First State Brewers Blog

Waiting for the next meeting and rationing my oak-aged vanilla imperial porter… must… not… drink it all… before meeting… And trust me. Its hard. My family put a hurting on it over Easter weekend, and with good reason - the stuff is really nice.

Waiting for my hops to grow - All 5 new rhizomes are now in the ground in some of the richest soil this side of Newark. I’d be floored if they didn’t thrive. Hopefully this season I’ll have a good crop of Cascade, a good crop of Nugget and Liberty, and a small crop of Magnum - The magnum rhizomes were your typical tiny cuttings, so it’ll take a year or two for them to get big and strong. Can’t wait until the first few shoots push their way up out of the ground.

Waiting for my Belgian Strong Dark Ale to finish fermenting. The BBBOT is still glug-glug-glugging away. I am starting to wish I had intentionally fermented this thing high (like 76-80). Its been around 70-72 for a couple days and now I’ve stuck a heating pad on the carboy to get it up a couple degrees. This beer would probably actually benefit from a really nice yeasty fruity profile.

Waiting for my latest batch of IPA to condition. I need to move it to a secondary in a few days or maybe even I’ll just keg it. I’m hoping it is tasty. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Waiting for my MoreBeer.com order to finally ship. The 10 gallon GOTT coolers have been backordered for a couple weeks now, and they finally got them in over the weekend. I should see my order moved to “Shipped” status any day now. Then I wait a week for delivery.

Waiting for the weekend so I can brew again. It’s a sickness, and I’ve got it bad. This weekend will be either a Nut Brown Ale or another batch of Black Honey Ale. I’m thinking Nut Brown.

Waiting… waiting… waiting…

My first 3 gallon keg of Scotch ale just kicked. I have put on the second… And when moving stuff around there, the Porter is probably a half pint away from kicking as well… which means OAK AGED VANILLA IMPERIAL PORTER will be on tap very soon.

I have a problem with one of the 3 gallon cornies of OAVIP… I checked this morning and one of the poppets on gas-in side isn’t holding pressure, so the keg is essentially flat. I scrambled to pull a post & poppet off the scrap keg I bought from HDYB, get it cleaned and sanitized, and installed… It seems to be holding pressure just fine. I’ll hold my breath on contamination until we crack into the keg, but I think I’m fine.

I have the servomyces in my hands. WOOOOOT! It cost me nearly $14 for 6 capsules… OUCH!!! If anyone out there wants to try this stuff, order it from MoreBeer. They have it for 8% ABV, finish somewhere around 1.016… The mix of WLP500 and 550 will probably be a very interesting mix of fruit and spicy phenols…

I also have everything I’ll need for my next 3 batches after that…

• Limey Vale Nut Brown Ale
• Black Honey Ale (batch 4… for my dad)
• Hefeweizen (a kit I’ve had for a few months now)

. That should keep me plenty busy until May when the inaugural brew on my AG system happens - Another batch of Amarillo Pale Ale.

Yeah, I’m obsessed. Its a sickness. And I just don’t care. :-p

Yesterday the wife and I built and prepared our hop beds out in back for planting the new rhizomes (this weekend). We’ve got 2 4′x2′ beds and one 2′x2′ bed. They are upraised 7″ beds with about 6″ of tilled soil down from the upraised section. Donna mixed up a nice blend of manure, peat moss, miracle grow, and mulch to combine with the (essentially clay) soil back there. Soon our 2 Magnum, 2 Liberty, and 1 Nugget rhizomes will be ready for action. YES!!! I’ll have to take some pics and post them here once its not so damn muddy and nasty outside.

My belgian blend of WLP500 and WLP550 is currently on the stir plate in a yeast starter. I’ll let it work thru the 800mL of starter its currently in and step it up to 2000mL in a couple days… hopefully that’ll give it a chance to propogate again with more O2 and fresh sugars.

