Mitch Steele, head brewer at Stone Brewing Co., needs a band, because he has the most metal name in brewing. He’s also a pretty smart guy with tons of experience in both macro- and microbrewing, having previously served as a managing brewer at Anheuser-Busch before beginning his now 2.5-year (and growing) tenure at Stone.

On November 4th, Mitch braved the airlines to trek all the way out from San Diego to Philadelphia, where he headed up Tria’s Election Night edition of Fermentation School in a lecture entitled “Get Stoned on Election Day”.

To accompany the lecture, Mitch brought seven of Stone’s best beers: Pale Ale, IPA, Arrogant Bastard, Ruination IPA, 11th Anniversary Ale, 07.07.07 Vertical Epic aged in red wine barrels, and a 2006 vintage of Double Bastard aged in brandy barrels. Tria, for its part, paired all of this with two cheeses (creamy Cherry Grove Toma from Lawrenceville, NJ, and smoky smooth Vella Dry Monterey Jack from Sonoma, CA) along with spiced, toasted almonds, a few slices of prosciutto, and soft Philly pretzels.

While guiding us through the beer list, Mitch fed us piles upon piles of rich, chewy insight into American brewing. Did you know that 19th century brewers actually prided themselves on their use of rice and corn in their beers, even going so far as to make it a selling point? Did you know that today, it’s actually more expensive to cut beer with those grains instead of simply using nothing but malted barley? Or that a lot of double IPAs are fermented with additional sugar in order to get the ABV nice and high without having to use a lot of malt?

My favorite fact was how Stone stumbles upon some of their recipes. The brewery maintains a 20-gallon pilot brewing system that employees are free to putz around with, creating a democratic process that leads Mitch and his brewers to beers that they wouldn’t have otherwise invented. National phenomenon Arrogant Bastard is one direct result of this system (turns out it was all just a big mistake that happened to taste really good), as is Stone’s impossibly delicious 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.

Which brings us to the beers themselves. You’re probably already familiar with the first three beers on the list. Stone’s Pale Ale smells sweet and floral and fills your mouth with just enough hoppy bitterness to make you want to drink way too much of it; the Centennial dry-hopped IPA fills your nose and mouth with earthy, citrusy hop flavors; and legendary Arrogant Bastard was its usual mysterious self, assaulting you with a barrage of malts and hops. Stone is very protective of the recipe for Arrogant Bastard, even going to far as to deny it a classification, and Mitch refused to say a single word about how it is made.

Ruination IPA is Stone’s Double IPA, though double may be the wrong word. A typical American Double IPA is essentially a regular IPA with twice the malt and twice the hops, but Stone is Stone — double won’t cut it. And so, Ruination IPA uses quadruple the hops of Stone’s standard IPA recipe, and it shows. The beer is crisp and refreshing, yet somehow massive, probably owing to the sheer weight of hop oils swirling through the glass. The nose is so hugely sweet and hoppy that I wouldn’t judge anyone for using this beer as an air freshener.

Needless to say, Stone is famous for their liberal use of hops, but the last three beers show that they have more than a few other tricks up their sleeves.

The 11th Anniversary Ale is an innovative Black IPA, which combines a big IPA — bittered with Chinook and dry-hopped with Simcoe and Amarillo — with a German dark lager. Thanks to a generous helping of German Carafa malts (dark, dehusked malts that provide all of the flavors of roasted malt without the gritty bitterness), the beer boasts a complex balance, beginning with huge hop flavors and aromas and leaving in its wake lots of roasty malt. Everyone in the room agreed that this was a spectacular beer, so we were all pleased to hear that Stone is currently working on making this a year-round offering. All they need, Mitch told us, is a name.

The 07.07.07 Vertical Epic is a 10% ABV Belgian-style strong ale, spiced with grapefruit peel, lemon peel, cardamom, and ginger, and aged in red wine barrels. The nose pops with lots of spice, oak, and dry red wine aromas, making your tongue tingle in anticipation… That might have been a little too colorful. Ah well, it stays. It was delicious, okay?

The brandy-aged Double Bastard is a work of unrelenting madness. I theorize that Mitch peeled back the veils of perception and gazed into the maw of blistered, horrifying reality to bind himself to this mania. Already sinister by way of a doubled Arrogant Bastard recipe, this particular vintage of Double Bastard did hard time in a disused brandy barrel, emerging changed, mutated into a display of smooth oak, spicy brandy, and, you know, a shit ton of malts and hops. Stone claims that this beer is only 10% ABV — I think they lie. I can still feel it more than a week later.

After the lecture, I managed to grab Mitch’s attention for a few minutes to talk about his time with Anheuser-Busch. He explained that, as a managing brewer, he had quite a bit more freedom of creativity than the other brewers in the company had. He even listed several recent Michelob brews that can be credited to him. That said, he was emphatic to point out that he was a big exception: Most macrobrewers are trapped by their company’s recipes, and even Mitch didn’t have carte blanche in his work. It was easy to see that he was leagues happier working for Stone.

We extended a verbal wedding invitation to Mitch before making our way back down to street level, buzzy and full, but satisfied by our generous look into the commercial craft beer world.

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Tripels usually take forever to get to the point where they’re ready to drink. At first, we expected to have to wait as long as two or three months for our Belgian style Tripel to age out to perfection. Imagine how surprised we were when we discovered that, other than the obviously missing carbonation, our Tripel was ready to drink right out of the primary fermenter, a mere two weeks after pitching. Nevertheless, we kept it in secondary for two more weeks to clear it out a bit, and it took a while longer to carbonate than our other beers since Trappist yeast is a little lazy. But still, a month-and-a-half to come up with a finished Tripel is pretty freaking fast.

So, let us dissect. Warning: S-words.

1.086 OG; 1.020 FG; 8.9% ABV; 13 IBU

Appearance: Hazy, honey amber color, with subtle red tones. Big, creamy (for a Belgian style), off-white head takes its time settling down, giving you all the time in the world to enjoy it.

Nose: Sweet, banana esters explode out during the pour. They’re backed by a subtle, alcoholic dryness and a generous but controlled helping of floral hops. A barely detectable hint of spice shows up if someone has already told you to expect it.

Taste: Slightly dry, semi-sweet, with lots of banana esters, balanced by a slight hop bitterness. Lots of orange sweetness completely shrouds any alcohol taste. There is a slight suggestion of coriander.

Mouthfeel: Medium-to-light bodied, and surprisingly crisp and refreshing. Finishes dry, with a subtle hop bitterness that lingers on the middle and back of the tongue and begs you to take another sip.

Overall: When Mel and I do a tasting, we each pour a glass, take an index card, and silently take notes. We do this to keep from influencing each other’s impressions. Keeps things objective. In this case, we each independently wrote the words “holy shit” on our respective cards. Gotta love parity. We both agree that it needs more coriander, and I feel like it’s a bit dark, but apart from that, it’s impossibly refreshing, and the orange, banana, and floral hop flavors completely mask the substantial alcohol, making this an extremely dangerous beer. We might have to warn our friends about it. I’ve gotten buzzy just while writing this post.

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We took our sweet time getting to this tasting. We’ve actually been sampling our attempt at Steph and Tim’s Tropical Foreign Extra Stout recipe every now and then for a little while. The first bottle screamed very loudly, “Age me, please,” which we obliged to do. And now here we are, several weeks later, and we’re ready to call the stout done. Here are our combined thoughts:

Appearance: Deep, dark, just barely translucent brownish black with red highlights. Huge, foamy, latte colored head that makes the beer sound like Pepsi.

Nose: Floral and roasty with some fruity esters, but nothing really jumps out.

Taste: Very sweet, almost cloying. Banana and vanilla notes. Some roastiness manages to peek out once the sweetness makes it off of the palate.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-light bodied, yet creamy. Coats the tongue and lingers on the roof of the mouth, which helps to conceal a late-game alcohol bite. Overcarbonated.

Overall: We’re kind of disappointed with this one. It came out much too sweet, and the fruity esters are out of place. It’s also not as chocolatey as we think it should have been, but the vanilla notes were a nice surprise. What surprises us the most is the fact that the recipe comes out a lot better when Steph and Tim execute it. Perhaps there is some fundamental incompatibility between their recipes and our process. Our fermentation temperature is the first thing that comes to mind — our bathroom tends to be fairly warm, leading to increased ester output by the yeast. I believe the yeast we used was English Ale; using a higher-attenuating Irish yeast instead might help the sweetness and ester problems.

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On Wednesday, August 6, I decided to join the ladies of IPA (In Pursuit of Ale) for their somewhat bimonthly gatherings. I met the group’s presiding drinker (it actually says that on her business card — how awesome?!) Suzanne Woods at the Royal Stumble, and after hearing what IPA was all about, I knew I needed to check it out.

She planned a five course pairing menu at The Latest Dish, which is a neat pseudo-hole in the wall on 4th Street between South and Bainbridge. Eight of us attended, and it just so happens that one girl, Amy, was originally from Newark, NY and knew my roommate from my sophomore year at Brockport. Bizarrely small world, right?

I started the night out with Samuel Smith’s oatmeal stout, after trying to order Rogue’s Mocha Porter (out) and Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout (also out). Their taps were not working that night, so we worked with their bottle list, which was fairly extensive AND organized by region, which was nice.

I really enjoyed the Tempura Avocado with soy syrup and chile oil that was paired with Steelhead’s extra pale ale. The avocado had a great texture of crunch from the tempura mixed with the creamy softness that avocado’s are known for. This dish surprised me, because I’m a little back and forth on avocados. Suz let us know that Steelhead had a female brewer for 17 years, up until 2007 when she headed out on a cross country brewing trip.

The main course, however, really knocked my socks off. Executive chef Scott Schroeder — who took time out at the end of the evening to stop by our table — crafted a divine pork mignon with peaches and Gorgonzola, which was paired with a Corsendonk Abbey pale ale. The pork was amazingly tender, and the Gorgonzola offered so much flavor to this dish, without being overbearing.

If you’d like to know more about IPA’s night out, head over to Suz’s blog. Her post about the evening goes over all five pairings AND has pictures!

I definitely had a great time and will need to see when I will be able to join the ladies again in pursuit of some great ale.

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We started drinking Nuts About Coffee in full force this past weekend. It came out great! Here are our notes:

1.064 OG; 1.020 FG; 5.9% ABV; 13 IBU

Appearance: Super dark brown, hazy, and barely translucent, with a tall, thick, rich, frothy, and almost stout-like latte-colored head.

Nose: Sweet and nutty. Coffee is mellow and smooth, but still the first thing that you notice. Slight hint of chocolate.

Taste: Big hazelnut coffee taste asserts itself from word one, lingering on the back of the tongue and begging you to take another sip. More sweet, general nuttiness and chocolatiness wait beneath the coffee.

Mouthfeel: Medium, slightly dry, and creamy. Very smooth. Surprisingly crisp and clean.

Overall:
My thoughts: Best yet! The coffee was a great idea. I’m glad we used it. I was worried at first that it might have been too much, but it turns out we used just enough to make it the centerpiece without overwhelming with it. I can’t imagine how we could improve on this.
Mel’s thoughts: Did we just brew a porter? Hot damn, this was a great experiment. This would make an excellent dessert beer!

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Welcome 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 #18, for which The Barley Blog writer Ray Henry has chosen the topic, “Happy Anniversary.”

The great thing about anniversary beers is seeing your favorite breweries trying something different and knowing that what you’re about to drink is going to be unique. After going a little overboard at our recent excursion, we found ourselves with four anniversary brews, one each from Brewery Ommegang and Stone Brewing Co., and two from Weyerbacher Brewing Co. We’ve been laboring to drink one every night this week, silently tasting and gathering our respective thoughts before compiling our notes together into comprehensive analyses, all for you, the readers. I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE THIS.

Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence

We got lucky with this first one. Mel picked it up on her first trip to the Canal’s on Rt. 38, thinking that it was just one of the Ommegang brews that we didn’t know about. It wasn’t there on our second trip, though, and when we got home and looked at the bottle, we discovered that this was Ommegang’s 10th Anniversary brew from last year! Nice of Canal’s to age it for us. Shame we’ll probably never find it again.

Chocolate Indulgence is a “True Belgian-Style Chocolate Stout,” brewed with Belgian chocolate and chocolate malts. The bottle is worth 10¢ in Michigan.

Appearance: Opaque. Dark, dark brown — just shy of black. Cream/mocha head that dissolves quickly.

Nose: Sweet and alcoholic, like a Belgian ought to be. Subtle roastiness beneath the alcohol.

Taste: Bitter chocolate with the slightest hint of coffee. As alcoholic as the nose makes you expect.

Mouthfeel: Creamy. Medium bodied. Very light for a stout, but spot on for a “Belgian-style” stout.

Overall: We liked it, but it wasn’t nearly as chocolaty as we expected. “Indulgence” suggests that you’re going to say, “Hey-oh! Chocolate!” which doesn’t end up happening. It could be that the chocolatiness sank beneath the weight of the alcohol during the bottle’s year on the shelf at Canal’s. Neither of us was blown away, but it’s still very good.

Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Phew, that name is a mouthful. Incidentally, so is the beer. Wow.

It sounds delicious just from the name. Stone tends to favor big, hoppy beers for their anniversary specials. According to the label on their 12th Anniversary brew, however, the hop shortage staid their hand to an extent, and they opted instead to use unsweetened chocolate from Chuao Chocolatier for most of this stout’s bittering.

I thought of Mel as soon as I heard that this was coming out. It’s kind of her thing, after all.

Appearance: Jet black, with a foamy, dark mocha head.

Nose: Sweet and alcoholic. Less chocolate than we expected, but there was still no missing it.

Taste: Super roasty, with lots of chocolaty bitterness that becomes more and more pronounced as the beer warms up to room temperature. Slight astringency makes me think they had some roasted cocoa beans in the boil along with the unsweetened chocolate.

Mouthfeel: Thick, chewy, and creamy, with a really nice alcohol bite that smooths out as the beer warms.

Overall: Wow. Easily one of the best stouts we’ve ever had, certainly our favorite out of the four beers we bought for this post. We’re going to need to stock up on this one. This is exactly why I think the hop shortage is such a blessing.

Also, we got about halfway through the 22 oz bottle before deciding, “Holy crap, this needs to be in a float.” After topping off our goblets, we dropped a scoop of Friendly’s Vienna Mocha Chunk ice cream into each one. It was the perfect summer dessert.

Geeeez, those were some delicious freaking floats.

Weyerbacher XIII Thirteenth Anniversary Ale

To celebrate their 13th year, Weyerbacher crafted a “Belgian-inspired Imperial Stout made with 5 malts, a touch of oats, and Pilgrim and Saaz hops.” They’re not kidding about the Imperial part — at 13.6% ABV, this thing is a beast. We slept like rocks that night.

Appearance: Opaque black, with a thin brown head that disappears almost instantly.

Nose: Lots of Belgian banana esters, and lots of alcohol.

Taste: Sweet, very alcoholic and estery. A bit of roastiness. A sweet hint of nuttiness right at the end, though this is concealed a great deal by the alcohol.

Mouthfeel: Definitely a lot of alcohol bite, but it is smoother than we expected. Creamy, medium body.

Overall: We were a little disappointed with this one. It’s just way too alcoholic. Aging would probably help a bit, but right now, the whole beer gets lost in the alcohol. Perhaps it’ll be more like a stout a year from now. Definitely Belgian-style, though.

Weyerbacher Twelve Anniversary Ale

For their 12th anniversary in 2007, Weyerbacher brewed a Rye Barleywine. I was optimistic: I love barleywines, and I love Weyerbacher, and this is a Weyerbacher barleywine that’s been aging for a year. Oh. Man.

Appearance: Crystal clear, bright, golden amber. Foamy, lingering head with lots of lacing.

Nose: Almost like a strong pilsner. Malty, with some tangy alcohol.

Taste: Hearty sweetness at the beginning and dryness at the end. Super smooth, very balanced, and just a little bit citrusy.

Mouthfeel: Thick, creamy, and smooth. Lingers on the back and sides of the tongue.

Overall: I’m a fan. It’s a very different bareleywine, and I’m all for different. Deceptively drinkable, nice and clean, and the alcohol doesn’t slap you in the face the same way that Weyerbacher’s other big beers do (Quad, I’m looking at you). I need to try this next to Blithering Idiot to compare. Would buy from again, A+++++++++++.

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A few nights ago, Ray and I finally cracked the bottle of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout that I had purchased in late May/early June. Originally, I was going to be a greedy brat and keep it to myself, but I came to my senses and decided Ray and I should share, as well as pair my chocolate chip cookies with it.

When Ray finds me baking in the kitchen, you can see his eyes glaze over and he begins to salivate. True, I am definitely a good baker, schooled by my Gramma Ward, and encouraged by the rest of my family, but sometimes I think his objectivity flies out the window when it comes to my sweet treats fresh from the oven.

Nevertheless, we shared a couple cookies and the bottle of Youngs, and it was excellent. I feel that the bottled brew was just as good as the draft I had at Stouts NYC; the head was nice and creamy, the mouthfeel had a luscious thickness to it — without leaving an unpleasant coating — and the overall taste was full of chocolate and roastyness. This beer paired perfectly with my cookies, which are not too sweet — I only use semi-sweet chocolate chips — and are also not super chewy/soft. They’re also not drier than stale toast; instead they sit on the middle ground, and because of that, the moisture from the stout compliments them well.

Excellent beer, excellent cookies, excellent pairing.

And while we’re on the topic of cookies and beer, Ray and I tried our ESB with my orange chocolate chip cookies as well, and found that the citrus in both the beer and the cookie was brought forth by the pairing. A nice surprise indeed!

Craft Beer, Pairings, Tasting 2 Comments »

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 »