North Coast Brewing Company Old Rasputin Imperial Stout.
burned toast with molasses and bitter chocolate flavours.
if you like real stout, you’ll like this.
quote of the day:
“Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.” – Henry Lawson
i realize it’s been a while since i posted anything, and even longer since i talked about what i’ve been drinking – but this stuff was so awful it required a warning post for all of you folks out there…
i present to you Warsteiner Cola. perhaps the nastiest thing i’ve had to drink all year.
to borrow terminology from Monty Python; this is not a beverage for drinking, it is a beverage for lying down and avoiding. this is a bottle with a message in, and the message is “Beware!”
i’ve always liked Warsteiner products in the past. i’ve drank far too much of the Verum (pilsner) and Dunkel (dark lager) over the years. so, fool that i am, i decided to try this new product.
big, big mistake.
this swill tastes like a watery, flat Coke rip-off. it’s thin and bodiless, with a nearly rancid soda-esque flavour. almost no nose, and what there is is a very chemical effluvium.
i really cannot emphasize how awful this stuff is.
you may have noticed that there’s not the usual “in glass” picture. this is because i could not bear to open another bottle. if i did, and drank the effluent, i’d probably have to wash my mouth out with NyQuil to get rid of the taste.
yeah. that bad.
the alcohol is a mere 2.9% ABV as well, so there’s not even enough kick to make you forget the taste.
*sigh*
oh, well.
i guess i’ll have to go to the store and find something drinkable.
quote of the day:
“I would much prefer to suffer from the clean incision of an honest lancet than from a sweetened poison.” – Mark Twain
well, right now i’m drinking Theraflu. but that’s not what i mean.
time to bring my beer postings up to date!
(aside: looking at the pictures for this post, i think i need to do a post on beer glassware.)
anyway, first up is a Christmas gift, Chaucer’s Mead.
i know, i know. technically, it’s not beer, since beer is made from starch-derived sugar. but i like it anyway, and it’s my blog, so there.
i have issues with it being classified as wine as well, since it’s not produced from fruit. but i’m not in charge of much, so i’ll just have to deal with it, right?
back to the topic at hand, though.
this is a really nice beverage. with only 11% ABV, it’s relatively “light.” i had it heated and spiced, which was a nice way to clear my sinuses on the chilly day i enjoyed it. floral flavours dominate (big surprise), but it’s not overbearing.
sold as a dessert wine/beverage, but i think it could also go well with game fowl or lightly prepared pork and lamb dishes.
mead wasn’t the only “adult beverage” i was gifted with this recent holiday season.
i also received a bottle of Rogue‘s Santa’s Private Reserve.
a fairly hoppy “Northwestern-style” red ale, it’s a joy for fans of American hops. with a healthy helping of Centennial hops, for example, it’s got a definite citrus (almost grapefruit?) cast to it. yet being a red ale, it’s far more pleasant to me than an IPA – the extra body and slightly lesser amount of hops makes for a nice package.
recommended, as usual for Rogue brews, but you’ll have to wait another 11 months or so to try it again…
keeping with the slight “holiday redux” theme, let me discuss:
my Christmas Brew from this year. this went over very well, with lots of cinnamon flavours and nose (as a slight change this year, no cloves). i really enjoyed this one (though i think i drank more of the stout i had on tap) – it was very festive, somewhat light in body without being too light. sort of an amber ale, i guess. but yummy. pity it’s gone.
next year, i guess.
well, stepping away from the holiday season past, there’s:
Wychwood Brewery‘s excellent Hobgoblin Ale. i really like this beer. not a new discovery, though i hadn’t had any in a while. lots of chocolate toffee flavours (as promised by Wychwood on the packaging), with the nicely traditional Fuggles and Styrians hops shining through. if you like dark English ales, this one’s for you.
traveling back across the pond, we reach:
Highland Brewing Co.‘s Oatmeal Porter. almost a stout porter, it lacks just that little extra bit of body to tip over.
this is not a complaint or criticism! this beer works very well as an American-style “heavy.” it’s nicely drinkable, without the filling sensation one can get from stouts – but it still has plenty of caramel and burnt malt. the hops are slightly more evident than in a stout as well. really very good.
and, the closer:
Sea Dog‘s Blue Paw Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale. yep, blueberry. not so noticeable on the tongue, but when you open or pour this beer it’s like getting smacked in the nose with blueberries.
very light, and o.k. if you like blueberries. just don’t expect to taste them overmuch.
but it’s just o.k. i’ve had a lot better fruit beers, and a lot better wheat beers. yet if you like blueberries, go ahead and give it a try.
happy drinking, folks!
quote of the day:
“Of beer, an enthusiast has said that it could never be bad, but that some brands might be better than others.” – A.A. Milne
no, i won’t explain it. if you don’t understand, Google WYSIWYG and think about the results…
first up is Jimmy Buffet‘s beer, Land Shark Lager.
as big a fan as i am of Jimmy (and i’m a pretty serious Parrothead) , i’m not that impressed with this beer.
it’s brewed by Anheuser-Busch and meant to be a “clone” of Corona. it’s insipidly bland, with even less flavour than Corona. no recommendation at all, except stay away. particularly since it costs almost two bucks more a six-pack than Corona, and near three bucks more than Arriba.
which leads me to:
is it beer, or is it water? i’m not sure.
but i drink quite a lot of it, actually. i think Bud Light may be the single best American macrobrew, simply because it’s totally inoffensive. bland, bland, bland – with very low alcohol content.
best of all, it shows up at almost every party, giving something at least marginally drinkable. marginally.
quote of the day:
“Water is the only drink for a wise man.” – Henry David Thoreau
though i have slowed down a little lately – been busy!
for similar reasons, i’ve not had time to post any reports…
but, i’ve got some time available now, so here’s a few beers i’ve had lately:
mmmm. this was good, if i do say so myself. pity the keg’s empty!
an “Irish” style dry stout, it was wonderfully creamy with just a bit of hop aroma. this recipe had an additive i’ve not used before: licorice – and it was real German black licorice. i didn’t taste any real licorice flavours in the beer, and i wonder what effect (if any) the ammonium chloride in the candy had on the beer. this was the beer that blew the lid off its fermenter, by the way. worried though i was about the resultant product, it came out just fine.
which is probably why it went away so fast!
strange to say, i’ve not reported on this beer before. if i was to admit to having a “standard batch” of homebrew, it’d probably be this. a Belgian style witbeir, it’s fairly low in alcohol content (usually below 4% ABV) with a light body and effervescent carbonation. i brew more of this than anything else – i’d estimate it makes up around a third of my production.
100% wheat malt, crisp mouthfeel, some citrus and coriander flavours (big surprise, eh?) – pretty much a standard witbeir. very popular among those who tend to imbibe my product. heck, i like it too! this keg also emptied fast – perils of the holiday season, i guess.
i may get assaulted by the beer snobs for my opinions on the last two brews of the day…
first up is Arriba, a beer brewed solely for export by Cerveceria La Constancia S.A. in El Salvador. Cerveceria La Constancia S.A. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SABMiller, for the edification of those interested in such things.
created as a house brand for Safeway, it’s recently become available locally from Piggly-Wiggly stores. probably has something to do with the two companies both being customers of C&S, or something.
but that’s neither here nor there. the name, according to what i’ve been able to find out, was chosen because the marketing folks (from outside the US) thought that Americans would recognize the phrase from old Speedy Gonzales cartoons. makes you feel loved, doesn’t it? sadly, they were probably correct in their estimations.
anyway, i’ve really been enjoying this beer.
(waits for beer snobs to wake up from their faints)
it’s a classic example of cheap South American beer. acrid and chemical, with little body and less flavour. nice carbonation, washed-out yellow colour. the sort of thing most educated beer drinkers avoid at all costs.
but i like it – i’ve got a certain appreciation for bad beers. and this just hits all my buttons, being just offensive enough to satisfy – without being so bad as to be painful.
that said, on to the next offense against the drinking community:
Trois Pistoles from Unibroue. this stuff has been awful.
(again waits for beer snobs to wake up from their faints)
although this is a highly regarded brew, colour me unimpressed. i like some of the company’s other offerings (Blanche de Chambly comes to mind), but this is horrid.
weak body, excessive carbonation (the beer in the picture had been sitting for almost a minute) but no Flemish lace, vague and unidentifiable fruit odours, uninspiring flavour, and the promised “old port wine” finish never materialized.
it’s not skunked – that i’d recognize. i think it’s just over-rated. very, very over-rated.
to borrow from the immortal Monty Python, “This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is ‘beware‘. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.”
as per usual with any of my commentary on anything, your mileage may vary.
happy imbibing!
quote of the day:
“All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
yes, it’s finally the second part of my homebrewing series. part one is here, for those who came in late.
so, quick review:
beer stuff goes into water and gets boiled. the water is now wort. the wort then goes into a fermenter.
continuing:
the wort needs to be cooled next. i use a copper cooler:
it’s submerged in the hot wort and cold water gets circulated through to cool the proto-beer. this is overkill for the novice, however. for years i did what many brewers do: i set the fermenter of hot wort in a sink or tub full of ice water. works nicely, really. just not quite as fast or easy as the cooler.
after cooling the wort, one other thing always goes into the fermenter: yeast.
yeast is incredibly important to the beer-making process. different types of yeast require vastly different conditions and create vastly different types of beer. i brew ales exclusively, using top-fermenting ale yeasts. these yeasts like temperatures in the 50 to 75 degree Farenheit range. ale yeasts also tend to create lots of esters, which help define the beer’s flavours.
lager yeasts, however, like cooler temperatures (44 to 60 degrees), fermenting from the bottom of the wort. they also have to be very closely monitored during the brewing process, or a very unappealing butter flavour and texture can develop in the beer.
i like White Labs‘ excellent line of liquid yeasts:
these yeast cultures are ready to “pitch” – the fancy beer making term for adding them to the wort.
that said, there are many fine liquid and dry varieties available. most first-time brewers should probably just buy a starter kit and use the yeast that comes with it, i think.
since the yeast is bringing about a chemical change in the wort, there tend to be gases released. to allow them to escape the fermenter (but keep out nasty things like oxygen and mold), an airlock is used:
a very simple device, it keeps gas flow moving only one-way (out) of the fermenter…
and speaking of fermenters, i should probably comment on the various options available.
i use plastic fermenters. they’re essentially just big food-safe buckets that have a hole in the lid for the airlock. some brewers, however, prefer glass carboys. both have certain advantages and disadvantages. the plastic models are very light and easy to move, empty or full. they are harder to clean and sanitize than carboys, though. carboys are very easy to keep sterile, but heavy and fragile. they can also explode if over pressurized – though this is very, very rare. to break, a carboy would almost have to have some obvious damage or flaw – which the brewer would catch when inspecting it before each use.
so, the wort and yeast go in along with any recipie-specific fermenter additives. my favourite fermenter additive? i’ve read a recipie that called for a plucked chicken in a burlap sack to be added to the wort (after crushing it with a mallet). not anything i’ve ever brewed, mind. but really, ah, interesting to contemplate.
so, the yeast goes to work, and a few days (or weeks, or even longer), you’ve got beer.
flat beer. in a bucket.
so, how do you empty the bucket? you can’t just pour it out – you’d get all the dead yeast mixed in with your beer. ick. so, you use a special tool called a racking cane to “rack” (another fancy brewing word!) the beer into another container. that container can be a secondary fermenter (for specific styles, often high alcohol brews), a bottling bucket (if you’re putting the beer into individual bottles), or a keg (what i use).
a racking cane looks like this:
and, while in use, looks a bit like this:
ooh! beer flow!
so, now that it’s in a bottling bucket or keg, you need to carbonate it, right? because nobody really wants to drink this:
that’s beer right out of the fermenter. tastes just fine, but not at all what most folks want to drink.
the carbonation in beer can come from a couple places. if you’re using bottles, which most novices do (and should, until they really decide they like brewing enough to invest in kegs), you add a small amount of sugar to the beer as it flows into the bottling bucket. this sugar serves to “jump-start” the yeast suspended in the beer. when trapped in a sealed bottle, the gases they create are forced into solution in the beer, creating carbonation.
kegs:
kegs let you carbonate like the pros – you force the gas into the beer. this has three major benefits over bottle carbonation:
1. kegs don’t explode from over-vigorous yeast. when bottles do (and they do), it’s a huge mess. i know.
2. clear beer with no waste. bottle-fermented beer always has a sediment of deceased yeast at the bottom. you don’t want this in your glass, so you can’t pour the entire bottle. any agitation before a pour can disturb the sediment as well, leading to cloudy beer.
