Beer, Beer, and more Beer!

[DrAxeman]

My previous attempt at a journal is failing due to lack of interest on my part. I never really had something to say. The journals here that I really enjoy tend to have a theme, or a very inspired writer. In this tradition, I finally decided what I could write about... Beer.

I am a homebrewer / beer snob. I will use this journal to showcase and rate various beers. Feel free to PM me with comments, questions, complaints, concerns, or tasting requests/advice. I will also try to offer up my knowledge of beer and brewing (..for those who care). Also, if anyone has a local beer that they think I probably won't be able to find out here in upstate NY, I would be more than willing to pay you for the cost of a 6-pack and the shipping. (PM me to arrange details.)

The bottom line is, I love beer. Not the buzz, not he getting drunk. I love the science of brewing, the taste of beer. It satisfies both sides of my brain. The creative side of me love the taste, color and aroma.. the other side love to disect the science behind it.. IBU's, water chemistry, O.G., F.G.... (I'll explain more of that in later entries.)

Right now I am trying for the first time Three Floyds Robert the Bruce Scottish Style Ale. For a Scotch Ale it's a little to hoppy, even for a strong ale. A Scotch Ale should be very malty. This one doesn't have a sweet malt flavor like I would have expected, but is stil very malty.

Traditionally Scottish Ales should have a light hop taste to them. This is due to the Scottish climate, making hops very hard to grow. Before hops became available through England, the Scottish would use other plants like IVY and Heather in their beer. In fact the Scottish brewery Fraoch has been producing ales with the old recipes using ingredients such as Heather to the delite of many beer drinkers. (I will pay anyone who can get me a 6-pack of Froach's Heather Ale.. I would really love to try it!) In a later post I will go into the purpose of hops in beer.

Another character of a Scotch Ale is the malty flavor. In a light Schotch Ale there is a slightly sweet. This gets lost in the stronger Scotch Ales. This comes form the water chemistry. The levels of certain minerals can have a large effect on the outcome of the beer. The high magnesium levels in the water will add a sweet taste to it. Don't beleive me? Buy a bottle of Dasani Water and taste test it against another bottled water. Dasani tastes slightly sweeter. Now look on the label. They list Magnesium Sulfate.. this is also know as Epson Salts... enough of that. I'll go into water another time.

As for William the Bruce, great color and good head. (Not that kind of head...) I wouldn't rate it very high as a Scotch Ale, but I'm going to enjoyed this 6-pack very much.

Rating: 6 Beers

 

[DrAxeman]

New rating system

I was asked to include a rating system with my critiques. Therefore I will institute a rating system from 1 to 10. 1 meaning I think the brewer should be shot and left to die for brewing this swill, and 10 meaning perfection! Most beers that I like will fall somewhere between a 5 and 7. 7 and up will be reserved for really great beers, and below 5 for less than great ones.

I was also asked to rate more common, or mainstream beers like Bud, Coors, MGD, etc... I will try to rate these 3 in the next few weeks, and from time to time include other major label brand beers.

In the meantime I thought I'd discuss the nature of these beers. When prohibition hit the US, underground bootleggers had to become creative in what they used to brew beers, and how they did it. Large shipments of hops and malted barley would get the attention of local law enforcement so brewers started using fewer hops and turned to alternate forms of malt. These alternative malts included such things as corn and rice, which are still used my many breweries. The American public, still looking for a cold beer to drink, took what they could get and this style of beer actually caught on. They were light and easy to drink. So after prohibition, brewers maintained these styles and they still use them to this day. Budweiser lists rice as an ingredient right on the can!

Is there anything wrong with this? Not really. A purist might tell you about the Reinheitsgebot which is a "German Purity Law" adopted in 1516 to protect consumers from bad beer. The Reinheitsgebot basically states that you can only use Barley, Hops, and Water to make beer, nobody knew about yeast at that time.

Other people like myself will say "Who cares?". I believe that the important thing is that you enjoy what you are drinking. Otherwise, why drink it?

Prohibition brewers also took less time with each batch of beer. Conditioning a beer was a thing of the past. Who wants to keep their product sitting around waiting for Elliot Ness to bust it up?

On a personal note, I try not to give people a hard time over what they drink. I may not like Budweiser, but it's the king of beers because enough people like it. I also like Bud's Head Brewmeister. He has been involved with the Amreican Homebrewers Association for many years offering money and his companies knowledge to help promote the science of brewing.

As for Coors, I have a personal dislike for the Coor's family politics. They are ultra conservative religious right-wing jerks. Just ask the Gay and Lesbian community.

Enough of that. Sorry, no beer to rate right now.. I'm at work.

 

[DrAxeman]

I really didn't think about it before I took my first taste of Shipyard Brewing Company's Fuggles IPA, but it thought of me. This beer slapped me in the face and screamed "Respect my Authorita!".

IPA stands for India Pale Ale. It's origins go back to a time when the British Empire ruled India. British troops were given an Ale ration. In a time before refridgeration, India wasn't a good place to brew quality ales, it was just too hot. So they would ship ale from England. During this time public tastes had changed from Porters and Mr Arthur Guiness's famous stout, to the lighter more refreshing Pale Ale. The problem with shipping Ale from England to India is keeping it from going bad. The answer? Add more hops. Hops have a natural preservative quality that comes from their acidity. This kept the beer from spoiling on it's journey.

So what's a "Fuggles" (pronounced f-you-guls) IPA? Fuggles is one type of hop, noted for it's woody aroma. (Smells a little like oak.) I will go into more detail about the different types of hops another time. I will talk about usage.

One step of the brewing process is boiling the wort. The wort (pronounced Vert... it's a german word) is the unfermented beer, or sometimes called "Green Beer". Boiling time can vary depending on the style of beer you are brewing, but usually lasts from 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. Throughout this process you will add hops to you boiling wort. When you add them matters. The longer they are in the boil, the less aroma and flavor you will get from them, and the more "bitterness" you'll get. I usually work with 60, 45, 30, 15 and 2 minute intervals. The 60 and 45 are my bittering times, 30 and 15 are my flavor times, and 2 minutes is used for aroma. You don't have to use all those times, you pick and choose depending on what you want the outcome to be. One final way to add hops is to "dry hop". This means adding hops to the beer while it is fermenting. This will only effect the aroma.

Back to the beer. Nice hop aroma (oak, remember?), beautful copper color, light malt taste, and a powerful hop bite. This is an Excellent IPA! BRAVO!

Rating: 8 beers. This will become a common beer around here.

On a side note I want to say thank you to everyone who has offered up their suggestions. I will do my best to address everyone requests, no matter how much time it takes.

 

[DrAxeman]

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Life has been kinda busy lately. Over the weekend I went to the Colorado Brewery amd Steakhouse quite by accident. My lady and I were trying to decide what to do on saurday night with the 3 boys and decided to drive to Danbury, CT. Danbury it just 30 minutes away from us, and we had never been to CT so why not? The big plan was to just drive around a little and have dinner. When I spotted the Colorado Brewery and the rest is history.

My Lady was never fond of brew-pubs until recently. Where we used to live there was the Market Street Brewery (looks like their site is down right now). The beers were ok, but very uninspired and the food was mediocre at best.

Then when some friends of mine were out here we went to the Hyde Park Brewing Company and had a great time. The beer was good, the food was amazing (the lobster ravioli, and stout BBQ ribs are highly recommended) and it was family friendly. This changed everything. We have gone back since and now My Lady looks forward to trying new brew pubs.

I'll do an actual review of Market Street Brewery, and Hyde Park Brewing after my next visit to them. Tonight I will do my review of the Colorado Brewery. Sorry, I left my notes at home. On a side note, take notes at when dining out. My waitress saw me and I think we got special treatment because they thought I might be doing a review. :up:

On a beer related personal note, I am not happy with my job and have decided what I want to do when I grow up. I want a brew pub! There is a lot I have to learn first, and am making plans to move towards my goals. UC Davis has a Brew Master program, that ends with an internationally recognized certification in brewing sciences. I have decided that I am going to apply for the Fall 2004 term. I'd apply this year, but have I have to take some prerequsite classes before hand.

The obsticles in front of me? Money. Althought I hate my line of work, I have stayed with it because of the large amount of money I make. Hand on, I should be fair. I don't have the line of work, I just hate the instability behind it. More and more companies are moving jobs like mine to India and China. What few openings there are, are for contract positions.. like mine. I can be laid off on a moments notice, have only a few crappy benifits and very little stability.

It's time to take control of my own destiny... and brew some killer beers in the mean time!

 

[DrAxeman]

The Colorado Brewery and Steakhouse offers a wonderful varitey of ales which makes going there fun. You can, like myself, get a sampler tray with a small glass of each of the beers they serve, or just the ones you want to try. I will admit that trying 9 beers can leave you a little thick tounged. That's why I made sure to cleanse my mouth out with water between beers, and wait a few minutes. Enough of that, here are my tasting notes. Additional comments will be enclosed in *'s.

Gorgeous Blonde Ale - Very slightly malty, mild hop flavor, citrus note at end. Slight Hop aroma. *Blonde Ales are very light in color, and light bodies. I would have made this less malty. Very re-freshing. Probably the "safest" beer for those who usually don't drink drink beer from brew puvs of micro breweries.*

Cream Ale - Mild malt flavor, mildly creamy, well balanced use of hops, very nice head. *Cream ales do not use real cream in them..*

Strawberry Blonde - Crisp refreshing carbonation, nice hops. Finishes dry. No noticeable fruit. *Strawberry Blondes actually use strawberries.. They are a blonde ale with strawberries in them.. and a cute name. Fruit in beer turn you off? There are worse things that have been used. Actually, there are some types of fruit beer that I enjoy. On occasion I have been know to enjoy a Sam Adams Summer Ale (With lemon brewed in it), or before they quit making it Portland Brewing's Raspberry Wheat Ale. One of my best friends likes Sam Adam's Cheery Wheat.*

Ruperts Big Brown Nose - Citrusy and very lightly hoppy - Full body for a brown ale, rich color. *Named after the brew master's dog... I thought this was a great ale!*

Red Rocks Ale - Light burnt taste, probably from use of roasted barley. Nice bitering hops, lacking finishing hops. *This was a good beer, but could have been amazing if they had made better use of finishing hops.*

Hat Trick IPA - Excellent bittering hops, OK flavor, weak finish. Very mild malt / hard to notice. *With this style you want very little in the way of malt flavor, so this was good. Once again, they could have a world class IPA if they worked on the finishing hops.*

Oatmeal Stout - Nice and creamy, lightly oily feel. Nice use of oatmeal. *Oatmeal gives a beer a slightly olis feel to it and a fuller body. This is one of my specialites.*

Old Hand Ale - Very malty, nice hop balance, malty after taste. *This style is supposed to be malty, and low in hops. They did a great job on this. Great taste... good choice on a cold night.*

Oktoberfest - Very Malty- moderate hops, mild roasted malt flavor. *Another malty beer, and again excellent!*

Over all I give the brewery a 7. Great selection of beers and a great place to try new styles.

 

[DrAxeman]

I promised that I would start reviewing major label beers in here along with my usual selection. Tonigh: Coors Light. The last time I had a Coors light was in Ireland. Why would I drink a Coors when in the land of Guiness? Curiousity. It was twice the alcohol content and loved by most of the younger generation. I wasn't impressed, and went back to Guiness. As for tonight, here goes.

I just poured the glass and the head is already gone. 1.5 inches of head gone in 2 minutes. American Lagers are not noted for head retention. Light Straw color, very appealing. Extremely clear, no chill haze. Very light body feel, but there is a noticable "tounge bite" from the carbonation. Mild hop flavor. Dry finish, mild dry burn that is less present the colder the beer. No real flavors of after tastes to note, very clean.

The style of American Lager is a very light flavor, highly carbonated, refreshing beer. Usually served very cold, this style is made for mass appeal. I would lighten the carbonation, make it a little maltier, and more agressively hoppy.. but then it wouldn't be a American Lager.

On a side note, Canadian Lagers are of a similar style. Slightly more of a malt flavor (but not much). I have heard a lot of Canadian claim American beer is weak. Having drank Canadian beers I never knew what they meant until I realized that they were talking about alcohol content. When I was 19 I drank a lot of Molson Ice because of the alcohol content. Now I enjoy the taste. The only time the alcohol content bugs me is when it is over 9%.

Overall rating: 4 Drinkable, but nothing special.

 

[DrAxeman]

I am feeling the need to catch up on all the posts I missed. This one is from the strange file.. Actually, it was brought to the worlds attention by Charlie Papazian in his book "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing". The following is from that book: (In this section he was talking about the various types of things you can use in beer.)

Chicken - I saved this one for last. The recipe for Cock Ale is an authentic one taken from a book by Edward Spencer published in 1899 and entitled "The Boiling Fowl: A treatise on drinks of all kinds and periods, interspersed with sundry anecdotes and reminisences". Herein is the recipe:

COCK ALE

In order to make this the "Complete Housewife" instructs us to take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better. Parboil the cock and flea[flay?] him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, you must craw and gut him when you flea him, then put the cock into 2 quarts of sack (sixteenth century dry Spanish wine), and put in 3 pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and the bag together to a vessel; in a week or 9 days bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the neck, and give th same time to ripen as other ale...

