First State Brewers Blog

Brewmaster’s

SPRING

BEER DINNER

Saturday, May 12^th 6PM

Hosted by:

Head Brewer

Brian Finn

Head Chef

Bill Robbins

1^st Course - Hand cut pomme frits with roullie butter and Prince Edward Island mussels simmered with leeks, garlic, fresh herbs and Belgian tripel w/Belgian Tripel

2^nd Course - Grilled Venison, Blueberry and Merlot Sausage with micro greens with sage vinaigrette and boursin crostini w/Belgian Quad

3^rd Course – Sautéed Lamb Lollipops with toasted almond-medjool date compote and pomegranate emulsion w/Abby Dubbel

4^th Course – Chocolate Lava Cake with chocolate ice cream, raspberry ganache and vanilla caramel sauce w/Russian Imperial Stout

$49.95 per person (gratuity not included)

Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant

710 S. Madison Street

Wilmington, Delaware 19801

www.ironhillbrewery.com

Limited space available.

Make your reservation now with our host staff.

Call (302)-472-2739.

As demonstrated at the meeting last night, Jerry Carney has prototyped some scalloped beer mugs with our current logo etched on the front. If anyone is interested in these, please contact Jerry for pricing and details. You can send me some mail at webmaster _at_ firststatebrewers.com and we’ll get you guys hooked up.

There was some interest at the meeting about imperial (16oz) pint glasses, or even having a logo contest and updating our logo (our current one, by Scott Beiber, is many many years old at this point). That sounds like a great idea to me! I’ll have to see about putting something together.

I will be brewing a 10 gallon batch of Dubbel this weekend with the White Labs WLP540 and Dark Candi Syrup - can’t wait to try it in a month or two, once it is all bottled & corked. I will be saving the yeast cake (1/2 is going to Oliver, for sure)… and I’ll also have to see about getting some to John Biggins so he can “bank” it for us. Have a good weekend, ya’ll!

Or maybe just hallucinating? Ok, so I’ve got these great ideas - this overall vision - of what a computerized brewing sculpture interface would look like. I’ve seen examples made by various folks (including commercial examples like FALCON), looked at alot of screenshots, and even downloaded some VB source code to see what others had as part of their vision… I am thinking through not only how the brewer would interact with their sculpture during a brew session, but how they would want to to set up graphics for their own sculpture (if they were to build apon what I am doing)… In short, I am not only am I trying to please myself in this effort, but also to develop a solution that could fit the needs of others as well.

It is a daunting task… and one that constantly is adding to my list of to-dos.

Take, for example, my Pipe class. Two weeks ago I was very proud of how this class could take a series of points on the screen, and route / draw a reasonable looking pipe. You can see screenshots of it in posts like Confessions of an Ubergeek. It even supported flanges at the ends or internally, and oversized elbow joints. I figured the other graphics stuff would come in time, but at least for those few days, I thought I was done with the pipe class.

In the past two weeks, I’ve identified lots of other stuff I wish the Pipe class could do, like:

• Terminate in a transition gradient for T-s and 4-way junctions, or rounded for things like pump inlet graphics
• Support internal T-s and 4-way junctions for header pipes
• Support concentric pipe arrangements easily, like for a counterflow chiller
• Support different elbow graphics, other than just smooth curves… like "BumpUp" and "BumpDown".

I have actually started trying to visualize and document my ideas using Powerpoint as the quickest medium I know of to realize them… (I get lots of practice with Powerpoint at work). It turns out to be a really quick way to prototype ideas, since the same building blocks I use in VB.NET are available in their drawing tools (like horizontal, vertical, and path gradients), and seeing the construction of the graphics helps identify what object properties are required.

You can actually see the full concepts by checking out the Concept Powerpoint I have been working on.

Hopefully the result of all this rework and effort will be a flexible and robust platform for people to apply to their own pursuits… of course that’s probably just the handful of us crazy enough out there to want to computerize their homebrew rig.

OK, so I don’t really have too much “official” to blog about, but so what. I’ve been sipping on my S^4 Ale for most of the evening, and it packs a punch - and I am feeling a little chatty. So you all will endure me just rambling about pretty much nothing.

This weekend I hope to get up to Keystone Homebrew and redeem the $50 gift certificate I won in War of the Worts this past February. My plan is to get a fat sack (50 lb) of Weyermann Pilsner Malt and use it in some upcoming belgians, lagers, and Saisons. That should kill most of the gift certificate, and whatever is left over I will probably spend on either a yeast culture or some Belgian Candi Syrup, if they have it.

