always plan ahead for a brew day ... unless you don't

The day got filled with things. Trips to the mall, grocery, and the gym that made it look like another Saturday without brewing. With Sunday in sight i had already planed to fill that day with non-fun things like work and homework, maybe a jog if i was lucky. So the lady and i were planning a quiet dinner at the house, complete with netflix. Then it dawned on me. i could start brewing now and possibly pull it off. i had ingredients for two very different brews, a flanders red, and a hoppy red ale. i didn't have the spare time to do the partial mash that was required for the flanders, so i pushed ahead with the hoppy red. Extract for the base no doubt due to the time crunch. 6 oz. of 80l crystal malt for flavor and color. 6 oz. of carapils for head retention. i also added one pound of wheat to add to the light body and head retention. cluster hops for the bittering. then wave after wave, like an unstoppable rebel force, of late cascade hop additions. currently this beautiful red head is coolimg down to pitching levels where she will be greeted by two packets of us-05 california ale yeast. and then dry hopped a week from now with more glorious cascade hops, then consumed 4 weeks from now.

the inspiration for this brew was red seal ale. i think i will call it red dawn.

i wear my sunglasses at night when i'm brewing.

-holz

rye fox

Stopped at Mad Fox for dinner. They had their wee heavy aged in rye barrels on draft. Very interesting. The rye accentuated the natural smokiness of the brew but also made the beer very dry. I personally enjoy their regular wee heavy more, but it was worth trying. if you like scottish ales then you should give it a try.

-Holz

Port(er) City?

In case you hadn't heard, Alexandria's got a brewery, Port City Brewing. I haven't had the opportunity to try all of the brews, but I can attest that their porter is particularly delicious. Full-bodied and roasty, this ain't no wussy watery porter. This one is strong enough to carry the American Porter moniker proudly.

Further, it is guaranteed to make Economics homework infinitely more interesting.
-Holz

The difference between gueuze and lambic

If you are into the sour or wild ales like myself you might find the flavor profile of gueuze and lambic to be similar. And for good reason, gueuze is a blend of one -, two -, and three - year old lambics.

First, the lambic that I am discussing is not the fruit blended kind, such as kreik or framboise. Nope, I'm talking about the slap you across the face, apologetically raw form, that is traditional lambic. In general it is somewhat rare to find traditional lambic outside of Belgium. Lambic is generally not fully matured until it has fermented at least 2 years and even then, much like wine, it can be aged successfully for 10 - 20 years.

Gueuze is a blend of young and old lambic. The young lambic may only be fermented for 6 - 8 months, while the old lambic can be 2 - 3 years old. Lambic is flat or uncarbonated, whereas gueuze is effervescent. Gueuze develops its carbonation in the bottle naturally by re-fermenting the sugars left in the young lambic.

Well that's just barely scratching the surface on these two beer styles. More will have to come at a later time. If you are feeling adventurous, go out and try some sours, but don't drink them too cold, they are to be savored like good wine.

-Holz

PS - I got a call this week from the NHC saying that 3 of my 5 entries showed up destroyed. Bummer. However, they did allow me to reship three new bottles, hopefully they made it alright.

Hope you got your entries in

I got word today that unless you are from Canada, they aren't accepting any more registrants for the 2011 National Homebrew Comp. Wow, that filled up fast. I'm glad I got my entries in earlier this week. In the US, that's 6,750 brews entered into the competition. Apparently a new record!

-Holz

Its that time of year again

You probably think I'm talking about the NCAA tournament, but you are sadly mistaken. I'm talking about the National Homebrew Competition. I scoured the brew closet this weekend and found 5 worthy entrants. A new snag on this year's competition is that you choose which regional location to enter your brew in. In years past your were assigned a region. Despite this change, I basically just picked the closest shipping location, Nashville, TN.

I've entered a 1) Saison, 2)Golden Strong Belgian Ale, 3)Altbier (kind of), 4)American Sout, and a 5)Wood-Aged Beer. We'll see how they do. Last year I got lucky and one of the three brews I entered got 1st in the region and moved on to the national competition. We'll see if lady luck shines my way again. Regardless, its nice to get feedback on your brews from at least 2 certified beer judges.

If you've got any brews laying around, send them in! Entries are due by March 30th.

Unfortunately, I haven't had any time to brew lately. The weekends have been filled with work and studying, but I've got some new brew ideas so one of these days there will be a brew explosion coming from the HolzBrew kitchen.

Keep brewing,

Holz

PS- I also understand that Sam Adams is holding a DC local homebrew competition. Something to consider.

Apparently wanting more

So few weeks back I posted about designing a lower gravity house blonde ale. Well I should have known that I couldn't go small. Do to my less than precise methods I wound up using far less water than I should have and thus brewed a beer with greater strength. As I mentioned before I split the batch and fermented half with a Belgian golden ale strain and I brewed the other half with a German ale strain. Megan and I bottled them last week and they should be ready for initial tasting next week. They both came out in 6% abv range, I believe the Belgian was slightly higher in alcohol than the German. So the Belgian ale probably classifies as a Belgian blonde according to the BJCP guidelines, but the German is classless by any standard style guidelines (who cares?). Perhaps the German could be considered an imperial kolsch? I'll update you once I do a side by side tasting.

Holz