Hump’s Brewing

The Big Bastard

Other than New Year’s Day this week, the holidays are behind us at the hump-house. The whole family had a rather wonderful week. And there are a few exciting things to report on the beer front.

For starters, I received a very pleasant surprise from my folks with the Jeroboam (aka Double Magnum) of Stone’s Double Bastard pictured here. My dad thought I could put the giant glass bottle to good use in my own brewing. I don’t think he was particularly knowledgeable of the actual beer inside, but it turns out to be damn fine beer.

Somehow I’m going to have to arrange a party in order to actually empty this thing. Three liters of 10.5%abv beer will require more than just a casual evening with just me and Malin. Perhaps I’ll break this one out at the next brew day if there is a sufficient crowd to drain it (without impairing anyone’s ability to get back home).

Another tricky thing will be cooling it. It is incredibly big and will not easily fit in a fridge due to its height. I think I should be able to squeeze it alongside a corny keg in the “cellar” fridge though. I may have to temporarily remove a few other gems down there to make room.

In case you can’t really tell how big this thing is from the picture, below is one that shows the scale a little better. The small bottle next to the big one is a normal 750ml bottle of wine:

Another wicked thing about this big bottle: it is locked closed with a chain and a small padlock (keys included, thankfully):

Another Fine Scotch

Another great gift I received this season was a bottle of 10-year-old Talisker. This is one of the malts I’ve mentioned to my wife (so she must have told her mother-in-law about it).

I sampled a small dram of it yesterday. It has a sweetness – almost like a fine aged Rum – and flavors of floral honey. It does have a decent bit of smoke in the aroma, but it is fairly soft in the mouth and only reveals itself towards the back of the palate. It is smoky but not particularly peaty (missing the pungent peat-bog earthiness that can sometimes accompany the smoke). The body is full and velvety. It is a subtler and sweeter beast than the Lagavulin – and much subtler than the Laphroaig. But, despite the fact that it is not an Islay malt (it instead hails from the Isle of Skye), it is not a big departure from the other malts I have. It too is quite smokey. That was one of the reasons I’d expressed interest in it to Malin.

Now I just need to get my hands on the other two Islay malts known for their peculiarly strong flavors (especially in the peat and smoke departments): Ardbeg and Caol Isla. After that I may expand my horizons towards very different Scotch whiskies – like the Macallan.

The Keg Conversion

This holiday season, I’ve converted a 1/2 barrel keg (standard 15.5 gal Sankey keg) into a new hot liquor tank for brewing beer. Actually Doug, at Just Brew It, did the conversion for me. I dropped the keg off at his store, and he chopped off its top, drilled the necessary holes, installed the new doo-dads (a stainless steel valve and a thermometer), and welded on a carbon heat shield to protect the thermometer:

I’m looking forward to brewing with it on New Year’s Day.

Recent Brews

Speaking of brewing on New Year’s Day, I’m pretty stoked about the recipe. I’m making an Imperial Brown Ale, but based on a hob-bomb brown ale, not a nut brown ale. It will basically be like a Double IPA, but with a darker grain bill to provide a richer malt base with a nutty and chocolaty character.

I currently have this year’s Holiday Ale on tap. Hump’s Holiday Ale 2009 is a spicy English stock ale. Unfortunately, it is spicier than intended. I will certainly have an even more restrained hand with next year’s holiday brew. Fortunately, it is still quite drinkable. It tastes very much like a liquid gingerbread cookie. It is surprisingly similar to last year’s Gingerbread Bock, despite using a little spice, a touch of vanilla, and a very different base beer.

I also have my Zeus single-hop barleywine on draft right now. It is freakin’ awesome. ‘Nuff said.

IPA Battles

On a completely unrelated note: a few weeks ago I did a side-by-side comparison of the two local IPAs — Sweetwater IPA and Terrapin Hopsecutioner.

Overall, both beers are fantastic examples of American IPAs. But if I had to pick a winner (which I hate to do since I enjoy both of them very much), it would be Terrapin. The Hopsecutioner has a very pleasant evergreen character to the hop flavor and is a little bit drier. The Sweetwater’s hop profile is also very nice – lots of bitter citrus fruit – but is missing the evergreen notes that I personally find quite appealing.

The real verdict: there is no loser here. Georgia residents, support your local breweries and buy more Sweetwater and Terrapin! I’d highly recommend starting with one (or both) of these.

Oh, dear Sweetwater
India Pale Ale. You are
very delicious.

Celebration Ale
from Sierra Nevada
is deliciouser.

Hump’s Old Humperdink,
you are in fine company.
Hoppy beer is best.

Zeus, Columbus, and
Tomahawk are fine species.
All-time favorites?

Centennial and
Amarillo are very
close as second place.

Kent Goldings are great
but are harder to get here.
Brits must be hoarding.

Some hops are noble.
They are nice but not my fave.
They do make great beer.

Hoppy IPAs,
I pledge allegiance to you.
Now I say, “Good night.”

Rock Art Brewing

Rock Art Brewing has come under flagrant legal attack from the makers of Monster Energy Drinks. They received a cease and desist order asking them to stop the production and marketing of their “Vermonster” barley wine. The makers of Monster Energy Drink, Hansen Beverage Company, claim that the beer’s label is a copyright infringement – which is pretty obviously bollocks.

To support Rock Art Brewing, boycott Monster Energy Drinks. And show your support by buying something from the Rock Art Brewing online store – like a shirt or a glass or something!

RIP Greg Noonan

Gregory J. Noonan, a pioneer craft brewer that started Vermont’s first brew pub and author of Brewing Lager Beers, died this past Sunday, October 11^th. I had not heard of or read anything of Mr. Noonan prior to hearing about his passing, but various beer authors on the web have written tributes describing his legacy. I’ve put his book on my Amazon shopping list to learn firsthand more about this man’s work posthumously.

In Progress…

On the homebrew front, we’ve got a couple of new ones racing for an opportunity to be consumed.

Hump’s Devilish Nectar is a Belgian Strong Golden Ale that is finally almost finished – after five weeks of slow fermentation. The beer is finally down to 1.014 (9.4%abv!). I think it will get even lower (1.010 -> 1.012), so I’m patiently waiting. The yeast are still in suspension and there is still the occasional bubble slipping loose from the fermentation lock.

Hump’s Estate-Hopped Rye is a Rye Pale Ale made with our homegrown hops. We just brewed it this past Sunday (10/11), but it’s already mostly finished. Attenuation appears to be complete. Now, we just wait for the yeast to flocculate and fall out. This beer is very malty with a restrained rye character and a somewhat restrained hoppiness. The hop plants were not very productive this year, so we didn’t harvest enough to make a hop bomb. But it does have a distinctly grassy hop flavor throughout that is quite pleasant – and quite a surprise for Chinook hops (which are usually resiny and piney/evergreen, sometimes with grapefruity bitter citrus).

After typing my notes into RateBeer.com for Terrapin’s and Left Hand’s latest collaboration (Midnight Project Batch #2 – Depth Charge), I was treated to a musical jig: a MIDI rendering of an Irish folk song named Seven Drunken Nights.

This musical treat was offered up to exalt my latest achievement: 700 ratings.

Somehow, these milestones never feel like a chore, no matter how long they take me (so unlike my day job…).

The brew was marvelously – perhaps even ridiculously – thick with the taste of espresso beans. It is a strong (8% abv) sweet stout loaded up with Jittery Joe’s espresso. A very nice way to close out a rough week at the office and usher in not only the weekend but also what will hopefully be a wonderful Autumn. The weather sure has been nice here lately, anyway.

For those of you that read these posts via Google Reader or other RSS reader/aggregator, you’ll find I post much more frequently in the form of status updates for Hump’s Brewing’s Facebook page. For those that read these posts from Facebook, you’ve already noticed this recent phenomenon.

For the benefit of those not yet on Facebook (likely few), I’ll recap the past couple of months…

Devilish Nectar

I cooked up Hump’s Devilish Nectar nearly 4 weeks ago. It will be a Belgian Strong Golden Ale – like Duvel, Delirium Tremens, or Piraat. Unfortunately, this batch appears to have gotten “stuck”. After nearly 3 weeks of fermentation, it was still up at around 1.030. It is still fermenting, albeit very slowly. At this rate, it may be quite some time before it finishes attenuating – at will hopefully be a nice and dry 1.010 or so.

I’ve already tried lugging the fermentor up from the basement (since it is usually about 3-4 degrees warmer upstairs), but that didn’t appear to jump-start it in any significant way… And now that beautiful fall weather is here, it’s cooling off upstairs and down.

Estate-Hopped Rye

I already harvested my hop plants this year. After drying, the yield was quite small – about 2 ounces total. I have 1.5 ounces of Chinook, 0.1 ounces of Horizon, and about 3/8 ounces of Willamette.

My plan is to cook up a Rye Pale Ale pretty soon using all of them – hopefully next weekend (10/10).

Old Humperdink

I bought a bunch of half-priced whole-leaf Zeus hops a few months ago with the intent of using them in a big, bad American Barley Wine. I still haven’t brewed that batch because it has been too warm in the basement for a clean fermentation of such a big beer.

Now that the weather is cooling off, I should be able to get to it soon – perhaps I’ll cook it up on Halloween day!

Tafelbier Brew Day

A few weeks ago we had another “brew day”. This is basically where I invite people over during a brewing session. One might think that the presence of others would make the process go more quickly or more smoothly. Unfortunately, neither are true. But they do provide good and entertaining company and help me drink the stockpile of beer in the cellar. Unlike the last brew day, only two showed up, although we did have some stragglers – folks that live in my neighborhood – stop by, too.

The brew of the day was Hump’s Farmhouse Table Beer – a Belgian-style Tafelbier. It’s finished fermenting, and I’ve been meaning to keg it for several days now but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It will be a mighty good thirst quencher after it’s carbonated. It has a decent bitter citrus quality to it thanks to fresh orange and lime zest (not to mention some oranges and lemons – peel, pulp, and juice). It will be a nice refreshing brew, low enough in gravity to pound a few pints without being worse for the wear.

Part of the brewing fun is, of course, drinking good beer with good people. First up on the roster were the homebrews on tap at the time:

• Hump’s Red Bedlam – Nectar. Lovely, hoppy, complex, malty goodness. An “India Amber Ale” as I like to call it.
• Hump’s “Welcome to the World!” Wit – A coconut-pineapple Witbier. Refreshing and intriguing. Did I mention delicious?
• Hump’s Toucan Stout – Holy smokes is this smooth. A dangerously drinkable “Foreign Extra Stout”. It’s on the high side of the style which makes it awfully close to “Imperial Stout” territory.

Next in the line-up were a few commercial brews:

• Smuttynose Maibock – A very drinkable strong lager.
• Terrapin Side Project: 90-Shelling Scotch Ale – A sweet, dark brew. Not bad, but not as good as I’d hoped.
• Victory Wild Devil – Wow! This is a fantastic IPA. It’s their Hop Devil but fermented with wild yeast.

The final beer we tried that day was the brew we had made at the previous brew day: Hump’s La Brabonçonne Grand Cru. This beer has turned out nicely. It is very malty with a dry and spicy nose followed by a surprisingly sweet flavor – that is far from cloying thanks to a dry (and well-attenuated) finish.

Here is a pic of the Tafelbier, fermenting away. Next to it is the bottle of my favorite brew consumed that day:

Regal Bitter

This past weekend, I cooked up another tasty brew. Like the last batch, this one too is a low-gravity beer, expected to end up not much higher than 4% abv.

This one is a low-alcohol interpretation of an American Amber Ale. And not just a plain ol’ amber, mind you, but a west-coast-style hop-bomb amber!

Into this low-gravity brew I added a good bit of Centennial and a dash of Amarillo hops. Both are known for their pleasant and very citrusy flavors (lots o’ grapefruit). Since it’s a small beer, almost all of the hops were added late in the boil to insure a balanced (and not overly-bittered) product. Like all beers I make with lots of aroma hops, the fermentor smelled wickedly awesome – percolating away while the pungent wreak of resiny hops reels up.

Punjabi Pale Ale and Company

I’ve been working on beer labels this week. I’ve actually finished them all. I’m now caught up. I’ve got a label for every beer I’ve brewed (except this latest one – but it’s still in the primary fermentor, so it doesn’t really count).

I think I’m most fond of the label for my most recent English IPA:

I hope no Indian takes offense at the name or imagery. I do know that the Punjab region straddles both India and Pakistan and that more Punjabi people live on the Pakistan side, but I was struck by an image of Punjabi army men and thought it would make great imagery for an India Pale Ale. You’ll see there are rather obvious similarities with the outfit that Miles wears in the label above.

I also actually tasted this brew for the first time in a while. It’s been out of a keg and in bottles for quite some time. I broke out some for sampling Sunday night with a couple of friends. It was much smoother than I remembered. The almost-overpowering flavor of floral and earthy hops had settled down. Also, the aroma was much more pleasant and less vegetal than I remembered. Age in the bottle has served this batch very well. It was delicious.

Another recent label that I rather like is a special label for my coconut-pineapple Witbier. It was brewed to honor the birth of my newest son, Ewan.

Tasty Tidbits

And now a summary of a few other remarkable commercial brews that have found their way to my palate:

• Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. This brew was almost too bitter. It is unrelenting. It was tasty, but a whole bomber is a little hard to get down the gullet.
• Ommegang Bière De Mars. A surprise delight. A wonderful Belgian Pale Ale – malty with just the right levels of richness and funkiness.
• Reunion – A Beer For Hope 2009. This year this beer was apparently brewed by one of my friendly neighborhood breweries: Terrapin. It was a very refreshing brew, though I seem to recall that the big amber rye from last year was better.
• Harpoon Leviathan Big Bohemian Pilsner. Another surprising delight. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I am sure that what was delivered was great. A very decadent and tasty brew that is perfumy and malty. And really big, too (9% abv).
• Dieu du Ciel Équinoxe du Printemps. I just polished off 33cl (~11 ounces) of this tonight. It was another tasty offering from Dieu du Ciel. This brewery has got a good track record with me – I’ve liked pretty much all of their beer that I’ve tried. This one was no different.

I still have some more tempting morsels in the cellar, too. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to post some notes on Stone’s 13^th Anniversary Ale (double IPA), Great Divide’s 15^th Anniversary Ale (oak-aged double IPA), Dogfish Head Sah’tea (new interpretation of old world Finnish fermented beverage), or Allagash Confluence (funky Belgian-style specialty brew).

And now for your moment of Zen:

We’ve been having some fun around these parts lately. From tasting some amazing beer and enjoying good beer with good company to brewing up some tasty brew, we’ve had a decently full month.

Allagash… And Others

One of the best beers I’ve tried in the past month is “Les Deux Brasseurs” – a collaboration between Allagash and De Proef. The label described it as 100% brett fermentation, and this beer did not disappoint. It was very funky with earthy and acidic qualities – very intriguing. It was an awesome brew from start to finish.

Another Allagash creation I tried recently was a cask-conditioned version of their Curieux at The Porter. I found the bottled version of this brew to be absolutely awesome, so I was a bit disappointed when I tried this interesting-sounding variety. Unfortunately, the cask did little for this beer. The low carbonation and slightly warmer serving temperature made the beer taste too sweet and too alcoholic. I think the lack of suds was the worst. Slightly warmer serving temperatures usually do great things for a beer, but the whiskey quality in this brew is strong enough (from its aging in bourbon barrels) that the warmer temperature mainly accentuates the strong taste of ethanol.

Two other really nice finds this past month include Struise Black Albert – a complex and dry “Belgian” imperial stout – and Victory Wild Devil – an absolutely amazing version of their Hop Devil that is fermented with brett (wild yeast). The Black Albert is good but is probably not really worth the exorbitant price ($13 for a 33cl bottle). The Wild Devil, on the other hand, is worth every single penny I dropped for it. I would (will?) buy another.

I still have some other great brews to get to: Stone 13^th Anniversary Ale, Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, Great Divide 15^th Anniversary Ale, and Smuttynose Baltic Porter among others.

The Fellow Homebrewer

This past week, my family was treated by a visit from a friend of mine from high school. He and his wife came over for Thai food and beer. I had him taste the three brews I currently have on tap, and he in return brought some of his own homebrew to taste.

His brews were really good. First up was a Belgian IPA that was very smooth. It didn’t have the harsh bitterness or clashing combo of licorice esters and over-the-top perfumey hops that I’ve found in some examples of this growing niche style. He brought two bottles – the same batch but dispensed from the keg a few months apart. Interestingly enough, the “older” bottle was a little softer with hop flavor and much stronger in peachy esters. Both were good.

The second brew he brought was an amber ale – like a strong and extra rich Irish Red or “80 Shilling” Scottish Ale. I think it was big enough to perhaps be most at home in the style of American Amber, but that style is so broad that it can include some serious west-coast style hop-bomb interpretations… It had an amazingly rich malt character that I’d love to emulate (I asked him for the recipe).

His third brew was another beauty: an 18-month-old Raspberry Imperial Porter. Even after 18 months, it had an intense raspberry aroma and strong flavor, too. The combo of raspberry on the front with bitter chocolate in the finish was really marvelous.

Hump’s Farmhouse Table Beer

Yesterday, some friends came over to brew some beer. We cooked up a low gravity Belgian-style table beer. I actually got wicked efficiency (no doubt because it was such a small amount of grain compared to all of my other recent brews – the weakest of which has been 6.2%), so the beer should end up around 4.0%abv (whereas I originally planned for less than 4). I may “water” it down a little with an orange and lemon peel tea. I meant to add fresh orange and lemon peels to the boil but completely forgot (doh!). After sampling some later this week (once fermentation is complete), I’ll decide if that sort of citrus character would complement/improve the beer.

Hump’s Old Humperdink Barleywine

Next month I will cook up a big, bad-ass American Barleywine. I’ve got a ton of Zeus leaf hops, nearly 20 pounds of malt, and some dry malt extract (to fortify the mash and insure a silly gravity brew – and to use as a yeast starter since I’ll need a really big population of the little boogers to thoroughly attenuate this monster). I’m hoping that this big brew will be drinkable in time for Christmas.

Brewin’ It Up

Today Hump’s celebrated father’s day by making what every dad really wants on this day: awesome beer.

Ahhh… Can’t you almost smell the sweet wort and fresh German Perle hops?

And here we have the spent grains, still sitting in the mash tun, waiting to be pitched into the compost.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good shot of the whole brew stand on this outing. But I did get a snapshot of the stand’s “control center”:

It’s a bit hard to tell, but on the right is a valve to turn on/off the water, and to its left are two valves to turn on/off the propane supply. The top valve controls – you guessed it – the top burner (the hot liquor tank as it’s called), and the bottom valve controls the bottom burner (the kettle).

My brew-stand is fairly bare bones, and I got it at a steal of a price. Doug, the guy who fabricated it and who also happens to own/operate Just Brew It!, has fancier models that include metal/rigid lines for propane integrated with (i.e. welded onto) the brew-stand. My low-budget fastening method involves flexible gas lines and zip-ties, as you can see from the picture.

Daddy’s Day

To celebrate the occasion in style, Malin got me a bottle of 16-year-old Lagavulin. How awesome is that?!

I tried a tiny dram of it side-by-side with the 10-year-old Cask Strength Laphroaig I got for Christmas.

They are both very smoky. When sipped side-by-side, the palate quickly acclimates to the smoke, and you get a lot more nuance from each one.

The Laphroaig is a little warmer – not surprising given its cask strength (55.7% abv). It pours slightly lighter in color with just the slightest hint of green hue. Its flavors feature more peat-moss with notes of salty ocean water and seaweed. The body is fairly velvety with a touch of honey-like maltiness towards the end.

The Lagavulin is smoother and slightly richer. It starts with subtle hibiscus flower and honey up-front and then finishes with touches of dark malt character like slightly overdone toast.

It’s hard to pick a favorite. The Laphroaig is more eccentric and a better value (i.e. a less expensive than Lagavulin). The Lagavulin is more straight-forward. I can certainly see how some may show disdain for the crazy range of flavors in Laphroaig, whereas Lagavulin is more refined and sweeter. They are both very smokey, which I think is why I like them.

As both of these were gifts, I need to keep a good thing going by finding a way to get a bottle of Ardbeg as a gift. That will complete my trifecta of what are generally considered to be the strongest tasting whiskeys available. But I’d just as happily accept any other Islay whiskey – Caol Ila, Bowmore, Bruichladdich…

Brickworks

Last night, after taking the family to a birthday party for a one-year-old, we headed over to a new area near Georgia Tech campus: Brickworks at Midtown West. Therein is a fantastic beer and wine shop named Hop City and, right next door, location #3 for Atlanta’s very own Five Seasons Brewing.

We made a quick dash into the bottle shop to see if there was anything new and found a new variety of Mikkeller Single Hop IPA. Recently, I found three of them in a local shop, and they were all pretty good:

In case you can’t read the labels, the picture features their Cascade, Warrior, and Simcoe single-hop IPAs. The idea is that they use the same recipe for each beer, but use a different variety of hops. Each beer uses one and only one hop variety. The Warrior IPA was my favorite, and I’ll be on the lookout for Warrior rhizomes next year so I can have some of my own.

The new variety that I found last night is, unfortunately, not pictured. It features a variety of hop I’d never before heard of: Nelson Sauvin. After googling it, I found that it hails from New Zealand and supposedly imparts a Sauvignon Blanc grape character to a beer. It didn’t taste like grape to me, but I did notice a slight sourness on top of the usual grassy citrus and pine notes. In any event, a worthy beverage…

After perusing Hop City for new stuff, we went next door for dinner at Five Seasons. My wife and I had mixed impressions of the place. The presentation of their beer sampler was unimpressive and the glasses they used (double-tall shot glasses) are horrible for sampling beer – no aroma escapes the glass geometry which makes everything taste more bland, like tasting a beer with a cold.

Two of the six beers in the sampler were very good: the Venus Belgian White and the Decadent Brown. The others were decent, too, but just not as good. I also tried a pint of their “mild” ale, on cask. It was quite disappointing – too mild in flavor and tainted with a strawberry funkiness.

We had a similar opinion of the food – some bright spots, but not that great overall. The menu looks great – interesting “feasts” (dinners for two), pizzas, small plates, etc. The delivery was a little hit and miss, though.

We ordered a kid’s mac and cheese for our older son, and it came out ridiculously over-cooked. Well, I guess kids like mushy noodles, so I guess we can cut them a little slack here.

For ourselves, we had fried sweetbreads over barley-pearl risotto (not bad; we always appreciate seeing sweetbreads on a menu), lamb tenderloin with rosemary demiglace and smashed potatoes (worst value: small portion, slightly overcooked lamb, too much potato, demiglace was a bit weak), and cajun-style grilled ravioli with andouille sausage and crawfish (my favorite – spicy, very flavorful).

We were then a bit disappointed with the service when presented with the dessert menu. They were pretty much out of everything but failed to mention it when they gave us the menus. We had a frustrating time figuring out what they did have. Their home-made ice cream was good, and the fruit was ripe and sweet. The pecan tart – called Coca-Cola Rum Pecan Tart – was too dry, and had not even a hint of rum-and-coke flavor (which I was hoping for given the name). My wife really enjoyed the flourless chocolate cake.

All in all, it was a bit of a mediocre visit. The price was too high for the quality of food and service. The other Five Seasons locations are usually highly rated, so perhaps this new location just hasn’t gotten into its groove yet. There are also many other types of food on the menu. So we’ll probably return and see if we don’t have a better experience. But unless either the beer or food is really great next time (hopefully both), we may not return for a trip #3 since The Porter and The Bookhouse Pub are so close to that part of town…

Welcome to the World!

Tonight, I added the 1.5 pounds of frozen pineapple and 1.5 pounds of fresh coconut to the Witbier I brewed to celebrate the arrival of our latest son, Ewan.

I was dismayed to see that after almost three weeks in the primary it had only gotten down to about 1.030. I used Saison Dupont yeast (Wyeast 3724), and I’ve heard and read about this yeast doing exactly this. It is very finicky and frequently slows down nearly to a halt, even after a rapid start.

I added the fruit to a clean carboy and decided to go ahead and rack the stuck beer, hoping the extra sugar will help get it going again. As another prod to get it going again, I’ve moved it out of the basement and into the kitchen – which is a good 4 degrees warmer. I’ve read that warming it up near the end of fermentation helps to keep it going – even as high as 85 degrees! So hopefully the shift from 74 to 78 will get it back in gear.

I have to admit that, even grossly under-attenuated, the beer tasted awesome. It was sweet, but the sweetness will go away once it is finished fermenting, so I’m totally stoked about the final result. I just have to be patient and possibly let it sit for several more weeks before it is ready.

By the time it is done, it will be disgustingly hot and sticky here in Georgia. Oh, wait – it already is! In any event, a cold, tropical-cocktail-inspired Belgian Wit will be just what the doctor orders to cool off.

Toucan Stout

Today I nabbed ingredients for our next brew: Hump’s Toucan Stout.  This will be an “Export Stout” – a version of stout brewed for export to tropical markets. It is generally fuller and much, much stronger than a standard “Dry Stout”, and often fruitier, too. The classic example of the style – Guinness Export Stout (not available in the US and not to be confused with Guinness Draught and Guinness Extra Stout which are) – isn’t particularly fruity but is punched up with subtleties of brett fermentation. Or so I’ve read. I’m not sure which markets still get Guinness Export Stout, but I didn’t see it the past two times I looked for it in the UK and Europe.

This brew will be hopped exclusively with German Perle hops, and I’ll be using Wyeast 1187 – an English/British style of yeast known for its complex fruity esters.

Brew day will be this Sunday. The opportunity to brew will be my father’s day gift…

Hopyard

Hump’s is now home to four hop plants. The Chinook plant we started last year is doing really well. It started slow but is a monster now, already covered in spurs.

We added three more this year: one each Centennial, Horizon, and Willamette. I actually bought others and gave the rhizomes to a friend of mine. He had a couple more Willamette (both of which have unfortunately already passed), one Cascade (which may produce grapes since the rhizome was apparently fused to a grape rhizome!), and one Glacier.

I thought the Centennial died, but a little over a week ago it started getting some new growth. The other two new ones, Horizon and Willamette, are doing great – much better than the Chinook did last year when it was fresh in the ground.

Hopefully later this season we can cook up some frighteningly bodacious wet hop ales.

Georgia and Beer

Over the past several months, numerous new breweries have come to the Georgia market: Moylan’s and Bell’s most notably. We’ve had some other new brews popping in here and there, too: Yeungling and New Belgium on the almost-micro-brew-but-not-really front and French Broad (from Asheville, NC) on the authentic micro-brew front.

Last night I was able to try an interesting specialty from Sierra Nevada: Brown Saison. This beer, unlike almost every other Sierra Nevada brew I can remember, was exactly as described. It was Belgian, it was fruity, vaguely Saison-like, and brown in color (though not too dark). It was distinctly missing hops. This from the brewery whose “doppelbock” (Double De-Bock-le) tastes like an American IPA.

I’ve been stockpiling interesting brews from a new beer, wine, and homebrew supply store in the city. The store’s called Hop City. Their homebrew supply selection is weak (but of course I’m spoiled, since Just Brew It is probably the best in Georgia). But their beer selection is phenomenal. Of particular interest: Struisse Black Albert and Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. I’ll post reviews once I try them. I’m quite excited about both of them (and about numerous other bottles hiding out in the stash downstairs).

The other day we had a chance to have dinner at The Bookhouse Pub in midtown. It was a really cool place. Despite the fact that they have no kid’s menu, there were several families there with small children – which we liked since we drag our 4-year-old and newborn wherever we go.

The place is very cool inside, has a nice ambiance (including a Logan’s Run DVD playing on the television), a solid beer list (though not as impressive as The Porter or The Brick Store Pub), and an awesome food menu (maybe even better than The Porter’s, though shorter).

Also, they have a sort of happy hour between 5pm and 6:30pm on weekdays where they offer numerous appetizers for only $3 and a few entrées for only $10. We had the smoked trout mac & cheese appetizer (awesome! and only three bucks!) and the hanger steak (even more awesome!! and only ten bucks!!). We had a great time.

Last week (starting 5/11) was my first week back at day-job work after being off for three weeks. Because the office is closer to it Brickworks than my home, a friend of mine and I dropped by during lunchtime last Wednesday. We didn’t eat or drink, but took a quick look at the Five Seasons Brewpub location there (their third). It is open and serving food, but won’t be pouring brewed-on-premise beers until this week or next I think. Our main objective was actually to check out the beer, wine, and homebrew-supply shop next door: Hop City. The folks there were really friendly, and they had some great brews to choose from.

Particularly good picks that I haven’t tried yet but was excited to nab include these:

• Struise Black Albert (expensive little sucker)
• Three different versions of Mikkeller Single Hop IPA:
  • Cascade
  • Warrior
  • Simcoe
• Nøgne Ø Dobbel IPA
• Smuttynose Maibock
• Sam Adams Long Shot 2009 (a sixer with two each of three different brews)

I haven’t gotten into any of these great finds – in fact, I still have a fridge full of older selections (some still hanging around from my trip to LA last October). Next time I have beer geek friends over, I’ll have to crack some of these (if they’re not all gone by then…)

Our other recent adventures have been all about homebrews.

The English IPA, Hump’s Punjabi Pale Ale, was the first to make it into a keg. This beer turned out great. It is a little bold, hoppy, and bitter for an English IPA, but the distinctly English hop varieties and yeast keep the flavor profile in style. This is frighteningly drinkable – almost session-beer like for a hop-head like me – for a strong brew (6.5%abv).

Next into a keg was our fine Belgian strong ale: Hump’s “La Brabançonne” Grand Cru. This one is still a little green. It finished quite dry and thus very strong: 9.0%abv. It is still a bit warming with alcohol and the flavor of ethanol is a little too conspicuous. A few more months of aging and it will be nice. A year or two and it will likely be un-freaking-believable.

The final brew, sitting patiently for weeks on the counter-top, was a big American Amber – perhaps India Amber Ale: Hump’s Red Bedlam. This is everything that it promised to be. It’s big hop aroma and flavor from Columbus and Simcoe hops are simply bliss. The malt profile is bready, rich, and slightly sweet – which stands up well to the very bitter finish and warming strength (7.4%abv). This one might be my favorite on tap right now, but it’s a close call between it and the IPA.

My fridge is once again full of crazy, hoppy goodness – a welcome sight after several months of low-hop brews (which were all good – don’t get me wrong – but were unable to tickle my hop-funnybone, if you know what I mean).

I bought ingredients for the next batch a few weeks ago, but haven’t gotten a chance to brew yet. I hope to brew this weekend (perhaps on Memorial Day). I’ll be cooking up Hump’s “Welcome to the World!” Wit. This crazy, refreshing beer – brewed to celebrate the birth of our newest son – will be the offspring of a ménage à trois involving a Belgian Witbier, a Belgian Saison, and a piña colada. If anything, it promises to be wild. With luck, it will also be delicious (a restrained hand when adding the pineapple and coconut will hopefully insure its drinkability).

Today is episode #27 of the beer-blogging Friday sessions. This month’s topic is Beer Cocktails, titled more elegantly in the topic announcement as Beyond the Black and Tan.

When I was in college, it was Guinness that brought me to the world of flavorful beer. I drank mostly Miller Genuine Draft and Bud Dry because of their middle-of-the-road price points. They were cheaper than the brand standards like Budweiser and Coors Gold but seemed equally palatable. How naive I was (I even enjoyed Zima every now and then)!

A friend and roommate of mine had enjoyed Guinness on draft in the past and brought home a six-pack of their Extra Stout in bottles. I was intrigued by its color and subsequently blown away by its flavor. My roommate didn’t care for it. He preferred the “smoother” draft variety, which wasn’t available in bottles at the time (only on tap or in “widget” cans). I later tried the draft version and thoroughly enjoyed its coffee overtones and sublime drinkability. Around this time I also tried Pete’s brews – initially their Wicked Red – and was similarly impressed. Before too long I was a certified beer snob, unable to revert to flavorless yellow lager unless I was at a keg party where it was available for free (after all, I was still in college and usually broke).

I was even fortunate enough to live in Home Park – a neighborhood of shabby houses filled mostly with students and adjacent to campus (Georgia Tech in Atlanta). This turned out to be fortunate because this was back in Sweetwater’s early days, and they used to sort of (perhaps they still do…) “sponsor” the Home Park Festival by bringing a truckload of Sweetwater kegs of all flavors. Great live music + great local draft beer = tons of fun.

So, what does all this backstory have to do with beer cocktails? Sorry. I can be a bit long-winded sometimes. It wasn’t long after I discovered Guinness that I discovered this bizarre cocktail that was the black and tan. I read (and was probably told) that it is traditionally Bass and Guinness. I read that locals in Ireland preferred Harp and Guinness. I was fascinated (still a little naive, too, eh?).

I used to make my own “big daddy” black and tan using a 24 ounce stein/mug (emblazoned with Buzz the yellow jacket of course), a wickedly bent spoon (for the perfect pour), one 12 ounce bottle of Sierra Nevada Stout, and one 12 ounce bottle of Samuel Adams Bohemian Pilsner (no longer available). I have since outgrown this cocktail, but can still attest to the wonderful beer that it produced: stout with big roasted barley and coffee notes, a touch of grainy pilsner malt sweetness, and a mesmerizing hop complexity from the blend of citrusy American stout and brightly hopped Czech-style lager.

So in memory of this “big daddy” cocktail, I decided to make something even more memorable. Something immense. Something that is hopped to absolutely irresponsible levels. Something with enough alcohol to serve as a pleasing after dinner drink – or to stir crazy college students to perilous uproar (if they could afford it). I mixed up a delicious Imperial Black and Tan – enticing and intoxicating (is that redundant?):

As can be seen in the photo, this beer consists of two big beers: Sweetwater Happy Ending (the current vintage from this past winter) and Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner (from 2007). Despite the fact that the glass looks more dark than light, it is mixed to about 50/50. I think that the ratio of final gravities in the two beers is different enough to prevent the perfect pour (i.e. the stout’s specific gravity is too close to that of the lager to let it easily float atop the other without some blending).

I will now close this novella with tasting notes of this blended beast:

• Appearance: Surprisingly cloudy. Very dark brown with red and caramel-colored highlights when held to the light (after the two beers completely mixed). Head pours medium-thin and splotched with tan and white from the two beers. It subsides into a crescent of light tan, fine bubbles. A few spots and streaks of lace are left on the glass.
• Aroma: Resiny and vinous with hops. There are also some notes of dried fruit and chocolate-covered toffees. And some alcohol, too.
• Flavor: Starts sweet and hoppy with a mix of grainy sweetness, caramel, and crazy spicy nobles hops (thanks, Sammy!). There are some notes of toasted bread and coffee-like roasted grains, too. As the beer finds its way to mid-palate, there is an explosion of hop bitterness that is surprisingly docile compared to its individual constituents. Spicy hops with a touch of evergreen blend with toast, semi-sweet chocolate, and dark strong coffee. There are also notes of dark fruit esters (prunes, raisins) that fit wonderfully well amidst all these flavors. The finish is surprisingly dry and surprisingly familiar from other black and tans: a nice mix of hoppy, roasty stout and grainy, hoppy lager – but elevated by an order of magnitude.
• Texture: The mouthfeel is surprisingly smooth and slippery – very full-bodied and creamy with a slight zip of carbonation.
• Overall: Wow. This met my expectations exactly. It tasted exactly like what it is: a great big, irreponsibly-hopped “imperial” black and tan. ‘Nuff said.

I am now feeling a little bit dreary thanks to this experiment. Many thanks to Beer at Joe’s for coming up with this original (and evidently nostalgic – at least for me) topic.