So what do you need to do to produce your own style? Nothing, you can pretty much do anything you want and call it anything you want. But if your goal is to get your style recognized, that is a bit beyond your control. You can however, spark a trend that may move in that direction. Generally, creative homebrewers do spark the new styles. Here is one way it may work. Let’s say you are the first person to brew the Black IPA. You are on a homebrewing forum and mention you have this idea for an IPA, but you want it to look like a porter or stout. Some others are intrigued and ask you to try it and let them know how it turns out, post the recipe, and so on. So you do it and you like the results. You post back that it turned out great and maybe you are planning on sending some to some competitions  under category 23. A few others try your recipe you posted and report back that they too liked this version of the beer (A few also may tweak it to their taste). Now you win a few awards for your beer, and maybe even a Best of Show. More and more homebrewers brew that style and enter it into competitions and do fairly well. Now you are getting close. Soon enough a few craft brewers pick up on the trend and brew a version of their own. Now several competitions are getting so many “Black IPA’s” that they can have a whole flight of them. The BJCP may consider making it a recognized style and need to come up with a guideline for it (which you can also do yourself here ). Now that is just one way a beer that is not a historical example can become a beer style. Sometimes style comes out of need. For example, with the hop shortage that happened a few years back, there was speculation that a few new beer styles that used other bittering agents besides hops would emerge, and although it would have been interesting, I still prefer my hopped beer to beers similar to gruit.

Granted, you can’t expect to brew a new style, like it yourself, and send off that template to the BJCP and expect them to create a style. There has to be a large enough demand for it, and preferably a few commercial examples that can be used for comparison. But creating new styles is something that we as homebrewers can be proud of. So get creative, and try to come up with something new. Who knows, you may be the next creator of a new recognized beer style.

My infected beer

As you can see I have what are called gushers. What exactly causes the gushing is not known at this time, but it is thought that whatever the infecting agent is, forms some sort of protein that allows for nucleation points and gives the CO2 a place to form and gush out of the beer. Sort of like dropping Mentos into a Diet Coke. This gushing happens when you pop the top of the bottles, the beer foams out and sometimes comes out in a stream. It acts a lot like a shaken up beer, but you did not shake it. Normally it will also continue to foam out of the bottle for some time. There can be a few causes of gushing, one is from a fungal infection in the grain called Fusarium. Fusarium is killed during the malting process, and if it were to survive there it would surely be killed in the boil. The toxins produced from the fungus withstand the boiling process though. The use of Fusarium infected barley is a common cause of gushing. However, Fusarium infection is not the only cause of gushing. It can be a few factors and I don’t think Fusarium is the cause of my problem.

When this happens, it helps to think about something you may have done out of the ordinary during this batch. It also helps you narrow down a cause if every bottle is infected, or if it is just one or a few. If it is one or two, it was probably something with the bottle. The whole batch however, is a different story. Did you use a different fermentation vessel than you normally use? Did you not sanitize your bottle tree? Did you think you could get away with a shortcut you normally don’t take? Did you drop something into the beer on accident?  Basically, what was different?

In my case, everything I did was as I normally do. The auto-siphon I used was fairly new, it was clean, and well sanitized. The hoses were new, and sanitized. The aeration stone was boiled and the hoses were sanitized. I had a micron filter put in place between the pump and stone. I sanitized everything that came in contact with the cool beer. I did not mill any grains in the area, or around the time of brewing or bottling (raw grains naturally have bacteria on them, like lactobacillus). I checked my bottles and sanitized them with a long soak in Star San.

So what did I do? Well, the only thing I can figure out is that I used Coopers Carbonation drops. I used these before in a batch that I kegged and I bottled, so I had some left over. I thought they would be alright because I had them sealed in a bag. This is the one thing I can think of that I did differently. I don’t think the carbonation drops in the original package are sterile, so I figured it would be OK. However, when I think of it, they have been sitting for some time and could easily have harbored some sort of bacteria or wild yeast that was slowly consuming the sugar. There was some time for humidity to set in and make the outside of the sugar moist at one time. I am willing to bet that this gamble is where I went wrong. I used those drops in every bottle in the batch, and the beer was infected in every bottle. It makes sense that this infection took place after bottling because during bottling the beer tasted excellent. Also, right after carbonation it tasted quite good. It was not until 2 or 3 weeks after they were carbonated that I thought the beer started to taste a bit off, with a funky overly bitter and sour taste.  Then a week or two later the beer seemed to really pop in the bottle, like it was over carbonated. Then not too long after that, we have this.

So I am willing to bet that whatever took hold, did so during bottling and the carbonation drops seem to be the perfect villain in this story. So if you ever use these to bottle a few bottles, as well as keg. Don’t use the leftovers. You would probably be better off figuring out the dosage for the amount of bottles you want to use, and boil corn sugar and add that to the beer instead of using a few carb drops.

Finally, you may be wondering what I do now that I have an infection. Well, this part can get a little pricey, but I feel it’s the most effective way to ensure your next batch is not infected. That is to replace all the parts you can. Although I don’t suspect my autosiphon, it may very well be the cause and I just don’t know it. So at this point it is better to replace all plastic parts and hoses. So I am replacing my autosiphon, my hoses, and micron filter. My aeration stone is getting an extended boil to kill anything that may be inside there. Bottles are easy. I am just cleaning them and sanitizing them now. Then when my next batch is done, those bottles will be sanitized again. Carboys should be cleaned and sanitized and plastic buckets replaced. This may not be feasible for everyone because of budgets, but do the best you can. At the very least replace the autosiphon and hoses. Right now I am sanitizing my bottles are I write this.

Now grated there could have been many other causes. It could have been something in the air that day when I bottled, I could have had some solid particulate in a hose or some little nook somewhere, there may be a small crack harboring some bacteria. But because of my practices and how I check my equipment over, I just think those are less likely causes. The only real way to be sure that it was the left over carbonation drops, would be to replicate the mistake. But when it comes to infected batches, that is one process I don’t want to replicate. Now if I brew again and this same batch develops something, that will take a bit more digging.

If you think there may be something wrong with one of your beers. You can get some hints on what those may be. Sometimes flaws are not caused by infections of bacteria or wild yeast, but could be something that went wrong in the brewing process. Feel free to check out the beer evaluation page to get some links and documents on troubleshooting your beer.

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.

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.

