Singing Boys Brewing Blog

A Chicago-area brewing club, CHAOS, is hosting an autumn festival on Saturday, October 15, 4 - 8 pm, with food, bluegrass music, cider and beer.  CHAOS is a relatively new club and an interesting feature of the club is that they have a brewery space and equipment that club members can share.  This festival looks like fun. 

From the description of the event on CHAOS' Facebook page:

Come join CHAOS and Flatland Ramble in celebration of this harvest's favorite creation - Cider and seasonal homebrewed ales. Come see the band, receive a customized CHAOS tasting glass which will give you 12 free samples, enjoy some games, and taste great food like apple pie, applewood bacon wrapped hotdogs, and apple pulled pork sandwiches. We may even have bicycle pulled hayrides! Proceeds from the event go to help building our brew club, hosting more events, and making more wonderful brews for you to sample.

Please purchase tickets at this eventbrite site:
http://idesofcider.eventbrite.com/

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On Saturday afternoon, our friends Paulina, Mike, Virginia, Dane and Nichole came over to brew an American Amber Ale.  They brought their kids, who ran around our large backyard area and played pool in our basement.  The kids really enjoyed their time.  They are all pictured here, except for Faith, the youngest, who was too shy to have her picture taken at the time.  The adults pictured are Dane and Virginia. 

I gave everyone an overview of what we were going to do.  Then we tasted the five kinds of organic malt we were using: Two-Row, Munich, Wheat, Caramel 20L, and Caramel 60L.  Then onto grinding and mashing. 

Virginia, Nichole and Paulina all brought knitting!  Virginia brought some oven-potatoes and apple pie, and Paulina shared some banana bread she had baked.  Here is a picture of Paulina knitting, next to the brew kettle, while Nancy (my spouse) visits with Mike (Paulina's spouse). 

We did some tasting, too, starting with Sparkling Cider, then an English Mild, an English Pale Ale, an American IPA, a Cream Stout, and finally a Raspberry Mead.  We talked a little about each style, focusing on aroma, flavor and a little history. 

The Amber is fermenting away in the basement, at 62 degrees.  I'll post the recipe and other info in The Beers section later. 

This was a follow-up to a gathering a few weeks ago, when Paulina hosted all of us over at their home for a day of jam making and canning, which was new to me. 

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We grew hops for the first time in 2011 - for more info, scroll down the blog for some other hops-growing related posts this summer.  Today, Robert (my youngest son) and I harvested the final crop for this year.  This is a picture of Rob picking cones off one of the bines we cut down. 

The bines grew up the side of our home, climbing twine that we strung from the hop hills to second story windows.  Here is a picture of some of the cut-down bines. 

The hops are drying now, and when dried, we'll freeze them.  They are Cascades, often used in American-style pale aes or ipas.  We'll use them to dry hop and as late additions in the boil, meaning we'll take advantage of their freshness by using them for flavor and aroma, rather than bitterness.  Stay tuned . . .

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One of my friends from a brewing discussion group, www.homebrewtalk.com,  was recognized as the American Homebrewers Association's Brewer of the Week!  Lorena Evans is a Yooper, which means she lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and a Hophead, which means she loves hoppy American-style ales. You can read the interview and see pictures here. 

You'll notice that her setup is more substantial and engineered than mine.  She uses an electric system, where the water, mash and wort are heated with electric heating elements, not propane flames, and circulated with pumps that move the hot liquids.   I take a more rustic approach - I sometimes joke that a half-gallon pitcher is my most important brewing tool. 

Some of you may be surprised to see a woman who homebrews.  While women are definitely in the minority in the homebrewing and professional brewing communities, it's not that unusual.  In my local homebrew club, for example, there have been two or three women at every meeting I've attended.  One of my mead-making guides is a woman mazer (mead-maker) from Austin, Texas. 

Before the industrialization of brewing, it was a household or farming task, like gardening, canning, bread baking, and cooking.  Both men and women did it.  After industrialization, it became a man's vocation, done in factories. 

Now, with mass marketing, beer is seen as a 'guy' thing - the product is sold with boobs and male-oriented humor, and beer is now associated in our culture with manliness.  But handmade beer is really about self-sufficiency, artisanal skill, doing things more simply and by hand, and building community with your family and friends.  Those are traits that both women and men can claim. 

