The Champ

The Challenger

The contrast between this latest opponent and the last one (McRogue) couldn’t be sharper. McRogue was so chocolatey and rich that it made Fat Bastard look fruity by comparison. Old Chub is the opposite. It tastes fruity and caramelly by comparison and makes Fat Bastard taste like the chocolate-cookie part of an Oreo — dark and roasty with distinct coffee and chocolate character.

Just like the last contest: I preferred Fat Bastard, but vote #2 was cast in favor of the challenger. Another draw.

We’ll try to nab some of Great Divide’s Claymore Scotch Ale for a third installment. Stay tuned…

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:

First up are some photos that I call “Goldilocks and the Three Beers”.

The first one is too small (only one ounce). The last one is too big (an Imperial pint). The middle is just right (6 ounces). Not for Goldilocks, but for my pregnant wife. In all seriousness, she doesn’t actually drink while pregnant except for a sip here and there and maybe an ounce or two of wine every couple of months. And we only let Will drink a few sips, too. In fact, here is the aftermath:

I, of course, went on to finish the rest, being the noble and chivalrous gentleman that I am. By the way, the glasses were filled with Hump’s Itsy Bitsy Brown.

Will prefers to just play with the beer, which is perfectly fine. He likes the idea of drinking beer much more than the act itself (at least for now…).

The next photos are of “the cellar.”

If you’re curious about exactly what’s on tap at the moment, look no further than the draft menu:

And if you looked closely, you’ll see the special stuff in the bottom of the fridge. It’s not actually all special in those drawers, but it’s all aging. The bottles are mostly just 1-2 years old now, but I do have a Chimay Grand Reserve from 2001, too.

Now on to my latest project: a hop-filter manifold for my kettle. This allows me to simply open the valve on the bottom of the pot and drain every last drip into the fermentor without worrying about trub and hop matter. The pipes around the perimeter of the pot are all touching the bottom and have 5/32 inch holes drilled into them. They suck the sweet wort out of the pot and filter out hops. They’re around the edges of the pot because most of the trub piles up in the center (at least it does after you whirlpool the cooled wort really well and wait a few minutes). Also, using whole leaf or plug hops will further remove trub since the hop leaves will act as a filter much like the grain husks act as a filter while lautering the mash.

And finally, I leave you with the latest beer label I’ve drawn. This label is for my favorite homebrew from 2008, my Most Worthy Ale. The beer’s name gave me the idea for what the label should be:

My first problem was, like nearly all brew days unfortunately, a late start. I didn’t really get started until 3pm which was about 2 hours later than ideal.

My second problem was encountered upon opening my mash/lauter tun after pulling it up from the basement: it was covered in mold – disgusting. I had to scrub it out and then rinsed everything in a solution of water and bleach (only 1oz bleach per gallon water, so hopefully that was actually strong enough to kill the mold… I may need to do more cleaning with a more potent solution).

One thing actually went quite right: I hit my mash temperature almost perfectly. I think I just got lucky… I was going for 155 and hit 154. It was still around 154 after one hour per my handy thermometer calibrator, so it may have actually hit around 155 and just cooled off by one degree.

The third problem was something I should have realized beforehand. It wasn’t necessarily a problem – just a complication. My lauter tun only holds 10 gallons. The total mash+sparge volume would be around 12.5 gallons. The reason was twofold: this beer featured a lot more grain than usual so there would be more water lost in spent grains, and this beer would undergo a 90 minute boil, which means I need to start with more to compensate for more of it boiling off. The long boil is due to the extensive use of continental pilsner malt (about five pounds) – which needs a long boil to boil off DMS precursors. So I would have to do a double batch sparge (i.e. fill the lauter tun to 10 gallons, sparge, and then add more hot water, and sparge more)

The fourth problem would be the ultimate issue, overshadowing (and foreshadowing) the rest of my evening: a stuck mash. Bad. Really bad. I had not even collected a quart or two of wort by the time it stopped flowing. Usually I have to restrain the valve on the lauter tun to insure a slow flow, but even with the valve wide open it trickled and ultimately stopped. I was worried about this possibility due to the use of pumpkin (nearly six pounds of roasted [caramelized] pumpkin flesh). To mitigate this issue I had added 1/2 pound of rice hulls to the mash. Rice hulls help to form a filter bed, much like barley husks. When only barley is used, the husks alone provide a sufficient filter bed. But when large quantities of wheat, rye, or other starches (like pumpkin) are used, rice hulls are a handy additive to prevent a stuck mash. Apparently they didn’t do their job.

Now here’s where things started getting really messy. After fighting the mash for a while – stirring it up heavily and digging the brewspoon into the bottom of the grain bed to stir it up and jar it loose – I gave up and decided to transfer the mash to the kettle (the only vessel in the house big enough to hold all ten gallons of it). After doing this by hand, two quarts at a time, using a two-quart Pyrex measuring cup, I added my remaining 1/2 pound of rice hulls. I stirred them up, hoping they would resolve my stuck mash, and then transferred it again by hand – this time back into the lauter tun.

Problem number five: another stuck mash. At first the extra rice hulls seemed to work. The wort flowed. But the flow slowly decelerated and eventually came to a stop after only collecting about 2.5 gallons of wort.

I tried the same trick again, but this time I had no more rice hulls to add. I simply transferred to the kettle and back. I saved the 2.5 gallons of wort collected so far in another, smaller brewpot. But the goddess of brewing had turned a frown on me…

At this point, things were looking grim. I could not get any more wort. I even tried vigorously stirring up the wort and manipulating the grain bed with the brewspoon – with the valve open. I had decided I cared a little less about how clean the resulting wort would be. I just wanted to get on with it. It still wouldn’t work. I was being spurned by that cruel goddess.

Problem number six (or potential problem at least): efficiency. A full 7.25 gallons of wort was supposed to have a gravity of 1.048. I assumed only 60% efficiency – less than the typical which is 68-70%. I assumed the pumpkin would provide less gravity per pound than would the barley (15 points per pound per gallon – vs. 37.5 points per pound per gallon for the base malt). But I think the real situation was even worse – either worse than 60% efficiency or way less than 15 points per pound per gallon for the pumpkin. The 2.5 gallon “first runnings” had a disappointing specific gravity of only 1.059. Considering I’ve read that you typically get 2/3 of the total gravity out of the beer using the first 1/2 of sparge water, this should have been a little thicker I think (although it’s hard to tell – I think I was expecting closer to 1.070, but I don’t have hard scientific data to support that expectation – I don’t even think I have sufficient knowledge/formulas to calculate the proper gravity at this point).

My last ditch attempt to get this beer brewing was desperate indeed. I got out my old mini-mash setup: a nylon grain bag and a metal colander. I tried to suspend the colander on the lip of the brewpot and pour the mash through it. This resulted in a spectacular failure: the colander was too small to safely hang on the lip of the new, bigger brewpot. It fell into the beer, ruining it with grain husks and rice hulls. And splashing sticky crud on every surface of the kitchen at the same time.

At this point in time, I had been fighting this batch for over four hours. It was nearly 8pm. I should usually be finished at this point – or at least cooling the wort by now, preparing to pitch yeast.

My wife was great help throughout – she offered assistance through most of this frustrating process. But it was to no avail. The kitchen was an appalling mess (even though we had already performed significant clean-up twice after the previous missteps). I had nearly thrown my back out – from lifting a full ten-gallon cooler up onto the counter not once but three times. And I had lost four hours of my life. Actually, I wish I had simply lost these hours. Instead I found four of the most infuriating and maddening hours of my adult life.

I gave up. I cried, “uncle!” to that wicked goddess of brewing, cursing her under every breath I drew. Probably over forty dollars worth of ingredients down the tube. Completely wasted. I might as well have withdrawn a pair of Andrew Jacksons and tossed them in my fireplace. And let’s not forget four frustrating hours of my life, also down the tube.

I was livid. Perhaps livid does not adequately describe my mood. It was all I could do to restrain from destroying something. If I did not have a wife and kid, my psyche’s id would have taken over in a most childish and destructive display of rage. But, thinking of my family and knowing that I had already scared Will enough (he could tell I was upset for a good bit of the evening as I tried to make things work – ultimately in vain), I remained calm. Mostly. Only a few muted curse words. And then I poured everything out into the backyard, washed and rinsed all of the equipment, and went to pour myself a beer. I resisted the urge to pour an entire pitcher – and the urge to pour an ounce of Crown Royal into the mug…

Blogging, it seems, can be a form of therapy. The ability to describe the evening – to reflect on it (in horror) and then formulate the words that might, hopefully, do it justice – is therapeutic unto itself. Knowing that someone will read it (okay – I don’t actually know that – but I have a feeling at least of one of my friends will peruse through it) helps, too – as if you, the reader, are my silent psycho-analyst.

My nightmare is over. I still have a starter of lager yeast in the fridge downstairs – nearly 300 billion little organisms, anxiously awaiting whatever sweet nectar I ultimately give them. I also have an entire other batch of ingredients down there – for the English Bitter that I will be brewing next weekend.

Who knows – perhaps there is still time for a holiday ale this year – if I brew it next weekend and postpone the bitter until December 6^th…
This time it will definitely not have any cursed pumpkin.

I now I bid thee farewell. I’ll let you have one last look at my vision of Christmas for this year. That vision has been dismantled through my miserable evening, but it was pretty – dare I say beautiful – while it lasted:

Interestingly enough, my last contribution to the session was during a month that happened to be about a German style of beer: Doppelbock. This month it isn’t about any particular style but about the contributions that the great nation of Deutschland has made to the world of beer. Instead of focusing on any particular contribution or beer style from this land, I’ve decided to author a history lesson of sorts – which has a myriad of tidbits about the most well-known and prominent styles (prominent according to the Beer Judge Certification Program Style Committee anyway).

Much of this content is probably common knowledge to most of the readers that follow the session. But it was good practice for my prose, and it was fun to do a little bit of research (I can’t claim that 100% of this post was all from the top of my head).

The Land of Lager

The origin of beer began with what today is commonly known as ale. But the cool climate in central Europe, where now stands the nation of Germany, led to the evolution of cold-tolerant strains of yeast. There are still ales produced in Germany, but they are vastly overwhelmed by the production of lager. These beers, Altbier and Kölsch, are found primarily in the north, particularly in Düsseldorf (Altbier) and in Cologne (Kölsch).

The cold climate in Germany led to the organisms known as lager yeast. The production of lager, with its crisp and clean flavors, was for a time unique to Germany and its surrounding neighbors. Further north in Europe, particularly in Belgium and the British Isles, ales continued (and still continue) to be the norm.

In Bavaria, brewing these lagers was not allowed during the summer months. The warm weather was not a suitable climate for production of these beers. As a result, brewers would often brew a special, stronger recipe in March, before the weather was too warm for brewing. The strength of the brew was so that it would better survive the summer months in storage. The beer would age, typically stored in cold caves (”lager” means “store” in German), during the summer months and then be consumed in the fall after the weather began to cool. This special lager, known as Märzen, is also commonly called Oktoberfestbier thanks to its being enjoyed in early fall during the Oktoberfest – a sixteen-day festival held in late September. This evening, I cracked open an Oktoberfestbier to accompany me as I write this: Victory Festbier. Yes, I know – this one is actually an American concoction. But I like to try new things, and this was the only Oktoberfest/Märzen beer I could find this evening that I had never tried before.

In the mid-19^th century, advances in malting technology led to the production of light lagers – or helles biers – in Germany, and the popularity of these light lagers and their light, refreshing flavors grew quickly. Bohemia is the home of the first Pilsener beer: the most popular beer style in the world today (though the vast majority of “Pilsener” beers today are but watery shadows of authentic Pilseners). Bohemia is a region of central Europe that now constitutes the northwest of the Czech Republic – the southeastern neighbor of modern-day Germany. The northern-most strip of Bohemia even tried to unify with Germany after World War I. Egerland, the majority of whose citizens were German, declared itself independent on October 27^th, 1918, to avoid becoming part of the newly-formed Czechoslovakia, which declared its independence the very next day. A few weeks later, on November 12^th, the Republic of German Austria came into being – the day after Emperor Karl I relinquished control in his Abdication Proclamation. German Bohemia, which included Egerland, was a province of this new republic. But in late November, the Czechoslovak army invaded, and by December 27^th, all major cities of German Bohemia had fallen to the occupying army. In 1919, the treaty of Versailles drew German Bohemia as definitively belonging to Czechoslovakia, and it remains a part of the Czech Republic today.

Before War World I and this dizzying sequence of events, brewers in Germany tried to copy this new and interesting Pilsener beer that came from Prague. Their subtly different brewing conditions (like different varieties of native hops and more sulfates present in drinking water) created a subtly different beer style. Current day German Pilseners are a little drier, a little lighter in body and color, and a little more bitter than their Bohemian counterparts. They also typically lack the distinctive floral aroma and flavor of Czech Saaz hops, instead favoring spicy German hop varieties like Hallertauer, Tettnanger, and Spalter.

Dunkles and Bock

Before the days of Pilsener and its light lager ilk were the days of dunkles – or dark – beers. These beers are still produced in Bavaria, represented by two major styles: Munich Dunkles and Schwarzbier. The former originated in – you guessed it – Munich, the latter in northern Bavaria (Franconia) and its adjacent neighbor-state to the north, Thüringen.

Another great dark lager that Germany gave to the world is Bock. Hailing from Einbeck in Lower Saxony (central/northern Germany), this beer was later adopted by monks in Munich who would later spew forth Bock’s bigger sibling: Doppelbock.

Let us all take a moment to give thanks and gratitude, for Bock is truly a treasure.

Weizenbier

In southern Germany, where brewing lager beer during the summer was not allowed, the thirsty folk were made refreshed by flagons of a delicious and unique summertime brew: weizenbier – also known as weissbier.

These brews are unique because the yeast responsible for their dazzling array of spicy and fruity flavors are like no others. They are suited to warmer temperatures, like ale yeast, but are generally hungrier (i.e. more attenuative) than other ale yeasts and produce a profile of esters and phenols that are eccentrically “weizen” in nature. In addition to special yeast strains, these beers also feature malted wheat as a main ingredient – between 50 and 70 percent of the grain bill, with malted barley filling in the remaining 30 to 50 percent.

The refreshing character of these wheat beers complements brews both light in color (Crystalweizen and Hefeweizen) and dark (Dunkelweizen). This year I’ve brewed one of each.

Brewed late winter, kegged early spring, my Dunkles Hefeweissbier is one of the best wheat beers I’ve ever made.

A summer treat for my wife, my German Hefeweizen was refreshing and tasty, but fermented a bit too warm to be perfect. The resulting beer is balanced a little more towards the banana-side than perfection, but it is still a nice, drinkable summer brew.

The weizen yeast character also complements brews that, unlike the refreshing beers mentioned so far, are quite heavy in gravity: Weizenbocks. Weizenbocks are essentially Dunkelweizens that are brewed to the strength of Doppelbocks. The increase in grain gives the beer bigger and richer flavors. The weizen yeast provide beautiful complexity.

The weizen yeast character is also a major contributor to the flavors of an all-barley beer style: Dampfbier. This style is not currently recognized by the BJCP, and examples of the style would have to be submitted to competitions as Specialty Beer. No authentic commerical example of this beer is available in the US currently (though there are some US brewers that have tried their hand at the style). I’m strongly tempted to brew a “pilot” batch (a mere 3 gallons) just to see how the lack of wheat distinguishes these beers from weizenbiers.

Rauchbier

Though this post is far from comprehensive when it comes to the many beer styles that originated in Germany, I can consider it complete only upon bringing up the marvels of Rauchbier.

I have had numerous smoked beers and thoroughly enjoy the flavors that smoke can add to a good beer. But none were as at once intense and delicious as Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock. The wonderfully rich, malty flavors of a Bock, laden with comforting smells of a smoldering campfire, were a sincere treat. This sweet and savory combination is reminiscent of other palate-pleasing inventions like smoked ham and bacon. Who doesn’t love that?!?

I have since designed my own Rauchbier recipe, in the vein of Aecht’s Urbock. But I chose to take it to the next level of extreme – a smoked Doppelbock. Doppelbocks are often named with an “ator” suffix. The origin of this practise isn’t entirely certain: was it to pay tribute to Paulaner Salvator (the original doppelbock), or was it to copy Paulaner and perhaps steal some market share with this dubious mimicry? In any event, given this traditional practise, what better name could be given to a smoked Doppelbock than Hump’s Baconator? (Unfortunately, no commercial beer could be so named without a legal agreement with Wendy’s, which has registered the word Baconator as a trademark with the USPTO)

A bottle label for Hump’s Baconator is still in the works. Stay tuned here to keep an eye out for it.

I know the labels I create are hokey, and most of the labels I make are ho-hum and formulaic:

• Change the color of the dog’s fur and nose to resemble the color of the homebrew
• Slap the beer’s name on it
• Adjust background color and the color of the “Hump’s” logo to some scheme that seems reasonable, looks decent, and hasn’t been used by a previous beer label (with the exception of the Holiday Ales)

But I do enjoy adding subtle changes, every now and then, as it fits a particular beer – whether it be fitting to the beer itself or just to its name. Examples include the addition of pictures of fresh fruit for the labels of fruit beer, adding “devilish” decoration to the dog for Hump’s Hellishly Hopped Ale, adding the Santa Claus hat and snow flakes for Hump’s Holiday Ale, etc…

I think I outdid myself this time:

Is that killer or what?!

One of them, me, is the founder and head brewer. The other has simply swiped my beer label as his profile picture.

NOTE: You have to be logged into FaceBook for those last two links to work. If you do not have a FaceBook profile, they are free to create. Sorry for the inconvenience.

There is now a commercial beer in China that has taken that name. I suppose I couldn’t be sued if the beer’s maker doesn’t have it trademarked here. I wonder if I should file for the trademark in case they haven’t already done so…

Anyhow, I racked my Reeb over a half-ounce of Amarillo hops last Friday morning. It tasted pretty decent, and Amarillo hops smell amazing, so I think it will turn out grand. I think I’ve finally perfected the label for this batch of brew, too:

This evening I’ve been preparing a brew plan to last me most of the year. It involves numerous low-hop brews (due to the recent hop shortage). I’m thinking of buying extra hops while getting ingredients for those recipes. Doug, the owner of the homebrew store, will sell no more than three ounces of hops for each batch, but I have a few recipes that only call for one ounce. If I tack on a couple of extra ounces, then after three months I’ll have enough hops to brew up a double IPA. My recipe, Brain Bludgeoner, calls for an ounce each of Warrior, Columbus, Simcoe, and Centennial (all high-alpha American hop varieties) and two ounces of Glacier.

I’m praying for Doug (and a bit for me, too) that his store manages to flourish despite the hop crisis. With luck, he’ll find a new supplier or his current supplier will manage to acquire more hops – though I’m sure prices will double (or more) if and when that happens… But I don’t mind – hops are typically the least-cost ingredient in a batch of beer at current prices ($2.50 per ounce – about double the cost of hops when I first started brewing). Even if they go up to four bucks per ounce, it would still only be $24 for all of the hops in my big ol’ double IPA. The malt extract for that same batch runs over $30, or a little over $20 for all grain. Since I do a mix (5 or so pounds of grain and then the rest extract), I’d be looking at right at $30 for the fermentables. Considering that the vast majority of flavor and character in that type of beer is from the hops, it doesn’t seem outrageous for that ingredient to cost so close to half of the bill…

My plan for this year has me “saving up” for hops every few months so that I can brew a Double IPA this year as well as both a classic English IPA and a nice American IPA. The American IPA is an adaptation/reformulation of my Hellishly Hopped Ale, which was a fantastic beer that found itself squarely between two styles: American Pale Ale and American IPA.

I tried to look online for hops and found a very similar situation. Even some of the really big online stores are all out of plugs and leaf hops and are limiting quantities of pellet hop purchases. And they are changing anywhere from three to eight dollars per ounce!

I’ve read a bit about hops recovering by 2010. I’m hoping it happens sooner than that, but it may not. It typically takes a couple of years for new land to yield good crops. So the upswing in production that began in 2007 as a reaction to the shortage won’t really be fruitful until the 2009 harvest. This year’s harvest is likely to be much better than last year’s, but harvest isn’t until fall. So 2008 hops won’t likely roll into homebrew shops until 2009. It relieves me somewhat to see that the Boston Beer Company (makers of Samuel Adams) seem to be counting on better fortunes next year. One of the three beers that won their recent Long Shot homebrew competition was a Double IPA (if you follow the link, select the year 2007). They postponed its appearance to 2009 due to the shortage. So the six-pack this year has only two brews: a Weizenbock (pretty good) and a Grape Pale Ale (notably less good). When they get to the Double IPA next year, it will reportedly be the largest single batch of Double IPA ever brewed. I don’t have a link to the source of that report, but I heard it when listening to the archives for The Jamil Show. They’ve had the Double IPA winner, Mike McDole, on their show a few times and talked about the competition and his recipe in several episodes. They also had the Weizenbock winner, Rodney Kibzey, on the show this past December.

Speaking of weizens, my next batch will be a Dunkles Hefeweissbier (Dunkelweizen for short). It will only need one ounce of hops. I’m basing the recipe loosely on the base beer for the Berry Weizen I made in 2007, except that I’m experimenting with some new grains: Dark Wheat Malt (which doesn’t actually impart a very dark color) and Chocolate Wheat Malt. I think the Chocolate Wheat Malt would be even more appropriate as part of the grist for a Weizenbock, but I plan on using a little in the Dunkelweizen I’ll be making.

I have a good friend who is a huge Star Wars fan. Hopefully he’ll get a kick out of this intimidating ale’s label.

Holiday brews:

To celebrate our wedding (Marla and Miles are our dogs’ names):

Devilishly good beer:

To celebrate my sister’s wedding (K, and her now-husband Cass):

A recently brewed stout that is delicious:

My first batch of kegged homebrew: