January « 2010 « Brews and Blues

13Jan/101

Left Hand Sawtooth Ale

Brewery: Left Hand Brewing Company
Where: Longmont, Colorado
Beer: Sawtooth Ale
Style: Extra Special / Strong Bitter
IBU: 27
ABV: 4.5%

This is my first sampling of a beer from Left Hand Brewing Company. I have seen them around but haven't had the chance to try one until now. This beer poured with a rich amber color and a full creamy head on top. The aroma of crystal malt was readily apparent as well as a light floral hop accompaniment. This beer is very malty and the hop balance is so nice that the hops are only mildly noticeable in the complexity of the malt mix in this beer. The hops tend to come out of this beer in the aftertaste quite nicely though. According to the website, this beer is made up of Pale 2-row, Crystal, Munich, Wheat, and Black malts. The Crystal and Munich combination in this beer is the backbone of the flavor. This beer would also make a great session beer for anyone who wanted a beer rich on flavor and lower in alcohol. It's a session beer that doesn't really taste like a session beer :)

Filed under: Beer Reviews, Extra Special / Strong Bitter (ESB) 1 Comment

10Jan/100

Lump of Coal Holiday Stout

Brewery: Ridgeway Brewing
Where: Oxfordshire, England
Beer: Lump of Coal Dark Holiday Stout
Style: Foreign / Export Stout
IBU: N/A
ABV: 8.0%

I almost forgot about this little jewel that was in my Christmas stocking this year... I have had it stuffed in the back of the fridge for a while now and today seemed like a good time to pull it out and see what Santa really thinks of me...

At 8% alcohol by volume, Santa definitely had some good intentions. This beer poured with the traditional black color and creamy head that is normally associated with a big stout. This beer has a big malty punch and a full body only slightly smaller than you would expect from a sumo wrestler. From the bottle:

Yet another bummed out holiday? Lump of Coal Dark Holiday Stout is liquid consolation. It's a deep, rich, sweetly rewarding stout to take the edge off of that grim family gathering, that cheerless annual festival of alienation. This brew is as dark as it gets, as black as the lump of coal you'll be getting for Christmas. Because, let's face it, you've been pretty bad this year.

I think this beer is an excellent stocking stuffer item. I'm not sure that I'd buy it for myself, but I do really like the beer-themed Christmas gift! There is nothing spectacular or original about this beer, but as stouts go, there is also nothing wrong with it. It has the rich roasted flavor that one might expect followed by a swift kick in the pants from the alcohol, which sneaks up on you rather quickly...

Happy New Year!

Filed under: Beer Reviews, Foreign / Export Stout, Seasonal No Comments

6Jan/100

Homebrew – Vienna Blonde

Brewery: Homebrewed
Where: Hickory, North Carolina
Beer: Vienna Blonde
Style: American Blonde Ale
IBU: 18
ABV: 4.25%

This is a beer that I have been working on for a while. It is version 2 of my ESYFB (Extra Special Yellow Fizzy Beer) that I brewed last summer. This beer has the color profile that I was looking for and since my brewing process is dialed in a little tighter now, everything about this beer came out where I wanted it to. This beer has place and purpose in my home brewery. The Vienna Blonde Ale is built on a grain bill of Pale, Vienna, Crystal, and Carapils malts with a very small addition of flaked oats. The hop bill on this recipe is very light. It starts with some centennial for bittering and then finishes with Cascade for flavor and aroma. This beer is a 'light' beer by homebrewing standards. It has a very nice balance between malts and hops and actually leans towards the side of malty sweetness.

I brew this beer for two reasons. I enjoy drinking it myself, and it's what I consider to be a 'session beer.' A session beer is one that you can consume all afternoon without fears of losing control. It's lower alcohol content makes it less problematic in the area of intoxication. The other reason I brew it is because it's a fantastic beer to have on hand when introducing someone to homebrewed beers. I believe that a lot of beer drinkers get introduced to homebrews in a negative manner. Most homebrewers that I know tend to make two types of beers. One type is the 'let's see how many hops I can stuff in this beer' and the other is 'how high can my alcohol content be' brews. There is also the combination of the two. There are some extremely FANTASTIC beers that come out of these ideas, don't get me wrong, but these beers are harder to use to introduce new people who are used to the BudMillerCoors genre to the idea of drinking homebrewed beer.

The Vienna Blonde is one of the primary beers I hand someone in this situation. I don't think I have had anyone spit one of these out yet. I can't say that much for some of the other beers I have made. Think of it in terms of feeding a baby. We don't feed them chili made with habanero peppers to start with. We let them build up a taste for things by starting them out on mashed cereals that are bland and less flavorful.

I have two more homebrews labeled and ready for the tasting queue. We'll be looking at the Yellowjacket Hefeweizen and the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout in the very near future...

Filed under: American Blonde Ale, Home Brewing No Comments

5Jan/100

Six Pack Brewery Round Two

I fired up the Six Pack Brewery again on Sunday afternoon to work on my first Hop Bomb since I have gotten back into the hobby. Out of the hoppy beers I have sampled in the last year, one of my very favorites has been Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard. After a little research, I found out some of what makes Arrogant Bastard what it is and attempted to brew a variety of this beer. My original recipe for this beer is called HopShop 120² because I intended to do a 120 minute boil and have a calculated 120 IBUs to make this a real hop bomb. The 120 minute boil couldn't be performed effectively on my Six Pack Brewery setup so I shortened the boil to 75 minutes, but the hop calculator indicates 167 IBU on this recipe, which is logistically impossible, but it looks good anyway! The grain bill for this recipe consists mainly of american two-row and crystal 80 malts with a dash of carapils.

The 1-gallon glass growler that I'm using as a primary fermenter for my six pack brewery isn't really large enough to ferment 1 gallon of beer. I always have to set up a blow-off rig as you can see here. I went to Home Depot this morning and purchased two 2-gallon plastic buckets for future brewing in this quantity. I'll have enough head space in those where a blow-off won't be an issue.

The good news with round two on the Six Pack Brewery is that my water volume issues were dialed in a LOT more precisely than on my first venture. I was still a little off, but not enough to worry about. I ended up with a little more than one gallon of wort and my gravity was 1.078 instead of the targeted 1.088 (yes, this is a big beer.)

Round #3 on the Six Pack Brewery will be another attempt at the original Helles Bock that I tried on the first round... I hope to brew that soon, but I need to get a 5-gallon batch of red ale brewed before that...