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- Old Ben Ale
Today’s beer is the second one in this series. It is an Old Ale brewed by Michael Robinson named Old Ben Ale. This beer is one of my favorite styles of beer. It is a malty beer of some significant strength. So it is a bit bigger than a brown ale or bitter, but not as big and bold as a barleywine. You can expect these beers to normally be fairly low on the hops scale (at least by the perception of hops. There may be considerable hops to balance the sweetness, but because of age and the amount of grains used, the perception of hop character is normally low to none), but be fairly heavy on malt and alcohol. Normally I enjoy these more in the fall months, and don’t really relish them in summer, but I rarely turn down a good beer. So lets look at this malty bombshell.
Aroma: Nice clear malt profile. Up front you get milky caramel as well as some ripe plums, as the beer warmed it turned a bit more dark brown sugar. A bit deeper I smell something akin to a dry cherry wine. Which, unless you live near a place like the cherry orchards in Door County Wisconsin, you may not be familiar with. Booze soaked almonds also comes to mind in here towards the back-end. The aroma is not as sweet as some other old ales I have had, and it is mostly caramel in here, with the other players taking a supporting role. (9 points)
Appearance: A rich amber color with some good clarity. I had to pour aggressively to get any head, but that can be expected in a 9% beer. What head I did get disappeared fairly quickly. (3 points)
Flavor: Up front is the flavor of caramel covered sticky buns. The alcohol gives it a boozy play in the adult version of the buns. Very rich caramel character, some minor chocolate flavor. I also get the booze soaked nuts in the flavor as well, which to be honest is my favorite flavor component of the beer. A few other minor players come to light, such as the plums which also come across as pear at times. There is some hop bitterness in the finish that combined with the nutty flavor and caramel leads to a nice finish. I do have to say though that the guidelines state that beer should finish dry to slightly sweet. I feel this beer finished very sweet, and has a very sweet flavor throughout. A bit too sweet for me. But all in all good flavor that hits most of the major flavor aspects of a traditional old ale. (13 points)
Mouthfeel: very full-bodied with some lingering fullness even after the swallow. It may be a bit too full-bodied. That combined with the alcohol make for a long pint for me. I enjoy it, but couldn’t drink more than one or two. Carbonation is low, as it should be. (4 points)
Overall: A very good old ale representation. The nutty character combined with the alcohol remains my favorite attribute. The caramel character is nice, but combined with the sweetness, gets a little sickening by the end. If I could drink more than one pint at a time, it would be 2 at most. Toning down the sweetness a bit would make this a bit easier beer to down. But maybe that is a good thing, because at 9% things could get out of hand quite quickly if you could down a lot of these. Still, the beers complexity is very interesting, and the beer does taste good. The beer would pair very well with a fudge brownie in my opinion. (6 points)
In the end I scored this beer a 35, but in competition I would be willing to come up a bit. I may have been a bit too harsh in the sweetness factor, but in the end, this would have been my score. A 35 would be about a B- or C+.
I get excited each time the longshot six-pack is made available. This April the six-pack with the winners for 2009 was released, but I have not got around to picking it up until last weekend. What I love about this special six-pack, is two-fold. I love the fact that Sam Adams supports homebrewing and is willing to not only run a competition of this size, but also brew the top winners. Second, the fact that the beers in this six-pack started out with a recipe from someone just like myself, inspires me to try some new things. This year in the six pack we have an Old Ale, an American Barleywine, and a Saison. Today I will focus on Jeremy White’s beer, Lemon Pepper Saison. From my understanding, this beer could be a Fruit Beer with a Saison as the base style if it contains lemons, which it does not. It contains lemon peel. So I will judge it as a straight Saison.
Sam Adams Longshot Beer #1: Lemon Pepper Saison
From the Bottle “Pale in appearance, this ale is light bodied and effervescent with an interesting combination of both fruity and spicy flavors . The initial sweetness of vanilla and citrus notes from the lemon peel is followed by the spiciness from the grains of paradise. the finish is slightly tart, yet refreshing.”
Aroma: The lemon peel aroma is the first thing I notice. There is a mild lemonade-like aroma to the beer. This is followed up by a sweet honey-like malty flavor. The peppery aroma comes through last for me. What I like is that there is not a big muddling of aromas in here. There is a refreshing lemony aroma, a sweet and clean light malt character, and a supporting spicy character. There does seem to be some yeast flavors coming into play, sort of give the beer a slight traditional Belgian Abby feel that I don’t particularly care for. (8 points)
Appearance: The beer is a solid gold with some very good clarity. There is a nice layer of foam that sticks firmly to the glass. Looks very much like a Saison. (3 points)
Flavor: Up front you are welcomed by a refreshing citrus flavor, mostly lemon by there seems to be a touch of bitter orange as well. Maybe its just me. Following up the middle is a soft malt flavor of honey soaked bread. What kills it for me is the immediate followup of the bitterness and grains of paradise combo that kicks in way too soon for my liking. It’s not a bad flavor, it just comes too soon for me. It seems to bash away the bready malty quality too quickly and too aggressively. The lingering finish is nice though and tones down to a soft dry honey flavored finish. There is a sourness that almost escapes your attention because it is a quality of the lemon trait of the beer. However, this sourness is probably from some part of the brewing process, either a sour mash, yeast/bacteria additive, or even the use of wheat. But it is not from the lemon. This sourness is more subdued and tart leaving a refreshing tasting beer. There are hops in this beer, but it seems to be mostly for bittering. The bitterness is about mid-range for me, but don’t expect much hop flavor here. (15 Point)
Mouthfeel: A bit on the light side for what I am used to for a Saison, but I think it falls within the style. The carbonation is a bit on the low-end of the Saison scale though. Not nearly effervescent enough, even though the label states it is. (3 points)
Overall: Overall I feel this beer does hit the style, regardless of what some people on other review sites seem to state. The Saison style is a very broad style, but mostly you are looking for a beer that is strong enough to stand up to aging, but not so strong as to not be a refreshing and thirst quenching beer. The amount of fruit and spice is acceptable and fairly balanced for what the beer is intended to be. I just feel that sometimes people get one or two commercial examples of a specific beer style in mind, and anything that is not like those beers is not to style. However, if you examine the guidelines, you will see that this beer vary in strength from 5% to 9.5% for stronger versions. The color range can be from pale orange to even a dark copper or brown. Granted the guidelines say that the stronger Saisons should be entered (for competition) in the Belgian Specialty category, but they are still Saisons. The portions of this beer that are traditionally Saison are all there. There is spice, there is a fruity quality, it is refreshing, and it is well hopped. It is not well hopped like how an IPA should be, but well hopped enough to balance the malt. It is not a perfect Saison to me, but it is a Saison and a well made one for me. (8 points)
Overall I give this beer a 37, Which to me would be about a B+.
On last thing to consider with this beer, is that Jeremy White won the Employee portion of the longshot competition. That is not take away from his win, but for those who may think “I entered a better Saison than this.” or “This was one of the best in the Country?” can know that this beer was not a winner from the open public competition, but the one for employees only. Which makes it a bit less of a longshot compared to the public entries, but still I give him respect for winning the thing. Either way, I still like this one for the most part.
Wood Lake at Kohler
If you are like me, you may be on a budget, but allow a few splurges when it comes to beer, and beer events. Generally these events run upwards of $30 and up but rarely over $100 for a single event. Heck, I have yet to pay over $60 for a single ticket (however I think this year things are going to change because of price hikes). Kohler runs their event a bit differently. They have several events over 3 day, these events range from a golf tourney to beer and food pair demos. Each event requires a ticket, excluding the golf tourney these prices range between $25-$65 per event. Or you can opt for a day or weekend pass for a bit less than buying all the tickets. This year though, they extended a special offering to BJCP judges who would judge the homebrew contest, and gave us 1 ticket to Cheers to Beers (their main beer festival Saturday night), 1 ticket to Shorts and Chefs (a high-end cooking event), and 1 ticket to Blues, Brews, and BBQ (which is the closing festivities and is exactly as it states, a music event with beer and BBQ). We also got an all access pass for ourselves to all the events, and could use the tickets to bring a guest. I could not attend the Blues, Brews, and BBQ because of my nephews birthday, but I did attend a few events Saturday and Sunday and thought it was well worth a write-up.
The Homebrew Festival (ticket price $25)
3 of us Judged Best of Show, which was 10 beers sent on to BOS.