3. you can control just how much or how little gas is in solution in your brew. need lots of fine bubbles? no problem. relatively few, large bubbles? also easy. excellent for replicating different styles.
carbonating with kegs is simplicity itself: look up the amount of gas you want in your beer, set your gas regulator to the indicated pressure, and walk away. in a couple days, beer!
so that’s the process in short. there are a few other things to mention, like hydrometers:
this is a nifty tool that you’ll use a lot as a brewer. it measures the specific gravity of your wort and beer. the change in gravity that comes as the yeast devour sugars in the wort can be measured with this tool and used to calculate the alcohol content of your brews. obviously, this is very nice to know when someone wants a taste – if they’re Bud Light drinkers, maybe they should be warned about that 8% ABV dry stout, you know?
also, there are a lot of resources that have come in handy over the years. probably the foremost are Charlie Papazian’s books. a fantastic resource for novice and old hand alike, his vast knowledge and dry wit make for fascinating and fun reading.
there are also a multitude of websites out there. my favourite is probably Homebrew.com – not only do they have a store for mail-order mayhem, but there are lots of informative articles and columns for your enjoyment.
i hope everyone has enjoyed this “series,” and i hope to get back to a regular (sort of) series of updates on what i’m drinking, too.
happy brewing (and drinking)!
quote of the day:
“Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.” – John Ciardi
one of the fermenters blew its top and spewed beer almost six feet in the air.
so i’ve not had my mind on writing about brewing…
but i have been drinking something other than UFO lately…
so, may i present:
Palmetto Porter, another fine product from the Palmetto Brewing Company. probably my favourite Palmetto Brewing product, for that matter.
really chewy, chocolate malt evident. mmmm. nice aroma, again more chocolate. not too heavy in body, not too heavy in hops. just a really nice, all-around porter. highly recommended.
oh yeah, go Sox!
quote of the day:
“Give me a woman who truly loves beer, and I will conquer the world.” – Kaiser Wilhelm II
so, as i’ve promised some people (i promised a homebrew blog to the Babbledog folks something like three, four months ago), i’m finally writing about how i homebrew. you could consider this a précis of the process, but i’d suggest referencing more sources than me if you want to start brewing.
that said, i realized that one post really wouldn’t let me cover the entire experience in the detail i would like. so i decided to break it up – today’s will give a little background on brewing in general and a walkthrough of my personal boil process, up to the point of fermentation. a later post will cover the fermentation process itself and what happens after. i’ll probably also reference some of those additional sources in the future posting, to help prospective brewers get started.
so, part one: brewing history – including mine!
beer brewing is an ancient process – there are writings from Sumer, thousands of years old, that reference the brewing of beer (interesting note: the ancient Sumerian brewmasters were women). Hammurabi’s famous Code included laws governing the production and sale of beer (a far forerunner of the Reinheitsgebot!). the Pharaohs were great beer drinkers, too.
moving on to the Christian era, there was a great explosion in brewing with the growth of the monastic system. many of my favourite styles of beer come from the experimentation by monks during this period. beer was a common drink in the Middle Ages – among other things, it was safer than water!
multiple types of beer developed, depending on region. not only did the available ingredients affect what was brewed, but local climate as well. the English brewed (and probably invented) ales; the (relatively) mild weather of the British Isles was well-suited to the temperature requirements of the top-fermenting ale yeast. German brewers invented lager beer; with a different type of yeast and fermentation process, enabled by the locations they had available to store their beers, they achieved an entirely different style (which happens to be the most popular style in the world today). the Belgian brewers of Pajottenland created the lambic, which is a spontaneously-fermented beer depending on the natural airborne yeasts and bacteria of the region.
so, now there are any number of beers available commercially – how did i get started brewing? well, over ten years ago now, a friend of mine gave me a homebrew kit for my birthday. since then, i’ve been playing with different styles and processes, expanding my repertoire and recipie book. while some of my early batches were a bit scary (i made a traditional English-style unhopped ale that was downright evil), i think i’ve developed a deft hand for the process and some small ability with recipie tweaking.
part two: we actually get some action! the brewing process begins!
so, making beer is pretty simple at its most basic. you need water, grain and yeast. hops are good, but not really “required” for beer. from experience, however, you really want to use hops.
commercial brewers start with a process called mashing. mashing is what separates the sugars from the previously malted grains. i’m not going to go into a discussion of malted grain – that’s a huge topic in its own right. suffice it to say, there are a lot of different types of malt that brewers (big and small) can use.
some homebrewers also start with mashing – they’ve got a lot more time (and space) than i would want to dedicate to brewing, usually. the mashing process leads into the lautering process, where the grains are sparged to separate the wort from the mashed grain (wort is the name for the sugary liquor that will become beer).
so, since i don’t mash (and therefore, don’t lauter), what do i do?
i use malt extracts – either dry or liquid. these are the malts that would be extracted during the mash/lauter process, but with most or all of the water removed for ease of transport, storage and use. i usually use dry malt extract (called DME for short), as it has the most sugar content for its weight. it’s therefore cheaper to ship. DME also has the benefit of being easier to handle than liquid extract. DME looks like this:
that’s five pounds of wheat DME. most extract is quite a bit darker in colour than this, by the way. if you’re thinking about trying homebrewing for the first time, however, i’d suggest one of the many liquid kits on the market. they’re easier to deal with than DME for a novice, and have many fewer steps to deal with than i’m going to go through.
whatever brewing process used (commercial or home), the wort needs to be boiled. i use a 15.5 gallon half-barrel keg with the top cut out:
it also has a siphon in the bottom, which makes draining it much easier:
but you don’t need anything this large or complicated! i like the big pot because it lets me boil the entire 5 gallon batch, but most brewers (including me) got started with a big stock pot. anything that can hold 2 gallons or so will do, and it should be stainless steel as well.
there are some steps that some recipies require at this point, but for the most part i just dissolve the malt extract in water to get my sweet wort:
doesn’t look like much, does it? but this is the first step on the path to beer! mmmm, beer…
oh, sorry.
so, once the wort is boiling, various and sundry other things get added (this recipie used crushed coriander seed and dried Curaçao orange peel). but the most important of these additions are hops.
“hops” are actually the dried flowers of the hop plant. they were originally added as a preservative; the bitterness they added to the flavour of beer was incidental. later an appreciation of the flavours (and aromas) afforded by hops led to the current use.
different brewers add hops in different ways, but the two most common ways they are added by homebrewers are in pellets:
and in plugs:
both pellets and plugs are just compressed forms of the dried flower. i like the plugs slightly better for flavour and aroma, but pellets are much less messy.
so, you boil the wort and add the hops (timing dependent on the recipie). eventually, the boil is done and the (hot! hot! hot!) wort is decanted into a fermenter. i use plastic fermenters (there are other choices available), but i’m not going to go into the different styles until the fermentation section. a plastic fermenter may look like this:
once the wort is in the fermenter and chilled, the fermentation process is begun. but i’ll cover that in the next installment.
happy drinking, and stay tuned!
quote of the day:
“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about… BEER.” – Friar Tuck, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
since i’ve not gone through all the pictures i took (or written the text to go with) while brewing this weekend, i figured i’d give an update on what i’ve been drinking lately.
i know it’s been quite a while since i posted one of these, and i’ll explain why in a bit.
but first, i’ve got this:
well, actually, i don’t have this. ’cause i drank it. and it was good. i mean, really, really good. i like barleywines anyway, and this is one of the better ones i’ve ever had. Baggywrinkle Barleywine is a product of Cisco Brewers on Nantucket (hey! isn’t there a poem about… wait. never mind), and it has a nice mouthfeel and colour. lots of maple syrup and caramel, with a hint of truffle flavour and nose. floral hops that aren’t overpowering. not available in the South, as far as i know, sorry.
but i only had the one bottle of that. so what have i been drinking?
well, my quaffing time has mostly been given over to Harpoon Brewery’s excellent Raspberry UFO.
a hefeweizen-style beer (i say “hefeweizen-style” because “true” hefeweizens come from Bavaria, according to the beer snobs), UFO is very good. but the raspberry variant surpasses very good to excellent. perfect for Charleston’s sweltering late summer and early fall weather, it cools without being heavy or too alcoholic. not an overly complex beer, raspberry and wheat flavours dominate. nose is similarly “fruity.” as someone who normally drinks one six pack, and then switches to another brew – i’ve gone through four packs of this in a row lately. that should prove how much i like this beer.
oh yeah, go Sox!
quote of the day:
“Don’t wash your trotters in the finest wine, while we’ve got some raspberry honey-wheat beer!” – Old Dun Cow, the Pyrates Royale version
the USS Constitution yesterday…
more importantly, visited Harpoon on Saturday…
that’s all for now…
quote of the day:
“It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.” – George Washington
what i’ve been listening to…
i'm not drunk enough for this. 