Sais-on Sais-off

Saison Dupont, produced by the Dupont brewery in West-Hainaut, Belgium, was named best beer in the world by Men's Journal. It scores a 99 on Rate Beer and an A- on Beer Advocate. I had it for the first time tonight, which is strange for I am a disciple of the saison. There's no doubt that it is a tasty beer, but I feel that it is definitely over-hyped. For me it does not crack my top 20, and I would say that it is not even my favorite saison of all time. Full disclosure, I am a member of what BYO describes in it's July-August issue as the "cult of American saison". I feel that American brewer's have taken this style to new heights with the use of American hops and by drying out the beer especially on the finish. That being said, I would go with a Fantome over a Dupont any day of the week if I'm going for a Belgian saison.

Like I said the beer is tasty and full flavored, no doubt. It has some good spice and funk to compliment the fruitness of the the yeast and hops and the grainy pilsner back bone. All that is good, but the beer has this overtone of beeriness, or what I call "old man flavor". It's hard to really explain or even pinpoint what that flavor is. It basically tastes like someone poured out a case of miller lite into the 30 barrel batch right before it hit the fermenters. It might be that they used old or possibly too much pilsner malt in the grist. Not really sure, all I know is that I taste a flavor that I consider to be off.

As far as the ratings and accolades go, I'm not saying it deserves poor marks. But a 99 on Rate Beer? It's good, but not a 99. If we're doing Beer Advocate scoring, I would give it B-. If they cleaned up that one off flavor I'd push it to a B+ or maybe higher. For some good American Saison, check out McKenzie's brew house in Malvern PA, Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace, or Ommegang Hennepin. Cheers.

All in the game yo, all in the game

Back at it after an extended hiatus. Don't ask. Been drinking some great beers lately. Joe Canal's added a fine beer station at their Woodbridge location. They have some cool stuff in there including a Sam Adams Utopia (retail is $200+) and Brew Dog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin (abv is 32%). I didn't get either one of these beers as they are out of my price range. I did however pick up some pretty rad rare beers, which I will detail below. Canal's, like many other good beer retailers, used to hide their rare stuff in the back. I'm glad they decided to start displaying their rare inventory to the public. In order to get any of these beers you have to have an associate paged to come unlock the case (which I believe used to store house chivas regal scotch). Okay, without further adieu, here are some sweet beers I've picked up recently out of the fine beer case at Joe Canal's.

Ovila Saison:
This is a colab brew between Sierra Nevada and the Abbey of New Clairvaux. It is a farmhouse style ale that is very true to style. It pours hazy with a big white foamy head. Flavor is that of spice, pepper, and citrus with a nice bready backbone. Another great offering from the fine folks at Sierra Nevada. ;) Get it while it is still available, because I believe this is a one off offering.






Firestone Walker Abacus:
I believe this is their annual barrel aged barley wine. This one was intense, clocking in at 13%. This beer was equal parts sweet and bitter with some really complex flavors playing against one another. There was a slight alcohol heat on the end, but it was barely noticeable with everything else going on flavor-wise.





Brooklyn Sorachi Ace:
I've had this one a few times previously. It is a really complex and flavorful saison. The most memorable part of this beer is the use of Japanese sorachi ace hops. They impart a big lemon citrus flavor that blends really well with the spicy Belgian yeast.










Firestone Walker Parabola:
I believe this is another barrel aged annual release. It is an imperial stout that is dark as death with some intense flavors and aromas. Think dark malts, roasted, chocolate, coffee, bourbon, everything you would expect from a world class imperial stout and then some. Pretty smooth considering it clocks in at 12.5%, although it took me all night to drink it.

Why I don't like beer blogging

I haven't posted on this thing in awhile. Why is that. I've been drinking lots of good beers. I've started to write about some of them. I even made a video or two. But every time I finish writing or recording a beer review I think about how lame beer reviewing is. There are more than several beer reviewers out there on the blog circuit and on youtube. Some are better than others. Some are boring, some are insightful, some are charismatic, and some are goobers (which can be either good or bad). Almost all, however, are formulaic. They always give a run down of 1.appearance, 2. aroma, 3.flavor, and then some overall ranking. That shit is lame. I like reading about beer. I like watching beer related videos, but really, I don't care about your personal taste or opinion. I want to experience beer for myself and I really don't need to be told which beers are good or bad. I can figure that out for myself. If you are going to post something, make it at least somewhat original. I can't tell you how many beer bloggers are out there with the same post a million times in a row with just the beer switched out. A. no one cares what you think. B. you are boring. That's why I appreciate dudes like Don Osborn, who have more to say then just the obvious: AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 16/20. So I'm gonna try to come up with some more original shit to put on here. But if you want straight up beer reviews, there are mad dudes out there doing that stuff. I can tell you what I like, but I doubt anyone really cares.

Velocirapture

To celebrate the impending rapture and hopefully score some points with the big guy, I picked up a Chimay Blue. Cheers.

Fan Art

A couple photos my Uncle Matt took:

Experiments in General Chemistry

Yesterday Adam and I brewed an American amber ale. The previous time we brewed we had come up short on volume due to boil off (evaporation during the boil) and with too high of a gravity (basically too thick with sugars). We ended up topping off the fermentor with water to 5 gallons which corrected the gravity. The beer came out quite nice in the end. Too avoid this scenario we decided to collect a larger volume of sweet wort while lautering. We were shooting for seven and a half gallons of pre-boil wort as we normally collect seven gallons. We did not take in to account the fact that we would be distracted by the Rangers game on television. We ended up with eight gallons of sweet wort. It was all good though. We hit our target gravity just fine and we have a nice five gallon batch bubbling away in the brew closet.

This is, I'm sure, very exciting to my readership. Or probably not. But the story doesn't end there. We had some extra wort at the end of the boil. I decided to set some of it aside for a small experimental batch. I collected just under a half gallon in a JJ Bittings growler. I didn't have a specific plan for the brew, and actually nearly forgot about it as I was cleaning up after brew day. Plus there was this international friendly on between Argentina and the US which grabbed my attention after cleaning was complete. Eventually I remembered I had the growler chilling in the closet. I tried to come up with a quick plan for the beer. I remembered that we had some dried orange peel left over from a Belgian single we did some time ago. I dropped some of the orange peel into the growler. As I was searching for ingredients to add to the brew I found some Munton's dry yeast. It was over a year past it's best by date, but I said what the hell. I pitched a packet directly into the growler. I was just going to settle with this, but then I started to think about adding spices to ambers. The first brew that came to mind was Anchor's Christmas Ale. It is a seasonal favorite of mine. I headed over to the spice rack and grabbed some nutmeg and coriander. I scooped some of each into the beer and topped it off with an airlock. I probably should have done some research about the amount of spice to add to the beer, but I was kind of in a hurry. I probably over-spiced the hell out of it, but honestly I wasn't sure if the thing would even ferment given that the yeast was a year expired. Though,when I checked it this morning it was bubbling away. I'm excited to see how my little experiment comes out. I'm not sure how I'm going to bottle it, given it is such a small batch. Another experiment for another day.

Back with a Barleywine

Several in fact. First a note on the lack of activity on this blog. My PC was recently hacked by eastern European hackers. A lot of my personal info got out and I had to close all my bank and credit card accounts and open new ones. The hackers actually took quite a bit of money from my savings account, which investigators are still trying to get back. I ended up scrapping that PC and dropping more money then I wanted on an Imac. I'm still working on getting my finances back on track. But at least I still have some nice brews in the fridge. Like the ones pictured above.

Before Christmas I happened upon an '08 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine at Shop Rite liquors in Westfield. I still had several '10 Bigfoots chilling in the beer cabinet so I decided to drink them back to back. I'm not the hugest fan of barleywine, but if it is done right they can be quite delish. Bigfoot is definitely my favorite of the style, but admittedly I have not had that many. Maybe 2011 can be my year of barleywines. The '10 Bigfoot had been aging for something like ten months. When I poured it, the beer still had a nice one finger off white head. The foam dissipated rather quickly but left behind some lacing. The aroma was sweet and piney, with some dark fruits and spice in there. Flavor is that of malt, spice, and fruit, with a big hop bite throughout and a dry finish. It is a medium bodied beer with light carbonation. The characteristics that define the beer are the sweet malt and the big hop bite that compliments and subdues the sweetness. The next night I drank the '08 Bigfoot. It was very similar to the '10. The first and most visual difference was that it lacked a foamy head. Beyond the difference in carbonation, the '08 was more subdued and perhaps more focused in both aroma and flavor. The hops were not as jarring in the '08. There was more malt and dark fruit flavors which is more typical of the style. Overall it was a bit smoother. I enjoyed both beers. They brought different nuances of the style to the table. The '10 had malt, but was big on hops. Hops are what distinguish the style from the olde ale style that came out of England. The '08 was smooth and malty, which are characteristics that define the style. Check out Bigfoot Barleywine if you want a big beer that has some really in your face flavors. Right now I am drinking an '11 and really enjoying it. Cheers.

Kegerator Build

Over the past 6 months or so I have been working on putting together a kegerator to dispense my home brews. It ended up becoming a process, with many trips to the hardware store, but I finally have fresh beer on tap in my apartment. It's pretty boss. I'm glad I finally got the thing up and running. There is nothing better then being able to pour yourself a beer straight from the tap.

As a homebrewer there are several important benefits to kegging versus bottling. Number one, cleaning, sanitizing, filling, and capping the fifty plus bottles needed for one five gallon batch of beer is a bitch. It is much easier to clean, sanitize, and fill, just one five gallon keg. Number two, carbonating takes less then half the time when kegging. Once a beer ferments fully, it kinda blows that you have to wait another two weeks while it bottle conditions before you can drink it. With kegging you get the same, often better, results in less then a week. Number three, with bottling you have a layer of yeast and sometimes sediment at the bottom of each bottle. This means, if you don't want a yeasty beer, you need to cut your pour at exactly the right moment leaving about a quarter inch of beer left in the bottle. That kinda stinks. When kegging, you can leave all that yeast and sediment behind in the fermentor. Also, it is sweet that when I know I need to call it a night soon, I can grab just a half of a beer. Also it is just cool in general to have draft beer in your apartment.

Although it took some time to complete, it really was not difficult. You could probably do the whole thing in one day if you had all the right parts and tools on hand. The fridge I used was a Sanyo 4912 mini fridge. This model is discontinued but there are still a bunch out there. Grab one while you can. I had to remove the shelves and cut out the molded shelves that are part of the door in order to make enough room for the kegs, CO2 tank, regulators, and all the tubing. Next I located the refrigeration line that runs across the top of the fridge using a method I read about online. It involved spreading a mixture of corn starch and rubbing alcohol on top of the fridge, turning it on, and then waiting to see where the mixture dried first. It drys right over the hot line, so I knew not to drill there as I didn't want to turn the fridge into a giant paper weight. Once the line was located, I drilled a hole in the top for the connection tubes using a hole saw. Then I mounted my tap tower on top. That's pretty much it.

Probably the most difficult part was an optional step that I decided to take. I constructed a fan box with a flexible tube running out of the side. The purpose of the box is to blow cold air up into the tap tower. This will keep the beer in the line cold and cut down on foam coming out of the tap. I ran the ac adapter out of the drain hole in the fridge. I used one of the plastic shelves that came with the fridge as a shelf for the CO2 canister and fan box. Everything fits inside, but it is tight and I need to arrange things just right in order to shut the door properly.

Enjoy the pictures below. Right now I have an extract IPA and an all grain pale ale on tap. Cheers.

hole for the lines with water proof insulation tape

CO2 tank with regulator and fan box on the shelf

sanitizing the lines

filling the first keg

beerforce one in all it's glory

A white whale, the red herring, bigfoot?

A week of not drinking, no big thing. Really, more then anything, I missed the ritual. Coming home after a long day at work, nothing puts me at ease like a tasty craft beer. I drank a lot of tea that week to sub in. The week seemed to drag on too. It felt like two weeks. Sobriety, however, is not what I'd like to talk about in this blog post. No, let's talk about urban legends. A while back, someone had told me that only US beers had twist off caps and that all imports had pry off caps. This did not sit right with me. I kept checking my imports for twist offs, but I couldn't find one. Finally, after many years of searching, I found my jackalope. I got a beers of the world box for Christmas. In it was a Peruvian beer called Franca, and lo and behold, a twist off cap. Myth busted. The beer, by the way, had expired back in April. I took one sip and immediately poured it out. It tasted pilsner like, only kinda old and dull, and sweet, but not the good malty sweet. More like old corn syrup. I was kinda bummed because I had never had a beer from South America, let alone Peru. Hopefully one day I will get a good South American beer. I've read good things about Argentinean beer.

My Year of Beer

For me 2010 had it's ups and it's downs, both personally and professionally. One thing that remained consistent was my love for beer, especially the drinking of it. With the exception of New Years day 2010, I drank beer every single night. I was way too hung over on 1/1/10 to drink. Tonight I had two homebrewed IPA's and a Bitburger so far, which makes this one full year of drinking beer. Over the year I have had some really great beers and beer experiences. From being on the bottleing line at Cricket Hill Brewery to touring the legendary Anchor brewery, from getting my hands on a Westvleteren 12 to getting to drink the Russian River sours on tap, it was a good year of beer for yours truly.

So what next. For starters, I am going to stop drinking for an entire week, to prove to myself that I am not an alcoholic, but merely a beer geek. I also want to try different things in the new year, liking checking out whiskey and scotch. I got a set of shot glasses for Christmas that I need to put to use. I'd also like to try out some more cooking with beer. I'd really love to take another beercation, but I don't know if it will be in the budget this year.

Foolishly, back in July, I made the prediction that the Yankees would sign free agent left fielder Carl Crawford during the off season. I was so sure it was going to happen that I agreed I would quit drinking for an additional week if it didn't go down. Well, it didn't happen. The Red Sox signed Crawford to a monster deal. I'm gonna hold off on that second week for now. I'll get around to it, but I got an American pale ale carbing up as we speak.

Happy New Beers

As another year comes to a close I can't help but sit back and reflect on all the great beers I have had this year. I thought I'd call out a few that I haven't written about already.

Flying Fish Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA- I believe this was their fifth release from the exit series. It is the best from the series so far, and possibly the best beer they have ever made. It is a lemony, floral, grainy thing, kinda along the lines of Pliny the Elder or Captain Lawrence, Captains Reserve. It is lighter on the malt with citrus dominating the aroma and finish. The use of wild rice in this brew gives it a nice toasty grain flavor that is really unique and tasty.

Corsendonk Christmas Ale- This is a limited release Belgian Strong Ale. It is chock full of malt that leans towards darker fruits like cherries and plums. There is some nice belgian yeasty spiciness as well. It is really delicious. Very drinkable, but it still packs a punch at 8.5% abv. It has a distinctly chewy mouth feel that adds volumes to the experience.

Stone Sublimely Self Righteous Ale- This black IPA is a remake of their 11th anniversary ale. It is hoppy as hell. Lots of grapefruit and lemon citrus aroma and flavor with a nice malt back bone. I could probably drink this one everyday if it wasn't 8.7%.

Lefebvre Hopus- Got this bottle from Belgianshop.com. An interesting brew. A Belgian take on hoppiness. It is tame by US standards, but still pretty good. The beer is hoppy and fruity with the Belgian yeast profile playing off bitter hops.

Stone Double Bastard- This isn't new or hard to find, but I had never had one before about a month ago. A co-worker shared his bottle with me after we closed down the store the day before Thanksgiving. We drank the beer in the parking lot of staples out of paper cups while watching out for the Madison cops. Double Bastard is big as hell with a ton of hops, malt, sweetness, bitterness, fruit, pine, and some alcohol heat to boot.

In the market for some beers

disclaimer: I started this post before Christmas, but finished it on 12/27.

Today I was off from work. My big plan was to finish up my Christmas shopping, which I almost did. I hit up the beer store with the intention of getting just a couple bottles as gifts. I ended up with a full basket worth of brews. The whole time I was walking around I kept cursing because there was so much I wanted to pick up just for myself. It took some real restraint not to load up on all the seasonals. I ended up grabbing just three bottles for myself. Being at that particular store made me think about what makes up a good beer store. There are so few good stores in Jersey. The few stand out stores definitely have their flaws, but I am grateful for their existence. Below is a list of a few of my favorite stores and what they have to offer.

Oak Tree Discount Wines and Spirits: 902 Oak Tree Ave, South Plainfield, NJ.
This is the most well regarded beer store in Jersey among beer geeks. They offer a wide range of domestic and import ales and lagers as well as your usual wine and spirit selection. They have a full range of larger format bottles along with 12 ounce singles and six packs. There is a pretty well stocked refridgerated section. They offer all the macros in a bunch of different packaging (ie six pack, case, 30 rack, etc). They might have kegs, but I'm not sure. Probably what makes this place really stand out is their selection of import beers. The entire back wall of the store is dedicated to imports from around the world. They have everything you could want from Belgiam, Germany, England, and beyond. The beer manager is knowledgeable and helpful. I will say that the last few times that I went there, I was disappointed in the selection. They really didn't have much new. The seasonal display left something to be desired. The domestic shelves also looked like they hadn't been restocked in a minute. I haven't been there in a few months, so hopefully they have gotten their act back together.

Joe Canal's Discount Liquor Outlet: 489 Route 1 South, Iselin (Woodbridge), NJ.
This place has a good selection of craft brews but it is mainly a wine and liquor store. They have your usual macro selection with plenty of refridgerated options as well as room temp pallet drops towards the back of the store. They have one wall dedicated to craft beer. Decent selection of domestic bombers and some larger format imports. They offer some single twelve ouncers as well. Selection is above average, but far from ideal. There isn't much in the way of good customer service as the beer guy works between two stores, and judging from the way the department usually looks, he is spread a bit thin. One thing that sets Joe Canal's apart is that they have a growler fill station. They will fill any half gallon growler from one of their six rotating taps. They also sell empty growlers to fill.

