DAI Oktoberfest 2013 Beer Judging

Oh my. Success can beget many a problem for a beer judging competition, and today was a case in point. Last year, this competition was an easy, quick point. This year? I think I judged around 40 beers. Seriously. Before lunch I had judged eighteen beers: two flights of nine, including Oktoberfest and Light Lagers, while after lunch I got smaller flights of American Brown Ales, Scottish and Irish, and English Brown Ales. Oh, and IPAs—I wouldn’t want to forget the surprise last flight of the day. Then I did two mini-BOS flights to determine overall winners, one for a category I did not initially judge. And I think I am missing something along the way as well—there was some other third mini-BOS along the way as well. The afternoon was, needless to say, something of a blur via the sheer volume of beers I judged.

Other than the volume of labor, the competition ran smoothly, however. Highlights include a delicious lunch—mac and cheese sprinkled with bacon, and pulled beef (or pork) sandwiches—sorry, I was more focused on the intake of food to offset the pending chaos of excessive beer judging. My favorite beer of the day was either the Imperial IPA that won the IPA flight or the American Brown Ale that also won the American Ale category. The American Brown was also the only beer that myself and my fellow judge disagreed on during the initial judging—I’m glad I fought to push it on. I’d include the overall results, but they haven’t been posted yet, as the award ceremony is this coming Saturday, September 28th. I’ll try to remember to update this once the places are posted. Update: results are posted here.

(9/21/2013)

572. Hopfenstark Station 55 Saison

Quebecoise beer is in the house. And drinking this beer out of a Unibroue glass should get me some solid street cred. After all, how often do I get to think about two different Quebec breweries in one evening? While I can’t speak for this guy, for me the answer is not nearly enough. Hopfenstark is located in L’Assomption, Quebec; this is our first beer from them, and only our fourth from Canada, which seems, well, almost a crime itself. Please forgive us.

Station 55 pours a hazy golden straw with a thin but persistent white head that laces the glass nicely. In the nose there is a juicy citrus mixed with a mineral bitterness; the front is floral and orange, followed by hints of earthy mustiness. Flavors match the nose—there is a soft delicate hint of candy from the Pilsner malt in the front before the hop bitterness takes over, accompanied by orange and lemon zest in the middle. As the citrus fades, a mineral bitterness comes to the forefront, ending clean with a pleasant lingering bitterness. The body is dry with a touch of doughy malt, with the dryness exacerbated by the hop bitterness; coupled with the spritzy carbonation, the beer is light and lively on the palate. The bitterness might be a bit much for the style—at least from a more traditional perspective—but it suits my vision of a saison perfectly. Thus, while this is from Quebec, I’m pretty much going to point to a larger North American craft beer influence and call it good. After all, as it says on the label, “Hopfenstark brews beers of diverse origin and adapts them to a contemporary society that is open and has a thirst for discovery.” Which is the most Quebecoise come American comment I’ve ever heard—I think Hopefenstark is channeling a poor man’s Greg Koch here. Regardless, this is a solid saison, and we’ll be checking out more of Hopfenstark’s beers in the near future. 

From the bottle: “Belgian-style Saison: slightly bitter and dry pale beer with citrusy hops aroma and typical Belgian saison yeast ester.”

From the Hopfenstark website: “La Saison Station 55 est une bière rousse à l'aspect voilée, au goût prononcé de malt, d'épices et de houblons qui rappellent les agrumes doublé d'une amertume en finale. La 55 se veut un hybride entre une bière belge de terroir et une IPA de type américaine. Elle s'incrit dans le renouveau brassicole en Belgique.”

ABV: 7.0%

(9/18/2013)

Brett Likewise Brewday

More in the way of the fantastic experiment that continues to clutter my dining room with numerous smaller experiments all centered around a common theme. I’ll shortly be turning the second round of this experiment, which will undoubtedly produce more of the same. Here’s to long term brewing projects that take on a life of their own.

157. Brett Likewise
Mash:
8 lbs. MFB Pilsen
2 lbs. Best Malz Spelt
1 lb. Weyermann Acidulated

Mash @ 151° F for 90 minutes w/ 3 ½ gallons RO water & 2 g. gypsum; collected 2 ¼ gallons @ 1.082
Batch sparge @ 175° F for 20 minutes w/ 4 gallons RO water; collected 4 gallons @ 1.024

Collected 6 ¼ gallons; topped off to 7 gallons, brought to a boil (90 minutes), & added:
w/90 to go: 1 oz. Millenium leaf 16.6% AA

w/10 to go: 1 oz. Millenium leaf 16.6% AA

Chilled and racked onto:
157a. yeast cake from 144a. WLP644 B. bruxellensis Trois
Primary: 9/17/2013
Secondary:
Bottled:

OG: 1.054
FG: 

157b. yeast cake from 144b. Wyeast 5122 B. bruxellensis
Primary: 9/17/2013
Secondary:
Bottled:

OG: 1.054
FG:

Tasting Notes:

Dayton DRAFT Brewfest 2013 Beer Judging

Ah, the home club competition. Where I have to take on an organizational role, and can’t just roll in, judge beer, and roll out. I like that latter option so much more than having to clean up after the unwashed hoards have left the building. But, no, I have to keep agreeing to play the role of Cellar master. Dumbass.

Overall entries were up this year; I didn’t remember to count the entries from out of town judges at the time, but we ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of 255 as a final count. Give or take. Which is a nice increase from the previous three years (168 in 2012, 214 in 2011, and 186 in 2010). As is my wont, I self-righteously claimed all of the second entries from Jule Rastikis—all except his entry in 23A, Coal B’ Tappin’ The Maple, which won the flight and was awarded Best of Dayton. Deservedly so—I had that beer last year, and was already coveting this year’s version. Stupid winning. Other highlights from the day include Frank Barickman getting second place in IPAs for the second year running. I did forget to grab his second bottle to drink during the competition as I did last year, but I can’t always be perfect. The Rockit Cup sponsored a plaque this year, so congratulations to Dan Lechner for winning Scottish & Irish Ales. As well, watching the Gordon Strong show during the BOS is always a delight for the Twitter-perfect one-liners doled out like free bread, like the beer he described as smelling like a stripper. My beers fared moderately: my fresh hop beer and saison were treated with the due diligence of beers only moderate in their production, while the brett blend I entered in category 23 (138a, by the way) got second to that dang Rastikis fellow. Double foiled!

Thanks to all of the out of town judges who made time to help us out. I’m happy to reciprocate when the time comes. Oh, and the final results are here. Go team!

(9/14/2013)

Flanders Red Brewday

In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda tells Luke “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” I think this is an apt description for beer brewing as well, specifically once you begin brewing sour beers. Having immersed myself full-scale into the realm of sour, I might as well accept that my destiny is to be dominated by the wild and the unpredictable. A fate worth having, might I add. And I have the carboys to document it. Any-who, this is my most recent sortie into the land of bugs and deliciousness. I’ll be reporting back in about a year.

153. Flanders Red
Mash:
6 lbs. MFB Aromatic 
5 lbs. MFB Vienna
1 lb. Weyermann Light Munich
1 lb. Breiss White Wheat
½ lb. Dingemans Special B

Mash @ 155° F for 90 minutes w/ 4 gallons RO water & 2 g. gypsum; collected 2 ½ gallons @ 1.088
Batch sparge @ 169° F for 20 minutes w/ 4 gallons RO water & 2 g. gypsum; collected 4 gallons @ 1.032

Collected 6 ½ gallons; topped off to 7 gallons, brought to a boil (90 minutes), & added:
w/90 to go: 1 ½ oz. UK EKG leaf 5.41% AA

Chilled and pitched ECY02 Flemish Ale & ¾ oz. Hungarian oak cubes (house toast)

Primary: 9/10/2013 @ 70° F

Bottled: 1/24/2015; ½ kegged for Brew Ha Ha (1/31/2015) and other half bottled w/1.75 oz. table sugar

OG: 1.064
FG: 1.008

P.S. I know the numbers aren’t in order. Deal.

Tasting Notes (2/28/2015): Flanders Red pours a crystal clear brown with plenty of orange and red accents; the thin white head put in an appearance, and then became a floating skiff across the top of the beer. In the nose, there is lactic tartness mixed with a slight tannic oak, followed by cherry and plum fruit aromas and candy and cracker malt aromas. There is just a hint of acetic acid, but it is very much to the back. Flavors open with intense, fresh fruit—cherry, plum, and currant—and bright lactic acidity. There is some malt sweetness and residual mouthfeel in the middle: it is thankfully missing that thinness of body that tends to ruin otherwise delicious examples of the style. The finish is slightly mineral-like, accompanied by a tannic bite mixed with fruit sweetness that lingers on the tongue. I am also getting a slight flush on my cheeks now that I am halfway through the beer, which I appreciate. The beer is bright and crisp on the palate, even with the medium to low carbonation—the acidity and fruit flavors brighten and sharpen the beer in a refreshing and enjoyable manner—although there is a touch of alcohol warmth as the beer warms. All in all, I am quite pleased with this beer, especially having been in the bottle only a month. I am also pretty certain I will shortly be upset that I gave half of this beer away. I’d call it sour grapes, but that might be too bad of a pun for even me.