The Homebrew festival actually starts at 10am, way before the doors open to the event. They host a homebrew contest which I at first glance seemed a bit off-putting to some from what I heard in the homebrew community, but once I experienced it, it made total sense. The entry fee was a bit steep however, at $10 per entry. As judges we did end up discussing the cost of entry, and a positive side it added to the contest is that the beer sent in was really good. The thought behind it was if you are going to spend $10 to enter a beer, you want to make sure you had a really good beer to send. I don’t know if this was Kohler’s intent, but it was a theory we came up with on why the entry fee for such a small event. Most of the entries were local however. It was clearly stated in the rules that in order to win best of show, you had to be present at the homebrew festival to serve your homebrew. You needed to bring 5 gallons of beer. It did not have to be 5 gallons of the beer you entered, but it did have to be homebrew. Although this limited the entries to mostly local brewers, it also does promote the hobby. I do wish though, that if if they required you to serve up your homebrew, you didn’t have to pay the hefty entry fee. If you break it down, you have $25+ for ingredient cost to bring 5 gallons of beer, plus the $10 entry fee. That comes out to a conservative $35 per entry. Each category received 1st-3rd place awards, then Best of Show had trophy’s awarded for 1st-3rd place in BOS as well. And the trophy’s were not cheap plastic, but a metal and marble, so that was a plus. The actual event was quite nice. I am not sure how much homebrew there was there, but they had a good turn out ( I estimate 100 people attended this small event, but that is not an official number), and some good beers were served as well.As you can see below in the picture I took as the doors opened, food was included in the ticket cost. The spread was pretty decent as you can see.
Food was included in the $25 ticket price
Cheers To Beers (Ticket Price $50)
Cheers to beers was a lot of fun and the lineup of beers was worth the price, the food was just a bonus. It was held at the Kohler Design Center which houses displays of many bathroom fixtures that are produced at Kohler. This made for an interesting evening when combined with some top-notch beers. For example, the first booth you saw when you walked in was from Mikkeller, and featured the Black Hole Series of beers and the single hop IPA’s. I stuck around here for a while and sampled the same beer, but aged in different types of barrels (port, rum, whiskey, and bourbon) as well as the single hop Amarillo, Simcoe, and Tomahawk beers.
Mikkeller Black hole Imperial Stouts, and Single Hop IPA's
Also present were a wide variety of Belgian Beers, one of my favorites of the night was and Oud Bruin from Brouwerij Bavik called Petrus Aged Pale Grand Reserve. It was pleasantly sour, with hints of cherry and vanilla goodness. All your major players were also there in full strength: Goose Island, New Glarus, Capital Brewery, Dogfish Head, Left Hand, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat with Maredsous 8 just to name a few. The food here was also provided, this included a full dessert table, which I didn’t have time to sample because I kept heading back to the cheese bar. here are a few pics for your enjoyment before I move on to Shorts and Chefs.
Cheese Bar
Authentic Cask Ale
because it's just not a brewfest without it, and a random drunk guy pic
Yeah, Eiffel Tower baby!
Shorts and Chefs (ticket price $45)
Shorts and Chefs
First I have to make it clear that shorts and chefs is not a food and beer pairing event, which the Kohler Festival of Beer did have, but rather a showcase of the top chefs in the state of Wisconsin. Each chef was paired up with a brewery, but the pairing of the food and particular beer was not intended to be a pairing. You were on your own for finding a good pairing for various foods. With that said, I loved this event and when you see the pics you will see why. Although this event was casual, the cuisine was not. You had everything from ribs and pulled pork, to lamb chops and couscous to choose from. The breweries featured were the same as Saturday nights Cheers to Beers event, so it was not difficult to find some very nice pairings. Again, the food and the beer was all included in your ticket cost, and you could each as much from as many chefs as you wanted. Of my top four favorite dishes, the number one for me was a lamb chop smothered in a yogurt and curry mixture atop some Israeli couscous which I paired up with some more Maredsous 8. It was excellent. My other top three was some type of tiny squash hollowed out and stuffed with a crab meat mixture and garnished with greens and a marinara, a grilled pork belly served with watermelon dipped in a chocolate and balsamic vinegar sauce topped with feta, and an excellent appetizer which was grilled bread cheese (which does not actually contain any bread) on a skewer with a venison brat and served with a date chutney. All four of my favs are pictured below.
Grilled bread cheese topped with a venison brat served with a date chutney
The grilled squash and crab meat dish
Grilled Pork Belly with watermelon dipped in chocolate and balsamic topped with feta
The lamb chop smothered in a yogurt and curry mixture atop Israeli Couscous
In the end, although a bit expensive, if you are a beer lover and a foodie, you will find the Kohler Festival of Beer an event worth the price. I just wish I did not have prior commitments so I could have attended the beer and food pairings and the Blues, Brews, and BBQ event. But from the ones I did attend, I was very very pleased. The beers offered were great and in many cases above the normal beer festival standards, the food was great. And best of all, everything was included in the ticket price. So even if you spent every dime on tickets, you still got to eat.
I am compiling a more complete list of brewers and offerings that were there, so check back and I’ll post a list shortly.
- New Glarus Enigma
I hope you like the new look. I think the new skin is a bit more appealing to the eye and seems to be a bit cleaner to me. I also want to tell you that at the time I write this, I have an interview scheduled with Kirby Nelson from Capital Brewery in Middleton, Wisconsin for 5pm this Friday. As long as his schedule does not change, you can look forward to that interview soon.
Today though, I have a special treat. New Glarus Enigma. This beer has brewed before, it won some medals at the GABF in 2003 and World Beer Cup in ‘04, but the first I had it was in 2006, which was before I was blogging. It was also my first Unplugged beer, although I had all of the New Glarus offerings up till then, or so I thought. This will be the first review I have of this version of this beer in the Unplugged series. Enigma is a Fruit Beer which has a base style similar to the Flander’s Brown, which is a sour ale.
Aroma: First thing you may notice is a musty and outdoorsy aroma. This is more than likely from the wild fermentation, which often gives you odd and interesting aromas and flavors. In this case, to me it is musty and outdoorsy and smells slightly like a damp forest and wet leaves. Others may notice the sour and over-ripe cherry aroma. Both are fairly equal in strength in this beer. Diving a bit deeper into the aroma you can catch some soft caramel and toasty barley notes A bit more subtle is a mild oakiness and soft vanilla tones which add to the rustic character of the beer. In all honesty this beer is a wonder and a treasure just in aroma alone. As it warms there is a bit more a slight vinegar aroma which can be inappropriate, but it is slight. (9 points)
Appearance: A mid-amber hue with some excellent clarity and soft red highlights. It Pours a frothy khaki colored head which diminishes fairly quickly, but leaves a lasting layer throughout half of my pint. (3 points)
Flavor: The flavor is where this beer really shines. If you are not a fan of sour beers, you probably will not enjoy this beer very much, but it is not so sour as to turn most people off. Right up front you get an initial sour punch for just a second, then the cherries come through quite nicely. In the middle the malt and vanilla oaky tones take over for a short time before the woodsy funk and more sourness linger finish off the beer. There is some sweetness to the beer that helps to tame the sourness and funk. The malt in the beer comes across slightly biscuit-like and a bit of caramel and sweet toffee. Although the beer finishes a bit on the sweet side, it is sour enough to leave you refreshed and ready for another drink. If you are familiar with New Glarus’s other fruit beers, you will notice that although the fruit in this beer is quite evident, it is not as strong and dominant as the other beers. If you are seeking hops, you are looking to the wrong style. (18 points)
Mouthfeel: It is a medium bodied beer with a fair amount of carbonation. There is a slight dry presence to it, which comes off a bit astringent to me, but I suspect it may be from the oak. (4 points)
Overall: New Glarus does not disappoint with this fruited sour brown ale. It was brought back for a reason, not only because sour beers are becoming more and more appreciated, but because this is an easy drinking beer. As the beer warms, considerably more oak shines through in the flavor and the malt develops a bit more. At the cooler temps I was getting more a lot more cherry. In the end, the sourness is not overdone, the fruit is not over the top, the malt comes through nicely, and you get some oak. The beer savvy will recognize the difficulty in balancing such a complex beer. The not so savvy will love the easy drinkablilty and thirst quenching tartness “for such a dark beer”. (9 points)
All in all I gave this beer a 42 out of 50 points (Per the BJCP scoresheet), which would be a solid A in my book. New Glarus never seems to disappoint, even though some of the beers may not be my favorite (only because of personal taste), you can’t argue with the top notch quality and willingness to go out on a limb and try somehthing new.
