Brown Ale

I bottled my brown ale today and took a warm, uncarbonated taste. MMMMM. It's going to be good - thank God. I've had too many misfires, and it's about time one went right. The beers will condition for about a month before they are served, and I think they'll be fantastic. The color was a nice deep brown but very clear after two weeks in the secondary fermenter. I'm still getting used to the giant kettle I have, which steams off a lot of water during the boil. I need to up the boil size to 6.5 gallons to make sure I get a nice 5 gallon batch. This one turned out at 4.5 gallons and made only 45 bottles. Still, that was a good thing because the beer ended up a touch stronger as a result.

Sierra Nevada

I stumbled across this great Q&A from Sam Calagione - the founder of Dogfish Head - with one of the founders of Sierra Nevada, Ken Grossman. I think the most interesting part is the similarities between the stories of these startup microbrews. They used second-hand or hand-built equipment, had little sense of the market and mainly went off a deep love of the product.

They also received a lot of help from other breweries. In no other business that I can think of do the competitors help one another in the way that microbreweries do. Grossman got yeast from other commercial breweries around San Francisco in the early days and Coors even was willing to sell him malted barley from its own stash. Today, the pathway for a microbrewery is much more difficult and easier. More people drink and seek out craft beer, but many more people are offering it as well.

In Detroit, there's an emerging brewing district off of Cass. With the impending arrival of a microbrewery near the Motor City Brewing Works and Traffic Jam, the potential to market the area as a destination has improved. Sadly, that area is where I had hoped to put my pie-in-the-sky green microbrewery. Opportunity lost, or delayed.

Brown Ale

I racked my new brown ale to the secondary fermenter and got a 1.020 gravity reading. Ugh. I am still not getting the kind of attenuation I want. I'm going to try to aerate the beer more the next time I do it and get a vigorous yeast starter going. The beer still should have a about 5.1 percent alcohol, which is strong enough to be fairly potent, but I was hoping for closer to 6 percent. It will sit in the secondary for at least two weeks and then I'll bottle it. I'd like it to be in the bottle for three weeks before serving it.

Real green beer

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is the most interesting brewery in America. Best known for its India Pale Ales, the 60, 90 and 120 minute IPAs, named for the constant hop infusion over that amount of time, the brewery is really a playground for owner Sam Calagione. He makes wild beers that test the threshold of ``beer,'' including this one: Verdi Verdi Good. I think it's safe to say it didn't taste good, but it really is a green beer. The brewery makes Midas Touch, a strong golden ale with saffron that was based on a chemical analysis of the residue taken from a cup found in King Midas' tomb. Calagione started his brewery after making only about 10 homebrews. I love his story. This New Yorker story is amazing and traces his history.

Amber ale with three hop combinations.

I made a new beer, and I think it's going to be good. Here is the story:
6 pounds amber liquid malt extract. 1 pound briess sparkling amber dry malt extract. 1 ounce U.S. Goldings hops 60-minute boil. One ounce Liberty hops, 45-minute boil, and 1 ounce Willamette hops for 15 minutes. One cup of brown sugar. Original gravity is 1.060. Yeast is Danstar Windsor Ale yeast. Alternative is Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale yeast in a smack pack. Going to try to ferment at a cool temperature to limit esther creation.

At the same time I bought a sixer of Bell's Amber and I am trying to harvest the yeast. They make some good beer.

Homebrewing boom

In the past two months, I found out that three good friends have begun making their own beer. I had a chance to try an IPA my buddy Mike made at a Super Bowl party and I was really impressed. I'm not a big hop person, but it was a very smooth beer, and I had a twinge of jealousy when I drank it that I didn't make it! My beers of late haven't turned out how I have planned and that's a really a set back because I don't like to finish them off with the same gusto, leaving me undersupplied for bottles.

I think my enthusiasm for making beer, and the early good results I had, encouraged some of them to get into it. Though, I really don't know for sure what motivated them. After the equipment purchase, it's a really good deal. You can make two cases of quality beer for $30 or less. Eventually, I probably will get or make equipment to make all-grain beers. The problem I am running into is that I don't drink enough to justify all the beer making and some of my more recent batches aren't that great, so I don't want to give them away. I will plow through the bottles eventually.

I bottled the golden ale I made last weekend and was disappointed to find the final gravity was around 1.022, way above the intended range, meaning the beer is sweeter and lower in alcohol than I intended. I tasted the beer, pre-bottled, and found it to be pretty solid. Certainly, I should be able to drink it. It's also a nice light color and I left it in the fermenter for more than three weeks, so it cleared out well. I'm hoping the wheat I used will help it with head creation. I have had the best luck brewing with English ale yeasts. They produce fruitier flavors in the beer, but the beer tastes good and I am getting good attenuation - or alcohol creation.

Brewed in Style

A shout out to Paul Koeller, who sent me his book ``Brewed in Style,'' the book about the G. Heileman brewing company. I started reading it struck me how much work it was to make lagers in the 1800s. They have to carve ice out of the river and stick it in caves to keep the temperature low enough. They had to really love beer.