571. Anchorage/Mikkeller AK Alive! Alaskan Wild Ale

Not a lot of information available on this beer out there on the internet. Mikkeller’s web page features Euro-trash glam shots, but very little real beer information. I get it—you’re edgy and shit. But can you tell me something about the beers, please? Pictures of Klaus and his Star Wars fixation really only provide a creepy late 80’s New Wave meets Williamsburg hipster culture vibe that makes me sad I bought your beer. Anchorage Brewing Company’s website wasn’t that  helpful, either, but there was a lot less douche-baggery to sort through to find out there was nothing. Anyway, our second beer from Anchorage Brewing, our first being Galaxy White IPA w/ Brett, and our fourth from Mikkeller, including Simcoe Single Hop IPA (back in the day), Rauch Geek Breakfast, and the Stillwater/Mikkeller collaboration, Our Side. 

AK Alive! pours a cloudy orange copper with a creamy off-white head and lots of tiny white streaming bubbles in the glass. The nose is an earthy musty funk bordering on goat-y and/or horseblanket; there are oxidized paper hints, but they appear more a product of the Brettanomyces-derived yeast aromatics than via any actual oxidation in the beer itself. Flavors start with a hint of residual malt sweetness before the funky flavors take over, with a spicy earth tang that borders on evergreen; there is a flash of Belgian candy sweetness in the middle, followed by a healthy dose of what I would describe as the classic Brettanomyces bruxellensis dry musty cracker bite running from somewhere in the middle on into the finish, although this is B. bruxellensis on steroids. As the beer warms, young tannic oak flavors make an appearance as well. The body itself is dry—crackery dry, papery dry, or whatever descriptor you’d use to highlight the driest of the dry bodies. The initial flash of sweetness thus provides a nice counterpoint the dry dry body, balancing the beer as a whole, buoyed also by the spritzy bright carbonation. There is some lingering astringency along with some alcohol warmth in the finish that leaves a slightly unpleasant taste sitting on the back of the tongue; it is difficult to ascertain whether the resulting flavors are hop- or yeast-derived. The astringency does increase as the beer warms, although not enough to make me stop drinking the beer; it is merely enough to get me to point it out to all you readers out there. As well, this could be related to the ABV of the beer: at 8%, it is pushing the envelope for something that is going to end up clocking somewhere around 1.000-1.004 FG. The lack of residual body in such a big beer (and young beer, might I add, which contributes) brings both the astringent and alcohol flavors to the forefront in ways that would probably not be as evident after being aged for a year or two. Another possible contender for the lingering astringent bite is the young tannic oak flavors that emerged as the beer warmed. In all likelihood, most of these factors contributed something to finish. Still, an enjoyable and interesting beer; I was hoping to find more about its production when I was poking around the internet, as I’d be interested to hear about the production process of this beer: was this an open or spontaneous fermentation (implied by the “Alive” in the name), an inoculated fermentation (adding cultured wild yeast, or having wild yeast already established in fermentation vessels, like barrels; potentially implied in the “Wild Ale” designation, although this would technically fit both options), or a mix somewhere between the two? I didn’t expect a definitive answer, but I expected more than bupkis. Well, there was this, but otherwise beer rating sites and the likes. Oh well.

ABV: 8%

P.S. I dumped the dregs of this beer into one of the two extra starters I made on Sunday. Just sayin’.

(9/4/2013)

The Great Brett Yeast Experiment II

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to stumble across Eureka Brewing’s post looking for collaborators for the joint BBA/EBY Brettanomyces yeast experiment. Since I already headed down that rabbit hole myself six months ago with my own Great Brett Yeast Experiment I, I decided I should continue influencing my house character towards, well, delicious. So I signed up. Sadly, I didn’t have the resources to handle all 20 yeasts, so I picked what I could handle. On Saturday, I got a packet of eight small vials containing the Brettanomyces isolates from Sam’s collection:

EBY002 (B. dreifonteinii I)
EBY005 (B. cantillon I)
EBY008 (B. cantillon II)
EBY009 (B. cantillon III)
EBY010 (B. cantillon IV)
EBY019 (B. cucurbita I)
EBY035 (B. cucurbita II)
EBY038 (B. cantillon VIII)

As Sam notes, the names of the different yeasts do not represent current taxonomic nomenclature, but rather the source of each yeast he isolated. Undoubtedly, many are the same. But I’m willing to take that chance in the name of science. And delicious beer.

To prepare the starters, I boiled 200 g. of Breiss Pilsen DME in 2000 ml. of RO water, chilled the wort, and then divided it into 10 sanitized mason jars (I made two extra to simplify the math as well as to give me two extra starters I can use for the dregs of beers I'll be drinking later this week; check back if you’re really that desperate to know). I then sanitized the outside of each vial, added the vial to a starter, and sealed the jar. Now for the waiting. Once things start happening, I can plan to step the starters up, and then get ready to brew two gallon batches of each strain. Hopefully I’ll have enough carboys cleaned out by that point. If not, I can always buy more.

(9/2/2013)