OK, today I am just going to do a quick post on the Northern English Brown I brewed with some friends a few weeks back. This post will be short and sweet, but will be the defining moment on if I know if this beer will be competition worthy. Although I have done fairly well in competitions before, I was thinking I am going to start entering more competitions now that I feel I have fairly consistent results and can get most beers about where I want them.
So let’s take a look at this puppy, even though it probably could use a few more days conditioning since I bottled it only 10 days ago.
Jaba's Busted Nut Brown
OK, this beer did have some issues, which is why it is a “busted” nut brown. But the minor brewing issue aside (my grains did not come crushed, and since I had someone coming to watch me brew, I had no choice but to improvise my crush. Not an ideal situation), the rest of the brew day went well. Once I opened the fermentor to bottle it, it smelled a lot like New Glarus Fat Squirrel. It also tasted quite good at bottling, but it is hard to get an exact feel without carbonation.
Aroma: Very nutty, with sweet almonds. There is some solid crusty bread and a hint of toffee. Nothing as far as hops at all in the aroma. A bit more hops would probably help, but in this case I wouldn’t add any more. (8 points)
Checking clarity
Color: A nice clear dark amber with reddish highlights. It poured a decent head that dissipated quickly, but does leave a thin layer until the end. (3 points)
Flavor: The beer has some nuttiness to it, that is for sure. The beer starts off a bit sweet, but does not finish sweet. I also wouldn’t say it finishes dry, but it just sort of drifts off. I do like the toffee flavor that is in the finish as it trails off. There is also some light biscuit and a touch of toast. The hop flavor and bitterness are spot on I have to admit. There really is no hops in the flavor and zero bitterness. Personally, that is a new one for me, but according to the guidelines that is OK. The only thing I feel this beer is lacking is overall malt depth. Although all the components are there, it feels a bit too small for me. Also, there is a bit more of a fruity flavor than I would like, but it is still on the lower side. (14 points)
Mouthfeel: To me it feels a bit too thin. It may be in the medium-light range, but it does feel to be solidly in the light range for me. At this time the carbonation is also low, but it is also a bit early. (3 points)
Overall: Overall I am very happy with how this beer turned out. Not having an ideal crush probably made the difference. With a better crush, I am sure the malt profile may be a bit more full. Still, all the right flavor and aroma components are there for exactly what I am looking for. With a bit more malt depth and a bit more body, I really think I have a solid winner here. Still, this beer may take some 1st place awards in competition, so I will be sending it off. But I do want to re-brew this fairly soon and hit it right on. I am not going to change the recipe, but want to re-brew it with a proper crush before making adjustments. (7 points)
Overall I gave it a 35 out of 50. With a bit more body and malt depth, this beer probably would be up in the 38+ range for me. Still, I am proud of this beer as it is right now.
If you want to brew this beer, you can find it in my recipes section on this blog.
It has been a little while since my last post, but there has been a lot going on. First I have been working on finishing a brewhouse just off my garage (pics to come when fully complete). That has sucked up a lot of my spare time over the past two weeks. The good news is it is done except putting in the ceiling, and I will be brewing in there tomorrow. The second thing is I was gearing up for my interview of Joe Karls from Hinterland Brewing in Green Bay. I completed that interview this morning and will start working on posting it right after the Easter Holiday. So keep an eye out for that. But in preparation for that interview, I wanted to review Hinterland’s Luna Coffee Stout. All I can say is I have had some of Joe’s beers from Hinterland and I have to say, that guy can brew! If you have never had a Hinterland beer, you have to get your hands on them. I have never had this one, or another one I will be reviewing shortly, the Maple Bock, so I am pretty excited to try this one.
Hinterland's Luna Coffee Stout, no doubt about the coffee here.
As you will find out in the interview, Hinterland’s bottled version of their pale ale was previously brewed at Grey’s brewery using Joe’s recipe and ingredients, but using Grey’s equipment and bottling line. Now, Hinterland has a new bottling line right there at the brewery in Green Bay. This will help them expand the beers they offer in bottles, and give them much more control over the whole process. The new bottles are 16 ounce German bottles, that are pretty heavy duty, so you fellow homebrewers out there can really utilize these bottles after you empty them. Currently they have this coffee stout, their flagship Pale Ale, an Amber, and the Maple Bock available. There will be a Cherry Wheat ready for summer that will replace the Maple Bock. Ok, enough with that. I’ll save the rest for the interview. Let’s get started with the review.
This beer is a coffee stout, which has no official category, but is within the style in American Stout, I am unsure if coffee is added but I am going to assume so, so it would actually be in category 23 as an American Stout with coffee added.
Aroma: The first thing that hits me from the pour is there is a distinct coffee aroma. If there is no coffee added to this beer I would be shocked. The coffee aroma is so bright and clear I couldn’t imagine it being anything other than real coffee. Some subtle chocolate are floating around in there as well. There is also a nice roasted grain aroma, typical of a stout. I don’t get much in the way of hops here, but I think that is by design. It is a coffee stout and it delivers coffee, and roasted barley character. (9 points)
Appearance: The beer is almost completely black at first sight. However, if you hold it up to the light you will see some deep ruby or garnet tones, and also notice it has some great clarity. The head is a nice frothy tan head that last long into the pint and provides some great lacing. (3 points)
Flavor: No surprises here. The flavor is coffee, but I don’t mind that. That is what the beer is billed to be. In the flavor, there are a few more components coming through a bit stronger than in the aroma. For example the dark chocolate is picked up a bit easier, there is a creamy……well….cream flavor that is bouncing around as well. There is just a subtle sweetness that prevents this beer from becoming quite dry, and makes is very drinkable. I don’t get much in the way of hop bitterness, and it seems a lot of the bitterness comes from the roasted grain. I have to say I am very impressed with that factor. I know there are hops in there, but the bitterness I perceive is not derived from the hops. Which to me, means that this beer is in perfect balance between the malt and hops, and again the coffee character is showcased. A dry bitter coffee flavor lingers into the finish, along with some roasted grain. (18 points)
Mouthfeel: The beer is a touch on the thin side. Although personally I like that, there should probably be just a touch more body to it. The texture is creamy with just a bit of roasted grain astringency…or maybe from the coffee (4 points).
Overall: OK, I know it may seem like I’m trying to build up to the interview. But trust me when I say I am not. If you go out and try this one, and you like stouts, you will not be disappointed. First off, I am not a fan of coffee, but I can tolerate it is certain circumstances. This beer actually makes me want to go out and drink coffee, if I knew coffee tasted this good. The balance is outstanding, the brightness of the coffee combined with the dark chocolate and mild cream is a winner in my book. If I were to make any suggestion it would only be one, just a touch more body. The aroma was very nice, maybe could be pushed up a bit more, but maybe the coffee wouldn’t come through as bright. The flavor is almost magic to me. This would also be the perfect beer to enjoy with your dessert. (9 points)
Overall I give the beer a 43, which would translate to an A or A-. All I can say is I have a new stout to add to my favorites.
If you are interested, you can check out the guest review I did on the Midwest Microbrews website here http://www.midwestmicrobrews.com/reviews.html . This was the second guest review done the site and I chose to do Sprecher’s Russian Imperial stout. Also, Mario Rubio did a review of Goose Island’s Matilida, which can also be found on the same page.
Here is part 2 of the Brewing Software Segment. Here I will take a look at two programs I am unfamiliar with, Strangebrew and ProMash. The truest test will be to see what I can do without having to read the instructions, but if things prove too confusing, I am not above looking at the directions. But for me, I think brewing software should be easy enough that a novice can use it right off the install (which I feel was a downfall of beer tools). I feel I am a bit computer savoy as well as know my way around a mash, so I should be able to do it if it’s not that complex. After all, I was creating recipes in Beersmith right after I bought it, without instructions, after about my third or fourth beer. For both of these products I am using the free evaluation license.
Lets Start with Promash, where you can save 3 recipes and do 9 brew sessions with the evaluation license.
ProMash
Like all the other software packages, there are many features you can use to customize your water, mash schedules, equipment, formulas, ingredients, and so on. However this program is lacking a scale feature which I thought for sure it would have. I come from the understanding that ProMash was originally a pro brewer software package that was adopted by homebrewers, so I thought for sure the ability to scale would be here. I was picturing a pro brewer working on a small test batch then scaling it up their much larger system. But this one has no scale feature or a convert extract to all grain and vice versa. The user interface is easy to understand, however it does have quite an outdated look to it, like the old programs from the Windows 95 era. Another thing I did not like is there is no support for other formats, which seems to be lacking in all the software. This is a point I forgot to touch on in part one, so let me do so here.