Of course all this is in preparation for a weekend brewing of my Alucard Strong Dark Ale, a belgian ale designed to be close to 1.080 OG. Its got 8 lb of German Pils Extract, 2 lb Dark Candi sugar, 3 lbs of Belgian Pale 2-row, and a healthy dose of Special B, Chocolate, and Carafa malts. For a little extra character I’m going to toss in some whole star anise I picked up for hints of licorice.

It’s also assuming that HDYB is going to make good on their now month-old promise to get my servomyces in. If it doesn’t “come in” Tomorrow or Friday I believe I am going to have a meltdown. I’ve only been waiting since February 20th… and I could have ordered and reorderd it a couple times over from somewhere online, but I’m trying to be a good boy and work thru my LHBS. This may be my last time if this weekend is the third in a row without results.

EDIT:I got off the phone just a little bit ago with Jan. Looks like I will have my servomyces this weekend. YEE HAW! I am feeling somewhat sated and mildly relieved.

I’m slowly working thru the remnants of Marty’s “Newark Daze” brew he brought over Sunday. Its presence in my kegerator is definitely a refreshing change… Its nice to have someone else’s handiwork available for sampling. I wish I had some idea what the recipe was, but even Marty isn’t quite sure - It was a kit he augmented with extra hops, malt, and yeast while brewing it. C’est la vie…

This info comes courtesy of John Biggins.

April 23, 2005 — Iron Hill - Riverfront, Wilmington

Brewer’s Reserve Night: BELGIAN MADNESS

Featured 10 Belgians, inc: Abbey Dubbel, Abbey Tripel, Quad, MERLOT
OAK-AGED QUAD, Saison, Oud Bruin, Belgian Brown, Kriek, & Lambic.

Featured guest: Tom Peters of Monks, Philly. Will be pouring his
exclusive Flemish Red (read: Rodenbach-type Red)

That’s what my wife has dubbed my Oak-aged Vanilla Imperial Porter. It works for me. I’m not sure that all you mere mortals out there in blogland are worthy to taste this stuff, but I might be indulgent at the next meeting (April 15th). For those of you that don’t plan on attending - woe. Woe and dispair. Otherwise you will have to drop by pub Sever and have a draft pint of it. At 7.5% ABV (not that you’d know it when drinking it), this stuff will definitely get your groove on… Its a lusty brew.

Marty came over to pick up the rebuilt corny and drop off one to be emptied - his “Newark Daze” ale from the Newark Food & Brew fest last year. Its good stuff - SO I’ll either have it empty by the time he needs another - or I’ll exchange him another rebuilt keg. We sat around and chatted, brewed my Rainy Day IPA (very aptly named for today’s climate), and generally relaxed.

The inaugural run of my 3-roll mill from Crankandstein ROCKED. That thing is a grain BEAST. It cracked all the husks leaving them mostly intact and chewed the kernels into the perfect size. I’m very impressed. It was worth the expense.

Starter for my next batch is boiling on the stove… I will brew my “Rainy Day IPA” tomorrow evening… It uses some of the Chinook hops I got from Jeff Ramberg back in our December meeting (hop swap) and a partial mash. I must say I am slightly concerned about the hops - they smell slightly cheesy, which might be great if I were brewing a lambic - and so I dub them “The hops of dubious history”. I removed them from the “dry hop” bill and reduced the amount going in the recipe to 1oz… (.5 for 60 minutes and .5 for 10)… but I am going forward with the recipe. We’ll see what happens. I have to believe that Jeff wouldn’t swap 2oz of crappy, bad hops for 2oz of good Amarillo pellets… he doesn’t seem like that kind of guy.

EDIT: I just couldn’t do it. They smelled too funky. A second opinion from my wife confirmed the cheesy smell. I just can’t do that. So I tossed out all the Chinook (as in garbage can) and replaced it with 1oz Magnum pellets @ 60 min.

Next weekend will hopefully be the Alucard Strong Dark Ale (My belgian-style stout) and after that the Limey Vale Nut Brown Ale.

Meeting last night was good. Big turnout - Jerry generally has a big turn out though. Some new faces - was great. I gave away some supplies and I swear Jerry must have unloaded about $40 worth of DME on the new guys - Lucky. I could have used some of that DME for starters Fun was had by all. And let me tell you - Dave Lawrence makes a mean Imperial Stout and Marty Drinan had a fantastic Black Chocolate Stout clone.

The servomyces saga continues - It should be in NEXT Thursday or Friday.

I’m off to tend to my starter and finish rebuilding a keg for Marty. He indicated last night he needed to borrow one so I broke down one of my recent acquisitions, replaced all the gaskets, soaked it in PBW for a couple hours, and I’m rinsing it for him to pick up tomorrow. Hope he remembers…

I found this old picture from a club road trip to Stoudts many years ago.

OK, St. Patrick’s day is over, but here is more holiday fun in questionable taste. Staccato, near my condo, serves a drink called an “Irish Car Bomb.” You fill a pint glass halfway with Guiness and add Bailey’s and Irish Whiskey, mixed just right. I asked a co-worker, whose last name is McKenna, if it makes you throw up. His answer was “the first one doesn’t.” He refers to it as a “public transportation drink.” You can’t drive home after drinking it. Fortunately I can crawl home from Staccato. There is a band playing there Friday night called “Potato Famine.”As I stated in the last post, I gave up drinking for Lent, so that eliminates more liquid holiday fun. Come Holy Saturday at noon I’ll be at Kramer’s counting down the seconds.

I realize I have been living in a cave the last four years…

Jane Hautanen (Jane Doe)

Here is a quiz I gave at an FSB meeting a few years ago. All of these questions were derived from the book Prost!, by Horst Dornbusch. Do you know any of the answers without looking them up?

1. What is the name of the Bavarian beer purity law of 1516? (You should all know this, but can you spell it and do you know how to pronounce it?)

2. In 1553, summer brewing is outlawed in Bavaria. What was the result of brewing only in winter?
3. What did Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek discover in 1674?
4. What was the name of the first commercial doppelbock brewed by the Paulaner monks of Munich in 1780?
5. What chemical process in brewing did Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, discover in 1789?
6. What was outlawed in Cologne in 1603 to defend the local Kolsch ale?
7. What occurred in 1810 to celebrate the marriage between the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig I and Princess Theresa von Sachsen-Hildburghausen?
8. What was invented in 1818 that made the production of pale malts and pale beers possible?
9. Who invented the hydrometer in 1843?
10. Who discovered that heating beer to 145 °F (63 °C) for thirty minutes kills bacteria or other organisms it may contain? This resulted in an increased shelf life of beer in hermetically sealed containers.
11. What did the German engineer, Carl von Linde, invent for the brewing industry in 1873 that contributed to the spread of lager brewing?
12. In 1881, what did Emil Christian Hansen do as the head of the laboratory of the Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen to contribute to the development of beer?
13. In 1890, the British chemist Cornielius O’Sullivan discovered the last missing link in the understanding of the beer making process. What did he discover?

This was sent in from Jerry Carney. He said he just got this from the BUZZ Club e-mail list.

Philly Homebrew Gathering with Guest Speaker Charlie Papazian

When: April 14th 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Iron Hill Brewery1460 Bethlehem PikeNorth Wales, PA
phone: 267-708-2000
website: www.ironhillbrewery.com

What: Enjoy $1.00 off Iron Hill beers by showing your American Homebrewers Association (AHA) membership card. Hangout with homebrewers from the area. Take a tour of the brewery. Then sit back and enjoy Charlie Papazian, homebrewing legend and president of the AHA, as he gives a 30-40 minute talk - sharing some of his great homebrewing stories and answering questions. He’ll be on-hand afterwards to sign his books, talk homebrew and share a beer. One-Year Memberships to the American Homebrewers Association will be available for $33. Make plans to renew or join at this special price.

Special Thanks: Mark Edelson at Iron Hill Brewery & Jason Harris atKeystone Homebrew Supply