Westbennetteren 20: The Quest for 20 Percent

After a 3 month primary brawl, using almost 5lbs of sugar, I cracked 20% and created a beast of a beer!

After breaking such a massive barrier I'm briefly sneaking out of my blogging retirement to tell the story of how it came to be.

The Road There

The road to what became Westbennetteren 20 was a long and winding one.  It started in 2013 during an evening of beers and games.  I clearly remember at least two of the people at the table being Daniel Fernandez (of Beancurdturtle Brewing and BCT Brewing Project fame) and Miklos Somogyi.  During the evening the subject of quads came up and we had a discussion on the evolution of the trappist styles along with what the next logical step would be.  Logically the argument was for it to be called a Quintuple (or The Quint as Miklos would refer to it over the next few years) and be in the mid-teens abv wise.

Over the next few years I would think about brewing it, even occasionally putting it on deck. During this time I would toy with the recipe trying to think both of what I wanted it to be and how I would push it into the abv range.   One of my initial recipes had doubling the amount of candi syrup I use in the boil for Westbennetteren 12. During this time I firmed up in my mind that this beer would be more of a supped up quad than anything else.  

Eventually I moved away from just trying to overload it with candi syrup in the boil and instead moved towards step feeding it pure dextrose in primary.  This is the technique used in brewing Black Tuesday, 120 Minute IPA and several others.  I ended up adapting the methodology Scott over at Bertus Brewery used for his DogFish 120 IPA clone with the base recipe being my Westbennetteren 12.  Additional notes on brewing massive beers. 

With the recipe firmed up and after two back to back years of disappointing batches of Westbennetteren 12 (b3 stalled fermentation followed by a slight infection, b4 flat) I decided that the time to brew the quint had arrived.

The Journey Begins 

On Sunday, March 6, 2016 I set out early in the morning to brew essentially Westbennetteren 12 for the fifth time.  Overall it was a smooth brewday.

After some discussion on brewday and thinking about it in more depth I've decided that Westbennetteren 20 isn't a Quintuple after all, it's actually something more.

To start with let's take a look at the progression of "trappist" style beers.

Single 4-6% ABV pale in color

Dubbel 6-7.5% ABV dark in color

Tripel 7.5-9.5% ABV pale in color

Quad 9.5-13% ABV dark in color

The pattern that emerges is that odd numbered beers are pale while even numbers are dark with deep red, brown and garnet hues. There is also a pattern in the abv range with little overlap. Between the high range of a quad and the lowest abv I targeted for Westbennettern 20 (18% to 22%) there's 5 percentage points up for grabs. Based on that here is my proposed expansion of trappist styles 

Single 4-6% ABV pale in color

Dubbel 6-7.5% ABV dark in color

Tripel 7.5-9.5% ABV pale in color

Quad 9.5-13% ABV dark in color

Quintuple 13-18% ABV pale in color 

Westbennetteren 20 18-22% dark in color

As far as style names go there are actually 2 options sextuple or hexatruple

Given the fact I'm probably making many a monk roll over in their grave I'm going with Westbennetteren 20 - The Hex (hexatruple)

The Battle Rages

Fermentation started out fine and within a week it had gone from 1.113 to 1.024.  At this point (14 March 2016) I pitched the first starter of WLP099 (Super High Gravity Ale Yeast) along with 12oz of dextrose and some pure O2. My plan out of the Bertus methodology had been to pitch 12 oz of sugar morning and night till it slowed down then moving over to 6 oz additions till it reached the target range. The expectation is that the yeast consumes the sugar at a rate equal to what you are adding. I would check gravity nightly using cleaned and sanitized equipment so that I could add the samples back after measurement. 

It became clear pretty quickly that I was adding gravity points faster than the yeast was consuming them.  For the 5th addition I moved from 12oz to 6oz to see it that would help, it didn't.  During the first 5 days I'd added 54.2 oz of dextrose with the gravity increasing to 1.041. So while it was consuming the sugar, gravity would have been up to 1.051 if it hadn't been, it wasn't consuming it nearly fast enough.  At this point I stopped adding sugar and moved gravity checks to every couple of days.  My plan was to resume adding sugar once it reached 1.026.  

Alas it completely staled out at 1.030 for over 3 weeks.  At this point the accumulated OG was 1.140 and calculated alcohol only 17.1%.  Too low for me to stop yet not to mention at 1.030 was a little too sweet.

To kick it back into gear I ended up repitching twice - the first was another starter of WLP099 with an additional 12oz of sugar.  Unfortunately it didn't get very far and ended up stalling for another month at 1.035.

Not long after, during a meeting of The Fellowship of Tao Brewers at my place we sampled it and discussed my plight.  Afterwards I took in all the advice I was given and formulated a cure for my situation. 

The Cure

The cure consisted of pitching a liter starter made with 2 packages of Champagne yeast and several capsules of Servomyces. At pitching I also included another couple capsules and some fresh O2 for good measure. I took gravity a couple of days later and it had dropped to 1.026 ~ 18.7% abv.  With some solid fermentation progress I decided resume slowing feeding it another 12oz.  This took me to a accumulated OG of 1.152. 

Final Gravity

On June 11th, just a touch over 3 months since the brewday, it hit 1.020. After some back and forth texts with Shawn I set the fermentation chamber to 30°F to cold crash the yeast and stopped the fermentation! Using the advanced gravity formula 1.152 to 1.020 came out to be 20.7% abv. 

I lagered it for 2 months to help it clear before I forced carbbed it for bottling as I didn't have any confidence it would bottle condition.

The Conclusion 

The last change I made from Westbennetteren 12 was to change the color of the cap.  With Westbennetteren 12 being directly inspired by Westvleteren 12 I'd always used gold caps from Bottle Mark. For Westbennetteren 20 I optied to go with SNB "house colors" of red and black, a combo that worked within the existing Green Blue Gold Westvleteren cap color scheme.

Lessons for next time.

- Start with 6oz of sugar per feeding and ensure it gets consumed before adding more

- Keep the upper temp below 82 (one of the reasons it could have stalled is I might have cooked the yeast in the upper 80s) 

- Use Servomyces at second pitch

- Drive the FG lower to the 1.014 range, it was still going when I cold crashed it and I find it a little sweet (something which might mellow with age) 

- More hops to help counteract the sweetness. 

Now that it's all wrapped up it gets a couple months to even out before I share them (1 or 2 might have already slipped out).  If we do a QuadFest 2016 I debut a couple bottles then, if not I'll have a private celebration to release them

Cheers

- SNB

Recipe and Instagram Pictures Below the Break

#QuadFest2013

New Font for 2013 

Last December (of 2012) I wrote a recap of QuadFest 2012, a get-together tasting that my friends Daniel, Shawn and myself had a put together in order to try a series of quadruples that we had brewed at the start of that year.  We all felt that it was a very fun and successful event that we wanted to do again next year.  We also decided that we wanted to expand the field of participants by extending invitations to brewers whose beers we've enjoyed in the past and run it through our Fellowship of Tao Brewers Google group.    

We presented the idea of QuadFest 2 - the Quadening, along with a style presentation on brewing quadruples at the January meeting of Tao.  It was met with a lot of positive feedback and interest so I started a new discussion topic for QuadFest 2013 the next day.

The guidelines for new participants were very simple; brew a quad that quarter (sooner the better to give it time to age), bottle it in later summer, come to QuadFest 2013 and have a great time.  There was no set recipe to follow but I included the presentation on quads with some “tips” along with my recipe for Westbennetteren 12 b1.  I still think the recipe would be incredibly easy to convert to extract.  We used the thread all year as a place holder for recipe development, feedback, advice and planning.

The QuadFest 2013 Chalice!

As QuadFest 2013 approached I scrambled to finish some pretty slick participant shirts giving them free range over color and logo set (I had started over the summer but my new job zapped my time).  Daniel also had a set of chalices made with both the QuadFest 2013 logo and the Fellowship of Tao Brewers logo.  The chalices came out incredible taking the silly seriousness of QuadFest to the next level. Once more the Globe hosted us and ended up reserving front tables just to fit us all in as we ended up increase participation to 10 quads and expanded the number of people in attendance to 18 which for once included my wife which made me very happy.  We divided the quads into two flights; Classic (pils/2-row with candi syrup) and Belgian Dark Strong (inclusion of specially malts). Before each one Daniel presented a commercial example for calibration.

In the order presented
SNB Brewing - Westbennetteren 12 - 11.1% - Classic
Kitten Town Brewing - Fifteen Keys - 9.0% - Classic
Burlane Brewhaus - Red sQuadron - 9.5% - Classic
Dogface Brewing Co - Dark Bark 12 - 9.5% - Classic
Neice Brewing Co - Quadzilla II – 13.0% - Classic
Boyd Brewing - Father of Dead in the water – 10.0% - BDS
BreezeWay Brewing - Qua(d)regnon – 10.7% - BDS
Ølë Brewing – Fyrdübbel – 9.9% - BDS
Beadcurdturtle Brewing - BCT Quad 2013 – 10.3% - BDS
Edick Ale Works – Brandy Barrel Quad – 16.0% - BDS

The line up of 10 incredible beers

10 excellent quads from 10 excellent brewers, each one was nicely executed and delicious but still 10 quads… So where do QuadFests go from here?  I’m concerned that we might have outgrown the Globe for next year as we continue to expand. In addition sampling 10 quads is a tough job but I think with a more structured setup we can maybe handle about double that many next year.   

Next year I see QuadFest 2014 going through another expansion in its original format, but with a few slight changes: Early requirements for how much will be needed for QuadFest (3-4 x 750mls) for better planning come bottling. Set the date further in advance, possibly over the summer. Find a new venue to allow for a more focused event with better lighting, I’m hoping we can convince Brad over at Peace to both participate and host. QuadFest 2015 will happen but only time will tell what form it will take.

#QuadFest2014!

