Founders Mango Magnifico

Unfortunately, I have slipped back into seldom updating.  In my defense, I am trying to be a real human being.  I have a lot of things to post, so hopefully in the next week I can get everything back in order.  In the meantime, I meant to post a review of a Founders beer I have been wanting to try for a while.

Founders Mango Magnifico

Appearance- Golden orange with a puffy white head that sticks around longer after arouse it again with some circling of the glass.  Some noticeable sticky lacing hangs around the edges of the glass.

Smell- Initially a strong malt presence.  The habanero character sneaks up and by the middle of the beer  my nostrils begin to sting very slightly.  Slight vegetable character, possibly from the habanero.  Very slight mango, if any.

Taste- Burst of a strong malt backbone to begin the beer.  In the middle, the beer develops into a distinct mango character, but only moderate in intensity.  Some other sweet citrus character rounds out the middle including lemon with a touch of the vegetal character.  A noticeable rising heat in the back of the mouth to finish.

Mouthfeel- Medium-bodied with moderate-light carbonation.  A noticeable heat was left on the back of the tongue and throat.

Overall- The taste was above and beyond better than the smell.  I made tilapia tacos to go along with the beer.  Round out the day honoring Lou Reed as it was the day after he died.  Well known fact: You will never be as cool as Lou Reed.

A Night With Lagunitas

A couple of weeks ago, Lagunitas founder, Tony Magee stopped by my law school to talk about starting a business, and of course to talk beer.  Apparently he went to the Illinois Institute of Technology for a year at their design program and I believe his wife went to my law school (I believe that is what he said?).  Anyways, he has significant ties to the Chicago area and he both agreed to talk at the school as well as play some blues at our 125th anniversary street festival.

The night started with samples of Maximus, Lagunitas IPA, Pils, and the relatively new DayTime.  After the samples (and me sneaking a beer since it was only 2 ozs at a time with a relatively long wait for a sample), we entered the auditorium to have a "fireside chat."

It was generally informal with Mr. Magee giving a lot of history of the brewery.  Some highlights included receiving a brewing kit and starting a brewery by the end of that year, rigging Kinko's timing/fee system in order to print labels as a reduced cost, and the uhhhhhhh substance abuse story behind "Censored."  Notably, Mr. Magee also talked about the Chicago brewery/brew pub that has pushed back its opening
date multiple times (he claims it will be coming at the end of the year, mostly because he faces significant taxes/fines if it does not), and interestingly enough, his plans to purchase land in Greece to open another brewery that will supply Europe with his beer.

Come question time, there was a lot of focus on the news of the Chicago brewery, comparisons/difficulties dealing with BMC products and advertising, as well as what the future looks like for Lagunitas.  Luckily, I got in a quick question about whether Mr. Magee saw the rise of sour beers as a parallel with the rise of the West Coast IPA or more of a fad, and whether Lagunitas had any plan for a more significant souring/barrel program outside of Little Sumpin Wild and some smaller scale sours that are only on tap at the brewery.  He seemed to appreciate a good sour, but thought of the style as more of a blip on the craft beer radar (he was not disrespectful though) and seemed to think that the style in general was better left to his peers rather than jumping in on the popularity at this point.  I got to speak to him very briefly after the talk, but only to say thanks as him and other from the brewery had been hanging around for quite some time.

All that being said, it was great the I was able to both attend such an event, and get to talk to one of the bigger heads of craft brewery.  Mr. Magee seemed to be more business driven than others in the industry (and I do not mean this in any negative sense) and motivated to make Lagunitas a leading name similar to Sam Adams, or possibly surpassing.  He did mention that he is at the point where he feels that he wants to muscle out some of the "quasi craft" beers from the market that are made by BMC without their name attached, but it seemed any such plans are still a little of the ways off.  However, he was great to listen to and hopefully this will not be a one time event at the school.

New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb

As well as having a problem with the amount of beer from the Bruery, it seems I also have a decent amount of New Glarus.  How are those for problems to have, buddy?  Unfortunately, I am not skilled enough to make some awesome pie to go along with this.  But really, what do you expect from me?

New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb


Appearance- A very hazy amber/dark orange color with a tint of red.  A tan creamy head sticks around after the pour.

Smell- Predictably, a lot of strawberry and rhubarb.  Very rich smell with what seems to be a slight cherry.  Underneath the fruit is a candy sweetness with a crockery/cereal character.

Taste- Reminiscent of strawberry rhubarb pie in the beginning.  A sweet fruit character with moderate strawberry character (slightly surprising seeing how hard it is to get a real strawberry taste in a beer).  Tart character picks up in the middle and is complimented by a sugary sweetness.  A slight cereal taste in the finish.

Mouthfeel- Medium-thin body with a spritzy carbonation on the tongue.  Leaves a lingering sweetness.

Overall- Another great fruit beer from New Glarus.  At times I expected to get a strawberry seed since it tasted so fresh.  Would have loved to have this one with a slice of pie.  Someone make that happen.

Back to Hop Leaf

Recently, I decided to start my own little Brett experiment to try and understand more thoroughly how different strands of Brett affect the taste of beer.  I still have to use the vial of Brett Lambicus that I have sitting in the fridge, and luckily I saw that Hop Leaf had Goose Island's Matilda with Brett Lambicus.  I decided to stop by to see how my beer my taste (because apparently that is important) and found there were around 10 other beers I wanted to try.  Unfortunately my friends had to run to the airport so I only tried around 3.  Apparently it is unhealthy to drink 10 beers in one sitting alone.  Or 10 beers in general.

Matilda Lambicus

The appearance is generally what you would expect from the normal Matilda with less head retention.  The difference comes in the smell in taste.  The smell has the phenolic character you are used to from Matilda, but quickly a musty cellar character with a prominent earthy character.  The Brett taste was more evident in the taste with a slight band aid flavor complimented by the musty cellar character.  There was also a slight lemon that fell beneath the earthy notes and some leather.  Very similar to Orval, wish they had this more available.

Founders Oatmeal Stout (Nitro)

The menu told me this was fairly rare for the Chicago market.  The menu would not lie to me.  Here, the roasty character was the most prominent.  Although there was some slight chocolate and coffee, it fell behind the roasted barely.  The most notable thing about the beer was with the full stout flavor, it was only at 4.5% alcohol.  Nice to see that Founders is embracing the notion that you do not need higher alcohol content to have a full flavored beer.  That being said, I do not expect anyone to listen.

De Proef Brouwerij & Cigar City Tropical Tripel

This was probably the most interesting beer of the day.  Most individuals are under the belief that Brett only makes beers funky (and some are under the belief that it is a main souring agent).  However, this beer shows that is not always true.  Here, the Brett brought out some wonderful tropical fruit character that was way more complex than I have seen in beers that have actually added fruit.  There was a distinct smell and taste of mangos and pineapple with dashes of peaches (these were the fruits added).  A pheno
lic clove was there as well that mixed with an almost bubble gum flavor at the end of the beer. Alcohol started to peak at the end of the beer.  No earthy character here.  Hoping my brett trois beer has a similar character.

Three great beers, and it was hard to stop here seeing as they also had The Bruery's Oude Tart, Jolly Pumpkin, and multiple berliner weisses.  Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back...

Honey Amber Brewday

I decided to take a quick break from brewing some funky beers in my brett experiment to make a beer for the fall.  Not wanting to go the pumpkin route (and especially not this early in the year), I needed something else.  After passing a local honey stand at the Logan Square farmer's market, I decided to put together a simple beer with the honey.  I put together an amber recipe and then went to get the honey.  The place is called Chicago Honey Co-op and happens to be fairly close to me in the city.  Luckily, they also brewed beer and were interested in what I was doing.  Hopefully this turns out alright so when I drop off a couple bottles I do not disappoint them too much.

Honey Amber


Batch Size: 5 gallons
Original gravity: 1.065
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Mash: 60 minutes

9.25 lbs Marris Otter
1.0 lb Munich
0.75 lb Crystal 40 L
0.50 lb Crystal 120 L
0.75 lb Honey Malt
1.5 lbs Local honey

0.5 oz Centennial @ 60 min
1.0 oz Mt. Hood @ 30 min
1.0 oz Williamette @ 10 min

0.5 tsp Irish Moss
0.75 tsp Yeast Nutrient

Yeast: American Ale

Water Profile: Chicago

Mashed in with 4 gallons of water at 152 degrees F for 60 minutes.  Uneventful mash, which was nice considering that I was having some trouble with my last couple.  Collection 6.52 gallons of wort after a batch sparge and boiled for 60 minutes with the included hop additions.  Collected around 5 gallons and pitched my yeast starter.

Brewed: 8/24/13

8/30/13 Added around a pound and a half of the honey to primary fermentation as it was settling down.  Honey was particularly floral, will see if this will help.  Hoping that the addition to the primary fermentor will allow more of the honey character to come through.

Bottled:

Tasting:

Begyle Don't Bring Me Down, Zeus

Since I just recently mentioned how I need to spend more time on Chicago beers, I figured I should actually follow through for once.  My friend from college has been telling me for a while to check out Begyle Brewing because he knows one of the guys who helped start it up.  And seeing as the nice guy I am, I painstakingly went out of my way to sit down and drink a beer.

Begyle Don't Bring Me Down, Zeus

Appearance- Dark Golden orange, almost a tint of amber in color with a hazy body.  An off white to light brown head that sticks around in a very thin head, almost turning patchy.  Moderate lacing left behind.

Smell- Very resiney hop smell with some sappy pine and a bit of grass.  Behind the hops is a decent amount of caramel malt.  Slight amount of alcohol is noticeable towards the end, but it is not hot.  Some slight fruit esters (maybe grapefruit?) lingering way back.

Taste- Tons of the resiney/piney flavors, feels as if it is almost stripping the tongue.  Expected a twinge of citrus to hit somewhere in the middle, but the resin was there to stay (not saying that is a bad thing).  Hop flavor seems almost earthy and spicy on the tongue.  Although there is a decent amount of caramel malty character, it never seems to compete with the hops. Bitterness picks up in the middle in moderate amounts as it quickly turns up to high bitterness into the finish.  Bitterness lingers and almost seems to tickle the tongue, if that can even be a description.  Alcohol seems a little hot in the end of the beer.

Mouthfeel- Thick mouthfeel with a prickly carbonation that seems to be enhanced with the spicy hop flavor .  Could possibly use a little more a little more carbonation.  Warming alcohol, a little too hot for my taste.

Overall- Although not my favorite DIPA, a very enjoyable one nonetheless.  A nice switch up from the citrus-centric DIPAs that you normally see, nice to see a new brewery not just jumping on that ship.  If you like that piney and resin type flavor, this is a good one to pick up.  Also, maybe don't piss of Zeus. Just my opinion though.

Also, you can say whatever you want, but my sad excuse for a mind has already locked on the pronunciation "bagel", no matter how wrong it may be.

The (Mediocre) Brett Experiment

Now that I have spent some time getting back into the groove of brewing, it is time for some exbeeriments.  And what better fun than learning the ins and outs of brettanomyces?  As someone that loves all things sour and funk, this is a natural progression, and really something necessary if I want to make acceptable funky beers.  Luckily, someone came up with The Great Brett Experiment and helped me out with obtaining some strains of brett along the way.  The gist of the fun?  Generally, split up batches of beer, pitch different strains of brett, play the waiting game, and then have both side by side to see how each strain adds different characteristics to the resulting beer.  I started with Brettanomyces clausseni and East Coast Yeast 08 in a rye saison, and still have some brettanomyces lambicus waiting too be pitched.  However, anyone who has other strains should feel free to send them my way!  Because we are all in this together, right?

Rye Saison

Batch size: 5.00 gallons

Original Gravity: 1.053

Final Gravity: 

Boil time: 90 minutes

Mash time: 90 minutes

9.0 lbs Pilsener

3.0 lbs Rye malt

0.75 lb Table sugar

1.5 oz Fuggle hops @60 min

1.0 oz Fuggle hops @10 min

0.75 tsp yeast nutrient

1.0 tsp irish moss

ECY 08 and Brettanomyces clausseni

Water profile: Chicago

Mashed in with 4 gallons at 149 degrees F.  This time I actually overshot the mash temperature and had to gradually bring down the temperature with a variety of arduous methods.  Nevertheless, I got there.  Let the mash sit for 90 minutes in order to ensure full conversion.  Did not get great efficency with 1.053, hopefully I can make up for this in the future.  Batch sparged with 4 gallons and collected around 7.25 gallons of wort.  After boiling and chilling to around 74 degrees F, split into two 3 gallon better bottles.  One received the ECY 08 and the other received the Brettanomyces clausseni.  Put these ones away and they will sit for a while before I have the opportunity to bottle.

Brewed: 8/10/13

Bottled: 

Tasting: