Brew Day: (Cranberry?) Cream Ale

This was originally planned as a festival beer. The cranberry was supposed to be the draw. Well, we all know how that turned out, but I opted to go ahead with the brew, and may or may not add the cranberry to it. We'll see.

7 lbs Domestic 2-row
2 lbs Vienna
8 oz Crystal 15°L
8 oz Carapils
2 oz Maltodextrine
1 oz Tradition (5.8%) @60min
1 oz Liberty (4.5%) @5min
Fermentis Safale US-05
Mashed 75 min @150°F

And, if the spirit moves me... some frozen or dried cranberries in the secondary (not exactly the season for fresh), and 4 oz cranberry extract at kegging.

I was originally targeting a higher mash temp, closer to 154°F, but I've had problems overshooting in the past, so I was a little more cautious this time. It seems to have worked against me, however, and I wound up with a mash of around 146°F. So I added and added and added hot water, near boiling, and got to maybe 150°F. Maybe for the best... should be a little more fermentable, maybe balance well with the maltodextring sweetening it up.

I also currently have a bit of a conundrum in transferring the wort into the fermentor. I have a simple, copper imersion chiller, and over Christmas added a ball valve and diverter tube to my kettle. The ball valve so I could finally transfer into a carboy for primary (rather than pour the wort into a plastic bucket), and the diverter to pull wort from the side of the kettle and avoid trub in the fermentor. Well, the immersion chiller makes a neat little pile of trub in the center of the kettle difficult. So does the diverter, for that matter, disturbing the whirlpool. The end result was more trub in the fermenter than I would have liked.

As it happened, I listened to the Basic Brewing Radio on a trub-in-the-fermentor experiment the next day. Had I listened to it beforehand, I mightn't have worried so much. At any rate, fermentation took off overnight (between 8 and 16 hours later), and she's bubbling happily away. We'll see how it turns out. O.G. was 1.058.

Homebrew and Beer Festivals

A 78 year-old law that has been largely ignored for decades is now keeping homebrewers out of Illinois beer festivals. I won't speak to any specific festival or homebrewer group, but, suffice to say, I'm not happy. Update 4/19/2012: Since the local paper has now run a story on the subject, I think I can go ahead and say that I'm talking about the Peoria Jaycees International Beer Festival, and my own homebrew club, the Homebrewers of Peoria. The statute in question, the Liquor Control Act of 1934, lays out all the licensing requirements for making and selling alcoholic beverages of any kind, but provides the following exception in Article II, Sec. 2-1:

...nothing herein contained shall prevent the possession and transportation of alcoholic liquor by the possessor for the personal use of the possessor, his family and guests, nor prevent the making of wine, cider or other alcoholic liquor by a person from fruits, vegetables or grains, or the products thereof, by simple fermentation and without distillation, if it is made solely for the use of the maker, his family and his guests...

Further exemptions are made for medicinal and religious uses of alcohol.

So hombrewing of any alcoholic beverage (shy of distillation) is totally legal without license in Illinois, provided it is purely for personal, familial, and guest consumption. So, to the letter of the law, serving homebrew at your average beer festival is, probably, illegal. The real question at hand is, should it be?

I've only heard two arguments against serving homebrew in a semi-public venue such as a beer festival. The first is some vague notion of sanitation. Homebrew is, viewed by the government, a largely uncontrolled substance that could contain anything. We're brewing at home, in our filthy, non health-inspected garages. Lord only knows what we're putting in there! And if someone gets sick from drinking our dirty, dirty beer, the festival organizers could be held liable. Oh noes!

Make no mistake, sanitation is important. However, bad sanitation doesn't lead to toxic beer. It may lead to bad beer (sometimes on purpose), but the simple fact is that nothing harmful to humans can grow in the alcohol and preservative (hops) rich environment of beer. That's why people drank it in the middle ages instead of plague infested water. Sure, there are plenty of allergies that could be related to beer; gluten, yeast, nut, etc. But anyone with such allergies should know to ask before they drink, and homebrew is no different from commercial beer in that instance. Indeed, homebrew is probably safer in that case, since the actual brewer is right there to field any questions about the beer they're serving.

