Adventures in Zymurgy

Extreme Beer, Corn and Mild Beer

2010-01-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

The latest movement in the beer world has been towards extremeness, at least in the craft brew world. Still, craft beer sales account for <5% of the market nationwide. However, extreme beer is much more interesting to write about and tends to get more press.

Also, making fun of the "Big Blands" is quite popular too. Many beer writers and indeed brewers, marketers and beer lovers make it a point to state that their beer is not as sinful as the big two (AB InBev and SABMillerCoors). We in the craft beer industry do a lot of mudslinging. We tell stories of bearded brewers in rubber boots creating art, a thing of beauty, a world-changing bottle of Double IPA to be thrown into Goliath's head. Truth is that brewers are not "rock stars". The big two are not our enemies and extreme beer is marketing concept. I am paraphrasing Jack Curtin's article "The Extreme Beer Fad" in American Brewer magazine. It's a great article that sums up what I've been feeling but is published in a trade magazine so I feel it necessary to write about it to my small audience. Forgive me, Jack.

Say something nice or not at all.

It's not fair of us to criticize the most successful breweries for making beer that the majority of Americans like. Not only does it diminish our respectfulness, it proves to the wavering light-lager drinker that craft beer is too complicated for them to enjoy. We turn off customers with our arrogance, and if the trend continues, our sales and reputation will go down. Also, the money, hours of labor, research and education we have poured into craft brewing is a tip of the iceberg compared the largest breweries worldwide. We would not be making good beer without their innovations. And I wish beer geeks would quit criticising the use of corn or other adjuncts in lager beer. The use of corn and rice in American lager beer dates back to the first brewing in America. American barley was six-row instead of the traditional two-row European varieties. The first American brewers were mainly German immigrants that were used to using 100% pure two-row barley but the six-row they found in the New World was proteinous. Because of the higher protein, the product was unstable. This was well before the invention of the whirlpool device installed in or just after the boil kettle, which was invented buy Labatt's in the 1950's (another big brewing innovation), and before Adolph Coors brought over and planted the first two-row Movarian barley. The brewers found that if a certain percentage of local corn was substituted for barley, the balance of protein to sugar would further mimic beers brewed in Europe. Brewing with corn became a traditional way of brewing in North America. Does beer brewed with all barley malt have better health benefits and superior taste? That is certainly my opinion. I think our battles against corn should be waged in our voting practices as corn is heavily subsidized by the US government. The big brewers will always use it as long as it's cheaper than domestic two-row. There is no difference between Belgian candi sugar and corn and I find it ludicrous that beers brewed with Belgian candi get positive press while corn beers get negative.

But what is this extreme beer that our craft breweries are pioneering? Is it beers brewed with strange ingredients? Highly hopped? Barrel aged? Full of booze?

Mike Stevens, president of Founders Brewing, compared the craft brewing industry to the computer industry. We do not look at our new computers that are ten times faster than our old computers and call them "extreme"? They're just better computers. He was just surmising how we would look back on the beers we brew now in twenty years, and makes a good point. Anchor's Liberty Ale or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale twenty five years ago were considered "hop bombs", but now we think of them as tame. Is this the natural evolution of brewing? Or is it a fad? I think it might be the latter. In ten years I think people may get bored of trying the next big, hoppy, wood-aged booze bomb and might just expect quality and consistency. Plus those big beers really give you a headache the next morning.

When I started here at Chuckanut I found brewers tend to look for different things in beer than consumers or beer geeks. Some of the best brewers I know would tell me that if you could make a 4% abv beer taste awesome then you can rule the brewing world. Also I found that I appreciate these beers more for their nuance and delicate flavor. These beers were easy to drink with any company and most people like them. They fit in at sporting events, a night out with friends, at a picnic, at breakfast, after church or just about anywhere else.

Andy Crouch wrote in a recent column that "...brewing a clean Helles or crisp German Pilsner is about the most radical act an American craft brewer could undertake these days." I hope he just foresaw the next movement of craft brewing, away from extremely strong flavored to extremely well made beer. Strong beers definitely have a place in craft brewing and I wish their continued success, but I expect all beer should be extremely well made. I hope that's what the public wants. In the words of Phil Markowski, "I'd like to see us taking more of a European approach-more about balance, subtlety, subtle complexity, instead of the beer-as-hot-sauce approach. It's not about machismo: it's about flavor and enjoyment, and not being whacked over the head."

references
All About Beer, Beer:30, Chauauqua Inc. 2009 Phil Markowski quote
BeerAdvocate issue #32 September 2009; "New Frontiers for Extreme Beer" by Andy Crouch; "Does Extreme Beer Really Exist?" by Mike Stevens
American Brewer Vol 25, No. 4 Fall 2009; Greg Kitsock's editorial; "The Extreme Beer Fad" by Jack Curtin
Siebel Institute lectures 2009

Update

2009-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry to be so long without an update. After a beautiful summer working as a plumber and saving up some cash, I found a job that is a perfect fit. Shanna and I moved to Bellingham, Washington and I joined Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen.

During the summer I made trips to the brewery to drop off my resume and talk with their brewer Josh. He showed me the impressive setup that brewmaster Will Kemper engineered and talked about how precise their beer could be. Whether it is pitching temperature, mashing temp or fermentation, the guys at Chuckanut had it dialed to the 1/10 of a degree. It's no wonder that they got Small Brewpub of the Year at GABF after their first time entering.

Will has been making beer for over twenty-five years. He started the Thomas Kemper Brewery in '86 and moved on to help engineer breweries across the country. He's worked at Dock Street in Philly, Capital Brewing in D.C., Aviator, a brewery in Mexico, and just recently, the first brewpub in Istanbul and more. Will also taught engineering at American Brewers Guild and is a great teacher. If you get the chance to meet Will, you'll know what I mean. Ask him any question about beer and you'll learn something. Most of the time, you'll learn more than you bargained for. It's one of the reasons I am so excited about working here. Continuing my education after school is important to me and I was afraid of being locked in a brewery job that did not push to make better product, which if you're in the industry, is so many breweries.

Chuckanut is a German lager and English ale company. They won two golds and two silvers at the GABF all in lager (Dunkel, Vienna and German Pils, Schwartzbier). That hasn't been done by a small brewpub. In a time where whatever is overly hopped, oak-aged or boozy with alcohol wins all the attention, I find it relieving that well made 5% drinkable beer could win. It might be considered radical for a small brewery to make tasty lagers and no IPAs. I thought the industry was shifting, and it probably is, but at least I know some people still appreciate delicate flavor. Those that know me know my love for well crafted lager beer and the move to Chuckanut seemed natural. But indeed, I'm lucky.

During my few talks with Josh at Chuckanut over the summer I got the impression that they would be expanding their capacity soon and would be looking for an assistant brewer. That was the time I was calling, emailing, sending my resume and just plain showing up. I got the call from Will in October asking if I was still interested in becoming a brewer. "Oh yeah!" When I went up for the interview, he informed me that sadly, Josh was leaving to work at Full Sail. So although I did replace Josh, there is no replacing Josh. He is a great guy and very methodical in the brew house. The most anal-retentive ski-bum I've met. I wish I could have learned more from him. Josh has a wife, a three-year-old and a newborn to care for and Full Sail offered him a better opportunity.

So I'll be keeping this blog updated with info about beer, it's market, how it's made and any questions anyone might ask. Hope you enjoy.

Immortal Darkness issue #1 Limited Release

2009-07-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Why is it that beer dorks like me are so into comic characters on their beer?

I'm the kind of nerd that always buys the new, cool beers that come out of small local breweries or specials shipped in from Belgium, England and Germany. Funny thing is that these products are very deliberately marketed. Most of the locals in Europe have never heard of those beers and very special releases are nearly only consumed by aficionados like us.

We are expected to buy cases of their product and stow them away in dark closets until the time is right and then maybe we'll open one. During times like these I am reminded of running down to the comic store and buying the much anticipated Spider-Man issues that have the first appearance of a new arch-enemy, whereupon spending ridiculous amounts of money, I would hid under my covers with a flashlight and carefully examine the inside pages. After all that bother I would seal up the comic in plastic and try to forget about it for as long as possible but show the cover to friends who could covet the value but never get to read.

Are these companies playing with our childhoods? After coming back from the World Brewing Academy last May I have had a much different view of small and large breweries. Mainly I discovered what I knew all along. They're in it for the money.

Is it too much to ask to have your favorite beers available all the time? If the money's there for the product why not? I think the limited availability adds to the mystic of the beer.