Shoprite Liquors of Westfield: 333 South Avenue, Westfield, NJ 07090.
This is my new favorite spot. They have a good selection that seems to be restocked often. Their seasonal offerings and displays are top notch. Tight, inviting displays, with good variety and selection. They have a wide range of larger format singles and six packs. They have some stuff you wouldn't expect like Green Flash and Ballast Point. I found an '08 Sierra Bigfoot there (blog post to come). The staff is helpful and seem knowledgeable. I still haven't met the main beer guy, but he seems to have a grasp on what he is doing because each time I have been there I walked out with way more than I expected to purchase. The picture above is bottles I got from this place.

Check these places out if you are into craft brew. Support the few stores that have good offerings and if you know of any other good ones, send them my way. Cheers.

Thirty Somethin

Thirty years ago I came kicking and screaming into this cold cruel world with bright eyes and a calm demeanor. My birth was not, however, the most notable thing to happen that year. Nor was the election of Ronald Reagan, champion of the upper upper class. No, the best thing to come out of 1980, by far, was the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, champion of the cascade hop. This year they celebrated their thirtieth anniversary with a series of beers; Three colaboration brews and one brewer's reserve. Seeing as how Sierra is my favorite brewing co I was super excited to get my hands on these limited releases. Finding them proved often to be more then difficult. Places where beer dudes (and dudettes I suppose) go to get good beer would sell out of them super fast. Oak Tree in South Plainfield didn't even put them out for sale. You had to ask the beer manager to get one out of back stock for you. The same was true for Joe Canal's in Woodbridge. I found that the best place to acquire these bonus wagners was off the beaten path. Places like Madison Wine Cellar would get a case in and not know exactly what they had on hand. I got a bunch of the first and fourth release from there. I found several of the third release at a big beer mart outside of Asbury. It was like finding that the baseball card where the dude is flipping the bird.

The beers come in handsome cork and caged bottles. If you had the hook up you could get them in a nice wood storage box. There was also a Thirtieth anniversary snifter that went along with the beers. They were released every few months over the course of this year. They all were pretty big beers that should age well. I bought several of each. I drank at least one of each fresh and aged the rest. Then, leading up to the one year anniversary of beer glasses I drank each beer in succession culminating in my first taste of the brewer's reserve grand cru. What follows is my impression, from what I can recall, of each beer. I was gonna post a pic of each pour, but you can check my twitter feed if you really want to see that.

Fritz & Kens Stout:
The first release from back in March. This stout was a collaberative brew between Sierra founder Ken Grossman and (at the time) Anchor kingpin Fritz Maytag. FYI he is grandson of the appliance magnate and also he sold anchor shortly after the release of this beer. The beer is big as hell, super dark, and super delicious. Lots of roast and bitter sweetness. Nicely balanced. Really a quintessential American stout. It coats your palate quickly and basically becomes your night. Like, you can drink this while you are watching the Rangers game, but really you are watching the Rangers game while drinking the beer. Aging for nine months smoothed this beer out a bit. It was super creamy and thick like a bitter chocolate beer shake. Nice lacing and all that beer geek junk too. When I opened it after aging the bottom of the cork exploded. It was cool.

Charlie, Fred, & Ken's Bock:
This beer was released in May. It is a collaborative brew from Ken and pioneer craft brew writers Fred Eckhart and Charlie Papazian. They brewed an Imperial Helles Bock. Basically a maibock that is big as hell(es). This thing is delicious. It is malty and toasty and amber as fuck. It is out of left field really, as Sierra is not really known for their lagers. They did this one beautifully. A new take on a classic style. Initially it was my least favorite of the four, but after tasting it recently I think I would put it at number two of the four. It's tough to rate these things because they are all awesome. The most interesting thing about this one is that it has some alcohol heat that comes through at the back of your palate, almost in your throat. It really is interesting and for me it really added to the whole experience.

Jack and Ken's Black Barlywine Ale:
This is an interesting one. On this beer Ken Grossman teamed up with Jack McAuliffe. Jack started the New Albion Brewery in Sonoma Cali back in the day. It was a small operation that inspired many of the craft brew pioneers like Ken and Fritz. The beer they decided to brew for the anniversary is a black barleywine that is brewed with only American Cascade hops. It came out in July. This beer is seriously intense. I've had three so far and the first two times I had to ask for help in finishing it. It is big as hell. Very much a barleywine, but it has elements of stout and porter. Pretty much it is a barleywine with a ton of roast, some heat, lots of hop bitterness, sweet stout maltiness, but a medium syrup like body like a bw. It is a force to be reckoned with.

Brewer's Reserve Grand Cru:
This one is the culmination of the series. It is a blend of oak aged bigfoot ale, celebration ale, and fresh pale ale that is dry hopped into some sort of celestial nectar that words can not really properly convey. It has the best elements of all three beers and then some. Malt and sweet from the barley wine is complimented by the citrusy cascade hoppiness of the pale ale, which is further grounded and balanced by the piney hoppiness of celebration. Bangin. get your hands on this one if you can. Definitely my favorite of the series. It is of note that I prefer it from the bottle rather then the tap. The same goes for Sierra pale ale. I'm not sure if they bottle conditioned this like they do with the pale. Weird how Sierra is like that. Mostly I prefer tap, but Sierra does a real good job with bottle conditioning.

Hope you enjoyed my run down of this series. I still have a random assortment of these bad boy's left. Hit me up if you wanna do some drinking. They are good for one, but are best shared. Cheers.

Golden Anniversary

Not really that long ago one of my favorite beers was Golden Anniversary Beer. Golden Anni is a cheap fizzy yellow beer. It is listed on Rate Beer as a blonde ale with a rating of 1 out of 100. You could get it at the beer store in New Brunswick for $2.65 for a sixer. The price was a big part of the allure. Also the initials are GAB, which led to the obvious word play Gift of GAB. As in, you look like you could use one more, here is the gift of GAB. One of the greatest days of my life as a touring musician was when we discovered 40's of GAB at a grocery store in Rochester. My how things have changed.

To mark the one year anniversary of this blog I busted out a beer that I had been saving for over 2 years. I am referring to Stone's 12th anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. When this beer first came out, I bought six of them. Like all Stone anniversary releases, it came in a 22oz bomber. The last time I had one was at least a year and half ago. I remember it being quite good back then, so I was psyched to dig into this one. The first thing I noticed when I poured it was the lack of head and carbonation in general. It required quite a vigorous pour in order to get any kind of fizz. Color wise, it was consistent with what you would expect from an oatmeal stout. Aroma was that of sweet chocolate with some bitter roast aromas as a counter. It smelled good, but I was weary due to the lack of carbonation. I dove in despite my reservations. Like I expected, it was definitely lacking in the CO2 department. Looking past this, it was still a pretty tasty beer. Lots of chocolate and coffee flavors with a bitter backbone to counter the sweet from the massive malt bill. This beer definitely smoothed out over the last two plus years. No heat whatsoever despite the nine plus percent alcohol.

The other thing that surprised me about this beer beyond the carbonation is that it seemed to loose some body during the aging the process. When I first tried it in '08 it was full bodied, thick like a beer shake. Now, while still more full bodied then an amber or pale, it really didn't coat my palate like I thought it would. Later on I checked the cap and I could clearly see that the oxygen seal had shrivelled up. This leads me back to the subject of cellaring. I store my beer in a cabinet at room temp. My apartment generally stays between 65 and 70 degrees. These are not great conditions for storing beer. Ideally you would like to store beer at around 52 degrees with a high degree of relative humidity. These conditions are not acheivable when you live in an apartment complex. My only other option right now besides my beer cabinet would be the fridge. That isn't really a good option though for two reasons. First, I need to store food and fresh beer in there. And number two, refrigerators are designed to keep their contents dry. This causes the oxygen barrier on crowns of beer stored for long intervals to be compromised. The beer is thus exposed to oxygen which fucks beer all up. So right now it looks like I'm damned either way. The best solution would be to either buy one of those wine cellar things or design some sort of beer storage system. A project for another day. Right now I need to take it down. I have regional dudes coming into the grocery store tomorrow and I need to get some rest because I gotta be up by 4:00 am tomorrow. Thanks for reading over the last year or however long you have been paying attention to my half drunk rants on beer. Stay tuned for some more good anniversary stuff. Cheers.

Beer Glasses

Tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of this blog. The day I started it, I was sitting alone in my apartment drinking Sierra Nevada Celebration ale. I was pretty deep in and I got the idea to do a blog about beer. Really it was just a whim, but I'm glad that I did it. I've enjoyed sharing my beer related experiences with you. Over the next year, I will be attempting to bring out more material and hopefully be more consistent with my posting.

To mark my one year mark I am unveiling the new name of the blog: Beer Glasses. Thanks to my friend Jim Cottage for the kick ass logos. Check him out his work here. Beer blog is too bland and Beer Glasses fits the style of the blog better. Be sure to follow me on Twitter. The link is in the top right corner of the blog. Right now, I have 0 followers. Let's work on that.

Over the next couple days, I will be posting a series of anniversary related posts where I dip into my private reserves and drink some of that top shelf ish. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading and cheers.

All Grain, All the Time

A couple weeks ago Adam and I did our first all grain batch. It's been two years since our first extract batch and we are only now getting into the AG. It's all good, because we are back on the horse and it should be all grain from here on out. We ended up doing the mash on the kitchen stove, which involved a complicated two pot system for heating the strike and sparge water. It was a little dicey at times, but thankfully Murphy spared us, and I think we got a pretty good technique going on. For the boil, we brought it outside to the propane burner, which is way more efficient then using two burners on the stove. Doing full wort boils is the way to go. The beer we brewed was a fairly standard American pale ale. It smelled really good when we transferred it to secondary last weekend. I'm looking forward to tasting this one. Check out pictures at the end.

A while back I posted this about open that bottle night. Now it seems that Mark Dredge has stolen my idea. Check it out. Well, maybe he came up with it independently, but either way, I was first. In any event, I am going to open up some bottles pretty soon. Maybe not this weekend as he suggests. This blog will be a year old in one week. As part of that anniversary I will be opening a few things I have been saving. I might post a video too. Stay tuned.

Also, I got a twitter account. I'm still getting used to it, but my thing is @beerglassesnj. Follow me if you want. I mostly just post pictures of what I am drinking each night.

Ingredients


Sparging


The boil

Proof of Organic Concept

A few days ago I lost one, but today I came out a winner. How might you ask? Well, I took down a Sierra Nevada Estate Ale today while watching the Giants game. Double win. I had been looking for this beer for a while. It is listed as a special release on the Sierra website, but I had never seen it around here until the other day. There was one lone bottle sitting on the shelf at Joe Canals and I snatched that bad boy up. This beer is an IPA in the same vein as their other fresh hop harvest ales, only it is certified organic and the hops and barley come from Sierra Nevada's on fields located on their property in Chico CA. It pours a dark amber with a nice white foamy head. It has a citrusy, floral aroma. Flavor is citrus, pine, and hops. There is a malt backbone to it and overall it is very well balanced. A good find to say the least. I have to say, this is the best organic beer I have ever had. For whatever reason, organic beers tend to fall short of the mark for me. Often they are well brewed but lack real character or depth. I'm not sure why that is. The few exceptions that I have had before trying this beer were Wolaver's Oatmeal Stout and a few beers that I had from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Co over the summer. This is a somewhat interesting conundrum coming from an employee of a certified organic grocery store. Leave it to Sierra to really push organic beer in to the realm of legitimate craft brews.

On another tip, has anyone else noticed that beers within a craft brewers catalog end up tasting very similar and in some cases the same? I love Sierra Nevada. They make many of my all time favorite beers. However, a lot of there IPA's and pale ales, tend to taste similar and sometimes the same. For instance, if you put the Northern Hemisphere Harvest ale next to the Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale next to the Anniversary Ale next to this beer, I would have a hard time telling them apart. They even taste similar to the new brown ale they came out with this fall. I'm not really complaining, I'm just bringing up the point. The same can be said for Rogue and Anchor Brewing Co. Probably a bunch more craft brewers. Why is this. Could it be repetitive ingredients (yeast in particular), could it be technique or equipment, maybe the brewer him/herself. I don't know. Just throwing spaghetti here. Anyway, check out the Estate ale if you can get your hands on it. It has a waxed top which is pretty cool. The bottle looks cool. It is 6.7% and delicious. Later and cheers.

Black to the Future

I haven't done a beer spotlight in a while. Actually haven't done a post in a while. Blame the holidays for that. One day off in the last two weeks. Anyway, there is a new beer style out there that has become a bit of a fad. I'm speaking of Black IPA's. Also known as Cascadian Dark Ales or India Black Ales, these beers are dark in color but deceive a bit because their focus is more on hop flavors and aromas. According to the Brewers Association there should be some caramel malt flavor as well as a moderate amount of dark roasted flavors, however the focus should be hops. Burnt flavors should be absent. A few years ago Stone released their 11th anniversary black IPA. This thing was so bangin. It was chock full of citrus hop flavors and aromas with a nice complimentary caramel malt backbone and dry hoppy finish. Superb. They re-released this one off as Sublimely Self Righteous Ale which is now in regular release. Check that shit out.

So, when I picked up 21st Amendment's Back in Black, I was expecting something in the same vein. I was sadly let down. When I saw the smart package in the beer store, I was instantly intrigued. My expectations were high. The beer is part of the new wave of canned craft brews that has been gaining popularity in recent years. According to the packaging this beer is inspired by Paul Revere's midnight ride and is brewed with rich dark malts. It clocks in at 6.8% abv. The beer pours black with a substantially tan head that leaves a nice lacing behind. Aroma is sweet malt and some light citrus hop aromas. I expected a lot more hop in that aroma. The flavor of this beer is interesting, but not in a good way. There are some roasted flavors up front, but they are subdued. There is a moderate hop bitterness but the hops stop there. There is a lingering malty sweetness that seems really out of place in an IPA. All this is set against a really light body that kinda feels like a mind game. You'd expect this beer to be thick and heavy from the look of it, but it is quite thin. The sweetness of the malt really messes things up here. It doesn't taste focused at all, and frankly the flavors are kinda weak. All in all, this beer is just out of whack. It seems like they made the beer just to be one of the first companies to have a black IPA as a regular release. I would suggest that they retool their recipe and try to get some more IPA hopiness up in this piece. Some cascade in the hopback definitely wouldn't hurt this brew. In any event the focus of this style should be hops first and foremost with roasted and sweet malt as a counterpoint that also gives the beer a nice smooth body. Here you just get a sweet, slightly bitter beer that lacks body. There's a bunch more new Black IPA's out there. If you find a good one, let me know.

On being a hophead

Lately I have been making a concerted effort to not just drink pale ales and IPA's. I definitely dig on many beer styles and I have a desire to expand my pallet, but if I'm not paying attention I will fall back on old habits. Like today. I was off from work and kinda bored. I got in the car with the intention of driving to Target to buy a new toothbrush. Somehow I ended up at a beer store in Westfield that has a pretty good selection. I meandered around for a couple minutes checking out what they had to offer. I picked up one bottle, picked up another, looked around some more. Before I realized it I had nearly $50 worth of brew at the checkout counter, all of which were IPA's, but one. I'm not complaining because I got some good stuff (Celebration Ale, Sierra Southern Hemi, Ballast Point IPA). Sometimes, though, I have to force myself to buy other styles, even if I know I will like it. Like, I have no idea when the last time it was that I bought a stout at the beer store. I just love those hops. The way they taste, the way they smell, even the way they look (fresh). So I'm asking my readers (the six friends i have that pay attention to this thing) to suggest non-pale ales for me to try over the next month. I have an IPA in primary fermentation right now that will be ready in about a month, so I'll be back on them lupulins by then. Help me mix it up in the mean time.

What I'm drinking: Various IPA's
What I'm listening to: Celph Titled

Ein Prosit der Gemutlichkeit

The other day I headed down the shore to hang with my brother from another mother. I decided that it was time to celebrate. Celebrate what, you may ask? Well, my heritage for one thing. As you probably (don't) know I am just over 25% German and Oktoberfest is in full swing. So I headed over to Oak Tree and picked up as many Oktoberfest singles as I could find, which weren't many. Disappointing. Also, no Brooklyn Oktoberfest. What gives. I checked out this other beer store in Westfield, which had some good stuff, but really no singles. New Jersey needs to wake up and embrace beer culture. Or maybe I need to move to the west coast. Any ways, I eventually ended up with eight different Oktoberfest selections and gunned it down the parkway to Asbury. James showed me the location he is scouting for his coffee shop and roastery. Shit looks good. Congrats to him for living the dream. After that we got some burritos and then headed back to his place for some tasty beers. Basically we did a blind tasting of our selections and then saved some for Meems to taste after she got home from back to school night. Again, I am going to have to link the spreadsheet as I still don't know what the f I am doing. I need to take an html class. Here you go. We evaluated based on aroma, flavor, prozit, and overall score. We were all a bit surprised by the outcome. Personally, I thought Brooklyn would score higher. Flying dog was the big winner with Left Hand not far behind. Otter Creek was the least drinkable of all. Anyway, enjoy. Prost!

What I'm drinking: Lagunitas, Little Sumpin Wild (bangin)
What I'm listening to: New Gaslight Anthem
What I'm watching: Started watching Ken Burn's Tenth Inning tonight. That thing is well f'in done. I honestly started to tear up several times watching the Yankees rising from the ashes of the strike during my formidable years. I haven't seen the original series, but if any of my friends or my girlfriend read this blog, that is what I want for Christmas/my birthday/Rosh Hashanah.

Beers chilling out

All the beers lined up, covered, and numbered

Also, I got some new buddies