My wife and I were talking the other day, and it turns out that she thinks I should (in tandem with working in pottery) try and make beer to sell to others. She wants, in short, for me to become a brewer.

So after I got back up off of the floor, I began to give this some serious consideration. I've been brewing for about five years now- almost entirely self-taught, short of the conversations I've had with the people down at the beer store, and am probably banging along pretty well. The brews turn out alright, and there's only been one that was better off on the floor instead of in my mouth. Which, let's be honest here, wouldn't be the stuff to sell anyway, so I don't see why we need to count it.

The point's this- I have my first "all-out-of-my-head" beer recipe, it's brewed and in the primary fermenter, and in a short month and a half I get to open up bottles of my very own created beer and see what it tastes like. I'm not going crazy- it's a dark IPA Stout (hence the name of the blog post- but it's my recipe, for Pete's sake, the first one I haven't gotten out of a book, so I'm going to take a minute to be proud of it.

Thanks. I do feel better now.

Anyway, we're having a big tasting thing in late November, so if you're in the area and want to give some feedback on a new local beer, just let me know- we'll try to make some room for you!
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Witbier!! 06/16/2011
 
So I quit my day job, and am now faced with the exciting and daunting task of taking this joy of mine, pottery, and make some money out of it. I've been thinking a lot about doing this, making plans and whatnot, so of course the first thing I do it go down to the home brew shop and make some beer.

The rationale is this- we're tightening our belts, and it's cheaper to brew beer than to buy it. Most of the time. So I'm saving us money! You really should be impressed.

First out of the gate is a witbier. It's summer, so it's witbier season, and it's also my wife's favorite kind of beer, so I also thought this might make the idea of me brewing a batch while all this other stuff was going on go down a bit  more smoothly. It was also my first jump into all-grain brewing. All-grain is exactly that, all-grain- no malt extract, so small boils of beer, no tip-it-out-of-the-bag-and-into-the-pot. Just a huge converted picnic cooler, a lot of jury-rigged faucets, and two big buckets. And TONS of time.

Basically, I went to the beer store and bought about 10-15 lbs of grain for a 5 gallon brew- and promptly stumbled out of the store with an enormous paper bag full of grains, and tried to get it home without spilling grain all over the car. I took the simple approach- brought my brewing water up to 160, put it into my converted cooler with a spigot on the bottom, and slowly folded in the grains, letting them rest at 147 for an hour or so. This is overly simplified, and any sophisticated brew out there reading this is grimacing a bit, but this was my first time, so give me a break.

I brewed this batch with a slightly higher acid rating on the hops- which gave the beer an almost spicy finish. Not unpleasant. Not unpleasant and all. Will absolutely carry me through until the next batch stops bubbling in the basement.
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Pumpkin Beer 11/22/2010
 
It's the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I'm in a bit of a panic over the beer.


I guess not really a genuine panic; more like a state of acute nervousness. We recently celebrated the birth of our daughter, and as I am assuming you can guess, all of our scheduled plans went straight out the window. I had put some pumpkin beer in the basement to bottle in time for Thanksgiving. This was weeks ago, and I kept thinking I had plenty of time to get it bottled for the big day. Next thing I know it's 8 days before Turkey Day, and I have a full glass carboy of potentially flat beer waiting for my guests downstairs. Not fun, that.


So last Wednesday I cleared the schedule (and the kitchen) and bottled during my son's nap. Made it with seconds to spare. And hopefully when we crack open one of these things in a couple of days, I'll be greeted with a remeasuring pop and fizz. Here's to hoping.


My boy Jake was funny about it. When I was brewing the beer the recipe called for whole slices of pumpkin to be boiled with the wort, and then another set of pumpkin slices to be roasted and put into the primary fermenter. I roasted the pumpkins, and put them on a rimmed pan in the kitchen to wait for the fermenting. A hour or so passes, and I got the slices off of the pan to put into the fermenter. All the slices get dunked right in, and that's when I noticed all of the Jake sized teeth marks on all but one of the slices. Looked like I was brewing beer with a squirrel.


To make up for it, on Bottling Day, he came downstairs from his nap and came in the kitchen to say hello (he's two). He says "Hi Daddy. You putting the beer in the bottles"? Brilliant.
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BEER!! 03/04/2010
 

The Brew

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I started brewing beer while living in Austria, which is kind of funny, I guess. My wife thought it was odd that I waited until we lived in a country known for it's centuries old craft of beer brewing before I started taking a crack at it myself. Well, true. I take it as being inspired by the masters. And it's not like we were living in Munich.
Two summers ago we stayed for a month on the coast of England, a half hour west of Plymouth, while Libby was going to school. While there, I tried to eat lunch as much as possible in one particular pub down the road for a couple of reasons. One, it was awesome. Two, they served a Cornish Cream Stout that I would have cheerfully given over my shoes to have. It was (and is, I suppose) fantastic. Incredibly smooth and full, just a hint of dark sweetness and chocolate, and creamy- like a beery dessert. Though I could drink more that a couple with no problems- no chance of getting full. Either that, or after enough I just didn't notice.

That was probably about the time I decided to go ahead and start brewing my own. The Cream Stout was great, and also devilishly hard to get a hold of- like I said, I tried to have lunch in this one pub as much as possible. We kept looking for this stuff, on and off, for about a year and a half- no luck. Apparently beer is a closely protected thing, jealously guarded and amazingly territorial.

So, on to the actual brewing. I should start by telling you that if you do plan on trying to brew beer, make sure everyone in the house likes the smell of hops. It kind of floods the place. My wife does not tolerate the smell so well, and as a consequence, she needs to leave the house on brewing day. Which works out on the music front, and not so much on the company.
The secret to the cream stout is lactose. It lends a silky smoothness to the beer that you don't get otherwise, an extra little bit of chew that, combined with a good balance of sweetness, makes for a good 'un. The brew at the house is almost finished- I bottled it last Saturday- so it should be ready to drink tomorrow night. I'll let you know. We'll either have some degree of satisfaction, or a bit of time emptying them all out at the sink, or exploded beer bottles all over the basement. I haven't been down there in a while.

THE VERDICT:
It's good! Not Cornwall good, but I'll manage to put back the rest of what I made with little trouble, I think. It's got a little bit of smoke to the aftertaste that's unexpected- and not nearly as fully smooth as the version in England. But it has a nice sweet bite, and enough meat to it (with low carbonation) to give it quite a bit of presence. 

You know, reading that over, I'm not totally sure I know what I'm talking about. "Nice sweet bite"? What?
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