Year End Awards

I decided to go all out dorky this year and do the typical year end review that so many websites, tv shows, and magazines do for the New Year. Call it too much time on my hands, but I found the reflection pretty fun and a good way to assess my year's growth in brewing, blogging and beer drinking. So... I'm throwing modesty to the wind, and reflecting on the year that was in my home brewing, beer drinking, etc. Happy brewing, beer drinking, and Happy New Year!

I'll start on the negative:
Worst Beer/brewing idea: For the past two years I've brewed a summer ale I call Nokomis Summer Ale. In the past I've brewed a honey kolsch, a blonde ale with orange peels, and this year I decided to brew a light ale with a kolsch yeast, some pilsner malt and rye... bad. Just terrible. This could be attributed to two things...ignorance and inexperience. Dave @ Muckney pointed out that it sounded bad because rye can be bitter, and a kolsch is a fairly dry beer. Yes, Dave...right on the head. I had never brewed with rye, and for that matter hadn't really drank many beers with rye. Needless to say the three gallons of Nokomis Summer Ale 3 went down the drain. It was too bitter, and pretty much just awful all the way around.

Worst experimental ingredient: I love to experiment, and I think I have the ability to scale back on ingredients so that beers don't become too much of something. I have used some extracts in the past and don't particularly like the results. I'd rather brew with fruit than an extract or even a puree. Well, last year I made Frozen Beard Winter Ale, and trying to capture the wonderful spruce essence in the Alaskan and Rogue Winter Ales, I added spruce extract. Despite using less than the required amount, the end result was gross. Overpowering, medicinal, and just took over the beer. Underneath was actually a pretty good winter ale, but you couldn't get the damn spruce/cough syrup out of your mouth. Now I have an almost full bottle of this extract shit with no plans to use it again.

Best Experiment/Recipe to build on: The Gringo: Imperialistic Mexican Cerveza.
Last year I decided to brew an imperial Mexican lager. Why? Because in what seemed like an endless amount of Imperial, big, hoppy, over the top everything... I wanted to think of the most ridiculous beer I could bastardize. I thought this would be fitting. I have since grown to enjoy imperial, hoppy beers (I'm a hypocrite), and I was really happy with the turn out of the Gringo. Unfortunately, my curiosity led me to drinking much of this beer before it was ready. The final two bottles were excellent I thought. Similar to Bell's Hopslam, the Gringo ended up to be a very smooth, sweet, citrusy hoppy beer. I plan on brewing it with Agave nectar this year and brewing 5 gallons instead of three...and being extremely patient. It should be fun!

Best New Style Brewed: Irie Stout. I'd never brewed a stout before, and while I still want to do a more classic one, I really loved how this turned out. It needs some tweaks, a bit more body, some more roastiness, but overall I was really happy with how this turned out and am constantly craving this beer. Definitely part of the rotation.

Brewing accomplishment: I've reached the goal of making probably 95% of my beers organic or at least mostly organic (save for hops, although many have organic hops). I've converted old recipes, and write most of my new ones using all organic ingredients.

Before I get to my "Beer of the Year", a couple quick highlights:
Believe the Hype Award: Bell's Hopslam. At the time I shelled out the $15 for the six pack I wasn't big on hoppy beers. I was reluctant, maybe even a bit surly about the hype of this beer. I was wrong.

Best Brewery: While there are some close seconds, namely Stone Brewing Company and Millstream Brewing Company, this award has to go to none other than...New Glarus. Maybe it's because all three aren't available to me on a regular basis, but all three of these breweries blow me away with the beer I do get from them. However, New Glarus takes the award because whatever they brew, they hit it out of the park. From what I've had of Stone, their beers are big, aggressive and hoppy. Millstream makes well crafted German inspired bocks and ales, that are just great to drink. But New Glarus brews everything from an award winning Belgian red, to experimental beers like Imperial Hefeweizens , to Apple Ales, to German lagers, to IPAs, and each one is great.

Top five Commercial Beers: * beers I'd not had before this year
Unibroue Maudite
Ommegang Three Philosophers
Left Hand Milk Stout
Tripel Karmeliet
Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter

Best Homebrew not my own:
Ted's Tripelwas so good, it's hard to not have that beer be number 1. It was so well crafted and a style that intimidates me, I was impressed how much it won me over. With that said, Muckney's Rising Sun Ginger Sesame Red Ale was a beer that sounded so wrong to me. I opened it first thinking "I'll start with this one since it will probably suck." How wrong I was. I've been excited about this beer for several months now (Dave just sent me another). Surprising in every way, the ginger is so understated, the sesame makes total sense in it, the red ale part was malty and smooth. Just a fantastic, unique, creative beer. I look forward to cracking open the bottle I just got.

And finally...
Best Bearded Brew of 2008... Burning Beard.
While I really loved my Irie Stout, this beer ranks as one of the best beers I've brewed. It wins for several reasons. First off, it is the most complex beer I've made, it has a nice tartness and spiceness, as well as some nice maltiness. I was happy to achieve such balance and flavor profile. It is also the first beer I've brewed with cherries. I was so impressed with how the cherries came out, very subtly, in fact they are hard to notice unless you look for them. They add a great sweetness and tartness to the beer. Finally, I've had this beer name stuck in my head for some time. An homage to one of my favorite bearded bands, Clutch, their song Burning Beard is one of my favorites. Sticking with the bearded theme, I thought I needed to brew a redish hued beer to fit with the name. I have brewed three beers and drawn up three different labels trying to get one to stick and I finally found it. I love the label for this beer, the idea came to me after several years of drawing different images to fit the name. Likewise, I finally came up with the concept of the beer I wanted to brew for the name/label and it too is a keeper.

So there you have it, thanks for making it through my self-indulgent ramblings. Happy New Year! Here's to a happy and healthy New Year to you all.
Go Hawks! Go Vikes!
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Beer Reviews- Stone Pale Ale, New Glarus Alt

I was excited to be in Wisconsin to get my hands on some beers not available in Minnesota, most notably New Glarus. I've written a lot about New Glarus on this blog, you can check out past reviews here. My parents have a summer home in Wisconsin, so every trip up to visit them, I make sure to pick up some of this beer. While there are rumors of them coming to Minnesota, they strictly distribute in Wisconsin to keep with their "Native Beer" theme. Without gushing too much, I love everything about this brewery. Their staunch commitment to being local, celebrating the past, while also brewing some unique and adventerous beers. They brew both traditional and experimental equally well, and the Alt is a perfect example.
The description of this beer is tantalizing enough: "A heavy malt bill for this beer, along with a three-hour boiling time and additions of Turbinado Sugar...all combine for strong caramel flavors with assertive toffee tones. The altbeer is subsequently aged in open-top oak fermentors and then bottle conditioned."
The beer pours a bronze, copper color with a foamy finger of white head. Nice caramel, toffee, fruit, and sweet candy aromas. A very interesting taste at first, hard to pin down. The beer is very Belgian-esque in it's fruitiness and sweet aromas. It's equally malty and caramely, reminiscent of a German bock or ale. There are molasses and raisin flavors, and a bit of a alcohol presence. A very unique beer that is hard to categorize, it's smooth, fruity, malty and complex...just damn good.

Stone Pale Ale: I don't understand beer distribution sometimes. Why it is that Illinois and Wisconsin can carry breweries like Bear Republic and Stone Brewing Company and Minnesota doesn't? They probably drive right through the damn state on their way to Wisconsin. Well, hopefully it's only a matter of time before demand brings those two breweries to MN. Stone Brewing Company is one of those breweries worth the hype. Save for the Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, a beer I was thoroughly disappointed with, everything else I've had from Stone has been fantastic. Beers like Levitation, Arrogant Bastard, and Ruination IPA are all aggressively hopped beers, which is partly what impressed me so much about their Pale Ale I picked up in Wisconsin.
This beer pours a beautiful copper orange color with a thin white head. Nice caramel aromas dominate the nose, with a slight citrus hoppiness underneath. Wonderful flavors, and perfectly balanced. There are great caramel flavors, as well as some slight toastiness, a faint bitterness and some citrusy hops in the finish. From everything I've had from Stone, this beer surprised me and impressed me with how understated it is. A flawless, perfectly balanced Pale Ale. Start the movement Minnesotans! We need Stone Brewing Company to distribute in our state!
Coming up this week, I'm going to do a year end review... handing out awards...it should be fun, and infinitely dorky, so stay tuned.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Quick Hit...more to come

As I'm sure it is for most of you, its a busy time of year around the Bearded brewery. As of today, I am on winter break from school, so I hope to be getting some posting, drinking and brewing done over the break. I bottled the Bi-Partisan Coffee Porter last weekend and it smelled and tasted great. I'm really excited to see how this one turns out. I intended to bottle my Frozen Beard Winter Ale as well, after 2 weeks in the secondary it had mellowed out, but there was still quite an alcohol presence. This sucker clocks in around 7%, and right now its noticeable. I'm hoping that a week or so more in the secondary will smooth it out a bit. The flavors are great and I'm hoping the spiciness from the Perle hops come out in the finished product as nicely as they do now.
During the break, I intend to brew two beers, El Oso Brown Ale and another version of El Muerto, this time with some more citrusy hops; Cascade and First Gold. I liked the way it turned out before, but the hop profile still isn't where I want it.
El Oso Brown is a result of trying to get grains while my 1 1/2 year old daughter was tearing up the grain room at Northern Brewer. I was getting ingredients for the Bi-Partisian, and trying to keep her from grabbing handfuls of grain to throw on the floor. In the process, I accidentally scooped up a pound of Crystal 60 instead of Crystal 120. I realized it after I poured it in with all the other grain. I kept it and decided to make a brown ale out of the Crystal 60, 2-row and Chocolate mixture. I'm going to add some Munich or Vienna malt to it, and use up some organic hops I have. Its been awhile since I made a brown ale, so I'm excited.
Later today I'm headed up to Wisconsin, so hopefully there'll be some New Glarus gems available, including another of their Unplugged Series.
More to come.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas
Bearded Brewer

More Millstream Love

One of the breweries I continue to rave about on this blog is Millstream Brewing Company from Amana, Iowa. As a native Iowan, especially in the land of Minnesota, I'm always quick to brag up the Hawks and all good things Iowan. Add Millstream to the list. Everytime El Jefe goes back home, he always brings me back some Millstream. This year for my birthday he brought up six packs of two I'd never had; their Oatmeal Stout and seasonal Shockolade Bock. In a lot of ways Millstream reminds me of Summit. Their beers aren't experimental, insanely hopped, or high in abv (which I learned is due to some stupid Iowa beer laws). What they do instead are make excellent, well crafted ales that are solid for their style. I will maintain that their John's Generations White Ale is the one of the three best American brewed Belgian Wits I've had.
For more of my previous lovefests of Millstream, check out my prior reviews here.
Onto the two most recent:
Colony Oatmeal Stout: This stout pours jet black with a thick, two finger tan head. Nice chocolate, coffee, tofffee and roasted barley aromas. There's a great roasty flavor with a bit of a bitter finish. There are some nice chocolate and caramel flavors in there as well. Great mouthfeel with the slickness you'd expect from an oatmeal stout, along with some creaminess. Overall, another solid Millstream outing. Nothing out of the ordinary, but at the same time, exactly what you'd expect from an oatmeal stout.


Shockolade Bock: El Jefe waited to try this one with me and we were impressed. A very interesting beer and something I'd never heard of before, a chocolate bock. It pours brown with some reddish/copper hues and a 1/2 finger of off white head. Nice malty aroma with some chocolate notes and a hint of roastiness. This has some great malty character, with a smooth bock finish and sweetness. Perfectly balanced, it's malty and sweet, but has enough chocolate present to make it a bit darker feeling than you'd expect and also a very smooth finish as you'd assume with a bock. It finishes clean with some lingering sweetness. This beer is one of the best I've had from Millstream and I'm sad that I am out. This is the perfect winter beer if you aren't looking for something heavy, but want something complex but smooth.

I'm almost at the point of starting a movement to get Millstream into Minnesota. I learned from their website they do distribute to Illinois and southern Wisconsin. El Jefe and I might need to start bugging our Twin Cities liquor stores to start carrying this excellent brewery.

I will be posting my Winter Ales part two review this week (gotta love make your own six packs during the seasonal releases!)
Happy Holidays.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Hoppy Porter Review

Last spring Dave @ Muckney Brewing sent me a beer inspired by Stone Brewing Company, it was called Dark IPA. I was really impressed by this beer, it was great to drink an IPA that had a lot of porter-like elements. I enjoy porters a lot and have been much more into IPAs as of late. For the late fall, I decided to combine the two and create Hoppy Porter and the Half Bearded Prince. A big shout out to Dave for his input and recipe suggestions.
Hoppy Porter has been in the bottle for close to a month now, and I'm really happy with the turn out. I went more for the porter angle than the IPA angle, and it turned out to be close to a robust porter, with maybe a west coast hop feel.
It pours a jet black with some red hues, and a thick, foamy khaki head. Nice piney/peppery aroma with some citrus hops hidden in there, and a nice roasty backbone. There's some nice sweetness at first with some hints of cocoa, coffee, and maltiness. It's quickly followed by a nice hoppy presence, hardly any hop bitterness, but a nice roasty quality in the finish. In addition to the roastiness, it finishes with some lingering hoppy sweetness. Overall, I'm very happy with this beer and it'll definitely be added to the rotation. It has a great balance of porter with the hops. If I were to tweak it, I might add more hops for dry hopping, to give it just that much more presence. With that said, there was a slight bit of oxidation that I could attribute to the dry hopping. The same slight oxidation was evident in my Green Beard IPA, which I used the same hops in. I only used an ounce (out of a two ounce package) in the IPA and then put the rest in the freezer(in saran wrap) before using them in this beer. I've had that exposure give my dry hopped beers a little amount of oxidation in the past. I digress. Hoppy Porter turned out well, and is nice when I'm in the mood for something dark and hoppy.
Here's the recipe:
1.5 lbs Org. 2-Row
.75 lbs Org. Chocolate Malt
.75 lbs Org. Crystal 120
.25 lbs Org. Black Roasted Barley
.75 lbs Org. Crystal 60
* mashed for 1 hour @ 152 degrees
4 lbs Org. DME
Hops:
1 oz Organic Pacific Gem @ 60
.50 oz Centennial @ 10
.50 oz Centennial @ 5
.50 oz Cascade @ 3
.50 oz Cascade @ 1
1 oz Cascade @ 0

Dry Hop: 1 oz Org. Admiral Whole Leaf Hops
Yeast: 1056 American Ale

Next post will be a review of some more Millstream beers El Jefe brought me up from Iowa for my birthday, and I'll also be reviewing a few more Winter Ale offerings I've picked up.
More to come.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Last Three Beers from Ted

One of the best things about having this blog has been being able to connect with homebrewers across the country. Last year when I started this blog, one of the first blogs I came across was Ted's. In fact I had doubts early on if I wanted to do this blogging thing, but stumbling across some excellent blogs inspired me to keep at. I loved the great pics on Ted's blog, the detailed accounts of his adventures in brewing, and the variety of experimenting he did in his brewing, which I could relate to.
It was great to be able to exchange some beers with him. I was humbled by his reviews of my beers, and it was helpful to get some constructive feedback on some improvements I could make to my own beers.
With that being said, before going onto the reviews, I have to say that Ted's beers were outstanding. The detailed and meticulous notes on his site, are clearly reflected in his brewing. It impresses me when a brewer can nail both a "common" style, like his Brown Ale, and a more experimental beer like his outstanding Wild Blue. While I feel confident in my own brewing, I'm always looking to get better and Ted's beers are certainly inspiration for that. Check out my reviews of his first three here. I digress...onto the final reviews.
Nut Brown 2- I wrote in my notes: "Once again perfection as I've come to expect in Ted's beers." This brown ale pours a dark brown with ruby red highlights and a two finger tan head. Wonderful sweet, malty aromas with hints of chocolate and caramel. At first, great sweet caramel flavors followed by some nice nuttiness and chocolate tones. Just a solid nut brown ale, great carbonation and mouthfeel. Once again, a spot on brew.
Columbus IPA- While a lot of IPAs can start to blend together, this IPA separates itself with wonderful hop flavors and almost honey like sweetness. It pours a dark honey gold with a thick two finger light tan head. A citrus nose with honey and sweet aromas. Perfect mouthfeel, soft and and slightly creamy. Right away you notice the nice sweet hop flavor, not overly citrusy, but almost honey sweet. There is some nice bitterness, but it is quickly replaced by some nice caramel hints and a great syrupy-honey sweetness from the hops. Another flawless beer from Ted, sweet with delicate hop flavors, but nothing overdone or out of place. I could drink a lot of this beer!
Old Ale- This is a style of beer I've never had before, so I went into this with literally no expectations. This beer pours a muddy brown color, reminiscent of iced tea. A great sweet, fruity aroma with quite a bit of wild yeasitness present. My first thought was... interesting. Fizzy carbonation gives it some crispness in the finish. Light in body, but a great complex array of flavors. There's sourness, but nothing overwhelming, funky yeastiness, and quite a bit of fruit. Fruit flavors such as apricot, plum, raisin, as well as tamarind are present throughout. A very sweet beer, but has a nice smooth finish and is very well balanced. While it's not a beer I could drink regularly, it's so well crafted, nicely balanced and complex that it's impressive in its own right.

It was fun exchanging beers with Ted. The complexity and balance in Ted's beers, both in his experimental and more common beers, are on par with anything I could buy commercially. It gives me a good bar to set for myself. Hopefully we can do it again in the future.

More to come...
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Belgian Birthday Bash

I apologize for the "video" but I didn't have a camera in the house:

This past Saturday was my 32nd birthday. Friday night, my wife and daughter were out of town for Thanksgiving. My good friend Brotino, whom I've mentioned several times in this blog came into town. Brotino is a big fan of Belgian beers, and introduced me to a lot of good ones, so I now have a little logo in his honor on my Belgian beers.

Shortly after Brotino arrived, I took him Zipps Liquors in Minneapolis, one of the better liquor stores with an excellent Belgian selection. We each left with about 40 bucks worth of beer. As you can see from the video, we had the following:
Unibroue La Fin Du Monde - Excellent
Unibroue Trois Pistoles- very good
Unibroue Maudite - Excellent
Ommegang Rare Vos- Another solid Ommegang offering
Delirium Tremens- Always good
North Coast Pranquster- excellent golden ale
Mardesous 10 (Triple)- from what I remember, very good

In addition I also had saved some of my own Belgians, the Burning Beard, El Jefe, and Bangy Tangy for the occasion. I apologize for not having more descriptive reviews, but we kept the Bearded goblets filled and worked our way through the stock. An excellent night.

On the night of my birthday, my family and the Brotino and I went to Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis. This was the second time I had gone, the first time was excellent. This time around, the food was kind of a disappointment, but the beer was excellent. Not surprisingly, the Brotino went for their Anniversary Tripel, which was excellent. I went with the outstanding Mango Mama IPA. This is an American IPA fermented on top of mangoes. I didn't think it would be good, but was blown away by how much the mango and the hops went together. The dryness left by the hop finish is followed up by a hint of mango. This beer was amazing!
All in all a great weekend. A double brew day on Thursday, followed by a two man Belgian beer fest with one of my best friends, and a birthday dinner at Minneapolis' best brewpubs.

Look for the next post, which will be the final review of Ted's brews.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer