Singing Boys Brewing Blog

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My oldest son, Hugh, was home for the summer for the first time in three years.  He went to school in Chicago, so he wasn't distant, but the last two summers he's been in Turkey, learning Turkish and interning at the US Embassy.  In the spring, he graduated and now, in ten days, he will be leaving for graduate school at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland.  Its been great having him around. 

 

Hugh has enjoyed brewing for a number of years and this spring, as we were looking forward to the summer, he suggested that we might brew more this summer than we typically do - I usually average about one brew day a month.  We came to call this intentionally more intensive plan "Hugh's Summer of Brewing." 

We're nearly done - the only thing left to do is bottle a Belgian Golden Strong.  We didn't get to every beer on his list, but we got through quite a few of them:

Witbier -

For his graduation party, it all got drunk in one day.  Light, refreshing, made with coriander, bitter orange peel, and sweet tangerine peels.  

Russian Imperial Stout for a barrel project -

Our friend Terry invited us over to brew a double batch of a Russian Imperial Stout for a barrel project, great fun to brew on a bigger, semi-automated system compared to our rustic, simple approach.  Our batches got added into a 53 gallon bourbon barrel a month ago or so and should be ready to enjoy when Hugh returns from Scotland.

Midnattssol IPA -

An American style IPA, featuring organic Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo and Summit hops. Brought some of this up to our friends Lorena and Bob's cottage for a brewers gathering in July and folks drank up all we brought.   Nancy loves this beer - the last batch of this I brewed won a silver medal at the 2013 Door County Beer Festival.  

Russian Imperial Stout -

We brewed another batch of the Russian Imperial Stout, using the built-up yeast cake from the IPA and the same recipe (that Bill Goetz and I devised, based on Jamil Zanisheff's recipe) but not barrel aged.  Even though it hasn't been aged at all, especially for such a big beer, its delightful.  Roasty, hoppy, bitter, coffee, chocolate, caramel and toffee flavors all meld into a very enjoyable beer.  

Cherub Nectar Belgian Golden Strong -

Its ready to bottle now, so Hugh might be able to enjoy a glass of it before he leaves.  This is our second batch making this recipe, the first batch won a gold medal at the 2013 Door County Beer Festival and took the Second Best of Show prize.  A strong, 10% beer that is dry, pale and very drinkable, with some enjoyable Belgian-y esters and spice flavors.  

Revenge of the Kiwi Bird APA -

An American-style pale ale made with a New Zealand hop, Nelson Sauvin.  The Nelson gives it more of a tropical aroma and flavor than traditional American hops, which lend more citrus notes.  This is the third batch of this recipe I've made, a previous batch won a gold medal at the 2013 Chicago Winterbrew Festival.  We're currently drinking this out of a keg, but also have some bottles of it put away.

In addition to this beers that we brewed this summer, we also bottled two batches of beers that we had previously brewed for long-term barrel aging projects:

Thor's Hammer -

A big, imperial porter that was aged in a bourbon barrel (the same barrel that now has the Russian Imperial Stout in it).  Chocolate, bourbon, and vanilla flavors make this a really enjoyable, big beer.  

Pointon's Feet -

An Old Ale that was barrel soured - a little of this goes a long way, but I enjoy it with food or at dinner, I think it pairs nicely that way.  We'll let it age for a while and see how it develops.  

We also made and bottled two batches of red wines, Coastal Red and Mezza Luna, both of which are blended varietals, one is oaked and the other isn't.  

Maybe, just maybe, we'll brew one more batch, our version of the White House Honey Ale, but I think Hugh's Summer of Brewing is pretty much done.  We've never brewed this many beers in this short of time, it was great fun.  

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Clarissa from Grace Seeds Ministry asked me to do a brief writeup on food pairings, after we hosted a beer and cheese pairing event for Mt. Zion's Share the Harvest gardens.  

Sometimes, unfortunately, food is just fuel.  At those times, when our lives get busy, cooking seems a chore and we just eat because, well, we have to.  But, I find it helps when I can step back and remember that food adds enjoyment to our lives - its the lubricant for social interaction, it can delight our senses, and build community and family.

One of the ways to enhance our enjoyment of food, to remember that its more than just fuel, is to spend some time pairing food with beer.  For me, paying a bit of attention to my food and my beer and how they work together takes our culinary life from bland to vibrant, boring to interesting.  It can spice things up and make you want to pay attention to what's happening on your palate.  

