Not Trying to Brag But...

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

I almost forgot to mention the Earthquake that we had last Saturday… well, there’s a few reasons for that… mostly because it was in Napa over an hour’s drive away… but also because the experience was me being lightly jostled awake at 3 AM just in time to catch like the last two seconds of a six-second shimmer… and then nothing. No damage, no injuries, nothing like that… which is great. We’re fine. Napa got hit pretty good with some power outages and piss poor planning by vineyards will probably cause to an “unexpected” rise in wine prices… but beer’s better anyway. Aside from that, no deaths, only a few injuries from falling bookshelves and stuff like that… I think some mobile homes burned because of a small fire & close proximity… I feel like most here in the area are pretty prepared for the inevitability of earthquakes… and this kinda served as a pleasant reminder to check your preparedness kits. That’s all I really got to say about it. My first time feeling one really in almost four years here.

 

Saturday night before the quake, we watched “Lego Movie” starring the voice talents of Chris Pratt, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie, Will Arnett and… let’s face it, half of Hollywood seemed to be in the movie. Basically, this was the mega-release Lego movie after the success of all the straight-to-DVD releases they had before with Lego Batman, etc. It’s about an everyday schmoe construction guy (Pratt) who “isn’t special” so he’s apparently lonely… and then an amazing adventure ensues involving a missing piece and… you know, lots of kids stuff… but as lame as my plot summation is… I’d definitely recommend that you go check this movie out because it’s pretty hilarious for both kids & adults… and seriously, why the hell not? GO CHECK IT OUT!!! It’s LEGOS!!! See what they’re doing with all CGI movies nowadays… it’ll tickle your funny bone…

  

Over the weekend, Izzy & I found a little gem on Netflix called “Rocket City Rednecks” which is a TV show about a few rocket scientist rednecks in Huntsville, Alabama who spend their weekends doing projects to make complicated scientific discoveries… using mostly junk parts & ingenuity. Basically their weekend projects are things like… make a submarine out of a pesticide tank… or make an Iron Man suit out of junkyard parts… or turn a pickup truck into a tank… or try to make Batman-like gadgets out of household appliances… stuff like that… and it’s HELLA interesting. The best part about the show… is that while you’re watching these episodes that are like Mythbusters with a  draaaw… you start to realize that these good ol’ boys with a pretty typical slack-jawed yokel accent really are f**king geniuses… and they’re incredibly entertaining too. It’s like the Duke boys & Uncle Jesse deciding to turn the General Lee into a Rocket Car! Pure entertainment! I suggest you go check it out!

 

Tuesday night, we went out to Daly City to play some softball… and long story short, I didn’t play (because there was like 20 of us suited up) and we lost after a very poor start. I think the final was like 15-7. We NEVER let anybody score more than 10 before I don’t think. Hopefully this helps us to focus… and let’s face it, I don’t help THAT much when I do play… but here’s the thing, I don’t believe we’ve lost a game that I’ve played in the four seasons I’ve been playing… and we’re only like 4-3 when I’m not in… just something to think about. Maybe that’s like the “Bengals & Patriots are 43-2 when Benjarvis Green-Ellis scores a touchdown” or something… you know, those pointless factoids in sports. Well yeah, having a player score a touchdown really would improve your chances of winning… that’s just logic. Anyway, looking forward to next week to wash this feeling off…

 

Wednesday morning, I awoke to an email from the main promoter for the Napa Valley Expo after I had reached out to him trying to find the results from our entries early last month. Well, with the wine harvest & the earthquake, needless to say I wasn’t at the top of his priorities… but ugh… we actually did really well. How well you ask? Well, the results are below… and the rating are out of 50 and basically anything above 36 is considered EXCELLENT!!!

 

•             PentaceraHops Ale (Torpedo Clone) – 1st place Pale Ale (39.7 rating)

•             Oktoberfest – 1st place Light Lager (36 rating)

•             Winter Warmer – 2nd place Strong Ale

•             Honey Amber – 2nd place Brown Ale

•             ChocoNut Stout – 3rd place Stout (Too much coconut for style)

•             Blood Orange Hefeweizen – 3rd place Wheat Ale

 

I haven’t heard back on a few details like… how many entries there were, how our label placed in the label competition, or even the overall Best of Show winners (since I assume the two 1^st places would’ve advanced?) but yeah, this is astounding to get SO MANY RIBBONS!!! I mean… everything placed?!? Congratulations Izzy! We’re now MULTI-AWARD-WINNING brewers!!!

 

Wednesday night was the SFHG Monthly Meeting and we announced the winners of the guild’s 3^rd competition of the year… and unfortunately we didn’t win there… or even really score well, but we only had old beer to submit at the time, so kind of expected. Our bock wasn’t ready yet. Our Blood Orange Hef & Honey Amber weren’t eligible styles. Our Torpedo Clone is a Pale Ale… but where that was not a eligible style for this comp, we had to list it as an IPA (India Pale Ale) which is pretty different from its flavor characteristics… so basically the same beer that scored almost a 40 in the Napa Valley Expo as a Pale Ale, was about 25 as an India Pale Ale, which makes sense. Basically the only other one that we could submit was our Bourbon Barrel Porter, which isn’t really made to the BJCP Porter style because of the addition of Maker’s Mark… and it’s also reaching six months old so towards the end of its freshness cycle. We still got some good feedback (mostly great beer but not to style, might be old, etc) but our Competitions Chair also gave a quick talk about the BJCP scorecard and how the competitions work, which was very helpful.

 

While there, we also caught up with each other about the upcoming Northern California Homebrewers Festival and planning everything out for that. Basically it sounds like it’s going to be a LOT of fun with great people, great beer, and hopefully great weather in mid-September. We also tested out the four different keg samples from the large batch that we made at Motobrewer, and apparently we’re all pretty good with our sanitization and upkeep because they were all very similar. The verdict: Not sure who’s keg we’re going to submit to the competition portion of NCHF… but they’re all going to share with everybody afterwards, so 18-20 gallons of great Cali Common for everybody!

 

Anyway, that should do it for me this time… still kinda pumped about winning so many ribbons in Napa… but luckily I have my day job to keep me at an even keel by constantly reminding me how exploited I am. Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Honey Amber & 5 Day Cider

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well, we had a busy little Saturday with regards to making alcoholic beverages! And some of it was pretty impromptu too!!! Hehe... tutu...

Winter Warmer Tasting

Anyway, I guess it would be to start with the tasting of our Winter Warmer. Now, as you remember, we didn't do a particular good sparge with this batch, being one of our first with the mash tun... but we also didn't dilute it with water towards the end fearing that it would produce a pretty weak ass little beer when it's supposed to be towards the stronger end... and it's a Winter Warmer, so it's supposed to be a heartier beer... so we just made less of it (3 gallons as opposed to 5 gallons).

We tried our first bottle Friday night and... wow... it's REALLY f**king good... and seems pretty f**king strong too. Unfortunately we didn't take the gravities with this one but... it's probably 8% at least. It's almost like a barleywine flavor, but obviously a good hearty Christmas time kind of beer. I'm REALLY impressed with it... and now just a little sad that we only have 3 gallons of it... but oh well, the lessons from that sparge will serve us well in the future. Here are some pictures of it... though I'll admit, I've probably got to get a better way to photograph the beer. It's very... in the moment, fluorescent lights of the kitchen or using a lamp in the bedroom, in a glass that has a little streaking going on that REALLY shows with a flash but... yeah, here you go... you get the idea...

Honey Amber Ale

Saturday, we started our first beer that'll be part of a competition in about two months - The Honey Amber Ale! This recipe is original in that I looked at a bunch of amber ale recipes (including our pumpkin ale back in September) and did a little research on incorporating honey to give it a little distinctive flavor... and this was what we came up with. Yes, it's a malt extract recipe which... is a little lame, I'll admit... but we figure that it'll be good experience to see how such a recipe goes in competitions, get some feedback from professional judges, and then to make it all grain, it's really just a conversion of the amount of extract to the amount of grains & then sparging. We're still novice when it comes to that, but a few months down the road we'll have some good experience (and possible better equipment for it) so that's the goal... and getting a medal or ribbon or whatever would be pretty f**king sweet too. Anyway, we start with getting the proper ingredients from our local homebrew supply shops...

Then we teabag the specialty grains to release some desired flavors... but most the coloring that we're going for. Along with the Amber malt extract, we used some Crystal 60 grains, which is right in the middle of the coloring spectrum for grains, so it should give a good amber brown that with a few additives & proper procedures, should produce a beautiful color with the honey added as well. Anyway, check out how in only a few minutes the specialty grains color the water that we're going to turn into wort...

Then we add the malt extract & honey and bring the wort back up to a boil...

Then we add the hops and everything else strategically during the boil. During this first part, I had to make an ice run so I didn't get a lot of pictures... but basically we only added half of the malt extract before the boil began, added some hops at the beginning of the boil, and then added more along with the rest of malt extract towards the end of the boil...

This is also our first time using a Whirfloc tablet. These tablets are added when there's about ten minutes left in the boil and acts as a way of pulling some of the impurities, various husks and materials from the grains, dead yeasts, and other things out of the wort before & during fermenting... and takes them to the bottom of the fermentor so that it's just cleared out during the transferring to secondary & bottling... or makes it easier to filter them out before bottling a beautiful crystal clear beer. We haven't used anything like this before and it has shown with our previous beers where people are like "Is it supposed to be cloudy?" Well, since we're going to enter this in a competition, there's no time like the present to start using it & seeing how it works. I'm excited about it... but we'll see how it goes. It already appears to be getting a lot of extra things out of there, especially given that this is a malt extract recipe and there was already this much stuff in the bottle when we were doing the initial transfer...

 

Oh... and our first time using liquid yeast... California Ale

Also, while the wort was chilling, we did a quick transfer of our Oktoberfest lager from the primary fermentor to the secondary fermenter, thus freeing the primary for our Honey Amber...

5 Day Cider

While checking a few things on the web, Dizzy came across a recipe for 5 Day Cider that sounded pretty intriguing... it was a 4 gallon recipe... and we had an empty 5 gallon carboy, so yeah... we headed over to find ingredients, mainly 4 gallons on unfiltered apple juice. Yes, if you go to a grocery store like Safeway, you'll basically pay about $40 and buy them out of it... but if this turns out well, probably well worth it as the drinks would come to about a dollar a bottle. Here's what 4 gallons of unfiltered apple juice looks like in it's semi-natural state...

Then we mix half a gallon of it with a pound of so of brown sugar and a few cinnamon sticks...

Start the pitch for some yeast to convert all those sugars to alcohol...

And then mix them all together to start it up... notice how the color changes with each addition...

Anyway, that was our Saturday of Homebrewing... and of course, we'll keep you posted on the delicious results. Have a great weekend everybody!!!

SF Beer Week 2014 - Part Three

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Yes… SF Beer Week has NOW completed! Here’s part three of our EPIC week…

 

Saturday morning (yes, morning) we headed to the Haight-Ashbury district to the Toronado Bar to partake in their Barleywine Festival. For those who don’t know, Barleywine is basically a very strong, typically malty, aged concoction with a high alcohol content. Typically it involves a LOT of sugar taken from the barley, wheat, etc. and then is typically aged for about 8-12 months, very similar to a grape wine. Because of the aging, a lot of the hoppy notes mellow out (hence the maltier flavor) but there are a variety of recipes with varying levels & aging notes. For example, there were about 60 different Barleywines from well-established breweries at this “festival” (really just a bar with a lot of barleywines). We sampled a few… and made friends with a few people at the bar who were about two dozen samples deep by the time that we showed up… and we shot the sh*t & I was really pleased with the variety of beverages at our disposal… but it was pretty packed… and there was more to see… so after an hour or so, we headed off.

 

 

Next stop was  Magnolia Brewery since we’re out that way on Haight… but it was also a Saturday… and about lunch time, so we were told that there’d be “about an hour to an hour and half” wait… so we figured another time would be better to investigate. Coming soon…

 

After that, I bought my first pair of Doc Marten’s… we headed over to the East Bay… ate some T-Rex Barbecue… stopped by a vivarium (reptile shop) and yeah, just a pretty chill night after that. Of course sampling more of our bourbon barrel porter. I was a little under the weather this weekend so… no burning the midnight oil exactly. Some great movies to review in my other blog though.

 

Sunday was a Tribute to Grizz (legendary homebrewer who passed away recently) competition & a SF Homebrewer’s Guild Party at Pi Bar in La Mission. This was my first time going to the event, but it was pretty cool. Basically, you paid $15 and got all the pizza you could eat… and dozens of homebrewers bring in their finest brews to sample… so it’s basically all the pizza & beer you can muster. The competition was also for Barleywines as well as English Milds… so there were plenty of those on tap… but also a wide variety of others. I even brought a few samples (Dizzy had to work) to share with the people… and decent reviews for our Porter & Pumpkin Ale… but none of our BJCP judge buddies were available to test (a little too busy pitching their own beers). Basically it was a great group of guys & gals just having a good time, sharing beer, eating pizza & all that jazz on a Sunday early afternoon.

 

Another thing that came out of this… is that I got a little taste of how the competitions work, and after discussing with Dizzy, I think that we’ll be joining some of these competitions. Do we think we’ll win? Of course we’re optimistic… but worst-case, we’d get some valuable feedback on our own brews and processes. Also, we’ll probably be taking some of our samples to the next Guild Meeting when there’s… you know, only a handful of people offering instead of something like 70 different beverages to choose from. No joke. That’s a low ball estimate. Anyway, we’ll keep you posted.

 

Monday was President’s Day, so we were both off school & work… so we thought it’d be the perfect time to brew our next batch – Oktoberfest!!! This recipe is a traditional Maerzen recipe and is the traditional Fest Bier of many a German celebrations… and among my favorite kinds of beers. Just a fantastic all-day drinking kind of beer. It’s cold lagered (fermented at a lower temperature) so the process is a little slower than most of our previous batches. Typically fermentation is done around 60 degrees (maybe a little lower) but we drop it about ten degrees for this yeast. When the beer is finished, it won’t have a lot of hoppy bitterness, just rich malty golden kind of flavors that you can drink by the BOOT!!! Oh yes… it will be enjoyed by BOOT!!! It should be just about ready by the time my birthday rolls around in two months… almost perfectly timed. Here are some pictures of the process…

 

 

My "Chasing Ice" inspired photos of the wort cooling...

After it has cooled, put it in the primary fermenter...

Get it good & aerated... Shake it up...

 

We also used some of the spent grains to make loaves of bread & flatbreads for sandwiches. Dizzy is such an amazing cook in my humble opinion…

 

 

 

And she also made me a fantastic burger...

Bacon & cheddar infused burger patty...

Bagel thin, everything style with bacon jam...

...and bleu cheese...

Topped off with a bourbon barrel porter. Boom!

  

We also took the time to bottle our Winter Warmer which we sampled… and it’s pretty delicious for the stage that it’s in. It’s a bit of a shame that we only got about 2.5 gallons out of the batch… but we’ll see what a little bottle aging will do for it. Winter is almost over anyway, but we got some invaluable advice from our mistakes on this one… glad that we can still enjoy a little bit.

 

Tapping from the zwickel before final aging...

So that does it for SF Beer Week 2014!!! Join us next time when I’m sure that we’ll have a few updates on local establishments, our own adventures, future competitions, all that jazz. Have a great day everybody!!!