Thanksgiving Dinner Tasting

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Thanksgiving Dinner marked our first official Public Tasting of our homebrews… and it went pretty well. Of course we were surrounded by loved ones, great friends, family & just good ol’ peeps… but there was also great food… and even BETTER beer. Dinner this year was hosted by Dizzy’s Aunts and they typically have plenty of Sierra Nevada and New Belgium brews at their events… so they’re a bit of beer snobs like us. Of course, I use the term “beer snob” endearingly. They’re both some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, they just have great taste when it comes to the beer they drink.

 

Other guests at the dinner were primarily in their 60’s or older… with the exceptions of myself (32), Dizzy (28) & her cousin Amy (17) who obviously didn’t drink. Some were experienced beer drinkers, others were fairly novice, some haven’t had it for a few years due to various health concerns & intolerances, so it was a pretty intriguing group of guinea pigs for us to try out on. Anyway, that was the test group… but here are the real key players… THE BEER!!!

 

I made some signage out of construction paper leading up to dinner… and I’m obviously not an art student or anything… but yeah, I like them. Hope that you enjoy too.

 

Brew: Irish Red Ale

Age: About 12 weeks (first batch ever)

Code Name: Raptor Red Ale

  

Brew: Pumpkin Ale

Age: About 11 weeks (also came with first kit)

Code Name: Proto Pumpkin Ale

 

Brew: Bavarian Hefeweizen

Age: About 8 weeks

Code Name: El Hefe (T-Rex, but several names being played with play on King or Tyrant)

 

 

Brew: Nut Brown Ale

Age: About 6 weeks

Code: Brown-tosaurus Ale

 

You can read through the past posts for our test tasting results… but apparently they were an overwhelming success. Some said that it was some of the best beer that they could remember tasting (insert Alzheimer’s jokes here) but even the particular critics said that they were great… especially the Red Ale & Pumpkin Ale (probably due to the aging involved settling the flavors a bit). Later in the week, my buddy The Wingman helped us with further tastings… and yeah, they’re pretty good. We could probably slap a label on them & sell now but… yeah, we’re not incorporated, paid all the fees to Big Gov’ment and jumped through all of the hoops… even after we pull a few hundred grand out of our backsides for large scale brewing supplies, bottling, etc. We’ve got a long ways… but we’re having fun as is right now… so we just need time to hone our craft… and of course convince others that we’re worth taking a risk on… or just rob a few banks or something. That might be good startup capital.

 

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!!! Have a great day everybody!!!

Chapter 9: Nut Brown Ale Tasting & Guild Meeting

November 19, 2013

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

This was a pretty busy weekend… but first, let’s start with a Nut Brown Ale Tasting. This batch was original cooked up four weeks ago… and we were really excited since it kinda smelled like chocolate. Unfortunately I was a little under the weather this weekend (thanks to a coworker, but she took it worse than I did) but we still tasted it at the four week mark… and it was REALLY good. It had a nutty, full flavored taste to it similar to Rogue’s Hazelnut Nectar Brown Ale… but again, didn’t quite have the lingering taste, which I believe comes with a little more aging… so I’ll have to fill you in on that in a few weeks (probably during Thanksgiving dinner).

Summary

Nut Brown Ale
Malt Extract Kit	5 gallons
Ingredients
Fermentables	6 lbs	Maris Otter Malt Syrup
Specialty Grains	1/4 lb	English Chocolate Malt
	1/4 lb	Belgian Special B
	1/4 lb	Belgian Biscuit
	1/4 lb	Briess Special Roast
Hops	1 oz	Fuggle (60 mins)
Yeast		Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast
Cook Date/Primary Ferm	10/20/2013
Secondary Ferm	Not needed
Bottled	11/3/2013	2 weeks
First Taste	11/17/2013	4 weeks
Reaction		Delicious, great nutty flavor
		Hints of chocolate & roasted nuts
		Aging may help even more
Adjustments?		Great recipe really
		Perhaps maple brown?

Saturday, I took Dizzy to a wonderful place that some friends from SLC referred to me from their visit last week, Harley Farms Goat Diary in Pescadero, about an hour south of the City. About twenty years ago, a British lady named Dee Harley came out to the beautiful coastal town and got some property… and basically slowly but surely went from a few acres of overgrowth in her property… to a fully functional goat dairy with some serious award-winning cheeses. Of course, Dizzy is a HUGE fan of goats & worked on a dairy in Sacramento… and these were some of the nicest goats (and llamas) that you could even imagine. Hell, they’re so pampered that if I’m reincarnated, I wanna come back as one of Dee’s goats. Seriously… they’re a masseuse away from living YOUR dream too. Anyway, here are some pictures…

After the tour, we headed to Half Moon Bay Brewery in time for the sunset… and to try their beers & sliders. All of which were pretty good… some more pictures…

Tuesday, we took part in the meeting of the SF Homebrewers Guild at Anchor Steam… with special guests SF Mead Company!!! As mentioned in our last post, we're making a mead of our own... so it was great to pick their brain & make contacts with them in case they'd be interested in any future collaborations... and they were surprising open to the idea... but there's a LOT of experience in the guild when it comes to Homebrewing & making great beer. The meetings with the guild are fantastic... and the beer is free, though you have to drink responsibly to pay attention to those around you & their wisdom... and also to drive home safely.

Damn… it’s just a good time to be me… and I’m incredibly thankful for it!!! Have a great thankful day everybody!!!

Chapter 6: Bottling Hef & Nut Brown Ale

October 20th , 2013

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Welcome to another stunning & thrilling chapter in the Homebrewing Adventure!!! This week… we start off with…

 

Bottling the Hefeweizen!!! It seems like just the other week that we were cooking up the wort (because we were) and already to bottling day. If we had a kegging system in place, we’d basically be drinking it now… but alas, we’ll let it age a bit in the two week bottling phase with priming sugar. We bottled pretty late in the evening (more on that later) but during the whole process, the Hef mixture looked a LOT darker than one might expect after drinking the typically light, golden ales bearing that name… but we shall see once the process is complete if that’s the case. Here are some pictures…

 

 

Dizzy drowning a cat... oh wait...

this one is sanitizing bottles

See? That's pretty dark for a Hef, right?

Cleaning the carboy for the next batch...

By the way, magnet on our dishwasher...

I really enjoy my roommates...

Sunday night, we started our new batch… Nut Brown Ale, from a malt extract kit. While cooking this bad boy, there was a scent of chocolate in the air… kind of like smelling a batch of chocolate chip cookies… so yeah, pretty excited about this one too. It’s also another one of the fairly quick turnover brews like the Hefeweizen, where we will be bottling it after two weeks of fermenting… and then two weeks after that, we have brown ale along with our three other brews by that point. Anyway, here are some pictures of the Nut Brown Ale’s preparation…

 

 

Mmm... steeping a hefty sack of chocolately goodness...

Then chill as quickly as possible for fermentation...

Load some cold water in the carboy first...

Then mix in the wort...

Top it off & place it in a cool, dark place...

Don't forget to take a picture with FLASH!!!

BIG NEWS!!! Earlier Saturday, we also went on a bit of a shopping spree for our Homebrewing enterprise. A few weeks ago, my lovely mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas… so being a grown ass man who takes care of himself, I replied “Money’s cool… but you don’t have to get me anything. I’m a grown up.” I’ve chatted with her about the Homebrewing though… and she knows that Dizzy & I really enjoy it… so she gave us some cash for some additional equipment, because she’s the greatest!

 

We went to the Oak Barrel in El Cerrito and thanks to a discount with being new members to the SF Homebrewers Guild… we walked out with:

 

• 10 Gallon Mash-Tun – For brewing all-grain brew recipes, which is the next step in devising our own unique recipes
• Stainless Steel Wort Chiller – To cool the boiling wort as quickly as possible before fermentation to cut down in any possible contamination. Before we were just using the bags of ice in the sink, now… probably both?
• Eight pounds of Wildflower Honey & Yeast - For making Mead & they gave us a recipe for quick mead (a few months as opposed to a year plus)
• Five gallon glass carboy – A second secondary fermentation carboys so that we can have multiple batches fermentation at the same time, since a few of our upcoming recipes requires a longer secondary… we won’t have to wait until it’s done to start on a quicker batch
• Another case of 22 ounce bottles – This may be the top reasoning for considering a kegging system in the next few months. We have a LOT of bottles in the apartment now, which is okay as long as we’re recycling & saving them… but can easily be replaced with a few 5 gallon kegs. One keg = about 2 cases... and this was my living room BEFORE we bottled the Hef... Don't worry though, the boxes on top are empty... roommates just may be moving out so I saved them.

 

• One pound of Bottle Caps – So about 200 or so… again for the bottles
• A few other odds & ends – Cleaner, replacement bubble chambers, etc.

 

We also picked the brains of some of the workers at Oak Barrel & they lent their expertise on a variety of subjects from mash-tunning to mead recipes to some of their favorite beers to their own batch routines and so on… really nice guys. I highly recommend that if you’re looking for any beer, wine or cheese making apparatus, consider the Oak Barrel on San Pablo Drive in El Cerrito. Tell them $teve sent ya… “Who?” “The tall guy with the hot chick who were asking a bunch of questions a few weeks ago… he wore a Dee’s Nuts T-Shirt.” “OH! $TEVE! Yeah… hahaha…”

 

Anyway, that’s pretty much the adventure this week… next week, Pumpkin Ale Tasting… and of course we always have a few other surprises. Have a great day everybody!!!