One thing that Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro have up on ProMash is that both can export or import recipes in BeerXML format. This enables sharing of recipes between these programs, even if the default extensions (.bsm for beersmith or .btp for beer tools) are not compatible. ProMash, at least in the evaluation copy, does not support BeerXML.
OK, let’s continue and enter our Stout Recipe. I quickly entered this just to see how it works. I did not tweak the system to my specs, because I will not be using this program. But I did breeze through the options and it seems pretty straight forward.
ProMash Recipe
It was easy enough to enter a recipe. The only thing I did not like was in order to create a new item, like the cacao nibs, you have to do so in the main screen and cannot do it in recipe mode. You can do this in both Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.
Mash Options
Above you see the mash options. This was also pretty straight forward. I just entered a quick mash to put some features in. You can set up a quick mash like I did here, or set up a more complex mash or step mash. One thing I don’t like, and this is minor and probably just because I am spoiled. But you cannot see the dough in temp in this mash. To do so you have to go into the brew session, click the mash tab, then click the “show dough in temperature” tab. All this info is more easily accessible in the other two programs.
The Session
Above is the brew session tab. Anything you want to know or tweak about your recipe on brew day can be done here. Next to edit ingredients is the mash schedule tab I was talking about above.
Water Adjustments
In the session tab, you can view and tweak your water volumes needed for your particular system. I didn’t really do anything here, but I played with a few numbers. Pretty much the same functionality as the other programs.
Last I just want to show the edit ingredients tab. The default ingredients did show the age of the software though. There was no Whirlfloc, no 5.2 stabilizer, Star San, or anything else. The list of spices and additives was very very small. So you will have to do a lot of adding if you brew with spices and such. I also noticed the yeast and grain selections were also quite dated. So you will be using this feature a lot if you buy the program.
Add or Edit Ingredients.
So in the end, I feel that ProMash is a nice program, just very outdated. I didn’t get into the guts of the program, which is what the die hards really like. This is the water adjustments and other modifications you can do, but you can also do those in both Beersmith and Beer Tools as well. If it were to suggest someone buy a program today, ProMash would not be high on my list simply because for the same cost (actually $5 less for Beersmith) you get the same thing, with an easier interface and more up to the date ingredients and features. Beer Tools comes in a close second, just because it is not as user-friendly as Beersmith. But we have one more program to look at….Strangebrew.
Strangebrew
Off the bat I’m a bit disappointed. The program supports BeerXML, but will not open Beersmith or Beer Tools Pro versions of the program. So that was a bummer. Maybe it was a glitch though, because it says you can import and export to XML.
Error
OK, so that aside, this is a 30 day trial of the software. Upfront this is very easy to use. As you see below, I entered the recipe no problem, had no issues with ingredients or extras. However, if you do need/want to add some, in the “edit” tab at the top there is an option for “databases” and you can edit or add ingredients there easy enough. It is a simple looking program, but looks like it has all the features you need.
Recipe Entered....easy enough
Now below is the mash tab. I played around with this just to see how it works and it is very simple. It would be nice to have a mash tab, or mash button, but to get there you have to go to “view” up at the top, then select “mash manager”. From there though, you can create your mash schedule and sparges. Like all the others, it calculates the water volumes and temperatures based on how you have your system set up. What I do like is the easy “No Sparge, Fly Sparge, Two Batch Sparge, and Three Batch Sparge” options. This is very easy for the beginner to use. Chances are you would be doing the batch sparge, but with the brew in a bag method being all the rage these days, the no sparge option is very nice.
Mash creation, showing the sparge method drop down list.
So we have done all this………what about scaling or converting all grain to extract and vice versa? TaDa!!!!!!!
Scale is supported in Strangebrew, just like beersmith!
I found this option under the file tab, with the option “Resize Recipe”. Very nice. So Beersmith is not alone here anymore.
So in conclusion of this segment, I want to say if I were to rate these programs for overall beginner usability, I would rate them as follows.
- Beersmith
- Strangebrew
- Beer Tools Pro (however it does have the best looking design of the 4 hands down)
- ProMash
The reason I rate promash so low is because of how dated the program seems to be, at least in the evaluation portion. I do want you keep in mind that this was a simple top down view of these programs using an easy all grain recipe. I didn’t get into doing water adjustments, step or decoction mashing, and so on. For extract brewing, all these programs are going work just fine. It will be your first venturing into all grain that may prove if the program will make the recipe formulation difficult or a breeze for your first recipes. If you want to know the costs of the programs, here is a run down as of today 3/22/10
- Beersmith: $21.95
- Strangebrew: There’s a $15 registration fee.
- Beer Tools Pro: Has a Mac or PC option and both are $29.95
- ProMash: ProMash retails for $24.95. CA residents add 7.75% sales tax. If you need to have ProMash shipped to you on disk (via US mail) please add $6.00 for shipping within the USA and $8.00 for international orders.
Aside from getting a pot and doing a full boil, one piece of brewing equipment I highly suggest spending some money on is some brewing software. On average the cost is $20 and you will have it forever, and it makes planning your brew sessions and recipes so much easier, and for me more fun. There are a few mainstream programs out there such as Beersmith, Promash, Beer Tools Pro, and Strangebrew. If you are looking for free alternative, there are also some good brewing spreadsheets floating around on the Internet, Beer Tools has some free tools you can use to create basic recipes (look along the left hand side of the page), then you always have the Beer Recipator to use for free. However the spreadsheets can be a bit cumbersome to use and maintain, especially if you are not familiar with using spreadsheets, and the free tools really limit your ingredient list.
All of these tools above will help you create, tweak, and store recipes. Some even allow you scale recipes, like if you have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and you do 5, or you have a pro brewing friend who gives you one of his recipes for a 30 barrel system and you need a homebrew scale. I own and have used Beer Tools Pro, and I use Beersmith for almost all my recipes. I really like how user-friendly Beersmith is. For the purpose of this post, I am going to take shots of all the software, just to help show all of you sitting on the fence, just how this software can make your life so much easier. All of these major software brands do have free trial offers to test drive them for yourself. In part 1 of this topic, I will take a look at Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.
Beersmith
In this picture you can see the opening screen and options for Beersmith.
In the above picture, this is the default screen you come to when opening Beersmith. Here is where you can format a recipe, select if it is extract, partial mash, or all grain. You can see, if you look at this picture for a while, there are options for converting recipes (for example if you have a friend who sends you a recipe for all grain, but you are an extract brewer, you can convert his recipe to an extract recipe and vice versa), scaling a recipe (which can be either scaling it up or down), an inventory feature where you can enter what ingredients you have at hand, and many other tweaks you can make. Under the file tab, there are options for importing recipes you may receive from a friend or off of websites who may use the Beersmith format, and there are many options for tweaking water, measurements, what equipment you have, and brewing processes. But what I like is there are default features you can use right from installation without tweaking it to your system right away.
In the next few pictures, I will show you what a basic all grain recipe will look like in Beersmith, then last convert that recipe to extract, and scale that recipe up to 10 gallons.
Below, you can see what the software shows you when you have a recipe entered. I used one of my favorite homebrew recipes, a chocolate stout of mine called Vader’s Fist. You can see that it gives you estimated starting gravity, finishing gravity, color, and IBU’s. It gives you the range for the style you picked. And once you brew it and take measurements you can add in what the actual gravity’s were and it gives you the ABV. What you can’t see, is further below you have fermentation and bottling/kegging options.
Recipe in Beersmtih
In the following picture, this is just showing the preset mashing and sparging options. All you have to do is pick one. If you want to tweak them you can edit and save the changes you make to these options. Of course, if you are doing extract you don’t have to worry about this.
Beersmith Mashing Options
Next if you noticed in the upper right side, there is a button that says “Preview Brewsheet”. You can hit this button, then have the option to print out a handy brewing schedule for your recipe. It will look something like this.
Brewsheet
Now lets hit that Convert button and convert this recipe to extract. One thing I want to note is you want to create a copy in your recipe list of the original recipe, because once you convert it, you sort of lose the original recipe. Unless I am missing something, this could cause problems. I simply make a copy of the recipe (copy and paste in the recipe list) then covert the copy.
The convert option in Beersmith
As you can see, if your all grain set up used a keggle but you want to do a partial boil for the extract, you can do this. You just select the equipment you have for extract. You can then select the type of malt extract you want to use for your base (Dry or liquid, extra light, light, amber, dark, ect). Finally either check or leave it blank the option for auto converting grains that must be mashed. This does cause an issue when converting because some grains need to be mashed. If you must, you can substitute some grains that don’t need to be mashed, but the end result may not be exactly the same as the all grain version.
Last, here is the scale option.
Scale the recipe up
This is pretty simple also. Select the new batch size you want, select the efficiency, and also if you want to fix the amount based on your equipment. Most of the time you want to do this unless you have many different sized pots or mash tuns.
Well, that is the basic overview of Beersmith. Lets take a quick look at Beer Tools Pro. This one will be a bit quicker for two reasons. First, I am still learning this one because I think it has a bit longer learning curve than Beersmith. And second, I don’t see scale or convert options to show you. I will use the same recipe as I did in Beersmith for this example.
Beer Tools Pro
As you can see the user interface is a lot better looking that Beersmith. I really like the slide scales and the color of the beer picture. Once you enter the recipe from the ingredients categories on the left, and drag and drop them from the pane at the top (above the pint glass), most of your recipe control will take place in the “Display” tab to the bottom right below the pint glass. Here you can enter your equipment, mash schedule, other adjustments, ingredients, and so on. Also, you can see various aspects of your beer and brewing schedule under the tabs labeled: style, analysis, schedule, summary, carbonation, and notes.
Let’s take a look at how you would enter your mash schedule.
Mash Schedule
Here is how you do your schedule in Beer Tools Pro. Under the display tab you can select “Schedule”. Then in the blank area, right click and select an option, such as “New Mash In” , “New Infusion”, “New Rest” , or “New Sparge” (there are more options but these are the most used by me). Then enter the information as you need to. This is very easy if you have your equipment entered in and calibrated, which can be a pain, but I will not cover that. You can do that with the instructions if you purchase the program. Once things are in, all you should have to do it enter your target temperature and the program will update the other fields for you. You do this for all the infusions or sparges you are going to do. For example a single infusion with a batch sparge will look like this.
Single Infusion with Batch Sparge
And the last thing for this basic overview is the option to print this off.You can select what aspects of the recipe to print off.
Beer Tools Pro Print Option, no brewsheet?
There is no handy brewsheet that I can see. However, the print off you do get will do the trick. I do like the “check it off” style of Beersmith, but Beer Tools Pro has a great look to it that makes up for some shortcomings like no conversion tool. No scaling tool either. But the tweaking options here are almost endless. Also, I could be wrong. Just because I don’t see the option does not mean it is not there. If you want to learn more about Beer Tools Pro, they have an online Wiki for Beer Tools Pro you can read that will probably give you more insight and in depth instruction than I am giving here. This is just a top down look at the software.
Dundee Honey Brown Lager
Today’s review is on Dundee Ales and Lagers, Honey Brown Lager. There is no BJCP style category for a lager like this, so this one would fall under category 23, the specialty category. This beer is not a vienna lager, but may be close so I will use that as a base style. I will not really deduct any points for it not hitting the vienna style lager since the brewer does claim it to be so, but for an example of what you may compare it to if you wanted to enter a beer like this in competition, you could enter it in category 23 as a vienna style lager with honey. One thing to keep in mind that even though the name states it is a honey brown, don’t confuse this beer with a brown ale style beer. I am not sure why it is called “brown” because the beer is not really a brown color, but rather a light amber. Still for most lagers (Schwartzbier excluded) this is a darker shade than some will be used to. With that, lets get started with the review.
The aroma is clean, with some nice toasty and sweet malt character. Some very light honey and the faintest hint of spicy hops. That is pretty much it for the aroma. Most lagers are clean and void of any fruity ar other secondary aromas. So that is to be expected of a lager like this. (8 points)
The color is a light amber and quite clear. The head poured very nicely, but dissipates quite quickly. A more persistent head would be a plus, still a nice looking beer. (2 points)
The flavor is OK. There is a decent soft toasted malt profile. There is a sweetness to the beer that lasts long into the finish letting taste the malt for quite some time. The honey in the aroma was not very strong, but here in the flavor the honey comes through quite a bit more. Although hops should not play a big role in a beer like this, a little more spicy hop character would benefit the beer in my opinion. Some people may find the lingering sweetness to be off-putting, but I kind of enjoy it. It is a bit honey early on, but turns a touch malty later. This beer is easily quaffable, but drying the beer out a bit would make it even more so. (14 points)
The mouthfeel is very thin, almost watery. This was the only part of the beer I really didn’t like. I also drank this beer with my dad, who also made the comment about how thin the beer was, so I know I was not alone here. No astringency or other poor mouthfeel qualities, just too watery. (3 points)
Overall, this is a very nice lager. I do think this beer can be a bit misunderstood which is why some may seem to score it low or bash it from time to time. Those who are apt to buy a beer with the name “Honey Brown” are probably expecting a beer to be like Newcastle at the very least. However, this is a lager, and not an ale. You should expect the flavors and aromas to be a bit softer and more refined from the cool fermentation and aging process. Do not expect this to be a full flavored brew, the flavors can be complex and rich, but will be very soft. A bit more mouthfeel and a touch more hops would be good in my opinion. But when it comes to drinkability, this beer has that down. (6 points)
Overall I score this beer a 32, which would translate to about a B- in my book. If this were not a lager, and supposed to be a brown ale, I would score it much lower. Still, the brown in the name is deceiving. When you see it and taste it, it appears to me to be closer to amber lager, a weaker Vienna Lager possibly.
Turns out I had this beer quite a while back. I found an old bottle in my bottle collection. The new bottle design is on the left and old on the right. Which do you prefer?
New Glarus Unplugged: Cherry Stout
Today I have the return of Cherry Stout from New Glarus and their Unplugged Series. This beer was first brewed back in 2003 (at least that is when it won its first award) and has won 4 awards since 2003. I missed this one when it came out the first time so I don’t have a point of reference on what the first one was like, but New Glarus is a highly consistent brewery, so I am confident that the beer we have here is pretty much the same as the first run. This beer is billed as a Cherry Stout so if you recall from previous posts, we will judge this beer as a fruit beer with the base style of an unknown stout style, so lets just assume for the sake of argument that it is a dry stout embedded in there. The reason is because I am assuming the fruit will add some sweetness to begin with and using a sweet or oatmeal stout as the base could make the beer appear to be overly sweet and cloying. But again, this is just my assumption. Just remember, a proper fruit beer should be a harmonious balance of the featured fruit with the underlying beer style, but this statement in and of itself is subjective as to what a harmonious balance is.
Off the bat, the aroma is thick with cherry’s. What I do like is it is obvious that this real cherry, unlike another cherry beer I reviewed earlier on. What seems to be missing to me is any real solid hint at a stout, of any kind. I do get some very mild roasted grain, but you really have to pay attention to find it. There is some mild oaky character that comes across as almost brown sugar-like. I really had to think about what was causing that aroma, and it hit me that it is some oak with vanilla melded with the malt. At least that is my impression. As good and honest as the aroma is, I just don’t see enough stout in it to score it high. This is one of those cases where the numbers will not reflect that this beer is better than the score represents. If you have ever had Belgian Red, this beer smells very close to that as well. (6 points)
The color is a deep garnet, and the stream when I poured it was a stream of a muddy red color. In the glass it sits very dark brown with garnet highlights. The head was very nicely formed and 10 minutes in still has a very thin layer. (3 points)
The flavor at first is similar to cherry cola. Not Cherry Coke, but if you have ever been to an old-time restaurant or soda shop that adds real cherry juice and cherries to cola. The beer is sweet up front, and finishes out a bit tart. The only solid hint of stout I get is in the finish where there is a prominent flavor of roasted grain working against the tartness from the cherry. The wood in here is very mild and for me comes across late in the finish. As the beer warms it starts to show a bit more chocolate in with that cherry. I am really liking the flavor a lot more than I thought I would. Usually when it comes to fruit beers, I like to have the fruit act as a highlight to enhance the beer, this one showcases the fruit just like their other fruit beers do. Still, a stout is a bold and assertive beer and if billed as such should make more of an appearance. As much as I’m digging the flavor, I just can’t see any solid stout showing. (10 points)
The mouthfeel is a bit more full than I would expect, but still does a nice job of not coming up too full. The stout portion of the beer should lend to a bit more of medium to fuller mouthfeel, so the beer hits the mark here. (5 points)
Overall, I can drink this beer all night long, but the point of fact is that this beer would be better billed as a different beer for the base style. There just is not enough stout in it from my perspective to call it a cherry stout. I don’t really know what to call it, but to me it comes across more as cherry brown than cherry stout. But then again, Cherry Brown does not have the great ring that cherry stout does. I really like the real cherry aroma and flavor, and the tartness and overall flavor is very appealing, so I can see why it won some awards, including a few Gold Medals at the GABF. The only reason I can’t personally score it high is because of the stout tag. This beer gets a solid recommendation to drink it and enjoy it, but for the sake of judging it as I would in competition, I can give it an overall of 6 points (6 points)
The number score I would give this beer is 30, which is good and would probably be a C or C+. Again, I can’t stress enough that its not because this beer is bad, or that the pros who judge at the GABF have it wrong (From what I gather the judging at the GABF is run a bit differently than than in homebrew competitions), this is just one of those things where from my judging standpoint, I like to see a bit more of the base style come through. If this beer was called something other than stout, it would probably get much higher from me. As you can tell it does pain me to give what I think is such a low score to such a well brewed and easy drinking beer, not to mention that I am a huge fan of New Glarus. But you do have to call it like you see it as you interpret the style guidelines.
