so they were pared with a slightly darker base beer. This led to a little bit of flavor confusion as the fruit flavors fought to keep up with the maltiness of a brown ale.
The special was a "Gruit" beer which uses spices instead of hops. It was an interesting beast, with a nice light body and a hint of jager on the finish. I liked it, but I can see how others would avoid it.
Like I said, the "other" brewery was actually the same person, thus the same beers with the exception of a decent pils. After that was a good night at the dirt track (a good ole American Friday night there). I've pushed the GR trip back to tomorrow, and today I'm going to a good beer store today to grab some beers from the MI breweries I won't make it to.
-J
Thursday, July 7, 2011
MI beer tour: Day 1
This concludes day 1 of the MI beer tour.
Brewery #1 was Midland Brewing company (which still seems weird to me). They have definitely come a long way in a year. The beers no longer have as much of that "MBC witch" to them. Their pale ale recently won gold at the world beer expo in Frankenmuth in the english pale category. Now, their pale is very very good...but I wouldn't call it an english pale by a long shot. Maybe they used a different recipe in the competition.
The Hefe and Pils were both good for their style, but nothing really stood out with them.
The nut brown was perhaps the most surprising beer. This is a very hard style to get right, as are most of the malt centric varieties. Not only do you have to try to get the amount of malt right, but the different malts used are where these beers acquire their flavor. Then, of course, you have to give it just enough hops to sharpen up the finish (so it's not syrupy), but not enough to interfere with the flavors. This beer did that, very very well. It was the only one of the beers that made me step back and say Wow.
After this, we went to BARTS in bay city for food and beer. This is really a restaurant that somehow had a 15 bbl brewhouse incorporated someday. But my, do they put out. Three of us ordered the sampler platter, to figure out what pints to move on to. Uhhh....no pints were had. The sampler platter wasn't some whimpy little tray, it was a full waiters tray with 11 five ounce beers. That's 55 oz. That's a crapload of beer. I didn't take my note pad to write them all down, but i'll try to come up with them all. Light, Pils, Kolsch, English Pale, Red, Amber, Dopplebock, Dubbel (10%!!!!), IPA, Stout....uhhh....and something else.
I did not like the Red, so that was redistributed. The stout too was handed off since it took so long to get to it, and it tasted like boiled rat crap when warm.
The beer that really stood out was the Dubbel. It had all of the right flavors in the right spots, but then hit you with the overwhelming, untempered warmth of the 10% ABV. I got into a lively discussion with some bloke about how you can't call a dubbel a tripel or quad just because of the ABV. The styles are brewed in completely different manners, and thus have very different flavors. For example, a true quad wouldn't have the alcohol flavors, since they'd be mellowed under the additional malts.
Well, today it's the two Mt. Pleasant breweries, and finishing the night at the racetrack.
-James
Brewery #1 was Midland Brewing company (which still seems weird to me). They have definitely come a long way in a year. The beers no longer have as much of that "MBC witch" to them. Their pale ale recently won gold at the world beer expo in Frankenmuth in the english pale category. Now, their pale is very very good...but I wouldn't call it an english pale by a long shot. Maybe they used a different recipe in the competition.
The Hefe and Pils were both good for their style, but nothing really stood out with them.
The nut brown was perhaps the most surprising beer. This is a very hard style to get right, as are most of the malt centric varieties. Not only do you have to try to get the amount of malt right, but the different malts used are where these beers acquire their flavor. Then, of course, you have to give it just enough hops to sharpen up the finish (so it's not syrupy), but not enough to interfere with the flavors. This beer did that, very very well. It was the only one of the beers that made me step back and say Wow.
After this, we went to BARTS in bay city for food and beer. This is really a restaurant that somehow had a 15 bbl brewhouse incorporated someday. But my, do they put out. Three of us ordered the sampler platter, to figure out what pints to move on to. Uhhh....no pints were had. The sampler platter wasn't some whimpy little tray, it was a full waiters tray with 11 five ounce beers. That's 55 oz. That's a crapload of beer. I didn't take my note pad to write them all down, but i'll try to come up with them all. Light, Pils, Kolsch, English Pale, Red, Amber, Dopplebock, Dubbel (10%!!!!), IPA, Stout....uhhh....and something else.
I did not like the Red, so that was redistributed. The stout too was handed off since it took so long to get to it, and it tasted like boiled rat crap when warm.
The beer that really stood out was the Dubbel. It had all of the right flavors in the right spots, but then hit you with the overwhelming, untempered warmth of the 10% ABV. I got into a lively discussion with some bloke about how you can't call a dubbel a tripel or quad just because of the ABV. The styles are brewed in completely different manners, and thus have very different flavors. For example, a true quad wouldn't have the alcohol flavors, since they'd be mellowed under the additional malts.
Well, today it's the two Mt. Pleasant breweries, and finishing the night at the racetrack.
-James
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Post 4th update
It's been pretty slow on the new beer front so far. However, I have ordered all of the parts to get my car back to running well (and quietish) so I can start trying out the area.
I did have a couple tri-city brews at the Loons baseball game (they are the official microbrewery of Loons baseball). The primary beer sold there is the Loons ale, which is brewed specifically for the ball park. This is a nice, light bodied (yet still with a fair amount of color) wheat beer. A wonderful simple summer ale, all the flavors balance out nicely. Last year this beer had something weird on the back end of the flavor profile, which fortunately is gone this year. It was either water or yeast based, and apparently they fixed it. One of the best baseball beers I've had.
Since the ballpark is essentially the only place to find tri-city beers (I've been told they don't have a tasting room), I also had one of their specialty beers...their russian imperial stout. Yep, had a Russian Imperial on a 86 degree day in a ballpark, I'm a little crazy. This was actually a very good beer. The flavor profile was very heavy on the chocolate and toffee flavors with a crisp, dry finish indicative of a healthy amount of hops. Aroma and body weren't too overpowering or heavy, which is really the challenge for this type of beer.
Also, yesterday was the big consumption day for my homebrew IPA. It was a total hit with the family and others who got a sample. The flavor finally developed in the bottle to a nice, mellow beer. The flavor profile did end up being closer to an American Pale than a true IPA, but that's not a bad thing. I'm definitely going to brew this beer again, since now I know how long it has to condition. Also, it was well over the 4.8% my hydrometer pegged it at, so it may be time to pull out my other hydrometer and check their calibration. All that's left is the one bottle still conditioning at home, and the bottle we put aside for my brother.
-James
I did have a couple tri-city brews at the Loons baseball game (they are the official microbrewery of Loons baseball). The primary beer sold there is the Loons ale, which is brewed specifically for the ball park. This is a nice, light bodied (yet still with a fair amount of color) wheat beer. A wonderful simple summer ale, all the flavors balance out nicely. Last year this beer had something weird on the back end of the flavor profile, which fortunately is gone this year. It was either water or yeast based, and apparently they fixed it. One of the best baseball beers I've had.
Since the ballpark is essentially the only place to find tri-city beers (I've been told they don't have a tasting room), I also had one of their specialty beers...their russian imperial stout. Yep, had a Russian Imperial on a 86 degree day in a ballpark, I'm a little crazy. This was actually a very good beer. The flavor profile was very heavy on the chocolate and toffee flavors with a crisp, dry finish indicative of a healthy amount of hops. Aroma and body weren't too overpowering or heavy, which is really the challenge for this type of beer.
Also, yesterday was the big consumption day for my homebrew IPA. It was a total hit with the family and others who got a sample. The flavor finally developed in the bottle to a nice, mellow beer. The flavor profile did end up being closer to an American Pale than a true IPA, but that's not a bad thing. I'm definitely going to brew this beer again, since now I know how long it has to condition. Also, it was well over the 4.8% my hydrometer pegged it at, so it may be time to pull out my other hydrometer and check their calibration. All that's left is the one bottle still conditioning at home, and the bottle we put aside for my brother.
-James
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