Blonde's Are More Fun?

When it comes to brewing, I would say Blondes are a little more of a high-maintenance bitch instead of fun...was that too much? They aren't that easy...not it either. A more difficult beer to get consistent and desired results out of. There we go. Back to brewing, I have been on quite the tear of brewing recently, but had to slow do a bit because of lack of equipment. Not really a bad thing because it made me try to catch up on my drinking a bit. Giving the Blonde another try, the store was out of the malt I was looking to change to, so made an on the fly change and we'll see how it turns out.

Blonde
Malts: American 2-Row, Wheat, Rye
Hops: Brewer's Gold, Glacier
ABV: ~4%
Playlist: Shuffle

This is what my dog does while I brew, lounges around eating our flowers. Come on Sophie, we are trying to be classy here

The previous Blonde is about gone and I was semi-satisfied with it. A little too bitter for the style which also took a little away from the drinkablity (I can't believe I just used a Budweiser word, but that is something I am looking for in a session beer). I also thought that the fruity esters in the beer were also a little higher than desirable. Specifically the banana flavor (Isoamylacetate for those wondering the brewing term for it). From what I can tell this is a result of some of my brewing techniques, but also the yeast that I used is known to promote fruity esters. So this time I am trying a different yeast strain and see how that changes the flavor profile, specifically the fruity esters. The rye is only used in small amounts, but rye does have a very distinctive flavor so we will have to wait and see how it turns out.

Other thoughts. I got the parts I ordered to be able to do some draft line cleaning and sure enough the adapters that I got do not work, so it is back to the drawing board on that.

Kegged the stout today and since the batch was little too big for the keg I am sipping on a glass of flat, cellar temperature stout. Not exactly idea for a warm sunny mid-day drink, but I don't want to pour it out, tough job but someone has to do it. Initial thoughts are that the beer has promise. Very bitter due to both the amount of hops I used, but the roasted/coffee flavors add another type of bitterness.

Sampled the pale ale from a week back, very stoked for this one.

Huge props to Sheila, just got my birthday present. I always hated on people who wore bike jerseys, except those with beer bike jersey. Black Butte Porter bike jersey, tight. Almost makes me feel like going for a ride, except the whole already been drinking thing.

Tap Handles

When you really start thinking about this, tap handles are one of the most important things to a draft only brewery (good beer always helps). With draft only accounts, it is the main marketing presence in a bar. A good tap handle will bring the beer to people's attention and make them ask about it and hopefully order it. Making a good product is what brings them back. When you are at a bar, you aren't always sitting at the actual bar and take a look at the taps from afar to see what they have, the well designed ones are noticeable.

Problems I see with many common tap handles:
1) You can't read them. I always like to know what I am ordering and if I can't tell what it is then I wont order it, I will probably go to one of my mainstay beers instead of something new. Not all the brewery and beer information needs to be in word form to be identifiable. Too many taps have a novel written on them and you don't care about most of the information on them.
2) Shape, too many are a standard oval on top of a long wooden handle. I am aware that making tap handles is expensive and it is cheapest and easiest to go with a standard shape, but I think that tap handles are a worthwhile investment. Look at Goose Island, probably the easiest tap handle to recognize from anywhere in a bar, I am sure it is worth the extra cost to make those taps. Just being a different shape doesn't make it better though, there are plenty of weird looking tap handles that do nothing more than the standard tap shape.

Things I like in tap handles:
1) Easily identifiable logo at the very top, Avery is a good example of the logo on top, but I am not sure that I am a fan of the information below.
2) Consistency through the beer line up, Georgetown has a little more unique oval, but all the taps have the same basic shape.
3) You can easily tell the two most important things, Brewery, Beer Name. Beer style is included in that, but that has more to do with naming conventions that the brewery uses.

I will be giving a lot of thought to what the PBC tap handles will look like and will be getting some help from a marketing company because I know beer, they know marketing. I have a lot of different ideas floating around in my head and once some of those get sorted out I will try them out on the blog. To throw out a few, I have never seen carbon fiber taps and I love that look, maybe there is a cheap carbon fiber coating out there. Bright colors, but not obnoxious...well maybe obnoxious, it would stand out. I also like aluminum taps that are machined or water jetted into logos and shapes. Once I decide, this will be the first place to reveal them.

Brewing Playlists

Two of my favorite things: beer and music. One thing that I always think about when I vision my brewery is how tight it is going to be to rock out and make beer. I have been thinking about this for some time and on my drive home today (actually Friday, using the post scheduling feature, how 'bout them apples) while rocking out to Reckless Kelly's Bulletproof (tight album) I decided I had to write a post about it. Lets just hope that I can remember all of the literary gold I came up with while driving.

So here is the deal, music and beer are generally at the core of all of my inspiration (rocking out and booze, how could it do anything else but inspire) and I want to utilize that in the brewery and share it with PBC's customers. Most brewery websites have information about each of their beer offering that may include a description, ingredients and who knows what else. I want to include a music playlist for each beer. I am not going to make these playlists claiming that they are the inspiration for the beers though. The playlists are going to be a combo of what I listen to while brewing the beer and what I like to listen to while drinking the beer. Or have no real relation at all and just be a stellar playlist. It is going to be tight to be in charge in the brewery (even if I am the only employee) because I can rock whatever tunes that I want. If anyone has a problem with my music selection my response will be "shut up, I do what I want!" because I am the man in charge.**

As time permits, (something that I have quite a bit of right now) I am going to try to post some playlists I start to come up with while brewing. Once I figure out all the gadgets that blogspot.com has, I will try to put some music on the blog or maybe even the entire playlists. But mark this day down, if you see this stuff on another brewery's website they officially stole it from me. Although someone might already be doing it and if that is the case I plead ignorance and still came up with it on my own.

Although my music personal selection favors country to a great extent, I embrace most music. Each list will be unique and hopefully different in the overall theme. In honor of my first unborn fermenter, the first playlist I post will be a compilation of Wu Tang Clan, both the group and solo projects from the members. For those wondering, the unborn fermenter is O.D.B. because one day it will be my O.D.B. of fermenters and the name will be just that much more fitting. I can't wait to write a blog saying, "the first batch of Mountain Man Barleywine is fermenting in Old Dirty Bastard."

These playlists could be somethings that comes into play later when I try to put on some concerts and stuff. Once I get a real website up, all the songs will be linked to the artists site or somewhere to buy their stuff. Also, it could be cool to allow fans to post their own playlists of what they like to listen to while drinking a PBC beer. Sort of create a music community intertwined with the beer community because many of them are the same people. I will have to solicit ideas from Sheila, our budding music production person or whatever it is you are trying to do. You realize that I officially own your career Sheila, food and music with my beer, game over.

I really need a voice recorder or at least carry around my flipcam all the time so I can record my inner Bill Simmons when I come up with the stuff. Compared to my vision in the car, this post is good, but falls well short of the gem I had brewing in the car.

**Some might say that doing what you want because it is your business is a bad idea, well those people have never met me...whatever I touch turns to gold and most of all...I rule! (Amy, you probably don't read this, but you are still #2)

Part III...I think so

Yes, another sunny brew day in Seattle. I could use another 10 degrees, but I wont complain because the weather has been pretty awesome recently. My only gripe is that this nice weather makes motivating myself to be productive a lot more difficult. So here is what I have going today:

Amber Ale
Malts: American 2-Row, Vienna, Munich, Crystal
Hops: Brewer's Gold, Mt Hood
ABV: ~5%
Playlist: Cross Canadian Ragweed (will make sense after upcoming post)

Basically the same recipe as a few weeks ago with a different yeast. The one I did before is carbonating in the keggerator, took a little sample even though it isn't ready just yet. Has a good malty, bready base with a slight hop presence. I will review accordingly when it is ready to drink. I do need to vary my mashing schedules and temps between batches a little more because many of my beers have been fermenting past my target terminal gravity. Sounds like a great problem to have, more booze for you buck, but it is leaving some of my beers with less body than they needed. By fermenting further, there are less residual sugars which is good for say a Blonde, but for something like an Amber or Pale there still needs to be something there to balance the hops. Not a huge problem, just need some more non-fermentables in the wort and with a temperature adjustment and/or grain bill adjustment this is easily taken care of.

Homebrew competition coming up next month, trying to enter four or so beers. I am not too concerned about winning anything, which would be nice, but I really want to get the scoring feedback from the judges. They are a lot more impartial than anyone who is drinks my beer while sitting on my couch.

Naked City/Georgetown Brewers Night

I went out to the Georgetown Brewers Night at Naked City last night. I wrote a few months back about Naked City and am liking the place more and more. Just like any bar, you can't force character and Naked City is no different. It seemed very plain the first time I went there and have since gotten a lot of cool things to put up on the wall to give it some character. The staff is very knowledgeable and they put on some good events, like last night.

Being the brewers night, the brewers were out at the bar and they brought along a cask conditioned version of their 9 lb Porter, good stuff. I really like what Georgetown does with there beers and more so their marketing. Everything is very simple, cool and modern which I think helps them tap into the giant market that is the casual beer drinkers. I will write a post about my thoughts about the brewery some other time, maybe I will pay them another visit. This is about the brewers night, which was pretty casual, they raffled off schwag and provided a place to talk with the people in the industry. I didn't get to talk to the brewer or owners as much as I would have liked, but did talk a little. I hate being the douche that tries to be all buddy buddy with people at events like this, you know they are out there. I also wasn't about to solicit a job while they are hanging with their friends, I know they aren't hiring, but met the guys and they know I went to Siebel. Its never bad making connections in the industry you are in even if it isn't an immediate payoff. Scored some pint glasses (probably the last thing I need more of) and did a lot of thinking about tap handle design (post to come). In the end it was a good event and I look forward to being on the other side of a brewers night.

Sunny Brew Day Part II

I had other plans when I woke up this morning, but in the end it felt like a day to sit on the front porch and make some beer. 70 and sunny on Green Lake, pretty awesome. Going after the elusive Pale Ale again even though I wrote against it earlier, I actually got a little better response from my last one so with some tweaks, here we go again.

Pale Ale
Malts: American 2-Row, Crystal, Honey Malt
Hops: Columbus, Amarillo
ABV: ~ 5%

Sipping on the Blonde Ale I made a few weeks back, biggest problem is that I didn't use any clarifying agents so it is really cloudy. Doesn't affect the taste of the beer, but with the aesthetics, a blonde ale should be brilliantly clear. Seems like a very good summer beer. A low 4.2% abv, a slight fruity taste and a subtle hop bitterness. Going to give it another try in a week, only change I am going to make is the yeast. Could make a large difference, but I am making an effort to re-pitch yeast from batch to batch and I have a different yeast in the pipeline.

Still trying to put together a draft line cleaning business on the side. The only thing really holding me back is finding the right hose fittings, trying to make some homemade adapters to make my equipment work really easily. So at this rate I will be in business in ten years.

Back to brewing...

Sunny Brew Day

Worked from home today if you will. A crappy morning turned into another great Seattle day. Brewing up another batch of my stout I made back in November. Here are some of the details:

Stout
Malts: American 2-Row, Crystal, Flaked Oats, Special B, Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt
Hops: Centennial, Willamette
Target ABV: 6.5%

It is almost exactly the same recipe as before because I thought that was a tremendous beer and wanted to do it again. I know that a stout isn't you typical spring beer, but I have a few things to sort out in the next few months as far as beer recipes go. As nice of a day as it is, the wind is reeking havoc with my burner, so hopefully I can still hit my numbers without a consistent boil.

The keggerator modifications are on hold until I go back to Lowe's to exchange some parts, the stuff I bought didn't work quite right. Basically what I am doing is putting quick releases on all of my CO2 hoses and regulator. Sounds super exciting I know, but when ever I want to take kegs anywhere it is a pain to unhook all of the hose clamps and such. It is also starting to mess up the end of my hoses. When it is done I can take my beer with me in a matter of seconds, which is finally legal to do (I think, maybe it is almost legal, but it will be).

Have another post in the works about my current progress and such. Might start it today, but with a pub crawl tomorrow afternoon and sailing on Sunday, don't hold your breath.

Rant Time

Got some motivation for doing work for PBC, so blogging is sort of a distraction, but there are a few things I felt like writing. First off it has been a while since I have done any work while drinking a beer, mostly because I go get free Internet from the coffee shop. Which by the way scares me because the last three days I have felt like a prototypical Seattlite and I don't really like that. Not drinking has nothing to do with working in the morning, I have mentioned that it is society, not me, that has deemed drinking in the morning unacceptable.

Now that I am blogging with a New Belgian Mighty Arrow Pale Ale, I have a few more beefs. First, I really enjoy this beer normally, but for some reason the sixer that I got at 7-11 tastes like ass. In beer terms it is smells like old gym socks and tastes like cheese and I am very disappointed with 7-11 (I blame them not New Belgian because I have already ranted about N.B. and I want to give them a break)

Which brings me to my next beef, "pint glasses," what a crock. I don't know why I haven't noticed this before, but I poured my 12 oz beer into a "pint glass" and with the proper head came right to the top of the glass. The only way 16 oz would fit into that glass is all the way to the brim with no head. This is your standard issue bar pint glass, I know, I stole this one fair and square. The US needs a law, like they have in Europe, where all glasses are marked with their size. There is a little line on most import glasses showing where the beer should be to allow the proper head and tells you exactly how much beer that is. Most likely if you order a pint you are getting 12 oz and head (don't get me wrong, the head is a vital part of a beer).

Enough of that...I sort of lost my meaningful message for this post somewhere in the rant. Basically I am getting shit done. Some days I feel like nothing is happening, then bam, get some responses, get some motivation and everything is good. Some days I get hella frustrated like today and need a break. I am kind of over this post right now, making beer tomorrow so will post something about that and my efforts in upgrading my keggerator, which by the way is the best purchase ever.

Monday Ramblings

I have turned into an absolute waste of space and should have plenty of time to post stuff, but that just isn't happening. Seeing that the job hunt has slowed to a crawl I am doing my best to use some of my free time to put in some serious work for Payette Brewing Company. I starting some stuff last week and tomorrow I am going to (attempt) to treat like an actual work day and somewhere and get shit done. I will be sure to put up anything of interest if any of my talk translates into results.

I have also decided to try and step up my beer making. Mostly because I have the time and I want to have a few good beers dialed in when I make the jump this fall. I have a few in the pipeline and will probably brew up two more this week, tweak my stout and pale ale some more. Then go back to the blonde and amber after the ones I made are done fermenting and I can give them a try. I also jury-rigged up something to be able to bottle my beers from the keggerator. This way I can force carbonate them to where I want them instead of my inconsistent bottle conditioning. We'll see how my apparatus worked, good thing I still have some crap peppermint beer around to be able to experiment with.

Enough for now, I will post some brewing and tasting notes once I have some new ones.

Revisiting some old beers

Now that I am back in Seattle and have access to some of my beers again, I want to comment about a few that I have posted about earlier.

Pale Ale (Earlier post)
As far as the carbonation goes, I am hoping to rig something up so that I do not have to bottle condition any beers anymore and the carbonation problem with this beer will not exist. I had some more or this beer at home and again my six pack was hit or miss on the carbonation. Based on a well properly carbonated beer, I think this is a few tweaks away from being a good IPA. It was overdone on the hops, but with a little more malt (and alcohol) this will be a very drinkable IPA.

Christmas Beer/Candy Cane Beer (Earlier post)
Definitely turned into an abortion of a beer. I did my candy cane calculations based on the amount of sugar and took no account for the peppermint in the candy canes. I over did the candy by at least 4X. I never did do the orange peel and coriander, which may have helped some, but it seemed so bad I didn't want to waste my efforts doing that. Lesson learned: you can always add more of an adjunct during the process, but can never take adjunct out once it is in there. I might try this again, but start very small with the candy canes.

Citra Hop American Wheat (Earlier post)
I would venture to call this my favorite beer that I have made. It doesn't really fall into any specific beer category because it is way over the top with the hops to be an American Wheat, but i wouldn't throw it in the Blonde or Pale category either. I just put it in the awesome category. I equate it a lot to Three Floyd's Gumballhead. It is very drinkable but is also very satisfying to the hophead in me. The hops aren't bitter though, as the name would suggest they have a very pleasant citrus taste to them. Here comes the problem, how do I make it again with Citra hops not being widely available? I have some ideas, so we'll see, but hopefully the acreage of these hops will continue to increase and I will be able to revisit this beer again sometime.