Or how about an extremely strong beer(barleywine, Imp Stout, Belgian Style) that doesn't need age? From a business prospective releasing beer before its prime is ludicrous. What if German lager brewers decided to let their consumers lager the beer in the bottle to save on cost of bright tanks? It wouldn't go over very well.

Now I know all about subtle nuances that occur at peak times during a beer's maturation in the bottle. I also know about well balanced oxidation that only comes from storage. It's not that I'm against it or wouldn't practice it. I've just come to the conclusion that all great beer should be within a few months of peak flavor when it's in the store. Just because I'm a consumer doesn't mean I'm a sucker. If I buy a $10 22oz beer and it doesn't wow me, I'll never buy it again. In fact I'll regret the purchase and will be more likely never to buy another special release from that brewery again.

And please brewers from around the world: stop putting cartoon dragons on our beer! Take us more seriously than that. Dogs are cool too but they don't need to be a centerpiece of most breweries. Also try appealing to the wine consumers. They don't have comic characters. Do you want to know why women don't drink as much beer? Their choices are the macho Bud/Miller/Coors labels or the Dragon/Dogs/Comic labels. Most women I know are a little intimidated by 22oz or 750ml bottles. (That's a lot of beer!) But Belgians bottle in massive 1.5L or sometimes 3L bottles, Americans pour by the pitcher or by the sixpack and Germans serve in boots! Smaller portions of stronger beer produced well with little need for aging would be a great change. Maybe we could convert some of the corkdorks and give beer its proper place on the gourmet dinner table.

Back in Seattle

2009-06-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a few weeks back now from Europe. I swiftly got my old job back being a service plumber. It's kind of depressing spending all that time, money, brain storage and energy studying brewing science without being able to come home and immediately apply it.

The second weekend back I had to homebrew. Missing Augustiner Helles already, I went about formulating a recipe for 11 gallons. My great friends at Beacon Hill Brewing, who have stored my stuff, were having a BBQ for Memorial Day. I got there early and brewed as best as I could to follow what I had learned (except for hot-aeration).

This last Saturday after judging at the Washington Homebrew Pro-Am, I dumped the trub and tasted a sample. Huge German hops and sulpher, just as I remember with a strong Weyermann Pils background.

The hours at plumbing are still meager and I feel like a burden to the other guys who need hours and didn't leave to study brewing. With that in mind I've sent my resume to all local Washington breweries. With a little luck you'll see me with rubber boots on in one of the country's best breweries.

Shanna and I have moved in together and are now month to month on our lease. She, like me, is happy in life but would welcome a life change. I believe we'll embrace a move if the opportunity arises.

As for now, I'm broke and out of shape. I'll keep on working off the twenty pounds that Germany bestowed me with and saving up my dollars waiting for an opening in the industry.

Aging of Beer

2009-04-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

When I first came to Germany I noticed right away that the beer tasted different than in the States. It tasted clean and fresh, with good hop character and a tasty malt profile. While traveling through Belgium and the Netherlands I've noticed that the Belgian style beers either taste the way they do in the States or a little different.

In the States the dominant character of Belgian beer in my mind is the yeast. It adds all the esters, light fusals, phenols, and the typical bready flavor. What I wasn't ready for when I tried my first fresh Belgian beer is that the hops are very forward in most styles. They're bitter! Also the lack of aging allows fresh malt character I'm not used to in a Belgian beer.

To tell the truth, I like the aged Belgian beers that I get in the States compared to the same product only a few weeks old. And that leads me to my question if anyone is still reading this beer blog:

How do you store your beer? Why do you celler beer? What kinds of beer do you celler and what do you think it'll achieve? What's your oldest beer? Will you invite me over to drink your oldest beer?

I've been in the school of thought that beer should be drank fresh and only Lambics should be aged. However, two of my favorite Belgian beers, Westmalle's tripel and dubbel, I can say taste far better a little old.

Gastronomical delight

2009-04-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

After a long day of walking lost around Amsterdam, Shanna and I are staying in to catch up on the sleep we missed on the overnight train. Right now Shanna's making pancetta pasta with onions, mushrooms and arrabbiata sauce and I'm finishing a Westvleteren 8.

The 8 smells of figs and cherries just like a well aged barleywine. The subtle oxidation that makes this sherry-like nose is one of my favorites. It appears dark brown and has plenty of yeast floaties in it. The taste is strongly carbonated, sweet and delicious. Not phenolic or fusel, it has big esters that coat the mouth. It's a delicious beer. It reminds me of a very good bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve. Although this may be considered a dubbel, I would lump it in the dark strong catagory. Sure it has the lower alcohol %, but the warming flavor, lack of intense caramel flavors and well aged caracteristics move me toword the the dark strong.

Shanna's having a Westmalle Tripel right now. We also got the Westvleteren 12, Brew Dog Paradox Islay and a Danish porter named Hamer and Sikkel by De Molen. The Brew Dog is a islay casked imperial stout. Mmmm Mmm.

We've also been treating ourselves to raw milk Cambert, Buffalo Mozzarella, Swiss Appenzeller, authentic Landjager, and of course chocolate. Tonight we're eating Mozart balls for dessert with the White Widow.

Goodbye Munich!

2009-04-28T03:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've not been keeping up the blog so well. The traveling made it very difficult and now the screen on my laptop is broken. Oh well, I'll keep chiming in as much as I can with the hotel/hostel computers.

We had a fun graduation on Friday; Lyn from Siebel flew out to Bavaria to hand us our diplomas. We got to sample our horrible wheat beers and our IPA. Later that night I met up with Shanna, (finally!), and we went to join the rest of the fellas at Augustiner Keller for some liters and some goodbyes. I've spent more time with these guys in the last three months than I do my best friends in a few years. Although at times I got really sick of them (and them of me), I know that I made some great friends for the rest of my life. Now if only there were some yearly beer festival held in the center of the country that we could all meet up at...?

Shanna and I had a wonderful three days in Munich. We ran into Nick Phelps and Annie at Dachau and ended up at St. Jakobus in Polach for a beer. Now we're in Amsterdam on a house boat were we'll stay through Queen's Day. Queen's Day is like St Patrick's Day but you wear orange instead of green. After Amsterdam we'll be going through Belgiam and on to Paris to meet up with friends and fly home.

I'll try to blog some more beer geek stuff, but for now I'm just relaxing.

Ta Ta for now,
Kevin

Uerige Alt homebrew recipe

2009-04-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

While at Uerige, I "came" up this homebrew recipe. John, one of the brewers there who happens to be a Siebel grad, didn't help me with it. I promise. This is the most popular alt in Dusseldorf and happens to be very bitter with tons of hop character. Sorry for the metric, it's just how we do things here.

Uerige Alt:

for 42Liters (around 11 US gallons) assuming 90% effeciancy

6.72 kg Weyermann Bohemian Pils malt (slightly undermodified)
170 grams Weyermann CaraMunich II
170 grams Weyermann Carafa III
mash schedule: direct heat step mash
infuse at 1:4 ratio to 45C and immidiatly heat to 52C for protein rest. Hold for five minutes.
Heat to 64 and rest for 30 minutes beta rest.
Heat to 72 and rest for 15 minutes. Check iodine before continuing.
Heat to 78 for mash out.

Boil for only 60 minutes with slow boil.
80 grams Hallertau Perle 8.25% at 50 min
20 grams Spalter Spalt 4.75% at 10 min
20 grams Spalter Spalt dry hop in secondary for three weeks at 4C.

Use moderatly hard water, not Seattle tap.
Pitch large amount of Wyeast's 1007 German Ale yeast to 20C aerated wort. Allow to free rise to 26C and hold for 18 hours or when ferment is done. Approx. 77% attenuation. Attempt to follow Reinshietsgebot for show.

Cologne

2009-04-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

From Dusseldorf we headed to Cologne for a tour of Rastal the glass designers. In a country of automation, it was refreshing to see a place with few robots controlling their product. If Rick from Uber is reading this, I'd like to tell him that I saw next years SIB/PIB glasses being made. It is a small world after all. After Rastal we left to see a Kolsh brewery in all of its automative glory. This brewery was unique in that it didn't employ a boil kettle rather it utilized a few mixing tanks that held the wort at near boiling temps for hop utilization and formation of break material and then sent the wort to an evaporator to expel the DMS. Later, we found the largest church I've ever been in and were spellbound for at least an hour.

On the subject of automation, I've been told that the reason the German people are so cutting edge in the field of automation is that after the war most of their workforce was absent. In the early fifties, bottling lines were mostly filled with women. The need for automation was born out of necessity.

Bavaria Brewing and La Trappe

2009-04-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

We stayed in Tilburg, Netherlands for a few nights. During the day we toured the Malting facility at Bavaria Brewing in the Netherlands. It was the first large-scale malthouse that I've been to. However, no pictures were allowed there.