For example, in addition to beer and wine making, Lorena and her husband, Bob, also garden, grow their own hops, and make handmade cheese and soap.   If you're interested in reading more about brewing and gender, take a look at the book Fermenting Revolution (How to Drink Beer and Save the World).   If you'd like to borrow my copy, let me know. 

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We picked the first harvest from our organically-grown Cascade hop crop!  General wisdom is that hop plants take three years to really establish themselves, but I'm very pleased with this crop.  With this first harvest, I picked 7 ounces of hops (weighed before drying).  I estimate that there are at least three times as many cones still on the bines, maturing.  Here are the very fragrant cones:

You can see that some of them are nice and large, and my hands smelled lovely afterwards:

We planted three hills of Cascade rhizomes and they all did great.  We also planted two hills of Willamette, which came up and grew, but didn't thrive.  Looking at the bines and leaves (no cones developed), you would think that they weren't watered enough, but I couldn't have watered them much more than I did.  I'm hoping they put all their energy into developing their root crown underground in preparation for next year!  Here's a photo of the Cascade bines growing along the west side of our home:

After picking, I divided the hop cones into three brown paper bags and put them in a warm and dark upstairs closet, to dry.  In a couple of days, after they have dried, I'll put them in freezer bags and freeze them for later use. 

These hops were grown from rhizomes we bought from Glen Fuller at Rising Sun Farms http://www.coloradoorganichops.com in Colorado.  Glen is an organic farmer who recently began growing and selling hops.  I've used Glen’s hops (Cascades, actually) in previous beers, including an IPA we are currently drinking http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/Short-Nights-IPA.html

If you are a homebrewer and would like more information on growing hops and other brewing herbs, check out the Homebrewers Garden, its great fun to read and full of good information. 

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This spring, we planted an organic herb garden and its done well.  I was tending to it this morning and noticed the lavender's beautiful aroma - for such tiny little leaves, the lavender is quite fragrant.   

We also have four basil plants in the herb garden, which are thriving, too. 

I filled a Ball jar with the lavender and basil leaves, a total of 2 ounces of herbs.  Then I filled the jar with vodka and sealed it.  It will sit for a few weeks as the lavender and basil infuse the vodka.  I'll add the tincture to the beer while bottling to create a Lavender and Basil Ale.  The base beer will probably be a cream ale, a light-colored, -flavored, and -bodied ale. I'll only use bittering hops, to keep the hop aroma and flavoring down, so that the lavender and basil flavor and aroma can be enhanced. 

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Am doing an experimental 2.5 gallon batch of Pomegranate-Apple Cider, with 1/2 gallon of pomegranate juice and 2 gallons of apple juice.  No preservatives, of course, and I added pectic enzyme to help make the final cider clear or non-hazy.  Its being fermented with Nottingham ale yeast. 

This is a picture of the cider fermenting away in the glass carboy, which is inside  a plastic tub with water and a frozen juice bottle, to keep the fermentatin temperature around my target of 62 F.

The piece on top of the carboy is an airlock, which allows CO2 to escape, but no air or contaminants to get in.  The yeast produce alcohol and CO2 as it eats up the cider sugars. 

Should have a report back on how this experiment turns out in a couple of weeks. 

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Ken Burns' latest film is 'Prohibition' and is scheduled to air on PBS stations October 2, 3 and 4, 2011. 

Sounds like a great opportunity for a beer and cider tasting at our home!  If you're interested, let me know.  We could start with some snacks, have a tasting of three or four different beer or cider styles, then settle back and watch the film. 

You can watch a 30 minute preview of the film with interviews with the directors at http://video.pbs.org/video/2022470300  or a three-minute trailer at http://video.pbs.org/video/1863512210

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In the past few months, I've joined the Brewers of South Suburbia (BOSS), a very interesting group that has monthly meetings and tastings, special events, brewing projects, and an active Google Groups email listserv.  Visit the BOSS website at www.bossbeer.org, where you can see the monthly newsletter.  You should also check out the link there to a daily aggregate of beer-related news, very interesting.   

We met on Friday night July 8th  -  Rick (above) hosted us at his home in Frankfort. 

This photo (above) is proof that BOSS meetings aren't entirely man-centric.  We're a little ways from gender equity but there are always some brave women at our meetings, venturing into what can be a man-dominated avocation.  Of course, before industrialization, beer-making was a household task and women were more likely to be brewers than men. 