Eighty percent of the beer purchased in this country falls into one style category, and it is the least flavorful and most bland of all categories - Light American Lager.  This is the Bud/Miller/Coors category and they are all very similar.  Any preference for one over the other is an invented, marketing-driven preference, not related to actual flavor differences.  In blind tastings, very few can distinguish between these beers, which all place a premium on lightness of aroma and flavor. 

The beers we are talking about here are different than those.  We're talking real beer - the wide, amazing diversity of beer styles with real and distinct flavors, aromas, and character.  The world of beer is much more diverse than wines, getting to know a few beer styles pays off in depth of enjoyment of flavors - and the ways beer can enhance the enjoyment of our meals. 

As an example, I'll go through the five beer and cheese pairings we did at the tasting:

Revenge of the Kiwi Pale Ale (handmade by me) paired with Spanish Manchego:  This beer has a medium bitterness balanced with bready maltiness, neither overwhelming the other. A prominant mango and tropical fruit aroma hits your nose first and then is followed through in the flavor.  The cheese is made from goat's milk with a little funky-ness, that the hop bitterness of the beer cuts through.

Pipeworks Brewing Company's  Budapest Gambit paired with 9 year old Wisconsin Cheddar:  An Imperial Witbier, this beer is a strong, light colored Belgian-style beer brewed with hibiscus and ginger. There are layers of spice flavors in this beer, complex and powerful, peppery.  The cheddar provided a somewhat plain, simple canvas on which to enjoy the unruly, riotous flavor painting of the beer.

American Stout (handmade by my friend Jim Todd) paired with French Brie:  Jim's inky dark beer combines an easy drinkability with layers of roasted coffee and chocolate flavors, balanced with medium bitterness.  The creaminess and richness of the brie complimented the chocolate coffee flavor of the beer, much like a the dark roast espresso and cream of a cappucino. 

Spiteful Brewing's Dibs are for Dummies paired with Italian Blue Cheese:  This beer is an English-style Barleywine, strong and malty, with just barely enough bitterness to balance the sweetness.  Complex flavors abound in the beer, which was redolent of plums, raisins, caramel, sherry, and bread -  a great foil for the strong earthy flavors of the blue cheese.  Like two flavor heavyweights punching it out.

Lake Effect Brewing's Session Brett Ale paired with Argentinian Parmesan:  This pale gold beer relies on a "wild" yeast, brettomyces, to ferment.  This lends it a strong tart, somewhat sour flavor, with little to no malt and hop flavors.  The saltiness and fattiness of the parmesan, which can be overwhelming when eaten by itself, is cut through by the tartness of the beer, complimenting each other.

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Our friends Brandon and Emily Banbury, with their partners Chris Schiller and Carrie Schade, opened a new brewery, Hailstorm, got all the required licenses secured on Thursday and we were there on Friday night for an after dinner drink. 

Beer culture is alive and well there, and we ran into a number of friends, too, including Sandy and Scott Pointon and Mike Bardusk (Grace was there too, but she escaped having her photo taken).

Nancy enjoyed the Imperial IPA and I had the Pale Ale, then we shared a glass of their Russian Imperial Stout. 

Kevin Fennessy was there, he tried a sampler of all five of the beers on tap, and so was Tristan Shaw.  Karen Shaw was there too, but my photo of her and Nancy turned out poorly and they would kill me if I posted it.

Hailstorm is self-distributing its beer to other local bars and its tap room is open until 8 pm.  The beers that were available last night were the Russian imperial stout, imperial IPA, pale ale, red ale, and a blonde ale.

A big crowd for their first Friday night.  Check them out at their website http://hailstormbrewing.com/index.html or on Facebook.  Or let me know when you want to meet up at their taproom! 

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I was in Indianapolis for a week-long continuing education class at Indiana University and Nancy decided to come with me and visit a few people she knew there, do some work on her book, and spend a little time away from home and church.  It was great having her with me, made the trip much less onerous. 

 One evening we spent at Brugge Brasserie where Nancy enjoyed a hoppy Pale Ale (above).  I had a Belgian Stout which I thought was outstanding.  Brugge is a small nano brewery and restaurant - the food was outstanding.  We had a great chacuterie plate and mussels Provencal.  Very small place with just a few tables and there were lots of families with small children there, very fun.  Highly recommended!

 One evening, before dinner, we stopped by Sun King's tasting room - free tastings of three of their regular offerings and three special or seasonal offerings.  Plus a tour of the brewery with a couple of other folks (above).  Sun King keeps its production small enough that it can self-distribute in Indiana, so their beer is not available here in Illinois.  Really enjoyed this - highly recommended, too!

Our final beer-related report is from the Rathskeller in downtown Indianapolis.  It is in a very character-full old building and features a good selection of German beers and German food.  We started in the bar, which I quite liked.  It is a long hall, tall, with windows high above, not unlike a chapel.  Many dead animal heads on the wall. 

I enjoyed a Warsteiner Isenbeck, a dark lager made with roasted malts, in the bar.  For dinner, I had schnitzel accompanied by a Spaten Optimator, a nice commercial example of Doppelbock.  Again, highly recommended.

The guy in the photo with Nancy is Patrick, a fellow student in my class who is our oldest son's age and just graduated from St. Ambrose College.  A fun evening. 

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Last night, a group of about a dozen brewers emptied a barrel of the Tripel we had aged and soured for four months.  All of the brewers were from the our homebrewing club, the Brewers of South Suburbia (www.bossbeer.org) 

Dave Persenaire organized this barrel project and hosted it in his basement.  He said this was the fifth beer he had run through this barrel - the first had not been soured, but each batch afterwards had been.  As we were emptying the barrel, the appealing aroma of brett was apparent. 

When we peered into the hole of the barrel with a flashlight, a big pellicle with bluish mold on top was visible floating on top of the beer.

A Tripel is a Belgian style beer, light in color and body, high alcohol, but dry and easy to drink, with some spice and fruit flavor from the yeast.  The sample we tried as we emptied the barrel had a nice, balanced sourness to it, with the character, flavor and qualities of the Tripel still apparent.  Dave shared a bottle of the same beer aged in the same barrel but bottled a year ago and it was overwhelmingly soured - it had changed remarkably in a year. 

I brewed this batch back in early May with another club member, Robert Donahue and we added it to the barrel in mid June.  This is a big beer, with an original gravity of around 1.092, made with Pilsner malt, some wheat malt, table sugar, Mt. Rainier hops, and Abbey Ale yeast.  For such a big beer, it fermented quite dry, 1.008 measured as we took it out of the barrel. 

This week, I need to brew for another barrel project, this one I'm organizing with a barrel from Jim Beam/Goose Island - an Imperial Robust Porter.

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I made a quick trip to Detroit this weekend to take the Beer Judge Certification Program's Tasting Exam.  This is the second time I've taken the exam - I took the exam for the first time in July 2012 and received a score of 76 which, together with experience points, qualifies me for the rank of Certified Judge.  I've been judging in competitions since January 2013 and thought that, with that practice, I might be able to add a few points to my score.  We'll see. 

Fred Bonjour organized the exam - thanks, Fred!  The proctors (highly ranked judges who also took the exam) stayed afterwards to visit with us and go through their evaluations of the beers.  For five of the six beers, I was within 2 points (on a 50 point scale) of them for the overall score, which I thought was very good. On the sixth beer, the proctors had a significant divergence on their scores and I was within one point of one them but 8 points away from the other. 

Here's a rundown of the six beers we tasted and evaluated:

Scottish 70 Shilling - I gave this a 21, and it was a challenging beer to score.  It had the clear beginnings of a sourness, early signs of an infection that was developing but had not completely taken over the beer yet.  The infection had also thinned the beer's mouthfeel and diminished the malty character of the beer. 

Octoberfest - I gave this a 35, it was a pleasant beer with no major flaws but lacked some of the complexity that marks the best examples of this style.  It turns out that Fred had served us a commercial beer - Sam Adams Octoberfest.

Northern English Brown - Afterwards, Fred told us this was a blend of various Northern Browns from a competition.  The result was a mediocre version of the style.  I gave it a 27 (the proctors liked it a little better and gave it a 29).  I also thought it had a touch of astringency, perhaps from sparging techniques or overuse of roasted grain. 

Belgian Golden Strong - a thoroughly unenjoyable homebrewed example that missed the style in almost everyway possible except for the high alcohol.  I gave it a 20.  It was murky, flat, heavy/thick in the mouthfeel and cloyingly sweet.  The hallmark of the style is its dryness and drinkability.  In my comments, I was positive with the brewer, telling them (truthfully) that this style is remarkable challenging to make - combining a high gravity, high alcohol, dryness and drinkability.  That's one challenge sometimes for judges - being respectful and helpful to the brewer when something has gone terribly wrong.

