Hot Pot, Rasputin, and Homebrew, Oh My!

Two weeks ago I went to Glenwood Springs with Robin, my girlfriend. It was a weekend for us to get away from everything, and just relax for a weekend. They have this great deal where you book a night at either the Hotel Denver or the AmericInn and you get 2 adult passes to Sunlight Mountain Resort and 2 adult passes to the Glenwood Hot Springs. It's a pretty sweet deal. I booked two nights at the Hotel Denver, being the obvious choice. The reason I say "obvious choice" is because the Hotel Denver's in-house restaurant is Glenwood Canyon Brewery. Ulterior motives? Maybe. Do both Robin and I like beer? A lot? Yes.

I've had their beer before, and it's pretty decent. Some is better than others, but overall, the beer is good. There was one seasonal beer in particular that I was hoping they had, and it's by far my favorite from them. A few years ago I went up there, and they had Hot Pot Barleywine on tap, and it was absolutely delicious. Lucky for me, I picked the right time of year to visit Glenwood Springs again, because they had it on tap! I went through the motions, getting a couple samples of their other beer, before I indulged in a pint of their delicious barleywine. Like I mentioned before, I hadn't had it in a couple years, so it was almost like tasting it for the first time again. At first sip, it started out sweet, then finished with a lingering bitterness, but after my palate acclimated to it, it became a complex, delicious combination of malty, almost toffee-like sweetness and lingering, balancing hop bitterness. After talking to the bartender for a little bit about beer, he told me that he had successfully kept a growler of Hot Pot in his refrigerator unopened for a year, and it was still good when he opened it. I decided that I wanted to give it my best shot, and bought myself a growler of barleywine before we left Glenwood.

The trip to Glenwood was actually bookended by beer. On our way up, at the recommendation of my buddy Josh, we dropped by Backcountry Brewing in Frisco to sample some of their beers. It made for a great mid-trip pit-stop. I had an IPA, and Robin had their Porter, being that their winter seasonal was a pale ale and not a stout, and Robin gravitates towards the darkest beer a brewery has on tap. She did raise a good question, though: Why on Earth would breweries not have a stout on tap all winter long? It's the style of beer that was practically borne of the coldest, most punishing season of the year, with the sole purpose of making one forget what perils lay outside the (then modest) comforts of one's home (or, in Rasputin's case, a castle). Speaking of Rasputin, I should mention the other bookend of the weekend: bottling my Russian Imperial Stout.

After we arrived home on Sunday, I commenced preparations for bottling my stout. The recipe I used was an Old Rasputin (brewed by North Coast) clone, which means that the beer should be bitter, dark, and angry. It certainly looks the part, hopefully it will taste it as well. I had been scheming for something to try with this stout, even though it was only the third beer I've brewed. I decided I wanted to add coffee to it. However, I didn't want to add coffee to all of the beer, as I would like to enjoy some of it unadulterated to see how it turned out.

Before we left for Glenwood, I had cold-brewed about 3 cups of coffee. After tinkering with some numbers and doing a little math, an extremely convenient and favorable scenario appeared. I made all my calculations assuming that I would be bottling a total of 5 gallons of beer. It turned out that if I added 2 cups of coffee when there was 2.5 gallons of beer left, then the last cup of coffee when there was 1 gallon left, I would end up with half a batch of pure unaltered stout, 1.5 gallons of beer with 5% coffee (by volume) added, and 1 gallon of beer with 10% coffee added. What a convenient circumstance! Not only would I get to try the beer by itself, but I would get to try it with varying degrees of coffee, so that I could get a better sense of how much a given amount of coffee affects the final flavor of the beer.

Up to the point that I bottled the beer, I had not actually named it. I had tossed around brewed up a few ideas, but hadn't formally decided on any one in particular. Talking with Robin about it, we came up with three awesomely appropriate names, each one giving a very good indication of what the beer was. Here's what the names were:

Rasputin's Apprentice - straight Russian Imperial Stout. I, the apprentice, had brewed an Old Rasputin clone.
Rasputin's Brunch - Robin came up with this name, and it signifies the 5% coffee content stout.
Rasputin's Breakfast - Based on the "brunch" theme, the name easily hints at a stronger (10%) coffee content.

It worked out beautifully, too. I ended up with 14 x 22oz bottles of Rasputin's Apprentice, 6 x 12oz and 6 x 22oz of Rasputin's Brunch, and 7 x 12oz and 1 x 22oz of Rasputin's Breakfast. After all that, there was just enough beer left over in the bottom of the bucket for me to take a final gravity reading. The reading came out exactly where it was supposed to be, too. The beer started at about 1.090, and finished at 1.020-1.022 (10% added for the coffee volume), meaning it's sitting at about 9% abv. After taking the gravity reading, I did what any sane homebrewer would do, and poured it into a glass. I took a couple sips; it was absolutely delicious, even warm and flat! I put the rest into the refrigerator to cool for a while, but couldn't help myself and drank it before it cooled off very much. There was no noticeable alcohol heat, it had a great coffee flavor, and was a very good looking dark brown. Not quite black like Old Rasputin, but hey, I'm the apprentice, so it's cool. It still looks like a stout, that's for sure. I can't wait to see what the stout tastes like by itself. I'm doing my best to fight my urges to open a bottle this coming weekend and let it sit for three full weeks before I taste it. Wish me luck.

Perhaps I will be able to fight the urge if I brew another beer. Yes, that's what I'll do. Well, that, and buy a bomber of the freshly released batch of Avery's Maharaja Imperial IPA. I've been drinking a lot of my 2nd batch of homebrew, which the box kit recipe said was an "IPA," but really has no noticeable hop flavor or aroma. It's definitely a very well balanced and great looking light amber ale, but by no means is it even close to a Pale Ale in terms of hop character. It goes down easy though, and I have a lot of it, so its purpose is fulfilled. Of course, the side effect of all of this is that I have a nasty, almost insatiable craving for a beer loaded with enamel-stripping levels of hops. I had a Dale's Pale Ale this past Saturday, the first hoppy beer I'd had after a week of drinking my "Pale Ale," and I felt as though it was the first time I had drank it, as if my palate had been completely reset. The hop flavor was amazing, and the aroma smelled as if I had just opened a fresh package of hops. That only fueled my craving for a hop-heavy beer, which shall be quenched tomorrow!

Speaking of brewing another beer, I have gone back and forth with how I want to approach my next few batches of beer. I've toyed with the idea of making another clone. I've thought about making several batches of the most basic recipes (limited to malt extract, one grain, and one hop strain) for the purpose of thoroughly learning what effect each ingredient has on the flavor. I've also fancied just thinking of what I want my beer to taste like, and after some basic calculations for IBUs and gravity, just wandering the homebrew supply store and grabbing whatever ingredients I think will be suited to my recipe. I think I'm going to go with the final one. I truly want to learn what flavors each individual ingredient adds to the finished beer, but by God, I want to have some fun doing it. I want to learn by discovery, I want to make some truly bizarre tasting beer, and I want to make some truly amazing tasting beer. I want to do it by following my instinct, whether it leads me astray or not. That's how I learned how to cook; followed a few recipes, inevitably tired of that, then started throwing ingredients and spices into a pot or skillet until I had made enough good food and enough strange food that I learned making consistently yummy food by instinct and feel.

Obviously there needs to be a little more structure in brewing than in cooking. I fully intend to lay out an extremely basic recipe to get an idea of where I want the OG, FG, abv, and IBUs to be, and I'll need to select hops beforehand according to what I want the beer to be, but otherwise, I'm just going to pick out grains as I go, and see where it takes me. Wish me luck! I'll report back with what I find next week. Until then, beer on, and beer often!

Cheers!
(P.S. - as a bit of self-indulgence, my blog stats tell me that 70% of my readers are using something other than Internet Explorer. Keep up the good work!)

Friekin' Pliny is a Surly Brewsday

There have been a lot of new beers happening these past couple weeks. New beers both for the craft beer world in general, beers I've just tasted for the first time, and (just one) beer that I've brewed for the first time. In fact, I had so many encounters with new beer that it took me two weeks just to figure out how to put it all together. Yes, that was my way of indirectly acknowledging that I didn't post last week.

The first of the beers new to the world of craft beer was Friek, brewed by Odell's in Fort Collins. Friek is a blend of Framboise and Kriek. I'm sure, with that information, you can fill in the blanks for why the name is "Friek." As the story has it, the good people of Odell's were taking an inventory of their warehouse, when they came across a 55 gallon barrel that was unaccounted for. The only way they could figure determine what beer was in this barrel was to pull a small sample and taste it. The head brewer took a small quaff, was still for a moment, then slowly, a maniacal, diabolical grin spread from ear to ear across his face; the beer was a long forgotten batch of lambic ale that had been aging on cherries for a year and a half. The next morning, the head brewer came in with fantastic blueprints for what to do with the beer.