Some of my homegrown Hops
Well it’s that time of year again, time to decide if you are going to plant hops and what to get. Although I do grow my own hops, I am not a hop growing expert by any means. I do grow one plant at this time since I killed off my other two. Since I have a small yard, I thought it would be a good idea to plant hops in large planters, since this does seem to work for some. I found that it worked for two years only, then my plants died off. I was able to save one Glacier plant when I was digging up what I thought was dead roots, and found one viable plant left. I quickly planted it in the ground and it grew that year about 10 feet. The following year, it grew very nicely. Now, I am going to strictly plant in the soil, no more pots. Before you ask, yes I did bring the plants into the garage for the winter, but even that seemed to be too cold for them.
What I want to do for this post is provide you a one stop shop for your hop needs. Even though I am not an expert, I can direct you to the experts and online shops to purchase the rhizomes you may be looking for. Every store seems to have different varieties, so you should be able to find what you are looking for quite easily….aside from propriority plants like Simcoe and Amarillo. Those are not available to anyone other than the current farms who bred them.
Hop Information
- Hop Union – A great source for Hop Information and some Hop Products(Every Homebrewer should have their Hop Datasheet!)
- Freshops - This section is dedicated to hop growing and is a great read for novice hop growers.
Hop Rhizomes
- Freshops – Aside from Rhizomes, you can also purchase whole leaf and pellet hops along with hop extract and growing supplies.
- Northern Brewer – Aside from Rhizomes, they have anything else you could need for brewing.
- Thymegarden – Hop Rhizomes
- MoreBeer.com – Another great online Brewing Supply Store
- Midwest Supplies – I have not personally dealt with this store, but some people I know are happy with them.
- Adventures in Homebrewing – More of the same.
Now if you cannot find the hops you are looking for in this list of retailers, there is a good chance they are not available to the public. Some hops, like my favorite, Amarillo were bred and grown by one grower who has exclusive rights to grow that variety. Off hand I am not sure if they have a patent on the plant variety, or just refuse to let anyone get a hold of a rhizome, but either way it is near impossible to get some of these highly sought after varieties.
New Glarus Cabin Fever Honey Bock, a shade shorter than a Helles/Mai Bock
Dang. I went to take a photo of the first beer I’m drinking tonight and the batteries are dead on the camera. My wife’s camera…..same thing. So I had to resort to using my camera phone, so excuse the quality of the pic. But here is the new one from New Glarus, Cabin Fever Honey Bock. I am a bit confused on what this style is, since it really is not a traditional bock, and not really a traditional Helles Bock, it sort of lays where a beer would be right before the Helles Bock, if such a style formally existed. There is no claim to style, other than calling it a Wisconsin Pale Honey Bock. So, for this beer I am throwing out the score sheet (I will not be using category 23 for this beer, since I don’t think it really has a base style either, technically if you were entering it in competition you could claim Helles Bock as the base style, and list the changes but everything about this beer from the hop strength, ABV, malts used, addition of honey….still strip it from being a Helles base style in my eyes.) and judge this beer for what it is and very loosely base my judgement on the overall parameters of what a bock is.
1) It’s a lager.
2)Tends to focus on malt, usually Vienna or Munich malts are used.
3) They tend to be higher in alcohol than most other lagers, but in this case even the strength is toned down.
4) Should have a complex malty profile.
In the aroma of this beer there is a crisp biscuit malt flavor along with a soft touch of caramel, however it could be the play of honey along with the malt. There is a bit of hop aroma, but not much. Overall, the aroma is fairly light with a focus on a bit of sweet malt.
It pours a crystal clear gold, a shade darker than a good Pilsner. It poured a nice head, but that disappeared quickly.
The flavor is nice, some great lighter malt flavors. There is a some faint toast, some good biscuity malt, and a hint of honey. The hop bitterness is just enough to balance the malt, but there is a touch too much sweetness for my taste. However the beer does finish fairly well. Flavors are clean and as I would expect from a beer that appears to be an attempt at a Bock, a step below a Helles.
Mouthfeel is medium with a good amount of carbonation to help crisp up that sweetness.
Overall, I think they hit what they were attempting to do, which is make a beer a shade shy of a Helles Bock, with some honey added. This beer is well made and a far cry from the Extreme beer craze that we are in the middle of now in the craft beer world. Is it an A+ in my book, no. But it is a nice beer fitting for springtime. I do feel that a touch more hops would have helped even out the beer a bit more in my opinion though.
In the end, I were to grade this, I would shoot it a B. It may not be my favorite beer from New Glarus, but I do think they hit the mark with what they were attempting to do. So even though in my opinion the beer is average, I do give it bonus points for achievement.
Boaks Monster Mash Russian Imperial Stout
Today I have Monster Mash from Boaks Brewery. Monster Mash is a great name for a Russian Imperial Stout, which is what this beer is. What I find interesting about Russian Imperial Stouts, is that a new comer thinks its a monster Guinness and nothing more (and unless you are a beer geek, and if you are reading this blog you probably are, these same people already think Guinness Stout is high in alcohol). But in reality, I find most Imperial stouts to be fairly sweet, which I like. I prefer sweet stouts to dry stouts any day. I find it very rare to have a dried out Imperial Stout. If you brew, you already know why, but the short and simple of it is that these big beers tend to have a bit more unfermentable sugar and the yeast tends to poop out before fully fermenting the sugars out, giving you a slightly sweeter beer. Granted there are a few more variables to it than that, but that’s the quick over simplified explanation. The overall impression you are looking for in a Russian Imperial Stout is “An intensely flavored, big, dark ale. Roasty, fruity, and bittersweet, with a noticeable alcohol presence. Dark fruit flavors meld with roasty, burnt, or almost tar-like sensations. Like a black barleywine with every dimension of flavor coming into play” Also, you need to consider where the beer was made. American style Imperial Stouts also tend to be more hoppy.
I find the aroma a bit thin, with some mild coffee, deep roast, and a touch of chocolate. There is a spicy hop presence, or a combined hop and alcohol aroma that lends to the appearance of spiciness. In the end I don’t find the aroma to be big, bold, and complex. With some warming and strong swirling I was able to push out some raisin tones, but that was about it. The aroma is good, just not powerful enough. (6 points)
This beer just looks mean. Dark mahogany with some garnet highlights. Opaque except for along the edges, and a very small short lasting head. (2 points)
The flavor is very interesting. When it was cooler, the hop bitterness rang supreme and I found it quite off-putting. There was some stronger coffee and roasted grain in the flavor. The roast almost appeared to add too much of an acidic quality to the beer. However, as I allowed it to warm the beer became much better. The richness of the grains filled out a bit more, there was still some coffee, but the sweetness rounded it out to more of a very dark bittersweet chocolate. The hop bitterness is still there, but does not jump out as much. It does linger long into the finish, but blends in well with the dark chocolate tones. Towards the end the fruity notes of raisin blends with the alcohol giving you a mild boozy feel, almost feels like some forbidden Christmas desert I have never had. So in the end is it the best tasting Imperial Stout I had? No, but its not the worst either. (13 points)
The mouthfeel is almost perfect. It is creamy, sweet, smooth, and rich. The beer is not cloyingly sweet, so it leaves you ready to drink more. Some mild roasted grain astringency, but that is expected. Carbonation is just right for this style. (5 points)
Overall the beer is quite good, it’s just not awesome. The aroma is nice but I didn’t think it does the beer justice for how big the beer is. The flavor at first was off-putting, but that was partially my fault for serving it too cold. Still, I have to call it like I got it, which will be how most people will get their first few sips. Right out of the fridge. But I promise you, if you let it warm the beer will improve. So don’t pour and drink, give it a few minutes. first. (7 points)
Overall I gave the beer a 33, which is a pretty good beer. Really, anything in the 30′s or above is a respectable score. A 33 in my book is in the B- to C+ range. I would drink this beer again, and that is what really matters.
Captian's Reserve Imperial IPA
Today I have something else I got from Simply Beer in a trade, Captain Lawrence Brewing Company’s Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA. This is an Imperial IPA, and as usual we will taking a look at this bad boy according to the BJCP style guidelines. According to the guidelines, the overall impression of this beer should be “An intensely hoppy, very strong pale ale without the big maltiness and/or deeper malt flavors of an American barleywine. Strongly hopped, but clean, lacking harshness, and a tribute to historical IPAs. Drinkability is an important characteristic; this should not be a heavy, sipping beer. It should also not have much residual sweetness or a heavy character grain profile.” But there is more to it than simply that, so lets take a look at this one.
The aroma is a bit bready and slightly caramel-like when it comes to the malt. However, it is obviously the hops that take center stage here, as it should be. The aroma is very traditional, with some mild red grapefruit like aroma as well as a touch of pine. The overall hop aroma is a bit on the light side for an Imperial IPA. The alcohol in the beer lends a spicy note hidden in there as well. Although not as big as I would like, the aroma is very traditional and has a malt profile I find interesting. (8 points)
The color is just stunning. The beer is clear and bright golden. The moussey head is thick and frothy and lasts an incredible amount of time for a big beer. (3 points)
The flavor is very complex actually, much more so than the aroma suggests. Up front I get a resinous pine hop flavor combined with some mild caramel and bready malt flavor. In the middle, the resinous pine is cut by what to me seems to be the alcohol, and it finishes with a soft malt character coupled with a ruby red grapefruit flavor lasting into the finish. The resinous flavor lingers as well, but is well cut by the other flavors. The flavors of this beer roll around your mouth, and nothing about it is unpleasant. The bitterness is quite subdued, with most of it taking place right up front, and some softer bitterness lingering into the finish. I really don’t have anything bad to say about the flavor of this beer. However, again like the aroma, it just does not seem to be big enough, as good as it is, it just doesn’t scream Imperial to me. (17 points)
The mouthfeel is medium and quite smooth. The carbonation does not seem to be high and everything to me seems to be in order here. (5 points)
Overall this beer is easily drinkable for an Imperial IPA, which is exactly what the guidelines state. However, the beer still needs to exhibit the stronger flavors and aromas associated with the Imperial style. I felt that this beer was awesome, but slightly lacking that last element of in your face Imperial power. Would I risk changing anything? Absolutely not. It was simply an observation, but I like this beer just the way it is. (8 points)
Overall I score this beer a 41 out of 50 points. This beer scores a solid A in my opinion and should be sought out by any hop heads who can get their hands on it.
If you are on the quest to experience beer, more so than just drinking it, then aging beer is an important part of that journey. To see how a beer changes over the year or years can be a lot of fun and well worth the wait. Now, you will hear me talk about my beer cellar, or this or that, but I want you to know that I don’t have a special walk in freezer, or walk in room with temperature and humidity control. As nice as that would be, it is not within my budget. However, there are things you can do on the cheap to store beer for long periods of time. Please keep in mind that my recommendations are not suited for beers with a generally short shelf life, such as average IPA’s, wheat beers, average strength beers, and so on. This is primarily for your barleywines, strong ales, high alcohol Belgian styles, or any other heavy hitter. So without further delay, here is what I use for a beer cellar………
A Styrofoam cooler is cheap, large, a good insulator, stackable, and easily replaceable.
…a Styrofoam cooler. I store them under my bar, and they do the trick. Now there are a few things to consider when using this method. You need to have a cool basement. On average, my basement is 62-65 degrees three feet up from the floor. It is cooler at the floor level (upper 50′s to 60 depending on what time of year), and by placing it on the cement floor itself it is in the about the best way to get the coolest I can. The main thing to worry about is keeping the beer out of light, keeping a constant cool temperature, and avoid drastic temperature fluctuations. All of this is achieved with a Styrofoam cooler.
Here is a shot inside of a cooler. This one has some New Glarus Unplugged from 2007 (Belgian Quad, Bourbon Barrel Bock), Third Coast Old Ale, Bigfoot, Imperial Saison and Iced Barleywine from last year, Lagunitas Imperial Stout, and Thomas Hardy Ale from 2005 to name a few.
For long term storage, like if you plan to age something for more than 10 years, I have an idea to help reduce the oxidation that may occur over time, even through a cap. Even if this does nothing, it also does not hurt anything. I vacuum seal beers I don’t plan on trying for many years. Here I have two beers I don’t want to open until 2015 or beyond. A barleywine from New Glarus and 2005 Thomas Hardy Ale.
vacuum Packing, does it help? I don't know, but it can't hurt.
OK, so to start to wrap this post up, you don’t have to have an expensive walk in cellar or build a fancy multiple shelf system if you don’t have the space or budget for it, just some good insulated coolers will do the trick. They HAVE to be kept in a cooler than a normal place though. You want to age big beers in the range of no warmer than mid 50′s to mid 60′s. Beers of average strength and below are recommended to be stored at temperatures even cooler than 55. For these, I simply keep them in a fridge (Please note that many beers today come corked, and a refrigerator has a drying unit in it to keep humidity out. So this can dry out a cork. Store corked beers in a humid environment or they will dry out and ruin the beer, trust me, I had it happen to a nice Gueuze I had kept in the fridge).If you don’t have access to a separate beer fridge, I don’t recommend buying more beer than you can easily drink in a short period of time.
Keep average strength beers in the fridge if you don't have access to a temperature controled cellar.
Keep those beers cool and out of light my friends, no beer likes being kept 70 degrees or warmer for extended periods. Also, keep beers stored upright, not on their sides, unless its corked. But even then it probably is not necessary, most corks today are part synthetic and will not dry out under normal conditions (Only if very dry climates or the fridge, so if you live in the desert, maybe keep your corked beers on their sides).
Brooklyn Brewery's Black Ops..........it does not exist
According to Brooklyn Brewery, this beer does not exist, and if you look for it on their website, it appears to be true. At least I could not find it. But somehow I got a hold of a bottle from one of my fellow bloggers over at Simply beer. The label is just great, it does give the beer an air of mystery, all in fun. Here is what the back label reads “Brooklyn Black Ops does not exist. However, if it did exist, it would be a robust stout concocted by the Brooklyn brewing team under cover of secrecy and hidden from everyone else at the brewery. Supposedly, “Black Ops” was aged for four months in bourbon barrels, bottled flat, and re-fermented with Champagne yeast, creating big chocolate and coffee flavors with a rich underpinning of vanilla-like oak notes. They say there are only 1000 cases. We have no idea what they’re talking about.”
It has taken me a little while to get around to posting my review of this one because I enjoyed it on Valentine’s Day but took some notes on it to share with you. This review is a bit more informal and probably not as in depth as they are when I am drinking and writing about it at the same time, I also will not be scoring it. However, if I were to score it, it would get a very solid “A” from me, that’s for sure.
Initially the aroma is thick with bittersweet chocolate and coffee notes, some alcohol, and a very nice refined vanilla character from the oak. The combination of alcohol and residual bourbon from the barrels gives a nice background hint of just a splash of bourbon. The actual woodiness of the beer is very low, which I like. The aroma is very complex and you could spend a long time swimming in that vat of delicious aroma, finding something new each time the beer warms slightly.
The flavor is much more drinkable than one would think with a such a big stout. The roast is well balanced with a bit of sweetness lending to a mostly bittersweet chocolate flavor. However, it does not end there. The alcohol is quite evident and the rich vanilla notes combined with bourbon come through in the finish, but not overwhelmingly so. The beer as a whole is rich, smooth, and has a very nice mouthfeel to it. The main note I have written is “Dangerously Drinkable”, which means that for such a big beer, it does not go down hard. Complex with many subtle malt flavors, this beer is easily one of my favorite Imperial Stouts…..that is if it existed and I were able to experience it.
I found this pretty cool, it made me think that this beer really does have a galaxy of complex flavors and aromas contained within. You be the judge.
- The New Tongue Map, Mosher, R. (2009). Tasting Beer: An Insiders Guide to the Worlds Greatest Drink.(p. 32)
There have been many new discoveries in the realm of taste but not many have been talking about it. The most I have read as it relates to beer is in Randy Mosher’s Book, Tasting Beer. So what exactly is new you ask? Well, what we have been taught since we were kids about how the tongue perceives flavors is completely wrong. The sad thing is, many places are still teaching the old tongue map, where you taste sweet at the tip of the tongue, salty on the front sides, sour on the back sides, and bitter on the back side of the tongue. What they have found, is that all of these flavors are tasted equally over all over the tongue. However, there does seem to be a bit more sensitivity to bitterness on the back and some sour on the sides. This does make sense to me, because when I have something sour, I do taste it everywhere, not just on those front side portions of my tongue. I taste it throughout my whole mouth.
If you look at your tongue, you will see many small bumps, these bumps are not taste buds, but rather papillae. Inside these papillae are your taste buds, and there are many contained within one papillae (usually between 50 to 150 taste buds per papillae). These buds taste many different flavors and the combination of what we have been taught sweet, sour, bitter, and salty among other chemical components give us taste. Aside from these traditional flavors it has been discovered that fat is a flavor as well, and people can taste fat. There is also a new member to the arena and this new one is called umami, which mean savory or deliciousness. Umami occurs when foods or beverage with glutamate is eaten or drank, MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) for example is a glutamate. Beer can contain Umami, and will usually occur in the bigger beer styles, I think it mostly comes from the aging of the beer and breaking down of the yeast cells, but I could be wrong. Umami can come across as mushroomy, meaty, or just overall a savory sensation. Now on a personal note, I have seen Umami being described in beers that I personally couldn’t see there being the sensation of Umami present, but just like anything new, people want to jump right on it and appear to be in-the-know. So just be careful when describing Umami, just because a beer tastes good or is delicious, does not necessarily mean Umami.
Another important consideration, especially if you are tasting and talking with others about a beer, is that not everyone perceives chemicals of the same concentration the same. Contrary to what people think a beer (or wine) judge or expert should be, we are not identical machines manufactured to the same specs. All people perceive different concentrations differently, even not at all. For example, over time I have learned that I am not sensitive to Diacetyl. This means that if I pick up diacetyl in a beer, chances are the concentration is pretty high. When it comes to this, I need to rely on other judges to pick this up in lower doses. What I am sensitive to is Dimethyl Sulfide, or DMS when it comes to aroma. I seem to be able to pick this up in many beers. Since I know I am almost overly sensitive to it, if I pick it up in very low amounts, I probably don’t even bring it up. But if it smashes me in the face, I know it is at least at the level to mention it as a flaw. Being aware of your level of tolerance for different chemicals is important when working with others. If they ask you if you get DMS in the beer, but you can’t normally pick it up, you should explain that.
Being honest with what you taste is also important. Because we all perceive flavors and aromas differently, nobody can tell you what you taste and/or smell. They can suggest what they smell or taste, and you can agree or still not get it. Just because someone thinks a beer has a winelike character, does not mean it does. It means that according to that persons experience, and their perception, they think it does. When in fact you may think it is more like dark fruit, like a plum. Both of you are right. What bothers me the most when someone tells someone else what they taste or smell. Granted, some people are more accurate than others, but you have no real way of knowing that someone is not in fact tasting caramel in a beer, even if that other person does not get it.
This holds true for all aspects of both flavor and aroma perception. Just remember that if you are honest with what you perceive and how you perceive it, you are doing your job. If you are faking what you taste or smell, that does nobody any good.
Golden Ale
Today I have Hook and Ladder’s Golden Ale. This one is a bit on the tough side because I have to come up with a category for it. Golden Ale is not really a style to define, so I will try to put it in a category I would enter it in, if this was a beer I brewed. Based on the brewers description, I will review this as a Blonde Ale. I have not reviewed a blonde ale yet, on here so this should prove interesting. According to the guidelines, we should expect a blonde ale to be “Easy-drinking, approachable, malt-oriented American craft beer.”
Aroma: The aroma is soft and sweet, with a mild fruitiness. At first sniff, the beer seems a bit flat, with a small amount of hop presence. But if you spend a little time there, you will get a bit of citrus and slightly spicy hop aroma, a soft malt profile, and some estery fruit aroma. All of which are acceptable to the style in the levels given, just not in this balance. There should be a bit more malt forward, and I feel the fruit is a touch too high. However, the aroma is nice and not off-putting. (7 points)
Appearance: The beer looks real nice. With a nice gold color, great clarity, and nice rocky head. The head retained a small but solid layer for almost the whole pint. (3 points)
Flavor: The malt profile in the beer on the flavor side is a bit small. There is a small bit of sweet and clean malt, along with a nice biscuit tone. The hop bitterness is spot on for this style, its balanced well with the level of malt sweetness and prevents the beer from becoming too sweet. There is a bit more of the citrus and spice bite in the hop flavor that I enjoy and wish there was more of it. There some fruit in the flavor as well, but not as much as the aroma, which is good. In the end though, the flavors that are there are nice, just a bit too small and the beer finished a touch too sweet for me. I wish it was a bit drier. (13 points)
Mouthfeel: The mouthfeel is in the medium range, with some good carbonation. The beer is smooth and creamy as the style should be. (5 points)
Overall: Overall the beer is quite good, just not outstandingly great. I really like the flavors and aromas in the beer, but just wish they were a bit more full. The fruit in the aroma was a tad high for my liking, but the hop choices and malt work quite well. In the end, this is a very easy drinking beer, I just wish it was a bit drier so the soft sweet malt didn’t linger so long into the finish. (7 points)
In the end I gave this beer 35 of 50 points. This is a solid B- or so in my mind. With a bit more of a bold punch in the malt end, with a touch less sweetness the beer would be up in the low 40′s for me. Still, this is a great gateway beer to serve your macro only friends.
Firebrick
Today’s choice is August Schell’s Firebrick Vienna lager. Vienna Lager is one of my favorite lagers to drink, but there really are not too many of them out there. Vienna lager is one of the beers that is complex in its simplicity, if that makes any sense. The malt profile should be soft, yet flavorful. What is commonly misunderstood, is that caramel flavors are not appropriate in this style or in Oktoberfest. If you don’t believe me, take a look at other review sites and see how often they review Oktoberfest or Vienna lagers with caramel tones and give it high marks. Sure, the beer may taste good, but if you are evaluating it against what the brewer says it is, you need to pay attention to the parameters of the style. If caramel is not not appropriate, or hop aroma is not appropriate, you cannot give the beer an overall score of an A+ if the brewer states its a Vienna lager. You can however, note in the overall impression that you liked that flavor, but it should not be shown in this style of beer. Make sense?
Vienna lager and Oktoberfest fall under the same major category, European Amber lager with Oktoberfest being the slightly larger brother of the Vienna Lager style. With that, lets take a peak at this beer.
The aroma is quite clean, with a real nice Vienna malt character. Toasty and slightly nutty aroma. The malt aroma here is very nice, with not much in the way of hop aroma. There is a bit of sweet malts in the aroma as well. I don’t think it is strong enough to detract much, but it is borderline. Nice clean malt profile. (7 points)
The color is a rich coppery color, with very good clarity. The head poured was small, but dense and long lasting. (3 points)
The flavor is quite good. A nice toasty malt flavor with some mild sweetness. There is a touch of hop bitterness. and a slight citrus note, that is not appropriate. The bitterness balances the malt very nicely and the lingering toasty malt finish is my favorite aspect of the flavor. All in all the flavor is quite good, and the only thing inappropriate is the citrus flavor, even though it is light. (10 points)
Mouthfeel is medium light, with a nice creamy feel. Carbonation is good. (4 points)
Overall I think this is a very good Vienna style beer, but has some minor stylistic faults. The citrus in the flavor is not per style, but does not make for a bad beer, its just not right for the style. I think the best quality is the lingering malt finish, which is pure toasty Vienna malt. Vienna lager should be Oktoberfest’s little brother and I think this beer fits that bill.(6 points)
In the end the score is a misleading 30 points, which would equal about a C+. The beer is actually better than my grade indicates. The reason is because I scored the flavor so low because of the inappropriate citrus flavor. But in the end the beer is quite drinkable.
