Ever since I posted my review of the Picobrew Zymatic (http://www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/denny/homebrewing-zymatic-way) the one question I've heard over and over again is "how's the beer?". Now that I've had a chance to ferment out 4-5 beers I made with the Zymatic, I'm prepared to answer that question. The answer is "It's as good as you make it!" What I mean by that is that the Zymatic is not in any way a limiting factor in beer quality...that's up to the brewer. The Zymatic is just an easy way to get repeatable results when you brew. The quality of the beer is up to the brewer, just like with any other brewing system. But the point I want to make is that the Zymatic itself is not in any manner a drawback to making great beer. Besides my own brews, I had a chance to try some by Annie Johnson and other Picobrew team members when I visited their headquarters in Seattle. They were all uniformly great!

So, here's what I'm doing. A couple weeks ago, I brewed a batch of my Rye IPA recipe (http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/DCRyeIPA), a beer that I've brewed dozens and dozens of times, using my cooler/batch sparge system. Today, I';m gonna keg that beer and harvest the yeast. In the next day or so, I'll brew exactly the same recipe, using the same bags of grain and hops, using the Zymatic. I fully expect that the only difference will be that I won't be grumbling so much about cleanup when I use the Zymatic! Then I'll set up a blind triangle tasting to assess the beers. I'm not going to be surprised if there are some minor differences, given that I have to tweak parameters on the Zymatic a bit to match how my cooler functions. But I'm gonna be astounded if the beers aren't incredibly similar.

I'll let ya know in a few weeks.....

John Palmer, Denny and Drew Brewing Selfie

It all started with Denny being a smart ass. To some of our dallying All-Stars, Denny sent the following line in an email

I really didn't want to have to bug you like this...really! But Drew said if I didn't he'd release his recipe for Manhattan Clam Chowder Saison.

Now, my family history runs deep in this country. My mom has traced people back in the family line to the Mayflower, because that's what you do - it's the American equivalent of my Chinese friends saying how they're related to Confucius. At the very least, despite being born and raised in the South, my family goes long and proud on the rocky shores of New England. The very thought of putting tomatoes in a chowder is an insult of the highest order, hence the pejorative name of "Manhattan..."

Funnily, historically speaking, Manhattan Clam Chowder has nothing to do with Manhattan, NY. It was born out of Portuguese immigration to Providence, Rhode Island. Once settled in Providence, the newly arrived Portuguese, in an attempt to melt into the melting pot, adapted the creamy New England Clam Chowder into a stew closer to home full of tomatoes. Naturally, this "innovation" was rejected by staunch crusty old New Englanders. Since anything irredeemably bad comes from New York, the chowder was named labelled as Manhattan style clam chowder.

Ok, back to the main story here - one of my favorite things to do to Denny is make him balk at a crazy brewing idea. It's fun, but maybe that's because I'm strange. So, I reacted as any person with a love of Clam Chowder and an odd sense of ego. "Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to make a proper New England Clam Chowder Saison" And with the timing of Denny and I going to Brazil and Denny visiting for a day before we leave - it's a perfect opportunity to double the torture and have a beer for the conference. And hey, what do you know - we got joined by genu-wine brewing celebrity, John Palmer!

We crush! I need to have Denny over more often because the mill behaved with him. It usually likes to fight me!

This brings us to how to make a Clam Chowder Saison... first you must abandon literal reality. When performing an act of culinary deconstruction, the literal makeup of the targeted experience isn't the most important thing - the sensation of the experience is. In other words, when you look at this recipe, you'll notice there is no cream, no onions, no flour, no butter - all things absolutely essential to a hot piping satisfying bowl of chowdah. Why not? Well, cause it would make a god awful beer with the fat, the haze and the sulfur. To me the point of these sorts of odd deconstructions isn't to do a literal pickup and translation - it's to give you the best melding of the two sensations. I strongly feel that dairy, most fats and sulfur will interfere with that goal.

For those of you, who just said "ewwwwwww" to the whole concept, that's part of the point of some of these beers. I revel in the challenge of creating a beer with a specific vision that may make people squeamish until they try the beer and exclaim in an Agent Dale Cooper fashion "That was a damn fine cup of beer". People thought I was mad with my Saison Guacamole, but that works like a charm!

What does a beer need for clam chowderiness?

• Richness
• Herbal tones
• Brineyness

So here's what I choose to reach those notes:

• Richness - use a healthy dose of oat malt; Maris Otter makes an appearance for that crackery note, French Saison yeast lends a thicker body, flaked potatoes yield a silkiness
• Herbal tones - used Magnum for neutral bittering and US Fuggles for it's herbal earthy notes. Additionally, a big step at the finish of classic chowder spices - bay leaf, black pepper, thyme.
• Brininess - gotta get the clams in there somehow and in this case we used bottled clam juice during steeping. Didn't have any fresh clams to add to the boil and canned clams always have a tinniness that I'd like to avoid

N.B. Oat malt also helps with the flaked potatoes since Oat malt contains a lot of husk material. If not using Oat malt, make sure to use a bunch of rice hulls to avoid potato clumps!

Doughing In

Drew unsuccessfully throws flaked potatoes in John's face - hits mash tun instead

Checking in on the mash - the potatoes were surprisingly aromatic at this stage

After the ferment, I'll check on the taste and see if we need to adjust with any tinctures or additional clam juice. (Celery seed for instance is traditional, but I forgot to pick it up.)

This brew day also involved one of my other favorite brewing tricks - splitting the batch. After the boil, the beer was whirl pooled and half was chilled into the fermenter. Once collected, the chilling was stopped and the herbs, spices and clam juice was added to the boil kettle. The mix was allowed to steep for 10 minutes and then chilled and sent to a separate fermenter. Both batches were pitched with 3711 French Saison. The "plain" version will either be served straight or possibly dosed with some of my homemade Earl Grey Tincture for a spin on the flavor profile. The tincture would be added at kegging.

Clam Chowdah Saison

For 11 gallons at 1.058, 33 IBUs, 4.4 SRM, ~6.4% abv

Malt/Grain/Sugar

10 lbs Domestic 2 Row
7 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Oat Malt
2 lbs Wheat Malt
2 lbs Flaked Potatoes (make sure your potato mix doesn't contain butter and cream solids to make mashed potatoes! We used Hoosier Hill Farms.)

Mash

- Rest at 149-151F for 60 minutes. Recirculate and batch sparge

Hops

1.15 oz Magnum 12.9% 60 minutes
1.0 oz US Fuggles 4.5% 10 minutes

Yeast

Wyeast 3711 French Saison Yeast

Other Ingredients (for 5.5 gallons - double if making a full 11 gallons of Chowdah. Add at knockout and steep for 10 minutes)

1.0 oz Bay Leaf
1 tsp Black Peppercorns
4 sprigs Fresh Thyme
8.0 oz Clam Juice

Follow Drew's Saison Schedule

Cookie the Wonder Dog says "Don't forget to guard your precious wort!"

So as we alluded to earlier in the Clam Chowdah Saison post - in a rare concurrence of events - Denny and I got to brew because Denny and I were on our way to Brazil! Bonus feature - John Palmer, who lives not too far from me, stopped by and joined the mayhem.

What? (about Brazil, not John Palmer - he's a well known brew hound)

Well, apparently, other countries don't mind Denny's sordid past as a rock and roll roadie. :)

Ok, seriously, did you know there's a growing homebrew scene in Brazil? I've become slowly aware of it over the last few years thanks to trips by our friends, John Palmer and Gary Glass, to Brazilian homebrew events. And it's amazing, starting ten years ago from pretty much nothing, they've built a small, but very vibrant homebrewing culture here. Since Brazil is a very large country, the brewers here not only have their local homebrew clubs, but state associations and the state's put on their own homebrewing convention and competition (think a smaller version of the Dixie Cup or a very regional NHC).

So, it was that Denny and I received an invitation from the "Associação dos Cervejeiros Artesanais de Santa Catarina" or "ACerva Catarinense" aka the Association of Artisanal Brewers of Santa Catarina (one of the southern most states in Brazil, one state north of Uruguay) to speak at the 2nd Annual Techincal Congress of Amatuer Brewers on the lovely island of Florianopolis, the state capital.

After our Monday brew session, Denny and I loaded up the car and went to LAX for the start of a long journey. See, Denny couldn't go alone because this was his first trip outside of North America!

This is what our trip down looked like - LAX to Lima, Peru; Lima to Santiago, Chile; Santiago to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Rio to Florianopolis. It was a short matter of 30 hours!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but see that tinge of red - this is in Santiago and we both think it's from the volcanic eruption they were dealing with 1000km away.

The worst part for Denny and I wasn't the long hours on the plane - it was the long hours without internet connectivity. We slavishly searched each airplane or airport for available wifi. The Dreamliner's changing lights are really cool, but I'd rather be on a more conventially lit plane with wifi! :) We finally got wifi in Rio - about 24 hours later and we were shaking like a man in need of a fix!

Dreamliner Cabin Lights - Fancy!

more to come!

Day 1 - A Trip to Germany in the Heart of Brazil - Plus Watch How Great Denny is at Blowing!

Day 2 - The Congress Begins with Two Know It Alls Flapping Their Gums and a Brazilian Homebrewers Fest

Day 3 - The Beer Continues Flowing - Denny and Drew both Talk Some More and then off to a little bit of Ireland

Day 4 - More of Germany in Brazil, Denny's Cardiologist's Heart Skips A Beat About Lunch, The Mall and A Final Bit of BBQ

Day 5 - Downtown Florianopolis and Leaving on a Jet Plane

Florianopolis -> Sao Paulo -> Lima -> LAX
Fin...

I've now reached the age where I have to assume that there are number of people who no longer share (or were at least exposed to) common cultural touchpoints for my generation. So here you go - I still to this day sing this song when I'm making a salad. It's usually in my head because the world doesn't need the torture that is me singing.

Don't laugh - whatever childhood cultural flotsam has lodged itself into your cranium is just as silly. Anyway - the point of this post is to say - dont' age your beer!*

How's that for a statement guaranteed to rile a few folks? That's almost as good as my admonitions against decoction mashing for getting brewers' dander up!

In a few articles, I'll be (and maybe Denny too) exploring a primary sin that many homebrewers are guilty of - taking too damn long to make the beer. To start with, here's a re-working of my "Expressway Brewing" article from Zymurgy a few years back that's all about how to turn a beer around in 6-10 days!

Express Brewing - Speed Brewing from Grain to Glass in Less Than 10 Days

*: Obvious counterexamples exist - for instance, Barleywines, strong ales, brett beers, etc. Things that have age as part of their inherent makeup - go forth and age them - Your IPA? Stop it!

Need some more Denny and Drew in your life? Of course you do! We each just taped appearances on Brad Smith's BeerSmith podcast. Denny before Brazil and Drew after

Denny talking evaluation
Denny (BeerSmith's Page with Full Summary and Video)

Drew talking Recipe Transformation
Drew (Beersmith's Page with full summary and video)

N.B. - Craftmeister (aka National Chemicals) sent me a sample kit to try out.

After Denny broke away from his usual cheap ways and gave the Craftmeister products his thumbs up, I had to get my hands on a kit to test out as well. In the kit - 3 lb tubs of the Alkaline Brewery Wash, Oxygen Brewery Wash, a jar of Keg & Carboy Tablets and a jar of Growler Tablets. In this test, we'll look at one of the most common tasks facing homebrewers - the carboy yeast ring of crud - aka a wonderful amalgamation of protein and yeast detritus.

A lot of American homebrewers talk and use Five Star Chemicals products, like PBW and Star-San/Sani-Clean. Some of you cheap-o's even love to use your Oxiclean or Oxiclean knockoffs (see Denny). Me, I've always splurged a little extra on the more expensive PBW and Saniclean (a better choice for sanitizing you're pumping everything). It helps that my homebrew shop allows you to refill PBW containers at a much better bulk price than buying new containers constantly.

National, in the meanwhile, is probably best known to many homebrewers (or maybe just me) for their Beer Line Cleaner - BLC - and their BTF Iodophor sanitizer. So they've been around for quite a while, but this was my first exposure to their day to day cleaning products.

The real trick about cleaners is to know that different cleaners are going to be more effective in different situations. The most common distinction between cleaners is whether they are acidic or alkaline. The cleaners in today's test are basic or alkaline in nature, in other words the pH of the mixed solution is between 7 and 15. Alkaline cleaners tend to be best suited for use against organic substances. They tend to work by allowing deposits to dissolve into water or by dissolving key bonds that make the deposits "sticky". Cleaners usually have a mix of a primary cleaning agent (e.g. sodium percarbonate in Oxiclean) with surfactants (aka chemicals that make "water wetter" usually by containing bonding groups friendly to both water and fats) and chelating agents, which deal with the mineral character of your water.

All of the cleaners I'm testing today are alkaline so they're perfect for carboy crud. Hmm, maybe that's why they're so common. (Want to see the perfect application of acid cleaners in brewing? Try attacking beerstone! Acid makes very short work of it.)

The trio of cleaners to be tested. The PBW jar is an old jar that I hold onto because our shop requires a PBW labelled jug to fill and they no longer offer the big size

The Test

After writing up my Saison Yeast Guide in time for summer, I had to get my test on to fill out more yeast data. Sheesh, so many Saison strains! The cleaning kit's timing just happened to be perfect to deal with the leftovers from the three latest samples of my Saison Ordinaire. The yeasts in this test included pitches of Omega Saisonstein and Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse with a reference pitch of the old standby of WLP565 Belgian Saison I. As you can see in the pic, all three carboys had a pretty solid, but not outrageously krausen ring that needed to go. I racked the kegs about an hour previously and gave them a quick hot water rinse to remove any leftover yeast that wasn't stuck.

Each carboy was given a dose of cleaner according to the instructions (1 tbsp PBW per gallon, 2 scoops of the Craftmeister products per gallon) and then filled with very, very hot tap water. My brewery has a separate water heat that I can crank to produce extra hot water. The solution was given a gentle stir to ensure full mixing of the product without mechanically disturbing the yeast crud. After that, the test was really simple - let the carboys sit and record that "damage"

A few notes from what you can see in the pictures - the PBW didn't perform as well I would normally expect it to. One possible cause - the PBW is a good bit older and has been sitting out in the garage, so maybe some of it's effectiveness has been lost. The Oxygen Wash aggressively foamed when hit with the hot water at high speed. Took a little finagling and pitchers of water to fill the carboy. That was sorta tedious. (A side note - yeah, don't do what I was doing here and adding the chemical first then the water. One, that's dangerous in any sort of open vessel or with a chemical that might have a strong exothermic reaction to water. I did that here to reduce the amount of mechanical agitation I was exposing the soil to. I also knew the carboys would be relatively closed, so splashing was a minimal risk)

You should probably be smarter than me and use gloves while using the Alkaline cleaner. My hands felt a bit like the American Nazi dude at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The cleaner is effective, just a bit harsher than good ole PBW.

RESULTS and CONCLUSIONS after the pictures

Yeah, that guy

Three freshly emptied carboys, alike in schmutz, waiting for the cleaning (Closest - Omega Saisonstein; Middle - WLP565 Belgian Saison I; Farthest - Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse

Foam escaping during the hot water fill with the Oxygen cleaner

Cleaners are mixed and now we wait - no mechanical agitation at this point (Closest - PBW; Middle - Oxygen Wash; Farthest - Alkaline Wash)

10 minutes in

20 minutes in - starting to see soil breakdown

30 minutes in - more soil breakdown - check out the farboy of Alkaline

50 minutes in - clear winner, no?

70 minutes in

70 minutes closeup of PBW carboy

70 minutes - closeup of Oxygen Wash carboy

70 minutes - closeup of Alkaline Wash carboy

The Next Morning - All Clean

Results and Conclusions

I think the pictures speak pretty well for themselves. All three carboys were completely clean by the morning, but the alkaline cleaner easily sped past the other two in the test of organic crud cleaning. By the 30 minute mark it was clearly outstripping its competition. As Denny noted, the rinse phase is super easy. (Sorry no photos of the sheeting action or whatever it is that detergent manufacturers go on about.) Looking around online it seems like the Alkaline Wash and PBW cost roughly the same per pound - within a buck or two at the 1lb size. In this fresh organic material test, it's a clear winner. Next up we've got to start looking at other common cleaning tasks to see how it does. I'm curious to take their tablets for a spin and see if they can handle my assembly line keg cleaning process!

Material Safety Data Sheets / Tech Sheets (if you're into that whole thing about knowing what's in your stuff and whether or not it will eat your flesh)
Arm & Hammer Oxiclean Versatile Stain Remover
BLC Beverage System Cleaner
BTF Iodophor
Craftmeister Alkaline Wash
Craftmeister Oxygen Wash
Craftmeister Growler Tabs
Craftmeister Keg & Carboy Tabs
Five Star Powdered Brewery Wash (PBW)
Five Star Sani-Clean
Five Star Star-San

Hey IGOR's!

It's been a busy season what with NHC and writing, etc. Sorry we haven't been here in a little bit, but I just wanted to pop in with a quick note on a book I think you'll love,Speed Brewing by Mary Izett. It's from the publisher of Experimental Homebrewing, but that's not why I'm mentioning it! I'm mentioning because it's an awesome book filled with some mind expanding material.

I received a pre-press copy for blurbing purposes, so blurb's away!

<blurbage>

"I joke that if it can be fermented, I've fermented it. However, Mary's book shows that my experiments have fallen far short! She's presented so many fun, easy, interesting, and impressive ideas that I can't wait to try. Using her recipes for alternative brews turns every trip to the grocery into a research trip. Back to the fermenters I go!" - Drew Beechum, author of Experimental Homebrewing, The Everything Hard Cider Book, and The Everything Homebrewing Book

</blurbage>

Now if that sounds like a fun time, rest assured, I meant it. See, one of my heroes is good ole Chuck Yeager who, in addition to being a classic American badass, has a philosophy of not promoting a product he didn't personally use - so if you see blurbage from me, you can trust I'm not dancing the fairy dance of promotion.

I first met Mary at the 2011 AHA Conference in San Diego when she and her life partner in brewing crime, Chris Cuzme, landed with their club to explore the city. Her day job consists of biomedical type stuff I can't hope to understand, but her passion is with the fine art of fermentation. She's been dropping her knowledge and experiments over on her blog My Life on Craft and has been instrumental in a great number of festivals, tasting events and lessons that spread beyond beer and bring together a great number of worlds. Along with Chris, she's launched a Heritage Network Radio Show called Fuhmentaboudit! and now they've launched Cuzett Libations to create and sell some of their ideas like Revenge of the Emu Australian Sparkling Ale, Cuzett Grisette, etc.

Mary lives in a city not know for being terribly homebrew friendly - New York. With the average cost of living space by square foot being somewhere between intolerable and inhuman, Mary's become an adept small batch brewer. (It's no big surprise that the 1 gallon batch movement seemed to really gain steam when promoted by the Brooklyn Brew Shop folks.)

If you're wanting to learn how to pull of a 1-3 gallon batch and what changes in terms of yeast, fermentation, etc, you can listen to me and my few times dallying about with it (more in a later article) or you can take Mary's advice and gain from her whole sackful of experience. Don't forget small batches come with several advantages - easier to move no matter your strength level, chill, store, etc. Easier to make in terms of time. Easier to make a variety, etc. Yes, you don't get as much out of each batch, but I'm rarely interested in a full 5-10 gallons of anything. If you are, then great - recipes are easy to scale!

Mary's Fermentations - and a link to an interview in Brooklyn Magazine

Want practical BIAB (Brew in a Bag) knowledge - it's there! Want another take on speed or express brewing? She's got you covered. She credits BIAB and smaller batch brewing with allowing her to fully explore the art of fermentation since it's possible physically for her to move the smaller volume of wort around. Could never tell the modern variant of this hobby was founded by a bunch of younger dudes - could you?

And then we get to the stuff that makes me all excited - interesting fermentations. These include some of her techniques for making a Gose or Berliner. Exploring Vietnamese fresh beer ("Bia Hoi"). Or how about a "Short Mead" - Mary served a 5 day old short mead at the 2012 AHA Conference in Philly that was bright, spicy and refreshing. See look at it!

Strawberry Peppercorn Short Mead - from Brew to Glass in 5 Short Days

Oh, what's that? You want a recipe? Sure - you can have a recipe - here's the recipe straight from the book!

Strawberry-Peppercorn Short Mead

This recipe was one of the first short meads I brewed. I served it at an outdoors art and music benefit bash in Brooklyn, where it was about 100°F outdoors. The strawberry peppercorn short mead was a huge hit, and the keg kicked in an hour, beating out a slew of beer and cocktails. The spiciness of the peppercorns is a wonderful complement to the sweetness and delicate floral nature of the strawberry. Carbonated lower-alcohol beverages are delightfully refreshing on a hot summer day, but the strawberry aroma will bring you back to warmer times on even the coldest of winter days.

Yield - 1 gallon

• 1 package (1–1.2 ounce) freeze-dried strawberries
• 1/2 tbsp. mixed peppercorns
• 1.25 pound honey
• 1 gal. spring water
• 1/16 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1/4 package dry champagne yeast

Instructions

Place your yeast packet, stopper or lid, airlock, and scissors (to open the yeast packet) into a sanitizing solution. Clean and sanitize a glass jug or jar.

Pulverize the freeze-dried strawberries. A small food processor works best, but I’ve used a mortar and pestle, too. You can also transfer the berries to a zippered plastic bag, squeeze the air out, seal, and hand-crush or use a rolling pin on the berries. Crack the pepper slightly—a mortar and pestle works best for this. Place the crushed berries and peppercorns into a heatproof glass measuring pitcher.

Heat 2 cups of water to a boil. A teapot is perfect for this purpose. Pour the off-boil water over your berries and peppercorns, add yeast nutrient, stir, and steep for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, place your tea in an ice bath to cool to below 75°F.

Place the sanitized jug or jar on the scale. Zero the scale and add 1.25 pounds of honey.

Remove the jug from the scale, add filtered water leaving enough room for the tea, cap or cover the opening securely, and shake until the honey is combined. Take a look at the bottom of your jug; if honey is still clinging on, keep shaking.

Uncap the jug and add the cooled strawberry-peppercorn tea. Do not strain the tea.

Top off with water to bring up to 1 gallon, recap or cover, and shake gently to combine. You may take a gravity reading using your hydrometer or refractometer at this point if you like. Your OG will be in the 1.042 to 1.046 range.

Uncap, pitch the yeast, and place a stopper or grommeted lid and airlock on the jug.

Ferment between 66°F and 76°F for 5 to 14 days.

Taste after a week. If it’s at your desired sweetness, package using the directions on pages 26 to 31. If it’s too sweet, continue to taste every day or every other day until the mead is where you want. Higher fermentation temperatures will increase speed of fermentation. If you are taking gravity readings, I usually find 1.004 to 1.008 to be the ideal range. If you’re using fruit or other flavorings that float, I recommend cold-crashing your short mead overnight before bottling. The flavorings will fall to the bottom, and the short mead will be easier to bottle. If you don’t cold-crash, I recommend using a filter or strainer to bottle.

Variations

Blueberry-Nutmeg Short Mead - Use a 1- to 1.2-ounce package of freeze-dried blueberries and a dash of freshly grated nutmeg in place of the strawberries and peppercorns. Pulverize your blueberries and follow the directions above.

Spiced Cranberry Short Mead - Use a 1- to 1.2-ounce bag of freeze-dried cranberries and 1/2 cinnamon stick, 3 cloves, 2 star anise, and a strip of orange zest in place of the strawberries and peppercorns. You do not need to crush the spices; just use them whole. This is a wonderful beverage to serve in late fall and during the winter holidays. It is especially nice with Thanksgiving dinner and may be served warm as well, like a mulled wine.

Mango Chili Short Mead - Use a 1-ounce package of freeze-dried mango and 3 dried pequin chili peppers in place of the strawberries and peppercorns for a spicy, fruity mead. Crush the mango and chilies and use more or less chilies depending on your heat preference.

Peach Thyme Short Mead - Use a 1-ounce package of freeze-dried peaches and 1/8 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme or a heaping 1⁄8 teaspoon dried thyme in place of the strawberries and peppercorns.

Ok, back to me - Want to think about Cider and a few different approaches to that practice? That's in the book too! And if you want to go truly alternative SCOBY fermentations like Kombucha (with a boozy kick) or Kefir. I've never seen a chart of tea effects in Kombucha before, so that's really useful. (I'm an engineer - I love charts. Shush). It's actually really great to see a talk about the SCOBY's that isn't sorta terrifying or filled with mystical woo.

You may have seen all the news about Small Town Brewery's "Not Your Father's Root Beer", a big boozy ale tasting of root beer spices. If you'd rather figure out how to make a boozy soda - there's a whole lineup in the book made from fruit juices, spices and other flavorful ingredients (a Guava soda, Rose Cardamom soda - even an Absinthe inspired soda.)

To close out the book, a look at other unusual ferments from around the world, including the usual suspects like Sake, Kvass and Chica, but also including African Banana beer amongst others.

One of the things I like about the book is each chapter walks you through an overview of the beverage type. Mary gives her journey of discovery and her take on the style with a few variations. To close everything out, there's a guideline for creating your own variants. All accompanied by enticing imagery of strange new drinks. In other words, Mary's book is full of crazy inspirational things with a reach well beyond the usual. Double Plus Imperial Pints of Goodness!

What Next?

• Pick Up The Book: Speed Brewing Techniques and Recipes for Fast-Fermenting Beers, Ciders, Meads, and More (Amazon)
• Listen to Denny and me on Mary and Chris's show Fuhmentaboudit! as we talk Experimentation - Episode 108 - SuperDrewN'Dennylistic Experimentalicious with Drew Beechum & Denny Conn

The AHA is definitely speeding up their turnaround times! Just a few weeks ago we were all chilling in San Diego - now we're able to catch up on the things we missed!

All of the seminars and speeches are recorded by the AHA and offered as a member perk. That's right, you have to be a member to access all the talks, but look, why aren't you?

• The AHA publishes a great magazine that I occasionally sully with my verbiage.
• Heck, they have an archive going back to 2000 for the magazine - online - for free!
• They tackle homebrewing rights issues.
• The website contains a plethora of great content.
• The forum is one of the nicest places to hang out on the internet and learn some stuff.
• They have deals for members everywhere they can muster the support.
• They offerinsurance to homebrew clubs
• The put on rallies all across the nation, getting breweries to open up and offer fun events to AHA members
• Organize events like Big Brew, Mead Day and Learn How To Homebrew Day

And.. they also offer the National Homebrewer's Conference every year with an embarassing wealth of information. Since 2012, they've recorded most of the talks and grabbed the slide decks from everyone. So, now, for your measly $43 per year, you can have access to all that great stuff and help support homebrewing across the nation! Join dangnabit!

Now if you'd like to catch up with Denny and I - there are the links below. What else can you read/listen to? How about Randy Mosher giving a talk on how what you know about Beer History is Wrong (slides)? Mitch Steele on the wonderful world of IPA (slides)! Vinnie Cilurzo talking Brewing with Experimental Hops (slides). Gordon Strong on Modern Homebrew Recipes (slides). Mike Tonsmiere and company on Brewing with Coffee (slides)? Lots of knowledge, right there for the taking!

The Seminars Page
Introduction to Experimentation (aka our talk)(audio)(slides)

And the lovely reviews keep pouring in - awesome!

Beervana (aka Jeff Alworth of All About Beer) review of Experimental Homebrewing

You know - I totally forgot to talk about this after the NHC - but y'all remember the Clam Chowdah Saison? The stuff of legend and trepidatious responses from brewers across the world? Well, we poured it at the AHA NHC Club Night and it was a hit. All five gallons went away in a hurry! Between the CC Saison, Annie's Chicken Ale and the Austin Zealots Spam Mead - I think the AHA needs to have a meat themed bar at one of these events. :)

A Glass Full of Fear

Denny and Drew present the Clam Chowdah Saison at the American Homebrewers Association'sNational Homebrewers ConferenceClub Night

By far and away I think the best review came from Michael Tonsmiere (aka Old Sock aka The Mad Fermentationist) who said (in a rough paraphrase - give me a break, it's been a while and many beers between) "If I had to brew a Clam Chowder Saison, I couldn't think of a better way to do it.

What did it end up tasting like? Mostly like herbs with a little brininess. Both the potatoes and the French Saison yeast gave the beer a surprising creaminess that played off the bay, thyme and black pepper. If you hadn't been told that the beer was a "clam chowder" beer you'd probably have trouble pegging it as such, but the sea water character was deinfitely there. Would I do it again? Darn tooting. It was a tasty tasty beer and demonstrates that even madness has it's qualities!

It's late in the year for us brewers but it's still that season when one thing comes to rule all the beer making forums (and coffee shops and well, everywhere it seems.) - pumpkin pie. Seriously, I was in my local Target the other day and this was a sign that greeted me.

Just your everyday basic flavor of M&M

I'm just going to assume (possibly fervently hope) this means we've reached peak Pumpkin Spice. Seriously, I love Pumpkin Pie. (And vastly prefer the Black Southern replacement of Sweet Potato Pie). A few years back I wrote an article for Beer & Brewer Magazine in Australia about Pumpkin Beer - the first step was explaining what the hell pumpkin pie is all about. If you've not stepped outside of the American world bubble, you may not be aware, but to the rest of the world, pumpkin pie is fucking weird. "What do you mean it's a sweet pie made of squash?" (Ok, I lied, the first thing to explain is pumpkin is a squash, but a particular variety of). The thought of making a squishy dessert out of a vegetable is a strange concept, but most of us know the truth - pie, even vegetable pie, is g-d delicious.

That's because we know the dirty secret of pumpkin pie - the pumpkin itself doesn't really have a lot of flavor. Really in the pie, most of what our veg is giving us is the custardy texture. The flavor we think of is comprised of brown sugar, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace, allspice and ginger. Warm spices and caramelly sugar that combine in your mouth to make you happy. This is what everyone pictures when they think "Pumpkin Pie". (That's why all the internet outrage about "Pumpkin Spice Lattes" not having any pumpkin is particularly silly and misses the point that the real outrage is how awful a Pumpkin Spice Latte tastes)

And so a vast majority of the pumpkin beers out there are really pumpkin spice beers with either little or no pumpkin flesh involved. It's easy to see why - pumpkin mostly taste of water and "green". Remember last year's post Coffee and Jalapenos? Same stuff involved here. I can honestly say that one of the characters I detect in pumpkin infused beers is that roasted green jalapeno flavor/aroma of the methoxyprazines.

Why no flavor? I'm convinced the big problem lies in the water content. It dilutes what little flavor there is in the pumpkin. My usual method of pumpkination is to go grab a couple of heirloom pie pumpkins, slice them up, chuck em in an oven until they get caramelly and burnt and all smooshable. Pull those out, scoop out the flesh, toss in the mash and let it rip. Please note, don't try this with your garden variety everyday Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins - those things have less flavor than foam shipping peanuts.

Now, I can walk next door to my local grocery store and pick those up - side effect of living in California, but what about if I didn't? What if all I had was the big heavy cans of nuclear colored goo?

The basic starting tools

Before I brew with it, I'm going to remove as much water and concentrate as many flavors as I can. Here's the basic setup - for 24 hours, I strained a single can of pumpkin puree through coffee filters and a fine mesh sieve. Every once in a while, I weighed the amount of water coming out of the gloop. Here's some numbers

Our starting pumpkin weight (the bowl has already been tared out)

Immediate Seepage into the draining rig

Pumpkin Weight from Draining

Effect of draining

Where'd the extra weight go? I can only assume some of it evaporative loss, some to the coffee filters, some to the very strange fae who watch over my kitchen.

After 24 hours, spread the stuff onto a sheet tray lined with a silicone mat (parchment paper will sub fine, but be more of a pain in the ass to work on), roast at 300F for 100 minutes. I pulled the pan every 20 minutes, gave everything a stir and mushed it out again. After 100 minutes, I think we can all agree - big difference. I'm going to prep a second round that is still drained, but I'm going to add sugar and spices to the glorp before roasting.

A 300F oven, a cookie sheet and a silicone mat

Why? Well, I think we can agree the draining didn't pull moisture as efficiently as the roasting, but I think the puree as it comes out of the oven doesn't have as much caramelly goodness as I'd like. I could roast at a higher heat, but I think that will just make the puree "browner" without any real flavor development. Stay tuned for that development and the brewing!

Pumpkin Weight from Roasting

More Pictures

10 hours later - total weight 1473 grams minus the bowl weight (766 grams) - total pumpkin weight = 707 grams

After 13 hours, Harry Potter could have a drink

After 24 hours, we're down to 637 grams of solid mass for about 26.5% loss of water

A 300F oven, a cookie sheet and a silicone mat

Spreading out the pumpkin mass

After 20 minutes before stirring and returning to the oven

Well, today I'm breaking out of my comfort zone and trying a new yeast starter method. For many years, my standard practice for a starter for an ale in the mid 60s gravity range has been to build a 2-3 qt. starter on a stir plate. I'd let the plate run 3-5 days, then put the starter in the fridge for 2-3 days to crash out the yeast. I'd decant, then pitch the slurry. It always seemed to work well, but.....

Enter Mark Van Ditta, AKA S. Cerevisiae on the AHA forum (https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/). Mark's wealth of knowledge about brewing yeast is breathtaking...he knows stuff I didn't even know you could know! He has been advocating for making a "shaken, not stirred" starter and pitching it at high krausen rather than crashing and decanting. I have always told him that I've tried that and didn't care for the results. But I decided that it was time to ditch the old fogey attitude and actually give his method a try. Which brings us to a couple days ago.

Today is Friday, 9/25/15. Last Wed. I pitched a 3 month old Wyeast smack pack of 1450 Denny's Fav 50 (surprised?) into a 1 qt. 1.035ish OG starter at about 2 PM. By the next morning, although I didn't see much in the way of krausen, when I shook the starter it foamed up and was obviously fermenting. Because I wasn't ready to brew yesterday, I realized that I was gonna miss high krausen, but I figured it was close enough. I had somewhere between 3/8-1/2 inch of slurry in the bottom of my starter.

I didn't have time to conduct this as a true "experiment" by splitting a batch of wort and pitching a different starter into each half, so I chose a recipe I know well...my Noti Brown Ale, an American style brown (http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/NotiBrownAle). This was the first beer I ever won an award for and I've brewed it many, many times.

I ended up pitching my starter at 2:30 PM into 63F wort, and placed the fermenter in my chest freezer set to 63F. 5 hours later I saw the beginning of fermentation. By the next morning, 17 hours later, the fermentation was in full swing. This time schedule was pretty much on par with what I see when I pitch a larger starter or a slurry, so there was no change in lag time. The krausen looks beautifully tan and healthy.

So far, there hasn't been a downside to this technique. The starter was simpler to make and tool less DME, so it was less expensive than my usual starter. Of course, the proof is in the glass. I'll report on the finished beer in a couple weeks or so.

UPDATE: Since writing this, Mark laid some new info on me....the size of the starter vessel matters! Apparently, there should be a 4:1 ratio between the size of the vessel and the amount of starter wort. More info....https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=24447.msg31...

Did you know there's a North American Guild of Beer Writers? We didn't either until last year when we saw the announcement of their 2014 National Awards presented at the Great American Beer Festival. The Guild is made up of people who blog, vlog, write, podcast and otherwise promulgate the good word of beer and brewing.

If you read through the membership roll, you'll see a number of names that you recognize including the co-chairs Don "Joe Sixpack" Russell and Jay Brooks. Lucy Saunders is the director of the org and then my BeerAdvocate editor, Ben Keene runs the online social stuff, amongst many others you know love and have read.

Since we published Experimental Homebrewing - Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer during this year's award window, we decided, "what the heck?" Our what the heckedness was rewarded when on GABF Saturday we were awarded Second Place in the "BEST HISTORY/ TECHNICAL WRITING" category of the competition - one of 27 awards that day. Haven't read it yet? *sigh* - Well, go over to Amazon and get a copy! (If you have read it and haven't dropped a review - please take a moment - the reviews help!)

At the same award ceremony, I also got another award for BEST SHORT FORM WRITING, (600 words or fewer) for one of my BeerAdvocate BYOB Columns called "The Belgian Highlands". Normally, I don't have access to the final proofed copies of my BYOB articles, but Ben decided to share out copies of both my article and Aleszu Bajak's winning article "Unlocking the Secrets of Smell". If you want to read those articles - Ben's uploaded them to Google Drive - The Belgian Highlands and Unlocking the Secrets of Smell.

If you want to read my column every month (along with an embarassing amount of really great content) - subscribe to BeerAdvocate the Magazine. It's been going strong since 2006 and I promise, I've only repeated myself a few dozen times!

(I would also be remiss to not recognize the contribution to the column of Ellen T Crenshaw, who's been illustrating the column since 2010. Her artwork kicks ass and usually tosses another layer of silliness on top of my text - Check out her website and her Tumblr to catch her illustrations.)

Today I kegged the beer I wrote about in my previous blog post. It was a few hours short of 11 days from the time I brewed it. The gravity dropped from 1.063 to 1.013, which is consistent with how this beer usually performs. That's 78.5% AA (apparent attenuation) with a first generation pitch of WY1450. A 1 qt., non stirred starter. In spite of being skeptical, I pitched the whole thing, starter wort and all. While there was no blind triangle testing this time (but there will be in another batch!), I can pretty confidently say that this may be the best tasting batch of Noti Brown Ale I've ever made. Keep in mind that this was the first beer I ever won a ribbon for, back in 1999-2000. I've brewed it dozens of times and know it well.

So, I can say that the new yeast method worked extremely well in this trial. Certainly better than I was afraid it might and definitely better than the leagues of stir plate users told me it would be. It probably comes as no surprise, though, to the people who have been doing it this way all along!

At any rate, the beer turned out great and the starter was faster and easier than any starter I've made in the last 5-8 years on a stir plate. The method certainly warrants further exploration . I hope I'm not the only one who tries this and reports their results. The way citizen science works depends on multiple trials from multiple people. Please join in and try this for yourself and post the results here. And let's all give a big thanks to S. cerevisiae/ Mark Nan Ditta for suggesting this method (well, he actually kinda insisted!). It's given us all not only a potentially better way to make yeast starters, but also a science problem to keep us busy!

My friend Josh Reed developed this and I'm proud to have been the inspiration!

http://humboldtbeerworks.com/cheap-easy-zero-psi-draft-line-cleaning/

The Sower in Question

Key Takeaways

• Homebrewers are awesome folk
• Nebraska is not quite the middle of nowhere
• The Lincoln Lagers put on a great competition
• Very smooth from a judge's point of view - never had to wonder what I was doing or wait around too long to do it
• Lots of stimulation and activities for the judges
• Useful swag
• Immediate feedback to the entrants on site
• Banquet and party to celebrate everyone's efforts
• Multiple education opportunities as enticement and enrichment
• A very supportive brewery partner in Ploughshare makes things a lot easier

Last week I got to knock another couple of states off my list of "never been there" when I visited Lincoln, Nebraska for the 2nd Annual Sower's Cup Competition put on by the Lincoln Lagers. This competition had 338 entries in the field and covered all the categories in the 2008 BJCP guidelines with some compaction as dictated by the entry counts.

How do you get enough judges to deal with that many entries? I live in Los Angeles, a city with a massive population of beer judges and my club has issues getting enough judges to come out and handle our competitions in a timely fashion. Our problem is our judging location is usually located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, separated from LA proper by the mind altering and treacherous Santa Monica Mountains. That's difficult to travel - mentally at least.

Nebraska has it worse - it's 150 times the size (77,354 sq miles) of LA City (503 sq miles) and has 1.88 million people to LA City's 3.9 million. That doesn't even include the whole "LA Metro" area which is 13.1 million people in roughly 4,850 sq miles (Nebraska could fit a mere 16 LA Metros in it's borders).

So what do the Lagers do? For starters, they have a different judging climate - judges will actually travel from out of state to judge. They also turn their big competitions into basically big events and parties with beer, food and education. That last is where I kinda come in. I was the Saturday morning education. Poor brewers!

Here's my trip in a nutshell -

Thursday October 1st
5:00 AM - Leave my house - drive to my office near LAX
5:50 AM - Uber from the office to LAX
6:10 AM - Get in line at security, pass through security and get to my gate to await the dreaded first leg to Dallas Fort Worth
12:10 PM - Land in DFW. Think "hey, nice terminal. Oh gotta walk to the next terminal over." Walk to next terminal and land in the decript depressing 1980's airport terminal. Regret my life's choices over a pretty limp Chicken salad from an airport concession of national recognition. Contemplate having a beer. Look at my choices of "better beer" and realize that choosing from a pool of zero is an easy task.
1:43 PM - On the next plane bound for Omaha! Damn these little planes are ridiculously tiny.
3:00 PM - At the Omaha airport, picked up by Mitch from Ploughshare Brewing and on my way through Iowa and Omaha proper to Lincoln an hour away.
4:00 PM - Ok, this is tiring and boring now - I made it to Lincoln, got my hotel room and together Mitch and I rolled over to Ploughshare Brewing, our home for the next few days. Time for some good beer and vittles.

Thursday evening, I got to hang out with Matt Stinchfield, owner and head bottle washer, chef and brewmaster at Ploughshare. Everything about the joint reflects Matt's focus on building a local tradition and his love and respect for classical European brewing traditions. The building was an old bus garage that they took over and split into a couple of parts. Rooms include a tap room and loft built with wood reclaimed from a century old barn along with a private meeting room with custom hop twine wallpaper.

The other half of the building is devoted to a gorgeous German inspired, decoction capable brew deck and all the attendant gee-gaws. Matt, being the Brewer's Association Safety Ambassador, also has built the brewery to demonstrate safety with all appropriate precautions being taken - including separating the boiler into it's own explosion resistant bunker room. This move was inspired by at least one brewery death in Belgium attributed to a boiler explosion.

Ploughshare Tap Room (Photo from the Lincoln Journal Website cause I forgot to snap one)

The Ploughshare Brew Deck. It's pretty up here (photo courtesy of Brendan McGinn)

The Ploughshare Brew Valve Panel - I defy anyone to look at this and claim you can glean what valve does what without a lot of education! But with this collection of valves, they're able to send water and wort in almost any direction.

His beers run to the less hoppy side of the fence, focusing on the more traditional European interplay of hops and malt. Turns out that's more than fitting for his audience in Nebraska. That's not to say the beers are boring! Ploughshare has a cream ale that demonstrates a rich malt and corn character while still being dry and n American Red that plays right into the Cornhusker devotion to all things rouge. Two saisons (naturally my favorites), including a Fantome inspired Dandelion saison (Bouton d'Or) with a giant heaping dose of freshly picked Dandelions from a nearby farm. It was spicy, wild with just a bare note of the green plant matter under the spicy flavors. Nothing like a beer made with trash bags full of spices being picked as the brew is starting.

And of course, there was beer to be enjoyed and of course I'm on my phone, but this was pre-beer - waiting on my flight! (Photo stolen from Chris Evan's Facebook feed)

Speaking of farms - oh man, the product coming out of the kitchen. I almost always hate tomatoes on a sandwich. Hate. They're usually just wet gooshy piles of squidgy foam that make me regret even more life choices. But the tomatoes Matt's using? They taste like I walked outside and picked a fresh one off the vine. The beef we had later in the week? Grass fed actually pastured cows that tasted like cow and not liver. The menu is simple and it's excellent. You should eat it all.

Thursday Night - Lagers Meeting

Lincoln Lagers Meeting Getting Started
First evening in a new town and why not have a homebrew club meeting? The Lagers meet in the brew house at Ploughshare and lay out a few tables and chairs. Members show up, drop their beers off with labels on the table and then everyone dives in as things show up. There's a mix of homebrew and craftbrew and lots of chaos and variety. A couple of folks stand up and help conduct whatever business needs conducting while members tend to ignore the business and focus on the beer, moving in little pockets of conversation.

A little lottery, a little raffle and even more beer to drink - and there's your homebrew meeting. This is the second so organized meeting I've been to in the last few years. I always appreciate catching what others are doing.

Friday Day - Brewing and Beer Visits
The next morning when I could finally pry myself out of bed - look I'm terrible at mornings on the road after changing timezones - I walked the 0.6 miles from hotel to brewery and enjoyed the revitalizing efforts of the city in the area between the capitol and the university. (Ploughshare sits right at the edge of the current efforts. More city attention is coming to their area shortly).

Mark Beatty, one of the authors of the morning's brew standing next to Matt's "pilot" brew rig

It's an oldie, but a goodie!

The order of the morning - brewing up an American twist on a lost Polish classic - Grodziskie. This was an experimental pilot batch done on Matt's old B3 homebrew rig. The hickory smoked, Chipotle syrup infused wheat beer with steeping addition of ancho's was concocted by Matt and Mark Beatty of the Lagers. I just showed up and nodded approvingly of the effort. The recipe and the history of the beer will be in Issue 106 of BeerAdvocate the Magazine (aka next month's). What no recipe? Yeah, I know - welcome to contracts.

Viewing Matt through the Brew Fog - oh the drama!

Drew receiving a Brewer's Steam Facial (image stolen from Ploughshare's Facebook feed here

Checking the Gravity

Notes are Important

Anchos getting ready for their soak today and tomorrow's trip to the breakfast salsa

It was fun brewing with Matt's old B3 brew rig with all of the old manual controls and workarounds. However, he disavows any knowledge of his head brewer's old pump wiring, etc. But seriously, how much fun can you have hanging around, trying a few beverages and talking homebrewing with folks.

Additionally, Ploughshare had recently hosted a brewday with homebrewers taking away wort from their Cream Ale to do with as they pleased. The winner of the associated judging was actually there that day kegging up a second run of his Cream Ale Braggot. This batch accidentally turned out stronger than it should have been. It was a 12% smooth liver kicker of a beer. We very smartly limited ourselves to tiny samples for fear of unsafety in the brew house.

An old homebrew pump wired in a fashion that causes safety officers cringe!

Remember Matt is the Safety Ambassador for the Brewer's Association- his signs prove it and that pump from before is a lesson in how to be un-safe

In California, this amount of chiller leakage would be a felony

As the day wrapped up and the chiller required additional wrench surgery to stop leaking everywhere, the session strengh beer went into the carboys and I decided I wanted to try one of Lincoln's other breweries - Zipline Brewing.

Located 3 miles away, I had no car to get there or back and couldn't walk there and back in time for the judging. Being an Angeleno, I naturally thought "huh, well, Uber would get me there", but most of the guys in the brewery thought Uber was still blocked from operating in Lincoln. On the off chance, I pulled up the app and what do you know - Uber is in Lincoln!

So I Uber'd to Zipline and walked into their tasting room only to be greeted by one of the bar staff with "Hey, don't you have to judge soon? What are you trying to do ruin your tastebuds?" Turns out the shockingly psychic bartender with an attitude was actually Marcus Powers, co-owner of Zipline and my judging partner in the evening's flight of Saisons.

I sat down, grabbed a flight of Ziplines beers focusing on their recent GABF winning Copper Alt, their new FestBier, American Tripel, Rye IPA and of course, a Gin Barrel aged Hibiscus infused Saison.

Altbier and I go way back - in fact - altbier would be the reason I'm a beer fanatic. When I first got into craft beer, I was in Boston and my three enlightenment beers were Harpoon IPA, Long Trail Amber Ale and Otter Creek Copper, Those last two are/were Alt's. The Zipline Copper was toasty, chewy with a good malt heft and presence, but none of the usual sugary sweet thing brewers seem to come into when they try to make a malty beer.

Marcus took me around the brewery - which is rapidly growing and just bringing on Captain Lawrence's old packaging line amongst other projects like a giant new walk-in and barrel room. After a brief look through a local artist's new show, a surprisingly tasty glass of Abita Bourbon Street Stout, Marcus ran us back to Ploughshare for our duties! (Gotta love the beer community - they're awesome! Except you few - you know who you are - you're no-goodniks.)

Where the Zipline Magic Happens

Busy Brewery Calendars Look A Lot Like This!

A Different Sort of Emergency Plan. Mine Would Usually Involve Whimpering Like a Small Child

The Captain's Mark is Still On Zipline's Packaging Line

Friday Evening - Round 1!
Arriving at the brewery we were greeted with an opportunity to sign in, fill out the usual requisite "I promise not to sue you" forms and then we were directed to grab our judging labels, a name tag and our swag - a pound canister of PBW and a free piece of Nebraska brewing swag. Also set out for everyone to look over was a long set of tables with two tiers of raffle items. Each set of items had a little paper bag out in front for you to drop tickets into if you were interested in a particular item. The lower, less expensive tier consisted of things like glassware and shirt sets, bags of grain, a couple of books by some dummy (who then proceeded to graffiti the heck out of them). The larger tier had some rad prizes like retro coolers, beefy regulators, umbrellas and a small SS Chronical. Very nifty!

Judge's gift because thanking your judges is awesome

This is the raffle selection early in the process. After I took this shot, more and more items began to appear. It was great to see

Lots of Signage is Good For Sponsors - Also Good for Your Volunteers to know where to go!

In another example of the nutty popularity of Saisons and Belgian Specialities, the full category of Belgian & French ales would have been a sizable 30 entries. The organizers split it so that the Wit's, Belgian Pales, Saison and Biere de Garde were one medalling class with 16E Belgian Specialities as another. On Friday, I helped tackle the 14 entries in the first subclasses. Sitting at the table, I noticed a few things that I really liked - sponsored water bottles, full judging kits with bottle openers, mechanical pencils, staplers and Beer Saver Silicone Caps to allow bottles to be recapped quickly at the table by the judges.

Judge's Kits

That last bit is really handy to save the character of the one main round bottle to preserve for the mini-BOS. I'm not sure how effective they were for longer storage, but for the competition period they seemed to work perfectly well. Much easier than a capper and a bunch of caps. Also, more expensive. But convenience!

Each leg had a steward dedicated to the panel with a box of entries at their feet and were on the spot about everything. If your beer was below the medalling range (30+), the remaining bottle was emptied and recycled to prevent entry confusion. The judges used the more modern queued judging system to move quickly through the entries and before you knew it we were done and a little party broke out in the tap room. (Because of course it did)

My Favorite Part of Judging - the Mini-BOS

Cover Sheets Instantly Tagged and Sorted As They Arrive to the Data Center

In a rare pique of good sense, I actually bailed out on the party and went back "home" to finish writing my presentation.

Saturday Morning - Breakfast, Talking and Judging

The next morning, I woke up early and as is my thing these days, I took a nice early morning stroll around the city. It's amazing how quiet downtown Lincoln is on a non-game day Saturday at 6:30 AM. My home is about 1/2 the population size of Lincoln and 1/4 of the size, but thanks to being connected to the LA Metroplex, it's never quite that quiet.

Or that cold in October. When I left home in the morning it was in 69F, this morning in Lincoln, it was around 40 and never got higher than 63F. So, the morning walk was brisk and recharging and now I feel like an old man for saying that.

Pictures don't quite convey the chilliness in the air. This is also the part where everyone from places with real "seasons" get to make fun of me

Eventually I worked my way over to the brewery and was greeted by Matt and "garlic man" Claude, pulling pans of breakfast from the kitchen. We had meats, potatoes, eggs and cheese grits with two different sorts of salsa. One was made from the anchos that had steeped in yesterday's brew for a sweet heat kick. The other was a terrifying multi-colored chile pepper concoction with a name somewhat like "Unicorn's Ass". I'm not going to lie - I decided to avoid that pre-judging. Something about tasting beer with more than one functional taste bud.

Lofts are Made For Talking - This is above the tap room and is a nice presentation space built into the brewery

With food in bellies and coffee on the brain, everyone adjourned to the loft where Matt introduced me by telling the story of the night in Belgium we spent very, very drunk at the Hotel Palace. Epic night where we stayed until the wee wee hours and finally Guy kicked us out of his bar. The next morning I rolled down to the hotel with about 5 minutes to spare and in a frantic mood because I couldn't find my beer list - aka the list of everything I tried that night. So Matt and I sat down and recreated the list of 25 beers as best to our memories. In total, I think on that trip I sampled over 150 beers in the course of 8.5 days on the road. It was awesome... but regardless. Talk. I gave a 45 minute walking through a few of my design philosophies. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and as always my favorite dog was featured in the talk, because of course she was.

Same Slide in a Different Context (This wall was in Brazil!)

After that 8:30 talk, we all made our way into the brewery and sat down at our next tables.

This is always the "fun" moment - just before giving a talk and looking out to see folks gathering and realize they're all about to be paying attention to you - unless you're boring, which is always a risk.

The morning's session was all about the Ciders & the Perrys. My usual rule of thumb is the more "up" in this country, the better the ciders are going to be. It's just a function of availability of kick-ass juice to make a better cider. The favorites out of this flight all ended up being the flavored and fruited ciders mostly as a function of those were the liveliest. One cider was a textbook example of mousy, which is unfortunate. The winner ended up being a cranberry cider that used the tart and tannic qualities of the cranberry to make for a complete cider profile.

Morning Judging Rows

Lunch break was a sponsored box lunch of sandwiches and I got a chance to set out my shingle and autograph books and have a general blast talking to people. Seriously, it's a bunch of homebrewers - you know we can talk and talk and talk.

Wearing my Nebraskaflauge courtesy of JB Ellis of Mr. Dunderbaks - Tampa

Saturday Afternoon - One, Ok, three more rounds of judging!

With lunch business concluded, it was back to the salt mines, this time for the second half of the Belgian & French Ales - now they're own category for this iteration of the competition. Once more we whittled at our flights coming up with a few samples for the mini-BOS. Our winner there was a beautiful Belgian Blonde Ale.

After that, the judges all were invited to a Cookie and Beer Pairing where a local bakery produced these wonderful little cookies and several local breweries provided beers to pair with a particular cookie. Among the beers I saw was Zipline's Hibiscus Saison that I'd had on Friday. Cookies included a savory cheesy cookie and a pistacho cookie and a double chocolate cookie, but my notes are spotty...

I would have tried them all and reported back to you, but instead I had to go trudge back to the judging pits and put on my Best of Show hat for Meads and then Beer. Mead is always fun to do for BOS because it's a really short flight - 3 entries. Short doesn't mean quick and surfacey though. We (Amanda Burkemper, Michael Wilcox and me) took a good 20 minutes discussing each of the entries - merits, demerits, etc. Our final verdict went to a Dry Traditional Mead that was spectacularly executed.

Best of Show Grid

Then came the fun one - Beer BOS. 19 glasses filled with 19 beers. If you've never seen a BOS panel in action, it's a whole other world. I tend to run my panels this way - all the cups go down in front of the judges and information on each style recorded. (In this case, the Lagers provided great printed grids big enough for a glass to lay out in front of the judges.) All the beers are poured out and then:

1. Each judge tastes the beers, makes notes and waits for everyone to be ready
2. In turn, each panelist picks a beer to discuss, usually the ones with the greatest flaws. If the panelists agree, out goes the beer
3. Round and round this goes until the debate starts to get too contentious - if there are no clear agreements, we move on to the next phase
4. Each remaining beer is discussed before anything else is removed.
5. Once all the beers have been ruminated on - then we start the discussion again and see what goes away
6. When the pool is whittled away to a few (4-6 usually), a ranked vote is taken to see if there are any clear patterns
7. Repeat, remove, etc until finally there's a consensus

Usually this process takes 30-60 minutes depending on how great the flight is and the personalities and preferences of the panelists. In this flight, we all avoided talking about the eventual winner - the Belgian Blonde because we didn't want it to get kicked. So with that as our clear consensus, we settled on an excellent Rhubarb and Peach beer along with a wonderfully executed Bohemian Pilsner. Thanks again to Michael Wilcox and Lash Chaffin for judging the round with me.

The Reaction to An Almost Completed Event

Saturday Night - Banquet and Awards Ceremony

Bœuf - It's what's for dinner

With all the goodies out of the way there was a whole half hour or so to relax before the next event - the evening banquet. Matt and the Ploughshare crew put together a hell of a meal with beer pairings galore and all the best sources of ingredients - including a pasture raised grass fed beef tenderloin that tasted like beef. See the pictures for dessert, which was a spicy sweet cake because of course that's how you close out a beer dinner!

Matt and Monica presiding over the dessert course (and the all important dessert beer - Bourbon Barrel Porter)

Because dessert!

From there it was onto the Awards where the raffle was handled speedily and efficiently, which given the number of prizes was amazing. I stood up and did my best Vanna/Charlie P with medals when it came time to hand them off. There were two other categories that I didn't judge that were pretty great - one was a Rye beer competition (Sower in the Rye) and the other was a Pro-Am "No Cheating" Decoction with the winner destined for Ploughshare's fancy system. Full results here

Awards Ceremony

Announcing the Awards - More chairs brought in to hold those who didn't buy a banquet ticket
By night's end, all the prizes had been handed out - score sheets were already stuffed into envelopes and ready for distribution and the crowd began to break up after a long hard weekend of work. Me, after a few more beers, I went walking back out into the night to go find what's a quiet Saturday in Lincoln like. After all this was a weekend where the stadium didn't turn into the third largest city in Nebraska!

Sunday - The Leaving

The Sower of the Sower's Cup is way, way the hell up there on top of the capitol building

The City's Namesake

Guessing all this green will be squashed soon - oh well, it's pretty while it's there!

And like all good things, this trip came to an end. I had a lovely breakfast and went for a very long walk, circling the capitol and the rest of the city and then hopped a ride with Matt to the airport in Omaha.

Off in the distance in a lot that costs a third of the price of an LAX lot, the Omaha Airport
It's a tiny airport there in Omaha, but that means even when you get pulled out by the TSA for having a pound jar of PBW in your bag, you don't have to worry so much about missing your flight! I flew through Denver on the way back and got to sit in the New Belgium Hub Pub for approximately 4 hours. I did get to engage in rooting against His Noodliness Peyton, but unfortunately he squeaked it out again.

New Belgium's Pub in Denver - Waiting for hours isn't so bad with some decent beers!

Landed back in LA and grabbed the car - made it home just prior to 9PM - all in all a wonderful time and I thank the Lincoln Lagers for hosting me and showing me such a great time in the heartland! If you're in the Greater Nebraska region next year, give the competition a look. They've done a great job so far and it's an interesting party!

The next time you have qualms about questioning the "conventional wisdom", remember the wise words of Frank Zappa...

Just a quick pointer to a simple guide I threw together from the Everything Hard Cider book.

Maltose Falcons' Cider Brewing Cheat Sheet

Enjoy your apples in an adult fashion!

Want the book?

Everything Hard Cider Book

Today, October 18th only! You can buy the Kindle e-book version of Experimental Homebrewing for a massive $2.99!

That's a whole lot of Denny and Drew sweat for not much cash!

First off, I would like to take a minute to thank the Experimental Homebrewing team for extending the opportunity to blog on their site. I have considered creating my own blog since re-entering the hobby a few years ago. However, seeing that my hiatus was due to severe burnout, I wanted to avoid having home brewing become the obsession that it became during my first pass through the hobby. Blogging here will allow me to share what I know with others in one convenient place without having to maintain my own site.

With the above said, what brought me back to home brewing after a hiatus that was long enough to place home brewing in my rear view mirror was my love for all things Saccharomyces. I have brewed almost exclusively with home cultured yeast since the beginning. When I first started to brew in February of 1993, being able to plate and slant yeast was much more of a survival skill than it is today. The dry yeast cultures available at the time were unreliable and liquid yeast was difficult to obtain due to the relative immaturity of the market. White Labs did not exist, and the Wyeast catalog could be easily memorized due to the small number of available cultures. As the hobby matured and high-quality yeast became more readily available, my desire to have regular access to high-quality yeast morphed into the desire to have greater control over the final product. The difference between an okay beer and a very good to great beer often lies in biological quality control because brewers make wort, yeast makes beer.

My blog will deal almost exclusively with the care and feeding of the Saccharomyces genus. While I am not into wild yeast and bacteria, much of what will appear on my blog will apply to wild cultures as well. I do not work with wild yeast and bacteria because I maintain a yeast bank, and these microbes are known as beer spoilage microflora for a reason. White Labs maintains two separate propagation facilities. The Saccharomyces facility is held under positive pressure to keep things out whereas the Brettanomyces and bacteria facility is held under negative pressure to keep things in.

In closing, I would like to give credit to three people who appear to be no longer active in the hobby, but whose contributions should not go unrecognized. Dr. Maribeth Raines' pioneering work in collecting and isolating yeast cultures and Jeff Mellem's entrepreneurial skills brought us BrewTek. There are several cultures available today because of the work performed by these two pioneers. One culture that readily comes to mind is Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50. This culture was first introduced to the home brewing community on mini-slant as BrewTek CL-50 California Pub Brewery Ale. It is still with us due to Denny Conn's effort to keep CL-50 alive after BrewTek went out of business. Another pioneer in this area of home brewing was Dr. Daniel McConnell. Dr. McConnell transferred several hundred brewing cultures that he had collected over the years to White Labs when he shuttered the Yeast Culture Kit Company. The hobby is much richer because of the contributions made by these three individuals.