I'll just let the label speak for itself:
"Friek is an evolution, an imaginative amalgamation invented by our brewers. Multiple KRIEK Lambic style ales are fermented with WILD yeast and TART cherries and then moved into OAK BARRELS to age and sour taking on the CHERRY flavors. As the beer matures, FRAMBOISES (raspberries) from the Schroyer Family Farms in Fort Collins and handpicked and readied for the beer. The fresh RASPBERRIES are added immediately prior to the final blending. The sweet and tart flavors MINGLE on the tongue with a sparkling dry finish."

I didn't add the emphasis, they did. However, the emphasis does provide a good description of the flavor of the beer. It was delightfully tart, dancing back and forth between a very mature, almost dried cherry sweetness, and the light, playful tartness of fresh wild raspberries. It was very good.

The next beer happening was one of my own creation. I brewed my third batch of beer, an Old Rasputin clone. Simply by having about twice as much malt extract and three times the weight of specialty grains, it's the biggest beer I've brewed to date. It should turn out to be about 8.5% to 9% abv, and will be a very dark brown. Not quite black like I would've liked, but dark brown will work nicely. At bottling, I'm going to add coffee to half of the bottles. I don't know how it will turn out, but it will be fun. Even though I've only brewed three batches, which I know is next to nothing, I already think that brewing beer is as much about the process as it is about getting 32-odd bottles of 22oz bottles of beer after a month and a half later.

One thing that I learned about beer through this is the difference between all-grain and extract brewing. All grain equipment costs a good chunk of money, but brewing beer becomes much cheaper since you don't have to buy malt extract at that point. Extract brewing is far easier, but you pay for the simplicity because malt extract costs a lot more that just grains. Henceforth, until I can afford the leap to all-grain brewing, I'm going to focus on recipes that don't use very much malt extract, and see how much flavor and complexity I can get from steeping specialty grains. The only limit this will impose is that I probably won't be brewing any higher alcohol beers for a while, which honestly is perfectly fine. I'm excited to see what I can come up with.

The next new beer is one that I can't really say anything about, other than it's coming from Great Divide sometime...soon. And it sounds awesome. That's all I can say about that one. ;)

The only way to follow that up is by telling you about an awesome beer that actually does exist. A couple posts ago, I talked about Russian River brewing company, Pliny the Elder (their double IPA), and Pliny the Younger (their triple IPA). In that post, I disclosed that I had not yet had the pleasure of tasting Pliny the Younger. What follows is my account of my first encounter with Pliny the Younger, at Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids & Solids, last Thursday. (Pliny the Younger henceforth shall be called "PtY"):

I got there about 5:20, and there really wasn’t that many people there. I mean, the bar was full, and about ¾ of the tables were full, but there was only 5 or 10 people standing by the bar that I would guess were waiting. I just went to the far end of the bar where there wasn’t anybody standing, and got a beer from the bartender. I asked him what the deal was with PtY, and he said that it’s just whoever’s there. In my mind, I was like “oh, great, a free for all…we’ll see how this goes…” but the bartender knew that I was there for it.

At about 10 after 6, the bartenders were checking with every person at the bar to see who was there for PtY, and counting them. Where we stood, Jesse and I were like the 7th or 8th people that he counted. When 6:15 rolled around, one of the bartenders climbed up on the bar and did the whole introductory speech for PtY. He said that “by our count, we will get 64 pours out of this keg. Unfortunately, that means some of you are going to be disappointed. But have no fear, we’re tapping another keg next Saturday…” he also gave an introduction to Oskar Blues’ newest beer, Mutilator Dopplebock, which they were tapping immediately alongside PtY. Either way, we knew we were going to be two of the 64 people that got a 10-oz pour of PtY. To our surprise, at 6:25, the bartender for our corner came over with two glasses of PtY, and set them in front of the guys sitting at the bar directly in front of us. Then he came back and handed one to me and one to Jesse. After a celebratory cheer, we went and sat outside.

As I smelled the beer in the short and stubby Oskar Blues glass before me, my nose was awakened by the scents of pineapple, passionfruit, and pine/spruce/coniferous forest. There were, perhaps, details pepper and clove underneath, but very subtle.

Lifting the glass and taking a sip, I was greeted with an explosion of hop flavor in the form of pine sap, floral spiciness, and green chili. Yes, green chili. Not the heat, but the flavor. Then the hops gave way to the sweetness of the malt, with a lingering hop resin flavor. After swallowing a sip, the green, resinous flavor sat on your tongue like the haunting memory of the many, many hop leaves that gave their lives for this beer. Jesse and I counted, the aftertaste lasted at least a solid two minutes without fading. It was ridiculous. Ridiculous and awesome.

As the amount of beer in our glass dwindled to somewhere around one ounce each, we decided to let the beer warm up and see how it tasted at room temperature, since it had managed to stay cold for the entire time we’d been drinking it up to that point. Due to the thick glass bases of the stubby OB glasses refusing to change their temperature, it actually took the single ounces of beer a good 5 or 10 minutes to warm up to where we wanted. That’s where it got strange, though. As I took a sip of PtY at what was arguably a more appropriate temperature, I was completely let down. The beer tasted watery and lost most of its intense complexity of flavor. How odd. I suppose even the most highly rated beers still have their demons, their quirks. I guess that’s what keeps them real.

Granted, my buddy Cedric pointed out that, in his opinion (which I happen to agree with), IPAs and hop-forward beers tend to be best at slightly colder temperatures as compared to their "stout" compadres. And granted, my palate had been completely dominated by the amount of hops present in Pliny the Younger, so it's not surprising that I couldn't taste much of the malt complexity. I was still a little surprised though, being an 11% beer and having enough sweetness to balance out 4 separate dry hoppings. All in all, I was definitely impressed and would definitely have it again... if I happened to be at the right place at the right time again.

The next beer is, well, not so much one particular beer, but a series of beers, at a beer happening. A few of my friends and I have put together quasi-monthly beer tastings, going by the name of Brewsday. Actually, when we started doing them, they were on a Tuesday, which inspired the name of this blog, but having a beer tasting on a Tuesday sucks, so we changed it to Friday. We have, up to this point, had brewery-centric tastings, gathering as many beers from one particular brewery as we can for each tasting. This past Friday was the first Brewsday of 2011, and it was a great one.

Thanks to the efforts of Josh and his friends, we had a Surly Brewing Company Brewsday. As (I think) mentioned in another post, Surly is not available in Colorado as of yet. That fact made this Brewsday even cooler, since we were tasting beer that not very many other people in our state have had the pleasure of drinking.

We got to try almost the full range of their beers, missing only a couple out of their lineup. We tried Bitter Brewer (not really a British Bitter), Bender (American Brown Ale), Coffee Bender (Bender + coffee, duh), SurlyFest (NOT a German Oktoberfest Bier), CynicAle (Belgian Style Saison/Pale), Smoke (Oak Aged Smoked Baltic Porter), Darkness (Russian Imperial/American Double Stout), Wet (west coast/fresh hop IPA), Furious (American IPA), and Abrasive (Double Oat IPA).

If there's one thing I can say about Surly after the tasting, it's that all of their beers have a point to get across, and the get that point across well. If there's two things I can say about Surly after the tasting, the second would be that I was impressed with the complexity present in each and every beer that I tried. None of the beers were sub-par or just mediocre, they all had a very polished yet unapologetic point to make. And they made that point quite well.

The big-shots were of course the stars of the show. Smoke had about 6 months on it, so what was surely once a big, awesome puff of campfire straight in the chops had since backed off into a more subdued smoke flavor, letting the complexity of the rest of the beer shine through, with complimentary flavors of dark fruit and licorice making their presence known. Darkness was definitely a surprise for me. Being that they call it a "Russian Imperial/American Double Stout," I was expecting dark, angry, roasty, bitter flavors. Instead, I was surprised with a luscious, velvety mixture of coffee, chocolate, and hints of cherry and raisin. Quite different than I expected, but as such, it really stood out from the (HUGE) crowd of Russian Imperial Stouts. Wet, while having been in a can for the better part of 4 or 5 months, still had a deliciously fresh hop flavor to it, very green and almost having that "grassy" (in a good way) flavor that fresh-hop IPAs tend to have. Abrasive couldn't have possibly had a more fitting name. It was a kick in the teeth with sheer enamel-stripping hop flavor, with a wicked malt backbone to back it up. It was beautiful.

Maybe next week I'll tell you about my upcoming trip to Glenwood Springs with my girlfriend, and my inevitable trip to Glenwood Canyon Brewing (our hotel is right next door for cryin' out loud!). I guess we'll see, I never really know where beer is going to take me. Until then, beer on, and beer often.

Cheers!

And that's why I love craft beer.

This past week was relatively uneventful for me in the realm of beer, so I am going to share a story with you. This story is about events currently unfolding in the craft beer world. This story is just one example of how the community of craft beer is a strong one, and will support their fellow brewers and craft beer fans at a moments notice.

There is a brewery in Minnesota called Surly Brewing Company. You may have heard of it, or probably have not. They've been in business for 5 years now, and only distribute in Minnesota and New York. The brewery was started by Omar Ansari in a warehouse in the industrial district of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Interestingly enough, just to become a brewery, they already had to change a law on the books. As told in their "History" page on their website, this doesn't get much mention, so it must've been a very minor hurdle. This was only a hurdle in their city, since they share Minnesota with other breweries such as August Schell, Summit, Town Hall, Fitger's, and Flat Earth, to name a few.

Since starting five years ago, Surly has rapidly grown in popularity. Most of their beers can be found in the higher ranks on RateBeer and Beer Advocate. Of course, when someone brews great beer, word gets out, and more people want to try this "great beer." Surly started distributing to New York last year, after being open for only 5 years, and their business in 2010 increased by 32% over 2009. They must be doing something right.

Living in Colorado, the "Napa Valley of Beer," it's easy for me to forget that not every state has as beer and brewery-friendly laws as we do. It appears to be easy for breweries to cross the lines from only selling pints and growlers at the brewery to distributing kegs to local bars and restaurants to selling their beer in liquor stores and back again. I'm not claiming to be familiar with the nuances of Colorado or Denver liquor and beer laws, but the observation stands that it appears relatively easy. Minnesota doesn't have it quite so easy.

Currently, the Minnesota laws state that breweries that produce under 3,500 barrels a year are classified as "brewpubs," and can sell beer on-site to customers, but not distribute to liquor stores. Breweries over 3,500 barrels can no longer distribute their beer on-site. I'm sure that people can still come visit the breweries, take their tours, and talk about beer. They just can't have a pint there afterward. No growlers, bottles, or cans either.

Not to be judgmental, but I can't imagine how much of a bummer that must be. Imagine going to a popular brewery, such as Odell's, Oskar Blues, Avery, Great Divide, Bristol, or a wealth of other breweries whose production is above 3,500 barrels a year. Imagine meeting friends and strangers alike there, comforted knowing that everyone has been drawn there to share the art and enjoyment of craft beer. Imagine taking the brewery tour, talking with the employees, talking with the brewers, smell all of the smells that come along with beer being created. Imagine, then, that you have to leave, since you can't have a glass of their freshly created beer while visiting the brewery. That, to me, is unfair. Part of the art and culture of craft beer is being able to share it with people, being able to share it with everyone who wants to come see your brewery, and everyone that wants to buy it at their local liquor store and share it with their friends and family at home. Imagine going to an art show where all you can see it paint, paintbrushes, and canvases, and to see the finished art you have to go to your local art store. Imagine going to a restaurant, but you can only watch the chefs make food, and to buy it you have to go to the grocery store.

This "bummer" is where Surly is right now. Because of their growth, and the demand for their beer, Omar has created a vision for Surly Brewing Company. This vision is a twenty million dollar, 60,000 square foot brewery, restaurant, bar, beer garden, and event center, which will draw beer fans and tourists alike to the destination. The bummer: the vision, as it currently stands, is illegal in Minnesota. So, naturally, Surly has taken to the streets, calling out to their fans to help change the law so that they can follow through with their dream. Their call to action appears to be working, with the help of friends and allies.

This is what Surly's new facility will look like

There is a liquor store in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Not just any liquor store, a beer store. They carry only beer. The name of this store is The Four Firkins (how fitting, right?), and they are one-of-a-kind in Minnesota, and I'm having a hard time thinking of any similar place in the country. The Four Firkins is like every craft-beer-lover's dream. They have nothing but shelves and shelves of craft beer. Not only do they have an enormous selection of really really good beer, but they also share it. They have weekly beer tastings, at the very least, which will leave in their wake an impressive display of empty bottles. Often times, the owner, Jason Alvey, will pop open a bottle of beer simply because a customer is curious about it and wants to taste it before they buy it. Was I wrong about "every craft-beer-lover's deam?" I didn't think so. Oh, I can't forget to mention that they're also trying to get a Minnesota law changed, so that they can sell Four Firkins-branded apparel at their store. Seems like craft beer in Minnesota is having quite a battle these days.

Being that Surly Brewing Company and The Four Firkins (henceforth known as "the Firk" because I'm tired of typing their full name) reside in the same state, it's only natural for them to be battle brethren. This past Friday, the Firk held an event to get signatures in support of amending the law in favor of Surly. They were offering tastes of Surly brew as an incentive, and it worked. They rounded up 300+ signatures, and most of the main cast of Surly Brewing Company dropped by to support the event as well. What a party that must've been, with all of that supportive energy in the air. I can only imagine how proud both Jason Alvey and the Surly brew crew must've been to see all of those fans of craft beer out to support their cause.

That momentum has had an effect; a bill has been created for Surly. This bill is now being lobbied, and even stands a chance at becoming a law. That would be a great and proud moment for not just Omar and his crew at Surly, but for Jason Alvey at the Firk, and all of the craft beer community in Minnesota. Honestly, I'd be proud too, and I'm sure that Surly has friends around the country that would be very happy for them. That's what I love about the craft beer community; it's not about who's beer is better (okay, at GABF it is), but it's about sharing the love for the art that is craft beer with everyone else who is even remotely interested in it. It's about supporting everyone else who is pursuing their passion in creating wonderful beer to share with everyone else. It's about sitting down at a dinner party full of wine drinkers and sharing a beer with them that makes them say "Wow!" It's about soaking up the vibrant, jovial environment of camaraderie at your local tap house, brewpub, or brewery tap room. It's about finding that crazy rare beer and sharing it with a few of your closest beer buddies. It's about watching the process of beer being created, from making a stew from precious malted grains to the bewildering microbiological spectacle that is fermentation to adding crazy ingredients like pink peppercorns and chili peppers, and finding inspiration in every minute of it.

And that's why I love craft beer.

On the subject of coveted beer...

Since I started blogging a couple weeks ago, I've been keeping notes on what I intend to write on the next week's Tewsday Brewsday post. This week, I've kept a bunch of notes, but I haven't been able to come up with a cohesive theme, a central idea to tie them all together. The thoughts and notes are all there, just very nebulous; very scattered and disorganized.

Normally I write my post on Monday night, then proofread and publish it on Tuesday. At least, for the entirety of my past 2 (two) blog posts, that's been my "system" that has "served me well." However, this week has been a little different, what with Valentine's Day, my brother's 21st birthday, and my 1-year anniversary with my beautiful girlfriend Robin going on. Monday rolled around, but I didn't get anything typed, and I decided I was going to wait until today, Tuesday, to write my post. Today came and I couldn't get any thoughts to stick, so I decided to wait for inspiration to strike me.

I am currently beginning a new adventure. No, not blogging. No, not homebrewing. No, not more beer. Well, okay, almost any "adventure" I have these days has to do with beer. So nevermind on that last one. My new adventure is this: I am currently embarking on the slow, but eventual, journey of gaining employment at a local craft brewery. This journey is certainly going to be a time commitment on my part. Of all the breweries that I've been able to talk to about how their employees get their jobs, most of them have said that "spending time in the taproom getting to know the employees" is key. Thus, my slow journey. The speed at which I can travel down this path is carefully balanced by a couple factors: 1. The amount of time, money, and beer that I can afford to expend and intake, respectively, balanced by 2. The fine balance between being there frequently enough that I can get to know the people that work at the brewery in a natural, organic manner, and being there too much and just being "that guy who's always at the tap room."

One such brewery of interest is Great Divide Brewing Company. With a current capacity of somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000bbl, distributing to 28 states as well as several different countries, and being one of the most decorated breweries in the country (16 GABF and 4 world cup medals), they are a prime target as they are growing to meet demand for their beers, which requires more helping hands as time goes on. Hopefully I can eventually be some of that help.

My very first visit to Great Divide's tap room was this past Saturday, after a morning at the Denver Art Musem followed by lunch at Pints Pub. Pints Pub is a very convincing British-style restaurant, complete with a big red phone booth out front to mark its location. The two biggest draws to this pub (other than the great food) are that it has the largest selection of single-malt scotch whiskey this side of Britain, and that it brews authentic British-style ales, including two live ales - cask-fermented and cask-conditioned. I have fallen in love with their Lancer IPA cask ale. The smooth carbonation, the entirely different body of flavor brought out by the cask conditioning, combined with the fact that it's just a very well-made British IPA make for a delicious pint. Robin didn't care for it much, the cask flavors weren't very much to her liking.

After finishing lunch, we headed out to Great Divide, which is located at the north end of lower downtown Denver (LoDo as it's called), in a converted dairy factory. This made for an easy conversion to a brewery, as all of the necessary plumbing and electrical was mostly present when they moved in to the building in 1994. The tap room itself is surprisingly cozy, with a good sized bar and a couple tables being all they have room for. They have eight of their beers on tap, and a refrigerator with most of the rest of what's not on tap. You can get a glass of almost anything that they brew. The exception, of course, is seasonals that are currently exhausted, and the rare specialty such as Barrel-Aged Yeti, Hibernation, or Old Ruffian.

Being that we went there on a Saturday, the tap room was unsurprisingly packed. Locals and out-of-towners alike crowded into the tap room and patio, patiently waiting for their turn to take the tour of the brewery or get their hands on a glass of Great Divide beer. We patiently waited our turn, so that I could fulfill my mission: I was attending a dinner party for my brother's 21st birthday later that evening, comprised of mostly wine-lovers, and I wanted to bring beer to share with convert them. We got the attention of a bartender, and asked "What beer goes with steak?" He replied "Yeti or Claymore." Yeti is their Imperial Stout, rich with flavors of chocolate, roasted barley, and coffee; Claymore is their scotch ale, dry-hopped a little bit to give the big malty body a nice balancing bite. I decided to go with Claymore. After getting my growler filled with delicious Scotch ale for a scant $10, then subsequently taking a tour of the brewery, Robin and I departed.

I arrived at the dinner party a little bit early, which gave me time to catch up with friends and family. We chatted about the finer points of "which beverages to drink when you want something good," and "which to drink when you just want to drink," balanced with discussions of global politics and finances. A good balance, I'd say. When the time came to gather 'round the table and partake of a steak feast, it also meant the time had come to decide what beverage we'd be having to compliment the meal. Since I had announced that I brought a beer to pair with the steak dinner, everyone who was drinking opted for a measure of Claymore, rather than red wine.

As the group took their first few bites, I smugly anticipated the response to the ale paired with the steak. Slowly, but surely, people took a couple bites of their meal, then took a quaff of the dark caramel-colored Scotch ale in their glasses. As not just one, but all of them said, "Wow, this beer is really good," I politely smiled and replied, "I'm glad that you like it, and I'm glad that I could share it with you." Of course, I was thinking to myself, "It's about time you realized there's more to beer than the painfully bland representatives in green glass bottles." The rest of the night was filled with raucous, jovial celebrations for my brother's 21st birthday.

Yesterday was my inaugural "business" visit to Great Divide on my slow but steady mission of employment. I spent a couple hours at the tap room and had a few great conversations over a couple great beers. I shared my story of success in sharing the growler of Claymore with the bartender, who replied "That's the kind of story I like to hear. The one where people get converted." I talked to a couple visitors from the east coast about the differences in beers we can get here vs beers they can get there, and which ones of our respective opposite categories we would love to see in our respective states. I also talked to a gentleman from California about Russian River's brewery, Pliny the Younger, and homebrewing.
To elaborate, Pliny the Younger is the "big brother" of Pliny the Elder. Both are brewed by Russian River in California. Pliny the Elder is a double IPA, which is ranked as the #8 beer in the world, according to ratebeer.com and it is available throughout Russian River's distribution network. Pliny the Younger is a "triple IPA", is only available in select markets, and rarely at that, and is ranked #3 in the world. If that doesn't speak to just how good Pliny the Younger should be*, then I don't know what does. Falling Rock Tap House should be getting two 5-gallon kegs of it in the near future, to be tapped about a week apart. The last time they had two kegs, the first ran out in 23 minutes, and the second in only 12. I can only assume the beer is that good.

*Disclaimer: I have not actually been lucky enough to taste the delicious lupuline nectar that is Pliny the Younger


Needless to say, after a tasty Hades Belgian Golden Ale and a Belgica Belgian-style India Pale Ale, as well as several great beer-centric conversations, inspiration had struck, and another entry into the tales of Tewsday Brewsday has been crafted.

Until next week, cheers! Craft beer on, and craft beer often!

On a Sour Note...

