The End of Summer 2011, San Fran, and an Irene Victim

Well its official, Summer 2011 is over folks. That's the bad news. The good news is summer lasted at least a week longer this year. Successfully calling the end of summer has been this blog's wheelhouse since 2008. The last three summers ended on August 15th, August 7th, and August 14th for the years 2010, 2009, and 2008, respectively. How have I been able to call the end of summer so successfully? Oktoberfest, that sometimes coppery sometime golden delicious, German larger has been hitting the shelves. Indicating the end of summer. I've gotten a chance to imbibe Oktoberfests brewed by Stoudts, Schafly, Weihenstephaner and Paulaner. And the Stoudts so far has been my favorite. But there are no losers in this group. However, there has been no way for me to sufficiently judge 'fest brews without the release of my all time favorite Okfest brewed by Left Hand. It is the barometer against all other 'fests are measured. Regardless, drink up and enjoy the cool deliciousness that is Oktoberfest. Football is on its way.

Which brings me to my second point, San Francisco is a cool town, but I thought I'd find better beer there. The whole trip wasn't a bust, I was able to run by Toronado for a pint of Russian River Pliny the Elder. Additionally I was able to find this great belgian restaurant called La Trappe in the North beach neighborhood. I had a russian river supplication, which is a wild ale brewed with cherries, some might call it a kreik. I had a hankering for a sour ale and this brew was excellent. I finished the night off with a bottle of The Lost Abbey's Angel's Share. An amazingly complex brew. Start with a belgian quad and then hit it with some bugs to give it a sour twang and then age it in oak barrels for nine months. Liquid Artwork!

For my third and final act, our home desktop computer seems to have become a victim of the hurricane. Base on some Google searching today, it looks likes it has a fried power supply unit and possibly a fried motherboard , or mobo for you computer geeks out there. Currently we are working with an old laptop that Meg used in grad school and neither one of us cared for it. If we decide to make the jump to buy a new comp, should we buy a mac? Possibly a MacBook Pro? Thoughts?

Go Hokies!

Women and Beer, both works of art ...

... despite how beautiful they are separately, nothing is more beautiful than a woman who loves beer.

Mash up to Full cups

I had the opportunity to keg the surly bender clone this weekend. Nothing quite beats the convenience of kegging. Today after work seemed the perfect time to pour up full glass and see what its all about. I enjoyed it immensely. The perfect mixture of sweet maltiness and some roasty toasty flavors too, but finished off with some nice finishing hops. In short this beer drinks well. I definitely recommend this clone kit from Northern Brewer.

Honey Basil Pale Ale

You heard about it. It'd been done already. A couple years ago I brewed a Honey Basil Pale Ale. Well it just so happens that I'd like to brew an all-grain version of that beer. I plan to keep it simple with one twist, belgian yeast. So the recipe should look a little like this:

7lbs - Pale Ale Malt
1lbs - Honey Matt
.5lbs - Malted Wheat
.5lbs - Malto Dextrin

1.5 oz of EKG at 60
1 oz of EKG at 20
2 oz of fresh basil at 5

Yeast White labs Belgian Golden

I'm also putting together a recipe for a Farmhouse Brett Saison.

Keep Brewing, don't ever let up. Use your tanks and keep them full.

Holz

Galaxy Hut coming to Falls Church

Galaxy Hut will be opening a second location planned for this fall in Falls Church at 709 W. Broad St. Right down the street from Mad Fox.

Mash ups

I finally got the opportunity to employ the new all-grain equipment that Meg got me for my birthday several weeks ago. It was officially my first 100% all grain batch of homebrew. I've done plenty of partial mashes over the last couple of years, but I hadn't made the jump to all-grain. I usually don't buy kits, but I thought I'd play it safe and choose one of the excellent kits at Northern Brewer for my first all-grain batch. It had to be something malt-centered, as AG brewing is best at showing off the beauty of glorious malt. I decided to go with the Surly Bender clone kit that NB is currently offering. Every Surly beer I've ever had has been great, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. All in all everything went pretty well. I had a little difficulty hitting a mash-out temperature of 168F on my first go at it, but that was nothing another gallon of boiling water couldn't take care of. The recipe was as follows:

Surly Bender
Style: American Brown Ale
Type: All Grain Calories: 196
Rating: 4.0 Efficiency: 70 %
IBU's: 32.78 Boil Size: 5.83 Gal
Color: 27.8 SRM Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Estimated Actual
Brew Date: - 07/02/2011
OG: 1.060 1.062
FG: 1.015 -
ABV: 5.90 % - %
Serve Date: 08/20/2011 / /

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual
Primary 14 days @ 69.0°F 07/02/2011 07/02/2011
Secondary 21 days @ 72.0°F 07/16/2011 -
Bottle/Keg 14 days @ 74.0°F 08/06/2011 -

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
8.00 lbs 64.00 % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 60 mins 1.036
2.00 lbs 16.00 % Aromatic Malt 60 mins 1.036
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Simpsons Medium 60 mins 1.035
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Special B Malt 60 mins 1.030
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 60 mins 1.033
0.25 lbs 2.00 % Simpsons Chocolate 60 mins 1.034

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
0.50 ozs 9.24 Williamette 60 mins 5.50
0.50 ozs 23.53 Columbus (Tomahawk) 60 mins 14.00
2.50 ozs 0.00 Williamette 0 mins 5.50

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg British Ale II Wyeast Labs 1335

Additions
(none)

Mash Profile
Sacch' Rest 60 min @ 153.0°F
Add 18.75 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 167.6°F
Mashout 10 min @ 168.0°F
Heat to 168.0°F over 2 mins

I hear it bubbling away right now. Can't wait to keg it in about 5 weeks.

-Holz

Visiting Brasserie Cantillon

If you like sour ales, chances are that you've at least heard of Cantillon. While I was in Brussels I had the opportunity to visit the brewery. When you first enter right off the streets you get the feeling that you shouldn't be there. You find yourself in a warehouse type building. And it is somewhat dark and there is the constant drone of machinery in the background.


After your eyes adjust to the light and you acclimate yourself to your new surroundings, you kind of shuffle 10 - 15 yards from the door where you are greeted by an attractive middle aged blond haired woman. She efficiently explains that you have signed up for a self guided tour of the brewery, which upon your completion you are entitled to two free beers. She gives you a quick run down of your stops along the way and sends you stumbling off into the brewery.


Once you find the first stop on the tour you start to realize just how cool the place is. The brewery is somewhat old, but very functional. The immediate charm of the dusty brewery starts to rub off on you. You realize that this place brews ale that is spontaneously fermented, so they really can't risk cleaning the brewery head to toe with bleach, because the brewer wants to attract the microbes that are required to inoculate the brew. Their coolship is beautiful and the barrel room even more striking. And the cobwebs, ah yes, the cobwebs. The brewery is full of cobwebs because as the wort cools overnight in the coolship the brewer believes that the spiders catch errant insects lurking around the brewery, therefore keeping those bugs out of the cooling wort.


Their beers are unmatched in terms of quality. The basic gueze is a blend of aged and young lambic, and more importantly it is incredibly quaffable. The Kriek and Framboise, aged with Cherries and Raspberries respectively are not sweet girly beers. These bad boys pack some sour punch and they finish quite dry. As complex as any wine you've ever had. In short, you've got to try them.

The brewer and owner Jean-Pierre Van Roy was a teacher by training. However, his wife was a Miss Cantillon. And her father who was the previous brewer and proprietor asked Van Roy to take over the brewery or he was going to close it. No real option, he took it over. Below is a picture of me and Jean Pierre.


If you've got the time and your in Brussels and you want to see how authentic Belgian sour ale is produced, this is your place!

-HolzBrew