Barrel Beers

A week ago I attended the Bistro's Inaugural Barrel-Aged Beer Festival. There were beers aged in barrels formerly containing whiskey, bourbon, madeira, wine, you name it. And there were about 50 of them. Some brewers there, including Roger from Drake's. He keeps talking to me about opening a brewpub in Oakland. Apparantly there are a few others already in the works.

It's like that old saying in Texas, well I know it's in Texas, but probably Tennessee too... fool me once, shame on...shame on me...fool me won't be fooled again.

Wait, not that saying, the other one. I think pops said it, that if I've come up with an idea, someone else has already thought of it, and is probably doing something about it.

I digress. The tasting was great, tasted 13 beers, reanging from sticky sweet, puckery sour, sherry flavored, woody vanilla, stouty, hoppy, malty. So many different flavors, unrefutable evidence that beer is not a one-note tune.

The Winners:
Pizza Port Old(er) Viscosity Strong Ale. Best in show, a barley-wine styled sweet beer.
Glacier Brew House Ukrainian Imperial Stout. People's choice, a tasty toasted stout.

Orphan Ale 2006

Based on a clone of Anchor Liberty, today brews a quickie before Thanksgiving NINE days away.

Last night I created a starter for the first time: 1/3 cup light dry etxract and 2 cascade gop pellets boiled in 2 cups water (over-flowed briefly, of course). Cooled, added to an empty double-duece bottle. Pitch yeast, add airlock, leave out overnight. This morning, a nice head inside the bottle tells me to go ahead. Now for the beer!

Steeped 12 oz or so 60L Crystal malts for a half hour @ 150 deg., then mini-sparged with a whole gallon of the same temp. Measured out 3 lbs. dry malt extract, realized that it takes a hell of a lot of that shit to make up 4 lbs. Had to get the last pound by itself. Added that plus about 5 lbs AMerican light extract. 2.5 oz Northern Brewer hop pellets and we're off and boiling for 45 minutes.

Pee Money is here to assist me, stirring the beer with a ladel and stirring my mind with a low-pitched "Eyesore." HUH?!?!
http://pee-money.blogspot.com/2006/04/eyesore.html

After that 45 minutes, .5 oz Northern Brewer Hops and .75 oz. Cascade go in for flavor. 1 tsp of Irish Moss for Clarity. 14 minutes on the boil. Time to start sanitizing.

.5 oz each of the 2 varieties for one minute, then on to the wort chiller. 20 minutes later, ready for the carboy.

Looks pretty cloudy after all the straining. Even if I had a finer mesh strainer it seems like it would take forever to get through all that gunk.

One screw up at the end, may lead to contamination. Pitching my starter I failed to realize that there was more volume than I was used to. No more room in the tank since I filled it to the bottom of the neck! Ended up dumping some out then adding some back in, a brewer's no-no. Oh well, we shall see.

O.S.G. 1.038
F.S.G. 1.021

The beers of Krypton

Finally my friend SUPERMOM brought me beers of her father. I can only assume that they were crafted on crystal mountains of the planet Krypton. First up is his Belgian-style ale. As you can see by the pic it looks like beer. I poured it straight into my favorite tasting glass, a stemmed Michelob glass SQUIRREL picked up for me at a garage sale a year or so ago. A nice amber color, the beer produced a nice head in the glass that, unfortunately, quickly dissapated. Larger bubbles quickly formed on the sides, but within 8 minutes or so they were also gone. Tiny bubbles continue to cascade up the middle of the glass even now as I write. The flavor is REAL nice, a great Belgian sweetness without puckery sourness. It lingers on, and is complex throughout, if not a bit too sweet. I would have liked some more lingering carbonation. Perhaps it just needs more time in the bottle to mature. It's probably pretty young.

Next, the stout, Which SUPERMOM says is even better. Well, the head retention is a bit better, with the nice light brown bubbles clinging to the side of the glass as I imbibe. The flavor is good, very toasty to the point of burnt. The carbonation is nice, not too much or little. The finish is short, I'd like that toasty quality to continue on longer. Nice showing, all in all.

Unbeer Post

Superman Vs. Batman - video powered by Metacafe

This has nothing to do with beer, but c'mon, it's some funny nerd shit. I love funny nerd shit.