Snowflakes in Hell

My Extra Special Bitter is nearly ready to be bottled/kegged. It’s been in secondary fermentation for nearly two weeks, and it’s developing a clear, amber color. I can’t think of anything to go better with a good English Ale than some fish and chips. Of course, Fish and Chips are probably a good bit less English. Apparently chips (fries) come from Belgium or France, and fried fish was brought in by Jewish immigrants. Nonetheless, Brits are passionate enough about their fish and chips that they nearly went to war over it. Trouble cooled once Iceland started giving up fishing for the fast paced world of International Finance. Now that ship has sunk, and Icelanders have gone back to fishing, so perhaps things will heat up once again.

I decided to make up a batch of Extra Special Bitter for the holidays.  It’s been quite a while since I have done any brewing, so I decided to go with an extract kit rather than doing an all grain batch. Right now I am outside with the snow, ice and rain bringing the kettle up to temperature for the boil. This will be the first time I try to use a plate chiller, so we’ll see how this goes.

UPDATE: Fermentation has started. I had a few issued with the plate chiller. In terms of cooling, it was very efficient, but if you use one, I have a few suggestions. Ideally, you’d probably want a pump. but they are hella expensive for a single use item. It can be done with gravity, but as I discovered a bit too late, one of these is a must, as the plate chiller ended up clogging with pellet hop residue. The worst part is I have one of those strainers for my kettle, but I forgot to put it on. Another option would be to just pre-filter the hot wort, being careful not to splash it and cause oxidation.

That’s apparently what they are calling Moonshining these days, and apparently Tennessee is about to make it legal.  Of course, that’s not going to get the feds off your back.  Under federal law, you can make small amounts (up to 200 gallons) per year of wine or beer for your own use, or to give away to others (you can’t sell it).  But there’s no amount of distilling that’s lawful for home use.  To do that, you need a license from the ATF and you need to pay the excise taxes on what you make.

My understanding is that if you want to commercially brew, make wine, or distill, ATF is actually very helpful at getting people set up and in compliance with the federal law.  Reading through a lot of forums on the subject several years ago I found myself thinking “This is not the ATF I knew.”

Speaking of brewing, it’s been quite some time since I’ve contributed toward my 200 gallon limit.  Pretty soon I will need to bring that down to 195 left for the year.  I’m thinking a scottish ale.

As a sometimes home brewer who primary has made ales from the British Isles, I have several authentic British pint glasses.  Authentic because they are emblazoned with a royal engraving on the glass, which certifies it one imperial pint (~20oz).  Truth be told, all these glasses are now made in Calais, France, but they are the royal standard.

Now it seems they may be in danger of becoming a thing of the past, due to the Home Office’s obsession of ridding the United Kingdom of anything that could possibly be used as a weapon.  That would be tragic, in my opinion.

Apparently neo-prohibitionist group MADD is angry at Flying Fish brewery over in New Jersey for naming one of their beers “Exit 4 American Trippel.” Apparently unaware that people in New Jersey locate other New Jerseyans through “What exit are you at,” MADD seems to feel that any association with highways and beer is entirely wrong, and promotes drinking drunk driving.  Apparently the New Jersey Turnpike Authority is worried people might think they have suddenly turned into a microbrewery, and are taking notice.

I’ve always liked Flying Fish beers, so if you’re in an area you can get it, have some this weekend.  I’m particularly going to try to track down some Exit 4 Trippel, and enjoy a few bottles out on my patio, just as a nice f**k you to MADD.  What’s next?  Calling the FAA and bitching that their name and logo promote drinking and flying?  Hang in there Flying Fish.  Don’t let the nannies win.

Hat Tip to Instapundit

A guide to which states consume the most beer.  Seems that Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Nevada drink more than most.  You’d think for people that drink so much beer, Montana would have better microbreweries.  Maybe this is my excuse to move out there.

Illinois defeats two gun control measure in as many days, and now Utah has legalized home brewing.  What’s next?  Is Texas going to pass a law allowing gay marriage?

It’s good news though.  It’s been a long time since I’ve made any beer.  I keep meaning to brew up a batch, but I usually brew out on the back patio.  I’ve decided that’s how I will celebrate it’s completion.  I’ll just have to look at it as a $5000 piece of brewing equipment.

Many people aren’t all that familiar with the adult beverage known as mead, which is a form of wine that is made from honey rather than grapes. I’m a brewer, and not much of a wine maker, but I figured I’d try my hand at making a batch of mead.

