Beer News - Brew Masters to Premiere on The Discovery Channel

It's been a busy week, or I would have posted this earlier, but Sunday night marks the premier of a new show on The Discovery Channel that is of special interest of us as brewers and beer fans. Brew Masters airs for the first time at 10 pm Eastern (9 pm here in Springfield). The show centers around extreme craft brewer Sam Calaglione's adventurous take on creating unusual beers.

Calaglione, who founded Dogfish Head Brewery, is known in the craft brewing industry as taking extreme brewing to a whole new level. Once you read the story about how he attempted to recreate chicha, a traditional Peruvian corn beer, the process of which involves manually chewing dried corn before adding it to the mash. Yes. With their mouths. (Don't worry, it's done before the beer is boiled for an hour, so it's completely sterilized before it is fermented, much less drunk.)

He I also known as an author of several books, the most important of which are Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast's Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home. The first is an invaluable resource for any Entrepreneur, and is focused on Calaglione's business sense. The second is one of the most influential books about brewing, and is, at the very least, an indirect influence on any home brewer has attempted a beer which uses an unusual ingredient, such as cayenne pepper.

The show looks to be a lot of fun. The Discovery Channel will basically be following Calaglione around while he explains what he does and builds new recipes. According to the Discovery Channel's site, "BREW MASTERS follows Sam and his partners in suds as they travel the country and the world sourcing exotic ingredients and discovering ancient techniques to produce beers of astounding originality." In the first episode, "Bitches Brew," Calaglione and company produce a beer to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the release of Miles Davis's iconic album of the same name.

It should be pretty good. I'll be watching.

Winter Warmer Recipe - Double Chocolate Stout

Now that it's getting colder outside, I tend to crave darker beers.  I consider this beer a winter warmer, designed to warm you up after shoveling the driveway or just getting home from a long day at work.  The flavor is rich and chocolaty, with a bit of spice to kick up the warming effect a little.  The cayenne pepper addition will kick up the heat a bit, but if you don't like spicy things, leave it out.  The original version of this recipe called for a tablespoon, but I have learned a valuable lesson.  In this version, I have cut it back to more tolerable levels.  Remember, the pepper is completely optional, so if you're concerned at all about the spice, this recipe will still make a top-notch double chocolate stout.

After the jump, you'll see both the extract and all-grain options.

Beginning Home Brewing - Choosing an Ingredient Kit

As a beginning brewer, how do you know how to make a good beer?  Of course, you have to have good processes and have to keep things clean, but right now I’m talking about choosing your ingredients and knowing how to put them together. 

The easiest way to get good ingredients in the right measures is to buy an ingredient kit.  There are a lot of them available online, but it’s important to get a good one, since your finished beer is only as good as the ingredients that go into it.  Since all brewing ingredients are perishable, it’s best to make sure your ingredients are fresh and have been stored well.  You don’t want to get your kit from eBay only to find out the guy bought it a year ago and stored it at room temperature.  The yeast would be dead, and the hops would most likely smell and taste like something between limburger cheese and your father’s sweat socks.

So, in order to get fresh ingredients, get them from a reputable dealer.  If you live in the SGF metro area, I recommend doing business with The Home Brewery (Map).  Go out there and get one of their kits.  While they keep some in stock, they will also happily make you one to order and send you on your way with fresh ingredients for your beer.  All of their ingredients are stored properly, and I have never had a problem with the freshness or quality of their ingredients.  The actual extract recipes for a few of their kits can be found on their website.

Seven Bridges Cooperative

If you’re buying kits from the Home Brewery, I’d like to recommend a few favorites.  I highly recommend their Yellow Dog Pale Ale, the Belgian Wit, and the Honey Cream Ale.  If you’re feeling adventurous and have the patience to allow a beer to age for a bit, I give my wholehearted endorsement to their Barley Wine kit.  Make sure you let it age a few months, though.  It gets better for a couple of years.  I brewed a batch at the end of 2007, and it was still getting better up to 2009. 

If you want to broaden your choices, you can go online and order from a reputable homebrew store, as well.  Morebeer.com, Northern Brewer, and Williams Brewing are all good shops and have very good reputations.  If you prefer an organic brew, you can order from 7 Bridges Cooperative, as well.  They specialize in organic ingredients and kits. 

C-Street Brewing Company officially a No-Go

One of two new breweries slated to open in Springfield, the C-Street Brewing Company, is officially off the table.  The building is listed for sale on CJR Commercial Group, and tagsgf.com has confirmed it with the Urban Districts Alliance.  Have no fear, however, fellow SGFers, there will still be a 30 bbl brewery opening in the old Colonial Factory very soon. 

Currently, they are slated to open in spring of 2011.  Trust me when I say it will be worth the wait.

Unleash Your Inner Beer Geek.

I just stumbled upon this today, and wanted to share it.  You can download academic and scientific articles done on brewing and distilling from The Journal of The Institute of Brewing and Distilling. 