The second argument against serving homebrew at public events stems from the very definition of homebrew: unlicensed alcohol. This can be attacked in several ways, from homebrewers circumventing licensing requirements, to serving untaxed alcohol, to robbing commercial brewers of sales.

Let's think about just how big a contribution homebrewers may be to beer festivals. BeerFestivals.org lists nine scheduled beer festivals in Illinois for 2012. I'll be extremely generous and assume that, 1) being early in the year, only about a fifth of festivals are scheduled and listed, for around 50 total fests, and 2) every single one of these festivals is pouring homebrew. And, in another likely overestimate, I'll say 20 unique homebrewers at each festival bring five five-gallon kegs apiece. That's 1,000 (!) people serving 25,000 gallons (!!) of beer. Keep in mind, I've overestimated everywhere I could, and this is probably off by an order of magnitude at least.

The current tax on beer is $0.231 per gallon.... actually, I'll assume that some portion of that beer is over 7% alcohol and taxed at the next higher rate of $1.39 per gallon, so let's call it an effective tax of $0.50 per gallon. Add to that 1,000 homebrewers buying a $500 liquor license, and that's about $512,500 in lost revenue for the state. In a state with a budget deficit of around $8 billion. Or, about 0.0064% of the deficit. That is pennies, and will probably cost the state more than that just to process and enforce.
 

Is the availability of homebrew driving down demand for commercial beer at festivals? Hard to say. You're likely paying the same token or ticket for a sample of homebrew as commercial, so it's not like it's free. (The brewer does not see any of that money, by the way, so we're not selling our beer.) I would argue that, while a given attendant may drink one less commercial sample for each homebrew they try, overall attendance will be higher when homebrew is being served, increasing sales across the board.

I don't have any numbers to back that up, and the truth is probably more complicated, but there's obviously a balance point somewhere and commercial losses to homebrew are not as drastic as those big brewers might assume.

I hope this hasn't seemed to ranty. There's just no reason to keep homebrewers out of beer festivals. We love to share our beer with as many people as possible, get feedback, and improve our craft. The more outlets for this, the better. Most independent, local breweries are started by former homebrewers. Letting us into festivals could even lead to more good commercial beer on the market!

Illinois is just the latest state to get hit with this. Overeager liquor control boards across the country are noticing that the homebrew laws (usually written just after the end of Prohibition) are needlessly strict and haven't been enforced. Oregon went through this last year, Wisconsin is in the process. The laws on the books were much more strict than Illinois' (forbidding the very removal of homebrew from the home in which it was brewed), and, being much more beer-friendly states, the laws were changed. I have no such high hopes for Illinois.

American Extra Oatmeal Stout

Brewer: Yours truly
Style: Oatmeal stout
ABV: 5.7%
IBU: 28
Serving Type: On tap into an English pub glass

Back when this was brewed, I wanted three things: 1) To brew a stout, 2) to follow a recipe out of Brewing Classic Styles, and 3) to use only ingredients I had on hand. Unfortunately, my inventory did not allow me to use any of Jamil's stout recipes, so I was left to improvise. What I wound up with was some bizarre mash-up between an American stout, a foreign extra stout, and an oatmeal stout. I give you: American Extra Oatmeal Stout!

9 lbs Domestic 2-row
1 lb Flaked oats
12 oz Chocolate malt
8 oz Crystal 60L
8 oz Roasted barley
8 oz Victory malt
2 oz U.S. Tettnang @60 min
Irish Ale yeast WLP004
Mashed 75 min @150 F

Appearance is super dark, nearly black (estimated at 31 SRM by BeerSmith). Several fingers of tan head takes its sweet time in settling to a persistent film, but lacing is minimal. Lots of chocolate on the nose, with some good roasted malts coming in behind. A little caramel sweetness too.

