Dogfish Head Bitches Brew

This beer was brewed for the 40th anniversary of Bitches Brew, an album by Miles Davis that was considered groundbreaking, as Miles Davis' first gold record, one of the first albums to use complicated studio recording techniques, and because of the unusual instrumentation the album contained. The owner of Dogfish said that he made this beer because of the parallels he wanted to create with his own business plan, something radically different that could change how beer was made.

The aroma is actually kind of faint considering how dark the beer is. I'm used to a strong roasted quality that's fairly overwhelming in any type of stout or porter. There is a definite roasted malt quality to it, with an underlying sweetness of caramel and toffee. There might be a touch of grassy hops to it, but not much at all.

The beer pours a dark, black color, almost completely opaque. It has a quarter finger coating of pillowy foam that's deep tan. The foam dissipated slowly, leaving a solid coating of lacing on the glass.

The taste is smooth and velvety, with a strong roasted quality. It's somewhat like chocolate and coffee, but there isn't much bitterness to it. I'd say it's a little creamy. Since Dogfish recommends that the beer be consumed cool, not cold, I decided to let it warm up and see what changed if anything. If anything, I felt that the creamy quality of it came out more. The flavors also seemed to get more robust, with the roast and bitterness building up in the mouth.

In the mouth the beer was surprisingly light. There were tiny bubbles, with a decent but not overwhelming level of carbonation. Again the beer felt extremely smooth, and left a bit of sticky coating in the mouth. There was no warmth to it either, a little unexpected since it's 9% ABV.

I'd say this beer is overwhelmingly, possibly even dangerously drinkable. Considering how strong it is I don't think I'd have any problems putting away entirely too many glasses of this brew before I realized what had happened. I really did enjoy drinking it, but it certainly was not what I had expected. Considering that it's supposed to be mostly an imperial stout, I'd say it was too easy to drink. I can definitely say that the beer needed to warm up to be appreciated fully, and to actually get the imperial flavors to come out. Still it's not the strongest imperial stout I've had, but it does stand on it's own. I don't think it's trying to be the ultimate explosion of roast flavor and bitterness, but rather a strong, good tasting beer.

- Adam

Flying Dog Dogtoberfest

I want to start out this blog post by saying I don't like Oktoberfest beers all that much. However, it is Oktoberfest season, so I figured I'd give some a shot.

The beer poured a reddish copper color, darker than I expected, with a 1 finger nearly white head with some rocky foam. The head dissipated pretty quickly, leaving only a light dusting on top. The beer was very clear though, and obviously filtered since there was no yeast in the bottle.

The smell was very heavily malt dominated. I'd describe it as sweet, grainy, a little bready. It's actually reminiscent of unfermented wort before the hops are added. There doesn't seem to be any hop quality to the smell at all.

The taste initially is grainy, a little sweet, and a little nutty. It's actually kind of interesting. It's very clean, with the qualities expected of a lager beer. There's a bit of mild bitterness in the back, just enough to somewhat balance the beer out.

In the mouth the beer feels medium-light bodied, with a decent but low level of carbonation. It leaves a thick coating on the mouth, almost a little slimy. It's not as unpleasant as that sounds but not particularly enjoyable.

Overall, I thought the beer was OK. Not great, not really anything special, but it didn't taste bad. It's nice and light for sure, but I still felt it was just too sweet overall to want to have many. Like all the Oktoberfest beers I've had before, it's just not balanced the way I'd like. Considering it seems like the beer is made mostly for drinkability, it still doesn't do it for me.

- Adam

Old Peculier Clone - One Year Later

It's fairly hard to believe that I've been brewing for over a year. I brewed my first solo batch in August of last year, the first week that Julia moved into our condo. It was actually the first thing I did here, we didn't even have any furniture yet. My first batch here was a clone of Old Peculier from Austin Homebrew Supply. With pretty much every batch I've done here, I've put a bottle aside to see how it stands up a year after it was made. This was the first batch for the time to run out on, and I was definitely anxious to see what had happened.

The initial smell of the beer was sweet and syrupy. It reminded me of the fact that it was made with a container of Lyle's Golden Syrup, a sugar from the UK. I also noted a bit of fruity smell and some phenolic quality, probably from a warm fermentation since this was before I had any sort of temperature control in place. I didn't detect any hop presence in the aroma.

The appearance of the beer was a reddish brown, very clear after a year of settling. It had about a half finger off white head. The head dissipated fairly quickly though, leaving only a dusting on top.

The taste initially had a caramel sweetness to it. Behind that I was immediately hit with some stale oxidation from sitting in the bottle so long. I guess I wasn't as careful as I could have been to keep post fermentation oxygen out of the beer. I thought I detected a little bit of chocolate flavor to it as well, but no real hop flavor. Despite that, there was still a fairly decent bitterness to the beer.

In the mouth the beer felt medium heavy, with a decent level of tingly carbonation. Since carbonation usually lowers over time, I suppose this means I probably overcarbonated it to start. I felt just a touch of warmth with the beer as well, even though it wasn't terribly strong to start with.

Overall, the flavor was fairly decent, but it didn't seem like it was as good as I remembered it being when it was fresh. Between some of the mistakes seem to have made while brewing it, the things that I have learned about brewing since, and the age of a beer that really wasn't that strong to begin with, I guess it was somewhat inevitable. I'll have to see how some of the other beers I've made since have held up, but I may decide that it's just not worth it to keep a bottle of normal gravity beer around for so long.

- Adam

Stillwater Artisanal Ales - Of Love and Regret

Well it's been about a year since my last post, although Adam usually has something to say on my behalf. It's been a busy year of drinking and brewing, but I've lacked the motivation and perhaps the inspiration to put fingertips to keys and express my thoughts, but no more! I'm diving back in with Of Love and Regret, the latest offering from Baltimore's Stillwater Artisanal Ales, "A saison brewed with an array of spring botanicals and grassy hops to celebrate the season." It is worth noting that Stillwater Founder/Brewer Brian Strumke went to Belgium to brew this limited release at Sint Canarus.

I've had Stillwater's Stateside Saison, and quite enjoyed it, so I jumped at the chance to try another funky brew from this local (sort of) brewery.

It sits, a hazy, light-copper color in my glass with a substantial, but fleeting, fizzy off-white head. Although the cloudy look is to be expected in a saison, it does subside as the beer warms leaving it mostly clear.

The smell is intense with sage and hay. There is some citrus with light funky notes from the brett. The aroma is layered and complex, while still light and springy. The taste follows suit with fresh herbs up front and all of those wonderful wild saison flavors following up. The finish is a little sweet slowly shifting to a gentle hop bitterness.

It feels light to medium bodied with a very slight sting from the just-right carbonation. As soomeone who often feels the over carbonation can easily get in the way of my fulling gripping the flavors in a beer, i was surprised at how i enjoyed this one bubbling across my tongue.

As I sit drinking the second of the two bottles of this that I bought (being my third time trying the beer) I find myself enjoying it a little more each time. It is hard to drink this without being reminded of Saison du Buff; this summer's 3 part collaboration between Stone, Dogfish Head and Victory. It's really very similar in aroma and taste, but lets the underlying saison shine through far more than du Buff. It is utterly drinkable, as a saison should be, and were it not so limited, I'd most likely pick it up again some time.

A little more on Stillwater before I go: I've already talked about two of their beers; both saisons. They also have Cellar Door (a saison brewed with spices) which will be available year round in bottles. Lastly, Strumke is returning to Belgium to brew another in his Import Series: A Saison Darkly. While Adam and I truly revel in saisons and all the horse blanketey funk that they bring; I'd be very interested to see something else come out of this brewery. The two beers that I have had were well done to say the least, but I'm beginning to wonder if Stillwater has much else to offer.

- Dan

All Grain Brewings

Today Dan and I started our first all grain batch of beer. Well, technically it's not a beer, we decided to make a saison based gruit. A gruit is a medieval version of ale that uses a blend of spices or plants instead of hops.

In order to make our beer, we had to make ourselves a mash tun. To do this, we got a 10 gallon rubbermade cooler, and replaced the spigot with a stainless steel braid hose attached to a ball valve. What this does is allow the liquid through the hose without letting the grain through.

The next step for us was

heating the strike water. We used beersmith to

determine what temperature water we would need at the specif

ic quantity we wanted for our grains. For this recipe we had 12 pounds of grain, and ended up mashing a bit thin with 5 gallons

of water at 149 degrees. After stirring in the grains, we put on the lid and let it sit for about an hour.

Once the time was up, we started recirculating the wort until it started running clear(ish). Once this was completed, we just had to drain the wort into the pot. We ended up with about 2.5 gallons from the initial 5 gallons we put in. In order to make our full volume for the boil, we batch sparged with an additional 3.5 gallons for a total of 6 gallons in the pot.

The initial bittering addition was a half an ounce of wormwood. This was

the only thing in the beer for our hour long boil, and then we followed up with a mixture of sweet gale, chamomile, rose hips, elderflower, and wormwood. It should be interesting to see how this ends up, since not only is this our first all grain beer, it's also our first attempt at doing anything without hops. All in all things went fairly well though.

The one issue we found after cooling was that we really had no way of telling how much wort we actually collected (we suspect we got more than 6 gallons to start), and how much we had in the pot when we were finished. These are going to be important figures that we'll need to determine at some point so we can hit our target gravities without problems. As it was, we ended up 12 points under our target gravity with an expectation of 75% efficiency. However, since we ended up with about half a gallon more than we expected, it looks like we got close to the right efficiency, at 70%, we just didn't boil off as much as we expected. Once we figure out a way of determining how much wort we collect and how much we end up with, we can more accurately estimate the amount of boil off we have in a normal batch. It should be good.

- Adam

Mikkeller Rauch Geek Breakfast

Beer Geek Breakfast is a classic by Mikkeller that is now available in a couple different forms. Beer Geek Brunch, Beer Geek Weasel, and now Rauch Geek Breakfast. This version is made with smoked malt to give it a nice bacon-like aroma.

The beer pours a thick, viscous black with a dark tan head, about a finger and a half thick. It had moderate retention, sticking around for a few minutes before dissipating to a thin foam coating on top. There was definite lacing on the glass as well, in thin streaks.

The aroma initially is overwhelming smoked malt, with a strong meaty, bacon smell. After that subsides a bit, some dark malt comes through with a bit of roast and sweetness. It seems a little nutty and coffee-like as well.

The taste initially has a mild smoked flavor with hints of bacon, followed by a strong coffee bitterness in the back of the mouth. The roast flavor lingers with just a bit of smoke for a while. I feel like I was getting a touch of nut as well right in the middle of my tongue.

The body actually seems fairly moderate, with a decent level of prickling carbonation. I expected this one to be heavier feeling than it is, although it's by no means light. There is some substance to it for sure. There's just a little bit of warmth in the throat as well. It also seemed a little creamy.

Overall, this is an extremely tasty brew, but it's not one to be gulped down by any means. I really wanted to savor this glass. I don't think I'd drink more than one at a time, but it would be a nice way to start off the day.

- Adam