If you’re into the science of brewing (on a deeper level than most) it can be pretty fascinating information.  I just finished reading an article located on this site about malting buckwheat.  I figured it might help with my upcoming gluten-free beer project.

Watch out, though.  With titles such as “Optimisation of the Mashing Procedure for 100% Malted Proso Millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) as a Raw Material for Gluten-free Beverages and Beers”, you might be in for some rough reading. 

Just do what I do.  When they start walking you through all of the statistical analysis, skip to the “Discussion” and “Conclusion” sections.  It’ll save you a bald spot from all the head-scratching and you’ll get roughly the same information.  You only really need to analyze the data if you think their conclusions are wrong or if you’re evaluating the article for accuracy.

Here are some highlights I’ve found.

Effects of Vessel Geometry, Fermenting Volume and Yeast Repitching on Fermenting Beer
R. A. Speers and Scott Stokes

I figure it must be worthwhile if you’re contemplating getting a larger fermenter or investing in a conical fermenter.  It also probably has some good information on that age-old home brewing practice of repitching yeast.

Evaluation of Ideal Everyday Italian Food and Beer Pairings with Regular Consumers and Food and Beverage Experts
Gianluca Donadini, Giorgia Spigno, Maria Daria Fumi and Roberto Pastori

I like the idea of this.  A scientific study done on a completely subjective facet of life – food and beer pairing.

Alternative Paradigms for the Production of Beer
Stephen T. Russell, R. Paul Singh and Charles W. Bamforth

This is the ultimate article about mass-producing alcoholic beverages, and should make every home brewer and beer lover cringe.  The idea put forth in the article is that, in theory, a beverage manufacturer could strip down the brewing process to the following: 

This method would be based on the production of a bland alcoholic base with the downstream adjustment of quality parameters such as flavour, colour, foam, and carbonation. The new method would be predicted to provide reductions in cost, materials usage, energy demand, carbon dioxide footprint, and by-product production challenges. 

Basically, buy a flavorless, colorless form of inexpensive alcohol, then flavor it and color it to look like beer, then force carbonate it.  It’s taking mass-production to a whole new level in brewing.  You basically get rid of the entire brewing process, and then redefine it in the most cost-efficient way with no regard to how beer is traditionally made.  It’s a revolutionary idea, but I can tell you I don’t like it.  Do they find that these approaches will save producers money?  Yes, and they also save greatly on by-products and waste.  But, honestly, answer me this:  Would you buy it?

Beginning Homebrewing Part III - Bottling and Drinking

We’ve boiled our wort, cooled it, and put it in a fermenter.  It’s done its thing for ten days, and the airlock has not bubbled in a couple of days.  Everything seems to be going pretty well.

When the fermentation is done, you’ll be ready to bottle. 

Note: From this point, it is helpful, but not necessary, to have an extra person to assist you.  The extra set of hands will save you a lot of mess and will speed the process up greatly, but if you don’t have a helper, it’s not the end of the world.  It just means you’ll have to work a bit harder.

First things first.

First, sanitize your bottles and bottling bucket (the one with the spout on the bottom) along with the bottling wand (if included), siphon, and hose.  Don’t forget to sanitize your bottle caps.  Your kit should have come with a packet of sanitizer for this purpose.  Just follow the instructions on the packet.

Once everything is sanitized and ready, you can open your fermenter.  You’ll be punched in the face with the aroma of fermenting beer.  Sometimes it might smell a little sour depending on your yeast, but don’t worry.  The beer will taste fine as long as everything was clean when you put it in the bucket.

How do I get the beer into the bottling bucket?

However you do it, try to get as little sludge from the bottom of your fermenter into the bottling bucket as possible.  It won’t hurt anything if you get a little bit in there, but it can affect the flavor if too much is in your bottles.  It’s generally the best practice to siphon the beer into the bottling bucket. 

Beginning Homebrewing Part II - Fermentation

Cherry Blonde in a fermenter.

OK, so you’ve finished boiling and cooling your first batch of beer according to the instructions in your kit.  Now what?

Now, you wait.

Put the lid on the fermenter and seal it up tight, then insert the stopper and the airlock.  Airlocks are devices inserted into the top of your fermenter which hold a certain amount of liquid and allow gas to escape but not to flow back in.  This one-way flow allows the fermenting beer to release carbon dioxide gas without getting any external bacteria in it which might make your beer taste bad. 

Some folks used distilled or clean water in their airlocks.  I and many others use vodka because it ensures any bacteria that get in dies before it can infect the beer.  Plus, the airlocks typically only need a half-ounce of liquid, so buying a half-pint of vodka will last through several batches of beer unless you’re drinking it, too.  It’s up to you, though.  Good clean water should work just fine, too.  Don’t sweat it.  It’ll still be beer when it’s done.