Tasting: Ginger/ Lemongrass Session

This beer was my first time working with another homebrewer's recipe. Last year while in Florida, Greenbriar Artisnal Brewer, Doug, opened up a bottle of his Ginger/ Lemongrass Session Pale Ale. I thought his beer was right on target. A beautiful beer, crisp and bright with the ginger not overpowering and overall pleasing to the palate. All brewers throw their own little tweaks in a recipe, but it is amazing when it comes out right the first time.

I subbed in a few ingredients for my version and I see why the original came through so well. Our base malts were different and Doug's addition of flaked maze really did make the crispness that a Florida beer needs. The ginger in my version was a bit too strong, although I used the same amount as called for, however I yielded about a .5 gallons less than the recipe. My efficiency was higher than usual on this one and I am still baffled at that. Overall I am pleased, and for the first time I am hoping some of the flavor subsides. I would have also liked to keg this one as well. I will probably end up making this again, but sticking to the exact recipe and see if it is all I remember it to be.

Ginger Hair

Simon Gowen

I’m a feisty little red head.
I’m a mother and a wife.
I am clever and outrageous
I lead an interesting life.

There’s a stigma that surrounds us
Cos the colour of our hair
If you really got to know me
Then you wouldn’t think it fair

But I look upon the positive
That’s what I like to do.
We’re few and far between
And not as common place as you!

So if you walk along the street
Don’t stop and point your finger
Don’t mock me cos I have red hair
Respect me cos I’m GINGER! ! !

Ginger/ Lemongrass Session
2 Row, Vienna, Crystal 40, Carapils
Ginger Root, 2 units Lemongrass
Centennial Hops
Wyeast 1056

Tasting: Imperial Amber

This is a long overdue post. This beer has been kegged for over a month, but I'm pretty sure that I haven't handed out too many of them yet to get any other opinions on it. In January I was little inspired by Port Brewing's Shark Attack. I wanted something carmely and piney; hop forward while big and malty. While this was in the primary our Imperial Oak IPA was just about ready to be bottled. I wanted this to be the exact opposite of that beer. It is loaded with darker malts and C hops and heavily Amarillo dry hopped. The grain bill looked almost Barleywine(ish) and my big fear was that it would be unbalanced as hell.  Three ounces of Amarillo would hopefully take care of that. OG clocked in at 1.082. I might enjoy this a bit too much while April is finishing out. 


Imperial Amber
Pale Malt, Munich, Victory, Crystal 80, Carared, Carapils, Special B
Columbus, Centenial, Cascade and Amarillo Hops
American Ale 2

The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Katharine Tyran

There's music in my heart all day,
I hear it late and early,
It comes from fields are far away,
The wind that shakes the barley.

Above the uplands drenched with dew
The sky hangs soft and pearly,
An emerald world is listening to
The wind that shakes the barley.

Above the bluest mountain crest
The lark is singing rarely,
It rocks the singer into rest,
The wind that shakes the barley.

Oh, still through summers and through springs
It calls me late and early.
Come home, come home, come home, it sings,
The wind that shakes the barley.

*Imperial Amber to the left in photo. Plum Oak Saison to the right.

The Farmer and the Ale

Dogfish Head/ Victory/ Stone: Saison du Buff (2012)
Elysian Brewing: Idiot Sauvion
Mikkelier: Ris a la M'ale
Du Stuise/ 3 Floyd Brewing: Shark Pants
Farmers Cabinet House Beer: Joy Division Series-New Dawn Fades
Clown Shoes: Tramp Stamp
Founders: Breakfast Stout
Daisy Cutter: Half Acre

The weather is to confusing lately. A few weeks ago I was all about Saisons and IPAs. It is amazing what 10 degrees lower will do to your palate. So for the past week I got every little last drop out of my keg of Milk Stout to both prepare for something new and in high hopes that the sun will shine again. I grew tired of waiting. And because I haven't written down a list of what I drank over the weekend in a while, I decided to throw out a few of my favorites.

I always look forward to a Mikkelier and 3 Floyds is always worth having when on the menu. When it is a Du Struise collaboration is extra worth it. Somehow I have been drinking Half Acre a lot recently. It is such a clean and well hopped Pale Ale that it is hard to pass up. I haven't had Founders BF Stout at all this winter, but I wound up having an early-early bird dinner yesterday that it was perfect to pair with the time and conversation. It was an old school Sunday dinner for me in the 3pm range.

The Mad Farmer Revolution
Wendell Barry

The mad farmer, the thirsty one,
went dry. When he had time
he threw a visionary high
lonesome on the holy communion wine.
"It is an awesome event
when an earthen man has drunk
his fill of the blood of a god,"
people said, and got out of his way.
He plowed the churchyard, the
minister's wife, three graveyards
and a golf course. In a parking lot
he planted a forest of little pines.
He sanctified the groves,
dancing at night in the oak shades
with goddesses. He led
a field of corn to creep up
and tassel like an Indian tribe
on the courthouse lawn. Pumpkins
ran out to the ends of their vines
to follow him. Ripe plums
and peaches reached into his pockets.
Flowers sprang up in his tracks
everywhere he stepped. And then
his planter's eye fell on
that parson's fair fine lady
again. "O holy plowman," cried she,
"I am all grown up in weeds.
Pray, bring me back into good tilth."
He tilled her carefully
and laid her by, and she
did bring forth others of her kind,
and others, and some more.
They sowed and reaped till all
the countryside was filled
with farmers and their brides sowing
and reaping. When they died
they became two spirits of the woods.

On their graves were written
these words without sound:
"Here lies Saint Plowman.
Here lies Saint Fertile Ground."

Strange Fruit: Part 2

Oak Plum Saison
Belgian Pils, Caravienne, Torrified Wheat, Special B
Saaz, Mount Hood, Zythos Hops
Wyeast Belgian Saison (1.2 lt starter)
3lbs Yellow Plums
3oz Hungarian Oak Cubes

A few days before making the Belgian Fruit Beer mentioned in the post previous to this one I brewed up a Saison. Although I felt it was a couple weeks early to brew a Saison I did have the weather in my favor. When you are reaching 70-80 degrees every day, a Saison hits the spot. I also saw The Bruery and some Stillwater's on tap a few times while I was out and about to sway my brewing schedule.

Again, I mentioned in the previous post that I had to play with varying temperatures last Summer and Fall, but this early Spring brought a nice stable 67-70 degrees in my basement with the help of a blanket or two wrapping the fermentor. For my OG on this batch I shot for 1.046 was almost right on. Wyeast Belgian Saison is as finicky as them come in my book. Just when you think that you stalled out everything revitalizes and is fine. I still let the primary go for 13 days. To bring fruit into this recipe I went back to my Plum Rye IPA and ended up getting 3lbs of Yellow Plums. You are not going to get a whole lot of secondary fermentation using plums. I was hoping for a bit of tartness. The Rye IPA was very pleasant, but with this yeast I didn't know what to expect. I left the plums soaking in Cabernet for the entire primary and the taste of them on racking day made me want some Sangria. The tartness of the plum and fruitiness of the wine was a nice blend. That brings us to the current week. The outside temp is dropping and with a week in the 50s and low 60s I figured that oaking it might be another nice addition. That is where this post ends. I am going to let it sit on the oak for about 14 days. Every other time that I have used oak it was a Stout or Porter and 30 days seemed to be what I gauged everything on. The one exception was the Oak Double IPA that we did this year and 2 weeks was plenty (by the way, a First Tasting Post on that beer should appear later in the week).

Cheers until then.

Strange Fruit

4lbs Raspberries in Secondary

MARCH:
Now is the time of year when I start thinking about fruit beers. It's not that I am a fan of them, but playing with different fruits and alcohols has been a big part of my brewing over the past year. Last year I worked on a few different saisons, mainly concentrating on different herbs, different yeast strains, higher and lower temperatures and overall getting to know the style of beer a bit better. Spring in Philadelphia is absurdly warm right now and it feels like a nice middle of the road temperature to work with.

I have access to a good deal of fruit grown last year and frozen. Raspberries were the majority in my options. I wanted a pretty basic base of Pale Malt, a bit of Wheat. Warrior hops seem to be something that have made it into two recipes last month so I went with it as the only hop at 60 mins. I wanted this to be a fairly big beer with an OG around 1.096. I planned on 3 lbs of berries at knock out and a 2 litter starter with 2 smack packs. This is sounding kind-of DFH Fort-like and as much as I would love to make something like that, I know there is so much time and knowledge to kick something like that out. I was recently sent a blog where the brewer made a 120 Clone and I assume that it is a similar fermentation process.

After primary is over I still plan on racking onto another 4 lbs of berries. Time and taste will tell.

Lesson Learned- Puree, Puree, Puree. I potato smashed 3 lbs of rasp. and wild berries. This resulted in a nicely clogged screen when draining into the fermentor. I planned on this so I had a strainer and large funnel sanitized and ready.

Brett Pellicle

APRIL:
After a month of sitting a top of 4lbs of raspberries in the secondary it looks no different that out of the primary. Why would it? The berries roused up a nice second fermentation adding plenty more tartness and haze. I pitched a vile of Wyeast Brett L. Let's see what happens.



Sour Belgian Raspberry
Pale Malt, Wheat Malt, Carapils
Warrior Hops
Wyeast Belgian Wit 
White Labs Brett L
Orange, Lemon, Lime Zest
3lbs of Raspberries (knock out)
4lbs of Raspberries (secondary) - Photo above

Here is a poem: 

Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.
They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring 
What had begun to feel like reverence.

Batch #3

Double IPA
Brewed with Julian Heal

Canadian Pale Malt, US 2 Row, Munich, Belgian Pilsen, Crystal 40, Carapils
Warrior, Cascade, Centennial Hops
Wyeast American Ale II

I never brewed an Imperial before. Well...nothing that was supposed to be over 10% and actually hit both gravities. It was a perfect day to brew as it was the morning after the only real snow that Philly got all winter. That is what Imperials are for sometimes. A nice boozy treat that you can sip on when the winds are wiping around and you just want the winter to end. Well...that is my Northeast scenario. In this case it will be a nice treat where everything is just beginning to bloom. That means it is hop planting season. Speaking of hops we have close to pound of hops in this beer.

We had a nice blow off by the morning after brew day. I wasn't there to see it, but it must have been a nice see that we had plenty of aeration before pitching our starter. It was also one of back to back brews that Jules made that day. Who starts off with an Imperial and ends with a Smoked Oaked Baltic Porter? After a nice primary we racked on to 4ozs of French and Hungarian Oak Cubes. After two 2 weeks it had plenty of oakiness so we racked off, let it sit again and dry hopped. With about eight weeks in we are getting ready to bottle. More pics to come soon.

Hometown Brews

We took a day trip out of the city yesterday to visit my parents in North East PA. They live about 15 mins north of Scranton and the ride up I476 to the Turnpike Extensions is about a 2+ hour ride with zero traffic. Yesterday brought a series of snow squalls from Lansdale to Allentown. It was a nice to see that there is a winter outside of Philadelphia. There are plenty of decent beer bars up in the Scranton area, but it is rather difficult to get my parents (just one half) to have a meal based around craft beers. There was a nanobrewery just outside Scranton that just settled into the their hometown of Carbondale. This all happened in the past month so I was hoping to catch one of their beers on tap, and I did.


Three Guys and a Beer'd is the name of the brewery. Their website is still in the works, but from their Facebook page it looks like they eight or so beers readily available. Three of them were on at our dinner destination. I started out with Ladder Dive, a Rye IPA. I've always been a fan of Rye IPA. Philly's own Dock Street's Rye IPA has always stood out as one of my favorites and I was pretty pleased with this beer as well. Like most Ryes there is a bit of sensory overload. Sweet and piney and citrusy and spicey.  My only disappointment was in the bar's glassware. Unfortunately frosted mugs don't make an easy transition from shitty domestic lagers and pilsners toward anything craft. I always worry that frosted mugs equals frosted cleaner which in turn leads nighttime sickness.  They had an American Wheat and an Irish Red on also. I don't have a tendency to gravitate toward either of these styles, but I had a nice fish dinner so I went for their wheat, Wheat the People. This one can pass in a frosted glass. It was a classic, clean US Wheat. It took them a few tries to get me the right beer though. First they gave me a lager, then the Rye IPA again, and finally the Wheat. Fortunately I had they left the Rye on the table and I got enjoy both of them.

On the way back to Philly we made a stop in the Poconos. Both my wife and I lived in Stroudsburg prior to moving to Philly. There are a few brew pubs around the area with most recently, Shawnee Craft Brewing Co. being available outside their tasting room. I've heard about Shawnee for a while and have even had some Philly friends stop at their tasting room last year. Their Session Porter was on tap along with a Blonde. I tried both and was overall pleased with these two as well. The Porter was super rich with nice dark fruit notes and plenty of body of a session beer. At around 4% it was a nice beer to enjoy before an hour ride home. Their Blonde, which I am assume is their Biere Blanche was a bit more of my style of wheat compared to the Three Guys American Wheat. Nice peppery notes, a bit puckery and dry finish made this beer a winner for me. But overall I both breweries make coming and going and a new treat for me.