Haymarket Angry Birds Belgian Rye I.P.A.

Once again I find myself apologizing for not posting in a while.  Same excuses, new day, so I will spare you the trouble.  Good news is that Haymarket has Angry Birds back on tap!  I of course used this as an excuse to buy my first growler in Chicago (how pathetic, no?) and give myself an underserved pat on the back for finishing up some recent assignments.  Don't judge me.

Angry Birds Belgian Rye I.P.A.


Appearance- Hazy golden yellow with a small off white head. The head disappears almost completely, but the growler was opened up yesterday (although there was not much head then either). No lacing on the glass.

Smell- Belgian yeast hits first with noticeable bubblegum and phenolic clove. There may be a hint of banana underneath as well. Citrus hops begin to come through in the middle with a resiny smell following. Slight alcohol in the finish.

Taste- The beer starts strong with the belgian yeast characteristics again. the bubblegum character is prominent with clove lingering in the background. Seems to be a little candied fruit as well. The middle brings the citrus hops the work together well with the yeast. Slight bitterness build in the middle and continues into the finish of the beer. All the while there is a slight belgian phenolic yeast characteristic hanging in the background. Great balance.

Mouthfeel- Medium bodied with medium low carbonation. Its a little less carbonated than yesterday according to notes so I am going to chalk it up to the opened growler. Smooth on the tongue and slightly dry in the finish.

Overall and Notes- I love this beer. I personally believe its one of the best, if not the best, examples of the Belgian IPA I have had to this date. Great mix between hops and yeast characteristics. Easy to say that I will be refilling my growler often. Not surprising to see it brought home the Gold Medal at the GABF.


The only thing I have to do next is convince the lovely people at Haymarket to allow me to lay directly beneath the Angry Birds tap and let the sucker flow.  The only thing I'm really iffy on is the name, but they did name another beer after Justin Bieber which gave me a chuckle, so I will let it slide.  Also, meant to address something in my other post.  I'm not sure if there was a misprint when I posted about Haymarket last, but growler prices are not as ridiculous as I originally posted.  As well, Haymarket had a limited bigger version on this that was incredibly delicious.  That and two taps dedicated to 2010 Bigfoot and Hopslam.  Haymarket, what I'm trying to say is I love you.

Stillwater Stateside Saison

I won't lie, I'm a little backed up with places and beers I have been meaning to post.  Been a little busy lately.  That being said, I couldn't help popping open my first Stillwater saison tonight.  I mean anyone that can do gypsy brewing is alright in my book.  That just sounds awesome.  Gypsy brewing.  On to the beer!

Stillwater Stateside Saison


Appearance- Golden yellow in color with a decent amount of haze in the body. A billowing white bubbly head appears before relinquishing its size to something more manageable. That being said, the head stays around with sticky lacing on the side of the glass.

Smell- Some ripe fruits with pear and banana lurking beneath. Spicy phenols emerge with some esters throughout the beer. The end becomes a little musty that feels accentuated by the spicy phenols.

Taste- A sweet malt beginning that has some bread and biscuit in the taste. The middle develops into slight fruit with the pear and banana once again coming to the forefront. Towards the end the beer starts to dry out with some spicy phenols and a slight bitterness accompanying it. 

Mouthfeel- Medium bodied with a sweet start that becomes dry int he finish. I would prefer a saison that is a little drier, but still enjoyable.

Overall and Notes- Good first beer from Stillwater. If the beer was slightly drier I think it would make this go a little further. Nonetheless, a great beer.

Wisconsin Belgian Red

Well, it's time to get into the New Glarus.  After an abysmal last couple of weeks, I decided to pop open the Wisconsin Belgian Red.  I've had the Raspberry tart, but this is my first encounter with this cherry beer.  Unfortunately, when I was in Ohio I forgot to grab my other glassware.  Apparently my mind was elsewhere.  These things tend to happen to idiots.


Wisconsin Belgian Red


Appearance- Burgundy with a little haze as it is able to be seen through. Off white head dissipates until it becomes small and patchy with a ring around the glass. 

Smell- Sweet and slightly tart cherries push through this beer. Malt accompanies with a little bit of a musty character.

Taste- The cherries hit you right away coming at you first a little sweet but quickly becoming tart. Thick malty taste is beneath as the cherries continue throughout. The finish seems to have a cherry skin flavor to it with a lingering tart flavor in the back of the mouth. 

Mouthfeel- Medium-body, sweet throughout.

Overall and Notes- More than just any fruit beer. Very rich in character and full in taste. Would be great after dinner or for the holidays.

I'm hoping that it won't be too long before I can get back to Wisconsin and pick up a couple more bottles of this and Raspberry Tart.  Unfortunately, you still have to deal with my camera.  This wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't running out jokes to make fun of myself.  Also, does anyone from Wisconsin know if they have a shirt with that "Drink Indigenous" logo?

Fat Washing

Before I get into the glory that was my Wisconsin beer haul, I thought I would give a quick update on the bacon beer process.  More specifically, I am referring to the process of fat washing.

I had heard of the practice before when individuals have wanted to use real ingredients instead of using extracts in their beer.  The general sense is to get the taste of something fatty inside your beer without going through the normal troubles.  Fats and oils tend to ruin head retention, and more importantly facilitate a rancid beer.  Hence why you can't just throw something like bacon into your boil and expect everything to go off without a hitch.

Of course, as everyone knows (or the 2 people that read this blog), I decided to embrace my American roots and include bacon in my beer.  I can't take credit for going about this alone as I tried to follow what "Ryan Brews" did with his hot wing beer.  Unfortunately, I am still an idiot and did not see the more comprehensive steps he laid out before trying my first experiment.  I won't go into too much detail as he seems to be able to explain the process much better than I, but I will point out some differences in my approach that I will be changing in order to better match his.

I went out and bought some apple smoked bacon and quickly cooked three strips.  I wanted the distinctive applewood bacon smell and taste, so no big surprise here.  Afterwards, instead of adding the fat to the vodka, I added the actual strips.  I had read somewhere that this was a good way to make your own, but after observing my results, I believe the fat may impart a much strong smell and taste (It is the fat that the alcohol interacts with and just the strips leaves less fun in the glass).


















After placing the strips in the glass, I let it sit for one full day.  I would have let it sit a little longer, but I was at my parents doing all of this and needed to leave.  Isn't procrastination fun?  Anyways, the liquid looked a disgusting murky brown with small chunks of meat suspended in the glass after becoming dislodged from the strips.  I removed the large strips and placed the glass in the freezer.  As everyone knows (well, I'm hoping for the sake of our education system), alcohol has a lower freezing point than water.  As a result, the fat on top of the glass will freeze and the alcohol will be left alone beneath it.   After this, the fat was broken through and put through a coffee filter for good measure into another glass.  I didn't have the time, but I would highly suggest repeating the freezing process at least a couple of times.  Fat in beer = sad face when trying to drink beer.

Unfortunately, the sweet stout in secondary fermentation wasn't finished after the addition of maple syrup before I had to leave to head back to Chicago.  That means, I was not able to bottle the new beer.  Although a bummer, I think it is for the best.  When I head back I am going to redo the fat wash technique one more time.  I was only able to use some really cheap vodka as that is all that was lying around.  As a result, the character seemed a little more rough than I would have liked with a rubbing alcohol smell being fairly strong and pushing what little bacon there was out of the way.  As well, instead of adding strips I will be adding just the bacon grease instead.  I'm hoping this will give a slightly larger taste.  I don't want anything overpowering, but most certainly something stronger than the first concoction.

I will update with my second attempt when I get around to it.  Also, apologies for the blurry pictures of the filtered bacon vodka.  They are a product of my father.  Apologies as well for this post that is most likely riddled with errors.  It is a product of me.  I could edit it, but I just don't care.

Wisconsin

With the time off, a friend of mine suggested we take a short trip to Wisconsin during the day in order to grab some New Glarus beer.  Seeing as I thought it would be rude to decline such an invitation (as well as being a little too excited to have some New Glarus), I politely agreed to accompany him.  He may contest the "polite" part.

We didn't go to far past the border as we are both lazy and we needed to keep it a day trip.  Upon research, we stopped in Kenosha first at a bar called Captain Mike's Beer and Burger Bar.  We knew they had some New Glarus on tap and we figured why not get some while we were having food.  The menu was pretty limited to burgers, but tons of different choices.  The burgers had the option of Organic grass fed burger or kobe beef, yeaaaaaaah environment.  After that you choose everything you want on the burger, but I will let you leaf through the menu if you want to see all the combinations.  They also suggest throwing a slab of peanut butter on any burger that has bacon on it.  I thought what the hell, you only live once, and through a slab on mine.  Delicious.  Lastly, I went with New Glarus's Apple Ale, which I will update on later, but it is slightly like a sour apple jolly rancher.

