Happy FeBRUary!

Wow, February 3rd already and I still haven't posted a single time in Twenty Ten. There is a very good reason for that. In anticipation of my suspected unemployment we have been prepping our town home for rental. Where are we going to live if we rent out our home? In the in-laws basement! Now I know that living with the in-laws has a certain negative connotation to it, but I don't think it's going to be so bad. I was lucky enough to marry a gal with great parents. I get along with them well and I believe they will respect our privacy. They have a roomy lower level and we should be able to spread out pretty well.

Since ringing in the New Year I have spent countless hours packing up our nonessentials and getting them over to a storage locker. It's amazing how we are still able to function normally when three quarters or our stuff is inaccessible. When we finally purchase a new home, I think we may simplify things a bit. However, despite all the packing, all of my homebrew equipment remains on site.

So about this unemployment I mentioned earlier. I work in the retirement trust industry and my one and only (very large) client decided to take their business to another bank leaving me and another fellow high and dry. The deconversion was an eight month process and upon completion I was expecting a pink slip. Of course also during this time I was enrolled in the Craft Brewers program with the American Brewers Guild. Hoping to make a career change soon a pink slip would be almost welcoming. As it turns out I finally got the news on January 21st. We got a one month notice and my last day in the corporate world will be February 19th.

What's next? Well as a student at the Guild I was to do an internship upon completion of the course work. I lined up the internship with Summit Brewing Company right here in the Twin Cities. Summit has been very flexible with me and very patient as I waited for my current job situation to play out. I will begin my four month internship with them on February 22nd. It is an unpaid internship but as luck would have it, I am receiving four months of severance from my current employer. Talk about luck!

After the internship with Summit I will be looking for a job in the brewing industry. Perhaps there will be a position at Summit? That would be ideal, but I have to remain realistic. Summit is a great company to work for and has very little turnover. Open positions are hard to come by. My wife and I are faced with the very real possibility of having to move out of state to find work. This is why we are getting the town home rented now (or soon) so we don't have to worry about that if we suddenly have to move across the country. While we'd both love to stay close to our families, I think we'd both welcome an adventure as well.

I apologize for being blog-absent for so long. It has been a ton of work not only packing up our entire home but also bringing it up to good renting condition. Now that I have much of the pre-rental paperwork out of the way I will try to post more frequently. And being that we are in the only month of the year with the word Bru in it, I think that makes it all the more important.

BEER THIS!

DA

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

I was going to hold this post off until tomorrow, but I couldn't keep misleading everyone like this. Red Hots were NOT my secret ingredient. It wasn't a complete fabrication; it was a very clever idea from my mother-in-law. However, I thought it was a little too risky for a project like this. And, I don't know how appetizing it would be. It could be alright. I might just try dropping a few red hots into a beer sometime and see how it goes.

Sorry guys, just a little early April Fool's joke.

Okay, so what did I really do? My short list consisted of Vanilla, Lactose, Coffee, Molasses and Bourbon. I didn't know how much vanilla to use, how to use it or when to add it so I crossed that off. Lactose was already being used by another blogger and I didn't want to be the guy who made the second best milk stout. Coffee can be tricky, but it made it to the final two. And I didn't know if adding bourbon soaked oak chips would be considered adding two ingredients or not. So, I went with molasses. I have wanted to use molasses in a beer for a long time. I love the smell and flavor of molasses and I think it would compliment a stout nicely.

I found a recipe using molasses (a Marzen beer, actually) in Sam Calagione's book Extreme Brewing. I could not find any high-grade light molasses so I went with Grandma's Original Molasses. I used one pound as called for in the book and added it at the ten minute mark. The cooled wort smelled of fantastic molasses, now we'll just have to wait and see what is left after fermentation.

I carelessly forgot to take a gravity reading just before the addition so I don't know how much this added. The OG officially weighed in at 1.064. Apparently molasses is 90% fermentables and the aroma and flavor are supposed to remain. I sure hope so.

Cheers, and again, sorry! DA

Beer Blogger Brewoff - Brew Day

I have recently started using Twitter more often and shall we say more completely. I had registered a while back just to play around but never really used it on a day to day basis. I've only recently started doing this as well as adding a bunch of users to my "following" list. As a beer guy it's a great tool for staying connected with all the local beer happenings as well as the individuals involved. Some of the people that I follow are other beer bloggers from the twin cities area. It was in doing just this that I discovered a brew-off just in the nick of time. Fellow blogger Aaron from The Captain's Chair had retweeted a tweet from SimplyBeer in Jersey about a brew off. This tweet piqued my interest so I checked out the SimplyBeer website. Sure enough, there was a brew-off between bloggers where each of them would brew the same stout. The kicker is that each would be brewed with a minor change or one secret ingredient. When finished all of them would be shared with the rest of the brewers. I thought it was a great idea. There was a brewing, bottling and shipping schedule and it looked like I could meet all the dates. So, I sent an email to Peter over at SimplyBeer and asked if I could get in on the action. I was welcomed enthusiastically. The cap was set at nine brewers to try and keep the shipping costs from getting out of control.

The important dates for this brew-off are December 13th - brew day, January 10th - bottling, February 1st - shipping and finally February 12th - TASTING! Details of the day can be found here.

My brewday began somewhat surrealistically. I slept much more than usual on Friday night (I wasn't feeling so hot) so when I woke up at 5am on Sunday I just tossed and turned. I gave in at 5:45 and jumped out of bed. I was already heating my strike water by 6:10 without even a hint of fatigue. Here's where disaster strikes (pun most definitely intended). There are many websites out there with strike water calculators. These help you determine what temperature a given volume of water needs to be when mixed with grain at another tempurature. If done correctly you will hit your target mash temp. Well, the strike water temp seemed abnormally warm but my grain was left in the garage overnight so that temp (50 F) was lower than normal. There were a lot of other internal alarms going off at this time - enzyme denaturing, tannin extraction, etc. But I just dismissed those and decided to not argue with the computer. What happened is I completely overshot my target - 170 F!!! In my panic I added a lot of ice which dropped my mash to 135 F. More hot water followed by more ice and I finally gave up. My mash was too cold and too thin. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. I discovered later in the day that I had selected the pounds/quarts option when I was entering my water volume in gallons (I did the gallon to quart conversion in my head). Perhaps I was sleepwalking after all.

Now, I will be the first to recognize that we are spoiled here in the Cities because we have not one, not two, but three LHBS* in the metro area. For many other brewers out there this would have ended their day. The bad news for me is that on Sunday the earliest store opens at 11am. And all this happened before 8am! Fortunately I had two beers that needed to be racked into secondary. I also decided to make lemonade out of lemons and use the wort collected from the disaster brew. I collected all those yummy flavors and colors and added six pounds of wheat LME and pitched it on top of the Scotch Ale yeast cake I had just racked off of. I also used all six ounces of Glacier hops I had sitting around. Yikes, thats a lot of hops! It was nice to have all this random stuff at my disposal to try and salvage what I could. I came up with an OG of 1.078, higher than I expected. But how much of it is fermentable? We'll find out. To my surprise, I had vigorous fermentation after only three and a half hours! Keep your fingers crossed.

At 11:30 I finally made it to the LHBS, got my new grain and I was off. The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. To my delight I mashed in at precisely 152 F. Vorlauf lasted about 20minutes and sparging around 45 minutes. The boil was more of the same, just following the recipe. I could only get leaf hops in the one ounce Willamette variety but used pellet hops for Tettnang. I wasn't sure if we were to use German or US Tettnang so I defaulted to the traditional German variety. With ten minutes left in the brew I added my secret ingredient... Irish Moss! Just kidding. I did a lot of thinking about what I would add. I wanted it to be very unique and I finally decided that since the tasting would be conducted around Valentines Day that I would add cinnamon red hots. I added 1/4 pound with ten minutes remaining in the boil. The wort was very sweet and roasty with just a little bit of cinnamon heat. I think it will be good.