Capital Brewery

Last week Friday I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirby Nelson, the Brewmaster for Capital Brewery in Middleton, Wisconsin. Kirby has been brewing since the late 70′s and continues to this day making some very fine beers. Lagers mostly, but some ales as well. In today’s age of souped up imperial styles, Kirby likes to approach beer from the standpoint where he wants you to be able to down a six pack of his beers. So he shoots for a easy drinking beer for most of his offerings. Don’t confuse an easily quaffable beer with a boring beer, some of Kirby’s beers are my go to summer favorites. Wild Rice, Rustic Ale, and the now retired 1900 are some of my favorite summer slammers. Their new beer Supper Club, I have not had the chance to try yet, but I will be soon. Kirby says that beer is flying off the shelves and I am anxious to try it. Their Autumnal Fire is one hell of a Marzen and Dopplebock Hybrid as well. With that, I will let the interview speak for itself. Since I have since become lazy with transcribing the audio, it is much easier to just download and listen, it is roughly only a half hour long. Again, I am not a podcaster and know I have some lacking audio interview skills. But Kirby is an energetic and to the point kind of guy. I’m sure you will enjoy the audio better than reading it anyway. So Enjoy!

Interview with Kirby Nelson, Brewmaster for Capital Brewery MP3 Download (Click the link and a download page will appear)

As a Correction Note, a few weeks ago I posted a segment on finding Capital beers in a can. I found out in the interview that they have had their beer in cans since about 1997. I don’t know why I have not seen it here where I live, because I am not far from Madison. Maybe the 12 packs escaped my radar or no liquor stores I went to carried the cans. But either way, this was not a new development for Capital, but rather a new discovery for me. The information in that post still is valid though, regarding the benefit of craft beer in cans.

Below are some pics I took on my phone during a tour we got during the NHC Regionals which were hosted at Capital Brewery. Picture quality is not the best.

The brewing area at Capital

Some of the tanks, if you look on the other end of where that Dinosaur mascot is, there are many more conicals stored there. But I didn't take a picture of those.

Here we are getting a special tanks sampling of the Weizen Dopplebock. I am not sure if this sampling was Kirby approved, but I enjoyed it. I didn't want to mention this in the interview.

I posted this picture so you can see during the interview why I asked if he plays Frank Zappa in the brewery. Each of the tanks is named after a Frank Zappa song. Peaches en Regalia is an instrumental piece off Zappa's Hot Rats album.

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.

Judging

When you get your feedback and score back from a competition, it is a good idea to try the beer again while reading the scoresheet. However, there is a lot of people who say they have no clue what the judges are talking about. True, there are times when judges just don’t get it right, I myself know I am not a perfect judge either. But, if you want to truly get an accurate read of what beer the judge tasted, you need to take some steps in understanding how your beer is presented in competition. The beer you pour directly from your tap or from a bottle directly from your fridge, may not be the same beer the judge is tasting. Granted, it is the same batch, but there are variables that change the flavor and aroma of the beer itself. Here, I am going to talk about what you can do to taste your beer in a similar manner as it was scored. This technique will also help you gear up for competition as well. Tasting the beer in this fashion before you send it off, may help you decide if you entered the beer in the correct category, or at least prepare you for what beer the judges may be getting. Because your beer straight from the fridge is not the same beer by the time it hits the judging table. Hopefully, if it was treated well it will be close.

The first thing you have to consider is the environment you are in. I don’t expect anyone to leave their house just to judge a beer, or go back to the place it was judged. But consider your surroundings. Are people smoking? Was something with a strong odor recently cooked or eaten? In a competition, most of the time at least, the environment is kept fairly neutral. Sometimes you get stuck in a bar somewhere that they allow smoking. But for the most part it is neutral. So if you are currently in an area that has some strong odors, you may be missing out on some subtle aromas.

The second, thing is beer temperature. Most of the time, your beer is not served at chilling temperatures that your fridge may be set at. Even if the beer does come out cold, many judges ask for cold beers to be pulled early to give them time warm a bit. If you recall from earlier posts, beers give up more flavor and aroma as it warms. So perhaps pulling your beer from the fridge a half hour before pouring would give you a more accurate depiction of what temperature the judge sampled your beer at. There is also a chance, that your beer was last in flight and may even have been sitting for longer. So when sampling, just keep that in mind.

The third thing is glass size and pour size. I can promise you that it would be extremely rare for a full glass size to be poured at any competition. Like it or not, this also may change a bit of perception between your full pint and the 2 oz sample that is poured at the table. In a two bottle competition, one bottle is opened and poured for two or more judges, and then recapped. Any remaining beer may be used for a mini-Best of Show if there is a dispute between the final placement of a beer, or a tie. The second bottle is not opened until the beer either does not move on to a full Best of Show round (where it is consumed by stewards and other judges) or it moves on to the Best of Show and is opened and evaluated again between however many judges are judging the BOS. In order to replicate the sample size, get yourself a small 4 ounce sample glass like the one below. Or,what I like to use is a mini-snifter glass too. It concentrates the aromas giving me a better evaluation.

Tasting Glass. Fill only half full at the maximum at first. (As a side note. this is my German Porter I am sending off to the Longshot. This was my pre-competition evaluation for this beer)

Same Beer but in a Mini-snifter

One last thing I want to mention, is variables that may change your beer that you have no control over. For example, you have to ship your beer. So depending on when and where the competition is, you have remember that transit time may affect the beer. If the beer gets hot and jostled around in a truck for five days, that will change some things. Also, if it is freezing cold and the beer hits near freezing…or even does freeze. That changes things as well. Another factor is how long the beer is stored before the competition, and if it was stored well. I have heard of some competitions where the beer is stored at someone’s house and then the day before competition it is chilled at the site. Well, if that person stored it in a warm room or in a room exposed to sunlight…..that can change some things that the beer in your fridge was not exposed to.

With these tips, I hope you can get a better feel for maybe why when you get a scoresheet back, it doesn’t seem like the same beer you thought you sent off.

Capital Beer in cans

Here they are. Capital Brewery’s Wisconsin Amber and Island Wheat….in cans! There may be other beers from Capital in cans, but these were the only two I found. I also could not find anything on the Internet about this, so I may be the first one writing about it. That would be neat. Anyway, I will start this article with the only drawback I can think of, which is image. In all honesty, the beer in a can image is the only drawback I can think of. There is still a stigma of beer being a cheap beverage and if it is in a can cannot possibly be high end. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Beer in cans is probably just a bit better than beer in bottles for many reasons.