After a nice lunch we headed up to La Trappe for the last monastery tour of our trip. Unlike Orval, the beer made at La Trappe doesn't separate their brewhouse and their monastery. It wasn't uncommon to see Kenyan monks walking around with bundles of house made cheese. Profits from the beer sales go to charity in Africa, and the monastery serves as a refuge for monks during the war in Africa.

La Trappe is the only "Trappist" brewery located outside of Belgium. Originally located in France, the monastery was re-located during anti-religious movements under Napoleon. It's also known as Koningshoven.

That night was spent in downtown Tilburg gorging ourselves over the 200+ beer menu at Cafe Kadinsky. We also were in the Netherlands...nuff said?

Next day we were off to Dusseldorf. I've seen quite a few Altbier breweries. It's funny but I thought that Alt and Kolsch were just styles that came out a certain region. In truth, Alt is the only beer you can purchase at most places with the exception of Pils. Don't even think about ordering a Kolsch in Dusseldorf! Not if you want to get a punch in the face. The opposite is true about Koln. We travel there tomorrow after touring the Uerige brewery. We met one of the new brewers for Uerige, John, who happens to be an American graduate of Siebel. John took us to a football game to watch Fortuna Dusseldorf lose to FC Union Berlin.

Tonight I'm having a Dortmunder Union Export and catching up on some computer time. I was always curious about the Dortmunder style of beer. The only import I can find in the states is DAB. DAB tastes more like a Pilsner/Helles than how the style guidelines dictate. Great Lakes makes an award winning Dortmunder, but after the three kegs of it at Siebel I thought the beer was terrible. It tasted bitter with no hop aroma or flavor and sweet. Definitely not a sessionable beer for me. It seems that the Dort I'm having tonight is my first real Dort. Well, I'm not wowed. I get the hard water thing, and it's tasty, but boring. Oh well, maybe my love affair with this style is over. If anyone can email me a brand of Dort I should try I would appreciate it.

Cantillion and Heineken

2009-04-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

Cantillion is located in the ghetto end of Brussels. The Brewery is actually a museum although they still brew there once a week only in the winter. Beer is produced only in the coldest parts of the year because they employ an coolship in the attic to cool their wort. After cooling, the wort is sent to a open fermenter for fermentation. You can guess that many bacteria can become present with a week of open and spontaneous fermentation. After a week of fermentation, the beer is moved to used wine barrels where it's stored for a year at the very least. The barrels are used until they fall apart. Refermetation occurs in the barrels sending foam out of the bung. Spiders are welcome in the brewhouse because of the excess of fruit flies. Aside from the spiders, the house cat shown here takes care of other pests. We call her the CIP or CAT system.

The whole place smells dank with the exception of the barrel storage and fermentation room that smells of yeast. The smell of yeast is so strong that it's no wonder that spontaneous fermentations occurs so rapidly. The fruit is added to the lambic in the summer months when brewing is not held but fruit crops are matured. The fruit is added directly to the barrels, stored for six months and bottled. The brewers here suggest not storing the fruit lambics because the flavor is best at bottling. However, the geuze can be stored with excellent results.

The Heineken brewery in Tilburg was easily the largest brewery I've been in. They used a double-decker bus to show us the facility. Every part of the brewing process was automatized. The workers never come close to touching the product as it's being made. We were not permitted to take pictures. The contrast between Cantillion and Heineken was staggering. I would personally brew at a dirty museum than an immaculate, computerized factory. Cantillion produces 3,300hl of beer per year while the Tilburg brewery (one of many Heineken breweries) produces over 8 million hl.

Oh yeah, check out a video of Cantillion at my friend Geoff's page:
http://seattlebeernews.com/?p=300

Bofferding and Orval

2009-04-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

On the second day we went to Bofferding in Luxembourg and Orval in Belgium.

Orval is a small monastery in Belgium making only one beer. The beer is produced once a week. We got to see all the new equipment next to all the old. In 2007 the monastery purchased new equipment. So next to the old copper kettles are new stainless kettles covered in copper for appearance. Also, their beer is dry hopped! This was quite exciting for our American brewers.

First day of the study tour

2009-04-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's the first day of the study tour through Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Our first stop was the OeTtinger Brewery to see the largest brewery in Germany. These guys produce 8 million hectoliters of beer per year and sell their beer at a near loss to take advantage of the frugal market. When on sale, some of their beer will sell for 4euro a case (ten liters!).

Well, cheap beer is cheap beer if you ask me. After a fantastic lunch, we were off to the original KHS plant where they manufacture filling stations. It was incredibly huge for a plant that doesn't supply washers or labelers. The kind folks at KHS fed us and gave us beer (see a trend with the Germans?). They showed us where the anti-aircraft guns were stationed during the war when their plant was leveled to the ground. Tune in tomorrow; I'll be at Orval.

Garmisch

2009-04-13T00:57:00.001-07:00

Easter Sunday Gordon, Craig, Nick and I went hiking up the Bavarian Alps in the small skiing city of Garmisch. Although the hike was only 1,000 feet in elevation, we were worn out from following nearly every other trail before finding the trailhead. It does help to learn some German before you travel.

It was a clear 70 degree day and as we approched the top we were dreaming of biergartens again. Jokingly, we said it would be great if their were a biergarten at the top.

Well, to our suprise, there was one. We had some Weissbier and hung out in the sun before heading back into town.

Gearing up for the study tour

2009-04-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

Yup, like I've been saying, our class is starting a rock band and have chosen this picture of us with bikes as the first cover. Our internet has been off and on so I've had a hard time keeping up the blog. That and I've been having too much fun to play on the computer.

Last week at Doeman's is finally over. We've just finished the final exam and I feel confident that I passed.

Last Wednesday, Matt from Firestone Walker brewing flew out here to give a day seminar on hops. He also shipped sample beer from California. Most everyone was excited to taste the overly hopped US beers, except the Brazilian students. We had a liter of Augustiner at the Kellerhall and talked shop after class.

The weekend before a few of us traveled to Nuremberg. We traveled through the Coliseum and Zeppelin field where Hitler held his massive Nazi rallies. Walking into the Coliseum was chilling. It was run down, full of shrubs and birds. A haunting thunder rolled in on rain clouds when we entered. There is a museum inside and a small platform to view the massive enclosure. The coliseum is mainly used for storage.

More updates from Bayern!

2009-04-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

This week was spent using a DE filter on our beer and in the bottling plant packaging. Working on the filling side of the beer industry is not very interesting to blog about.

On Thursday we got a chance to brew again. Our teacher Eder nabbed some American hops from HopUnion while in the States so that we could show these German students how IPAs are made. Eder's expression while we added large handfuls of Centennial every five minutes was priceless.

I also found my favorite beer: Augustiner Lagerbier Hell. Liters of this delicious lager cost only 5.20euro at the Braustube. Half of the Munchiners prefer this beer and the other half prefer the export version Edelstoff.

Export lager is another style worthy of consideration.

There are basically two types of export beer: type 1 is very pale(7-9 ebc) and dry. Final attenuations of up to 86%(Augustiner Edelstoff) and a bitterness of up to 30BUs. The increase of alcohol and bitterness balance the dryness. Type 2 is higher in color (12ebc) and lower in final attenuation (80%). Because this beer is slightly sweeter, the bitterness is also lower (18-26BUs). If Dortmunder were still being brewed, it would fit into this category. However, most Dortmunder beers being made are moving toward the Bavarian Pils style which is more acceptable to a large audience.

Another point I would like to make: Bavarian Pils is not really "Pilsner". Sure it's stronger, dryer and made with soft treated water, but the brewers in Bavaria have been lowering the bitterness for the south German palate and calling it Pils. BUs on this sub-category dip dangerously down to 18-20. The trend for more boring beer is here in Germany just like in the States. Northern German and Bohemian styles have anywhere from 35-50. Flensburger Pils I know from experience is 44BUs. That's quite hoppy for a dry lager!

Weekend and Beer Styles

2009-03-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we rented bikes to go through the English Garden and stopped at the second largest biergarten in Bavaria for lunch while the sun was still out. We admired the fellows that surf the river in the park.

On Sunday we went to the Deutches Museum to ponder for hours their wonderful technology displays.

But enough about touristy stuff; let's talk about beer style. The German brewmasters recognize many different variations in beer styles.

Pale lager exists in two catagories: Munich Helles and non-Bavarian Helles. Munich Helles is very slightly sweeter, fermented traditionally in open fermenters and has HUGE amounts of SO2 due to the pressurization of the fermenting tanks to achieve natural carbonation. It's also a bit darker (9-12 EBC) due to single decoction mash. Non-Bavarian Helles has a higher degree of attenuation (82-86% apparent). This is the style we know in the States as European light lager.

