Hey all.  There’s been a lack of posting due to the fact that my brain is completely wrapped up in making. this. baby. come.  I didn’t think that would make a very interesting post (and really, if you want to hear my impatient bitching all you have to do is take a look at my facebook).

Because it has been so brain-encompassing, I still need to do a quick overview.  Red Raspberry leaf tea (X a million).   Induction massage (X2).  Evening primrose orally and perineum massage (X every day).  Pineapple (today).  Been eating spicy food and craving Dark Horse jalapeno poppers like crazy, but have not been able to convince anyone to deliver them here. Of course there’s the one EVERYONE likes to point out (including my SOs parents, joy of joys)… yes I have been having lots of sex. So no one needs to comment here and suggest it.

So. Hopefully it will be soon.  Many have pointed out I will not have all this lovely knitting time I have been enjoying once she is here, but I am devising a clever system of knitting while nursing… although I may have to switch to exclusively circular needles so baby Lyra can retain both her eyes.

I have managed to actually DO some other things. The MIL scarf is now as tall as she is, so I think it’s time to bind off.  Dad’s scarf is taking a bit longer because I have to untangle three balls of yarn every few rows (thanks to the little stripe I thought would be so nifty – it’s a LOT of work for 6 rows of contrasting color). The baby sweater has been a bit stalled due to frustration.  I have the left sleeve and front panel sewn on, the right sleeve is attached to the back, and now the front right panel is too short.  I swear it was the right size up until the time to sew seams came along.  So far the temptation to cast on a project for me (sooooooccckkkkksssssssss) has been resisted, because I am determined that everyone receive a FINISHED gift this year (this has not always been the case).

In beer news, the housemates and I got the holiday porter started, and it is happily bubbling away in the dining room.  Normally the beer lives and grows in the Beer Room, but others have pointed out that we have family coming to town this weekend and most people would refer  it as the Guest Room. Weirdos.  Anyway, who wouldn’t sleep better with a happy little homebrew bubbling nearby?

Hi folks!  I’m back!

For some of you (like 99% of you) this probably means squat, but for those of you playing the home game, you may have noticed that I have not written a post in ten days (since Nov. 20th).   “Why?” you may ask.

Because I was on vacation, and to get the full worth of it I decided to for go more than just my employed work, but to also avoid things like blogging, twitter, coffee, 6:00 am, etc.  In fact, in general I did pretty good at staying away from my computer as a whole, using it only to occasionally check my email, browse the headlines in the New York Times, and to watch movies on Hulu/Netflix.  All and all it was a great escape of sorts.

So what did I do?  Did I go to far off exotic places and interact with strange and wonderful people?  Well I did not go to far off exotic places, in fact I did not even leave Greenville.  As far as strange and wonderful people that is a matter of perspective, but I will say I greatly enjoyed my time with everyone whom I hung out with over the past week.

Basically I bummed around a lot, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of beer, and all around just enjoyed some mental health time.  About the extent of heavy work I did was confined to brewing a beer last Tuesday, washing my car on Wednesday, and cooking/eating a lot of food for Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Besides that I just made good being lazy and relaxing.

But now it is 7:00 am on Monday, Nov. 30th and I am due back to work in a little over an hour.  I have my first cup of coffee.  I know what I am bringing for lunch today.  I won’t claim I loved hearing the alarm at 6:00 (especially ’cause I had a fucking shitty time falling asleep last night) but I am ready to go back to work.  And the nice thing is that I only have less than three weeks until I am on vacation again, and then I will be traveling up to Vermont for Christmas with my folks.

So yup, getting the gears grinding for work once again.

Good to be back.

Thanksgiving weekend is almost over, which means M and J (my housemates) are catching up on all the schoolwork they were supposed to be doing, I need to get back on my gift knitting (I’ve been distracted by this fun little baby hat), and it’s time to start a new homebrew!

Bouncin Baby IPA probably has another week or two before it is really ready, and it feels a little weird starting a new beer without knowing how the previous one turned out.   However…  waiting is just no fun, so next up I’m working on something similar to Charlie Papazian’s Sparrow Hawk Porter.

This time M & J are getting in on the fun, which is great.  The more hands the better. Anyone who has read (or looked through the pictures in) The Complete Joy of Homebrewing can see that partners in crime are indispensable… you need one hand to stir/pour/siphon, and the other to hold a beer!

What follows is good news for beer lovers everywhere, and it should fortify Dr. Perm and me.

Beer Connoisseurs Defy Hurdles to Start Breweries

Shane C. Welch has turned his passion for home-brewing beer into a commercial enterprise, called Sixpoint Craft Ales.

By J. ALEX TARQUINIO

Like scores of other avid home brewers, Shane C. Welch has turned his personal passion into a commercial enterprise. But he has followed his own path in marketing his beers.

Mr. Welch’s company, Sixpoint Craft Ales, in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, does not sell beer in bottles, for instance. Instead, it primarily sells kegs to pubs and restaurants in the New York metropolitan area. If consumers want to drink Sixpoint beer at home, they need to bring 64-ounce jugs, known as growlers, to the bars to refill them.