My sculpture development hasn’t progressed too much - I’ve got a big long list of stuff I want to order from Newark One, in the way of pressure sensors for level control and other gadgets, but I’m holding off for now. I’ve been managing to find an hour or so here or there to work on the user interface stuff, and have completed my work on implementing T and 4-way pipe junction graphics. I did some preliminary specifications of some additional classes, including a “Valve” class that looks like it should be pretty great… new screenshots will probably be in order in a week or so, once I’ve worked on them some more.

On the sculpture development front I must also express a little angst because the maker of the microcontroller I intend on using just released their next flagship products, the X1 chips. PICAXE from Revolution Education Ltd. is now offering a substantial upgrade to their 28 and 40 pin chip models, called the 28X1 and 40X1, in May… My angst stems from the fact that I’ve got 2 28X and 2 40X chips in my basement that have yet to even be used in any capacity (even testing), and they’ve already been outdated. I shouldn’t gripe too much as I can still use the 28X and 40X chips for prototyping, and simply implement the X1 chips in the final design / implementation. They run faster, cleaner, and offer some features that aren’t available on the regular “X” chips, such as I2C slave support and native SPI support - so I may have to pick one of each up for playing purposes.

Finally, I haven’t been brewing much since my last batch was 20 gallons of Amarillo (and I’m almost out of canned starter wort). I plan on brewing a 5 gallon batch of something soon, and repitching the yeast into ANOTHER 20 gallon batch. It’ll either be Black Honey ale or Saison du Sevier… and since warmer weather is fast approaching, I imagine I’ll probably go with the Saison. I am toying with the possibility of a couple back-to-back 10 gallon Belgian batches, but I’m gonna need more Candi Syrup to pursue that particular dream.

Meeting next Friday (April 20th)… Don’t forget!

I just can’t find the kind of time I need to work on the application side of the sculpture. Progress has been painfully slow. I’ve got some good ideas, architecture and design ready to go, but cannot find the several-hour blocks required to implement them. Instead I find 30 minutes here or 15 minutes there - often enough time to get in, screw something up a little, then have to walk away from it - only to return later and spend 2 or 3 sessions tracking down what went wrong.

Its maddening. But here’s what I have managed:

• I have implemented enhancements to the pipe class - it now supports “Ts”, and will soon support 4-way unions as well.
• I created a new class, “ConcentricPipe”, for shell-and-tube type arrangements like a counterflow chiller.
• The basic architecture is in place for saving and loading screen arrangements to and from files
• A label class is now available for putting text on the screen with a variety of options, like variable opacity.

I hope to start working on things like static graphics for pumps, valves, etc. sometime in the near future… as well as support for custom graphics so people can use their own libraries or creativity to augment the standard stuff.

Yeah, I know - I am focusing on the “window dressing” before I have even really got the heart of the system - the electronics and event model - completed or worked on, but I have been jotting things down on paper and in powerpoints around that.

Sunday was a good day. I broke in my 28 gallon kettle with its false bottom, used fist-fulls of whole Amarillo hops, and brewed a ridiculous amount of Amarillo Pale Ale.

Unfortunately I found that my 28 gallon kettle requires different considerations than my 14 gallon - namely I originally ended up with only 17.5 gallons due to the additional deadspace below the valve, more significant boil-off rate due to cranking my burner to get a rolling boil, and the liquid the whole hops soaked up. I ended up adjusting to (20 gallons as you can see in the picture) by equalizing the volumes in each fermenter and adding about 1.25 gallons of water to each. 24 hours after brewing, oxidation will not be a problem - the yeast already scoured up any O2 I introduced. My gravity was also alot higher than intended (1.058 vs. 1.051), so the dilution actually puts me back where I was planning anyways.

So where does enough WLP051 California V yeast from a 20 gallon batch come from? No, not 4 vials. A 5 gallon starter, of course! For kicks, my wife and I polluted it with 2 pounds of frozen black raspberries (after harvesting the yeast and in the secondary, of course) and ended up with a decidedly unnatural colored beer, which will hopefully be very tasty. It sure smells good.

On the brewing horizon is:

• 5 or 10 gal belgian-style brew w/ WLP540 Abbey IV and Dark Candi Syrup
• 20 gallons of Saison du Sevier
• 20 gallons of Black Honey Ale

Obviously I’ll have to have a couple 5 gallon batches in there to get enough yeast for the Saison and Black Honey… I am sure I can think of something. I also ordered more Sorachi Ace and Pacific Gem hops from Freshops, and will be getting some WY3864 Canadian Belgian yeast to John Biggins so we can have it anytime we want…. I definitely want to brew more of my Travelers & Tourists Ale. Its amazing…. I’ll bring some to the next meeting.

As many of you know, I’ve been tinkering trying to figure out what it will take to get a computer-controlled homebrewing sculpture up and running. I’ve been amassing electronics components for the past few months (at the cost of brewing gear and ingredients, unfortunatley) and spending my evenings playing around instead of formulating new recipes and figuring out how to squeeze 200 gallons in this year. Rather than spending a gazillion dollars on a commercially available data acquisition card, I’ve gone the el-cheapo route and decided to build the electronics myself. Most likely my designs will employ the PICAXE microchip, one of the coolest little pieces of hobbyist electronics on the planet.

My recent efforts have been around getting temperature readings… and while the PICAXE chip is capable of getting 10-bit temperature readings with its native analog-to-digital command and an LM34 linear sensor, or 12-bit temperatures using a very specific (and somewhat expensive) sensor, the DS18B20, neither of these have really satisfied me. The 10 bit readings just don’t have the kind of accuracy I want, and the DS18B20 has a 750ms (almost a full second) delay while the reading is being taken. I did work up a prototype circuit that can send the data either to an LCD screen or my PC, as shown below…. but it was mostly a proof a concept.

Enter the MCP3208 12-bit SPI interface chip, and some code courtesy of Peter Anderson. Armed with these little gems, I prototyped a circuit to not only test the accuracy, but to also check my skeleton conversion routines in the VB.NET app that will eventually power my sculpture. It appears to approach the accuracy of the DS18B20, but is wicked fast in comparison.

The chip on the left is the MCP3208 with a single reading coming to it on Channel 0 (bottom sensor). The right chip is the PICAXE 18x, somewhat obscured by the 4 conductor wire that communicates with the MCP3208. It is also reading a second LM34 sensor on Pin #1 using its native 10-bit read command. The data is sent via serial link back to the PC through the 3-conductor cable that disappears out the top of the picture.

My .NET application captures the data and processes it in blocks, converting the raw values to “unitized” values on-the-fly. My intent is to allow the user to change units at will, and to store the raw value as well as converted value in a database for analysis later on…

Another benefit of the MCP3208 is that it also take 3 outputs and 1 input and converts them into 8 12-bit inputs, since the MCP3208 has 8 different channels… so it is actually increasing the number of data devices I can implement using a single PICAXE chip. Given the flexibility of the PICAXE development environment, I honestly don’t think I will run out of available inputs or outputs.

Slowly but surely, I am building the knowledge necessary to outfit a brewing sculpture with enough electronics and technology to make Charlie Papazian shake his head in shame and disown me as a fellow homebrewer.

But damn, won’t it be cool.

I have started to chronicle some of this silliness on our site in a Tech Section, which I haven’t officially added to the sidebar of the site. I will at some point when its ready for prime-time.

Found this article today in the News Journal.

Brewer expects deal to lift sales
Regional firm joins venture with giant Anheuser-Busch

DOVER — If you’re a craft brewer, it’s not enough to just make good beer. The tough part is finding a good way to get that beer into people’s hands.

For one regional brand that brews its product in Dover, the answer to the small “craft” brewer’s perennial distribution challenge was found by turning to the big guys for help.

Annapolis-based Fordham Brewing Co. is hoping that a joint venture with Anheuser-Busch will help it grow far beyond the regional market, eventually bringing increased production and employment to its Dover brewery.

That prospect was enhanced this month when the joint venture — called Coastal Brewing Co. — announced it will buy Old Dominion Brewing Co., a Virginia craft brewer and brewpub operator with primary distribution in the mid-Atlantic region.

“This is good for Fordham; it’s good for Dover,” said Bill Muehlhauser, Fordham’s chief executive officer. “We expect substantial growth.”

A similar partnership between Anheuser-Busch and a brewer in Chicago raised that company’s sales 80 percent, he said.

The Dover brewery has a capacity of 20,000 barrels a year now. Fordham wants to add the equipment to raise that to 50,000 barrels soon, and has 37 acres available to expand at the Dover facility. Eventually, the facilities at both Dover and at Old Dominion will be flexible enough to brew both brands’ beers, Muehlhauser said. “That’s one of the beauties of this deal,” which took over a year to put together, he said.

Anheuser-Busch is working to expand its stake in the lucrative craft beer market segment, which has posted solid growth for the past three years. In Delaware, craft breweries such as Dogfish Head in Milton, have helped lead the nationwide expansion, and brewers such as Iron Hill and Stewart’s have earned praise from fans and trade experts.

Fordham brews such beers as Copperhead Ale, Oyster Stout, Fordham Lager and Tavern Ale. Old Dominion is known for such labels as Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale and Hard Times Select lager. There are now five full-time workers and several part-timers at Fordham’s Dover brewery, but more jobs are expected. “We’re really scared to speculate” how many more, Muehlhauser said. “I don’t want to get people too excited, but yes, the labor force will grow.”

Both Fordham and Old Dominion brands eventually may be available throughout the East Coast, but the next move is to strengthen existing markets, he said.

“To continue to grow and survive, you’ve gotta get your beer to market,” Muehlhauser said. “We’ve all been scrambling for years to figure out how do you do that.”

Found this article in the business section of the News Journal this morning.

Dogfish Head top dog among craft brewers
Milton operation expands to meet ever-growing demand
By ERIC RUTH, The News Journal
Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007

In the world of beer, where “big” is huge, no place is bigger right now than little Delaware.

A growing national love affair with full-flavored, robust-natured beers — “big beers,” in industry parlance — has helped catapult Delaware’s Dogfish Head to the front of a field overrun with small, independent “craft” brewers.

Lifted by an ever-expanding distribution network now covering 27 states, Milton-based Dogfish Head saw its sales rocket up 37 percent in 2006, according to the Brewers Association, an industry group representing independent breweries. Revenues rose a whopping 51 percent.

That growth led all U.S. craft brewers, who have been riding a boom themselves for three years now, posting an 11.7 percent increase in sales last year.

“They’ve just been booming year after year, starting with the little brewpub [in Rehoboth Beach in 1995],” said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, based in Boulder, Colo. “The craft category as a whole is very hot, but Dogfish Head continues to out-index even that.”

Dogfish Head has landed at the top of that profitable heap thanks to a canny sense for drinkers’ preferences and a quirky inclination to put out offbeat, buzz-worthy brews, experts say — the new Red and White, for example, is a Belgian-style “white” beer brewed with coriander and orange peel, fermented with pinot noir juice, then aged in used Oregon pinot noir barrels.

“Our mantra has always been, ‘Off-centered ales for off-centered people.’ That’s our call to arms,” said Sam Calagione, Dogfish’s founder and owner.

“They’re always doing these beers that get people’s interest,” like the ultra-hoppy 120-minute IPA superbrew, said Jeff Bearer, who podcasts a daily show on craft beers from Pittsburgh through his Web site CraftBeerRadio .com. “The other part is their availability. They have a wide distribution area.”

Such complexly crafted beers are gaining a customer base that goes beyond serious beer aficionados, industry experts say. Increasingly, Delaware is gaining a craft-beer prominence that goes beyond Dogfish Head, Gatza said. “Iron Hill restaurant group is very well-respected around the country,” he said. “Stewart’s [Brewing Company, in Bear] is well-known and has won awards in the past,” and the relatively new Twin Lakes Brewing Company in Greenville is grabbing attention.

For Dogfish Head, the rising prominence is especially rewarding because of how little it has to do with glitzy promotions. The company devotes less than 2 percent of revenue toward marketing, and doesn’t advertise in mass media or on television, Calagione said.

“Our beers are our billboard. Let them market themselves,” said Calagione, who is nonetheless regarded as something of a promotional campaign himself.

“Dogfish Head has some aura around it, partly because of Sam Calagione,” Bearer said. “He’s like a rock star in the craft beer world.”

On Web sites such as RateBeer.com, where such “auras” can be punctured by a few well-placed jabs, even the connoisseurs acknowledge that Dogfish Head’s prominence is no marketing trick. The company’s World Wide Stout is rated as the 11th-best beer in the world, and it’s No. 1 among all East Coast brewers.

For some “big beer” snobs, there is always the fear that a beloved brand will get too big for its own good, jacking up production to meet demand, and letting standards slip in the process. Dogfish Head’s Milton brewery just went from 30,000 to 103,000 square feet, giving it a capacity of 220,000 barrels a year instead of 45,000.

The boosted capacity feeds a growing business — six Dogfish Head Ale Houses are planned for the mid-Atlantic over the next six years. Starting this month, the company expanded distribution to Georgia, giving it a reach from Washington state to the Deep South.

Calagione insists that quality will remain a priority through the growth, and beer fans like Bearer agree.

“There’s no way you can say they’ve sold out,” he said. “They’re definitely not sacrificing their formula for profits.”

This is TOMORROW! Don’t know why I hadn’t heard of this earlier! But, if you’re interested in going, you had better call now to see if there are any tickets available!

Sat March 10
1:00 pm
In recent years brewers have focused on various tastes, components, and alcohol levels and created “extreme” beers. What makes a beer extreme? Join world renowned beer expert Michael Jackson as he explores this theme. Following the tutored tasting, enjoy dozens of additional beers from around the world accompanied by food by Museum Catering Company. Guests must be at least 21 years old to attend. Three seatings are offered. Advance reservations required. $45 non-members; $40 members. Tickets on sale now at the Annenberg Center Box Office online: http://www.pennpresents.org/events/event.php?event=tasting or call 215/898-3900.