Brewvet Ride 5: DRAFT Homebrew Meeting

Another short Brewvet ride—1.1 miles total—but this trip combines a visit to local brewery Warped Wing with my monthly DRAFT Homebrew Club meeting (yes, the website is really outdated), as the brewery is kind enough to let our homebrew club meet in the tasting room every month, something that John Haggerty carries over from his New Holland days. It does help that former DRAFT member Jeff Fortney is now the head brewer, too. If you’ve never been to a homebrew club meeting, it is precisely what you’d expect: dudes drinking and discussing beer. Sometimes, an educational segment gets included—today there was a brief overview of the new BJCP 2015 guidelines—but that doesn’t always happen. It can be a bit more esoteric than your average craft beer nerd discussion—homebrewers tend to know how to make as well as analyze beer—but the lingo and the attitude are often the same.

For drinking purposes, I brought along a couple of my recent saisons. In addition to the Dandelion Saison you heard about yesterday, I brought a bottle of Saison w/ Azacca and Styrian Golding. I hopped it a bit more aggressively than normal for a saison, but I wanted to be able to get a sense of the influence of Azacca hops in a beer: they have nice flavor and aroma, but the bitterness is a slightly unpleasant and a bit harsh in the back of the throat in the finish. Still, the beer as a whole is dry and very drinkable, and the floral fruitiness from both yeast and hop in the aroma and flavor makes this beer go down easy. And best of all, after an evening discussing the intricacies of brewing, home was just a short bike ride away.

(5/18/2015)

Brewvet Ride 4: Fifth Street Herbivore No. 2

Plans for today involve helping judge beers for the Fifth StreetBrewpub Member Homebrew Competition. Yes, my life is generally enviable. So, in the spirit of all things Brewvet and beer-related, I rode my bike to the event. After all, since it is barely over a mile away (it was a 2.1 mile roundtrip), it’s not like it was s strenuous trek. 

For those of you not in the know, Fifth Street Brewpub is a Co-op with something in the neighborhood of 2000 members. Thus, the competition is a chance for all of the members who are also homebrewers to enter beers, with the winner getting her or his beer brewed on the Brewpub’s 7 BBL system and served in the taproom. There were 60 entries for the competition, which is pretty impressive considering that there was a limit of two entries per person (and most people only entered one beer)—I’ve been to smaller competitions that were open to the public. Darren Link, the Fifth Street brewmaster, had sorted beers into seven different flights; judges pushed the top one or two beers from each flight into a Best of Show round that was judged by Darren and Sarah Browning. Niall Foster’s and Jim Witmer’s Thin Mint Stout won overall, while my Dandelion Saison ended up getting second place. However, my beer is going to get brewed this summer, as Darren wanted to save the Thin Mint Stout for non-summer time enjoyment and brew it as the Winter Seasonal. So I win, too. 

After the competition was over, I had a Herbivore No. 2, 

which is an American wheat beer with ginger and lemongrass. It is a clean and bright beer; the ginger and lemongrass flavors come across in the nose and the flavor, imparting a crisp finish. Went down easy. Then a leisurely bike ride home for this gentleman gadabout (remember the pronunciation!).

(5/17/2015)

Brewvet Ride 3: Hoppy Brett Beer

Today was a small group ride with some of Elli’s Team Dayton teammates. Yes, they let sluggish slowpokes like myself tag along on occasion, mostly because they are all nicer people than me, and/or because Elli just drags me along. I should probably stick with the nicer people theory—it has a better ring to it, and it doesn’t make either Elli or myself look like the surly curmudgeons that we undoubtedly are.

Our route started out as a road ride, but the strong winds required some strategic re-planning along the way—we made use of some bike path sections to cut down on the wind we faced, although we still ended up covering the same basic distance that was part of the initial plan. I managed to hang until about the last five miles or so, when the wheels started coming off the wagon. Or, to use the parlance of the sport, I started going backwards. Very backwards. 

I spent the first ten minutes after the ride lying on the ground to catch my breath. I did mention that they all are on a bicycling team, right? But after a nice cool shower with the garden hose, I felt recovered enough to pull out the homebrew I brought for today’s Brewvet action, 202. Hoppy LTC, which is a hoppy pilsner fermented with Brettanomyces and some other things. Lots of dry cracker malt accompanied by straw and earthy Brett characteristics with bright, effervescent carbonation and pleasant lingering bitterness. It certainly perked me right back up, as did the sandwiches and pizza we also had. Beer and food save the day again. All told, we covered 59.3 miles on today’s ride. Proper.

(5/10/2015)

Brewvet Ride 2: Founders All Day IPA

More Brewvet hijinx to be had! Today’s ride featured a short jaunt down to Miamisburg and back. Ride selection was determined by wind direction: this route got me a tailwind all the way home, which is much preferred over a headwind all the way home. Well, at least for me! Plus, riding along the river is always enjoyable, which you are for most of the way. And if you block out that one stretch that runs next to I-75, it is certainly an enjoyable section of one of the many bike trails found in the Miami Valley. 

After my return, I grabbed a smooth, easy drinking Founders All Day IPA as my recovery drink. It was one of the first session IPAs that are now flooding the market—session IPAs are apparently the hip beer of spring and summer 2015 since every single brewery is putting one out—but this one still holds its own in comparison. And it comes in a fifteen pack of cans. So I’d call that a win win, honestly. While it is a little bit watery on occasion, there is plenty of hop flavor and aroma to cover that over, along with just a touch of bitterness. In regards to today’s post-ride drinking experience, it served its purpose perfectly: down the hatch in nothing flat! I probably could have easily taken down a few more, but a shower and getting dinner started were more pressing concerns. Oh, and today’s ride covered 30.6 miles. I did it all for the beer. 

(5/7/2015)

Brewvet Ride 1: Yellow Springs Brewery

Brewvet is back! As you all undoubtedly recall, I ran a Dayton Brewvet last year. Well, that idea was unceremoniously stolen from John Roche at portajohn. Actually, I did ask, but you don’t need all that dirty sordid history, do you? Because that was 2014 and this in 2015. In other words, time to move on. And by moving on, I mean getting on that bike and riding! 

For my first Brewvet 2015 ride, I decided to saunter on up to Yellow Springs Brewery. I’m out of school for the summer, so nothing says lazy summer days like a 50.5 mile round trip on a bike. Although, technically, it was probably slightly longer—my phone still sucks, although that will be changing shortly. And since it was a lazy summer day, there was a couple hours of hanging out in the brewery to be had, listening to all-female hip hop, before the return trip home. Oh, and some beers. I had, among other things, Goat’s Eye IPA, a Belgian IPA that is easy-drinkin’ magic. There may have also been some grilling for lunch after a couple hours of cleaning. Honestly, I’ll never tell.

And for those of you out there in blogland, it is not too late for you to participate in this year’s Brewvet: information about the 2015 Brewvet Challenge can be found here. So go jump on your bike, go for a ride, and drink some beer. Just not all at the same time. 

(5/1/2015)

American Saison w/ Dandelion Flowers Brewday

This is another Jeff Alworth-inspired beer, albeit a riff on a previous similar idea. But if the goal is to recover corn for American craft brewers, the saison and all that it represents for American craft brewing seems the most obvious place to extend the idea. After all, who don’t love saisons? I mean, besides this guy? Although since he hasn’t posted for like six months, that insult is effectively as dead as that blog. Oh, and I included the dandelion flowers as a means to compare the flavor contributions to beer in relation to the contributions from the leaves and roots in 207. Dandelion Saison.

Note: the 30/70 corn to grain ratio might have got some extra traction for me today via today’s stuck sparge. I adjusted the ration for the next version, so we’ll see what happens.

208. American Saison w/ Dandelion Flowers

Mash:

6 lbs. Best Malz Pilsen

3 lbs. flaked maize

Mash @ 150° F for 90 minutes w/ 3 gallons RO water, 4 g. gypsum, & 4 g. CaCl; mash stuck after I collected 1 gallon drained, so I topped it off with sparge water @ 1.080

Batch sparge @ 158° F for 20 minutes w/ 4 ½ gallons RO water; wort collected @ 1.030

Collected 6 ¼ gallons; topped off to 7 gallons, brought to a boil (70 minutes), & added:
w/60 to go: 1 ½ oz. Azacca leaf 9.9% AA

w/10 to go: 1 oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA
5 g. Wyeast yeast nutrient

w/5 to go: 1 oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA
3 ½ oz. table sugar

w/0 to go: 1 oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA
4 oz. dandelion flowers

Let stand for 20 minutes, chilled, & pitched mason jar of saison yeast from 207. Dandelion Saison

Brewed: 4/28/2015

Secondary: 5/26/2015 @ 1.002; dry-hopped w/ 2 oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA

Bottle: 5/30/2015 w/ 3.25 oz. table sugar

OG: 1.050

FG: 1.002

Tasting Notes (12/15/2015): American Saison w/ Dandelion Flowers pours a hazy straw with a big white mousse-y head that hangs around, and has plenty of tiny white bubbles streaming up the sides of the glass. The nose is floral and perfume-y and lightly spicy all at once; there is a hint of Pilsner sweetness, but the yeast overpowers much of that. Additionally, there are white pepper phenols with a hint of clove as well. As it opens up, citrus, lemon zest, earthiness, and dandelion also comes out. There is nothing here that reads distinctly as corn, although the dandelion flowers mixed with the yeast does provide some scratchy rusticity. Flavors start with a hint of banana that leads into a medium grainy Pilsner malt mixed with a soft ephemeral bread crust and lemon zest, quickly followed by floral spiciness, both from the hops and yeast—I can’t really distinguish where one begins and the other ends. There might be some hints of corn sweetness in the final third of the beer, but it is also dry and crackery via the bright sharp carbonation, and the finish is dry and peppery with hints of lemon and that Styrian Golding earthy spiciness I find so beguiling. The main contribution of the corn appears to be lightening the color and thinning the body of the beer, although I am pretty sure that it contributes to some of the rustic saison character, as do the dandelion flowers. And it has a dry body, even by my standards—when I try this again, I will raise the mash temperature to 152° F to see the affect that has on the mouthfeel of the beer. I might also try substituting 6-row and some wheat—swing it towards the grain bill of the American Weissbier—to see how that affects the overall beer in the glass a well. Still, corn’s presence in beer seems to be more dependent upon yeast than anything else; as with some of the American Weissbiers, I am not certain that anyone would readily identify this as having corn were they not told. But I do like the contribution corn provides, and I’ll continue to experiment. Stay tuned, y’all.

Dandelion Saison Brewday

Time to bring back an oldy but a goody. I've made dandelion saisons off and on over the years, but I was re-inspired by pulling out an old bottle of dandelion saison, and being blown away by the balance of flavors, even after 3 plus years. Plus, since it is the time of year when dandelions have returned in all their majestic glory, it is time to once again take advantage of the bounty of my back yard.

207. Dandelion Saison

Mash:

6 lbs. Best Malz Pilsen

1 lb. Best Malz Wheat

1 lb. light Munich

1 lb. Acidulated

Mash @ 149° F for 90 minutes w/ 3 gallons RO water, 4 g. gypsum, & 4 g. CaCl; collected 2 ¾ gallons @ 1.064

Batch sparge @ 158° F for 20 minutes w/ 4 gallons RO water; collected 4 ¼ gallons @ 1.018

Topped off to 7 gallons, brought to a boil (70 minutes), & added:

w/60 to go: 1 ½ oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA
4 oz. dandelion leaves
1.5 oz. dandelion root, coarsely chopped

w/20 to go: 1.2 oz. dandelion leaves
.7 oz. dandelion root, coarsely chopped

w/10 to go: 1.2 oz. dandelion leaves
.7 oz. dandelion root, coarsely chopped
5 g. Wyeast yeast nutrient

8 oz. Turbinado sugar

w/5 to go: 1.2 oz. dandelion leaves

.7 oz. dandelion root, coarsely chopped

2 g. coriander

1 g. grains of paradise

Chilled, & racked onto yeast from 205. Saison

Brewed: 4/18/2015

Secondary: 4/28/2015 @ 1.004; dry-hopped w/ 1 oz. Styrian Golding leaf 3.7% AA

Bottle: 5/4/2015 w/ 3.5 oz. table sugar

OG: 1.044

FG: 1.004

Tasting Notes: