Marshall's Matrimonial IPL

Marshall Mashing

When one of my best friends asked if I would brew a beer for his wedding, I was immediately honored and of course said yes.  I've know Marshall for almost 3 years ever since the first club meeting at AHP way back in 2010.  We we both pretty early in our brewing careers looking to collect some feedback on some of our ordinarily beers.  While I can't remember for the life of me what brought I'll never forget Marshall's. He called it Palate Wrecker and it was a big bastard of an IPA which he severed directly out of a 5 gallon keg keg he'd brought with him.  I thought it was an outstanding beer and given my known affinity for hoppy beers it was clear early on we'd be a good match. It wasn't long before we started brewing a couple of beers together and enjoying even more.

For his wedding Marshall requested a "clone" my most infamous beers - Scott's BIG IPL a beer I have so far produced 6 times now (7 if you count the one I did at Karl Strauss) so by now I've got it pretty much down.  The major problem I ran into was a lack of lager yeasts at the shop, I guess turnover on them has been low and someone recently bought most of his stock.  I therefore I to make a starter with Saflager 34/70, while not ideal was really my best option. 

Tucked in for the night

At this point I've got working with Minute rice down pretty well.  When getting ready to figure out my mash volumes and temps I remove the rice as well as about a half gallon of the strike water.  To prep the rice I bring four quarts of water to a boil and add a pound of rice  I then let it go for about 10-15 minutes while I finishing heating the strike water to temperature.  Once all is said and done I add about after the strike water, the grain, the other half of the strike and finally the entire pot with the rice and water and stir it till everything is incorporated.   I'm pretty sure I need to work a little more on the extract potential on of the rice as I think I'm not hitting gravity correctly because of it.

I had a couple of problems with the sparge,  First was Marshall accidentally disconnecting the tube from the false bottom.  It was pretty obvious as the first vorlauf was entirely grain. The other was a stuck sparge caused by compression around the false bottom, the root cause could either be double milling the grain (which I've done on every batch) or the rice. Or something else entirely.

Personally I think it's going to be a great batch and can't wait to try it in April.

Cheers

-SNB

Stone Epic Festival: The Final Chapter

 

Not everyday you get up to
drink whales bro

December 12, 2012 (12.12.12) is a beer day that I’ll always remember.  Not only was I able to grab a brick of Westvleteren 12, pick up my Barrel Aged Speedway Stout and get my hands on my Eclipse Futures, it was also the last time for next 89 years that the month, day and end digits of the year we all be the same (look out January 01, 2101).  Stone Brewing Company has been celebrating this numerological alignment since 2002 by releasing a new Vertical Epic beer starting with Stone 02.02.02 Vertical Epic Ale.  Each subsequent Stone Vertical Epic Ale was released one year, one month and one day apart with the long term plan of allowing the consumer to open them all side by side on 12.12.12.

 

Given their commitment the phenomenon it was no surprise that Stone decided to go out in a blaze of glory.  Not only did they help throw Vertical Epic celebrations across the county (Including one at Out of the Park Pizza) they also hosted an Epic Eve Dinner.  The main event however was their big blowout festival the Stone Epic Festival: The Final Chapter.  This was the only large event at Stone that included all 11 of Stone Vertical Epic Ales together. 

 

Grabbing a ticket gave me access to 3oz pours from every Stone Vertical Epic Ale in a commemorative glass. Food stations that paired unique dishes to each of all 11 VEAs (Yeah I abbreviated Vertical Epic Ale, you wanna fight about it) I enjoyed and Three 4oz samples of your choice from four additional barrel-aged and cask versions. Personally I viewed this as a once in a lifetime event and knew it was going to be straight up epic (you know VERTICALLY EPIC) so I pulled the pretty pricy trigger and bought tickets the day they went on sale. Apparently it was not as easy of a trigger to pull as it never sold out in fact you could buy tickets at the door.

 

Eric and Marshall gearing up
to take down Epic Ales

I was able to convince both my buddy Marshall and the indomitable Eric Hammond to join for this experience.  Marshall’s finance Christa even volunteered to be our DD with was epic in its own right as it really took a lot of outside pressure off of the situation.  We got there pretty early and did a little shopping in the store (I might have bought my wife a Christmas present there – I doubt typing this will spoil anything since I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog). They had closed down there entire bistro and gardens which was fantastic as it really did create a “A gorgeous festival atmosphere” that allowed us to enjoy our beers and pairings at our own pace (great discussion Stone).

 

The event kicked off exactly at 12:12 pm with Stone CEO and co-founder Greg Koch leading the attendees in a final countdown.  Going in my crew decided that we would buck convention and not do it in the expected order of 02.02.02 to 12.12.12.  We even asked Dr Bill for some tasting order advise (he recommended making sure we spaced out those that paired well with desserts).  By splitting which 3 barrel-aged and cask versions each of us got we were able to try everything they were pouring.

 

Here’s the order we did it in (with notes)

• Stone 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Aged In Bourbon Barrels (Added it Untappd)
• Stone 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Ale (Wanted it do it back to back, the bourbon had covered up a lot)
• Stone 02.02.02 Vertical Epic Ale (Eric says I can hash tag it as a white whales bro. #WhiteWhalesBro. This was a real treat and was fantastically drinkable for an eleven year old Witbier)
• Stone 05.05.05 Vertical Epic Ale
• Stone 12.12.12 Vertical Epic Ale (Great food pairing and really a nice winter warmer or Christmas beer)
• Stone 03.03.03 Vertical Epic Ale
• Stone 06.06.06 Vertical Epic Ale Cask (A lot darker than Eric’s regular version)
• Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic Ale aged in Red Wine Barrels (Really unpleasant – pass)
• Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic Ale Cask
• Stone 04.04.04 Vertical Epic Ale
• Stone 04.04.04 Vertical Epic Ale Cask
• Stone 09.09.09 Vertical Epic Ale (Different than all the bottles of it I’ve had)
• Stone 09.09.09 Vertical Epic Ale aged in Red Wine Barrels
• Stone 10.10.10 Vertical Epic Ale
• Stone 10.10.10 Vertical Epic w/ French Oak

• Stone 06.06.06 Vertical Epic Ale
• Stone 12.12.12 Vertical Epic Ale Cask
• Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale (enjoyable little (yeah right) pepper beer)
• Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic Ale

Most of the food paired great with the beer, I recall only one match that changed the taste of the beer for me in a negative way, but with the exception of that job well done. Also if you wanted to try one of the paired items again you were easily given a second helping. The festival atmosphere was great as was the pace we enjoyed it at, we never felt like we had to race to a station to get a pour of anything. In fact once everything was flowing within the first hour it became rare to wait in any line for any beer.  In addition to the great pairing stations by each tap location, they also set up to food stations filled with bread, cheese, fruit and the amazing bacon bread which paired with everything. I also got the chance to hang out with the hosts of one of my favorite webshows, New Brew Thursday, Stephen and John.  Stephen came back later and crushed at our table for a while, which was really cool as he had a bunch of great stories to share. 

 

Overall this gave the Firestone Invitational Beer Fest a run for the title of Best Run and Best Overall Beer Festival of 2012.  The really did create something special with this one.  In a big way it’s sad that this was a once in a lifetime event because I would love to do it again.  Was it pricy? Yes. Was it worth it? Hell Yes!

 

Cheers

 

-SNB

SNB can be CynicAle

Back in Dec

One of the other beers I might donate to SCHF depending on how my latest plan works out is SNB can be CynicAle.  Marshall helped me brew this beer way back in September.  It was based on a Northern Brewer Pro Series Kit for Cynic and was my first full all grain beer.  Instead of using the recommended yeast I subbed in my favorite farmhouse yeast American Farmhouse Blend (White Labs #WLP670) to guide it from saison to farmhouse.

Unfortunately the beer has been on a journey all its own.  When kegged it 4 months ago it had a pretty decent flavor but an odd slickness to it.  Shawn suggested that it might not be done yet and to set it aside for a while, which I did.  I would occasionally taste it and while the slickness seemed to fad the Brettanomyces really started to dominate.  While the exact strain of Brettanomyces used in WLP670 is not released in a beer Daniel did with it he says the flavors that have started to shine through are very reminiscent of Brettanomyces bruxellensis.

The pink foam

When I last checked it, it had turned very dark and almost muddy in clarity - a great departure from when I'd had it back in December while waxing Imperial Rhino Stout 2011. It was also very carbonated, despite not having been hooked up to a CO2 tank in months.  The flavor was completely different and while not bad, I think Daniel used the word interesting when he tasted it, it was missing something. One trick I've seen used here and there to add flavor dimensions to beer is to add fruit and give the yeast additional time to ferment.  I decided why not and asked my wife to pick up a bag of frozen fruit blend from the store.

Improvised blow-off

When I brewed the split batch porter I pulled out the frozen fruit and dropped it into some warm sanitizer. I then grabbed the keg of SNB can be CynicAle out of the cellar to cleaned and sanitize the top.  I also start the process of releasing the pressure from the keg.  Once it was ready opened the top to find a pretty sizable and fully head on the top.  I then dropped in the fruit... The fruit must have released some additional carbonation as about 3 seconds after I dropped it in the head turned pink and started rising out of the keg.  I quickly put the sanitized top back on and cleaned off the surface with some sanitizer.  Knowing that it would be fermenting for a while I fashioned a blow off tube out of a party tap attached to an air quick disconnect and a flask of sanitized water.   It was fun to watch it continue to degas while I continued on the porter.  I'll check in its progress in about a month or two to see it's worthy of representing SNB Brewing in public.

Cheers

-SNB

Stone's 2012 March Madness Homebrew Competition & AHA Rally

Welcome Sign

This past Saturday I competed in Stone's 2012 March Madness Homebrew Competition & AHA Rally with my Scott's BIG IPL. This was the second time in a row that I took part in the competition and the first time I really planned for it.  Last year I found out about it mid-February and with only a month till the competition I had nothing put together for it so I decided to brew my Hopped Up Hef (my photos from last year).  This year I knew I wanted to do it again and really wanted to enter the Scott's BIG IPL.  This rally/competition was the reason I brewed Scott's BIG IPL both Alchemy Guild (All Grain) and Excelsior (Extract) back in December, so that I would have a complete 10 week cycle to get it ready.   Honestly I think the BIG IPLs could have benefited from another couple of weeks of lagering and it seems to be that they moved the rally up a week this year, but in the end I had no choice and got ready to go.

Gearing up for the event I looked at which of the two versions I wanted to enter.  For some reason neither seemed to be 100% what I was looking for and neither seemed to clear.  This represented the first time I was unable to brew a crystal clear lager.  During my tastings I mixed samples and found the mixture of the two to be greater then the sum of it's components.  This phenomena was seconded by my wife, Daniel and Marshall in taste tastes.  I therefore decided to blend them 50/50 at kegging.  Once I had them blended I decided to try and use gelatin to clear the competition keg of beer.  Even though I followed the directions to a t it failed to clear after a week.  Fortunately the gelatin had the same effect on the taste as it did the clarity (the reason I only did it to one keg) so I was set.

An Impressive list of Beers

Daniel had volunteered at the rally and even though they never contacted him he still volunteered to give me and my set up a ride down in his Prius.  We got down there around 11:20 and I was surprised to find everything pretty much set up and only one other jockey box. Last year 90% of the draft beer came out of jockey boxed this year, only 2 with everyone else using cobra taps.

In total there were 40 entries, 22 bottles and 18 draft.  As a sign of my early entry this year I was number 23, the first of the draft beers (the year before I had been 38). To take part in the competition, as both a competitor and a consumer, you have to be a standing member of the AHA (American Homebrewers Association). The event is free to AHA members and you can register or renew at the door.  The basic set up of the competition is simple, all 400 AHA members in attendance (they actually had to close the event online this year do to capacity constraints) are given a ballot with 3 spots to vote for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd favorite beer.  The votes are then tallied and the 5 top vote getting beers advance to a final tasting panel made up Stone personnel.  Stone then announces 4th-1st with the winning beer becoming the next Stone Collaboration. 

Pirate's Breakfast from Chism Brewing Voyage

Of the 40 beers available (I didn't try them all) some of my favorites were, Pirate's Breakfast (8.0 Imperial Breakfast Stout made by Curtis over at Chism Brewing Voyage who I got a chance to meet and hangout with), PP Steeze Imperial Coffee Vanilla Porter (10.5% Oak-aged Stout) and  Mango Habenero IPA (by far one of the best aromas I've ever smelled on a beer - super mango goodness).  Mint beers seemed to be a theme this year as four were present, the best of which was Ken Schmidt's Pillow Mint at the Ritz (Ken won the first Stone Homebrew Competition and would go one to win this one with this beer).  The other theme seemed to be bad beers as Daniel went through a particularly bad streak dumping over half the beers he tried, the worst of which was a beer called Lactic Lupulin which was a "dry hopped sour mash ale." I'm using quotes it as it was questionable whether it was a beer at all.  Not only was it a drain pour but it stained our glasses with it's sink requiring a very strong stout to get it back.

One interesting interaction occurred that day when I suggested to one gentlemen that he try #23. He scoffed and remarked that he was "pretty sure it was the same guy that won the Karl Strauss competition the year before" as if that alone was a reason not to try it.  I then told him that I had first hand knowledge that it did indeed win the Karl Strauss competition as I had brewed both. I explained a few of the challenges that went into brewing the Strauss batch and insisted and if he had tried that version (Karl's) he owed it to himself to try my version there. Pretty funny if you ask me.

Yes, I am doing my "Greg Face"

As much as I really wanted to win or at least place, I had deep doubts if I'd see anything.  It wasn't the best batch of BIG IPL I'd done both in clarity and taste.  So as we waited I really didn't think I'd hear my beer mentioned.  Turns out I was wrong as the first beer that Mitch Steele announced was "number 23, Scott's BIG IPL a Double India Pale Lager". This placed me in forth. Stoked, I made my way to the front and onto a bolder to shake hands with both Greg Koch and Mitch Steele while posing for photos.  I even had Greg snap one of his famous self shots of us with my camera.  I also scored a certificate for dinner for two at the Stone World Bistro and Gardens, which is pretty damn awesome. Rounding out the top 4 were the PP Steeze Imperial Coffee Vanilla Porter in 3rd, Mango Habenero IPA in 2nd with Ken Schmidt's Pillow Mint at the Ritz winning the day.

After the lack luster Scott's BIG IPL w/Citra and the clarity and flavor issues I'm detecting with the latest batches, I was having a lot of doubts about my ability to recapture the magic that was my second batch of Scott's BIG IPL.  So while I didn't win, placing 4th is a competition with some seriously good beers really lifted my spirits prepping me to go back to the lab and make the next batch of Scott's BIG IPL the best one yet.  

As for next year, at this point I don't know what I'll enter.  It could be another batch of Scott's BIG IPL (under a different name), a monster Triple IPL I have floating in my head or even a big stout.  At this point I don't know the only thing I do know is I'll be back.

Cheers

-SNB

Farmrose IPA

The dueling brew kettles
Thanks again Marshall

The other thing that Daniel’s quad brewday inspired me to do was make a parti-gyle beer off of second runnings of Westbennetteren 12.   I’d been wanting to do one since the parti-gyle episode of Brewing TV, in fact if it wasn’t for the reality of being plan out of fermenter space I would have done a Damien inspired black ale off of the second runnings from 33.

After talking to Daniel and reviewing his parti-gyle small beer I was concerned that my second running gravity would be too small for what I wanted.  I therefore hatched a crazy plan to add about 5.5lbs of additional grain to the mash tun and re-mash at 155 for about 30 minutes to see if I could boost it up.  I decided that once the mash was done I would take a pre-boil gravity reading and supplement with some DME to raise the OG target to produce a beer in the 5-6% abv range.   In order to have any chance of doing this in a reasonable time frame I determined that I would need a second pot, burner and propane tank.  This is where having a close circle of fellow brewers is great.  I asked my buddy Marshall if I could borrow what I needed and he came through like a boss.

Going in I had already decided to use a second generation WLP670 American Farmhouse Blend strain that I had harvested from SNB can be CynicAle.  I really want to make an IPA with the second runnings and had been toying around with using WLP670 for an IPA since BeanyTink’s Farmstead Ale was first brewed.  All I needed to come up with was a nice IPA hop schedule, but to do that I need to know what my gravity would be.