I typed that verbatim from the book. Not sure how many copyrights I just broke, but they can't claim I called it mine.

Me and my old brew partners were discussing wether to try this or not. We were about ready to when the issue of disease came up. The yeast and hops prevent bacteria from causing beer to go bad, but in this case.. who knows?

Hope you got a laugh out of this.

 

[DrAxeman]

Tonight while walking throught the store I spotted a beer that I thought would make an interesting choice as a follow up to Coors Light. This beer is in a higher class, but the style would make it easier for a microbrew novice to drink. Tonight: Pilsner Urquell. Pilzner Urquell has been brewing pilsners since the brewery opened in 1842, and claim to be the origional Pilsner. Interestingly enough there have been reweries in Plzen Czechoslovakia since 1295 according to Michael Jackon's Beer Companion, and as you may guess this style takes it's name from the name of that region of Bohemia.

On a side note, the Michael Jackson I was refering to is not the king of pop, but is considered by many to be the king of malts. He is a highly esteemed beer judge, as well as Scotch and Whiskey judge.

We should probably start with a little about the Pilsner style. There are 2 major classes of beers, Ales and Lagers. The difference? Type of yeast strain. Ales use a yeast that ferments at temperatures around 65 degrees F, while Lager yeast like to be around 55 degrees F. Lager Yeasts also tends to ferment more types of sugar than ales yeasts do and produce a cleaner beer. Historically Ales were found in England, Ireland, France (Western Europe), while Lager yeasts were found in Germany, Czech, Poland (Central and Eastern Europe). Why? Well, before brewers knew about yeast they relied on Mother Nature to take care of things and she provided yeasts that were native to the area.

Ale and Lager are not the "only" strains of yeast. There are countless strains of yeast out there. In fact, yeast themselves are very unique, and not fully understood. I will try to go into more detail in a future post.

A simple example I can offer is with my Wheat Beer. I love wheat beers, specifically the American Wheat style. This is a very clean wheat ale with a nice hop flavor. I worked on it and created, what I thought, was a very good Honey Wheat Ale. At the suggestion of a friend, and a lot of reading about styles and yeast, we decided to change yeast strain to see what happens. We picked a Bavarian Style Yeast. Stupid us didn;t realize that this was a Lager yeast and fermented it at Ale temps. Fermenting too hot will produce side effects in the yeasts. In this case, what should have been a "mild" bannana and clover aroma/taste turned into an all out over ripe bananna taste and smell. I hated it! It was so strong that one friend of mine never beleived me when I told him that we didn't use banannas!

Aside form the yeast strain, Pilsners are noted for a very good balance of malt and hop flavor. Both being noticable, not strong, but noticable. Think of a Eurpoean answer to American Lagers, only better. Actually, this is the style of beer that Budweiser might have been before prohibition.

One last thing, I think the movie buffs in here may enjoy this. In the Shawshank Redemption, fast forward to the scene where Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman character were working reroofing that building. andy (Robbins character) convinces that hard ass guard that he can help him keep an inheritence he just received in exchange for a few beers for him and the other cons working in the roof. When the get the beer, Freemans character describes it as an "iced cold Bohemia style beer". Guess what style that would be? Pilsner.

Now on the the beer. Decent head retention. Slightly darker in color than an American Lager, more of a light copper color. Spicey hop aroma, not to strong though, and well complimented with a mild hop flavor. Very light in bittering hops. The hops were definately Saaz, noted for their spicey taste and are considered the perfect hop for Pilsners. Very light mouth feel, clean, but a nice malty after taste.. Only a very mild apple flavor, not very stong though. Very light and easy to drink. On a hot day a 6-pack could go quickly.

Rating: 7 beers.

 

[DrAxeman]

I accidently closed my browser window before saving my review.... AARGH! So I am going to write up a quick version, since I don't feel like spending the time to write it over again.

I finally found a bottle of Fraoch Heather Ale as mentioned in my first entry. I only got 1 bottle due to the $5.49 per 16.9 ounce bottle price tag. This is a Scottish Ale developed after a style that has been brewed since 2000 bc. What makes this unique is the use of Heather. Prior to being conquered by England, hops were very scarce in Scotland. The Scottish climate is not well suited to growing them, in fact it was near impossible. Brewers instead used other plants to bitter their beers.

Nice reddish-copper color, amazing head retention, and moderate carbonation. Light floral aroma. Nice mouth feel, warms your mouth with a citrus flavor. Very dry, white wine after taste. Excellent.

Rating: 8 beers.

Once again, sorry this is so short. My previous one was much longer, but stupid me oops'd..