Brewing Update: The Lineup and True Blue

I asked The Talented Videographer to take a photo of the lineup as it currently stands (I'm setting these bottles aside for posterity's sake). Here they are in all of their homebrewed glory:



They're not in order of production. The second from the left is True Blue, a classic American pilsner (CAP) brewed with blue corn and the New Ulm yeast strain. I just bottled it a couple of weeks ago and it's already proving to be a rich, friendly example of an historic and unique American style that has few honest mainstream practitioners.

I also submitted Megaberry, Yellow Rose, and Slacker to a local GABF-sanctioned competition, the Lunar Rendezbrew. Can't wait to see what happens.

Here's a better shot of the True Blue label. I'm rather proud.

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Beer Bulletin: Pithy Wit

Brewed Pithy Wit a couple of days ago. Right now it's still fermenting up a storm -- going to 1L starters and a stir plate really boosted the pitching rate. (BTW building a stir plate is pretty easy if you can handle a soldering iron, directions here. A note of caution: I had trouble finding the right rheostat, and ended up playing around with resistors.)

Anyway, I'm excited about the Wit for two reasons: first, it gives me the chance to play around with what are rumored to be the two key ingredients to Celis White -- chamomile and cumin. And I've developed a (secret) bittering process that should change the character of the beer pretty radically, making it more crisp, with a drier (but not more bitter) finish. I'm keeping mum, but I'll give a hint: NO HOPS.

Oh, and I'm also excited because it gave me a chance to play around with Photoshop masking:

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Everything Old is New Again: Texas Burger

Last night I sat down with M and the folks for burgers. For a traditional Texan burger, you have to have mustard and jalapenos, with bacon a much-appreciated option. But in an effort to give this formula a facelift, I cured my own bacon (a lot easier than you think; check out Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat Cookbook). After curing the bacon for five days, I cold smoked it over a mix of cherry and hickory wood. And I pickled some jalapenos with fresh oregano and cilantro, coriander, black mustard and cumin, using a brine of vinegar and my Yellow Rose beer (pretty yummy on their own).

Finally, I bought whole beef round and ground it coarsely (thank you kitchen aid mixer), adding a little softened butter, salt, and fresh black pepper.

So how'd it taste? Pretty damn good.

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Yellow Rose Brewing Update

Yellow Rose is finished now, and boy do I like it. I'd read quite a bit about peaches in beer, and how many were disappointed with how subtle the final flavor is. Of course, this excited me, because I wanted a beer that tasted like beer, not fruit. Well Yellow Rose has definitely come through, and I'm certain to make it for the wedding. It has a very full mouth feel and body (as it should being a Maibock), with some light biscuit and strong malt flavor, plus the subtle nuttiness of the pecan. The fruit comes through in a nice blend with the mild Strizzlespalt noble hops, and there's a warm aftertaste from the 6.6% ABV. And I feel like the fruit also introduces some mildly tart acidity, very different from the bitterness of the hops, and a great counter to the sometimes cloying maltiness of bock beers. It pours a rich peach-orange color, with a huge, fluffy white head that lasts for quite a while (sounding good yet?). There is only a slight protein haze (thanks to a "proprietary" anti-pectin process I came up with). Next batch I'll bump up the pecan a bit more and back off on the Carapils. As a panty and britches-dropping brew (in honor of its namesake), I think it's a big success. Yellow Rose FTW.

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Tito's Handmade Vodka and Beer

I was thinking of visiting Tito's distillery next time I'm up near Austin, but it looks like Tito (I shit you not) Beveridge has gone out of his way to avoid telling us where he is, much less offered distillery tours. From photos, I'd guess it's somewhere Northwest of Austin toward Lake Travis, up off 2222 or 290. From the website:

We used to [give tours] before we had insurance. Now our insurance company doesn't allow us to, but you can watch the video piece the Discovery Channel did on us."

Damn you, insurance industry, damn you all to hell! (And thank you for the Ike remittance.)

For those of you who haven't had the chance to drink Tito's, it's pretty damn awesome. Super clean, with full mouthfeel, and no harshness, astringency, or chemical flavor. It should be said that I'm not a big Vodka fan -- I think Vodka should be felt and not tasted -- and so I like to mix it or infuse it (chili pepper and honey? yum). Tito's fits the bill for me.

Another great part of the website is the video section, where you see some local New 8 Austin pieces on Tito circa 1995 (the Big Hill Country Hair era). He's a petrochemical engineer, and built the pot still himself, using old photos of prohibition-era raids. The Tito's venture started off as a planned 10-million dollar whiskey distillery, and shifted to a back-porch vodka plant after the investors failed to shell out and Tito spoke with liquor store owners who suggested Vodka was where it's at. Elsewhere he relates that it took him a full year operating the still before he was willing to taste anything that came out of it (Oh tricksy methyl alcohol, with your single carbon group and your light-footed, ne'er-do-well ways... Why don't you put some weight on like your sister, Ethyl?).

Tito's is distilled exclusively from corn, not from potatoes (as is often assumed) or from rye and wheat, as are the majority of vodkas today (according to Wikipedia, anyway). So if Vodka can be made from corn, rye, or wheat, what separates it from whiskeys? It turns out, nothing, according to David Wonderich. Vodka is just distilled more times -- taking out more of the impurities (like color and taste). Hence, if Tito decided to run the stuff through his still a few less than six times, he'd have a creditable Moonshine. Wonderich adds that there was also once a practical distinction between Slavic and non-Slavic distilled liquor; they liked to use charcoal filters, apparently, while us Anglos preferred wood aging.

But of more interest to me is how vodka's emergence as the bête noire of American mixology (Choclatini, anyone?) echoes the ascendancy of lagers like Budweiser and Miller. These clear and clean American lagers rose in the wake of Prohibition and near beer. People had gone so long without drinking the real stuff, they lost a taste for stronger, more flavorful beer. Combine that with advertising which emphasized clarity, simplicity, and freshness as forms of sophistication, and American dark lagers and IPAs were doomed. Similarly, it seems American whiskey was largely diverted into explosives production during WWII -- millions of barrels of booze ended up in bombs and torpedoes. This exhaused the supply of properly aged whiskey in the US, so after the war, distillers had only a dram of the old stuff lying around and tons of fresh hooch. The solution: mix it. This young stuff didn't have the richness or flavor of the old; but inasmuch as half the drinkers had been away drinking schnapps, vodka, Scotch, or more often, nothing, this didn't bother many. Smoothness was prized above richness, "Canadian" whiskeys rose in stature, and with them, Vodka -- which made a virtue of its flavorless, and hence ultra-sophisticated (00svelt) taste.

All of which is to say that, from McCormick's to Kettle One, Vodka is the lawnmower beer of the liquor world. I'd hesitate to throw crafted booze like Tito's and Chopin in the mix. But if Tito ever wants to start a sideline selling the Texas whiskey he'd always dreamed about, I'll be a huge and enthusiastic supporter (as would, I suspect, most other Texans). Might I suggest a Rye?

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Rogue Ale Brewery Tour

I found a video of a Rogue brewery tour and thought I'd share it. It does a nice job covering all the basic elements of any tour, with two added bonuses. First, it's fun to watch as the guide becomes increasingly inebriated over the course of the interview (remember, he does this every day, so he has the jokes and script down pat). But an even more interesting part of the tour is his insistence that Rogue (1) puts more ingredients in each batch (and by increasing the grain bill, jacks up the production cost) while (2) spending as little money as possible on the equipment. This keeps start up and overhead low, but quality high. Smart folks.

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Beer Bulletin: Slacker Coming

Just a quick update on the brewing. The first batch of Megaberry Wheat came out great; great raspberry aroma, a dry wheat beer, very crisp, pink color, and substantial (but not overpowering) fruit. I might back off slightly on the raspberry, but inasmuch as the whole point isn't really to suit my taste but M's (and she loves it), maybe I'll leave it alone.

Yellow Rose is coming along well; I just pulled it off the peaches, and I'll let it rest a week or so to clear further before bottling.

But the exciting news is the Slacker in the Rye -- my tribute to Austin and Real Ale's Full Moon. The reason I started brewing again in NJ was because I couldn't find it out there. Slacker finished its primary fermentation and BOY does it have a spicy rye nose. I used Cascade and Willamette hops for flavor and aroma, figuring they'd exacerbate the spiciness I'm trying to draw out. With a touch of Victory malt and Belgian Aromatic, and a backbone of six row to give it plenty or grain flavor, I'm hoping the malt profile will help fill in and whip-crackin' Rye.

I've been on a real Rye kick lately--Rye bread, whiskey, cocktails. I'm even thinking of making an Old-Fashion Rye pale ale (based on the cocktail). But I've got lots to do to prepare for BBQ season and the wedding first.

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Friday Beer Blogging

I've been brewing again, getting ready for the wedding (The Talented Videographer suggested I make the beer). Yea, and little did she recognize the Beast when she saw it. I spent the next few weeks upgrading all of my equipment: built a mash tun, a 7-gallon boil system, a stir plate for culturing yeast starters, and a fermentation chiller that runs off a thermostat with a Peltier cooler that heats & cools, keeping my fermenting beer at a fixed temperature (the plans are here). Overkill? No such sauce.

Now I'm starting to brew experiments for the wedding beers. I'm figuring bride and groom signature drafts. For M, I've started a batch of raspberry wheat (Megaberry Wheat) and a Shiner "Cheer" clone -- a Maibock that's mashed with roasted pecans and lightly flavored with peaches (Yellow Rose). Next week I start the guy brews -- a sharp rye beer (Slacker in the Rye), and perhaps a Belgian Wit (Pithy Wit) or a doppelbock.

Anyway, here are some of the labels. I'd show you pics of the setup, but the documentarian has been too busy trying to save journalism (and I conveniently forgot how to take "photographs" when we moved in together.)

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