The Pilsner category can be divided up to three styles: Bavarian, North German and Bohemian. Bavarian is less hopped, degrees dropping as low as 20BU and taste more like Helles lager. North German is mid-range to high and Bohemian is always high sometimes pushing 45BU. Original pilsners were much darker and sweeter than the pilsners we know today and always had a hint of diacetyl. This color change was caused by the intensive decoction procedure. It was felt that the pale malt made in the Bohemian area would not make good beer so intensive boiling was instigated.

More beer styles later...

Flotzinger Brau mmmmmm,

2009-03-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

Friday after class we took the Bahn to Rosenheim to meet up with our good friend and teacher Dr, Michael Zepf. Mike's the brewmaster at Flotzinger Brau and had us over for a backstage tour, some wonderful food and, of course, beer. The murky liquid that Zak and Brian are drinking is an acidified wort. Due to the German purity law Reinheinsgebot, brewers here cannot add anything that isn't malt, hops, yeast and water. Sometimes a brewer desires a low pH mash. How the Germans got around this was allowing the bacteria found naturally on the malt to acidify a solution. They keep tanks of acidified wort around to mix with fresh mash.

The brewery was beautiful and dates back to 1904. The family has brewed there since 1543. We saw traditional equipment next to state of the art Steinecker vessels. At the end of the tour Mike took us into the maturation rooms to have a glass of Helles unfiltered, straight from the tank. It always confused me that the BJCP made a score sheet for beer that was on a scale of up to fifty, but no beers ever got a fifty. I thought some beers should be that good. This beer and the experience is why the beer scores go up to fifty. It was the best beer of my life. Fifty out of fifty, hands down.

After the tour we went to the lunch hall where Mike and his wife had made us livercheese, sausage salad and pretzels. Oh yeah, and a barrel of Marzen. We had a fun night, but I shouldn't go into details.

more pics

2009-03-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

More pics like I said from Zak.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/siebel2009/

First times at Doeman's

2009-03-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

It's been three days at Doeman's Academy for Beer, Food and Beverage and I've been having a blast. The campus has many classrooms, laboratories, a brewery (shown here), a bottling line, a bottle washer and a cafeteria. It's a German school that dates back to the late 1800's although this campus was built in the 1960's. The Siebel class is the only class taught in English.

Monday was devoted to getting things at home together and getting over jet lag. Yesterday half of the class including me brewed a traditional Bavarian Wheat on the Doeman's pilot system. Notice the open fermenter that Brad is filling and the horizontal brite tanks that Jeff is leaning against. I wanted to take a nap on the bags of Weyermann malt.

I believe that one of the teachers plotted against us and set the grind on the mill too fine. We tried to lauter for three hours before giving up and adding malt extract! Everything went wrong that day. Our teacher Bjorn was very considerate about all the mistakes. With any luck we won't mess up the Pilsner scheduled for next week. Brian and I put the spent grain in one of our teacher's 7 series and drove it a kilometer to a dairy farm. Only in Munich, huh? We actually got to dump the grain for the cows. So that's why all of Munich smells of manure! There are farms in the center of towns.

The brew day took eleven hours. After school the guys thought it would be nice to head up to Augustiner Keller for some real German beer and food. I'll get more pictures of this. We drank liters of Helles and Maximator and ate pig's knuckle and snitzel.

I love Germany. I could live here. There are many things about Germany that I won't explain here, but I love it. I really should have learned the language; I always wanted to.

Remember how I was excited about the spring? It's 34F and snowing here. Arrgh. I can't escape the snow.

Deutchland!

2009-03-22T20:51:00.001-07:00

So we got to Germany alright. At least all in one piece. The first stop we made after dropping off our luggage was to Marienplatz. It's the big tourist stop. I'll try to take more pictures when we go back. I was/am very tired from the plane ride. The Hofbrauhouse was enormous and wonderful. I can't wait to go to more biergartens.
The sauerkraut is fantastic. It's not sour, but sweet and goes well with mustard. Check out the picture of the automatic beer pourer. Now that's engineering!

Goodbye Chicago. It was fun and I'll miss you.

2009-03-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

We fly out of town at 9:00 tonight. Siebel's doors will be open to us at noon to let us drop off luggage and attempt to finish off the last of the Sierra Nevada on tap. Springtime has finally come to the Midwest. Over the week I've noticed the flower shoots pushing up the mud and litter. Birds have returned. I saw my first cardinal. We don't get those pretty birds west of the Rockies and it fascinated me. They sing a song that's much like young boys pretending to shoot lasers at each other. (Pyew, pyew!) The barbary and pussywillow I pass on the way to school are sending out new branches. I think back on the two weeks of constant snow in Seattle we had in December and the intense cold of Chicago. This has been the longest winter of my life. The summer plagues me in my dreams. Being in Munich in the spring should be a just reward.

The guys of been eating lots of salads and Asian foods, and drinking lots of American IPA before this trip. We've been warned that the Germans eat nothing but pork and pretzels, and don't import our beer. If the weight of my bag is light enough, I'll try to pack a few DIPAs for the German students to try.

Last weekend before Germany

2009-03-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

Friday was the end of our six week brewing theory program. An end of power points? Boy I hope so. We finished the day with the fun program of beer and food pairing hosted by the notable beer writer Ray pictured here. What a great finish to all of our studying!

My favorite was St. Bernardus Apt 12 with muenster cheese. Flossmoor station nut brown with five year cheddar was also very notable. Ray's pick of the day was imperial IPA with carrot cake.

Saturday I met up with my Seattlite turned Chicagoian friend Eric and his sweetheart Sara to see Bonny "Prince" Billy at the Vic theater a few blocks from my house. He put on a great show as always playing hits off his new record and some oldies from "I see a darkness".

Although it was not St. Patricks Day over the weekend, we still had all the parades, the river dyed green and all the stupid drunks filling the streets. My Seattle comrades might not know how seriously these Chicagoians take their non-irish heritage. I saw hundreds of amateurs puking on the streets, screaming at the top of their lungs, and in some cases, driving over trees.

Sunday found me following Aric to Metropolitan Brewing to help with the process and have a few brews from this new lager brewery located in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood. Pictured is recent grad of Siebel, Doug in front of his brew kettle. Doug and Tracey are making some wonderful beers in the Chicagoland available at bars and in the bottle. If you're travelling to Chicagoland, I'd suggest checking their brews out. Flywheel is a hoppy Helles lager that is definitely a make-out session of noble, woody hops and slightly-sulfur Pils malt, quite drinkable! Dynamo is a clean, copper lager with a malt forward nose and chewy, Oktoberfest finish. Keep up the good work guys.

After a few lectures on automation

2009-03-14T07:59:00.001-07:00

I found this fitting

More Sensory Tests

2009-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we had the Belgian beer tasting session of the class. I got to admit, It's fun to try every single style of Belgian beer in a row. Today was different though. Today we were tortured. We sampled spiked bottles of Bud with many horrible fluids that nobody would want to try.

Caproic Acid at 7ppm I thought tasted like bark-dust, crayons and solvent and is attributed to yeast autolysis.
The phenolic Eugenol at 400ppb has a clovey, phenolic flavor reminiscent of Lambics and is a flavor that comes out of some yeasts. Ortho-chloro phenol at 6ppb tasted like a dentist office and shouldn't be trusted. The WORST flavor I have ever had in a beer is trans-2-nonenal at 2ppb. It is a compound that is caused by oxidation and smells like a flooded library. It's that old book smell. The taste is to me like biting into a piece of fruit with a stink bug inside. Then we tried some bottles subjected to a 60C heat treatment for three hours to simulate over-pasteurisation or poor storing conditions. It tasted and smelled like Cheerios, was sweet and doughy.

After the taste-bud lashing, we were subjected to a seven sample sensory evaluation. I missed the fact that baby-mess smell is attributed to the oxidation of hops, but I got DMS, diacetyl, trans-2-nonenal, iso-amyl-acetate and the two controls correct.

If any of you brewers, homebrewers or geeks would like to buy a kit of spiking stuff for your own palate training, I would heartily suggest the kit that the Siebel Institute is putting together. Although as you can tell from above, palate training is not always fun. Shoot me an email if you're interested: daveybrewing@gmail.com

The weekend

2009-03-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

What an amazing weekend I had!