Cheers

-SNB

Sour Citra Saison - Same Grain Same Style Different Brewers No.1

The OG beer signal 

A few months back Steve J and Daniel F came up with the idea for "a different kind of 'collaboration'". One that involved brewing the same style of beer and the same grist percentages.  After that, every other aspect (gravity, hops, yeast/bugs, spices etc) was up each brewer. The style for what I am assuming/hoping will be the first of many rounds was determined to saisons. The grist percentages were set at 86% Belgian Pilsner, 11% Spelt and 3% Rye As I've mentioned before saisons aren't my favorite style as they tend to have a wide range of flavor and aroma profiles considered to be "in style" however certain saisons, such as Fifth Element from Squatters, are among my favorite all time beers.

I knew right away that I wanted to team up with Shawn O on this one.  My idea for how I wanted to collaborate with Shawn was pretty simple, 1 mash and 2 kettles.  Basically do the mash for around 11 gallons of wort production and split it into two kettles.  This would allow each of us total control on hops, spices etc.   Initially I figured that he would brew a clean to version while I would sour it in some way.  It quickly became apparent that he also wanted to play around with some bugs, which I was in no way surprised by.  

After a couple of weeks of swapping ideas between each other over various conversations, calls, texts and emails we settled on plan of attack.  Each of us would do our own sour starter which we would combine and add to the mash when we got together.  I would take 6 gallons of wort and add 1.5 gallons of RO with a 60 minute boil targeting a 1.048 SG. Shawn would take the balance adding slightly more RO and do a 90 minute boil looking have 1.037/8 SG.

If you are going to brew a sour saison...

To prep for brewday I made a gallon starter with pilsner DME which I split between two vessels.  The first vessel was a quart mason jar with a half a cup of raw unmilled grain. This became my sour starter as lactobacillus is naturally present on the hulls of grain.  I tried my best to keep it at 120°F using an old Polystat Constant Temperature Circular I had rescued from the trash at work.  Unfortunately the reason it was tossed was that it couldn't cool, which at the time I wasn't concerned about, however as I learned this meant that it would continue to drift up over time.  I was able to remedy this by setting an upper limit which shut it off if it was above, this was accompanied however with a nice alarm. The remaining gallon became the start for an old pitch of ECY04 Brett Blend #1

ECY04 Brett Blend #1 - Three individual Brettanomyces isolates from lambic producers combined to give an aggressive brett presence in any beer. Vigorous, funky, and acid-tolerant, the blend can be added at any stage of fermentation and is excellent for priming or re-yeasting. Contains B. anomala, B. clausenii and B. anomulus

A new saison that I approve of

For the hops I decided I wanted a BIG Citra presence so I planned to hop burst with a good amount of at 20 and 0 while keeping the IBUs contrained (more pale ale level than IPA).  For the bittering hop I decided to go with some Cascade given it's dual use potential.

Brewday itself was a blast.  I headed over very early to find the mash water almost at temp and Shawn waiting for me to mill.  After getting everything set to go we tasted and tested our sour starters.  Both had a pleasant sour bite and combined for a 3.63 pH so we tossed the liquid into the mash.  My brother Ryan (who recently moved to Cali from MN) soon arrived to hangout and help me brew.

In the end we both beat our target gravity with me coming in at 1.051.  It was great to brew with Shawn again as every time I do I learn so much.  The beer is currently fermenting in a poor-man fridge and smells absolutely incredible, I can't wait!

Santé 

-SNB

Pilgrimage for the Tao Brewers Fellowship

The pilgrims

I mentioned in my post on Societe Brewing that the Tao Fellowship (one of the many brewing groups I'm in) was planning a pilgrimage down to see them.  A couple of weekends ago a group of us (Steve C, Steve S, Greg N, Daniel F and myself) got together and headed south in a rented mini van (complete with a free screw in a tire).  Our journey south of the Orange Curtain took us to several destinations, some good, some bad and some outstanding.

We met up at the historic home of Greg Nagel (world renown beer blogger) to assemble and try a few beers.  Once Daniel and his lovely wife HsiHou (who had graciously volunteered to be our DD) arrived we loaded into our "screwed" minivan and took off to sit in traffic for nearly three hours.

Pizza Port Bressi Ranch

Our first stop of the day was the brand new Pizza Port Bressi Ranch location which sometime this year will become their production location canning Pizza Port beers.  Hopefully one of the first through will be Poor Man's IPA but I highly doubt it.  It was a gorgeous and shiny facility, I want to say that they were still in the middle of a soft opening as I'd not seen any official grand opening announcement.  The only reason I knew it was open was cyber-stalking some of my beer buddies on Untappd.

I got two beers while I was there and split a pizza with Greg.  The first beer I had was El Toronado an IPA they brewed up for the San Diego location's 5th anniversary.  Overall it was a solid IPA loaded with pine and citrus aromas and a clean bitter taste.  The next beer up was a half pint of RuinTen from Stone.  I really enjoyed Ruination Tenth Anniversary last year, I even split a bottle with Bonnie to celebrate our Tenth Wedding Anniversary.  I therefore wanted to give RuinTen a try, however tracking down a bottle was proving tough so I was jazzed to find it on draft. Another top shelf dank IPA with even more resiny pine and citrus resin.  The pizza I paired the beers with was a brilliant jalapeno and pineapple that Greg suggested.

After filling up on pizza and beer we set out for our next destination. 

White Labs Tasting Room

I've been using White Labs yeast almost exclusively for the last couple of years and enjoyed what I've read in the Yeast book co-authored by Chris White.  I'd also noticed on their site for their new tasting room that they were offering pours of beers brewed with different yeasts.  I thought that was a great way to really understand the effect yeast could have on a beer.  It was therefore on my recommendation that a group of homebrewers stop by... unfortunately nothing that I drank there lived up to the promise of the concept.  

The biggest problem was the quality of the base beers did little to highlight any noticeable differences produced by the different yeast strains.  Overall it tasted like mediocre homebrew that was fermented without temperature control or water profile adjustments.  While I was glad to have gone it's definitely not a place I can recommend and if I was to do the trip again I've opt to go to AleSmith or Ballast Point instead.  

Leaving disappointed we headed to our next and final destination... 

Societe Brewing Co

There's not much more to say on Societe outside of my previous post but once again Societe proved to be one of the highlights of our journey.  I enjoyed a glass of the latest Bachelor, which is their series of single hopped IPAs this one with Mosaic hops. I also had half pours of Pupil, Apprentice and the Widow and got two fills to send to my Minnesota buddies.

Overall it was a great trip and I would love to do it again soon.

Skål

- SNB

Firestone Walker Invitation Beer Festival 2013 #FWIBF

Hanging out with my favorite brewer Todd Haug of Surly

I've been to a bunch of beer related festivals over the years and my hands down favorite is the Firestone Walker Invitation Beer Festival held annually in Paso Robles.  This is actually the first year I could use the word annually in the correct context as last weekend happened to be it's second annual.  It really is a fantastic fest both in concept and in execution with one of the greatest selection of breweries I've ever seen at a fest.  The basic concept is that Matt Brynildson, Firestone Walker's head brewer, reached out to brewers he knows and respects from across the country and invited them to participate by bringing a minimum of two beers, something rare and something session (low abv generally below 4%).  Also included with the ticket is a great selection of food offerings

For this year I was joined by my stepfather Hugh Hamm and my good friend Daniel Fernandez. Once inside we headed straight to Surly were I had hoped to bump into Todd and Linda Haug however they we're out and about doing their own exploring. While I was enjoying my first beer, Schadenfreude (a dark lager and one of the few Surly beer's that I'd never had) the OC's premier beer blogger Greg Nagel of the OC Beer Blog found us.  The four of us then set out to explore the tremendous offerings that had been selected.

My beer of the day
Brandy Barrel Hunahpu

The first time I lost Hugh was when I stopped by to talk to Linda at the Surly booth.  While I was catching up she asked if I had ever met Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (Mikkeller) and Tore Gynther (To Øl), when I said no she asked if I wanted to. I've had a lot of really cool experiences over the years but having Linda introduce me to Mikkel and Tore was pretty damn awesome.  To it top off Mikkel himself grabbed me a glass of Lil' Mikkel and let me have my picture taken with him.  He also took a picture of me with Linda.

After I found Hugh we headed over to listen to Todd's Behind The Beer Session hosted by the Brewing Network. Ok I'll admit it, with Surly being one of my favorite breweries Surly, while not the main focus, was a big part of this years fest for me. Also, I did get to ask Todd a brewing related "homebrewer nerd" question on the difference between mash hoping and first wort hoping which I had been interested in for some time.  You can see the whole interview here with my question coming in at the 14:08 mark.

For the rest of the day we worked our way around the fest trying tons for great beers and food.  I lost Hugh again when he took off to use the restroom while I manned the abandoned Dogfish Head booth which I used to serve up "barrel aged high fives".  Once I found him we tracked down Greg and Daniel to finish the fest.  We ended up hanging out in the back with Linda and Todd culminating with me talking to Gabe and Julian of Beachwood BBQ & Brewing.  I'm trying to get Julian to be a part of QuadFest 2013 as his  Jean-Quad Van Damme is a nice clean example of the style.

Greg Nagel of the OC Beer Blog on assignment

It should come as no surprise by now that one of the highlights for me was getting to visit and hang out with my friends from Surly Brewing.  I love that in true Surly fashion they brought two of the lower abv beers to the fest; Bitter Brewer (a great american style bitter) and Schadenfreude.  Hopefully next year they'll pull out some Surly Mild and some Bender variants, who knows maybe even some Darkness? On the beer side, my favorite of the day was Brandy Barrel Hunahpu.  There was some much wonderful stuff going on in it with tons of vanilla and cinnamon mixing in and out with the brandy and the wood aromas, truly a wonderful beer. The main highlight however was bumping into and hanging out with friends within the community some of which were in from out of state.  There are two breweries I would love it see invited next year, Squatter's and Noble. I think they would be a prefect fit and I might even put up a post in the future outlining why.

I really can't wait for next year!

Cheers

-SNB

Westbennetteren 12 b2

I got a corded drill to help me mill

Over a year ago I set out to brew my first Belgium Quadrupel aka quad which I tongue-in-cheek called Westbennetteren 12. Not only did it become one of best beers I've brewed (in my opinion) but helped to kick off QuadFest along with Shawn and Daniel.  If you recall from the post we had such a good time we already started planning the 2013 event. To make the date I needed to get brewing!

According to my notes from QuadFest 2012 

I'm very pleased with how it came out.  Lots of nice dark stone fruit flavor.  Great character from the yeast. Slightly high level of carbonation but not as bad as I had feared.  Similar to the Westvleteren but not as dead on as I was hoping for. It was definitely a little darker and the taste was close but not right there. I had another bottle of it the next day and took some notes for a tasting analysis. Next year I'll follow some of Daniel's advice and simplify the grain bill even more going straight up plisner.

I decided after reviewing Daniel's recipe (which was actually pretty similar to mine) to keep the split between pale and plisner the same. Last year I think I ended up using US grain (despite my notes saying Bel) because it's special order at the shop as I found out when I tried to get Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel so I ended up using some of the 2 row I had on hand (I do love buying grain by the sack). 

A rainbow of flavor

For the sugar portion I again sought out syrup from Candi Syrup Inc. In order to lighten in up and modify the flavor slighty to try and get it more in line with Westvleteren 12 I changed the amount of D-180 from 2 lb to 1 lb and made up for it by adding a pound of D-45.  So my order to Candi Syrup Inc was pretty much one of every syrup they offered (I use Simplicity to prime) with the exception of Golden.

If I recall the logic behind my hop schedule from last year I might have grabbed the Northdown thinking that they were a sub for Goldings which I couldn't find.  This year I was able to find some Goldings so I made that switch.

I briefly toyed with the idea of using East Coast Yeast Trappist Ale (ECY13) but between price, availability and time I decided to stick with good old WLP530 Abbey Ale from White Lab.  To build the projected 336.3 billion yeast cells needed I made a 6 pint starter and tossed it on my stir plate a few days in advance. For some reason BeerSmith 2 stops calculating yeast cell build after 4 pints (which ended up at 465.9 billion) so I know I was nicely north of the required amount.

As before when it came to temperature I took to the mid 80s for the initial fermentation.  I actually got there a little fast (oh no) due to some issues with the balancing act as ask my fermentation cube to do for warming beers. I got it under control and will start lowing it as soon as it enters the below 1.020 range.  After that it will be a nice 6 months of bulking conditioning at lager temps.

Cheers

-SNB

OC Beer Society 2nd Annual Chili Cook-off & Bottle-share at Peace Brewing

OC Beer Society 2nd Annual Chili Cook-off & Bottle-share

Wow, that title is quite a mouthful, but clearly articulates what went down over the weekend.  For the second year in a row I attended and entered chili at OC Beer Society's 2nd Annual Chili Cook-off & Bottle Share which was held once again at my buddy Brad's house (aka Peace Brewing).  If you would like a rundown of last year go check out the post Greg at OC Beer Blog put up.

This year the turnout was pretty much double what it was last year, and the competition for top chili honors was fierce. Where as last year I helped my wife make a kick-ass turkey chili with IPA this year I was really shooting for the gold with what I thought would be hands down winner - Barrel Aged 33 Brand Chili (recipe below).  To seal the deal I even went the extra steps of topping it with bacon.  Unfortunately in the end it was to no avail and Greg ended up taking the top prize with Daniel coming in second, but enough about the chili let's talk beer!

Beer!

I brought four beers this year; Cuvée Saint-Gilloise (Cantillon), Holiday Beer 2010 (SNB Brewing), Commander (Lift Bridge) and The Auroch’s Horn Aged On Rhubarb (Olvalde).  The Cuvée was excellent and was my 1,200th check in on Untappd. I was really surprised by how good the Holiday Beer 2010 had gotten, all the spices have really melded well into the beer to create something truly special. I've got two bottles left and I think I'm going to continue the tradition of opening them at this event next year and the year after.  The other beer I brought that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it was The Auroch’s Horn Aged On Rhubarb (Olvalde).  I got a slight sour/tart note on it that reminded me of chardonnay.  I asked someone who knew wine what she thought and while she didn't get chardonnay she could see where I was coming from when I described why I was tasting chardonnay.

Some of the beers I thought were highlights of the event for me were; Four and Five (Surly - shocking I know), Rooster King (Beancurdturtle Brewing - really developing nicely with the Portola coffee), Murda'd Out Stout (Three Floyds - I'd wanted to try it), Kopi-Speedway Stout (AleSmith - score), Le Bleu (Ithaca - fantastic blueberry beer) and Black Note (Bell's - once I'm back from Europe and the frenzy dies down I'm trading for a 4-pack)

Here's the complete list of beers (red highlights = what I brought / blue highlights = highlights for me)

• Rooster King by Beancurdturtle Brewing
• Thumbprint Cran-bic Ale (2011) by New Glarus Brewing Company
• Totality (2012) by FiftyFifty Brewing Co.
• Cuvée Saint-Gilloise (Champions) by Brasserie Cantillon - Untappd Check-in 1,200!
• Trappistes Rochefort 10 by Abbey Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy
• 120 Minute IPA (2012) by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
• Five by Surly Brewing Company
• Murda'd Out Stout by Three Floyds Brewing Company
• Winter Ale by Kern River Brewing Company
• Four by Surly Brewing Company
• Holiday Beer 2010 by SNB Brewing
• Kentucky Dark Star by Fremont Brewing
• Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine Style Ale Aged In Bourbon Barrels (2010) by Stone Brewing
• Firestone 13 Anniversary Ale by Firestone Walker Brewing Company
• Earl by Hill Farmstead Brewery
• Commander Bona Fide Barleywine (2011) by Lift Bridge Brewery
• Speedway Stout (Kopi Luwak) by AleSmith Brewing Company
• Bourbon Abominable by Fremont Brewing
• Black Note Bourbon Barrel Aged by Bell's Brewery, Inc.
• Gingerbread Stout by Hardywood Park Craft Brewery
• Bourbon Barrel Aged Plead The 5th (2012) by Dark Horse Brewing Co.
• Excelsior! Le Bleu by Ithaca Beer Company
• Rodenbach Caractère Rouge by Brouwerij Rodenbach (Palm Breweries)
• Excelsior! White Gold by Ithaca Beer Company
• Ola Dubh 18 Year Special Reserve by Harviestoun Brewery
• Trappist Westvleteren 8 by Brouwerij De Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren
• Noyaux by Cascade Brewing Company
• The Auroch’s Horn Aged On Rhubarb by Olvalde Farm and Brewing Company
• 50 25 Sour Belgian Style Quad Ale by Stoudts Brewing Company
• Arthur by Hill Farmstead Brewery
• The Count by Grimm Brothers Brewhouse
• Eclipse - Heaven Hill Rye (2009) by FiftyFifty Brewing Co.
• R & D Golden Ale by New Glarus Brewing Company
• Ruination IPA with Habanero Peppers by Stone Brewing Co.

Scott and Brian (Thee Beer Book)

It was a great afternoon of beer. Brad and Ron (OC Beer Society) really put together an incredible event that was a ton of fun.  I got to try a lot of great beer but more than that I got to hang out and really get to know a lot of the OC beer scene.  For me it was really a fusion of multiple groups; OC Beer Society, SBS (Scott, Steve, Ryan with David and Marisa) Brewluminti etc.  A few people from the OC Beer Society like Chris (Orangey) I'd seen only online while others like Nick (Miklos) and Jeff I'd met before but got to know this round.

I honestly can't wait for the 3rd Annual!

Cheers

- SNB

Putting the "Yin" in the Barrel

Barreling Filling Fun

Shortly after putting together the post for the Red Wine Barrel Aged Baltic Porter I posted up a link to it on the Tao of Fermentation with the statement - "The Tao barrel project - really needs a code name". It wasn't long before Daniel pointed out that "Yin is shadow, represented by the black side of the Yin/Yang symbol. We can call this one Yin. Then if we ever make a Witbier or something in a Chardonnay barrel like Chris brought up, that would be Yang." Not only did this statement seem to name the beer it also has the added effect of getting the ball roll on the next group brew, a Golden Strong, and the search for a Chardonnay barrel to put it in.

After a little over a month in primary it soon became time to transfer the beer to the barrel. As a child of the 80s I decided to take advantage of the date and aim for the 13th minute of 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month of the 13th year aka 13/13/13 13:13 aka Smarch 13th 2013 and damn if the Smarch weather wasn't ever in full effect later that night.

To prep for the transfer I had a number of things to do.  First and foremost I had to construct a movable wine barrel rack. If you take a look at the barrel pictured in the Sour Seven posts you can see the rack Shawn built following directions he found on Vinesugar. For my barrel rack I decided to utilize a flat dolly I already had (which I was using for a TV so that I could roll it outside over hot summer days).  Bonnie helped me test out whether or not the dolly would support the barrel.  To convert it into something that could further support a full barrel, I devised a system of cut wood boards of various sizes.  I made sure to align some of the main supports underneath the metal straps holding the barrel together.  On top of this I put two flexible wood boards that would cradle barrel.

CO2 to push beer into the barrel

After I had built the rack it was time to prep the barrel for the beer.  To do this I made up a 15 gallon batch of HOT star-san and put it in the barrel.  I then went out to my front yard, set my phone for 15 minutes and rolled the barrel back and forth the length of my front yard.  This included flipping the barrel end over end for a couple of laps.  The goal was to make sure that the barrel was both water tight and that the sanitizer had the ability to get into every part of the barrel.

Once Shawn arrived we went over everything we had and started to formulate a plan of attack which we somewhat had when Daniel arrived a little bit later. The first order of business was to sanitize the tubes, the problem was that I had literally used every-last drop of star-san I had on barrel prep.   It wasn't a big deal as we just emptied the barrel into a tub which we then emptied into my mashtun.

Once we had everything ready we moved the pump and tubes over to the Beast to start the transfer.  It seemed to go a lot faster than it did for the sour seven and in no time we we're prepping to rack the beer from Chris' keg.  It was actually a pretty easy setup requiring only some CO2 to push the beer into the barrel.  Daniel had brewed up another 5 gallons to help top off however a miscalculation on my part over the size of the barrel meant that we were still short so I filled the head space with a blanket of CO2. 

Very interesting beverage

The current gravity is around 1.033, higher than we want it but not bad attenuation considering we started around 1.100.  I'll give it a couple of months to really soak up the intense red wine from the barrel before I start a monthly tasting on it.  I don't think I'll top it off more than once (if that) and just let the angels have their share.

One final note, speaking of Shawn he recently started back up his blog Brewnundrum.  If  you are interested in the scientific side of brewing I highly recommend checking it out.  The current topic is Aeration Revisited in which he splits a single wort into 4 fermenters and then oxygenated them via 4 different methods. Once done he compared the results and actually changed his own preferred method based on the results. Very cool. 

Lots of photos after the jump.

Cheers 

-SNB

Yin - Red Wine Barrel Aged Baltic Porter

60 gallons of high gravity Baltic Porter

With over 8 months of aging on the Sour Seven it was more than time to get Shawn's other red wine barrel, which like it's sister is an old red wine barrel from from Hogshead Wine, into production. Somehow Shawn let me be the Project Manager on this one, probably in exchange for space in my garage to store the barrel.  I mentioned in the Sour Barrel Ale Project post my thoughts on doing a big stout in the other barrel, while at the back of my mind I was thinking of a Baltic Porter.

For the last few months I've been part of a Monthly Share/Evaluation/Advice Meet-up group operating on the code name Tao of Fermentation. It's a loose group of brewers at various experience levels with the goal of seeking critical evaluation on our beer.  It was also the perfect group to get together for a group brew to fill the other barrel.

Good use of my time

Once it became clear Shawn was going to let me take the lead on this one I started steering the project starting at the October evaluation meet-up.  Seeing as how the first barrel had gone straight to being a sour barrel I wanted to try and keep this one clean to began with.  I figured as it developed in the barrel we would have plenty of time to steer it to sour if need be but a clean red wine aged dark beer sounded delicious.

It was also at that meeting that I suggested that we go with a Baltic Porter and asked Daniel if he could help develop the main base beer.  To me Daniel had made some of the best Baltic Porters I'd ever had including one that was the base beer to Black Lingerie. The big problem I was going to run into was controlling the temperature as I planned on doing a group primary in the Beast again. I figured however that by December the crazy weather we'd been having would mellow out and winter would arrive. For the yeast we used some Saflager 34-70 surrey that Shawn had washed from a Bavarian Dunkle he made. In addition I asked everyone to bring a couple extra packs with them to pitch.

By mid November we were set on a December 9th brewday and by the time the day came the forecast looked perfect to do a monster lager. While we had discussed getting together for the brewing it wasn't feasible given the set up of everyone's brew system.  So instead it was decided that people would drop off during the day.

The next morning = more cleaning

It ended up being a pretty mellow brewday, as I didn't race to get up and get started.  While my brewday was mellow it wasn't without it's challenges. My scale was broken which made measuring my bulk 2-row a bit challenging.  While she wasn't overly pleased with it my wife allowed me to use her as the tare on our house scale to weigh out the grain (no I didn't get a picture as I value my life).  I also had a nice little mess to clean up when the hose I was using to recirculate spilled out - it actually happened twice.  In the end I had a measured gravity of 1.110, which is a new record.  Overall the group averaged right around 1.095.

I correctly predicted that people would be dropping off most of the day so I didn't really need a set end time, in fact drop off started just after noon and went until 9ish that night.  I spent most of the time doing odd brewing chores such as kegging up some Imperial Browns that I brewed back in October during a disastrous brewday - so disastrous that I doubt it will ever make it to a post. I also cleaned everything that needed cleaning including a bunch of the draft lines on the Indy Crate

The next day I came out to a massive fermentation from both fermentors.  By the time I got home the blow-off was all over the garage requiring me to change the sanitizer and clean the garage. I tell you my garage has never smelled more like a brewery than it did that week.  One step of caution I took was given the amount of fermentables I was using I knew there would be a massive amount of CO2 output, I therefore kept the garage partially cracked and the door open to create a draft.  CO2 is very dangerous and heavier than air and I did not allow my dog or child in the garage unless it had been fully opened first.

Cheers

-SNB

Updates
Putting the "Yin" in the Barrel
Yin Part Three - Draining the Barrel

Sydnie IPA

The labels from the first 2 Sydnie IPAs

As I've mentioned before in 2009 my mom bought me a Mr Beer for my birthday.  After sitting on it for a few weeks I ordered the American Devil IPA kit as I wanted my first beer to be an IPA.  It was with that in mind in that I brewed my first beer in my house in January of 2010.  I called this beer Sydnie IPA after my still incubating offspring and as legends go it turned out really bad.  Somewhere along the way it got an infection (probably from the water I found in the back of my fridge) and was never really drinkable.  Despite the disappointment of the first try I really loved the process and continued forward.  For those saying it was probably because I used Mr Beer I disagree as I went on to make dozens of success beers using Mr Beer products. 

Later that year after getting 20 odd beers successfully under my belt I decided to give Sydnie IPA a second go and again I was left with a less than stellar brew.  Was the name cursed?  I had made a bunch of really tasty beers since my first outing. I'd followed the directions to a tee and had again failed. Again I put the disappointment behind me and continued forward honing my brewing techniques. While I made several IPAs and worked on a few IPLs over the last couple of years but none of them carried the name Sydnie IPA.

That was until October of 2012.