After the food, we went to the closest liquor store to grab some New Glarus.  We both had to try and contain ourselves and try not to buy one of everything.  Since we were not allowed to mix and match, we thought it best to buy a couple six packs each and then swap three of each six pack with another so we got to try as much as possible.  The final decision were: Apple Ale, Back Forty Bock, Fat Squirrel, Moon Man, Road Slush Stout, and Wisconsin Belgian Red.  It really didn't come out as bad as it sounds since we shared with each other, but plenty of beer nonetheless.  Hopefully will be making the trip in the future again.

Well, it is now back to school and work.  It seems as if I should stop imitating the maturity of a five year old and grow up a bit for the sake of my schooling.                                                                         Life is a drag.                       

A New Beer Year

A new year full of new beer is here!  The past week has brought a lot of new things my way in the world of beer with many kindnesses as well.  The most notable is acquiring a bottle of Black Tuesday from someone who apparently had a lot of leftover Christmas spirit.  Thanks again, this was way too nice.  I only bring this up as I promised to make some bad jokes in exchange for the bottle.  Unfortunately, I won't be opening this bottle for a while as I am going to let it age so bad jokes will have to be put off for now.  Shucks, I'm worthless.  It certainly is a Black Tuesday I suppose (Crap!  It's Wednesday, why didn't I make this yesterday?).

Also, it seems as if I am starting to hoard bottles of beer from the Bruery in my parents basement crawl space.  I'm quite ok with this problem.  If anyone tries to correct it, I will cry uncontrollably.  Do you really want to see that?  Please don't answer yes.  I still have to pick up a bottle of 4 Calling Birds at the store to put away for this year, but that shouldn't be a problem.

In other news, I will soon be heading to Wisconsin for a short day trip with the one goal of buying New Glarus.  Luckily I have a friend (or at least someone is tolerable of me) that shares the love of New Glarus and invited me along.  I will of course update to my adoring readers what I got.  As well, a short post on fat washing will be coming along in the short future.  Mmmmm the beer of a new year!  And to think, I have to go back to law school in a week.  Anyone interested in funding a brewery for me instead?

As you can also see, Santa did not provide me with a camera.  Apparently, he is not an avid reader of the blog.  Pshhhh.  He can see everything?  I'm calling bs.

Maple Bacon Stout Brewing

I'm back!  I know it has been a rough month for the constant influx of viewers.  Unfortunately other priorities are supposed to come before beer (horrible, I know) and therefore have been suspiciously absent on the interwebs.  That being said, I am back to brewing!  Well... somewhat.

Over Thanksgiving I went home and was able to temporarily get back to brewing.  Since it was Thanksgiving and I haven't brewed in a while, I wanted to do something special.  BOOM!  Bacon.  What is more American than to brew a bacon beer at Thanksgiving time?  Nothing I say, nothing!  I thought about using smoked malt again but decided against that, and besides. I didn't want five gallons of bacon beer.  Instead, I remembered Rogue trying to make a maple bacon porter yet underwhelming most people when it was released as a maple bacon brown ale.  I decided to one up them and make a maple bacon stout.

The recipe I used was based off the recipe I did for the pumpkin sweet stout (please do not judge me) earlier, but with some tweeks:

10 lbs English Maris Otter
0.75 lb English Black Malt
0.75 lb Briess Caramel (80 L)
0.50 lb Fawcett Pale Chocolate
1 lb Lactose sugar

Yeast: Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Mash in: 152 degrees
Sparge: 175 degrees

Original gravity: 1.062
Final gravity: 1.022

Apparently all the time off from brewing made be a little lazy and forgetful.  I didn't have time to make a yeast starter and the yeast nutrient container in the smack pack wouldn't break upon smacking.  Sigh.  As well, I forgot to add the sugar to the boil and had to improvise adding it after.  That being said, upon moving to secondary it tasted dandy... for now.

12/30: Split the batch into two 3 gallon glass carboys and added 24-32 oz of maple syrup each.  Mosher's radical brewing stated that adding maple syrup to the secondary will give a bigger maple syrup smell.  I obediently listened.  Will be adding my bacon fat wash when bottling next week and will update with a post about the process.  The other half will just be a maple sweet stout.  Joy!  Happy new year!

1/4: Tried my first attempt at fat washing