My lovely girlfriend Shanna and my lovely friend Mandi came to Chicago to see the sights and keep me company.
It was a gastronomically awesome time. Saturday we met up the other fellows from school to eat at "Hot Doug's", the world's best hot dog place. The line was literally three hours to get in. It's great to be with two pretty girls; we can cut in line and nobody cares. We enjoyed the pear and port wine elk sausage, the pheasant, the spicy hot one, a regular dog with all the fixins' and duck-fat fries. Chicago does its grease right.

Later that day we got poured on trying to enjoy the downtown sights, went out to some BYOB Thai food, visited the L&L, and met up with the guys again. Sunday we went to breakfast and followed up with some shopping. Did you know that vintage people were really small? That's why I have never found anything to buy in a vintage shop. If you're in Chicago and want some Pho, go to Tank noodles at the argyle stop off the red line. We were very pleased. Then we had too much fun at the Hopleaf with Aric from school. You can use all your senses to enjoy a beer, there's a picture here of us listening to it.

Kegs and bottles!

2009-03-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Just in response to a question about kegging and bottle washing:

Way back in the beginning of packaging, if you wanted to buy some beer, you would take a bucket or some type of transfer device to the brewery and pay or barter to fill it. They would have an open tank of beer brewed that day. Normally it takes six days for microorganisms to really grow and spoil the beer. The beer would be consumed in the first few days of purchase. This was a very fresh product, but you had to live next to a brewery to get it.

The problem was that in the hot summer months the beer would spoil much faster. Before refrigeration, beer wasn't brewed in the hot summer months, but mainly at the ending of winter. That beer needed to be stored to maintain a low microbial count. Holes and caves were employed. If you go to the Pilsen Urquell Brewery, you can still tour the deep caves they excavated to keep their beer.

Beer transport was done in wooden casks at this point. They were easier to move and easy to tap. After a little pitch on the inside of the cask, oxygen uptake and wood flavors were kept to a minimum. Wooden casks were choice for quite a while until more modern breweries started to look for a more durable product. Obviously, the wooden casks could not take the harsh detergents we use now making them very time and labor intensive.

The market shifted to many different materials to replace the wooden cask. Aluminum and steel were the winners for their durability. Stainless steel became the most used material in kegs, and brew-houses, because it would not break down in the presence of NaOH(caustic soda) unlike copper and aluminum. Caustic soda continues to be the choice of breweries for its ability to break down fats and its price.

Stainless steel kegs originally had a bunghole where the product was introduced and the keg was cleaned. Developments in the industry allowed kegs to be "tapped" with a fitting that in combination would apply CO2 and distribute beer to a faucet. However, the filling of these kegs was time consuming and chance of oxygen uptake was quite high. These systems are still in use around the would. These filling machines I believe can go as fast as 2,000 kegs per 8 hour day.

The keg as we know it today was made for one reason: automation. It has many benefits like low oxygen uptake, zero UV uptake, steam sanitization, etc. But the one reason it was developed was to make the brewhouse more efficient. Kegs these days are loaded, depressurized, cleaned, sanitized, filled, pasteurized, palletized and shipped automatically.

Here's a link to some great products offered by KHS in Germany:

http://www.khs.com/us/website.php?id=/en/solutions/keg/peripherie.htm

Please browse their many pretty pictures of kegging machines.

Newer kegs now are only a half barrel(15.5 gallons) or less, as opposed to the full, back-breaking barrel, and have top handles for easy movement. They consist of a tube that goes down to the bottom of the keg to dispense beer and a CO2 inlet at the top to pressurize. But enough about kegs, let's move on to bottles!

Now, why doesn't the States use those heavy-duty returnable bottles like some places in Europe? We used to return bottles; why not anymore? Wouldn't it be more "green" to re-use bottles?

The number one reason we as a country went away from returnable bottles was fuel costs. As a country we drank more and more macro-beer. Macro-beer is made in extremely large facilities in only a few places across the country. The cost of shipping heavy bottles only to be sorted out as mostly trash was not worth the effort or the fuel. It is less "green" to ship heavy bottles for consumption and return than to ship lighter bottles for consumption and recycling. In some countries, shipping is not that bad so governments has enforced a bottle return policy.

To tell you the truth it wouldn't be that bad if we enforced the same rules (and we might!). We would just have to drink more local. It is my belief that certain taxation laws inhibit small brewers and help large brewers. Maybe that will change, maybe not.

Anywho, that's the reason that some bottles have labels that come off easy. They are meant to be sent through a bottle washer. Bottle washers are an extremely expensive piece of equipment and no brewer would want one unless forced by their government. If we forced our breweries to buy and use bottle washers without some kind of subsidy, it would surely put the small guys out of business. Check out this standard bottle washer from Krones:

http://www.krones.com/downloads/reinigungstechnik_e.pdf

Day in the Life

2009-03-04T18:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of a typical break between lectures during the day at Siebel. The famous Bier Stube was originally at the Peterson Ave location and dates back to the fifties. It's a place for students to culminate around a few wobbly-pops and talk about what was learned or just relax after class.

This week we've been learning about packaging, materials, CIP systems, bottling, canning and kegging. What's taught well in this class is not just how to keg, but how the kegging system works, why it works that way, how it was made, history of previous systems and materials used. We spent half of the day learning about the different materials used in a brewhouse. It's been a realistic, applicable week of learning so far. One of the most important tools a brewer can have is a good flashlight. It's just like when I was plumbing. Inspection and logical thinking rule in the brewhouse as well as plumbing repair. Going to this school will not make you a better brewer anymore than a fitness magazine will make you lose weight. However, you can apply your knowledge with a catalyst (flashlight) and see good results.

It's also neat that many of the teachers are alumni. It's kind of like Hogwarts. Students can look through the old class pictures and talk to the teachers about how it was back then, what kind of improvements have been made in the industry, etc.

BTW, if anyone reading this blog has any technical questions, large or small, I'll be happy to find out the answer for you. There are a great many brains I can pick; just shoot me an email at daveybrewing@gmail.com

Places I will go

2009-03-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Today we had a new teacher from Germany who will take us through the next week of production and packaging. We spent most of the day learning about returnable bottle washing. It was a fascinating subject although inapplicable to the North American breweries, which leads me to my next point.

This diploma class is not about learning how to brew on a small brewpub system. It is also not about how to brew on a 100,000hl system. It's a diploma about every system. I feel that some small brewers slam this school because it's full of knowledge that they don't need. I also see that some of the large brewers find that it's full of knowledge that they already know.

Bottom line is that it's a complete brewing education.

I would feel comfortable working in any brewery around the world after this course. Not only that, but I know more about how barley grows and is malted, how yeast metabolizes, how hops are isomerized, how product is stabilized, how product is packaged and how it is sold. Do I need this information to work in any of the breweries small or large? No. But it's this knowledge that makes a brewer grow. I would take this class over again in a heartbeat and suggest it to anybody who considers it.

I find it a little sad that enrollment has been down at the brewing schools in NA. I also believe that if taxes were lower on beer our profit margins would be higher. Our industry would afford more education and our products would be better. The Germans laugh at how little we know about what we are doing. In Germany, it is not uncommon to spend four or five years in school to be a brewer. I'll spend three months. And that is not short enough to our standards! Enrollment is down at UCDavis and in the early part of this century our oldest brewing school was sold to Lallemand in Canada.

J.E. Siebel was born in Dusseldorf in 1845 and immigrated to America opening his chemical laboratory in Chicago 1868. In 1872 he opened Siebel's Institute of Technology and wrote extensively on the subject of brewing. After a while the Diploma program was offered at the school along with other subjects in German and English. In the year before Prohibition was put into effect, J.E. Siebel passed away. However, the Siebel Institute survived Prohibition by teaching yeast production in the bread industry. After Prohibition the brewing industry in America soared. With F.P Siebel Sr. the classes grew. One can guess looking at the class sizes before and after WWII that the growth in brewing sky-rocketed when the nation was building up. The 1943-1944 class was nearly ten and the 1949 class was nearly 50.

Although I'm a huge fan and supporter of the craft brew revolution in the 80's, 90's and 2000's, I do wonder what more education would have done. Now I'm not saying anyone without a formal education is making bad beer, but I am saying that many failures could have been avoided. What would it be like if every brewer had the financial capacity of learning every logistic thing he or she could about their trade? I know coming from a plumber's background, where I learned everything through trial and error, that if there were a class I could take on my job I would heartily take it.

