Beer

More details to follow.

This Saturday, January 19th, Barley & Hops is hosting their first beer festival - highlighting one of my favorite styles of beer - IPA! The festival runs from noon to 10pm, so you have plenty of time to do your tasting. And tasting you’ll do! For $25 you get 10 tastes plus a cool B&H tasting glass, and the pride of attending their first ever festival. Throw in the great food they serve, and the fact you’ll be supporting a new local business, and it’s a win win.

See you Saturday!!! More info HERE.

The day after Christmas is often busy with shopping, cleaning up after family festivities, and recovering from Christmas celebrations. We added another thing to the list this year…yesterday was Brew Day!

I had a new assistant, my buddy Troy Hill. It was his first time brewing, and he was a great help. We brewed a Mild Brown, similar to a Newcastle. I chose this style because it will finish fermentation quick, finish conditioning quick, and be on tap quick! I hope to have this beer on tap in about 3-4 weeks - mid to late January. A nice contrast to the Douple IPA we brewed on December 2nd, which won’t be ready to drink until probably the first of March.

Special thanks to Troy for all his help…the process is much easier with 4 hands working. How do I repay him for his time and energy? Well, there was lots of beer and pizza yesterday, but the real way to thank someone is to name a beer after them. So next month you’ll find a new brew on tap here…Brown Hill Ale!

Specs
Boil Volume: 12.5 gallons
OG: 1.037
Temperature of Wort when Pitchin Yeast: 66*F
Yeast: White Labs English Ale WLP002
Quantity Pitched: 1 vial per carboy
Yeast Starter: No….have all the ingredients, but wasn’t home the day before to make the darn thing!
Lag Time: 14 hours - pretty good, probably due to the low OG.
Fermentation Temperatre: Day 1: 64*F; Day 2-3: 70*F; Day 3-x: 66*F
Number of Days in Fermentor: 13
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 3.4%

Call me crazy, but I’m toying with the idea of brewing again next week. Maybe a Pale Ale…or something that will finish quick, like this brown. I’ve got 2 empty carboys, and 4 empty kegs, so why not???

I’ve got the ingredients for a Mild Brown (sort of a Newcastle style), and we’re brewing the day after Christmas, December 26th. We’ll start noonish, so come on down and brew with us. Merry Christmas!

In my years of drinking stouts, I’ve never had a Milk Stout…until yesterday. I picked up some Widmer Snow Plow, their Winter Seasonal, from Old Town Liquor. This is a great style of beer.

Oh, I’m too tired to write a proper review of the Snow Plow….just go buy it!!!

There’s a new link over there under the “Beers I Like” section for Big Sky Brewing Co. Normally I reserve these links for breweries who have a whole line of great beer, and I’ve only had two differend Big Sky brews (our of 6)…so what gives?

Well, those two beers were fantastic! The Scape Goat Pale Ale was a great example of an American Pale Ale. But what really stood out for me was Moose Drool. Don’t let the name fool you, this is one of the best beers I’ve ever had! It’s a wonderfully smooth, surprisingly sweet brown ale that is a must try. It’s a little more expensive than your average beer (even by craft beer standards), but it’s worth every penny.

Do yourself a favor and try a Moose Drool. I’ll be sampling the rest of their line, expecting to find other new favorites from this Montana brewery.

Here we are with Batch #3 already…time flies when you’re having fun. Bobby came down today to help me with the brew. We brewed a Pliny the Elder clone. All went well - the wives even made dinner for us!

Want the stats of this Double IPA? Read on!

Specs:
Boil Volume: 12 gallons
OG: 1.078 …….damn!
Temperature of Wort When Pitching Yeast: 66*F
Yeast: White Labs California Ale WLP001
Quantity Pitched: 2 vials per carboy
Yeast Starter: No….because they were out of the flask I needed….should be ready for the next brew!
Lag Time: 18-26 hours…these things always kick off while I’m gone
Fermentation Temperature: Days 1-3: 72*F; Days 4-8 70*F; Days 9-16 68*F; Day 17 - it’s done and resting at 60*F
Number of Days in Fermentor: 19
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 7.5%

Bought an airstone and yeast starter kit (2000ml flask, DME, and yeast nutrient) from More Beer so we’ll be ready for the next brew.

Join us for our next brew….after Christmas…possibly the day after (26th)…Mild Brown, cause it’ll finish quick, since I’m gonna have to wait until March to drink this Pliny!

Our plans of brewing on November 25th have been changed - we’re doing Thanksgiving with some family that can’t make it on the actual day. So we’ve rescheduled our Pliny brew to Sunday December 2nd. Come on over and brew with us!

We’ll also be BBQing and watching the San Diego Chargers vs. Kansas City Cheifs game in all it’s HD glory. Go Bolts!

Join us for some beer, food, beer, football, beer, fun, and beer!!!

*So here’s the deal. When I was out of town last week, the temperature in our house got a little low, and our Stout that’s currently fermenting stopped short…about half way through. It was supposed to be done by 11/25, but it’s still not there. This may not be an issue.

Check back for the latest breaking brew news!

It’s been far too long since we last brewed. That was fixed today when Blind Bill came down and we brewed our second batch of beer. Things went much better this time around…we learned a LOT with that first batch. We switched the style this time, brewing an Irish Stout, similar to Guinness, but with a little less bitterness and more roasty malt flavor. Our good friend The Bob also came down to help with the brew, which was great…a couple extra hands were very helpful. Thanks, Bob-O!

Batch #1 turned out much better than I thought it would…quite drinkable. Batch #2 should be even better. Several of the “oh, crap…that’s not what I was supposed to do” moments from the first brew turned into “yes, that’s the way to do it”’s today. We finished in about an hour less time, probably due to not screwing things up. We’re hoping to have this beer (which we named Veteran Stout, in honor of our men and women who’ve served our great county) fermented, conditioned, and on tap before Christmas. We used the B3 Stout kit from More Beer.

Employing a super ice bath for the chilling helped us cool the wort to 65*F in about 30 mins!

Specs:
Boil Volume: 12 gallons
OG: 1.057
Temperature of Wort When Pitching Yeast: 65*F
Yeast: White Labs Irish Ale WLP004
Quantity Pitched: 1 vial per carboy
Yeast Starter: No. Will probably do one next time.
Lag Time: 17 Hours
Fermentation Temperature: 67*F
Number of Days in Fermentor: 22….see story below
Final Gravity: 1.022
Alcohol Content: 4.6% ABV

We had a problem with the fermentation. While I was out of town last week the room where we ferment got cold….60*F. The beer should ferment between 65-70*. When it gets too cold the yeast fall asleep and quit doing their job. So I got out the space heater and got the room back up to 70*, but there hasn’t been much activity, so I consulted the forums of The Brewing Network. Advice I received suggested warming the beer up to 75*+ to get the yeast to wake up, then once fermentation re-starts slowly lower the temp back down just under 70* and let it do it’s thing. This beer should have finished in less than 2weeks, but because of the temp drop it’s probably gonna take a little more than 3 weeks. We ordered 2 new carboys, which I hope arrive in the next couple days, so we should still be on track to brew on Dec 2nd.

Join us in two weeks for our next brew. Sunday, December 2nd (check back here for an official announcment of brew day and time) we’re brewing a Pliny the Elder clone…huge Douple IPA. Come on down!!!

Time to get rid of that crappy beer t-shirt you have…November is Stone’s Beer Amnesty Month.