On October 21st I did a brew demo for Addison Homebrew Provisions.  Leading up to the demo I created a poll on the forum asking people what they wanted to see made.  I had five ideas in mind each would included a presentation topic to discuss during the downtime between steps. 

• IPL – Discussion Topic: Lagering 
• IPA – Discussion Topic: Hop Additions 
• Imperial Stout– Discussion Topic: Brewing BIG Beers 
• Vanilla Porter – Discussion Topic: Flavor Additions 
• Split Batch – Discussion Topic: Creating Two Beers from One Wort 

In the end IPA won with 24% of the vote. 

My buddy Daniel from BeancurdTurtle Brewing pouring
some of his outstanding beer during the demo

When it was clear that IPA was going to win I started looking for a recipe. Like a lot of brewers I tend to have a lot of beer recipes floating around my brewing software.  Some of these are scribbles of recipes, a few are recipes I've come up while others are ones that I'd found online. They all fall into the "someday" I'll get around to brewing them.  One in particular stood out - Sydnie IPA... 

I'd always known that one day I would make another go at a beer called Sydnie IPA it was too sentimental of a name for me to never use again.  I also knew that I would need a new recipe for it, just start completely fresh carrying over just the name.  The recipe I'd been toying with was based on an old Melrose IPA homebrew recipe that Julian Shrago had posted back in 2007.  I'd made a few modifications along the way (converting it to extract for the demo and including a little carared for color).  Mostly I was evaluating the hop bill for a new IPL style recipe I'm working on.

The demo went off pretty well,  a few oh my gosh (as Sydnie would say) moments but overall it went really well.  

One of the few benefits that not posting for over 6 weeks has afforded me is time.  Normally I would post about only the brew aspect of the beer and never really report on how it came out. In the case enough time has passed between brewing and posting for me to report on how the beer turned out.  It turned out really great, probably the best IPA I've brewed.  The hop bill worked really well and is a lock to make it into my forthcoming IPL. Curse = Smashed

Cheers

- SNB

Sour Barrel Ale Project

The wine barrel from Hogshead Wine

I know I promised an update on my SCHF Split Batch Porter which is well on its way to being BaseCamp Breakfast and BaseCamp Dessert.  I promise I will do an update on them in a week or so when I keg the finished products.  This post will cover a far more exciting project – barrel aging.

A few months ago my brewing mentor Shawn got his hands on a couple of used 65 gallon wine barrels from a local winery.  The idea surfaced to fill one them with a red ale and then pitch a large culture of bugs to create a barrel aged sour ale.  The problem became filling the barrel as 65 gallons is a lot of beer to produce.   Shawn decided to launch a thread on the AHP Brew Club forum to recruit additional brewers.  In total 7 brewers participated.

That's a damn big fermenter

The next question in the fill became how to conduct the primary, this was a question that I had an answer too.  A little over a year ago I bought a 55 gallon food grade water drum from my friend and Mead Master Chad.   My reason for buying it was that one day I wanted to do a group brew and use it as a massive primary.  Over a year later that day had arrived and I offered it up to the group. The water drum was in great shape and only needed a light cleaning to get it into shape.  

At the beginning of April we met at the shop to outline the project and determine the style guidelines we would brew to.  I mentioned it was a red ale that we decided to lightly hop (under 20) with a targeted OG around 1.060-1.075.  It’s a huge range I know, but will even out around the up 1.060 range when combined.  We next settled on a brew date of April 15th for everyone to brew in the morning then meet at Shawn’s house for drop off and combining.  In addition to the 50 gallons we planned a group fermenting we set aside about 15 gallons to ferment by itself for topping off the barrel.  In total the range on production was between 26 and 5 gallons with Shawn brewing the bulk with 26 over a very long brewday that used every piece of equipment he had. 

The day before the brew I went over to Shawn’s house with the water drum so that we could study it to see what we needed to do to convert it from a sealed water drum to a massive primary fermenter.  There were two ports on the lid what upon closer examination turned out to contain 2 inch threaded end caps.  After unscrewing one we headed off to Lowe's to build a blow off tub.  The blow off adapter is made of three part which reduced it from 2 inches to 1.  We then took about 5 feet of 1 inch ID vinyl tubing and hose clamped it to the adapter.  We ran the tub up and over the fermenter pulling it back to its sides and into a bucket (which will be filled with sanitizer) using blue bungee cords.

I opened this after the wort was combined

After the conversion I headed over to the shop to grab my grain and ran into two of my fellow brewers also buying grain for the next day.  After a quick comparison of recipes it was noted that my mash temperature was too low.  I had been in a rush to finish it and clearly had forgotten to make the adjustments.

Brewday itself will probably go down as one of my smoothest.  Not only did I set a brewhouse efficiency record of 80% but I was extremely productive as well.  Between in process cleaning I was also able to plant my remaining hops and mow the lawn.  

In about two weeks I plan on heading back to Shawn’s to help him transfer the beer from the fermenter drum to the barrel.  After that it is a short 12 month wait to the final project.  In the meantime Shawn and I will try to figure out a use for the other barrel.  Maybe a big stout? 

Cheers

-SNB

Updates
Adding it to the barrel