The 5.5lbs of additional grains

My pre-boil gravity came in really low at 1.030 with an estimate OG or 1.041 and abv of 3.8%.  I decided to add a pound of Golden Light DME and a little over a pound and a half (1lb 10oz) of Pilsen DME to bump the pre-boil gravity to 1.046 and targeted OG to 1.063.  Once I was happy with my targeted gravity it was time to add the hops After having recently played around with a Melrose IPA recipe I’d found online, I decided that I would use that hop schedule and bitterness ratio (1.436 IBU/SG).  This was a simple trick of scaling down the recipe while adjusting the OG and hop schedule to keep everything in alignment. 

This is why I was frustrated when the post-boil gravity came in at 1.055 – 8 points under target.  I put a lot of thought into building this on the fly recipe based around the pre-boil gravity measurement.  I think there is an error somewhere in calculations that BeerSmith 2 is giving me.  I willing to bet that it has something to do with my equipment setting as I noticed it worsen when I changed from Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal) to the SNB Brewhouse (Keggle and Cooler) setup.  I’ll have to play around with it more by returning to the old setting on my next brew.

Cheers

- SNB

BeerGunning the Imperial Rhino Stout 2011

Back in 2010 I made a big holiday beer out of some left over ingredients.  This was before I was doing starters, multiple early O2 infusions and yeast rousing.  It ended up being a pretty high alcohol beer at around 10.17% even if it was pretty sweet with a 1.026 FG.   I bottled it up in champagne style 750 ml bottles with some carb tabs.  In retrospect I should have added some fresh yeast as after several months most opened bottles were flat. 

One of my favorite pieces of brewing equipment

Salvation came that Christmas in the form of a Blichmann BeerGun.  A Blichmann BeerGun is like counter-pressure bottle filler in that allows you to bottle fully carbonated beer straight from a keg however unlike a traditional CP there is no need to pressurize the bottle to keg pressure.  It should be noted that I have filled bottles from both a corny keg as well as a sanke keg I just had to assemble a second set of connectors.  Basically it is a handheld version of a commercial bottle filler used in commercial brewing, Bootlegger’s actually uses two Blichmann BeerGuns to bottle all of their beers.

It should be obvious why bottling from a BeerGun is so great.  Basically it allows you to really dial in the carbonation level you want in the beer, eliminates concerns on carbonating high alcohol beers and there is no bottle sediment to cloud up my beer once poured.  I’m sure several people with disagree with eliminating all bottle conditioning potential of the beer but for the most part I’m not brewing the types of beers that benefit from bottle conditioning. 

I busted out the BeerGun both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend to fill some bottles.  The Saturday I only filled 8 bottles total; 4x 22oz Scott’s BIG IPL w/Citra to take to various events, 2x 12oz Scott’s BIG IPL w/Citra for the 2012 Doug King Memorial HomebrewContest next month and 2x 12oz StarRaptor to send to my collaboration partner.

The newest label for Scott's BIG IPL

Sunday was much different as I set out to drain a couple of kegs.  First up was the bottling of all remaining Imperial Rhino Stout 2011 into 12oz bottles.  Later this week I’ll label and wax them.  After that I filled a case of 22oz of Marshall’s bourbon barrel barley wine so I could get back the keg I’d lent him. 

The BeerGun is a great tool for any homebrewer to have in their toolbox.  It assembles and disassembles quickly for easy cleaning and works exactly as advertised.  It has two triggers, one flushes the bottle with CO2 to protect the beer from oxidation and the other fills the bottle with carbonated beer.  Once you flush and fill a quick sanitized crown goes on as usual.  The trick I’ve found to filling bottles with a BeerGun is to have the bottle and beer at roughly the same temperature.  You can chill the bottles two ways depending on time, in the fridge or if you’re in a pinch the freezer.  If I’m pressed I clean and sanitize the bottles then stick them in the freezer while I set up the bottling table.

I'll be back on Thursday to cover labeling and waxing the Imperial Rhino Stout 2011

Cheers

-SNB

SNB can be CynicAle

I'm going to try something new with my brewing posts and include more pictures and a somewhat different layout.