Where the aroma was all chocolate, the taste is all roast. Chocolate is there, mostly in the aftertaste, and more subdued. Plenty creamy from the oats, with a medium-to heavy body and mild carbonation. A sweet finish if you can find it behind the roasted flavor.

A fairly solid brew overall. I would definitely cut back on the roasted barley next time, try and let some of the subtleties of the victory and chocolate malts come through.

My score: 3/5

Citra Pale Ale

Brewer: Yours truly

Style: American IPA

ABV: 5.9%
IBU: 54
Serving Type: 12 oz. bottle poured into Czech pils glass

Pours deep, hazy gold with orange highlights and a finger of dense, offwhite head. The head is persistent, and laces the glass well. Nice hop aroma, mostly citrus/grapefruit and some pine notes aswell. Some small amount of maltiness lurking in the background.

Hop flavor is very citrus, piney, and grassy. Hits the toungue a little sharp, but mellows quick as the moderately high carbonation spreads through the mouth. Very bright, effervescent. Nice and light, finishes dry. Thisrt quencher.

All in all, this turned out quite well. Troubles on brew day were minor, but nonetheless had less an impact on the final product than I expected.

My score: 4/5

Lawnmower

Two more, please

Brewing Classic Styles: Saison

The local homebrew club's August meeting is featuring Saisons, and I've been tasked to present. What better way to honor a style than to pull the recipe from the gold standard text on brewing classic styles, Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles?

Unfortunately, the day was fraught with troubles, starting with two broken thermometers. The mercury thermometer I was left with was very difficult to read, and my mash temperature was well too low. I'm hoping it will still turn out okay, as the style calls for a low mash temp and highly fermentable wort anyway.

However, my mash stuck to no end. There was only 12 oz. of wheat malt in the grain bill, and I didn't think rice hulls would be necessary. When the mash was finally through, I discovered this thick slime caked all over the bottom of my grain bag.

Finally, I was simultaneously building a table. I tried to keep track of both tasks, but both my mash and boil time may have been a bit too long. The mash time I'm not worried about. Low temperatures call for a longer mash to get full starch conversion anyway. A too long boil, while helping DMS, could easily throw off my color. And, oh yeah, I nearly forgot the pound of table sugar, which didn't go in until the rest of the beer was already in the fermenter. As such, I have no reliable gravity reading.

It ferments from 68-80 degrees, rising steadily to make the yeast attenuate as much as possible. At least this part I can control, now that I have a temp controlled spare fridge to ferment in. I'm really hoping that, even though it's not the best beer I could have made, it will remain true to the classic Saison.

Forgotten Cider

Brewer: Yours truly

Style: Cider

ABV: ???

IBU: 0

Serving type: 12 oz. bottle poured into a wine glass

Whoa. This has been in the bottle for 14 months, and could clearly stand to stay there for the foreseeable future. I think I can sense an improvement over the couple bottles I've had in months past, but it's still not ready for general consumption. Super tart and vinegary, and just a bit stomach-churning. Very dry and slightly apple sweet finish. Only a touch of carbonation.

The best thing I can say for it right now is the appearance. Pale, pale yellow and crystal clear. Has the look of white wine more than anything else.

Ah, well. It's back to the basement to be Forgotten for another year.

Citra Pale Ale: Brew Day

MoreBeer.com had their recipe kits on sale a few weeks back and I grabbed a few, thinking it would be a good way to get back into my favorite hobby after a months long lapse. Today I brewed the Citra Pale Ale all grain kit.

The grain bill was 2-row pale base malt, plus some light crystal, cara-pils, and white wheat malt. Add to that a little Magnum hops for bittering, plus tons of Citra for flavor, aroma, and dry hopping. Given that I'm not really looking for yeast character with a beer like this, I opted for a simple dry yeast, Safale US-05.

