Staropolskie Porter

I saw this at the local Polish supermarket by my house. I couldn't pass up a big bottle of baltic porter for only $3. It pours nice and dark with a good solid head. Dried fruit, caramel, malt mixed with coffee flavors make this very drinkable. The beer is quite light for a 8.5% baltic.

Mmnnnn Beer

Well I've been a bad blogger lately. Time to get back into the swing of things. As you can see from the pic I've been busy brewing. That's four different brews going right now. Up front is a Pumpkin Ale made with real pumpkin. Followed by my Gumball headish wheat try #2. The first try ended up being 9% and was just ok. This time my calculations look right. After that is a Scotch ale, and all the way in the back is the Tripple that has been aging for around 4 months. I should be bottleing that next week. First I want to pull a sample to make sure it's ready to be bottled. I'm not sure what the next brew will be, but I'm thinking of making the jump to all grain brewing. Should be a whole new adventure in brewing.

Three Floyds-Moloko Stout

Damn these guys and their great beer. This is one of the best stouts I've had in a while. It's nice and dark with a slight head. The sweetness of the lactose sugar is really what make this beer. With the roasted barley,chocolate malt and oats it's surprisingly thin. Being only 7% this is really easy going down. I've had a few 22oz bombers since this came out. One should probably go in the cellaring closet before it runs out.

Northern Brewer-Wee Heavy Homebrew

My friend Kevin from work gave me a bottle of this. He used the extract kit from Northern Brewer. I am a good fan of a big malty brew. This is defiantly one of them. Not sure what the alcohol content is, but it's up there. You can taste that this is a high gravity beer. There's a good balance of malt and toffee flavor. I would love to see how this ages. Might have to give this kit a try sometime.

Rogue-Sesquicentennial Ale

My friend Carrie just got back from Oregon and brought this back for me. What a great surprise. This was the one beer that they only sell at the brewery. All of the ingredients come from Oregon. It has a amber hue with a solid one finger head. There's a grassy citrus nose. Rogue farms Oregon grown Willamette hops give it a great flavor. It's definitely a hopped up amber. Not something I would drink all the time, but would be a nice treat.

Black Majic-Barley Island Brewing

This is one of my favorites from a trip to Indianapolis. It's a really solid java stout. Pours with a good coffee colored head. There is a slight burn coffee taste. Kind of like Starbucks coffee. Not bad, not good, but definitely over roasted. Even with that, the chocolate and thinness of it make it very drinkable.

First Hop Harvest

4 rhizomes were planted in the yard this spring. Of those only one was a success. All organic compost and fertilizers were used. It seems that the I built my trellis in the yard is in a really damp area when it rains. Mid summer I transferred one sad looking rhizome to a spot next to my garage. It took off like a weed. The other three barely grew to be 3 feet tall. Next spring I plan on making a raised garden bed around the trellis to help with the damp soil. The cascade that actually grew gave me a crop of almost 4oz wet hops. I'm really excited to use them in an upcoming brew soon.

Tyranena Brewing-Scurvy

Every time I head up to Wisconsin I like to over to the local cheese shop to make a mix and match 6pk. Plus the curds are great. Scurvy was one of the randoms I picked up last time. From the look and smell this would seem to be a great IPA. The nose is full of citrus with a good amount of hoppyness. This is one bitter brew though. I really like hoppy beers, but this one didn’t do it for me. It came off as really unbalanced and piney bitter. So far Tyranena is 0 for 2. I wasn’t a fan of their Bitter Woman IPA either. Next time I’ll give another style a try from them. Maybe IPA’s aren’t their thing.

FFF-Apocalypse Cow

I picked this up at work a few weeks ago. Couldn't pass up a new Three Floyds with such great art on the bottle. This is a nice well rounded double IPA. Nothing really super exciting about it tough. The Floyds usually make such great stuff I think i may be jaded. It has citrus and maybe mango notes with a great mouthfeel. It's alot like Alpha King. The name comes from the use of lactose sugar. Bottle art was done by a chicago artist Dan Grzeca. I like it so much that I bought a print of it. For $20 you can't go wrong with a handmade print. Once I get it framed I share some picks.

New Glarus Brewery Tour

Alex and I went up to to the land of cheese and beer for the weekend last month. While there we drove to the newly opened hilltop brewery. The drive out to the brewery is great. You go straight though the winding roads of the Driftless area. The Driftless area is a part of southwest Wisconsin that has deeply carved valleys from glacial drift. There's also some great fly fishing for trout in streams no bigger than one lane of highway in the area. No fishing this time though. We passed the old brewery on the way to the new one. Once you see the new facility you wonder how they ever did it all in the old one. This place is the nicest micobrewery i have seen. The front is setup to looks like an european village. There's limestone steps that lead you to the brewery with a waterfall besides it. Once inside you can grab yourself a pint or a sampler. They had 6 beers on tap. For $3.50 you get a taster glass and 3 4oz samples. They only have guided tours on the weekend, so we took the self guided one. Wich means you cna walk anywhere thats not ropped off. The first thing you see once leaving the gift shop is the new copper kettles. Then you follow the hallway which leads you past a yeast storage room, a chemistry lab like room, the bottleing/kegging and past the fermetion tanks. NG put in 20mil to make this new brewery happen. They have expaned from 65,000 to 130,000 barrels. Looks like it was worth every penny. I almost forgot one of the coolest reason for stopping in, beer. They have a beer depot by the parking lot. Everything that they bew is there and sold by the case. Even brews that are out of season, like the iced barleywine. I spent way too much money there. But then again you have to stock up since it's only sold in Wisconsin.

Hakim Stout

I went out with Alex and her parents to an Ethiopian restaurant last week. The waiter recommended a number of Ethiopian and African brews. A African stout he mentioned intrigued me. When I heard him say it i was kind of confused. It's not one of the things I could picture being made in such a hot arid place. The bottle and glass came and waiter poured me some. It has a great label. The beer pours and looks like a Newcastle. The taste isn't that far from one either. Has a stronger malty sweetness to it though. I would call this a brown rather than a stout. It went great with the food. It's definitely worth a try if you come across some.

New Glarus-Imerial Saison

Wow. I was not expecting this when I poured a glass. Its quite sweet and very citrusy. The fruit flavors are big and bold. Apricot and green apple among others. The flavor is quite complex, so I couldn't get all of it in since I only had one. Quite hazy pour with a big sold white head. I can't wait to go up to Wisconsin this weekend, so I can get some more.

Modelo Especial

Nothing goes better with Mexican food than beer. Most Mexican brews are light, crisp, and slightly more sophisticated than the light beer brewed to the north. That's still not saying much. But this Modelo went quite well with my couscous tacos for dinner. Thanks to TK for leaving in my cooler after the USA game.

PS-The foil drives me nuts. I always have a piece that finds it's way into my glass.

The Kolsch

I brewed the beer that started it all. A Kolsch. It's all we drank while in Germany, and it's delicious stuff. This was the first time I used Wyeast activator yeast. The yeast is in a sealed in a pouch with a little bag of activators for the yeast. You smack the activator bag so it mixes with the yeast and in a few hours the bag bulges as the yeast eats the sugars and produces CO2. After I pitched the yeast I put the batch in the closet to ferment. Two days later the lid was blown off the bucket. Fermentation was so vigoruous that the airlock was clogged with foam and I guess the pressure kept on building until it popped. The lid was resanitized and i put it back on. The fermentaion continued, so I hope that a good sign that it didnt get contaminated. I do now have a closet with beer crud all over the walls though.

Whole Foods Lincoln Park Has a Bar!!!

I love good food and beer. Now at the new Whole Foods in Lincoln Park I con combine those two things. There a bar that will serve you so you can walk around the store and shop while drinking. Why has no one thought of this before??? Just think of the impulse buys after two Dragons Milk's. The tap list was pretty good. With goose shwill, Mad Hatter, Founders, Oberon, Dragons milk and to top it off they had a keg of FFF Calumet Queen. That's their Kolsch that never makes it out of their brewpub. Plus there was a special PBR tallboys (or mancans if your from the south) for $2.

Arcadia- Scotch Ale

I grabbed this at one of those mix and match 6 pack places. Man was I quite surprised with it. Much better than I expected. A good amount of malt and dark fruitiness to it. The description on their website says plums, coffee, toffee, and roasted chestnuts. I don't know it I get all of that out of this. Maybe just the plums and a slight toffee note. Still a good solid scotch ale.

Jolly Pumpkin-Oro De Calabaza

As you can see from the pic, we were celebrating. It was my 30th bday. Alex made me a delicious Spanish tortilla. Along with the meal we shared a bottle of the Oro De Calabaza. This Biere de Garde from Jolly Pumpkin is great. It has a light fruity tartness. There's a citrus note and some pepper at the same time. Very light and crisp. It was a complete surprise that it complemented the meal so well. Those guys make some good stuff.

Lagunitas-Pils

I can't say that I drink allot of pilsners, but I really liked this one. My friend Tom brought this over. It's a great session beer. Nice and light, with a mild hop and malt flavor. i'll be drinking more of this when the weather gets hotter.

Sprecher-Scottish Style Ale

Whooo. This one has some bourbon in it. Its a Scottish ale that was aged in bourbon barrels. I wasn't too impressed. You can't really taste the scotch too much, the bourbon flavor takes the whole beer over. Allot of maltyness too. Hey it was worth a try and I got a bottle that will be reused when brewing.

Irish Red to the Secondary

I know it's not that big of a deal. The beer moved from the primary to the secondary. But this time is a little different. This will be the first batch I dry hopped with whole dried hops(1oz.). These Fuggle hops have been stored in my freezer since last falls harvest. In addition to dry hopping with them they were also included in the wort boil. I like the taster of the red I had this evening. This could be a winner.

The Hops are Planted

I finally got around to getting the trellis up and the hops planted. The trellis looks kinda bare and weird right now. I wonder what my neighbors think of it? Well there are 3 varieties in the ground. Cascade, Willamette, and Nugget. Chicken wire has been placed around them, so the rabbit Ben can't catch wont eat them. I have my fingers crossed that these things will grow.

Brewing and Tasting

I had a little brewing and tasting at my house last week. My cousin Sean and friend Tom came over. We cooked up a batch of Irish Red Ale. This was the first time either of them have been through the brewing process. It was a lot of fun to explain the how and why of brewing. We tasted some great beers while the boil was going on. Titan IPA-Great Divide, Corsendonk Xmas Ale, Unplugged Imperial Weizen-New Glarus, Horn Dog Barley Wine-Flying Dog, Mild Ale-my homebrew, ect. I think that we all benefited from this. Sean is totally new to the craft brew world so we completely overwhelmed his taste buds and brain with beer knowledge. Tom has an extensive knowledge of wine and with that had some fantastic adjectives for flavors that I would have never thought of. I just had a good time drinking and talking about beer.

Happy Holiday-Enjoy the PEEP Show

Flying Dog-Double Dog

Whooo. Don't know what I was expecting this beer to taste like, but my preconceived notions are were all wrong. It weighs in at 11.50%, so there is no question it will knock you on your ass. This is a Double Pale Ale, witch is a style that I don't think I've ever had. The beer smells of citrus, hops, and a little malty. It tastes complex. There's a strong bitter hoppyness with some malt and a slight fruitiness. The finish is bitterly rough. I wouldn't mind trying another one sometime, that is if I didn't need my taste buds after.

Dogfish Head-Raison D'Etre

I picked this up in one of those mix and match 6pks. It has a strong sweet aroma with notes of raisin(of coarse) and malt. The brew is nice and medium bodied. The taste resembles the smell but has some light hints of coffee and is quite malty. Overall not one of Dogfishes greatest beers, but not bad at all.

The Hops Are Comming

I put in my order for hop rhizomes. Rhizomes are little hop roots that you plant and hopefully will sprout. I have Willamette, Nugget and Cascade variety's coming. They should ship within the next week or so. The trellis poles have been built and the holes have been dug, I just need to cement them in and screw everything together. The pic doesn't do it justice. But is should look great when done. Spring cannot come soon enough.

Bottling

I really enjoy the hobby of home brewing. The thing I hate is bottling. It's such a tedious process. This last round was especially tough because I was doing two brews in one day. The mild ale will be ready in a week and Double IPA will be ready in 2 more months. I hate waiting that long, but from the taster I poured myself it will be damn good. Maybe it's time to think about kegging???

The Lost Abbey-Lost & Found Ale

This is the first Lost Abbey that I have gotten my hands on and it's damn good. Lost & Found is a Dubbel that is brewed with raisins. As you can see in the pic it pours a chocolate brownish color. It has a big raisin malty taste. There are some hints of cinnamon and brown sugar there too. It weighs in at 7.5% and is quite drinkable. I can't wait to try the rest of their lineup.

New House New Brews

Well I have officially moved into the new house. One of the first things I did after getting semi situated was to start a few new batches. I did two in one day. the first is a mild ale and the second is a big double IPA. I did both at once because the IPA is going to take 3-4 months before it's going to be ready. While I was brewing the second batch of the day, my new washer and dryer were delivered. The delivery guys asked what I was making, so I told me beer of course. They looked at me quite confused. I think they thought and still think I was making meth. Oh well, the mild will be ready in a month or so.

Palmer Place

I've been going to this place for years. It's always the same thing. A good burger and the frustrating confusion of actually trying to order a good beer. The web site says they have 225 beers. There's no F#$%ing way. I usually have to pick three different beers to order, because they will only have one of them if I'm lucky. Its not like I'm ordering some weird limited release Belgian either. Just something local and good. Also the servers have no idea what there serving. I asked for a Northwind the last time I was there and of coarse they were out so the server brought back a taster of and IPA??? I'm done with this place until the beer garden opens up. Maybe i should just give up on Palmer's all together. Irish Times has a better beer garden anyways. Sorry everyone this rant is long over due.

Sand Creek Brewing-Cranberry Special Ale

This one surprised me a bit. It's a descent brew. There's a strong tartness up front that faded to a sweet fruity flavor. You can relay taste the cranberry's in the aftertaste. The website says that it's brewed with real Wisconsin cranberry's, but I though they made it with the canned stuff. It has a definite artificial fruit flavor. That said I did enjoy it. Just too sweet for my pallet and teeth. I should have had some of this for Thanksgiving dinner. It would have gone great with the turkey.