Brew sheet, hops and
wireless thermometer

After a long break from brewing which lasted over 2 months I got back into the swing of things pretty fast.  My first two brews after the break where both StarRaptor, the first one I dumped while the second was during a brewday and very hot.  Between the heat, learning the new system and multitasking as a host I really didn't enjoy either one.  I've always enjoyed brewing so I needed to do another round more relaxed and laid back.  I therefore decided to invite my buddy Marshall over to hang out and assist me in brewing my first all grain batch on my new system.

For this inaugural brew I decided to try Northern Brewer's Surly Cynic Pro Kit.  The story behind how the kits were created and the process they went through is pretty cool as I learned while talking to Todd Haug but that's a story for a different time.  I decided to select this kit for a few reasons.  I wanted to try another one of the Pro Series Kits after the great results I had with the Furious kit and I wanted to do a saison, which Surly Cynic is, using the American Farmhouse Blend WLP670.  After how well BeanyTink's Farmstead Ale came out I was really wanting to use it again so I grabbed I vial while it was still available from Addison Homebrew Provisions specifically to use with this recipe.  As I'm pretty new to the world of all grain brewing so I wanted the first batch to  recipe.

75 minute mash at 150

I have to say the information included in Northern Brewer's all grain kits are completely different from their extract kits which as pretty much a step by step recipe.  The all grain instructions on the other hand were little more than an ingredient list.  While it did tell me the target mash temperature of 148 that was about it.  How much water to use,  water to grain ratio for the mash, water temperature targets, even expected efficiency were left out.  After a lot of research I came up with a 1.3 qt/lb grain ratio and let BeerSmith 2 tell me the rest.  I found the ability to play with the grain and mash tun temperatures pretty useful.

The name is a play on the name of the beer and is similar to the name I gave the Furious version which was SNB is Furious.

The brewday itself was not with out it's issues but overall went pretty smooth and was much more relaxed, it did help that the temperature was a lot cooler than previous days. 

1.3 qt/lb water to grain ratio

Marshall arrived near the end of my 75 minute mash with a growler of 2010 Stone Double Bastard with Chipotle Peppers, just in time to help me vorlof the wort till it was clear.  Later I tossed some sausage on the grill for lunch and used the heat of the boil to warm the tortillas. 

I only had three minor issues; I was slightly above mash temperature, under target efficiency and forgot the flame out hops.  I decide to toss the hops in the primary anyway.  

It felt nice to be back in the swing of enjoying brewing again.

For primary fermentation I started the beer at 68 and slowly raised it up a little each day over the first two weeks to 78.

Currently the beer is still in primary, as I want plenty of time on the yeast, sitting around 1.006.  This weekend I'll transfer to secondary and collect and wash the yeast.

Cheers

-SNB

Updates:
Tossing some berries at SNB can be CynicAle 

Random Tuesday Tasting

Warmed up with some rum

A few Tuesdays ago my buddy Eric of Addison Homebrew Provisions stopped by to hang out and have a few beers.  I took advantage of the opportunity to get some one on one feedback on my Rhino Stout (not to be confused with Imperial Rhino Stout still in secondary), discuss the schedule for some demos I’m going to do for him in October and give him a New Glarus Belgian Red I knew he would enjoy.   My wife Bonnie joined us sporadically as she was cooking and taking care of our daughter.

After getting feedback on the Rhino, too thin and green, it was time to start opening some bottles.

Nice little surprise

The IPAs

I’ve been a little lupulin deprived lately so we decided to start with some IPAs.  This presented a great opportunity to open some of the extras I’d received in some recent beer trades.  We started with the Old Man Hopper's India Pale Ale from Rust Belt that I received in The Barrel Aged Yeti Trade.  Overall it was a pretty good IPA; it wasn’t overly bitter or harsh just well balanced. Some hop aroma was present, could really tell if it was dry hopped or just had a solid aroma boil addition. Definitely towing the line between a pale ale and an IPA. 

Fight Dead Hop Flavor
Drink IPAs Fresh!

Next up was Arctic Panzer Wolf from Three Floyds. I got this beer as an extra in the Math Trade #4 - The Quad Lazer.  Killer name, killer label and killer beer, I’ve had some many bad imperial/double IPA that I’m pretty gun shy about them, so the fact that this was really good was a nice surprise.  Lots of really nice piney hop aroma with a gorgeous color and well balanced flavor profile. No mistaking the bitterness here but again it was nicely focused.

Ended this section of IPAs by opening a year old Stone 14^th Anniversary Emperial IPA.  I guess the only thing that annoys me more about using the term Imperial on any beer not a stout is a random spellings of it.  Last year when it was fresh I had a debate with my buddy Marshall on whether or not the beer needed to age.  I personally enjoyed the beer fresh while he thought it could use some age.  I wish he could have made it over so I could grab his notes on it now.  Definitely lost what made it good a year ago, Eric and I described the aroma as dead hops.

Bambic in my broken Zeno glass

The Sours

As I’ve been really into sours lately and knew Eric was an enjoyer of them as well I decided to open a few bottles I’d been dieing to try, starting with Jolly Pumpkin’s Bambic.  The story behind Bambic is pretty cool; it’s a blend Bam Biere and Batch 2 & 4 Lambic done to celebrate Winking Lizard’s, a beer tavern in Ohio know for their World Tour of Beer, 25^th Anniversary.  Now this was an excellent beer, the sourness was up front, great nose with excellent notes of the oak.  I got a good laugh when I gave Bonnie a sip, she just doesn’t do sour beers.

More of a dark sour then a stout

After that we opened a bottle of The Bruery’s Tart of Darkness… I’ll be honest this is a good sour beer, but not as fantastic as I’ve heard.  The sourness was a little one dimensional and while the label lists it as a stout there were no stout in it outside the color.

It’s really just a dark sour. I have a couple more bottles that I’m going to sit on and to see if it changes with age. 

The Rest

After the sours we sort of drifted into opening random beers from the beervault.  Eric had brought over an Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence that he wanted to try so we popped the cork on it next.  For most of the time we’d been drinking we’d also been letting this bottle warm so it was at a really nice temperature when we started to drink it.  It had a lot of good bitter chocolate notes on the palate and in the nose which paired nicely with the coffee undertones. The label lists it as a Belgian style chocolate stout but I didn’t get any yeast notes that would give me Belgian style.  Eric who does not like coffee wasn’t a fan which Bonnie the coffee connoisseur loved it.  Bonnie’s Notes: It had deep coffee flavor, possibly a French roast/Italian roasted coffee (dark roast) and a nice note of chocolate.  It was dyn 'o mite. Shouldn't be called chocolate indulgence, should be coffee goodness. First stout I’ve really liked in a long time. 

More like coffee goodness - BJB

I decided to then open the last bottle of brother Ryan’s pale ale that he brought back the last time he was in town.  This was the second time I’ve had it and everyone agreed it tasted off.  It might have been his hop choices, but I really believe it comes down to temperature control for primary fermentation.  This is a subject that can, should and will be its own post.

 

Bonnie had the next choice of what to open and decided to grab out her bottle of Ballast Point Sculpin that Total Wine now feels is a limit one kind of beer.  This was not the Sculpin that’s been swimming around the top of the craft beer scene this last year. It was definitely off and just didn’t sing to anyone of us.  Bonnie was let down as she really loves this beer.  Bonnie’s Notes: inconsistent, have had fresher (odd considering it was a fresh batch), too sweet on finish.

At this point I needed a palate rinser and my cider wasn’t getting it done so I reached for a ribbon, a blue ribbon that is.  I drink and enjoy PBR as it is a perfect example of a light American adjunt lager.  After that I cracked a Yeti which is one of my favorite imperial stouts.  Either it was off or my palate was off because it didn’t taste right.  It had a mineral graininess on my tongue that I didn’t care for.

Overall I had a great time.  There are few things I enjoy more these days than sitting in my garage drinking and discussing beer with a good friend.  The ability to talk about homebrewing was an added bonus.

Cheers

-SNB

The Line Up (Left to Right): Rust Belt - Old Man Hopper's IPA (nice IPA but almost a pale ale), Three Floyds - Arctic Panzer Wolf!, Stone - 14th Anniversary (aged IPA experiment - better fresh), Bambic - AWESOME!!!, The Bruery - Tart of Darkness (Get the stout off the label this is a dark sour), Homebrew Pale Ale, Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence (do you like coffee? yes - you'll love it, no - just ok), Ballast Point - Sculpin (was the batch off?), PBR (always a winner), Yeti (either it or my palate was off).