Coming This Week....

Our first home brew competition.  It turns out there's plenty I didn't know surrounding the festivities next weekend.  I first read about the competition on DCBeer.com and immediately thought about how great it'd be to enter a contest.  We had been talking two days prior about entering some sort of competition and see how our beers fared against other, more experienced brewers.  So this Sam Adams sponsored DC homebrew event pops up in my Google Reader and I immediately enter.  The only drawback? We only brew 5 gallons at a time, so going to the final round means sacrificing almost all of our beer.  We decided that a 3 bottle sacrifice for judging was worth the price of admission and, if we were to make it to the finals, the honor would be worth the rest of the beer.

As the competition date has crept up, I found out that it's co-sponsored by DC101 and they are promoting it on air!  They mention VIP passes, so I don't know if people have to buy tickets to gain access to the event at Old Glory next Saturday afternoon.  I also don't know what would happen if only one of us made the finals (I entered Brains Explosion and Dan entered Honey Brains).  I hope that all three of us would be able to represent our beer. 

Apparently there are about 40 entries into the competition...I wish I could try out a bunch of them!  I'm dying to know how we compare and what else is out there right now.  Hopefully we'll have an update sometime in the middle of the week regarding the competition.

Review - Sofie by Goose Island...Bring on the Funk.

I was a bit skeptical at first when Eric insisted on detouring to a random liquor store in AdMo last Friday before making our Easter pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, but once I saw their beer selection, I was literally sold...on three delicious bottles of beer. Two bottles: Sofie by Goose Island. The third bottle: Le Merle by North Coast Brewing, but more on that one later.

If you've read my bio, you know that I am a fan of the wild ale. Not many beer fans care for the tart and refreshing taste mixed with an odd mix of flavors known to be reminiscent of a barnyard. But me, maybe it's just a love of adventure and the unpredictable, but I will drink any wild ale I find. Although I do prefer that my ideal wild ale not contain any fruit juice.

But on to Sofie. Fermented with wild yeasts and aged in wine barrels with orange peel, this is not your typical beer. The label says that I can age it up to five years, so I bought one bottle to drink now and one to age.

Appearance: Light golden color with carbonation bubbles floating up from the bottom like champagne. About two fingers of extremely foamy white head.

Aroma: Nice refreshing, tart, and funky aroma typical of a classic wild ale. I definitely smell the orange peel along with hints of lavendar, and fresh cut hay.

Taste: Starts of crisp and deliciously sharp with a wallop of carbonation and a delightfully mouth-puckering bite, but it (too) quickly tapers off to the orange flavor and the trademark 'barnyard' flavor that curiously reminds me of slightly moldy apples. (Now you really want to drink this beer.)

Mouthfeel: I love the crisp start, but the carbonation dies so quickly that the tasting experience isn't as smooth as I would like.

Overall: This is a beer that can definitely use some aging. I'm excited to try it again in a few years and see how it's matured, because it holds a lot of promise. I'm glad I drank it right away, but I'd advise others to wait.

Grade: A solid B with room to grow over time.

The Popular Vote: 485 Beer Advocates give this beer an A-, the Beer Taster loves it, and so does the Full Pint, but the World of BeerCraft seems undecided.

So, if you've never tried a wild and wonderful ale, I wouldn't advise you to make Sofie your first, but you're welcome to join me in 2015 when I crack open the second bottle, because I'm sure it will be fantastic.

My Trip To Pittsburgh

Every time I'm in Pittsburgh, it's a big drinking event.  This time was no different...we brought up a bottle of Sophie by Goose Island, Brooklyn Black Ops, Lindeman's Raspberry Lambic and two bottles of wine.  Meg and I finished off the Sophie and Black Ops (and one of the bottles of wine) on Friday night.  Before we polished off the Lindeman's on Saturday night, we decided to try out one of Pittsburgh's few small breweries.  We settled on Church Brew Works because, well, how cool is it that a church was turned into a brewery?  The ambiance is pretty awesome in that place, I have to admit.  We took two seats at the bar and ordered the 8 beer sampler (5oz pours each) so we could try out all their beers.  They featured the normal array of beers as well as two "beers" that used the bare minimum of hops to be considered beer.  Apparently they were brewed with lots of grains, herbs and spices. 

We had a great time trying out all the different beers and practicing our tasting skills.  My favorite moment was daring Meg to finish off one of the herbal beers, Witch's Kiss, which we had deemed undrinkable.  I'm not kidding, it was literally undrinkable.  Gross.  Meg took it like a shot and now never has an excuse to pass on a shot at a bar.




In the end, it was a really cool place, as if Cap City Brewery was in an awesome church instead of a normal building.  The beer wasn't great, but it was worth the trip. 

Review - Brooklyn Black Ops

According to the bottle, Brooklyn Black Ops does not exist.  But, I can assure you, it most certainly does.  It kicked my ass on Friday night and I barely lived to tell about it.  There's a lot going on here (as I'll explain shortly).  The bottle also claims that only 1000 cases are made, which adds the the mystique and allure of this Imperial Stout.  At 11.3% ABV, it packs a punch - this beer is not for the faint of heart or lightweights.

Appearance: Dark brown color, a bit darker than cola, tan head about one finger size…no lacing on the glass. 

Aroma: Chocolate cordial – rum aroma, can definitely smell the alcohol in this one. 

Taste: Dark chocolate with some sour cherry notes up front, alcohol burn and a bit of black licorice in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Smooth at first, coats the mouth and doesn’t diminish at all.  Carbonation helps balance the alcohol at first. Mouth tingles from the alcohol at the end.

Overall: Can’t decide if I love it or hate it but this beer doesn’t allow you to settle somewhere in the middle.  If drinking a goblet, I give it an A.  If drinking half a bottle, then I give it a C.  This beer is good in moderation but a killer if you’re enjoying a bottle yourself.  Worth trying and sharing with many people who love a good stout.

Beer Advocate reviewers (about 500 of them) give this beer an A-.  Daily Beer Review feels the same way I do, but wrote about it way more eloquently.  Many other reviews I've found feel the same - mainly that it's good in moderation but impossible to drink a whole bottle.  Also, many feel that it's not worth the price (anywhere from $17-$25 per 750ml bottle). 

Image respectfully borrowed from the Beer & Whiskey Brothers Blog.

Brains 2.2 Brew Day

This past Thursday we got together to brew our last barleywine of the year. This version is basically the same recipe that we used for Honey Brains, but we added brown sugar instead of honey. We don't have an official name for this batch yet, but I like "Slow" Brains, as a reference to the molasses that the brown sugar is made from. We also bottled our hefeweizen, which we are currently calling Theros, but I think we should change the name to Eisenhower, since our friend Jillian pointed out that hefeweizen is corrected to Eisenhower when using spell check. Although, as I am writing this, the firefox built in spell checker is suggesting Weisenheimer, which I think I like even better, haha. Omar was on hand to photograph the days events. I think his pictures came out great. Here's a selection to give you a feel for how the brew day went.

The brewers making preparations.

Brown Sugar! How come you taste so good?


More Pictures After the Jump

Unwittingly Appropriate

I just found out about this from following the Port City Brewery's Twitter account (@portcitybrew). I'm not sure how I missed it in the paper, but it turns out that the day before we brewed "Theros", the planet Earth lost a craft brew pioneer famous for reviving and popularizing the Belgian witbier style of beer. Theros isn't exactly a Belgian wit, but we did tweak the recipe for a German hefeweizen in a way that might make it taste a little bit more like a wit. Typically, hefeweizens do not use flavoring and bittering hops in their recipes, whereas Belgian wits do, and we decided to add some, mostly because we had some extra hops that we weren't going to need for Brains 2.2, but also because we thought it would make for an interesting beer. Although we did not intend Theros to be a tribute, it is somewhat fitting that we did what we did the day after Pierre Celis, the original founder of the Hoegaarden brand (among others) and a proponent of craft brewing, passed away. I think I'm going to have a Hoegaarden tonight...

Read more about Pierre Celis here.

Bottling/Brewing and New Capacity

Tomorrow promises to be quite an exciting evening for us here at the DC Beer Journey. We're going to bottle our hefeweisen "Theros" tomorrow. This is our first foray into an ale that is not a barleywine, so I'm psyched to see the color and grab a taste before bottling. If all goes well, we'll be entering this beer (along with Honey Brains) into the BURP.org Spirit of Free Beer competition in May. Dan is housing the fermenter so he's the only one who's tried it during primary fermentation...he assures me it's great.

During bottling, we'll also be starting our last barleywine of 2011. In Brains 2.2, we'll be using a pound of brown sugar instead of honey. After primary fermentation, we'll finally use the oak barrel I purchased at the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ festival at the beginning of April. The poor thing has been filled with water the whole time. Water! (On a related note, does anybody want to buy 5 gallons of oaked water? I hear it tastes delicious. Or terrible. One of the two.) At first v2.2 was going to be called Sweet Brains. But since we decided to use the barrel, I've been wavering. I kind of like Barrel Brains, or maybe Wood Brains. Charred Brains? Sweet Brains? Does anybody have a preference?

On top of that, we've recently expanded capacity and capabilities. I went over to MoreBeer! and purchased my own home brew kit. Now we can brew more than once every two weeks. I also purchased a chest freezer and digital temperature control. Hello lagers! We have about three months to figure out a great pilsner for the Pilsner Urquell home brew competition in August. We hope to get started in the coming weeks.

Last thing: apparently we have an audience tomorrow for this whole thing. Our friend, Omar, wants to tap his inner photographer (pictures coming to the blog!) and other friends want to hang out and see what it's all about. In case you were wondering, it's mostly about standing around waiting for the wort to boil for the right amount of time. At least we can have somebody else disinfect our bottles (my least favorite job) while we can take our time measuring out grains and hops. Even taking our time, that should take 6 minutes. Our brewing and bottling also entails classic rock and drinking beer. This is what brewing for a living is like...right?

Review - Widmer Brothers Galaxy Hopped Barleywine

I just picked up this 750 ml bottle of this limited release ale from Whole Foods. I've been on a barleywine kick lately, probably something to do with the fact we've been brewing barleywines for months. The box says that it's brewed with huskless malt and Belgian candy sugar.

Appearance: A color the appearance of fine mahogany with a thin whitish head that dissipates quickly. Leaves some lacing when the head disappears.

Smell: Citrus and cherry notes jump out at me right away. I also get some dark chocolate and toffee.

Taste: Reminds me a little of a toffee crunch candy bar with some cherry or raspberry flavors. The hops are very apparent from start to finish, but not overwhelming. Not overly sweet and the hops cuts that really well.

Mouthfeel: The smooth caramel feel at the beginning is replaced with hoppy bitterness at the finish. The hops and malt linger for quite a while but it's balanced enough that it's not a problem. The carbonation is light and prickly.

Overall: This not your usual spring-time ale and I'm surprised it's their limited Spring release. However, the day is cloudy and I have nothing else to do but nap off the 9.5% alcohol. Very hoppy for a barleywine but it's malty enough to balance that out. The further I got into the bottle, the more the malt came out and my enjoyment increased. Not my favorite barleywine but certainly a good bottle. I bet it'd age really well. I'd give it a B.

Six reviewers at Beeradvocate.com averaged to a B+. The New School Brew Blog gave it a 4.5 out of 5 and Brewbound gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Image taken from the New School Brew blog.

It's Official!

This is my first post, so don't hold it against me.

Until yesterday, I only claimed to be a homebrewer, now I am one. Well, I guess that's only true if you're the type of person that requires membership in a guild or association of some kind for validation, but still, it feels good to be a "card carrying member".

I have always enjoyed drinking good beer, but I think my desire to know more about how it was made started in May of 2005 when I went to Germany to visit a friend of mine who was towards the tail end of a year long stay there. Every town had their own brewery. We toured around and drank a lot of beer, really good beer. It was the best beer I had had up to that point (maybe still the best beer I've had?). I was amazed at the quality of the beer as well as the variety that they were able to achieve using only the four ingredients allowed by the Reinheitsgebot (the German Beer Purity Law): water, barley, hops, and yeast.

I left Germany with a new appreciation for beer. My eyes were opened to the vast world of beer and I came away with a desire to sample beer from as many places as possible. I didn't just leave with a thirst for beer though, I also came home with a thirst for knowledge. I wanted to know more about how it was done. How did the Germans make the best beer while at the same time limiting what they could use to do it with? I started reading books on beer and then it was only a matter of time before the idea of homebrewing crossed my path.

I've been homebrewing since August of 2007, although, I've gotten more serious about it within the last year. It is something I love to do, not just because I love the results, which I do, but also because it has demystified the process for me. Now I can go on brewery tours and know (generally) what they are talking about and ask (semi)intelligent questions. I can go to pubs and try a new beer and appreciate it in a new way. Homebrewing is another step in my learning process and now I have a membership card and a cool bumper sticker (and a subscription to Zymurgy magazine). Hopefully, new doors will be open to me and the learning process will continue.

Beer Review: Firestone Walker's Reserve Porter

Hello all! My name is Meg, and I am a bit of a voyeur of this whole DC Beer Journey Experience. Since Eric, Dan, and Casey don't seem to mind the fact that I lurk about, observe their activities, and bask in the glory that is craft beer tasting and brewing, I've also started contributing to this blog to chronicle my lurking and quaffing adventures. You can follow me on Twitter at @TheDCBeerGal.

After a long Monday at the office, a couple hours of shopping with Eric for a beer refrigerator with which to brew lager (more on that later), and a particularly intriguing episode of House, it just felt so right to crack open a bottle of beer. But not just any beer. A bottle of Firestone Walker's Reserve porter that Eric's friend Matt had just bestowed upon him just this last Saturday.

After carefully divvying up the brew excruciatingly equally between two identical glasses (we've had serious disputes in the past over who got more beer when the glasses are different shapes), the porter was ready for consumption.

Appearance: Extremely dark brown with a bit of amber and about three inches of light brown head. The beer doesn't look thick at all, in fact it even looks a bit watery...

Smell: The first thing I think of when smelling the beer is coffee, although that was a lot easier to smell out of the bottle than out of the glass. It's in a Kolsch glass though; perhaps a goblet would have been a better choice, but I'm hyperventilating a little at this point trying to get a better whiff of this beer and that seems a bit too extreme.

Taste: This is definitely a smoky beer. Starts with a roasty coffee taste, moves to the smoke, and I get a little bit of a watery undertone before I reach the dry, bitter finish.

Mouthfeel: The right amount of carbonation that does a fair job of neutralizing the smokiness of the beer, but it doesn't quite balance it out completely.

Overall: I'm glad I tried it, but I don't know that I'll be drinking it again. As a caveat, I'm not the biggest porter fan, and it's hard for me to get excited about smoky beers. I find that I gravitate more toward ambers, a good kolsch, or perhaps a nice funky wild ale. I think I was looking for a little more balance in this porter and a smoother tasting experience. Instead I got four very distinctive beers within one sip: roasty, then smokey, then watery, then bitter, without much transition in between.

Grade: B-

Now that I have written my review, I took some time to look at other online reviews to see how I fared in comparison. The guy at Sixpacktech.com and his wife like it better than I do, but the guys at J Street Beer seem to agree with my lackluster rating.

Guess it depends on your preferences. If you're looking for a dark beer with a lighter taste, then the Walker's reserve is for you. But if you're looking for something a little more intense, keep moving.

Image from Walknboston on Flickr.

A Common Beerman

Beer is really rather enjoyable; if it's good beer, all the better. I would consider myself a quasi-beer master, quasi because although I may be a connoisseur of fine beers, I don't have the extensive knowledge of the two renowned beer masters of this mighty blog, Dan B and Eric. I want to identify myself as the Common Beerman.

I opened up a Brains 2.1 today and shared it amongst friends. The strong, sweet, slightly salty taste of brains is great. My friends liked it and were impressed that it was a home brewed creation. Other barleywines tend to be sickeningly sweet and reminiscent of cough-syrup. The only other barleywine that was as enjoyable as Brains was a delicious Quebecois brew (the name escapes me) that had a smoky, salty finish that balanced the strong sweet taste inherent in barleywines.

Honeybrains promises to be even more delicious than Brains 2.1; stay tuned for more blog awesomeness when the Common Beerman opens up a Honeybains and tells all.

Friends Like Ours

Last night we had a mass birthday celebration for all our friends born between March 15 and April 30.  I have to say, my friends love beer variety.  Expecting a crowd of 30 or so random people, we stocked the fridge, beer fridge and cooler with Coors Light and Yuengling cans.  We did not ask anybody to bring any beer.  Upon inspection this morning, I'm pretty sure we still have the same amount of Coors and Yuengling.  My friends showed up bearing gifts.  Beer gifts!  A four pack of Midas Touch, a six of The Raven, Hoegaarden, and more that I just can't think of right now.  We will not be pawns of the American beer industry!  Plus, as a special gift, one friend brought me a 750 ml of Firestone's Walker Reserve Porter and promised me a bottle of Brooklyn Black Ops next week.  Pretty awesome.

Before the party, I opened up a bottle of Honey Brains for a few friends to try.  I told them to be honest about it, but they all said they really enjoyed it.  My girlfriend made a good point about it: the extra sugars from honey seemed to dry out the finish and take away the syrupy aftertaste that barleywines can sometimes have.  Plus there's no alcohol burn, even at about 9% ABV.  I'm very curious about how this beer will fare at the home brew competition in a couple of weeks. 

On top of that, we received lots of interest in our brewing/bottling coming up next week.  So now we'll have friends and helpers!  And photos!

Now, what to do with 30 Coors Light....

Port City Brewery

Dan and I just got back from the Port City Brewery tour.  Dan had gone last weekend, but was determined to bring me along this time around.  I have to say, I was impressed.  Their four staple beers are a wit, an IPA, a Pale Ale and a Porter.  Given five tasting tickets, I tried all four and went back for another round of the Monumental IPA.  Anybody who knows my taste in beer would be shocked.  I opted for more IPA?  It was a big surprised to me when it came out of my mouth, considering how much I liked the porter. 

My impression was that they are going to do really well in this market.  There were a ton of people there for the tour and the owner mentioned he may have to add a third tour to keep up with demand.  They had a board up with all the retail locations that serve their beer and the list was long and filled with quality stores and restaurants.  It seems they're off to a good start.

Since it was so busy, we only got a few minutes alone with the owner, but I will certainly be pestering him in the coming weeks about offering my services this summer to help out.  Any experience in a brewery is better than no experience at all.  And since Dan wants to model a future brewery after this one, the experience could pay off.

Tax Day Beers

Went out to Meridian Pint for the DC Brau event debuting their Public Ale.  One thing is obvious, there is a huge demand for craft brew in DC.  The place was packed - a line at 5pm to get in and lines to get in throughout the night.  I wasn't in love with the beer, an IPA.  I'm not a hop-head.  I can appreciate hoppy beer if it's done well and balanced overall.  This beer had a bitter, citrusy finish that didn't do it for me.  Meridian Pint had a Baltimore beer event on Wednesday, so they had a few left over on tap.  By a few, I mean it seemed like half their beers were Baltimore beers.  I ended up with a Brewer's Art Three Peppercorn Tripel, an Olivers/Stillwater cask Channel Crossing #3 and Hot Monkey Love.  I'm not ashamed to admit that the Hot Monkey Love was my favorite of the night.  An old English-style ale, it had a lot of flavors going on from start to finish.  All-in-all a good night at Meridian Pint (I haven't had a bad night there yet).   The night ended badly however.  My beloved Yankees fell to the Texas Rangers 5-3. 

Tomorrow I may be taking the Port City Brewery tour before we all get together and celebrate a glut of March/April birthdays at a house party.  Unless Coors Light has become a craft beer, I won't be partaking in any tomorrow night.

The Beginnings - Eric's Version of Events

Fittingly enough, this whole thing started while brewing beer.  A couple of years ago, our friend, Matt, decided to brew beer at Shenandoah Brewing for his birthday.  This was the first time I met Casey and Dan.  Even though they look absolutely nothing alike, I mixed up their names for about 5 months after that.  Anyway, Matt and I being teachers, we named our brown ale After School Special.  Well it was supposed to be "speciale" (pronounced spesh-ale) but his girlfriend didn't hear us right and wrote down After School Special on the label.

I was new to craft beer at the time.  I thought Dogfish Head was the be-all and end-all of craft beer.

Fast forward a while to our next brew, also at Shenandoah.  We decided to make a barleywine and call it Brains.  The name had something to do with the beer being ready around Halloween and possibly having a zombie on the label.  I don't remember exactly why, because we'd been drinking.  I'll just go ahead and say that's why it was called that.  It was decent.  Our visions of slight fruit undertones were undermined by intense peach flavoring that made it age poorly.  But we were proud nontheless.

A while after that (a year or so) we again decided to brew, but homebrewing is cheaper.  The kitchen has been the scene for our concoctions the last few months.  We're continuing to evolve our technique, style and skill.  This year we have brewed two follow-up beers: Brains 2.0 and 2.1.  We also just finished brewing our first hefeweisen (tentatively called Theros).  We're competing in three homebrew competitions in the coming months and are about to journey into the world of lagers.

This is our story.