The first reason that many craft brewery’s find canning the beer as an advantage is it is a very reliable package. What I mean, is that light an oxygen can be very damaging to beer. Even crown cap bottles, even wax dipped or foil sealed, will allows some oxygen in over time. A can is air tight and unless there is oxygen inside the can, the odds of post packaging oxidation are fairly low. The second factor is light. Most beer lovers know that clear bottles are horrible for beer, green bottles are not much better. They let in damaging light that will skunk the beer, literally changing the hop compounds to the same chemical that a skunk produces, hence the smell and the name “skunky beer”. (A quick side note: A skunky beer is not warm or old. Some beer drinkers call a warm or old beer skunky. No, those are just American lagers that do not taste good warm, which is why they insist on you drinking them cold as ice. The cold deadens the taste-buds and also the colder the beer, the more locked up all the volatile aromas are. Basically, without getting all techie, the colder the less you taste and smell.) Even dark amber bottles will become lightstruck. The darker bottles offer good protection, but not 100% protection. Cans offer 100% protection from light. So with this better packaging, you get a high quality and fairly consistent beer. It is for these same reasons that many people swear by drinking tap beer. It comes from keg which is really just a giant can.

There are a few other advantages to having beer in a can. One of which is that you can take it anywhere. Many beaches or events do not allow glass bottles on the premises. However, you can take cans. So you can enjoy your craft beer at the beach, in a can. Cans also get cold faster (however I guess they do lose their chill faster too if you are holding the can in your hand), so if you pick some up and toss it in a cooler, it should be chilled enough to drink fairly quick. Remember, this is not Coors light which has to be “ice cold”. Just a good chill will do most craft beers nicely. One final quick advantage is the durability of the can. There is no risk of your friend or child knocking over your beer bottle and breaking it on the concrete and cutting themselves. Cans will not shatter and leave a mess if they are dropped.

Now there are some myths of beer in a can. The first we covered. “No good beer would come in a can”. I can list many brewery’s who now can their beer. These are not bad brewery’s or bad beer by any means. Oskar Blues, 21st Amendment, Surley Brewing Co., and Keweenaw Brewing Company come to mind right away. Another myth is that “beer in a can tastes like metal”. This is a myth because all the cans today come with a plastic liner. At no time (unless you have a bad can with a scratch in the liner) does the beer come in contact with the metal of the can. IF someone does get this metallic taste, it is probably from the outer part of the can while drinking. Pour it into a glass and the problem is solved. I still drink canned beer from a glass anyway. Even though cans are a good packaging for beer, it is not a good delivery system to your face. Most of your sense of taste come from smell. How much aroma do you get drinking from a bottle or can? Pretty much none. So you should try to make it a good practice to drink beer from a glass or cup, whenever possible. If I had to drink beer from the can, I would, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it.

I am not 100% sure of this, but one other downfall I thought of while writing this, may be that it is harder or more expensive to put a canning line into a brewery. I know a bottling line is fairly simple, especially a crown cap operation, just by looking at how a can is put together, it appears to be a bit more of an intensive project. But I can’t say for sure, and it is too late in the evening to do some real digging. So I will leave it as “I think it would be harder.” and not state it as fact.

So, in the end I applaud Capital for this move and look forward to seeing more beers in a can from not only Capital, but other craft brewers around the nation. Craft beer, take it in the can!

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.

The goal of competition is obviously to put your beer up against other homebrewers beers of the same category and fight for bragging rights. The secondary, and sometimes most helpful aspect of competition is to get feedback on how to improve or tweak your beer. As a beer judge, you owe it to whomever paid the entry fee to give honest and complete feedback. Regardless of what you do while judging, as long as you put forth an honest effort to this, you are a good judge in my eyes. Always remember that on the other end of that beer you are tasting, is someone who paid their hard earned money to not only pay the entry fee, but also pay the shipping charges to have that beer on your table. For this reason, I do get upset with large flights and long judging days. I just feel that by the time you get to the end beers, you are unable to give the same feedback that you do to beers number 1 through 10. Anyway, lets dissect my results.

Cover Sheet

First thing to notice and pay attention to is where your beer was in the flight, and how many beers were in this flight. As you can see from my cover sheet to the left,  my beer was 5th in a flight of 12.  This is actually a good position. The judges have gotten the first beer out of the way and even had a few others to gauge where the average beer in the flight may be.  Typically the first beer tends to score lower than it may really be. Many judges feel you can’t score the first beer as 40 points, because what do you do in a flight of 15, if 3 other beers tend to be just a bit better than that first one? Where do you go?  Also, being last is not good because by then the judges may have palate fatigue or just simply be bored with the flight. It does happen, whether any judge would like to admit it or not. So 5th is a nice spot in the flight, however there were a lot of beers after mine so when it comes to who to move forward, my beer could easily be forgotten as well. Also, flight size is important too. If there were 4 beers in your flight and you took 3rd, well you got a ribbon/medal, but is that really where you want your beer to be, 3rd out of 4th? However, change that up to 3rd out of 15 or 20, and that means a hell of lot more. I can live with that.

Now lets start with the bad and work our way to the good.

Example of a bad scoresheet

So let’s just for a second forgive the judge because hopefully he is inexperienced (Apprentice usually means they are a new judge waiting for the scores. But now they have a selection for that) Because he has a rank, he took the exam and did not do too well. Well, I can see why. If he gave feedback like this during his exam, I can see why he didn’t even get above 60 points. Anyway, lets look at why this is so bad. First off, the comments he leaves are very vague and hard to understand what he means. Aroma: earthy, malty. Appearance: medium head retention, off-white head, bright amber color. Flavor: malty, citrusy dry finish  Mouthfeel: Nice carbonation, med body.  Overall Impression: Malt back ground, dry citrusy finish, ??? ??? hop aroma, ?????? in body and finish. That my friends is a total of 35 words…..actually 33 full words and only 32 I could read. There is no reason for point deduction, no recommendation on what I could do to make the beer better.  Now to get even more picky, there is no description of what he was tasting. He took 5 points off for aroma. Why? Not enough hops for him? Too much Hops? Why take a whopping 10 points off in flavor for an American Pale Ale which is malty, with a citrusy hop presence and dry finish? You get the picture. When you get a scoresheet like this. You really have to contact the Competition Director (comp_director@bjcp.org) and let him/her know. Judging like this is waste of your money and it is obvious this judge either doesn’t care and is there for reasons for himself, or needs more education. But he is not doing anyone any favors.