I have to declare my experiment only a partial success. Success in the sense that I have something alcoholic, that isn’t disgusting to drink, but only partial in the sense that it has a lot of autolytic notes. That’s usually a result of leaving the fermented product on the yeast cake too long, and not racking into another fermenter often enough. I certainly am guilty of getting lazy with this batch. I started this batch late last winter, racked it to secondary in late spring, put it off into a corner and kind of forgot about it until earlier this week.

Fortunately, my friend Gene tells me that autolytic notes are a feature of champaign, so I decided to actually keg the mead, and charge it with some carbonation. If the mead is sparkling, it might actually taste correct for that style. One thing is for sure, at least, it’s effective stuff. I drank a little of the leftovers, and I’m doing pretty well right about now.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a great editorial up on beer buying in Pennsylvania, for those of you who are unfamiliar with our arcane alcohol control laws:

It still makes little sense for the state to be in the liquor business, but the nearly $500 million in annual revenue generated by liquor sales and taxes is a powerful incentive to maintain the status quo.

Where does that leave consumers? Hoping for whatever customer-friendly upgrades to the state’s liquor-sale rules are possible, that’s where.

(Remember, it’s still against the law to zip over the bridge and bring back your favorite, reasonably priced tipple from New Jersey.)

Enter the Sheetz convenience-store chain, along with its years-long legal battle seeking the right to sell beer for take-out.

I am south of the Wawa/Sheetz line, but I wish Sheetz the best of luck with this case. Wawa is sure to take advantage of this as well, so a win for Sheetz is a win for everybody.

Michael Jackson, who is the beer critic of beer critics, has died as the age of 65 from Parkinson’s disease:

Jackson especially loved Belgian brews. His books “The Great Beers of Belgium” and “World Guide to Beer” introduced them to many export markets, including the United States.

By identifying beers by their flavors and styles, and by pairing them with particular foods and dishes, Jackson helped give birth to a renaissance of interest in beer and breweries worldwide that began in the 1970s, including the North American microbrewery movement.

This is to the beer community like losing Jeff Cooper was to us gunnies.  This weekend, I will enjoy a bottle of Liefmans Frambozen in his memory.  So long Michael.

Hat tip to Rustmeister.

I’m familiar with the neighborhood Dock Street Brew Pub is going into.  A former girlfriend of mine lives at 48th and Baltimore.  I will definitely pay it a visit when it opens.

Pennsylvania is home to some really fantastic breweries, from Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, to Pennsylvania Brewing Company in Pittsburgh, it’s a great state to live in, if you’re a beer lover.  I’m happy to see us adding Philadelphia Brewing Company to the family of excellent Pennsylvania brewers.

I have to congratulate the Boston Beer Company, makers of Sam Adams, for choosing to open a new brewery in Pennsylvania rather than Freetown, Massachusetts.

Bit of advice for Deval Patrick: When business is fleeing Massachusetts for Pennsylvania, man, you have a real problem.

This is very cool.   Unfortunately, it means you have to drink beer from a can, which is sacrilege.   Beer is properly drunk from a glass, unless you’re a heathen.   I suppose it would be possible to construct a robot that would throw you a bottle, and a fresh glass, but failing to catch it could get rather messy.

Summer is usually the off season for me in regards to home brewing. For one, I generally keep pretty busy doing other things I like, most of which involves being outside. For two, it’s just too friggin hot. Brewing is pretty BTU intensive when you mash your own grain. For three, I just don’t drink much beer in the summer during the week, because of the previous two reasons. I haven’t yet drank what I made this prior winter.

I’m thinking about getting one of these. It’s a plate chiller, called “The Therminator”. It would solve one of the big problems I have making beer in summer; the water coming out of the tap is too warm. Typically, in summer, my tap water is about 65 degrees, and it takes forever to chill 5 gallons of wort down with my self-made immersion chiller. In contrast, winter time tap water temperatures are typically about 50 degrees, which gets the job done much faster.

Counterflow chillers have their downsides, in that you have to work hard to keep them clean, and keep them sanitized. Immersion chillers can just be rinsed off, and that’s about it. Not so with counterflow chillers, which must be cleaned and sanitized. But being able to get my wort chilled and into the fermenter in just a few minutes would be a big help.

Sorry for the light blogging today. I had the day from hell at work, and when I got home, I had to sacrifice blogging to the beer god. After work, I decided to stop by the home brew supply store. I picked up a tower faucet to add to my kegerator. Glenn Reynolds has been blogging recently about wanting one, but you can spend a few hundred dollars at Sears, and another hundred fifty or so from the home brew supply, and build one yourself.

Now, this isn’t quite as stylish looking as the commercial kegerators you can get, but it’s far more versatile, which is important for the home brewer. If you’re just drinking beer, you’re probably buying the standard sized kegs, and you’re only using it to keep the beer cool. If you’re a home brewer, you use your kegerator for fermenting and lagering when you need more precise temperature control. When I’m using my kegerator for serving, which is just a converted deep freeze with a temperature regulator added, I can chill four Cornelius kegs at a time.

Pouring a beer is the real test. Sadly, the first glass out of my new tap was rather cloudy, because I had to take the keg out to drill the holes in the top for the tubing and anchorage. The second glass was much more clear. It’s going to be quite nice, to be able to leave my beer on tap all the time, and just mosey over and draw a pint off any time I want.

The word dregs is actually a bit of brewing terminology.  The dictionary defines it thusly:

The remnants of a liquid left in a container, together with any sediment or grounds.

After the yeast have completed primary fermentation, they settle down on the bottom, producing a thick mud.  The goal of racking to secondary or to the keg is to get your beer off this mud comprised of yeast cells, before it ruins the flavor.   The last bit of beer out of the fermenter presents a bit of a dilemma.  You can do one of two things with it:

1. Dump it, in which case you lose about a quart of beer.
2. Drink it, in which case you’ll find out the next day that yeast is a natural laxative.  Yeast are good for you otherwise, though, and have some helpful nutrients.

Tonight I’m opting to drink the dregs.  If you really wanted to be gross you could drink it after swishing up the sediment off the bottom, but I doubt most would have the stomach for that.  As it is, with a highly floctuating yeast, you can pour a fairly clear glass off of the sediment on the bottom.

I’m having to rack two ales into the kegs tonight.  The first is the Bitter Bitch American IPA that was made several weeks ago.  It’s ready to be put into the keg, carbonated, and served.  I’m also having to do Joy’s Birthday Stout, which is really just from an extract oatmeal stout kit.   I told her I’d make her a stout for her birthday, which is next weekend, but I didn’t have a whole day to make a beer from malted grain, so I had to cheat and use extract.  It’ll really need to condition for another two weeks in the secondary keg, so if she’s intent on drinking it next weekend, it’ll taste kind of rough.

After this, I think it’ll be time to try a lager.  I think I’m up for it.

We took a VIP tour of the Budweiser brewery here in St. Louis yesterday. We decided that a brief break from the convention was in order, so we took a cab ride over to the brewery. From a home brewer’s perspective, the tour isn’t all that interesting, because it’s not done in a lot of detail. But the brewery is architecturally a work of art:

This is the view from the outside. It’s beautifully landscaped all over the Anheiser-Busch plant.

Inside the old brewery, they have a hop chandelier, that’s quite nice.

Anheiser-Busch’s Mash Tuns.

Brew kettles. Forgive the orangeness of the picture, as the light wasn’t very good.

The tour wraps up in the hospitality room, where we sampled a few of their beers. As best I can tell, the VIP tour is a small group, of about 10 people, rather than the giagantic tour groups, plus you get an “Honorary Beermaster” certificate at the end, and get to sample two bottles in the nicely appointed hospitality room. But in a regular tour you get to see the same stuff. The brewery is architectural art, so if you’re ever in St. Louis, I’d recommend stopping by for the tour.

My currently fermenting “Bitter Bitch IPA” it turns out would be illegal in the State of Alabama, since it’s original gravity reading predicts it will have about 6.7% alcohol by volume.   Check this out:

The Alabama House said “no” Tuesday to a bill that would have increased the alcohol content allowed in beer sold in Alabama. Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, sponsored the bill, which he said would have allowed the sale of some imported and gourmet beers that have a higher alcohol content than the 6 percent now allowed. Jackson’s bill would have increased the allowable alcohol content to 14.9 percent. …

“I can’t see us doing something that’s going to encourage people to drink more and get drunk faster,” said Rep. DuWayne Bridges, D-Valley. Bridges said the measure would increase the problem of teenagers drinking by making more potent brew available to them. “Our children don’t need to increase their alcohol consumption,” Bridges said.

Read the whole thing.

I think Alabama is the only state in the union where home brewing is still illegal.  So you won’t find me moving there unless pigs grow wings and begin to fly.

I’m going to add a new topic called “Brewing”, because that’s my other hobby.   I don’t plan on posting about it much, but every once in a while, I will.

We gun owners are often concerned about preparedness, especially during shit hits the fan situations.  Beer making is all about preparedness and survival, because, let’s face it, life without beer isn’t really worth living is it?  So it’s good to know how to make the stuff yourself.

Beer is civilization.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at the societies that won’t touch the stuff.  I rest my case.