First State Brewers Blog

I have been writing computer code since I was 10, pounding away on the keyboard of my dad’s Atari 800 back when BASIC came on a cartridge, and programs were stored on audio tapes. Computers and programming have always made sense to me, and I’ve been blessed with a unique capacity to discern what applications are doing. I exercise that ability every day in my job, diagnosing problems with SAP which (more often than not) are the result of users not understanding or misusing the system rather than the sytem doing something unexpected.

So why the history lesson? Because I suprised myself recently, or more specifically the power of Visual Studio 2005 suprised me. For months I have been struggling with how to implement some design environment functionality for the BrewzNET software I’ve been working on for over a year. In fact, I took a several month hiatus during July-Oct and have not written a single line of code in that time - until this week. It is amazing what happens when you walk away from something and come back to it with fresh eyes. The primary concepts I struggled with (and prompted me to walk away) were how to implement the component and property list functionality when setting up a sculpture interface - namely how to make them look similar to the VB2005 IDE, which I feel is fairly user friendly and intuitive. I could write mountains of code and build custom components to do that, but the effort involved did not seem worth it.

Fast forward to Tuesday evening, when I was bored and playing around, only to discover a standard out-of-the-box component I was not familiar with - The PropertyList. It is exactly what I needed, and is (I believe) the same component that the VS2005 studio uses. SCORE! So how hard is it to use with my already-developed display classes for pipes, tanks, labels, etc? A single line of code implemented 75% of the functionality I was looking for - and the remaining percents are due to poorly designed object design on my part (and relatively straight-forward to resolve). The result speaks for itself - a flexible and professional looking property editing list. It works very well with the control-point functionality I had already implemented, and seems to update itself automatically when properties change.

Inspired by my newfound functionality, I endeavored to unlock the secrets of the component toolbox list. A quick SPY++ look at the VS2005 component list yielded the class name of “TBToolBox”. At first that didn’t mean alot to me, and I checked for a “toolbox” component hoping for a similar eureka! moment as with the PropertyList. Alas, it did not happen. Instead, I reanalyzed the name, and realized that the “TB” at the beginning of the class name stood for “Toolbar”. Voila! 10 minutes later, I had a prototype component list that looks strikingly similar to the VS2005 one.

So with some hesitation, I declare “GAME ON!!” for my control system development again. I hope to have a screen design environment completed by the end of the year, perhaps with some of the event model code completed as well. I have a short overnight business trip to CII scheduled for early November, so I may have time to code while en-route and Thursday evening. 5 1/2 hours in the air each way to Austin - YUCK.

I’ve got a drinking problem, I know - namely the lack thereof!!! For the first time in a long time, I’ve got a surplus of beer in my basement. In fact, I’m almost at 100% utilization of my available kegs, despite having alot of beer in bottles too. Brewing big batches (10 and 20 gallons) is certainly part of the cause. Couple that with a significant drop off of visiting friends & family, and Donna and I both having allergies that have curtailed our consumption… and my basement has filled up. I wish I were in this position back in June so I could have coasted through the summer months and not struggled with hot fermentation temperatures and warm ground water that had to be chilled with ice.

We have in kegs right now:

* 2.5 gal Gnarleywine (Brewed in 2006)
* 2.5 gal Tripel (Brewed in 2006)
* 10 gal Peated Scottish (5 of which is spoken for)
* 5 gal Ginger Pale Ale
* 5 gal Travelers & Tourists Dubbel
* 5 gal Saturday IPA
* 10 gal American Brown
* 5 gal Blackberry Dunkelweizen
* 5 gal Irish Red

Which totals up to 45 gallons in kegs pending rotation through the kegerator, so I think I will be doing relatively little brewing until the end of the year… might be a nice change of pace.

I also finally got off my duff and made some tap handle labels. Only one of them am I particularly pleased with - the Saturday IPA I brewed with Brian. I hope we brew this beer again sometime in the future, but given the fact that Columbus and Simcoe hops have become incredibly scarce (and expensive!!!), I think it might be a few years until the hop growing industry recovers. Scott Bieber tried some when he and Marty were over here last Sunday, and he seemed pretty pleased with it. Marty liked the peated scottish too - he threatened running off with my keg

Also, it appears that my level sensor testing inspired a fellow brewer down in Australia. Arnie has had an automated home brewery for years, and is constantly upgrading and improving his designs. I hope one of these days I’ll be able to pull together an automated home brewery as well, but priorities have put it on hold for now. Its just as well - I still have alot of work to do on the control and user interface software. Check out Arnie’s site, as well as Aussie Homebrewers where he is a frequent contributor to the forums.

Yes, ‘How Do You Brew?’ has officially moved to their new location at the Shoppes at Louviers on 203 Louviers Drive, Newark DE, 19711 across from the Bank of America complex on Paper Mill Road. Marty Drinan and Scott Bieber were on hand representing the First State Brewers to help Joe and Marlana with the move.

Joe and Marlana have their work cut out for them as the mess you see around them needs to be cleaned up and moved to their new store!

Here, Joe is busy carrying merchandise out of the store.

Careful with that! That’s a grain mill your moving!

Every available vehicle was needed to move as much as possible in one trip!

Reality sinks in when you take down your sign!

Here’s the new store! Looks great, doesn’t it?

There is so much shelf space! Joe will now be able to stock everything he has always wanted to carry!

Marlana is busy getting that inventory plugged into the computer!

Look for the new store to be open this Saturday, October 6th!

“I… like… big… beers and I cannot lie
You other brothers can’t deny
You crave rich malt pouring in your face
Sticky hops and belgian lace…”

So I won’t give Sam Calagione’s “Pain Relievas” a run for their money… but I crack myself up.

OK. So this past Sunday I brewed another 15 gallons of Choking Sun Stout. Ever since my American Brown Experiment with Brian I’ve been dying to see if I could do a bigger batch as a single mash using just the gear I’ve got. We used Brian’s burner to heat our mash-out water, and I don’t really want to run out and get a new burner just for this setup when I know I’ll be going to a sculpture at some point… So for this solo batch I did things different. Same gravity setup, as with the 20 gallon batch, but I only did 15 gallons (1.070 OG)… and I heated sparge and mashout water together, transferring the sparge water to the HLT when it hit temp and heated the rest of the mashout water to boiling. It all worked just fine… I probably could have even done a 20 gallon batch if need be. These 28 gallon kettles are monsterous… and the kettle with a false bottom works awesome as a mash tun. I need to work out a better system for keeping the tun insulated - the sleeping bags work, but they’re a PITA and are getting pretty craptacular with wort and malt stuck to them - should be fun trying to get them clean.

As of 7am this morning, they were very visible signs of fermentation, and things were rocking as of 5pm this afternoon. Big batches rule.

Latest count towards my 200 gallon limit - 160 gallons from 15 batches. Its actually been 180 gallons brewed, but 20 gallons of that went home with Brian, so I’m not counting those towards my total. And before you all start screaming DRUNK!!! and pointing the fingers, we’ve given away nearly 50 gallons this year… and another 50 is basically sitting in our basement in kegs and bottles. So no, we didn’t drink all of it. YET.

So here is what the judges had to say about my two entries in the Belgian Dubbel category:

Travelers & Tourists: 31.5 Overall

Judge #1: 31/50 (Recognized BJCP Judge)

Aroma: Malty aromas with plum ester, no hop aroma, light spiciness (6/12)
Appearance: Deep amber, thick long-lasting off while head, clear (3/3)
Flavor: Dark malt flavors, raisin flavors, no hop flavors, skewed to malt with a dry finish (14/20)
Mouthfeel: Smooth with high carbonation, low alcohol warmth, moderate body - dry but not astringent (3/5)
Overall Impression: Dark rich with all appropriate flavors. Bit rough of a finish, aging may help. (5/10)

Judge #2: 32/50

Aroma: Raisins, Marshmellow, Malty. Nice! (10/12)
Appearance: Brown with slight haze (2/3)
Flavor: Malt & rasins with malty finish. Alcohol evident, some heat in aftertaste. Spicy with some phenols, appropriate for style. (12/20)
Mouthfeel: Medium. Med-high carbonation, appropriate for style. (3/5)
Overall Impression: A very good representation of the style, however the alcohol heat takes away from the smoothness. Needs more malt dextrins for smoothness. Possibly aging this would improve it also. Well done! (5/10)

Malady Abbey Brown: 34.5 Overall

Judge #1: 34/50 (Recognized BJCP Judge)

Aroma: Rich malty aroma, cherry ester aromas, light spicy phenol aroma. No hop aroma, no alcohol or solvent. (8/12)
Appearance: Deep amber, thick long lasting off-white head, clear (3/3)
Flavor: Light malt flavor - may need a touch more flavor. Balanced to a bit sweet with a vanishing (?) finish (14/20)
Mouthfeel: Light body, smooth, no alcohol warmth, high carbonation (3/5)
Overall Impression: Great aroma but a bit light in malts. May need a bit more grain. Clean (6/12)

Judge #2: 35/50

Aroma: Malt, esters, clean! spicy (9/12)
Appearance: Copper, nice & clear! Looks good! (3/3)
Flavor: Malty sweet with some lingering sweetness in the finish. Alcohol is in background, where it belongs. A smooth finish that makes you want more. Possibly a bit high on the maltiness (15/20)
Mouthfeel: Medium Lign, I wonder if the gravity is on the low side for style. (4/5)
Overall Impression: Very clean, smooth, and correct style. Alcohol is soft and brew is malty. Good example of style, though more complexity would make this better. Possibly ferment a few degrees warmer, or use a more assertive / complex yeast. Nicely done. (8/10)

So there it is. Neither of my dubbels did bad, but they clearly preferred the Abbey Brown. I wonder if they drank the TnT earlier than the Malady, because when it is too cold its character doesn’t shine through as well. God knows, I am convinced that your placement in the sampling chronology and a bit of luck is a huge contributor to the scores - Go too early and your beer will be cold (maybe too cold), but the judges will be reluctant to give high scores because they don’t know what is coming next. Get shoved to the end, and the judges palates could be completely overloaded, and they’ll barely taste your beer.

My 3rd place for the Abbey Brown won me a free vial of White Labs and some Brewer’s Gold hops. No clue what we got for the Barleywine, but I’m not too worried about it.

So little time, so much to do. I’m not sure where it all goes, but I won’t be torturing you all with a lengthy blow by blow. Instead, consider this post more of a drive-by.

• I suck as a hop grower. I must the only man on the planet that can’t grow Cascade… but that’s probably because I’m trying to do it on a 3′ high fence. My Liberty hops were totally decimated by beetles. My Nuggets did OK despite everything.
• I’m brewing 15 gallons of Choking Sun Stout this weekend. Woot.
• I’ve got mad amounts of beer in kegs and bottles downstairs.
• I took 3rd for my Abbey Brown and a joint 3rd with my buddy Brian for our Gnarleywine in a competition on Saturday. Read Brian’s blog for details.
• I totally loathe coming up with tap handle labels anymore. I’m not sure why. Two of my taps currently have “Saturday IPA” and “Peated Scottish” written on the back of a business card. Fancy, huh?
• I won’t be making the club meeting this Month. Gotta drive to NY to help my parents move that weekend.

So no, I’m not dead. I’m just up to my eyeballs in crap. I’ve been doing freebee development work for Donna’s old boss in Atlanta for the past few weeks, and I think I finally got that monkey off my back… so more I should have more time to blog and bore you all with my activities soon enough.

As you probably have heard by now, the Beer Hunter, Michael Jackson, has passed away. I was shocked when I read John Biggins’ email. Heidi Derr just sent me an article by Lew Bryson that had me in tears. The comments on Lew’s post tore me up!

I remember when I first got into brewing close to 20 years ago and watching “The Beer Hunter” on the Discovery Channel. Soon after watching it on TV, I ordered a copy of the video for my self. The First State Brewers made many trips to the University of Pennsylvania to see him at the annual Book & the Cook beer tasting event. On one occasion I got him to sign my copy of the World Guide to Beer.

Through Michael Jackson’s video and writings, I developed my interest in beer and my desire to travel to other beer brewing regions of the world. My travels to England and Germany are proof. I’m sure he will be in my thoughts when I go to Ireland next Spring, as well.

So, this weekend I urge you all to seek out the best beer you can find and salute the life of this great man!

UPDATE: Also, thanks to chazzq for alerting me to an obituary in the Washington Post.

The First State Brewers have been on 2 international beer tours. The first was a trip to Germany in 2002. The 2nd trip was couple of years ago split between York, England and Marburg, Germany. Now, plans are being made for a trip to Ireland!

We are looking at possibly going around St. Patrick’s Day or Spring Break of 2008. If you’re interested in joining us, please let me know.

Here’s a Google Map that I will be updating with possible destinations. Click on the thumbnails to get a description of the attraction. Zoom the map in to see all the attractions at that location. If you know of a place we should visit that’s not on the map, please let me know so I can add it!

View Larger Map

I recently received an order from Libbey.com of their Poco Grande glasses which work remarkably well as tulip glasses for belgian beers. My dogfish glass bit the big one a few months back, and it has been paining me to drink my belgians out of wine glasses (I know, how snobbish). The Libbey glasses aren’t the perfect tulip shape, however they do not have crap printed on them and they were relatively inexpensive, so I won’t complain. If I wanted, I could even go out and get these ones printed or etched with a logo.

I am also entering a couple beers in Malt Madness with my buddy Brian. Two of them are my own (Travelers & Tourists and an Abbey Brown, both in the Dubbel category), along with a co-entry of our Saturday IPA and the Gnarleywine we brewed in October of last year (Which is fan-f’ing-tastic, by the way). I think Brian is also gonna enter some of his own beers - maybe the Hazelnut and another. I am interested in hearing some feedback on my belgians and our hop monster children… And hopefully I’ll be putting one of my kegs of it on tap here in the not-so-distant future.

No brewing this weekend for me - at least not beer. Instead I’ll be polluting my equipment with some dirty crustaceans - turns out a 14 gallon kettle with a false bottom is the perfect crab-steaming vessel too… Booyaa!!! We’re getting a half bushel of #1s to split between Donna, myself, one of my sisters and her husband, and my parents. While not brewing related, guarenteed we will be sucking down some suds to go with our crabs and I am using brewing gear to do the deed :-D.

Yesterday I brewed the base for another beer destined for fruiting - a darker-colored wheat. The day went VERY well - I was done brewing in under 5 hours, and with cleanup it was about 5 1/2. The yeast, an expired packet of Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat that I nursed back to health through a couple starters, took off in under 12 hours. I guess its not really a “wheat” since i formulated it with only 25% wheat malt instead of 50%, but it will certainly be wheat-ish.

Once primary fermentation is complete, I will rack it into a secondary with some of these monsters - blackberries we picked a few weeks ago at Milburn Orchards. We managed to fill a flat in under 20 minutes, these things are so huge. They are all in our freezer right now (individually flash-frozen), so I will thaw them out, mush them a little to break out the flavor, and then load up the carboy with them. I’m thinking 4 lbs (2 per 5 gallons).