American IPA - A delightful beer that I scored a 40.  Fred combined/blended competition beers for this, and it worked in part because the hop complexity was enjoyable.  This beer had mango, citrus and tropical fruit aromas and flavors, backed by just enough malt. 

English Barleywine - Another homebrewed, enjoyable beer that I gave a 40.  Thick, malty, caramelly with a complex mix of dark and pit fruit flavors, derived from the yeast and dark malts.  Afterwards, in talking with another exam taker who did not like the beer and gave it a much lower score, it was apparent that he was only familiar with the American style of Barleywine, which is different than the English version.  The proctors agreed with me, thankfully. 

The exam was not full, with nine of us out of a maximum of 12.  Five of the examinees were from a class that Fred organized and were taking the test for the first time.  The other four of us were repeat exam takers, looking to either pass or increase our score. 

The exam organizer will send in our group's evaluation sheets with the proctors' sheets and another group of highly-ranked judges will grade them.  The last time, I received pages and pages of very helpful comments - it was obvious the graders had spent a lot of time with the exam.  Last time, it took six months to receive my score back.

About my score, I am hopeful that I did better this time, but would not say that I am optimistic and would not be surprised if I did not.  There is an element of randomness in the entire process of judging beer and in the examination of that process.  I'm comfortable with that.  In any case, I benefited from the evaluation of my first exam, and am certain that I will be a better judge because of this experience.  I know I already benefited from our post-exam conversations with the proctors. 

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I harvested our 2013 hops crop today.  This is our third year of growing hops, with three hops hills, all with the Cascade variety of hop, a typically American hop with citrus aroma and flavors.  Here is a photo of the hop bines looking down from our second-story window:

The bines climb twine each summer that I string from an anchor near the hill to a stay on the second story window. 

I was planning on having a hop-picking party on the day we brewed with them - that's called wet hopping, because usually hops are dried for storage before brewers use them.  But, we are leaving town for ten days and the hops would not have lasted another couple of weeks, they needed to be picked. 

You can see some brown spots on the cones (which is good, as long as there is not too much brown), the cones were papery to the touch, and you could see and smell the lupilin in the hops. I ended up putting the picked hops in freezer bags and we'll do a group brew day with them in three weeks. 

Here's the complicated method I use to take the bines down:

This how the bines looked after being cut down:

I find hop leaves to be exceptionally irritating to my skin - they feel a little like velcro - so wore a long sleeve shirt and my fancy brewing gloves:

This is a shot of an open cone and you can see the golden yellow spots at the center - that is the luplin.  It includes resins and essential oils that convey the hop bitterness, flavor and aroma. 

I filled a large mixing bowl with hop cones, then transferred them to heavy duty freezer bags for their brief three week visit to the freezer.  Our total harvest was 1 lb 2 ounces. 

I'll put together an American Pale Ale recipe using these fresh, wet hops for a group brew day.  One challenge, I'm told, using wet hops is that a grassy flavor is sometimes imparted to the beer.  We'll combat that in two ways.  First, in the recipe formulation, we'll emphasize late hopping, reducing the amount of time the hops are boiled.  Secondly, as we add the hops to the boiling wort, we'll purposefully tear the hops apart a little, exposing as much of the luplin as possible to the wort, as quickly as possible. 

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Our Cascade hops are doing well this year.  This is a photo from our second-floor bedroom window - the vines run up twine from our window to the hop hills below. 

There are two hills, each with multiple vines, running up the twine.  I'm thinking that when they are ready to be picked, we might have folks over for a group brew day.  We'll cut the twine down from the window and folks can pick all the cones.  Then we'd brew a beer with them, the same day.  The hops would go straight from the vine to the brew kettle.  This is called wet hopping, when you use the fresh hops, without drying and preserving them. 

This would be a bit of a mystery beer, because we don't know the level of bitterness, or flavor or aroma, that the hops will give off.  Hops that you buy have been tested for their alpha acid content, so you can craft recipes with some exactness.  That won't be the case with these wet hops.

Maybe an American Pale Ale would be a good base style, throwing in some of the hops into the boil kettle early in the boil for bitterness, then later for flavor and aroma.  We'd save some of the hops to throw in after fermentation is done, to add more aroma. 

If you have other ideas for a fun, wet-hop group day, let me know in the comments.  And you've like to join us, drop me a line. 

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