Also, in this photo, are two pitchers of beer brewed by our host, Rick.  The lighter colored pitcher holds a Belgian-style blonde which I thought was outstanding.  Other homebrews brought by members that I enjoyed at the meeting were a pale ale, a maibock lager, a porter, and a black india pale ale.    Especially noteworthy for me was a Scottish ale made with just a little bit of smoked malt that was just perfectly balanced and delicious. 

Two first-time visitors (above) to the BOSS meeting , one of whom has recently completed a course of study leading to a career as a professional brewer.  He had recently been to Cologne, Germany, which was fortunate because we were tasting beers named for that region (more about that below). 

Two old (I mean long-time) members enjoying the fellowship time before the business and tasting portion of the meeting.

Rick prepared a great meal for the group!

BOSS's 2011-12 Chair, Mark, leading the business portion of the meeting  -  people shared some of their recent visits to breweries, upcoming events, and other resources. 

Some senior members settling into the comfy chairs in preparation for the tasting portion of the meeting.

Steve, one of a number of certified beer judges in BOSS, led the group in exploring Kolsch-style beers during the tasting portion of the meeting.  While there were no homebrewed examples at this meeting, we tried beers from breweries in Cologne, Germany as well as local breweries, such as Goose Island's Summertime, Metropolitan's Krankshaft and an example from New Hollander.  A very interesting example was a fresh growler from a local brew pub,  Rock Bottom in Orland Park. 

Kolsch is an ale, but is also considered a "light hybrid", with similarities to some lagers.  It's typically a light, easy-to-drink beer with low to moderate malt and hop flavors.  A great summertime beer.  If you'd like to read the guidelines for the style, follow this link http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style06.php#1c

The gathering was enhanced by the presence of Rick's dog, who seemed to enjoy having all these strange people in his home. 

Guests are welcome at these gatherings, if you're interested in joining me at a meeting, or would like more info, let me know via the comments below or send an email.  The tasting schedule for upcoming meetings in 2011 and the first half of 2012 includes mead, specialty/experimental/historical beers, hefeweizen, dark lagers, Belgian strong ales, stouts, Scottish and Irish ales, and maibock. 

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Friday evening I was waiting for family and some visiting friends from Iowa on west Randolph and stopped by the Haymarket Pub and Brewery http://www.haymarketbrewing.com/ . 

I had about an hour to wait and enjoyed three of their beers.  Because I was having dinner later, I didn't sample their kitchen's menu, although it looked good with a number of homemade sausage options.  I enjoyed the pub experience and was impressed with the beers - will definitely be going back. 

The brewer is Pete Crowley, who brews many Belgian-inspired beers, including "The Saison Also Rises", a saison ale that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Made with Pilsner malts, its both complex and easy to drink.  I was also taken with the floral aroma and flavor of the hops.  Hops can lend a variety of flavors and aromas to a beer - spicy, citrus, earthy - in addition to adding bitterness, and the hops in this saison added a very pleasant floral, almost lavender, profile to the beer. 

Here are a couple of links for more information about Saison as a beer style and its history http://belgianstyle.com/mmguide//style/saison.html  and http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2010/10/08/saison-beer-belgian-farmhouse-ale-recipes/

Haymarket had eight of their own beers on tap, as well as a number of 'guest' taps for other craft brewers.  You can see the brewhouse from the pub.  I suggest taking advantage of their 4 ounce tasting portions - a great way to compare their beers before deciding on which to order in the 12 or 16 ounce options. 

A highlight of my visit was when one of the waitstaff (two of whom were exceptionally helpful and friendly) offered me a taste of a new, just kegged IPA  - I think she said it was going to be called 'Rebellion IPA' - this was the first tapping of this beer at Haymarket.  IPAs, because of their emphasis on hop aroma and flavor, are especially good fresh - the hop aroma especially can dissipate rather quickly. 

This was a remarkable beer.  I could identify  Cascade and Centennial hops, and despite the bitterness, this beer gave an overall impression of balance.  Not a 'slap you in the face with hops' beer, but thoroughly enjoyable.  This is my favorite type of American style IPA - the freshness of the hops singing  through with just the right amount of malt balance.  And getting to try it during its initial tapping was a real bonus. 

Haymarket is located at the corner of Halsted and Randolph. 

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