I finally pitched my yeast at 6:20pm and my 12 hour brewday was complete. I am really excited about this project. It is great getting to know the guys and fun to experiment. I have to admit, I unintentionally deviated from the recipe because I did indeed add Irish moss. It was more out of habit than anything. One could argue that with an opaque stout like this it isn't even necessary and you'd be right. Hope I don't lose any points : )

Cheers!

DA

*Local Home Brew Store/Shop/Supply

A Brewer's Journey... Priceless

Round trip from Eden Prairie to Hudson, Wisconsin... 78 miles
Local craft beers from Minnesota and Wisconsin... $72.98
Packaging, shipping and lots of bubble wrap to send beers to Vermont... $60.04
Sharing local craft beer with fellow brewers from around the country... Priceless


Some of you know, some of you may not, that I have been studying with the American Brewer's Guild as part of their distance learning program. This program is just another step in my personal journey towards professional brewing. I have been following a fellow blogger's page A Brewer's Journey since its inception and it has really been a source of inspiration and motivation for me. It is in honor of his story and the many other dreamers out there that I am naming this post, a post about my own story, after his blog. Cheers, Spencer, and good luck in your new endeavor.


I suppose my story begins way back in the summer of 2000. My father has family in England, aunts and uncles and many cousins, so we have made a number of trips. The previous trips I was neither legal nor even interested in beer so on this visit the English beer culture was completely new for me. I graduated from college in 1998 and really didn't even know that beer could have different colors or flavors but my wise English uncles changed all that. My brother and I spent a lot of time throwing darts (did you know there are metal tip darts?) and drinking great English beer.


The next five years was a real growing period for me as I sought out beers most similar to the great brown ales, porters and bitters from across the pond. My palate was still very unrefined but I gravitated toward beers like Sam Adams Boston Lager (what the hell is a lager?), Summit EPA, Newcastle, Beamish, and one of my favorites from our trip, Caffrey's Irish Ale. As my palate began to refine I was able to identify different nuances in each beer. I found myself searching out even more styles and brands. I started to discover Hefeweizen, IPAs, Belgians, Imperial Stouts and more. It was then that I decided to take my love of beer to the next level.


In 2005 after many subtle and even some unintentional hints, my wife surprised me with a homebrew kit for my 30th birthday. After developing quite the passion and thirst for fine beers, I would now be making them myself. Or at least trying. They say if you can boil water you can make beer, and they are absolutely right. I was amazed at how easy it was to make beer. Was it good beer? That can be debated, and I often find, as most brewers do, that I am my own worst critic. But it was still beer. Well, that hobby exploded into an obsession. At times my wife would wonder..."What kind of monster have I created?". To her dismay, there were many trips to the local homebrew shop for kits, ingredients and worse... more equipment! Brewing at home can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it and I seemed to think I needed all the best gadgets and gizmos. I don't, but I love them just the same.


I'm a person who gets bored quickly. I have had many hobbies but I always seem to lose interest and move on to something else. The brewing fire, however, seemed to burn with a perpetual flame. It even intensified with each beer brewed and I knew I was on to something. They say if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life. That resonated well with me so I decided I needed to learn more. I checked online for brewing education courses and let me tell you, it's pretty thin. From what I could find my choices were University of California at Davis, Siebel Institute in Chicago, Heriot-Watt University in Scotland and the American Brewers Guild (ABG) in Vermont.


Not being one to take a lot of risks, I decided the distance learning program at the ABG was just for me. I wouldn't have to quite my day job and I wouldn't have to move. I reluctantly applied for the program early in 2008. I say reluctantly because I did not have the math and science prerequisites they asked for. To my surprise and delight I was accepted. The program must be a popular one because there is a waiting list. They do two programs per year, one begins in January and the other in June. This was April of 2008 and I was accepted into the June 2009 program! I was excited, but it was hard to get too excited because it was so far away. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave me time to do other things before hand.


Not only did I have time to refine my skills as a homebrewer, but it gave me an opportunity to take the introductory chemistry class the Guild recommended. I was going back to school! That summer I enrolled in a chemistry class at Normandale Community College and completed it during the fall semester. This would later prove immensely helpful during the water chemistry portion and the engineering lectures of the Guild's program. And it was kinda fun to be a student again.


In January of 2009 I was fortunate enough to get into the BJCP class offered by the Minnesota Homebrewers Association. This class (which also has a waiting list) is a 14 week program that educates you on all aspects of beer tasting, appreciation and evaluation. The class included many lectures, presentations, quizzes, mock exams and, yes, tasting a lot of beer! It wasn't all fun and games. The Beer Judge Certification Program is the foremost authority on beer tasting and evaluation and the exam for which this class was to prepare us was brutal. Three hours of essay and tasting was not nearly enough time for the amount of material on this test. I took the exam in April and, while it took quite some time to get the results, I did pass. I am now officially recognized as a beer judge. Woo hoo!


That finally brings us to June 2009 and the ABG program. After over a year of waiting, it was time to begin. The chemistry class and the BJCP class both prepared me quite well for the ABG program. The program is a 23 week course in which I "attend" lectures on DVD, read text books, study online and communicate with classmates through Internet message boards and chat rooms. Although the program is basically an online school, the format for which we learned worked out well. I really felt like I was learning right along with everyone and if I needed help or had a question it was just a click away. And here were are, just finishing up week 22.


What's next? Well, the last week of the course takes place in Vermont. Ah ha, the ripoff MasterCard commercial I began with is starting to make sense. I will be heading out this weekend (Nov 13) to meet up with the rest of my class for our 'hands on' residential week. This is something I have really been looking forward to. We get to put many of the things we have learned to use. The week will take place in Middlebury, Vermont at Otter Creek Brewery.

From what I hear Middlebury is a pretty little New England town with lots of beauty and old world charm. We will be spending time at the brewery in the brewhouse, cellar and lab during the days and the evenings will be spent doing sensory evaluation training back at the hotel. At the end of the week there will be a review session followed by the final exam. The exam is the only part of the week that is making me uneasy, but even that is mild. I've faired pretty well on the exams so far so I really shouldn't be worring at all. I am sure there will be ample time for extra-curricular activities so I've sent a bunch of great local beers to my hotel and I've asked other classmates to do the same. It sounds like there will be a nice variety from around the country.

Well, I hope I haven't put you to sleep but if I've driven you to drink then I guess I'll consider that a wash. Hopefull this journey will continue positively in 2010 and I'll be able to share more with you in the coming months. I'll be spending the next ten days enjoying the best beer NYC and Vermont have to offer. And I'll raise a glass to you, my readers, cheers!

BEER THIS... DA

And The Winner Is...

As many of you noticed from my most recent post, there was a homebrew competition down on Eat Street Tuesday night and I was in the running. I have been homebrewing for about four years now and I have yet to submit a beer in a competition. Why, you may ask? Well, when you submit your beers to a competition the organizers are usually looking for two 12oz bottles of your beer. The very first time I brewed I was stuck with the task that so many of us homebrewers are… washing, sanitizing, filling and capping fifty bottles of beer. I hated it so much that I went out and bought a kegging system while my next batch was fermenting. I have been kegging ever since. There were a few times when I would bottle half a batch and keg the rest but even that seemed too tedious. Long story short this was the first time I have been involved in any kind of brew-off.

It was a great time and I was pitted up against some great brewers. In addition to my IBA, we had a Dunkelweizen, a Biere de Garde, a Dusseldorf Alt and a Blonde Ale with Honey and Violet. If you’ve never been to the Black Forest Inn they offer flights of beer on their menu. If memory serves, you can get a dark beer sampler, a German beer sampler or a create-your-own sampler. This worked out well because we were able to use their nifty little carrying trays and 3oz sample glasses. All five brewers were on hand to talk about the beers, the club and homebrewing in general. Oh, and we were also waiters. It was our job to run samplers around to each of the tables in the restaurant and bar.



I gotta tell ya, it was a lot of fun and the time absolutely flew by. It helped that much of my family and many of my friends were there. Before we knew it, it was 9pm and time to count the ballots. I was very happy with the way my beer turned out but as a certified beer judge I didn’t think it was the best. Thankfully the restaurant agreed. Deep down inside everyone wants to win, but I didn’t want to win because I brought the most friends. The winner was the Dusseldorf Alt, brewed by long time brewer Mike Behrendt. I thought it was great that Mike won. He has been doing this for a long time and is a great brewer, not to mention his beer was a German style beer. Mike won with 35% of the votes and to my delight I came in second with 26% of the votes. I have to thank all my thirsty friends for that.



I really hope I can be a part of this next year in some capacity, whether as a brewer or a volunteer, as it was a lot of fun to be a part of. It was great to take brewing to the competitive stage and was nice to get some positive feedback as well. One highlight of the night for me was the gentleman from New Orleans who came up to us and wanted to “meet the guy who made the Brown Ale”. He thought it was fantastic and just wanted to let me know. Awww…

Thanks to all my great friends. I always say I have the greatest friends in the world and Tuesday they again showed me why. Thanks also to the Black Forest Inn. The food and service were fantastic and they really took care of our every need.

Prosit!

Oktoberfest!

Homebrew at the Black Forest Inn


Yep, I'm doing it. I'm pimping out my blog to advertise an event. The Black Forest Inn on Eat Street in Minneapolis is just one of a myriad of German bars and restaurants that host an annual Oktoberfest celebration. Some reserve one day for their celebration, others do it every weekend for a number of weekends and others yet host a nightly celebration for a block of nights. Black Forest Inn does the latter. For ten days they host a different themed party each night. One night is Fake German Accent Night (you vill haf fun) and another is David Hasselhoff Night (he's kind of a big deal in Germany). But tomorrow night, Tuesday September 29th, is Home Brew Night. There will be five homebrewers (including yours truly) on hand each pouring a different home made concoction.

I would encourage you all to stop on by and check it out. If you are a fellow blogger, stop by and introduce yourself, I love meeting you guys. If you are a homebrewer, let's talk beer. If you're thinking about homebrewing, there will be a number of us on hand and we'd love to answer your questions. Have youselves some bratwurst and kraut and vote for your favorite homebrew (free samples). Details of the event can be found below. Oh and did I mention prizes? Yes, there will drawings for goodies from local home brew shops and other places.

What will I be bringing?

About the beer: "Muddhop" This beer is my take on an India Brown Ale. This all malt beer was brewed with nine pounds of malt extract. I also used various specialty grains that would put it somewhere between a Brown Ale and Porter. I then aggressively hopped it in the spirit of an India Pale Ale. Big bodied and a sweet roasty malt finish, this muddy concoction was dryhopped with Cascade for a divine aroma. She comes in at around 7% ABV.

(from Black Forest Inn website)

Tuesday September 29
Home Brew Night
Five accomplished home brewers pit their best beers against each other. And you are going to decide whose brew rules Oktoberfest! Free to all dining customers, the sampler comes with descriptions and a ballot.

6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Homebrew samples available
6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Live music!
Skeets Langley on accordion
9:00 p.m.

Votes counted and Prize for Best Home Brew awarded
Win home brew and other type prizes!
The Minnesota Home Brewers Association will be on hand to answer all your basement beer making questions.

Ya, I would argue the words 'accomplished' and 'best' above, but whatever, we'll see. Prosit!

The Perfect Trifecta

The one gripe that I have about living in Eden Prairie is the lack of good beer bars. Now you could make the argument that Old Chicago is a great beer bar and it ain’t bad, but it’s no Muddy Pig. It’s no Buster’s on 28th. It’s no Stub and Herbs. Each of which are 22 miles, 14 miles and 17 miles from my house, respectively. Old Chicago is not a bad place, in fact that’s where I enjoyed many a beers while in my transitionary stage between macros and craft beers. There was always something new and exciting on tap and rarely did I have to drink the same beer twice. But, now that I’ve graduated to full flavored craft beers I rarely find anything there on tap that I want to drink. It’s not just the tap list. I don’t like the sports bar atmosphere unless I am at happy hour with friends. Let’s face it, it’s a chain restaurant and it's obvious. Sometimes when I’m in there, I have to ask myself, “Am I in Eden Prairie or is this Plymouth or Minnetonka or Sioux Falls or Denver?” I like a little more individuality. And I like to support my local guys too. Local bar owners and local brewers. I love Summit and Schell's but where’s the Surly, Liftbridge, Flat Earth, Brau Brothers? I can't bad talk them completely. There are times when I am thankful they are here, like the recent meet and greet with Lagunitas front man Tony Magee. But come on... Micro of the month - Summer Shandy??? Seriously!

Now I think I’ve finally found a cure for my beer bar blues. When I want to go and just sit peacefully pontificating over a good beer or three, I've found that the Gold Nugget is just the place. Just over five miles away this recently (re)opened bar in Minnetonka is both close and comfortable. This little burger joint has quite the past, unfortunately I know little about it. What I do know is that for most of the last 30 years the Gold Nugget was a small greasy spoon type dive bar that was famous for its burgers and onion rings. This is how it used to look. New developments in the area at Excelsior Blvd and County Rd 4 resulted in the demise of the old shack that housed it. In its place went apartments, condos and a stripmall. How sad. As someone who is still mourning the closing of Sherlock's Home nearly seven years later I can certainly empathize with the regulars who lost their favorite burger and beer joint. I think it's really cool that they incorporated the original stained-glass windows into the new restaurant.


I'll be honest, I never made it to the original bar but I have quickly grown fond of the new one. Coincidently I found the website for the old place. It's an old antiquated website and is actually quite entertaining. As for the new place, it's got that nice polished fresh feel. The dark wood, sharp lines and soft arches compliment each other nicely and are very inviting. Photos can be found on their website. In addition to a comfortable ambiance and atmosphere, the tap beer selection is pretty darned good. Local guys like Schell, Summit, Surly, Brau, Mantorville and Lake Superior. Craft breweries like Lagunitas, Founders, Bells, New Belgium and Boulevard. And they offer flights, they will pour four 4oz samples of any of their draft beers. In fact I had one on my first visit. This time however, I knew exactly what I wanted. It was a 3-pint flight of killer IPAs. It was Friday afternoon, I had some nagging homebrew follow up waiting for me at home but I convinced myself I could stop for a few. I deserved it, I earned it. I spent the previous two days working both jobs and I was due. Besides, the better half would be working until 10:30 and I had to warm up for the Autumn Brew Review.


I started with the Centennial IPA from Founders. Not the first time I'd had this one, but never a bad choice. Huge grapefruity hop aromas, sharp bitterness rounded out nicely with a heavy malt presence. I always enjoy this one, one of the best IPAs out there. I followed that up with a Lagunitas IPA. Less malt in this guy but perhaps a bit more bitter. Again, nice hop aroma but this time different fruit. More pineapple and lemon in the nose. This one also had a nice big body. I backed those up with perhaps the grandaddy of them all, Surly Furious. But before that I needed to eat. On their menu there are a few "originals" that remain from the former place. I chose the happy hour burger and onion rings both of which were originals and both were delicious. My one knock, albeit small, was that this combination was served in a basket. Nothing wrong with that but it just didn't fit the ambiance of the restaurant. Kinda like getting chinet at Manny's. I'm sure this was how it was always done in the old place so all is forgiven. Now that I had a nice base of beef and grease I could wash it all down with that Surly. Officially a double IPA, but what a great beer. Easily the most bitter of the three and again a great aroma. It's no secret the guys at Surly like hops and this one kneels to the hop gods. One of the best smelling beers ever brewed. The flavor is fantastic as well. All that bitter yumminess anchored by a substantial malt profile.


Hard to pick a favorite, so I didn't. These are all great hop bombs in their own right. I just considered myself lucky. While not really a beer bar per se, the Gold Nugget in Glen Lake is a warm, friendly, welcoming place with great service and an exceptional tap list. But alas it was time to go home... thankfully I didn't have far to go.