“We are not going to pursue the traditional brewery path,” said Mr. Welch, who grew up in Milwaukee, a city steeped in beer-making history. “It doesn’t make sense to ship it halfway around the world. That is an antiquated business model.”

The economics of the beer business can be daunting. Microbreweries need to sell thousands of barrels of beer a year before turning a profit. Until they do so, small business loans can be hard to get. And ingredients like hops have gotten pricey.

In addition, start-ups are entering a tough competitive field. A wave of consolidation has left a handful of companies brewing most of the beer that most Americans drink. Last year, InBev of Belgium acquired Anheuser-Busch, creating the world’s largest beer maker. Another merger last year, between the United States operations of SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Company, formed a company called MillerCoors.

But none of this has prevented beer-making enthusiasts from trying their luck. Roughly 450 microbreweries operate in the United States, an increase of almost 25 percent since 2004, according to the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colo. That figure does not include nearly 1,000 brew pubs, which primarily sell the beer they make at their own restaurants.

Paul Gatza, the director of the Brewers Association, said that the pace of new microbrewery openings had slowed this year with the recession. Last year, 56 microbreweries were opened, and 10 closed. Three of those that closed had opened in 2008. This year, the association has tracked 25 microbrewery openings and five closings.

Even among America’s craft brewers — as aficionados call the independent breweries — some have grown into larger operations. The Brewers Association reclassifies microbreweries that exceed 15,000 barrels of production a year as regional breweries. In this way, nine microbreweries became regional breweries last year.

Mr. Welch, who runs his microbrewery from a 7,000-square-foot former filing cabinet factory, described the creative process of making beer as “understanding what people want and matching the reality to that desire.” He has come up with dozens of beer recipes using a wide variety of grains.

His approach, which he says is to keep the business as “amorphous” as possible, appears to be working. Mr. Welch says that Sixpoint is on track to sell around 8,000 barrels of beer this year — roughly 10 times what it sold in 2005, its first full year of production.

Patrick Rue, who operates the Bruery out of a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Placentia, Calif., is pursuing a different strategy. Although his microbrewery has been in business only a little more than a year, its Belgian-style beer — which is brewed a few miles fromDisneyland — is sold in states as far away as New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

“We need to sell a little bit of beer in a lot of places,” Mr. Rue said. “That’s our bridge to survival.”

The Bruery, which shipped its first case of beer in May 2008, sold about 1,200 barrels during its first 12 months of production. All of the bottled beer — which accounts for roughly three-quarters of sales — comes in champagne bottles, with prices ranging from $8 to $14. “It’s hard to compete with Sam Adams on price, so you have to be distinctive,” Mr. Rue said.

On the other hand, the Mt. Carmel Brewing Company, which is based in Cincinnati, is focusing on its local market, where demand has outstripped the supply this tiny brewery can produce. A recent investment in new equipment has raised the brewery’s annual production to 3,000 barrels from 1,000 barrels.

Kathleen and Mike Dewey founded Mt. Carmel Brewing four years ago. Ms. Dewey manages the office and distribution, while her husband is in charge of production. They started the business with a $10,000 family loan, which they supplemented with credit cards while they got their brewery off the ground. At one time they had roughly $40,000 billed to credit cards, all of it for business-related expenses. But they have paid off those cards.

Ms. Dewey said that anyone who wanted to start a microbrewery should either have a substantial sum of money to begin with — or a great deal of patience. “It can be very dreamy thinking about starting your own microbrewery,” she said. “But unless you have several million dollars, be prepared for a lot of hard work.”

A version of this article appeared in print in The New York Times on November 26, 2009, on page B7 of the New York edition.

Twilight, Twitards, Twihaters… I probably wouldn’t care (or know so much about the books/movies) if it weren’t for the fact that I CAN’T AVOID IT.  Whether it’s pro or anti, Twilight news is eeeeeeverywhere.  In the Bust newsletter, on my Youtube homepage, there’s even a thread on the Attachment Parenting website I frequent.  And here I am writing about it… crap.

Team Jacob? Team Edward?  I’m more of a Team Buffy.  Or team Spike. Mmmmmm Spike.  Thank goodness for the fact that my baby girl is too new for Twilight to ever be relevant to her life – I would have to teach her that vampires are for staking, not for sparkling.  (As it is I will have my hands full preparing her for the zombie attack.. more on that some other day).  Of course, by the time she is old enough for the teen-screaming-at-pretty-boys phase, there will be some other disturbing crap out for me to roll my eyes at.  Or maybe (hopefully) she’ll take after me – I had my share of stupid teen heroin-chic crushes, but was more the type to draw angst-y journal entries over them than squee about it.

There are plenty of reasons to not like the whole Twilight phenomena.  The little of the first book I managed to rad was CRAP.  Terrible writing.  Bella is frankly pathetic and a Mary Sue at the same time.  If I encountered her in real life I would probably do my best to give her shaken-teen-syndrome.  I got bored with heroines that passively wait to be rescued around the same time I learned to read.  Edward strikes me as an Emo Ken (neutered vampires are just sad… remember when they were monsters?) with little to no emotional depth, designed to be pretty, brooding, and very little else.  Which is enough for most teen girls (and many of their moms), it seems.

Some could point out that Spike from Buffy, who I mentioned earlier (once again, yum), could be described the same way.  The difference is in the Buffy series, the writers go out of their way to crack the brooding facade and then point out how silly the whole thing is (The Season 7 episode with Andrew taping everyone is a perfect example of this… but only other Jossheads will get that one).

Of all the (manymany) reasons to hate Twilight, there are two thrown around that I find disturbing.  The “OMG Stephanie Meyer is a MORMON!!!” thing is just sad.  The author’s religion most likely has influenced the ideals in her books, but so far we still have this nifty little “freedom of religion” thing in America.  There’s not a clause that says “unless it’s an unpopular religion”.  There are plenty of things I could say about the role of women in the Mormon church, but I will never say that Mormon women should not be allowed to write wildly popular teen fiction.

Then there’s the popular “bad role model” argument.  While I have already agreed that no self-respecting girl should want to be anything like Bella, it’s going overboard to say that being a fan of Twilight is going to ruin a girl for healthy relationships for the rest of her life.  The same has been said about Barbie, about Disney princess movies, child-nurturing dolls… the list goes on.  I firmly believe that if I raise my daughter with strong ideals, with the idea that she should always love and respect herself, and fill her life with good role models, that a little crappy pop culture will not ruin her mind.  The best thing I can do to teach her a healthy relationship model is to live that model myself. To have an open and loving relationship with her father, and if something happened to end that relationship to continue living my life as a strong, self-respecting woman.

And of course, to teach her the importance of a long-distance head shot on a charging zombie.  Gotta avoid that virus-infected splatterback.

*looks at title* Hmm.. pretty off topic today.  So in Homebrewing news, I had my housemates crack open the first bottle of Bouncin’ Baby IPA to see how it was coming along (bottled 11-15-09).  There’s a trace of carbonation, but it still has a way to go.  I’m planning on it being ready right around my due date! Hurrah!

And in knitting… still killing myself on xmas presents.  I’ve been making a lot of progress, but have been reduced to applying tiger balm and taking Tylenol on a regular basis.  Traitor wrists.  Once I am done with gift knitting, I have my eye on making this poncho with this stashed yard.  And I really really am going to make myself some socks. This time I mean it.  The Great Stash Cleanup yesterday unearthed three different sets of DPNs with the beginning of a ribbed sock cuff.  I frogged them all and swore I will actually make some damn socks instead of an almost-wristband.

Well fellow travelers, today is a sad day for democracy. And I’m not talking about the anniversary of Ronald Reagan signing the top-secret National Security Decision Directive 17 authorizing the CIA to recruit and support Contras in Nicaragua. No, my poll has been subverted; abused and tossed away by a fiend so dastardly he could only be described as a politician. The scoundrel who made a mockery of the democratic process stands before you:

The face of the oppressor.

This charlatan, this impostor, this moderate in Democrat’s clothing enlisted his friends from THE Ohio State University (I go to Ohio THE STATE University) to come to my blog and vote for his beer name. Though technically he did nothing wrong, that’s like offering people $5 to bring a friend to the polls. He’s taken my utopian democracy, carved in the very image of Athens, Greece (our fair college town’s namesake), and he has cheapened it; stealing the election like some monkey-faced former Texas governor.

So without further ado, the name of my beer is:

The Luscious Jord Ale

I want all three of you readers who have a Facebook account (sorry mom) to friend him on Facebook and send him angry pokes. I feel dirty. I need to go take a shower.

Want to instantly improve your holiday meal? Pair it with the right drink! I am SO excited to have two of my favorite beverage makers sharing their tasting and pairing tips with us today.

Brian Brown, winemaker at Napa Valley’s Round Pond Estate and owner of Emerson Brown winery, and Bill Kregel, homebrewer and “haute” husband, will offer up their favorite holiday drink selections. So before you head out to stock your bar this week, check out their tips:

Give us your one-minute bio
Brian: I knew when I was 17 that I wanted to be a winemaker. My parents’ appreciation of the dining table and all the aspects that go along with it – good food, family, and friends – rubbed off on me and I became interested in wine. I have a degree from UC Davis in Viticulture and Enology and have worked in Sonoma, Australia and Napa.

Bill: I’ve been an avid homebrewer for the past two years. I brew “all-grain”, meaning I don’t use kits or extracts, and I grow a lot of my own hops. I’ve sought out great microbrews for a long time and am constantly encouraging family and friends to expand their beer horizons.

What do you recommend to someone looking to develop their wine/beer palette?
Brian: Get some friends together and open up 3-4 bottles of the same variety of wine. Taste the wines side by side and see how they differ. Don’t worry about what words to use… everyone tends to get caught up on the vocabulary. Just notice how the wines differ and the descriptors will come with experience.

Bill: If you’re used to light lagers like Miller or Bud, start by trying an American or English pale ale, an American brown ale or a citrusy wheat beer. These are easy drinkers with lots of flavor. Also, get adventurous with the brands you buy – there are so many great breweries out there!

What’s the best way to taste wine/beer and what flavors are you looking for?
Brian: Focus on the best way to ENJOY wine as opposed to trying taste it. Wine should be about enjoyment not work. I think the best way to enjoy wine is with food so I look for flavors that compliment whatever I am eating at the time.

Bill: Serve beer cool but not “ice” cold so that it doesn’t kill the flavors. Flavors come from the malt (sweetness), hops (bitterness) and sometimes yeast (in Belgian beers mostly). They can be expressed in countless ways so read the label on the bottle to see what you should look for in each beer and try to pick it out.

What wines/beers pair well with typical holiday foods like turkey, potatoes or pumpkin pie?
Brian: I always try to start the night out with bubbles, especially for the holidays!!! A good rule of thumb for rich, buttery foods is to balance them with a wine with plenty of acid – oaky, buttery Chardonnay doesn’t work. Riesling pairs fairly nicely with turkey and Pinot is a good choice for red. With pie? Pumpkin, I would do a Tokay and pecan, a Tawny Port.

Bill: I’d go with a robust Porter or American brown, like Rogue’s Hazelnut Brown Nectar, to stand up to the turkey and all the fixings. For champagne lovers, I’d go with Dogfish Head’s Red and White or Black and Blue.  Both are spritzy Belgians and the Red and White is actually aged in wine barrels!

Brian’s Top 5 Wine Steals
1. Argentina makes some really good value wines, like Malbec or Torrontes.
2. Kendall Jackson does a great job with a value Chardonnay from Sonoma Coast
3. Just about any Gruner Veltliner… its cheap and delicious…
4. Paso Robles has some good deals – hearty red blends for less than Napa or Sonoma
5. There’s always Two Buck Chuck!

Brian’s Top 5 Wine Splurges
1. Anything from the top producers out of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer
2. Traditional Spanish Rioja and the newer Spanish wines from Toro
3. A highly rated South Australian Shiraz
4. Pinot from Martinborough, New Zealand
5. Any good sparkling Rose… Billecarte-Salmon is a good go to.

Sites to check: Vinfolio, Wine Spectator

Bill’s Top Beer Picks
1. Boulder Beer Company Hazed and Infused
2. Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
3. New Glarus Cracked Wheat & Unplugged Series
4. Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Rogue Morimoto Imperial Pilsner
5. Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale
6. Bell’s Two Hearted Ale
7. Stone Brewing Ruination IPA
8. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

Sites to check: Beer Advocate, Rate Beer

What’s your favorite holiday drink?  Share with us!

Happy Thanksgiving!  And don’t forget to designate a driver when you’re trying all these tasty drinks!

Too many cooks in the kitchen? Psh. Found this image at Ruthie Cherry Fine Art. Check them out, it's good stuff.

I have an idea.

Ok, I have a lot of ideas. How cool would it be if you could blink and be somewhere else in the world? See? Ideas.

Anyway, I have some ideas based in reality as well.

After some pretty intense discussions with my roommate Jim this weekend, I have an idea that I’m going to do right now. Do you have any idea how awesome it is to have good friends who push back on your ideas? Over good beer? It’s a great thing to have in life.

Right. My idea.

I’m going to make beer.

And you’re invited.

Starting in December, at least one Sunday a month, I’m going to do Breakfast and Brewing. Fancy title, I know.

Here’s the plan. Come over around 11am on a Sunday. We (we being the collective housemates of.. our house) will make breakfast. Bacon, eggs, coffee. There may or may not be awesome cartoon watching – narf! – and there may or may not be bloody mary components available.

Then around noon or 1, we’ll make beer. No matter your level of brewing experience, you can help. I, or someone else with some brewing knowledge will explain things in as little or much detail as you want. If you help, you get to take some beer home with you (a month later).

There are many more details, but that’s the gist of it.

What do you think? Want to come over and help me make some beer?

[edit] If you want to be alerted to these awesome Breakfast and Brew days, or to new posts in general, sign up for the mailing list.

I decided to take a gravity reading of the saison tonight. This was the first time using the White Labs WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast. So far I am very impressed. I was expecting this one to take awhile to attenuate, but after 5 days it is at 1.008.

The aroma is incredible, earthy and spicy. Flavors are developing very nicely, a great balance of lemons and pepper, with some nice hop bitterness and a refreshing dry finish. Alcohol is very soft and smooth. I can’t wait to bottle this one. I hope I can save some for the summer!

Yep, we are now operating an online radio station. Most of the time you will hear great country music from yesterday and today, but there is going to be a lot of surprises. Instead of a boring, old podcast, we are going to broadcast beer events and tastings, live! You read me correct, we are going to do live events.

You never know, we might play music, we might talk about beer, we might go crazy. Won’t you stop by and check out our radio station?

 Click Here to get to the Beer Loons Radio Network

For my next batch of saison I am going to be culturing the yeast from a bottle of Saison Dupont. It is not very complicated, if you have experience with starters than you should have no problem. I think the only issue you may run into is yeast viability. Choose a fresh, bottle conditioned beer and hope that it has been treated with care on its way to your local bottle shop.

Some bottle conditioned beers use a bottling strain instead of the primary fermentation strain so do some research and find out if the yeast in the bottle is indeed the yeast you want to culture.

Before opening the bottle, wipe down the neck with some rubbing alcohol and/or flame the top of the bottle to kill any bacteria that could infect your culture. Decant the beer into a glass, trying not to disturb the sediment, cover with sanitized foil and allow it to come up to room temperature. Make a small amount of starter wort, keeping the specific gravity around 1.015-1.020, cool to room temp and pour in just enough wort to suspend the yeast (approx. 3-6 mL). Allow to incubate for a period of 1-3 days while watching for signs of fermentation. If you see activity or 3 days have passed add the yeast to some fresh starter wort (approx. 15 mL) and allow to incubate another 1-3 days.

Hopefully you notice some activity, if so, start to step up your culture just like you would your starter until you have enough viable yeast to pitch. Check back soon for steps on building your own magnetic stir plate.

Well, here it is folks. The great poll. Vote for whichever name you like best, and the person who submitted the winning name gets a free six pack of my beer. The poll closes next Monday.

Cutting corners: it’s the American way, n’est-ce pas? Well, I visited the Athens Do It Yourself shop again last week to return the machine I used to cap my bottled beer, a ridiculous contraption that looked something like a microscopes retarded older brother, and is just about as functional. I asked the proprietor, Eric Hedin, when I should put the beer in the fridge, and he told me it should ferment in the bottles for 10 days at room temperature, then another 10 days in the coolest part of my apartment, or the fridge.

I can't think of anything clever to say about this.

OK, so this ran a little contrary to what he had said earlier about “21 days to good beer”; one day to brew, 10 days in the fermenter, then 10 days in the bottle. So I got impatient. I wanted to drink it NOW. So I did.

Now I’m not very good at critiquing myself. My mom once told me that nothing ever tastes as good when you cook it yourself, and I guess the same goes for beer. All in all, I thought it was a bit premature. I thought it was a bit sweet from the priming sugar that hadn’t yet finished fermenting all the way, and maybe a tiny bit flat (though it poured a good head). But, in striving for scientific rigor, I asked my room-mate Corey to step in and do a guest blog about what he thought of my beer. So without further ado, here is Corey’s take on my brew.

Corey, after having drunk my beer (well, a beer).

~Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour. Teach a man to brew and he wastes a lifetime~
-Gordy form ABC Warehouse-

Fact. There is a reason for it too. It was my first time as the Assistant Roommate of a Brew Master (ARBM, official title) and the experience has opened a whole new book to my drinking solutions. Not problem. I’ve already solved it.

Watching someone brew beer filled my heart with such joy, more so than building houses for the poor. Once, the process was complete and I was able to taste the creation, I realized it is more rewarding too.

Andy is no longer a virgin in the brewing industry. Cherry popped right in our living room for all to witness. The result, of the first batch to be tested, was surprising. Life’s like a white bucket sitting in your living room fermenting: you never know what your ganna get.

As Brew Master, our leader informed us that he was creating an IPA. Yum, I thought. Bottle opener please. Yum, was the result. The beer had a nice tungsten-amber color and it was carbonated enough to form a nice head. The aroma had the familiar bitter-sweet smell that IPA’s usually have. But I did not want to look and smell my beer all day.

Almost had it. The beer was hoppy enough to achieve the bitter flavor of an IPA. The feel of the beer was great in my book. It did not tickle the tongue from carbonation, and did not sit flat either. The beer was just a little sweet with a slight after taste of a cider. There was an excess  of sugars sitting at the bottom of my glass, but I was drinking a preemie version of the beer. This also explains the sweet taste.

Overall, I enjoyed the brew. Even bought one for a friend to try. The beer accomplished what its original intentions were, to taste like an IPA. The only problem I had with it was its sweet side. Would I buy this beer if it were shelved? Yes, in fact I would buy it even if we already had the bottle sitting in our collection. This only excites me more knowing that when the rest of the beer is actually ready, I will get to enjoy the matured version of this already delicious beer.

~MMMM, beer~
Homer Simpson

Keep your glasses empty,
Corey

This is the last chance to submit a name for my beer. The poll begins this weekend, and the winning suggestion gets a free six pack of the beer you named.

Folks, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting a local homebrewer yesterday to taste his award-winning beer, the absolutely delicious Man in Black Stout. And I tell you, I learned a TON. Virgil Russell, the chef of this special concocotion, gave me a crash course in homebrewing and the development of his recipe. The kind and humble Virgil has been brewing, distilling, and wine-making for years, starting first in college, “I had a still in college!” Then it was on to Libya (yes, Libya!), where he experimented with Italian grapes for winemaking, all the while continuing to produce brews and spirits. But it was his 2 week intensive course in brewing at UC Davis that changed his vision and technique.

His inspiration for this brew? A porter by a fellow brewer called “Juan Strong Porter” that contained coffee. What a great name. But Virgil wanted to create a darker, more intense beer with chocolatey, coffee overtones using only malts.  And so was born the Man in Black Stout.  Why the name? An homage to Johnny Cash AND he does his brewing with partner Fred Lockett in Folsom. Awesome. “We brew in a horse barn.”  The water out there is pristine, with perfect pH, and makes a far cleaner beer than anything possible with New Orleans Municipal water. And Virgil, like Cash doesn’t try to fit into a mold or please others: “I brew what I want.” Well Virgil, keep doing what you’re doing because your stout rocks. Seriously, this beer should be out there.

BEER #19

Virgil Russell’s Man in Black Stout: ABV: 8.2% This serious, yet lush beer comes out of the tap black as Johnny Cash’s suit with a gorgeous dark tan head that doesn’t quit. My first whiff, and I get graham crackers and spiced cookies.  As we sit and chat, the beer has a chance to warm a little, and the nose starts developing. A rich and intense coffee note emerges, like freshly ground beans (think of your favorite fresh from the machine), directly followed by Tahitian vanilla, and a dark, luscious chocolate aroma. Imagine yourself standing in a pastry chef’s kitchen.  Then imagine sticking your nose into a big bowl as she pours a decadent liquid chocolate into a cake pan.  That’s the smell, I kid you not. This is the wonderful aspect of this brew. The smells are real, distinctly clean, and beautifully intense.  It’s an experience that’s harder to achieve with mass-produced beers.

The palate is as rich as I expected.  All of those aromas follow through and fill the senses.  There is a bit of a burnt flavor and bitterness to the finish, but it is not overwhelming, and I like it.  As I have said, that bitterness is CRUCIAL when you have this type of intensity on the palate.  It is just enough to clean the tongue, but not completely erase the lingering notes of coffee and chocolate.

Well done, Virgil. Well done.

BEER #18

McAuslan St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout: ABV: 5% I have been looking forward to trying this one, because I enjoy oatmeal stouts, and I had heard about this one and explored their website as well. My hands aren’t shaking or anything, but I am reasonably excited.  The color looks good, nice and rich, not opaque but pretty damn dark. And it coats the glass when you swirl it.

I am a little surprised here, but I am getting definite dark fruit aromas. Not entirely unlike the milk stout I tried a few days ago, but more integrated and not quite as pungent. Think black currant preserves on toast. Concentrated and jammy, with toasty undertones but not jumping out of the glass.

This follows through on the palate, but the flavors turn darker to roasted nuts and that perceived sweetness starts to fade into a slightly bitter finish. No wait, its a burnt finish. Whoa, it intensifies. Ok, let me say this….semi-burnt taste is ok. Like when you kinda burn your hotdog or bbq chicken on the grill. It adds a certain je ne sais qua.  But this is like burnt toast…when you have to either scrape it off cause you’re too poor to let it go to waste, or you chuck it and curse your cheap toaster. We’ve all been there. Point being, too much burnt.

The other aspect worth noting is a milky/lactic thing. You know how after you eat a bowl of cereal or drink a glass of milk, you have that certain taste in your mouth? From the milk hanging out on your tongue?  There’s a bit of that in there.  I’m serious.

Ok, so conclusion? This is a pretty good beer. On an effort scale, I would give it a 5, meaning it was not DIFFICULT to drink, but I did get hung up on the milk and burnt thing a little.  By way of comparison that Lacto Milk Stout was a 9 on the effort scale. Sheesh.

BEER #17

Thirsty Dog Brewing Old Leghumper Robust Porter: ABV: 6.70% Yet another thing I love about the craft brewing world is the names. So much ingenuity. I am constantly smiling at the range  of monikers these guys come up with. It’s entertaining as hell.

Hailing from the state of the Buckeyes, Lebron James, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this beer was a pleasant, easy finish to my day of density. Sweet malty aromas and dark honey notes predominate. And definite,yet balanced notes of caramel and toffee. Not overwhelming. Kind of like when you hold a piece of Werther’s Orginal caramel or toffee in the corner of your mouth and it gives a subtle flavor to whatever you are drinking. Yeah, like that.

Then arises a nutty presence, but more like fresh nuts or those barely toasted, rather than the intense roastiness of stouts. Interestingly, there are traces of meat, but they are faint. Then the nose changes again, and reveals an earthiness…potting soil and earthy smelling flowers, like geraniums and marigolds. Crazy huh? But there it is. I couldn’t make that one up if I tried.  This like many beers is really interesting, but you gotta stick with it over time.  If you drink it cold, you miss all of those secondary notes. But hey, I understand. Sometimes you just want a drink and NOT to analyze it.

So conclusions: Easy, smooth entry. Easy, smooth finish. No rough edges. I seem to have drawn this conclusion with several of the porters I have reviewed so far. Porters are for drinking, Stouts are for sipping. Except Guinness. I can chug that beer like nobody’s business.  And I know those Baltic Porters I will be trying will be a different story. So, no proclamation yet.

Until next time, CHEERS!

VANKLEEK HILL, ON – Beau’s Brewery in collaboration with the Beer Shack homebrewers club have released Tommy Gun APA (American-Style Pale Ale) as their latest seasonal offering.

Launched this past weekend at the Cask Days festival at Volo in Toronto, Tommy Gun – which is sub-titled “CABA CABA Hey!” in honour of both the Canadian Amateur Brewers Association and The Ramones – was developed by Ed Koren & Louis DeBourbon of Beer Shack, and brewed by them along with Beau’s brewmaster Matt O’Hara, using 5 organic malts and 2 varieties of organic American hops.

Tommy Gun is available now at the brewery and at select bars and restaurants in the area.

Beau’s also has some plans for the future, including expanded distribution, and a new unique package for their flagship Lugtread Lagered Ale. More details on these plans will be announced here as they’re revealed.

If you remember last time I tried bottling my beer, the faulty siphon (COUGHoperatorerrorCOUGH) resulted in my only finishing 18 out of 52 bottles (damn you SkyNet…). But tonight I decided to give it another go. Because the day a damn machine prevents me from bottling tasty delicious beer is the day I stop drinking.

Damn siphon was taunting me.

So I put on some Marvin Gaye, lit some candles and made sweet love to that machine.

Unable to resist my charms, the siphon worked this time. I was able to fill the remaining 34 bottles with the nectar of life (possible beer name?) before only a gooey residue remained in the Ale Pail.

Gooey residue.

All the empty bottles.

I've got mad capping skills.

Bottled and capped.

So now all 52 bottles of beer are fermenting in my apartment. They’ll be ready in 10 days, but my beer still needs a name, and that’s where you come in. Put on your beer naming caps, leave suggestions in a comment, next week I will set up a poll. The person who suggests the winning name gets a free six pack.

If you’ve ever siphoned gas from a car, you know what a miserable experience that is. Trying to get the flow started without letting that nasty stuff touch your lips is bad enough. The whole process is painstaking. Trying to siphon beer into bottles is even worse, and you don’t even get the payoff of joyriding afterwards.

The whole miserable process began with santizing my beer bottles. I’m too lazy to remove the labels from all of them, so I just left them on.

Half of the bottles.

You can see a light frosting along the mouths of the bottles. That’s priming sugar, which is supposed to support the carbonation of the beer while it sits in those bottles for the next ten days. I had to spoon a half teaspoon of the sugar into each of the 53 bottles I will be filling.

You can see how I'd be aprehensive about putting my mouth on anything looking like that.

Dante said that there is a special ring of hell for betrayers, but I’m going to go as far as to say that it is above the one reserved for whoever invented the siphoning rig. As Eric at the Athens Do It Yourself Shop explained it, I should have been able to get it started and then it would run by itself, siphoning and filling as long as I kept a little button on the end pushed down. That is definitely not what happened.

My first bottle. I named him Beery Larkin. Foolishly, I thought it would get easier.

The good old days.

It all went down hill from there. The siphon needed to be primed before every bottle, which involved sucking down flat proto-beer, and then it just up and stopped working. So I plan on stopping by the DIY shop tomorrow to find out why the hell the siphon doesn’t work. I’ll be damned if a machine gets the best of Andy Brownfield.

Help me name my beer! Leave your suggestions in a comment and in a future post I will put up a poll with all of the names. The winner gets a free six pack of this beer.

Mmmm... Six pack...

Another Israeli Kitchen – Baroness Tapuzina Food Adventure!

An email from Denny Nielson appeared in my Inbox. “We’re going to press apples for cider. Want to come?”

Did we ever. The Tapuzinas (if I may call the Baroness and her good hubby that) had come over for dinner and we were all feeling kind of full and expansive.  The Baroness thought it would be an adventure. Mr. B.T. was excited at the thought of home-brewed “scrumpy,” which seems to be the same as “hard cider,” only in British. Me, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia for juice pressed out of real, live apples, like I used to drink in my Michigan childhood.

So we joined up last Friday and sped through the central plains on to the hills outside of Jerusalem, in search of cider. Denny’s home and homebrew supply store are located in Mevasseret Tzion, where nights are cool and a home-owner might grow a grapevine to twist over a garden wall. We opened the gate and climbed up stone steps to a sunny patio where people were standing around watching the apples getting crushed.

It was like crushing grapes. Throw the apples into the hopper, and press the button.

The lathe inside the crusher bumps and grinds, spitting apple particles all over you if you stand too close, and the pulp drops into a bucket underneath.

Take the bucketful to the press,

and get a nice strong volunteer to twist the rachet around till the pulp yields no more juice.

Strain the juice and measure it out. Add some sulfite to avoid spoilage.

That was all. The rest of the work is done at home. You throw some wine yeast into the juice, which already wants to start fermenting, and close the bucket (in my case a carboy) with an airlock. Airlocks are the plastic widgies that, filled with sanitized water or a mixture of water and vodka, allow the gases produced by fermentation to escape, while forbidding insects, dust, or bad mojo to enter.

But there was more to it than that. There was a garden with herbs.

Gorgeous basil, eh? Or as Mr. B.T. said, “Nice pesto plant.”

Views of the Judean Hills and the back side of Jerusalem. Yad VaShem stands in the far distance, a somber reminder of how lucky we were to be making cider in the sunshine, in the Israel of today.

There were people hauling apple crates together, managing the crusher, lifting the bucket full of juice, and suddenly finding it easy to talk to each other. Here is our host and homebrewing master, Denny.

An unfamiliar voice called my name, and when I turned around, it was a Twitter friend who had recognized me from my avatar. He is of Lebanese extraction, and this interested the Baroness. In a second he and she were talking about Lebanese cuisine and swapping recipes.

It was also neat to get more homebrewing supplies at Denny’s shop downstairs. I brought home 10 liters of juice and six bottles of beer.

I’m happy to see interest in good beer expanding in Israel. The appearance of several serious local microbreweries is making a difference to folks who (like me) enjoy a glass of suds and would rather support an Israeli small business. But only Denny does things like the apple crush for cider. So far; I’m sure the idea will catch on.

Next thing is to convince him to crush pears for perry, which is pear cider. Or pear wine!

So what does the cider look like?…Well, when I brought the juice home, it looked like this:

It ain’t done yet. Takes about 2 months for the cider to drop all its sediment (bits of apple pulp, a layer of used-up yeast), become clear, and be ready to drink. I expect it’ll have between 7-8% alcohol by volume. When it’s ready, I’ll show you.

We bloggers moved on to lunch at a Kurdish eatery in Or Yehudah. It’s called “Hapundak shel Moshe,” a crowded, working-man’s place that’s famous for its kubeh soup. I’ve never been all that fond of kubeh, but that day, I had to change my mind. There was bulgur kubeh, semolina kubeh, kubeh fried and kubeh in soup. I had pumpkin soup with kubeh dumplings ladled over rice made yellow with turmeric. The owner also put a few inches of Kurdish kishkeh on top.

It was spicy and savory/sweet and filling and so nutritious, I looked 10 years younger when I got up from the table than when I’d sat down.

And here are just a few of the pots full of mighty Kurdish food.

The Baroness was writing up her own blog post about our cider and kubeh adventures just a little while ago.  Make sure to skip over to her blog and see how the day looked to her.

I never thought when I started brewing again that I would be a seasonal brewer.  As it turns out we keep our house about 10 degrees higher in the summertime than is really best for making wine and mead.  So I now have to wait until the fall when we keep the house cool.  I’m sure I am keeping with a more traditional way of brewing – keeping with the seasons and using fresh ingredients.

That said, I now have a wine in production.  Simple: a Welch’s 100% Grape Juice concentrate wine.  This is a quick – some call it “jug” – wine that will be ready 30 days from last Friday.  It feels good to get back to the art of brewing.  I spent extra time making this batch as close to the recommended original gravity as possible.  The wine needed to have some of the concentrate and sugar removed and fresh water added to bring the O.G. into the 1.090 range.  This should produce a nice 12-14% abv wine.  I’m looking forward to the results.

Apfelwein is next on the schedule.  After that, I have a “to do” list of wines ranging from Banana to Apple-Jalapeño.  I think it is going to be a good season…

We at DML! love beer. And what’s the only thing that’s better than beer? That’s right, 5 gallons of beer.

I visited the Athens Do It Yourself Shop run by Eric Hedin on Wednesday to set about on the odyssey that is homebrewing. Now when I think about DIY, I usually think of making wallets out of duct tape or freakishly tall bikes, but this dude, he thinks about taking every day household items and turning them into alcohol (if you just happen to have malt extract, hops, yeast, corn sugar and a 5 gallon ale pail lying around the house…).

I went in there intent on making some sort of stout or porter, but I realize that in terms of the general population, not everybody shares my love of dark, highly alcoholic beers. So I settled on an making an IPA. Now I could have paid $80 for a take home kit to truly Do It [Myself], but for $5 I took Hedin’s introductory class instead.

Our brewery.

To get this whole thing started we brought a gallon of water up to a boil. From there, we added delicious hops.

Delicious hops.

Hops add that bitter, citrusy flavor to beer, as well as inhibiting the growth of bacteria.

Boiling hops.

Hedin explained that boiling the hops for 15 minutes would add a hoppy aroma to the beer, boiling them for 30 minutes would give the beer a hoppy flavor and boiling them for an hour would give the beer a bitter flavor. We boiled the hops for somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes before adding the malt extract and corn sugar.

Water + hops + malt extract + corn sugar = well, nothing yet.

Hedin explained that the malt extract added a sweet flavor to the beer and provided some sugar, which would be fermented into alcohol, and the corn sugar would up the alcohol in the finished product. From there we added a can-o-beer-essence.

Muntons malt extract in a can. Mm mmm good.

It is thick like molasses and already contains hops and sugar. The reason we added everything before this was to “kick it up a notch,” as Hedin put it. The can alone would give us 3 percent ABV beer, but with the other stuff we added, we’ll have a beer somewhere in the 5 percent range. Plus, the additional malt and hops will give it more flavor.

After boiling it all up, we poured it into a 5 gallon pail, added 4 gallons of purified water and sealed it. I took it home, and a few hours later, when it wasn’t warm anymore, I shook it up and added the yeast.

Me adding the yeast. See, that's my hand.

The yeast essentially eats the sugar and leaves alcohol, like a magic alcohol fairy. Hedin said the rule for good beer was 21 days: 1 to brew, 10 to ferment in the pail, and then 10 in bottles. So on Halloween I will siphon it into bottles (it makes 53 bottles) and again play the waiting game.

It sits there, fermenting, taunting me. Oh, I will win, Mr. Beer. One of these days, I will drink you.

Help me name my beer: I’m not a creative type, but my beer needs a name. If you have any ideas, leave them in a comment. One week before the beer is ready to drink, I’ll put up a poll, and if your name wins, you win a free six pack of what will undoubtedly be one bitchin’ beer.