Here's the places we will go in Europe:
Oettinger brewery, KHS bottling plant, Orval, Cantillion, Heineken, Koeingshoven, Uerige, Rastal glassware, Kolner brewery in Koln, Weyermann, Krones and many more...

to learn more about Siebel's history check out my reference:
http://siebelinstitute.com/introduction/

Our Beer

2009-03-03T05:37:00.001-08:00

Another great Friday

2009-02-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

This was a crazy fun! At lunch we were shuttled to Laschet's german-style beer bar for German style tastings. It was a benefit to have Dr. Michael Zepf from Germany (shown here to the right) with us along with instructors Mary and Tim. Laschet's was kind of a mecca for Siebel students when the school was located closer. We tried every style of oxidized beer they had in the bottle and commented on them. The draught beer was in good condition although Michael insisted it would taste better in Munich. He was sort of a celebrity. If I were sitting at Prost in Greenwood and found out that the guy sitting next to me was a German brewmaster trained at Weihenstephan, I'd think it was pretty cool. After lunch, a few liters of DAB and some Celebrator, we were bused back to Siebel and started drinking on the Goose IPA keg.

Tim called last call at school and the bunch of us decided to check out Curt's new place. He recently had to move from the waterfront skyrise to the 58th floor of the John Hancock tower. That's us checking out the view on the left. Michael decided to come along since it was his last day before flying back to Bavaria. We drank beers in the dark and studied the view while asking Michael about mashing techniques, what to do in Munich, Barack Obama, the fusarium problem in Europe etc. Adam and I had a great conversation about Seattle breweries and where to hike in the Olympics and Cascades. It made me homesick, but I can't wait to go hiking with Shanna, Chris and Colin when I get back. Then we went to the top of the tower where there's a bar and had a drink.

After that we trained up to Wriglysville to check out another beer bar. Michael thought it was exciting that the subways were just like in the movies! It was packed at the Risque Cafe so we went to the Hofbrau house and finished a few litres of infected Hofbrau. This class has made us more sensitive the the effects of beer aging and lacto infection. I don't know if that's a good thing. I feel like a snob. Hofbrau is a government owned brewery so Michael thought it was funny to be at one in Chicago. I don't remember how many times I said "ein prosit" but I do remember saying it after the owner found out we had a real German with us and sent over Jaeger shots. I said my goodbyes and walked home shortly afterwards.

Beer Stability and Free Recipe!

2009-02-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

This week we're being taught by Dr. Michael Zepf from Munich. He's an extremely smart guy who did his thesis on beer gushing. Shown in this picture is Danny enjoying a litre of Pils, not Dr. Zepf. The Germans would not like the lack of foam on Danny's beer.

"There is no such thing as beer stability. When you age wine and it slowly turns back into grape juice. When you age beer it slowly turns back to wort. Which would you drink?"

Some of the problems with beer stability are the trends in the market towards longer travel of the beer, lower flavor, lower "light" alcohol beers. Although this is not true for the local handcrafted "malternative" beer, it is definitely a trend of the large and some of the craft breweries.

The precursors for staling (lipids, high alcohols) are effected by temperature, oxygen, light and of course, time. Different free amino acids, through the Strecker degradation reaction to form "aging carbonyls". Aging carbonyls are described as having a "sweet, moldy taste". These aging carbonyls through yeast reduction are then reduced to higher alcohols. It's the aging or "time" factor that effects all beer. Through aging and oxidation the higher alcohols and other factors, that our yeast buddies spent so much time producing, go back to the aging carbonyls. That's what Dr. Kepf meant by beer being turned back into wort. Fresh beer has a crisp, dry and bitter taste. Old beer looses bitterness and becomes more sweet and finally turning to a cardboard flavor.

Although Dr. Zepf employs decoction mashing on all of his beers at the brewery, he suggests not to on lighter beers. Lipoxygenase is denatured at 60C, and he suggests mashing in at this. However, he won't stop decoction mashing out of tradition. Why change a winning team?

Here's a little Amber Hefe recipe I came up with in honor of him:
O.G. 12P. around 20EBC about 14BU
for 12 gallons treat water to match Munich or at least 100ppm Calcium
50% Wheat 4EBC 10lbs
40% Munich 16EBC 8lbs
10% Carahell 24EBC 2lbs
.5% Carafa Special II 900EBC 2oz

(edit. mash in for ferulic acid rest at 45C and apply heat to mash to 60C before continuing.) Mash at 60C. Pull large decoction after 20 min. Iodine test decoction before denaturing enzymes. Add small portion of decoction to raise mash to 65C. Hold for 10 minutes. Add rest of decoction to raise to 72-75C for mashout.

Boil with lowest burner you have, not vigorously for 6o minutes! Add 13BU (1oz)of German Perle extract or pellets at 40 min, add 1 or 2 BU (.5oz)of German Tettnanger pellets at 10min. Whirlpool, chill and ferment at 17-19C (edit. ferment at 20C)with Wiehenstephan 68(Wyeast 3068). Bottle condition and serve at breakfast with sausage and pretzels.

BTW after we finished the sierra nevada pale and 312, we finished kegs of fat tire, two kegs of Great Lakes dortmunder, Three Floyds Gumball head, and another sierra nevada. Yeah us!

Les Petite Mutants

2009-02-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a winning picture of the remaining members of the Zymotechno band "Les Petite Mutants" studying at Curt's place on the 59th floor of a waterfront skyrise. That's Curt from Bend on the left, Chris from Chapel Hill, Brian from Pendleton and of course, Paul from Ventura in front weaseling his way into every photo I take.

This week was all about yeast microbiology. When we got to processes of genetic engineering my brain shut off. I wanted to get my hands on a microscope and some petri dishes to practice the techniques we've learned, but that will likely be saved for Germany.

An interesting study about acid washing from a large American brewer: Hop acids are more to do with destroying Pedio and Lacto than the lower pH. Just squirt a little tetrahydroisohumulone in your yeast brink! Sounds easy enough. Now if I could only buy some hydro-humulones...

The third most produced material during fermentation is glycerol. Didn't see that one coming.

There's a brewing process called Continuous Fermentation. It consists of yeast entrained in an inert medium, like beechwood or silica balls, and the wort is slowly passed through to create a faster fermentation.

We also learned the chemical reactions of all the most abundant flavor compounds in beer. Then we tried spiked samples of Bud with all the nasty stuff in small or large amounts. We tried diacetyl, acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, amyl alcohol, acetic acid, DMS, metallics, higher BUs, lactic acid, SO2 and higher ethanol. Some of us were blind to flavors while others were overly sensitive. The fridge that all these chemicals are stored in stinks up the whole room every time it's opened. Although the DMS is in a screw top test tube, sealed in a plastic bag and put in the fridge, on an average day you can smell it through the fridge door. Siebel sells kits of this stuff for homebrew clubs and beer geeks with ASBC recommended amounts for spiking if anyone's interested.

My favorite sensory analysis was American Beer. We did Premium Lager, Amer. Wheat, Fruit Beer, Amber, Pale Ale, IPA, DIPA, Barleywine, Imperial Stout and wood aged beer. After polishing off Boulder Mojo, Arcadia DIPA, Rogue Old Crustacean, Flying Dog Gonzo and Goose Bourbon County I looked over at my friend Danny and proclaimed that I was really drunk. That was a fun Tuesday.

Week three Wee-hee

2009-02-17T04:57:00.000-08:00

This week starts off all about yeast and microbiology. WEEEEE!

Actually, all the classmates are really into this one. What's eye opening to me is the amount of potential spoiling bacteria in wort. The teacher mentioned an article published by Dr. Michael Lewis at UC Davis claiming that the traditional protein rest employed may have more to do with the bacteria present in the malt producing protases than the barley producing other proteolytic enzymes. I couldn't find this article so send me a link if you can.

I also learned that vice-president of Siebel, Mr. Keith "Lemy" Lemcke has found my blog so no more dark, mysterious, ultra-top brewing secrets will be released via this blog. For a guy that's composed of mainly ears and nose, Keith's a really nice guy. My favorite job he has is "official keg-swapper".

One of our yeast teachers Graeme, from Scotland, informed us that the yeast make their own CO2 and it's that CO2, among other things, that make finished beer so free from microorganisms. Some brewers he exclaimed inject CO2 into their beer and, with a despicable face, "That's not real ale!"

We decided as a class not to let him know that Scotland's not a real country.

Well, we killed the Sierra Nevada Pale and the Goose 312 yesterday. That's five kegs in a little over two weeks. John Maier's insists his class killed six kegs a week. I think it's a fabrication but a good goal nonetheless.

Standing Ovation

2009-02-16T05:33:00.000-08:00

I'd left Chicago's Rock Bottom restaurant having finished the appetizer sampler, with fellow-in-beer Paul, when I heard the beautiful music. You couldn't call it a sampler; it was more of a double-decker smorgasbord of grease and dipping sauces. It went well with the imperial red ales and as we were walking down into the drab yellow tile subway walls our stomachs churned happily.

Then as I said goodbye to Paul to head on the north red line and he to head south, I heard them. I was just pulling my ipod out of my jacket when the sounds of music wafted up through the tunnels. At first, one would think it was just another jerk with a stereo playing for all to hear. I shoved my ipod deep in my jacket to investigate.

Three old men, some missing teeth, one with guitar, one with a shaker were singing. The fellow without any instruments made up for the fact by flowing his arms through the air like a conductor to the tune "Stand By Me" which they executed in three part harmony. "If mountains we look upon, should tumble and fall," the overly red mouthed man raspily sung. The guitar player hit the lowest bass note on "fall" with a smile. The man with the shaker kept the rhythm nearly smacking off his top hat. The new passengers stood around them like a trash-can fire, their music a respite from the cold, dirty subway. Some of us bopped our heads, some left dollars for them. I thought of all the crazies I and others had seen on the trains of Chicago since getting here. Other old men trying to sell me expired train tickets, other ones taking loudly to themselves, one guy snorting coke off his forearm and punching himself in the face until he bled and the other old man sitting on a street corner who showed us with awesome precision how to get to the brewery. "Thanks for the standing ovation," the red-mouthed man said and we laughed just as the train intruded. I couldn't listen to the more hopeless music I had left in my ipod; especially with "I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't be afraid just as long as you stand by me." blasting through my head.

The Last Call Bell

2009-02-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

Did I mention we drink a lot of beer? As a class we've finished a keg of Bud American Ale, Boston Lager, Goose Island Honker's, and now we've moved on to Goose 312 and Sierra Pale Ale. It's only the end of week two.

My friend in shortness and awesomeness, Paul here displays the last call bell. When the faculty call for last, well, you can read the note.

Some friends are forming within the class. A lot of the west-coasters (myself included) are grouping up. About six of us are planning on renting a house in Grafelfing close to the school in Germany. It'll be like real world, but maybe beeral world.

There is one woman in the class of 28. Claudia works for InBev in Brazil. She spends most of her time talking to Thiago also from Brazil.

Did I mention the water here sucks? It's like drinking milk. I haven't had a good cup of joe since I left Seattle. I mentioned this problem to my west coast friends and they all experienced the same problem. Maybe we're all coffee snobs?

Yet again today is another test. We've covered so much stuff this week I'm not sure how well I'll do. Passing is only 70% or higher and last week I got 97%. I'm looking forward to treating myself to a calzone from Amato's at lunch. The Italian restaurants have real italians out here. In Seattle it's only Greeks.

YouTube - Stackenblochen

2009-02-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

YouTube - Stackenblochen

Here's to how I feel about those crazy Germans.
Love it or hate it, they've a way with order.

The Mixing Formula!

2009-02-12T18:35:00.001-08:00

Here's an easy one familiar to all you algebra students!

Aa+Bb=Cc

Capital letters express quantities and lowercase express properties.

Let's say I have 200bbls of beer at 7.15%abv. How much abv will I have if I add 100bbl of water?

A=200bbl
a=7.15abv
B=100bbl
b=0%abv (water)
C=300bbl (after dilution)
c=x

(200*7.17)+(100*0)=300x
1420+0=300x
1420/300=x
x=4.77

It also works for color!

Brewer's Cross

2009-02-12T05:25:00.001-08:00

Quick hand formula for decoction brewers thanks Germans! I might end up with this tattoo.
Imagine a cross through the equation.

Mash temp_______________________________________________100-x

_________________Desired temp(x)_____________________

Boiling(100)___________________________________x-mash temp

Add the two numbers you get on the right (100-x) + (x- mash temp)= y This is your factor.
Then go back and divide to find your percentages (100-x)/y= percentage left in mash.
(x-mash temp)/y= percentage to remove and boil.

Hot-side aeration

2009-02-10T17:16:00.000-08:00

I know there's been a lot of discussion in the homebrew meetings about the effects of "hot-side aeration". Here's the meat of the subject: Oxygen can bond itself molecularly onto many things (of which in class we haven't discussed) in the wort AND the crushed grain. I'm assuming it bonds with amino acids, peptides and other long-chain proteins like b-glucane that are soluble but unfermentable in wort. (Help me out bio-chemists!)

There is an enzyme developed in barley, that is prevalent in well-modified malt, called LOX or lipoxygenase. Just like it sounds, it digests lipids in the presence of oxygen. Most home, craft and micro-brewers don't even bother with the level of LOX- you can't measure it, you can only prevent it. It causes beer staling(oxidation), and in some cases gushing, in a frosty brew. I don't yet understand how it works, enzymes are ALL denatured at boiling temps, but LOX obviously can ruin a finished beer.

So, you can aerate your mash and crushed your dry grains all you want as long as your product is consumed within a month of manufacture. Large breweries go to great lengths to ensure that oxygen cannot expose the mash bed or the crushed grain. Many large breweries have wet malt mills: mills that crush wet malt to ensure no exposure to oxygen.

Anybody want to weigh in on this one? I'll ask Ray Daniels tomorrow and I won't leave until I have a bio-chemical answer.

Beer+Men+Bus=Smells

2009-02-10T05:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of Briess's office building in Chilton, Wisconsin. We had a great power-point seminar about making specialty grains and sampled all their product. Then it was off to the middle of town to visit the malting plant built in 1900. We were told not to bring any cameras, cell phones or recording devices because they've had problems with "blogs". So, sorry I don't have photos of the facility.

After learning about the process for a whole week, we could walk through the facility and point out exactly what everything was and did. The class felt pretty darn smart. Although we had frosty beverages on the bus and at lunch, we did spend seven hours driving to and from Chilton. I felt like a rock star in a very unpleasant way.

Briess is coming out with a smoked malt targeted for heavier american beers like smoked porter. Unlike Bamburg malt, it won't be something you should use over 30%. It will be 6-9L six-row made with cherry wood. I want to try it.

We got back around 7:00 and because it was my birthday, Chicago was raining and 50F. Thanks for making me feel at home. A lot of the guys went to the Local Option and drank IPAs untill fun conversations about metal, 60's pop and grunge persisted into the evening.

Barack and BYOB

2009-02-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a funny thing about Chicago that Seattle natives might find interesting. There's a special liquor license a restaurant can buy called BYOB. That's right, bring your own beer. You pretty much go buy your favorite six-pack or 40oz. and bring it to dinner with you. I just need to find the right beer to go with Thai food.

It's no surprise, but Chicagoians love Obama. Near infatuation. You can find framed pictures of him in gift shops. It's not uncommon to wear Barack clothes everywhere. I especially liked this spray-painted mural.

Friday of Immortal Darkness

2009-02-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

We celebrated the first week's test by following one teachers to Piece Pizza and Brewery. Paul (shown) exemplified our feelings to this massively flat pizza.

I'm torn between the group of students that will surely be thought of as the "trouble makers" and just sitting back out of the action. No matter how much trouble we get ourselves into on this trip, I'll make sure I don't regret anything.

If you are ever going to Chicago, you should check out the Hopleaf. They have a massive selection of Belgians for what I found was quite affordable. I got a generous pour of Triple Karmeliet in proper glassware for $7. Beat that Brouwers!

What I have found kinda annoying is how many people pack every good bar on the weekends. Eric, Sara, Erin and I went next door to the 'Leaf to get even more pizza and Czechvar. Mmmm real Budweiser.

A few of the classmates and I made up a fictional brewery during class at breaks. I guess only beer nerds would find this funny but we were cracking ourselves up. Since the class is from all over the US, the goal is to go to brew events/festivals/web forums and make hype about a fictional brewery much like Spinal Tap. This small, eco-friendly brewery would be famous for brewing "Immortal Darkness". Whenever the teacher would describe an inefficient way of brewing, we would murmur under our breaths, "immortal darkness". "Dude, have you had Immortal Darkness? I heard they use fifty pounds of Summit per barrel! Yeah, intense! I also heard they use chocolate malt as their base and have a bike repair shop in the brewhouse! Man, I got to move to Portland. They make such gnarly beer."

A long week full of info

2009-02-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the big pop quiz so tonight I'm studying hardcore. Not that it's any different than any other day this week, but I guess there's significance. I have been able to get to know the other fellows in the class more and more as the week goes on. We drink beer at lunch and after class at die bier stube. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate after lunch, but the beer is free and good. We've already killed a keg of Boston Lager and are moving on to Honker's Ale. I don't know if we'll get through that keg of Bud American Ale. The beer on tap is a long tradition included in the tuition. I thought it was just "really cool" at first but found that it indeed teaches a lesson. We are reminded repeatedly that as new brewers we are the "ambassadors" of the beer world. We are expected to drink beer and function or decide not to drink beer to function. Also, the teachers describe beer as "food" and "good for you". It provides protein, b-vitamins, essential minerals, and anti-oxidants. It is also better for you than wine. However, in the States our teachers can't publish that; ATF holds strict rules on those facts even though they have been published in scientific journals. Today we took class pictures to stand up next to the ones on the wall. They provide a jacket, shirt and tie if you should desire to look nice. Of course I put it on, combed my hair over and gave my best Augy Busch impression I could.

