We opened a bottle of our ESB back on the 28th of June, but found that the carbonation wasn’t quite there yet. This past weekend, we tried again, and the beer is definitely ready for consumption, evidenced by the fact that we have consumed quite a bit of it by now.

Here are my notes. I believe Mel is going to be chiming in on this, as well.

Appearance: Hazy, reddish orangeish brown. Thick, cream-colored head that gradually coalesces into a few thin islands of foam that never go away completely.

Nose: Bitter, flowery, and subtley fruity.

Taste: A bit bitter for the style. The nutty and caramel notes are there, though they’re a little bit harder to pick out than I would like. Still, very drinkable.

Mouthfeel: Crisp. Coats the tongue. A bit of a hop bite going down.

Overall: I’m thrilled with how well our first homebrew came out. I can’t be honest with myself and call this a true ESB at the same time, though. The hop profile is just too pronounced. If we brew another ESB down the road, I would probably want to cut the late[Ed: Duh] early-addition hops in half and spruce up the specialty grain bill a bit. Nevertheless, the knowledge that we still have three gallons of the stuff left to drink sends warm tingly feelings down my legs.

Here are my notes:

When poured, the beer produces a nice head and a subtle fruity aroma (no fruit salad here!)

Medium to light mouthfeel.

The hops bitter sits on your tongue, but not in a grease-coating way.

A slight crispness to the end. Also, the beer gets fruitier as it warms.

Overall, the beer is very drinkable; what I would consider a perfect session beer for me, unlike Old Rasputin (a personal favorite of mine, nevertheless), which is A. too filling and B. too expensive to drink for an entire summer afternoon. I also have to agree with Ray on the hoppiness of our ESB. Perhaps we should call it an AESB (American Extra Special Bitter), since we all know us Yanks like to hop it up a bit!

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Tasting 3 Comments »

I shall begin this review by saying one thing:

Wow.

Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide, by the award-winning Philadelphia Daily News columnist Don Russell, is the kind of book you should carry everywhere when you’re in the general Philadelphia vicinity. Oh, and you should probably enjoy good beer too … if you’re one of those BudMillerCoorsHorsePiss people, then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find an adequate-enough watering hole. But the rest of us -– those who drink Stoudt’s and Victory and go to Monk’s and the Standard Tap -– will greatly appreciate this essential Philly beer almanac.

I had the pleasure of meeting Don Russell at the NJ Brewfest back in late June. I’d already bought one copy of the book as a birthday gift, but since I knew we needed it for our shelves, I went over to Don’s table, told him what a great book it was (I admit, I leafed through some of the gift copy’s pages before wrapping it) and put $15 directly into his hand, denying the book store its undeserved cut. He kindly signed it to both Ray and me, claiming, “Save a cold one for me!” Well sir, if you’d like to try one of our delectable ESBs, let me know where to send the bottle.

But let’s cut to the chase: This truly is a great book for: A. Anyone who loves good craft beer; B. Anyone who loves Philly; and C. Anyone who loves history. He covers all the bases, letting you know what to drink, where to drink, and some more of what to drink. Russell is not a god-on-high “You must drink this or be condemned by your fellow beer snobs” kind of guy, but instead lets you know that if, for example, you’re looking for a tasty Belgian, here are 6 different beers to look for and 5 different pubs that you can find them in. He gives options, as well as his opinions, and he keeps the writing quick, palatable, and with just the right amount of snark.

Russell covers all the essentials: beer tours, breweries, brew pubs, beer styles, beer history, festivals and events, beer and food, where and how to buy beer, homebrewing, and more. Every bar has either an address, phone number, Web site, or all three, making it easy for the reader to obtain whatever outside information necessary for planning an evening out and about with craft beer.

I don’t want to go on and on, so I will put it simply:

BUY THIS BOOK!

Books, Craft Beer, Pubs Comments Off

For our second brew day, and our first completely solo project, we purchased a Nut Brown Ale kit from Morebeer.com. Brown Ale is a darker, maltier version of Pale Ale. They are usually slightly sweet, a little bit nutty, and conservatively bittered. Truth be told, I find the style boring, mostly due to the fact that there just isn’t a whole lot of variety to be found in Brown Ales amongst brewers. Maybe we should do something about that.

To help make things a bit more interesting, we decided that we’ll add about 8 oz of strongly brewed coffee to the beer when we rack it to the secondary fermenter. From tasting the wort, we have a good feeling that this will work out well, and add some badly needed complexity. Our bathroom also tends to run a little warm, so the fermentation should produce some nice esters, adding a hint of fruitiness to compliment the roastiness of the coffee. Here’s hoping!

5 June, 2008
“Nuts About Coffee” Nut Brown Ale
5 gallons

8 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract

8 oz Crystal Malt 60L
8 oz Caravienne Malt
4 oz Victory Malt
4 oz Chocolate Malt

1 oz Glacier Hops (60 min)
1 oz Willamette Hops (5 min)
1 oz Willamette Hops (1 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs English Ale yeast

8 oz quadruple-brewed hazelnut coffee (secondary fermenter)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat, and add malt extract while stirring

Bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients as indicated above.

Chill wort to ~80°F. Pitch yeast. Allow to ferment to completion at ~75°F.

Brew coffee using a French press. Filter dregs and allow to cool to room temperature. Add coffee to secondary fermenter.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for at least one week.

Let’s go through these ingredients and get an idea of what we should expect when this is done.

First, the hops: There isn’t much happening here, really. They’re just there to balance out the sweetness of all of that malt, which is what leads us to choose Glacier and Willamette hops, both of which are fairly mild in flavor and aroma. However, these two hop varieties also contribute an earthy smoothness to the beer, which should compliment the nutty roastiness that we should be getting from our specialty malts.

Now for the malts. We start off with 8 lbs of Ultralight extract. Ultralight does not contribute anything interesting to the beer — it’s mostly just a base that we build off of. Most homebrews start with it. We are using quite a bit of it, though, so we can probably at least expect a nice medium body in the finished beer. To be honest, you could probably stop with just this and still come up with something that you enjoy drinking, but where’s the fun in that?

Beyond the extract, we also have a total of 1.5 lbs of specialty grains that we steep into the wort before the boil begins (and before it’s even wort, really [Ed. Steph points out in the comments below that it is called sweet wort until the hops are added.]).

The first specialty grain is 8 oz of 60L Crystal malts. Crystal malt usually lends a sweet, caramel taste to beer, while also increasing body. The 60L in the name indicates the color type of the malt (in degrees Lovibond, which we’ll discuss another time), as Crystal comes in many different color varieties. 10L would be very light, while 90L would be quite dark, so we can say that this will give us a medium-dark color in the beer.

After that, we have Caravienne, Victory, and Chocolate malts. Caravienne produces a toffeeish flavor, Victory lends a toasty, nutty flavor, and Chocolate malt results in (get this) a cocoa flavor. Combined with the Crystal malts, we can deduce that this beer will have a sweet, caramel flavor punctuated by toffee, nuts, and cocoa, which Mel and I hope will compliment the shot of coffee that we’ll add after the beer is done fermenting.

My hope is that the coffee gives a little extra punch to the brown ale, because like Ray said, the style can be a little un-exciting. Nevertheless, it was a good beer to brew to continue to hone our skills, and the addition of coffee to the fermenter will give us a chance to try a technique that I hope to use with our next beer… but the specifics of that, I’m not telling!

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Technical 4 Comments »

Mel and I are brewing this afternoon, and we’ll be broadcasting the whole thing LIVE!

The broadcast will begin on UStream at 3:30pm Eastern time, and we’ll probably start brewing at 4-ish. Come join us to chat and ask questions, and we’ll do our best to answer!

The show can be found here: Bathtub Brewery Live

Miscellany Comments Off

Welcome to our first contribution to The Session, a monthly event in which beer and brewing bloggers get together to all write about a chosen topic on the same day! This is Session #17, for which Pfiff! writer Rob DeNunzio has chosen the topic, “Going Against the Grain Bill: Drinking Anti-Seasonally.”

Stouts — how I love them. Now people who keep their beer consumption to what is in season would typically thumb their noses up at my summer-stout-sipping ways, and really, that’s fine. I completely understand that certain beers are best consumed in their season, but I also feel that there are certain stouts that you can drink comfortably when the days are longer and the weather muggier.

The first stout I have to mention is Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout, quiet possibly the stout that brought me to love these roasty, dark beers. The stout is malty, roasty, and chocolatey, but not heavy, as many stouts are. Instead, this brew is intended to be enjoyed in tropical climates.

Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout, paired with Steph’s Banana Monkey Ice Cream Cake. Photo credit, Stephanie Weber

With an ABV of 7.2%, it has a bit of a kick, but it is intensely smooth and refreshing. Definitely a beer that I always look for when I’m digging around in Steph and Tim’s kegerator!

Another stout I would like to mention is Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, which I had the pleasure of having on draft in mid-June when I was in NYC for business. After a full day of being on my feet, and the majority of the Northeast enduring a heat wave, you would have thought I would have selected a refreshing Hefeweizen right? Nope.

I had decided to go to a pub by the name of Stout NYC. You can bet your best growler I wasn’t going to order a Hoegaarden! Sure, my friend did, and he enjoyed it, but he’s not a Stout Girl, now is he?

Needless to say, the beer was perfect: roasty, chocolatey and refreshing.

So, drinking out of season: I say it can be done, but you must remember that often the availability of some brews will be less because of the season. If this is a worry, buy during the season, and then cellar the leftovers so you can crack one when it fancies you!

My year-rounder is barleywine. These sweet, high-octane monstrosities have no place being consumed during the summer, as evidenced by the fact that I feel like crap after having one mid-afternoon in July. But I drink ‘em anyway — They just taste so good. If you can disclipline yourself to save them for dessert, after the house has cooled off, they make a great compliment for cookies and orange sherbet.

I also quite enjoy quadrupels during the warmer months, which probably isn’t that off-kilter. They’re actually supposed to be in season when spring is breaking. I usually see them coming out in April and May, but I feel like they’re more of an October/November beer, so I consider it out-of-season to drink them in the summer.

Man, it’s making me sweat just thinking about having one.

Craft Beer, Pairings, The Session 1 Comment »

For the beer bloggers out there who are participating in The Session tomorrow: Jay at Brookston Beer Bulletin just posted the new set of logos that I put together for The Session! To hell with moiré, I say!

Miscellany, The Session Comments Off

I was cruising through a few sites, and I found this April 2008 post from Omnivoracious. The thing that caught my attention first, aside from the words beer and books, was a picture of The Monsters of Templeton with a bottle of Ommegang’s Three Philosophers next to it! The book is fantastic, and the beer, as you know, is outstanding. So that means I had to read the blog post.

Most of the post mentioned beers that I will not sully our own blog with, but I was interested in what was said about MOT:

Of course, some writers have more invested in the beer-book question than others. Rising star Lauren Groff, author of the Orange Prize-nominated The Monsters of Templeton, has first-hand experience, having worked as an intern “one very fuzzy summer in college” for “the country’s best brewery (in my humble opinion) in Cooperstown, New York, which is where my novel is based–Brewery Ommegang. They make Belgian-style beers. Though all of their beers are absolutely stellar, I’d say their Three Philosophers goes best with Monsters–they call it a “luscious blend of rich malty ale and cherry lambic.” Like MOT, it’s fruity on the surface with a dark, rich texture beneath.”

-for more from this blog post, go here.

Well said Groff! I highly recommend this pairing of book and brew, and if I might have a try myself, I will suggest this pairing:

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips paired with Victory’s Golden Monkey.

Gods Behaving Badly is an entertaining read about a group of Greek gods and goddesses stuck living together in a London flat amongst mortals. And of course, since they have powers, they tend to misbehave a little. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but I certainly found it entertaining, and feel that when paired with the playful, yet strong Golden Monkey, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth of both book and brew.

Enjoy!

Books, Craft Beer, Pairings Comments Off

Jerk is weird and wonderful. On its own, the word Jerk traditionally refers to the style of Jamaican cooking in which meats are given a dry-rub of Jamaican Jerk Spice, a hot-as-all-hell mixture of allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers (a breed of habanero, the most feared pepper in the world), and then dried over smoke. In the North, Jerk is usually cooked, instead of dried, over a hot grill. The mixture of the cinnamony, nutmegy, clovey allspice with the eye-watering heat of the Scotch bonnet creates a fantastic and unique contrast between dessert spice and hot spice.

All of that heat makes Jerk a perfect summertime style (sweating = cooling off), and also an ideal pairing with a roasty stout or a well-hopped Imperial IPA. For this recipe, I used my version Jerk seasoning in a grilled chicken pizza. Steph also had the crazy idea of substituting pureed roasted red peppers in place of pizza sauce, which turned out to be delicious.

I am just now remembering that I forgot to take a picture of the final results, which makes me sad and remorseful. If I make this again and I remember to take a picture, I’ll update this post.

So, recipe time:

1lb pizza dough

Pizza sauce:
12 oz jar of roasted red peppers, drained
1 Scotch bonnet pepper (substitute a jalapeño if you don’t want to chance an encounter with a habanero)
2 tbsp skim milk
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried basil

Toppings:
1 lb chicken breast
1 c lime juice
1 c apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp Tabasco sauce
3/4 c chopped scallions
12 oz mozzarella cheese, grated

Jerk seasoning:
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp allspice
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt

———

Mix the lime juice, vinegar, and Tabasco. Marinate the chicken for at least 8 hours, preferably 24 – 48 hours.

In a grill, prepare a searing hot flame. You should not be able to hold your hand over it for more than two or three seconds.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and grill for about 5 minutes per side, until charred on both sides. If it takes any longer than a few minutes to char a side, do not continue trying or the meat will become overcooked. Set chicken aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 500°F.

While the chicken cools, prepare the sauce: Drain the red peppers. Slice and seed the Scotch bonnet (wear gloves). In a food processor, blend the peppers together with the skim milk and spices until smooth.

Spread the pizza dough over a 16″ pizza pan. Spread a thin, even layer of sauce over the dough.

Prepare the Jerk seasoning: Mix together onion powder, thyme, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Roughly cut the chicken (use a steak knife and tongs) into 1/2″ pieces. Toss well in a mixing bowl with the Jerk seasoning. Spread evenly over the sauce along with the scallions. Finally, spread the grated mozzarella cheese over the pizza.

Bake at 500°F for 5 – 10 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Serves 4.

I went ahead and substituted in the jalapeño for the habanero. Surprisingly, I think I could actually take the heat, but I have sensitive skin and didn’t want to risk exposing it to the inside of the habanero. Maybe I’ll try it next time if I remember to get a glove.

The roasted red pepper sauce proved to be a perfect mix of bitterness and mellow sweetness to counter the heat of the Jerk seasoning. We also mixed the leftover sauce into a tomato sauce the next day. I’d like to find more uses for this.

I personally felt that the seasoning was a little too hot, so you might consider toning down the cayenne just a little bit, or omitting the habanero/jalapeño. Everyone else who tried the pizza thought it was good as it was, though, so you might also consider leaving everything as is. Basically, this paragraph was not worth writing. Oopsie!

We all paired this with Heavy Seas’ Red Sky At Night Saison, an unusually — and pleasantly — sweet and citrusy Saison, with almost none of the funk that one usually associates with the style (which I almost see as a strike against it, actually). It was great to have in between bites of the pizza — the citrus did a lot to help extinguish the heat, even despite the heat-exacerbating carbonation. I’d like to try this again against either a Hefeweizen or a big IPA.

Pairings, Recipes 1 Comment »