OK, now for a much better sheet.

Better sheet

This is a much better sheet. The judge here obviously was tasting the beer and was interested in doing her job. The comments on what she was tasting are good, and well described. Although I would be looking for a bit more info in my scoresheets. For example, what could I have done to push this beer into the next level for her? I like to know that, and really we should be telling the people that. They may agree or disagree, but we need to let them know what they could have done to do better.

The last scoresheet is pretty similar to the second one, but he does give some helpful insights into what I could have done to boost my score.

A good sheet

Now, granted, the BJCP wants you to fill all the lines. That is a good guideline to start with when filling out sheets. You should try to leave no line not filled in with some observation or suggestion. But, this can be very hard in lighter styles, very one-dimensional beers, and lifeless beers. But as a rule you should try. I am sure this judge did, based on several of his lines filled out (especially when compared to sheet #1). I am just stating that for reference. Overall I was happy with the feedback I got, except for the one sheet. I would have been quite upset if there were only 2 judges at the table I got a sheet back like that. That did happen to me once, and I didn’t contact the director. However I do it now. Otherwise judges like that will taint the reputation of those of us who at least try.

1 – Valve Stem from an old inner tube (A.K.A. Schroeder valve) ($0 if taken from an old inner tube, or a buck or two if you buy one new.

Here is what the valve stem looks like

4 – 1/4″ hose clamps
8″ of 1/4″ inner diameter vinyl tubing or nylon braided vinyl tubing. (Less than $1.00)
1- Faucet Assembly with 3″ shank (2″ will work too) wing nut, tap handle, nylon washer and tailpiece and short segment of beverage tubing (or use the picnic tap tubing that came with the philtap). ($35.00)

1 – 28qt cooler ($10.00)

**optional 6″ of 1″ inner diameter tubing cut in half and glued to the inside for storage of 2 extra CO2 cartridges.

All I did was Drill the holes in the cooler with a small hole saw and for the tubing used a large drill bit. All you need to do is assemble the faucet assembly (it’s so self explanatory I am not going to list how to do that.)

For the gas line you have 2 options. You can do what I did and use the valve stem, or you can cut the gas inlet tube off the phil tap, and use the 1/4″ I. D. tubing as a jumper. What I did was drill out the stopper valve in the valve stem and then placed the vinyl braided tubing in boiling water to soften it. I then put a little bit of caulk on the valve stem and inserted it into the softened vinyl tubing. I then tightened a hose clamp around the valve stem. I now have a gas in hose. Slide the tube into the hole you drilled out for it and fill the gaps with caulk and let them set. Then connect the other end to the phil tap and secure it with the other hose clamp. You should be all set from there.

I also had some old 1″ tubing left over from a blow off tube and I just cut some small sections and glued a plastic bottom on them and glued them to the inside of the cooler. That way I can have 1 co2 cartridge in the dispenser and carry 2 along with me so I know I will not run out of CO2 at a party.

This cooler also fits perfectly in my beer fridge and it was how I kept beer on tap in my bar.

I am trying to dig up some old pics from somewhere, but here is the only picture I can find of the draftbox.

Only photo left of the draftbox at this time. It fit 2 mini-kegs inside

If I find the pictures from inside the draftbox I will post those for clarity.
EDIT: I could not find one anywhere. I can’t believe I deleted them. Anyway, here is a crude drawing of what the inside of the cooler would have looked like, then from the outside above, you get the picture.

Crude drawing of the innards of the draftbox.

NHC Midwest Regional

OK, today Poker is considered a sport right? They broadcast it on ESPN after all. Then beer judging in competitions could be considered a sport as well, if there was a competitive angle between judges. At least this is my thoughts after this weekends National Homebrew Competition Midwest Regional round of judging at Capital Brewery in Middleton Wisconsin. I have judged big flights of beers, and I have judged fairly large competitions…..but I have never been exposed to something of this nature before. My day went like this. At 9am we had our calibration beer. Then we started the actual rounds of judging. Throughout the day I went through 34 labels to put on my scoresheets, which means that I judged 34 beers. I was also the lead judge on two tables, so I had to partake in 2 best of show rounds to find out what three beers from the category would advance to the final rounds. These best of shows 8 beers in one table and 12 on another. This comes out to having 55 different beers cross my lips that day. And I was by far not a unique case. The judging lasted from 9am to just after 5:30pm. Which is a good average actually, it comes out to judging one beer every 6.7 minutes with a 1/2 hour lunch.

The competition was well run and very well organized.The whole thing was run by the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild, who did a bang up job on the competition. I really have to tip my hat to those guys. It was really well run.  They even had their judging assignments figured out to not allow any judges to judge in a category they were entered in (pretty standard for all competitions), mixed up judges the best they could to mix up clubs, and paired experienced judges with inexperienced judges. That may not sound that hard, but I think mixing up all three in a competition this size would have been tough. Also, I think perhaps the online registration made things run a lot more smoothly than a hand checking method. If I remember correctly the competition was maxed out at 750 entries and there were just over 50 judges. So right there you know you are in for a big run.

Now, I know there was no way around this. It was a huge competition. But I felt bad that night when thinking about the last round I judged. It turned out to be a big flight (which I think all the flights were big by regular competition standards), and I think my judging skills were shot. I was tired, my palate was extremely fatigued, and my nose didn’t seem to be picking up much of anything at that point.  Here is where is seemed a lot like a sport. You can’t just give up. You have to push through, re-evaluate your body and try to reset yourself in some way to evaluate that beer. Someone on the other end of that paper paid good money to have you evaluate that beer. You can never lose sight of that. And I think that is where I think my bad feelings were coming from. I just don’t feel those people in those last flights get the same quality as those in the early flights. Unfortunately, that’s just the nature of the beast. But still, even though you do the best you can at that point, you just are not fresh enough to give a good evaluation. I’m not even mentioning how tired your wrist and forearm are from writing all day. Wah Wah….I know.

All in all though, I personally had no real bad beers that day. I think the lowest score I gave was a 24 or 25. Nothing below 20. However, there were some tables who got beers like this one.

Is this a beer or our breakfast muffins?

If you send a beer like this to competition, I can pretty much assure you that it will not do well. I just hope the reason it was sent in was to help find out what went wrong, and not actually expecting an excellent score. Unless of course, this was a freak bottle from that person’s batch. Normally, a gusher like this is a sure sign of some sort of infection, and the tasting of this beer did prove it. I did not taste it, I have had enough infected beer in my day to know what it probably tasted like, but the guys next to me who did get this beer gave it a full evaluation. So kudos to them This beer continued to gush even when half full, and for about 15 minutes after the pour.

A highlight of the day came after the judging was over. The Madison Homebrewer and Tasters Guild took good care of us. After judging there was a party at Capital brewery where there were several beers on tap, including the Blonde Dopplebock, Hopplebock (a blonde dopplebock highly hopped with Tettnanger if I remember correctly), and Capital Vintage Ale among other Capital beers. However there was also a Three Floyds Berliner Weisse on tap as well as the Ale House’s Hopalicious. We also had a brewery tour where we got to taste a beer I can’t recall exactly which one, right from the fermentor. I think it was a weizenbock, but I could be wrong because I had a few beers and some mead by that time.

So in the end, it was a lot of hard work judging all those entries. But it was well worth the three hour trip for me. I got to meet some people, experience a competition of this size, and hang out with a room full of beer lovers. It was a good time!

So why go all grain if you can make perfectly good beer with extract, and extract takes less time? Well, the simplest answer is that you have more control over the brewing process and you can more accurately brew styles that are very difficult to master with extract. The reason is because when you brew all-grain, you are mashing whatever grains you want or need for that beer. If you use extract, the bulk of the grain bill is decided by whomever produced your extract. Even using light or extra light extract, you have not control over what brand of grains or the mashing temperature. In all grain, you are creating your own extract, just not concentrating it. This gives you more control, more room to be creative, and you can create styles using grains that require mashing. Also, lets be honest. There is a a step up in the pride factor as well for brewing a beer you created 100% from scratch. I want to stress this, all grain brewing does not produce better beer. If you are having a hard time making good beer with extract, you will not make good beer all-grain. You will read all over the net, several homebrewers stating that all-grain makes better beer, or once they switched to all grain their beer got better. This is all bunk. If that were true, all-grain beers would be winning all the 1st place, gold medals, and best of show in competition. What it does do is produce a wider range of styles more accurately than extract, and many times ferments out a bit more than extract. The “All Grain=better beer” mentality comes from a combination of more brewing experience, “I did this all myself” pride, and the control over ingredients. Not many brewers start out with all grain, and when they make the jump to all grain they know that they love the hobby enough to stick with it so are committed to brewing quality beer, and have learned to pay attention to sanitation and brewing practices. There is also a mental sense of pride when you do something all by yourself from scratch, that makes the product seem….well, better. We already covered the range of ingredients that all grain covers, and that is every single grain available. If you use fresh malt extract (the age of the extract does make a big difference in extract brewing), and pay attention to cleanliness and sanitation, you can make beer that is almost indistinguishable from an all-grain beer. I promise you. The part most often ignored is finding extract that is as fresh as possible, most imported extracts are not good in my opinion just because of this factor.

There is a few downfalls to all grain brewing. The first is you are probably going to add a few hours to your brew day. You have more water to heat, the mash takes 60 extra minutes, you have the sparge (even batch sparging will add a few minutes), and most of the time the wort takes longer to get to boil if you are not already doing full boils. There are also a few more technical details that can go wrong. I am not going to cover them in detail, but you need to be aware of them in case you need to troubleshoot your beer. You may need to do water adjustments if you have problems with your PH in your mash, you will need to monitor the crush you get from your grains, and water temperature is crucial in all grain brewing (this I will explain later).

So to show you how easy all-grain brewing can be, I am going to show you how to make a simple Nut Brown recipe, without making any water adjustment or using any complicated equipment. All you need is a mash tun (home-made is just fine and cheap), a good thermometer (preferably a digital one where you can set an alarm when it reaches a specific temp) a boil kettle big enough to hold 7 gallons, and a smaller pot to use as a hot liquor tank, and a fermentation bucket or carboy with an airlock (I personally like buckets. I used glass carboys for years but like the bucket for easy cleaning, will not shatter, and they are cheap to replace). That is about it. Optionally you can use hop bags, stainless mesh balls, and either an O2 or aquarium pump with aeration stone, hydrometer with test cylinder, and PH meters . But those are not required to make good beer, but having them will help make consistently good beer.

Jaba’s Busted Nut Brown

(download the recipe below if you want to brew this, it is basically Northern Brewer’s Nut Brown Ale Recipe)

Brewsheet – BeerXML – Beersmith Format

The first thing you need to do is determine your water volume. By far the easiest way is to use brewing software. What this does is take into account the amount of grains (because the grains will retain water after the mash), the evaporation loss, and loss to trub and transfers. Next the software will ask what temperature you want to mash at. I wanted to do this at 154, so with adjustments made (by the software) for grain and mash tun temperature, I need to bring my water to 169 degrees to have my mash equalize at 154 degrees.

Almost there....only 2 degrees left.

So once the 2.66 gallons of water was added to the mash tun, then I added the grain and stirred. It showed a temperature of 153......which is not bad. But it has not equalized yet, you may get readings a few degrees higher and lower for the first few minutes.

I stirred the mash to make sure there were no dough balls, or other dry spots in the mash. You want to stir it very well, then place the cover on to allow it to equalize. I leave the thermometer in the mash to monitor temperature.

……and now it equalizes at…….

....at 154. Just as the software calculated. Sweet! Now if you are off by a degree or two, it is not the end of the world. A slightly cooler temperature will result in a more fermentable and dryer beer, while temps higher than 156 will yield a more full bodied and sweeter beer.

Now you wait 60 minutes after the temps equalize. Halfway through the process you want to start heating your sparge water. I do batch sparging because it is both faster and easier to do than fly sparging. But you can choose whatever method you wish. You want to heat your sparge water to above 180 degrees, but I like to avoid boiling. Too hot and too long of a sparge can extract tannins from the grain husks. So I heat my sparge water to between 180 and 185.

Once your mash is done and the sparge water is heated. You want to get your boil kettle ready to catch the first runnings of wort. If you have only 1 pot, you can run your beer into a plastic fermentation bucket until you are into your final round of sparging. I do 2 to 3 rounds of sparging, depending on what I need for a final water volume (which again is determined by the software). In this case I needed 5.75 gallons of sparge water. Below are some pictures of the first runnings and sparging.

You want to run your first 2 to 4 quarts of wort into a pitcher or bucket then re-circulate into the top of the mash. The reason is the first little bit has a lot of protein and husk material that when poured back into the top is filtered by the grain bed. This will result in a better looking beer, and reduce the chances of tannic astringency.

Recirculation...the cheap way.

Some people defuse the pour by using the back of a spoon. I have not found any difference in using a back of a spoon or not, so the choice is yours.

Once the 1st runnings are out of the mash tun, you want to quickly pour in your hot sparge water. If you wait too long the grain bed can become compact and a bit harder to work with. Once the sparge water is in, you want to stir well to dissolve any sugars in the grains.

Here is just a shot of how I collect my wort. Directly into my boil vessel.

Now I did two rounds of sparging here. Below I am showing you three pictures, all of the same beer. What this will show is the amount of sugars and other goodies you are extracting from the grains. The first picture is from the 1st runnings, look how dark the wort is. This is the highest concentration of malt sugars, then compare that to the second and third runnings. This is normal.

1st runnings

2nd runnings

3rd runnings

Here are the spent grains. You will have some sugar left in them, so if you taste it, it will be slightly sweet. If it is real sweet, you probably didn't stir your sparges very well or used too little water.

From here on out is the same as any extract batch. But for fun, here are some more pics of my all grain process.

I don't have many of these, so they don't work well for very hoppy beers. But for 1 or 2 ounce additions these things are great. THey help keep the hop mess down when it comes time to drain the cooled wort. You have to remember that the hops will expand when wet, so I only fill them to less than half full. But they work better than hop bags in my opinion. They don't float and keep the hops submerged.

2 balls perfectly hold 1 oz of pellet hops.

Chilling is very important in all grain beers. From my experience, you have higher DMS levels in all grain beers compared to extract, but maybe that's just me. So the faster the chill and more vigorous the boil, you eliminate the DMS factor.

I also like to Aerate. This is not a requirement but it does help with yeast health and getting a solid full fermentation from your yeast. Here you see my home-made set up. I use an aquarium pump with an inline hepa filter, and a racking cane with vinyl hoses. All this NEEDS to be sanitized well because it comes in contact with the cool wort. I boil my stainless diffusion stone and soak the lines in Star San.

Aeration set up

Last, add the yeast. I love to use a good quality dry yeast. I use US-04 for clean and American styles and s-04 for British styles. Other styles I use liquid yeast because those special strains just are not as good in dry form. But for your basic American and English ales, dry yeast is very good. For this beer I am taking a suggestion from my Brewer Interview and using more dry yeast. For the same cost or even cheaper than 1 vial of White Labs or 1 smack pack of Wyeast, I get 2 packets of dry yeast with a very high cell count and no need to do a starter. (I also sanitize the yeast packets prior to opening them and sanitize the scissors that I use to cut the packets open)

That’s about it. I would like to give a quick shout out to Mike and his buddy who did not participate in this blog entry, but a good time was had none-the-less.

Hinterland Brewing Co.

If you have not heard of Hinterland Brewing, chances are you soon will. Especially if you live in Wisconsin or the surrounding area. Joe Karls from Hinterland Brewing makes some damn fine beers, and now that the brewery, based in Green Bay with another restaurant location in Milwaukee is bottling their own beer right on the premises. With this new addition, they have the ability to pretty much bottle whatever they want, where prior to this, their beer was brewed and bottled at Grey’s brewery using Joe’s recipe and Hinterland purchased ingredients. The Pale Ale, bottled in 12 ounce bottles, was pretty much all you could find. But now you can find the beer in 16 ounce bottles, and as I type this they have their flagship Pale Ale, Luna Coffee Stout, Maple Bock, and an Amber in bottles with a plan to bottle a Cherry Wheat for summer. They also have several beers on tap as well, and while at the brewery I was lucky enough to sample the bock. All the beers I have had so far have been great, with my favorites being the Pale Ale and Coffee Stout, but I did go through a growler of the Bock on Easter. OK, enough chatter, lets get on with the Interview.

Quick Note: This is the abridged version. I learned from the last interview that transcribing it word for word is a long and arduous task. For the complete audio from the interview, download the MP3 here.

Joe Karls, Brewmaster at Hinterland Brewery

How Long have you been Brewing? I started homebrewing 25 years ago, but I have been brewing professionally for, actually I have been brewing here for 14 years. Actually it was my anniversary just a couple of days ago.

Have you ever brewed anywhere else? Only as a volunteer. Just day brews here and there. I brewed at Cherryland brewing with Mark and Tom up there, which is now defunct. When I was just getting into brewing professionally I went down for a brew session with Gray’s Brewing, just a few things like that.

What was the most challenging process to transition from homebrewing to pro brewing? My last job was not really a physically demanding job. Brewing on this level is very physically demanding. I was very tired for the first couple of weeks before I got my feet under me. There are three levels here: the basement, the main level, and the upper level. During a brew day I’m hitting all three levels multiple times. And I’m squatting, climbing, lifting bags of grain, and lifting half barrels. For example today I just lifted 24 half barrels onto pallets. (Joe does all this himself. He is the only brewer employed at Hinterland, so he does all the brewing, cleaning, and hoisting of the barrels.)

These are the actual Half Barrels (and yes they are full) that Joe had stacked prior to my arrival. All this done by hand.There is no forklift or chain lift at Hinterland.

What type of brewing education have you had, if any? Most of my education, like most people in the industry, came primarily from homebrewing. Once I got into it, I read everything I could get my hands on like books, magazine, and periodicals. Once the Internet became more than just dial-up, that was a fantastic resource. I talked to brewers before I got into the profession. Then I took the short course at Siebel Institute in 1994. I did that to solidify the knowledge. And the short course is just that. It solidifies the knowledge you picked up while homebrewing. If you were not a homebrewer, you would be confused as all get out in that course. So the short course helps you solidify that knowledge as well as make the transition from small recipes to large recipes.

How do you come up with new recipes? Is it by instinct or more technical with a lot of planning? There are two phases. There is the idea of the recipe. That can come from myself, the customers,  or the owner of the company. Even the distributors will come and say “I really want to do this cherry wheat, we’ll go out and we’ll champion it, and really push this. Can you do something like this.” So I said sure, then we talked about what we wanted this recipe to be all about. So the idea has to come from the fact that I have the cellar space, I want to start with this new yeast I have coming in, so what can I brew with it that I have not brewed before? So that’s where it comes from. The idea of a new beer.

After that, I go to the liquor store and buy maybe a dozen different beers related to that style. I’ll sit down with the owner of the company and we will taste them and talk about “Yes this is what I’m thinking” or “No, I want it a bit more hoppy than this one”. What attributes to these beers have that we want to target? Then we pick a few of those beers and figure out what we would change to meet our expectations. From there, we take what we want our end result to be and I work backwards, all the way back to the beginning starting with the water analysis.

Hinterland, dining area

So do you produce test batches on a small scale first? I used to, but that was before three kids and a wife. When I first started, I would make a test batch in my kitchen and Bill and I would talk about any changes we would want to make. But now that we’ve been doing this for quite a few years, and knowing our system and our raw materials we are using we can get things fairly close without a test batch. We may make some tweaks to the recipe as we remake it.

What would you say is the key to your success here at Hinterland? It’s passion from everyone involved. I’ve been doing this for 14 years and still love it today. We recently put in a new bottling line and that ignited the passion for putting beer into bottles again. One other thing I love here, is the owner Bill Tressler, is a brewer himself. He has a passion for beer. That’s huge because this was a brewery set up by a brewer. A lot of the brewpubs and places like that are set up by restaurant owners or entrepreneurs, and those places may not be set up the way I would want them set up, as a brewer.

From right to left, the Hot Liquor Tank, Mash Tun, and Boil Kettle.

Out of the beers you offer at Hinterland, what is your favorite beer to brew? I don’t know if I really have a favorite to brew. From a selfish point of view, the ones that are easiest are best. I have a lot to do in the brewery, so if I can get the brew done that is best. But If you forced me to pick one, it would have to be a stout.  I really love to brew that when I have someone in the brewery who is not a homebrewer or just getting into brewing like a distributor or sales staff.  I love to brew that because it’s amazing to see what they think of a stout recipe. “You mean it’s not all burnt grains, it’s 85% fermentables.”

What would be your least favorite beer to brew? Weizen.  Sticky? We do a honey wheat and a cherry wheat and those are just 30% wheat, and not so much from a stuck mash, but sometimes they cloud up on me because they are so much more doughy. So I’ll have to stop and re-circulation or re-vorlauf my mash. Then our Weizen is 50% wheat so that’s a bear. So yeah, Weizen.

Do you have any beers that maybe you thought may not be well received, but turned out to a be huge hit? Or do you have any that you thought would take off that just didn’t seem to do well? I do have a couple of cases of each. People always want whats new, like a seasonal. When you first tap them, they go like gangbusters, then level off. But one that surprised me that I think is a fantastic beer, we only have about 4 gallons of it left right now. Brewed it last summer to get a new lager yeast started. It’s called River Rock Red. It’s a red lager, it’s a bigger beer at about 7% alcohol content, a lot of hop character (we used hallertau hops) I loved it. I think its fantastic. I brewed last June, and here we are in April and we still have some left. On the flip side the owner wanted me to do a raspberry beer. I want to do a raspberry rye because the rye beer will mask a little bit of the sweetness of a fruit beer. I didn’t want to bitter it up with hops, I didn’t want a sweet beer I wanted a dry beer, and that’s what rye malt does. It helps create a bit a dry feeling beer. Anyway, I thought the beer was alright, but wasn’t going to set the world on fire. But to this day I still get comments, when are you going to do it again?

Besides your own beer, what is in your fridge at home right now, what beers do you usually have on hand? I have a lot of things. I’m not one of those guys who are down on the macro brews, I think they are a great product just like any other style of beer, a well made style of beer. I think they are great product depending on your mood, the time of year and things like that. So in my refrigerator right now, well I like to work out and I watch my weight, so I do have Miller 64. We do distribute with Miller so I do try to keep their products. I do have Pabst, Shiner, Summit (I’m a big fan of Summit), I do have some Budweiser that someone brought over. I do have Sam Adams Nobel Pils at home as well.  I have a lot of stuff in there, only a few of each, but a lot of stuff.

Fermentation Room. Funny story, when we were in here there was some solid fermentation going. Even though it smelled awesome, we could only stay in a short time, even that short time we started to become winded from low oxygen levels.

Do you listen to any music while brewing? No I don’t. I don’t even have a radio in the brewery. I’m usually running around the brewery and don’t have time to hear the radio. If I would have something on, it would be NPR.

My favorite beer from Hinterland has to be the Bourbon Barrel Aged IPA, it’s outstanding. I had the beer in 2007 and at this year’s Beer Lover’s Brewfest, and how it aged was very interesting. Can you tell me what inspired you to brew that beer? We first brewed this beer in 2001, and the inspiration was Bigfoot Barleywine. The beer has changed a little bit, and I think we came close to nailing it. We didn’t oak age it at that time. We did oak age (not that beer), we started oak aging in 1999 in not only bourbon barrels but also new oak barrels. Some beers turned out great and some not so good. Over time we learned what types of beer take well to the oak and what didn’t. You know, you don’t want to put a pilsner in an oak barrel because it’s just too strong of a flavor for that beer. The oak masks all the flavors that make a good pilsner. Big beers, hoppy beers, dark beers those all take to oak aging very well. When we came up with the Imperial, we called it a Barleywine and it was not oaked at the time. We had so many guests at the time who were not beer savvy, and they would come in and see on the board “Barleywine”. They would say, “oh, I don’t want a wine.” They would just dismiss it. Our staff was constantly explaining that it was not a wine, but a beer but it has similar strength in the alcohol and such. So we thought if you get into a real  high alcohol Imperial IPA and you look at the terms Imperial IPA and Barleywine, they are very similar. I’m just going to shoot off on a tangent here for a second Many of the styles overlap a lot. Moreover, many people who are beer savvy, some who think they are beer savvy, will criticize for it not being true to style. I am not one of those guys. I’m in the business of selling beer, so I want to remain true to the style of beer, but I want to be able to market it as well. So anyway, we switched the name to an Imperial IPA and suddenly people got it. Well we started putting it into oak, and I was testing every couple of months. Early on it had hard edges and it was strong, and the bitterness was up front and really biting. Well, like a fine wine, as you aged it, the edges will round and become softer, the flavors on the palate will become softer, and the flavors will blend. We discovered that this beer was at its peak at about 18 to 24 months so I don’t even release it for at least 12 months. The beer that you had, depends on the generation, how many times I used that oak barrel. The more times I use that oak barrel, the less bourbon and flavors from the oak you get. So if I’ve use that barrel three times. I may leave it in there for 18 months, or 20 months. The beer you had this year at the fest was aged 20 months in that oak barrel. To pull some of those flavors, can take that long. The beer you had was brewed in October of 2007, and you tasted it in February of 2010. (here is where we have a short discussion on the two versions of the beer I had, barrels, and touch more on style and judging. It doesn’t really fit the interview, but you can listen to the audio to get that full discussion. If you only want to hear that portion, you can start it at 21:00)

What’s your take on fruit beers? It’s just like my take on any beers. Just like people slamming micros who are macros drinkers or people who are into micros slamming macro beers, I don’t slam any beer. From time to time I like fruit beers. I like most subtle fruit beers, I don’t like the hit you over the head fruit beers…unless they are supposed to be. Like New Glarus Belgian Red, the fruited lambics like the Framboise. Otherwise I like a lighter style of beer with a subtle fruit.

Some of the bourbon barrels in the kegging room

What can we expect to see from Hinterland in 2010? We have beer in bottles, and we expanded our distribution. That’s different from the mid 90’s when you would go to different distributors and you hope they take you. So your sort of lost and floundering hopeful someone picks your beer. Now, we actually have distributors coming to us saying they really want our beer. So now we are expanding our distribution throughout the state, where before we were limited to our keg product which was pretty much just northeast Wisconsin. So back to the beer in bottles, we have our Pale Ale now which is in 16 ounce bottles which is brewed and bottled here. For the last few years it was brewed and bottled using our recipe and our raw ingredients at Gray’s in Janesville. But now we are bringing that back in house. So we have our Pale Ale, our seasonal which is Maple Bock is in bottles, our stout is in bottles, in about three weeks our Amber will be out in bottles and our Cherry Wheat. Then later we have an Oktoberfest coming out which will be bottled.

The new bottles and beer offerings from Hinterland Brewery

Are there any new beers in the works? We have no plans to release anything new that we have not done before. Normally every year I do one or two that is a new or different when I have the cellar space, but this year we just don’t have the space.  Our production has gone way up, it is for sure double, maybe triple our production. We are actually going to be cutting back on more styles. That being said, we are going to be doing our bourbon barrel stout. It’s basically our Luna Coffee Stout and aged in bourbon barrels. So that we are kicking around. I don’t know how much we are going to produce. I don’t know if we are going to bottle that, or just keep it in kegs. So we are working that out.

The new bottling line at Hinterland Brewery

You offer a vocation vacation where a person can test drive their dream job of being a brewmaster under your mentorship. What would a typical person’s experience be like for this package? We were approached five or six years ago by Brian Kurth from Vocation Vacation. That was his idea. He had this idea to test drive new vocation’s. He does have this in several counties around the world. If somebody came up to me a few years ago and said, “Hey, I’m really into brewing and can I brew with you someday?” Normally I would have said, come through for a tour and I’ll show around. But you know I’m busy, I’d have to change my schedule to accommodate them. I start brewing at 2am, and chances are somebody may not want to get up at 2am to come start brewing. Then you have the liability issues, if someone gets hurt or something. That is actually something our lawyer brought up. But Brian got that all taken care of. So now for a fee, you can come do that. What I have been getting, is people have been giving these as gifts to people who are homebrewers and maybe want to see what it’s like to brew on a big scale like this, but maybe have good jobs and don’t want to get into this for a living.  Then I do have some people who are actually thinking about changing their career, either starting a business or starting a brewpub. So Brian takes care of everything as far as liability so we don’t have to worry about that, and he goes as far as taking care of travel and hotel reservations. So within a package, all you have to do is show up. We have had some great guys come in, we have not had any gals yet, but some great guys. What we offer, being a smaller brewery and me being the only [Brewery] employee, we offer a full day, start to finish half batch, which is 15 barrels instead of 30. We do that so you are not here for 14 hours, you’re here for ten instead. It’s all hands on. I go through what all the equipment is about, how to work the valves and I assist them. They do all the work. They have to hook up all the hoses, they have to scrub out all the grains, they have to spray out the mash tuns and clean them up. I just answer the questions. So they get all the hands on experience. So if you are looking at this as a career change or opening a brewpub, like we had a guy come through two weeks ago. He wanted to sit down with Bill the owner [of Hinterland]  and find out what it takes to run a brewpub. Bill owns a Hinterland restaurant in Milwaukee, he owns this Hinterland brewery and restaurant, and he owns the Whistling Swan Inn and restaurant in Fish Creek. So this guy was able to sit down with Bill and talk about the pros and cons of micro vs. brewpub, what is like working with staffing and so on. He got to bounce all this stuff off of Bill and get a lot of these types of questions answered. He got to have him [Bill] as a dedicated teacher or mentor for an hour and half. (If you are interested in trying the Vocation Vacation, click here for more info )

If you could give a homebrewer, or aspiring pro brewer one key piece of advice to improve their beer, what would it be? I don’t know if I can give just one.  Cleanliness, attention to detail, and take good notes. What I always tell homebrewers, and I think this is something I hope anyone reading this or listening takes to heart is always over-pitch. I remember when I started homebrewing and I would get this little packet of yeast, and I would think, “Is this really supposed to ferment all my beer.” No, you need more than that to get good active fermentation, and a quick fermentation. One of the things I have learned is to over-pitch. So I would throw away that packet if it was a dry yeast and go out and get three packets of five grams, and pitch those. If using liquid yeast I would grow it over and over and over, and use it from batch to batch. To get off flavors in your beer, like rubbery flavors, you would have to pitch so much yeast it is almost unimaginable. So over-pitch, you get a faster fermentation, you get no lag period, and guarantee your beer will turn out better. I over-pitch here in the brewery and it works. I have been doing it for 14 years here with no problems.

A lounging area at Hinterland.

Thanks to Joe and Hinterland brewery for giving the opportunity to tour the brewery and provide a great interview. As a side note, Hinterland would a be a great place to stop in Green Bay and make a mini-brewery beer crawl out of it, Titletown Brewery is right across the street. So if you are heading to Green Bay, both of these great places are right by each other.