The brew day started out slow. When I went to HyVee for water, I dropped into their liquor store for curiosity's sake, trying to find a bottle of this year's Utopias. Turns out Andrew, the Assistant Manager there, had purchased their only bottle for himself about a week earlier. He was a great guy though, and admitted that this made him feel like "kind of a dick."

That said, he called around and managed to track down a bottle for me at Broadway Liquors in Pekin. So off we went for a $200 bottle of beer. And now I have one of only 4 or 5 bottles of Utopias seen in Peoria in 2011. Totally worth a delay in brew day.

But I digress. Back to the brew. I targeted a single infusion mash temperature of 152°, using a calculator on my phone to figure the temperature of the strike water. In spite of my calculations, the mash seemed to settle around 160° by 10 minutes after mash-in. I tossed in a handful of ice cubes to try and bring it down, which seemed to work at first, but I soon found myself with a mash temp of 148°. Rather than play with it further, I decided to just roll with it and increase my mash time to a full 90 minutes. This will probably make my wort more fermentable and give me a drier finish on the final beer. We'll see.

Second fiasco came with an empty propane tank just after sparging. Not a big deal, just another delay. It really couldn't have come a better time in the process. If I'd already had a boil rolling with hops, the whole flavor profile could have been thrown off. But the beer made it into the fermenter, and the fermenter made it into the fridge (this is also the inaugural brew for my temp-controlled fridge turned fermentation chamber), so it was a good day.

German Chocolate Brown

Brewer: Yours Truly

Style: American Brown Ale

ABV: ~5.9%

IBU: ~23
Serving Type: 12 oz bottle poured into English pub glass.

Ap: Dark, dark brown and totally opaque. Half a finger of light brown head, fading to a ring at the glass and a thin film.

Ar: Intense, rich chocolate aroma. A slight malty sweetness behind it.

T: Nice chocolate flavor. There is some coconut there too, though not as much as I would have liked. Hoppy bitterness comes in at the end, balancing the chocolate nicely.

M: Medium to heavy body and moderate carbonation. Very smooth.

I: Not exactly what I set out to brew, but a nice beer nonetheless. Came out much darker than I was targeting, past what I would still call a brown. I think it must have picked up some color from the toasted coconut. In spite of that, I don't get as much coconut flavor as I would like. Brewed October 3, 2010.

My score: 3/5

Maple Wheat

Brewer: Yours Truly

Style: umm.... wheat?

ABV: ~8.8%

IBU:
Serving Type: 12 oz bottle poured into Bohemian pilsner

Ap: Orange-amber. Thin, white head quickly fades. Cloudy, but better clarity than I expected.

Ar: Maple sweet. Malty, fruity.

T: Very sweet. Maple and malty. Some definite souring, probably from age. Doesn't show the 8.8% alcohol.

M: Thin bodied, medium in carbonation. Dry finish.

I: Has not aged well. Used to have more bosy and at least a little hop character to back up the sweetness.

My score: 2/5 (probably a 3 or 4 in its heyday).

Brewed September 12, 2009, so about a little over a year and a half since brewed. Stored at room temp or a little below. I'd hoped that the higher alcohol would protect it from some of the ill effects of aging, but alas.

Mulkeytown Pale Ale

Brewer: Yours truly

Style: American Pale Ale

ABV: ~5.5%

IBU: ~28

Servig type: 12oz bottle poured into Czech Pilsner glass

Ap: Pours with one finger of offwhite head. Foam is dense, creamy, and persistent. Excellent lacing. Copper with every so slight ruby highlights. Fairly cloudy.

Ar: Hop aroma is primarily piney, some citrus. Slight biscuity character.

T: Hop character is right up front, piney and resiny. There is sweetness behind it, but the malt character is minimal.

M: Pretty middle of the road in body and carbonation. Dry finish.

I: I'm not a great fan of hoppy beers, but I can honestly say this is one of my favorite beers I've brewed. Crisp and refreshing, but with tons of taste.

My score: 5/5