January « 2010 « Brews and Blues

30Jan/100

Old Leghumper Robust Porter

Brewery: Thirsty Dog Brewing Company
Where: Akron, Ohio
Beer: Old Leghumper Robust Porter
Style: American Porter
IBU: 24
ABV: 6.7%

Today's sample is another beer from Thirsty Dog Brewing Company in Akron, Ohio. The Old Leghumper Robust Porter caught my eye on the shelf of the World Market in Mooresville on my last visit, so I grabbed a bottle. From the bottle:

This robust porter is dark brown in color and full bodied with a malty sweet taste. Deep roasted, yet silky smooth! Two types of roasted malts, including roasted chocolate malt give this beer its award winning flavor.

This porter does have an excellent roasted flavor that headlines the malty sweetness. Compared to other beers of this style, I think this one is average with no particular qualities that make it stand out. It's a good beer for sure...

Filed under: American Porter, Beer Reviews No Comments

29Jan/102

HopDevil

Brewery: Victory Brewing Company
Where: Downingtown, PA
Beer: HopDevil India Pale Ale
Style: American IPA
IBU: N/A (Estimated 80 IBU)
ABV: 6.7%

It's Friday night, it's snowing, and my work has been cancelled for the evening. I guess it's time to have a beer, so I popped the top on a Victory HopDevil India Pale Ale that I picked up at The World Market as part of another mixed sixer. I haven't tried many Victory Beers, but they are definitely on my list.

The HopDevil poured with a rich amber color and a nice creamy tan head. There is an immediate aroma of caramel malt followed by a strong floral hop character. The beer is very hoppy in bitterness, flavor, and aroma, but the Victory website doesn't give up any real information about what gives this beer its kick. It just speaks of American whole flower hops which could include quite a few common varieties used in this style of beer.

When a beer has this level of hops in it, you really do need to let it warm up a little before you really begin to taste any significance of the malt backbone. These pale ales traditionally have a rather simple malt bill consisting of a standard two-row and crystal malted barley. This particular beer really comes alive at 55°.

Filed under: American IPA, Beer Reviews 2 Comments

27Jan/100

Brew Day and Upgrades

Today was brew day... finally! I have been sidetracked from getting this brew done since Christmas. I have had all sorts of roadblocks pop up that have kept me from getting this "Rusty Nut Red Ale" made. Some of the delays were my fault. I actually wanted to wait until some of my equipment upgrades arrived before making this recipe. In the above photo, you can see my new 10-gallon stainless steel brew kettle. It's also sitting on my new Hurricane Burner (pictured below) as well. The Hurricane Burner is whisper quiet, puts out up to 60k BTU, and runs on no more than 1 psi. I'm hoping it will extend the life of a regular propane cylinder.

I had another unexpected turn of events today that forced me to use another new piece of gear. I had disassembled my 5-gallon mash tun to fix a minor problem with it. I didn't bother to check it for leaks when I put it back together, and sure enough, it was leaking. I switched over to my 10-gallon version that I had never used before. Luckily it worked out well and produced 80% efficiency, so I'm quite happy with that. The 10-gallon MLT wasn't scheduled to go into production until my next beer, which will be a big imperial stout. The ingredients for that will be here later this week and I'm not sure when I'll brew that one just yet, but it will be soon. I mashed inside today because it was a bit chilly outside around noon today.

When the Man Cave was getting the recent remodel job, Tonya bought this Hoosier Cabinet for me to use as storage for brewery stuff, and I think I have finally figured out how to best put it to use. I'm going to use it to store speciatly and base malts. This project will help me keep enough stuff on hand so I can brew about anything I want on short notice if I choose to do so. The three base malts in the bottom left cabinet are Munich, Vienna, and Pilsner. I have a 15-gallon container in another location that is full of regular 2-row that won't fit in this cabinet. The specialty malts I intend to keep on hand are carapils, flaked oats, victory, biscuit, crystal 10, crystal 20, crystal 40, crystal 60, crystal 80, crystal 120, chocolate, roasted barley, black patent, and a few others that I'm not sure about yet.

I hate brewing on weekdays. I'd much rather brew on a weekend when I have a better potential of getting friends to stop by. The next brew will be on a Saturday or Sunday for sure...

Filed under: Home Brewing No Comments

20Jan/100

Homebrew – Yellowjacket Hefeweizen

Brewery: Homebrew - Brews and Blues Beer Co.
Where: Hickory, North Carolina
Beer: Yellowjacket Hefeweizen
Style: Hefeweizen
IBU: 12 IBU
ABV: 6.5%

After brewing my Orange Blossom Special wheat beer back in January or February of last year, I knew I wanted to try an all-grain version to improve the color and flavor to something closer to a real Barvarian Hefeweizen, so I set out to do that back in October. Today's sampling is the resulting Yellowjacket Hefeweizen. This beer pours with a rich golden and cloudy color with a foamy head. This pour is immediately followed by the traditional banana/clove aroma created by the hefeweizen yeast. I also used a little orange peel in this recipe to add some citrus bitterness to balance the sweetness of the malted wheat and two-row pilsner malt used to create this beer. A very light bill of hallertauer hops also help balance the malty sweetness without playing a specific role in the flavor or aroma of this beer.

This is the second time I have brewed a hefeweizen, and I believe that this recipe will become a regular after I make one more minor adjustment. In this recipe, I soaked some sweet orange peel in a little vodka and added the resulting extract to the beer before I bottled it. The citrus flavor in this beer is just a tad more obvious than I would prefer, so I'm going to add the orange peel directly to the boil for the last 5 minutes or so the next time I brew this beer....

Filed under: Beer Reviews, Hefeweizen, Home Brewing No Comments

19Jan/100

Anchor Liberty Ale

Brewery: Anchor Brewing Company
Where: San Francisco, California
Beer: Liberty Ale
Style: American Pale Ale
IBU: N/A
ABV: 6.0%

Today's sample is Liberty Ale from Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, California. Anchor beers are widely available and shouldn't be too difficult to find. On a recent trip to the World Market, I picked up three individual bottles of Anchor beers for my sampling regimen, and this is the first to get the cap popped.

Liberty Ale poured with a nice golden color coming from the simple 2-row malted barley base grain used to make this beer. I nice foamy head followed and hung around for most of this drink. The head provided an interesting aroma of hops (probably Cascade) as this beer is dry hopped during the aging process. I could not find an IBU listing for this beer, but I would assume it's in the neighborhood of 40 IBU. It's not an extreme APA like so many that are appearing on the shelves these days. This beer has been around for a while... From the website:

First introduced in 1975, Liberty Ale is brewed strictly according to traditional brewing methods, and, like all Anchor Brewing Company products, uses only natural ingredients - water, malted barley, fresh whole hops and yeast.

A special top-fermenting ale yeast is used during fermentation and is responsible for many of Liberty Ale's subtle flavors and characteristics. Carbonation is produces by an entirely natural process called "bunging," which produces champagne-like bubbles. Dry-hopping (adding fresh hops to the brew dring aging) imparts a unique aroma to the ale. It is a process rarely used in this country today.

I think the last statement about dry hopping may be a little out of date now, but it does truly produce an aroma that can't be matched otherwise.

Filed under: American Pale Ale, Beer Reviews No Comments

15Jan/100

Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager

Brewery: Dixie Brewing Company
Where: New Orleans, Louisiana
Beer: Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager
Style: Munich Dunkel Lager
IBU: N/A
ABV: 5.0%

Here's a beer I grabbed from the shelf at the World Market on my last trip to Mooresville. I had not heard of this brewery or beer before, so I decided to give it a try. Dixie Brewing Company is located in New Orleans and was apparently damaged or possibly even destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. From the bottle:

The century-old Dixie Brewery was almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, but restoration is underway. With the help of our friends, we're working hard to re-beer New Orlenas and the rest of the country.

This beer poured with a very deep and rich brown color with a light tan creamy head. There was an immediate aroma of roasted barley or possibly another highly kilned malt, but the flavor that followed included some dark crystal malt as well. The beer has an interestingly dry flavor for a medium bodied beer, and there is also a hint of coffee in the flavor and nose.

In my opinion, this beer is a bit of a crossover between the style of Munich Dunkel Lager and a stout of some sort with the roasted barley character exhibited in this beer.

I could not locate a website for this brewery. I found a google link but the site didn't appear to be in service. Maybe it hasn't been resurrected yet. I'll try to follow up on that later...