I never thought I'd look forward to a Friday so much. The whole class is probably going to Piece Pizza and Brewery at the end of tomorrow. This week we learned more about barley, malt, specialty malt, hops, hop extract, and water than I thought I could ever know.

Here's some tidbits that homebrewers might find interesting:

Grape-nut cereal is flavored with base malt.

Manufacturing roasted barley is so dangerous that most malting companies keep the local fire department on the phone while it's being roasted.

At least one major brewery uses 50% adjunct

Budweiser used pellet hops and Willamette in the finish until bought out by InBev

Sam Adams uses whole hops (we learned how INCREDIBLY inefficient this is)

Despite my predisposition, hop extracts aren't that bad. We even got to sample some.

Breweries require a certain type of base malt and the malting companies make it for them. (I thought one malt from one malting company was all I could buy)

Many large breweries don't hop their wort; they add hop oils after fermentation.

Barley is alive before and after the malting process. I still don't believe this one.

Hops are not bought and sold. Alpha acids are bought and sold.

YouTube - George Carlin Talks About "Stuff"

2009-02-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

YouTube - George Carlin Talks About "Stuff"

If there were any way to describe my feelings about moving to Chicago for a few months...

RIP George

Intense learning,,,head hurts

2009-02-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

So I thought I'd keep up this blog especially for my homebrew friends. I thought maybe writing down what I learn will help me study and I'm sure people'd be curious. That's not going to happen; there's just too much info. We spent 3/4 of the day on barley before we even touched on malt. That's six hours of farming knowledge. I woke up with a cold too.

What may tickle homebrewer's brains: premature yeast flocculation can be related to the amount of CO2 present around the barley during the germination phase although no one knows why. During the dormancy phase of the barley, the plant acts kinda like a mammal; it respires O2 and releases CO2 instead of the other way around. That's why proper removal of CO2 in the steeping tanks is important.

Gushing in the final product can be attributed to too much percentage of barley infected with fusarium head blight (a fungal pest that plagues corn, barley and wheat). It causes a deoxynivalenol or DON (vomitoxin) which is carcinogenic and withholds free CO2 into the finished beer causing the bottle to gush. If your barley is infected with DON, and you try to sell it as feed, animals tend to vomit, hence the name.

All of these problems can be avoided by buying malt from a GOOD maltser who has sound malting practices and buys only barley with a 95% germination rate. No more discount malt, eh?

BTW, we're touring Briess here soon, I'll try to sneak my camera in.

Officiating dictates Super Bowl XLIII to the unreviewed end - Shutdown Corn... - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

2009-02-02T05:15:00.000-08:00

Officiating dictates Super Bowl XLIII to the unreviewed end - Shutdown Corn... - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

I'm a bitter Seahawks fan. The refs gave Super Bowl XL to the Steelers too.

Ray Daniels and Super Bowl

2009-02-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a classroom shot at Siebel. Lots of history here that I'll try to record as much as possible. Note the head shots of Augy Busch III class of '61 and John Maier class of '86. The Siebel bier stube is a bar that dates back to the beginning of the school. VP Keith informed us that everyone that has ever been at class there has had quite a few beers at this bar. Stroh, Pabst, all the Busch family and many more. On tap was Bud American Ale and Sam Adam's Boston Lager. Not the highlight of the brew scene for me, but hey, the New Glarus guys dropped off a ton a beers for sampling as well. I met Ray Daniels; he'll be teaching for a week. All of the students were a bit star-struck.

I expected the students would be from breweries but only a few were. Most were entrepreneurs like myself and I found myself talking about the business side of brewing more than the brewing. One thing we all had in common was official beer-geekdom. One fellow sighed, looked around and said, "Well, now I know why people dress up at Star Wars conventions." Many of the students were from the west coast including three from Seattle, myself included. After the meet and greet we went across the street to Goose Island to watch the Steelers cheat their way to another Super Bowl win.

Shirts on Sheffield

2009-02-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

My room is small and shakes with the passing trains. If you're familiar with the brown line heading north just before the Belmont and Clark stop, you may remember the house/business that says "Shirts on Sheffield". I can wave at the passers by. Antoine and his girlfriend Claire welcomed me this morning with a tray of coffee mugs, sugar and cream. It was just another line on the list of hospitality and warm friendship these two have. It's strange to stay in a little, old house in Chicago. Seattle's housing is small I believe because the land is so hilly and landlocked in beautiful water. Chicago is totally the other end of the spectrum. There is not even a whisper of inclination let alone a hill is in this land. Storms in Seattle can come in overnight and surprise everyone or promised snow may not come at all. In Chicago, you can see the weather coming from Canada days before it hits. It can be predicted to the hour. Building and streets here are massive. Most streets, even side streets, can be four or five lanes with parking on each side and large sidewalks. The theater in Oldtown is literally four times the size of the Paramount in Seattle. I feel like an ant. One can see a destination just a few blocks away, but it still takes what feels like forever to walk it. Everyone mentions the great public transport, and it is! But darn if it's not expensive to get around. $2.25 per trip on bus or the L with a two hour $.25 transfer. Getting a day pass at $5.75 is worth the investment if you'll make more that two trips. The taxi system is far cheaper than Seattle. It is not uncommon to get honked at by a taxi when you walk out of an establishment. In Seattle, you have to call a taxi and wait sometimes for twenty minutes for the guy to charge you twenty or more buck to get home. Sheesh.

Prost!

2009-01-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

On my last trip to Chicago, we stayed at one of Al Capone's hideouts in St. Charles. None of the rooms had windows; only the hallways. It seems that Chicagoians love their crooks. Blagoiavich? is kinda popular.

Also, the women all have low scratchy voices that recall excessive smoking or screaming.

Hanging out at Belmont and Clark, Old Style.

2009-01-31T10:29:00.000-08:00

So I had heard that 5~10F was really cold. I wasn't prepared.

One of my old Seattle friends Eric and his girlfriend Sara met me at the L&L Tavern last night for some beers. Sara described it as a "three pants" night. They showed me pictures of Eric with multiple scarves around his face a few weeks ago when it was -25F. "My eyes were freezing shut."

Three years ago on a trip to Chicago in May, I happen to run into Eric at a Irish bar. One of the things we both had in common was our love of the Mountain Goats. Of course back then they were playing the next night making the highlight of my trip. Too bad they're coming in April this year. But hey! Bonnie "Prince" Billy is playing one block from my house in March!

Traveling, living out of a bag.

2009-01-31T10:17:00.000-08:00

Damp, thick fog hung low in Seattle Friday morning when I departed. I never get used to the joy that takeoffs and landings bring me. One thousand feet above the gray, freezing fog the sun was spectacular. The Cascades took forever to cross, and I could point out peaks I had hiked to: Rattlesnake ledge and across from it Mt. Si. All of northern America is covered in snow, especially Chicago.

Chicago Beer Garden, Bar, and Barbecue Restaurant - Chicago's Best Craft Beer - North Side - Wrigleyville - Lakeview/ Lincoln Park

2009-01-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

This could be really bad. A craft beer bar within two blocks of where I'm staying.

Chicago Beer Garden, Bar, and Barbecue Restaurant - Chicago's Best Craft Beer - North Side - Wrigleyville - Lakeview/ Lincoln Park

Last Hurrah to the employed life!

2009-01-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

The whole gang from Pioneer Plumbing came out to Naked City Taphouse to send me off on my last day of work. I sure wish I could spend more time with these guys not at work.

What was on everyone's mind was the slowdown in work due to the economy. Work's been drying up, and we all brainstormed for a solution not to lay off more folks. It's seems it's a perfect time for me to be leaving; the rest of the service plumbers need the hours. I have decided that I only want to work for small business. The comradery in a small shop is unparalleled.

The last of the moving

2009-01-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Over the last weekend my friends at Beacon Hill Brewing took to storing all my homebrew gear and my two brew fridges. They've been a huge help. Hopefully, Rodney and Colin will take this opportunity to make plenty of beer. I can't wait to try their experiments when I get back.

i heart shanna

2009-01-21T21:56:00.001-08:00

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2009-01-21T21:32:00.000-08:00

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