I started homebrewing at the end of December 2010. The first beer I brewed was a porter, a kit I bought from my local home brew supply store. It was my maiden voyage into the Sea of Brew, the first of many yet to come. Potentially similar to anybody who has tried their hand at home brewing, I was sure that I knew what was coming through the whole process, from boiling the wort to racking to secondary to bottling. At least, I knew what I had read online in forums, and the first chapter or two of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (which I still need to finish reading). Of course, the actual process went a little less smoothly than anticipated. All in all, I felt like I pulled off the whole brewing process from boiling to bottling pretty smoothly, other than forgetting to take an original gravity reading, having to restart the siphon a half dozen times when I racked it to secondary, having no idea what temperature it was fermenting at other than "the temperature my apartment's at," and forgetting to boil my priming sugar until I had fully prepared everything else for bottling. With the help of my girlfriend Robin, who's excellent assistance will be recruited for future bottling operations, it even felt like bottling the beer - which I would argue is the most complicated step of the whole brewing process - went smoothly. 2 cases of 22oz bottles later, my first beer was bottled and set aside, and I would be tasting the first bottle in 2 weeks to check how the carbonation process and conditioning were progressing.

Fast forward two weeks. I had been to Left Hand and Pumphouse the weekend before, and had sent an email to Avery to get more information about what had happened at the release of Margarete. The email I received back impressed me, with honesty, clarity, and insight into the business end of brewing that I had not previously encountered or considered. I wanted to share this email with all of you, so here it is, reprinted with permission of the author:

Hi Jake,

C.V. Howe here, Marketing Director for Avery Brewing Company. 

Jake, I'm really sorry to hear that the release last Friday left a bad taste in your mouth.  We make these beers because A. we are REALLY passionate about beer (just as you are, I assume) and B. because they are fun and we love throwing parties to celebrate them with our biggest fans!!!  It pains me to get emails like yours, since we try our best to get as much great beer as we can into the hands of those that really appreciate it!

I'm not sure if you've been to any of our prior Barrel-Aged Series releases.  If you have, you'll know that we've always had a 6 bottle limit on these beers.  This system was very effective for us for releases 1-5, and unfortunately a good amount of folks walked away empty handed last Friday at Margarete.  Obviously the huge demand for Margarete was not anticipated.  To put things in perspective, we sold a total of 54 cases of Quinquepartite, No.5 during the release event in September.  That was across the course of 4 hours (6PM-10PM), with folks trickling in all evening after the initial rush at 6PM.  59 cases of Margarete sold in 1.5 hours.    Why the huge increase in demand?  Your guess is as good as mine.  The marketing and advertising for all 6 BAS releases has been virtually identical. 

As the person in charge of the ticket giving and sales operation last Friday, I can promise you that the 6 bottle limit per customer was strictly adhered to.  Every person who made it in the door was given 6 tickets, and if they only had 5 when they got to the front of the line, they only bought 5 bottles.  Several customers did come in groups, or in couples, and on a few occasions we did give people a case box to more easily carry their six packs out among themselves and their friends. I can see how that might have sent the wrong message to those standing out in the cold.  

In retrospect, do we wish that we had decided to do a 2 bottle or 3 bottle limit?  Yes.  Did past experience with these releases leading up to Margarete suggest a 3 bottle limit? Certainly not.  Can you trust us to take the necessary steps to ensure a more equitable distribution of the beer at the release of Dihos Dactylion on 2/25?  Absolutely.

When it comes down to it, these beers have a real element of scarcity to them (have you seen our cellar? It's not real big.  And smaller still when you consider that a good percentage of the beer goes down the drain because it doesn't meet our standards.)  Going forward, we plan to make sure that those who make the biggest effort will get the best odds of walking away with beer.   Bottom line, you're gonna have to make an effort (showing up two hours after the release starts isn't likely to hack it), but if you make the effort and follow our instructions leading up to the release you will have a much better experience.      

Look for our new plan in the upcoming edition of The Monthly Mash and on our website, http://www.averybrewing.com/ in a few days time.  

Cheers, and I hope to see you and your friends at Dihos!!!!

C.V. Howe 

 As mentioned, I was humbled by the honesty of C.V. However, being the beer geek that I am, I was instantly intrigued by the mention of a beer that I had not yet heard of, "Dihos Dactylion." A quick Google search gave me just a teaser of information, in the form of a label and a quick description.

The text on the label reads:

"No. 7. Mumbles. Squints. Tie-dye V-necks. Popped collars. Moccasins. Marlin Shorts. Vermont. Was a butcher, then a brewer, now a quitter. We'll miss you, man!

BREWED WITH ROCKY MOUNTAIN WATER, MALTED BARLEY, IMPORTED SPECIALTY BELGIAN MALTED BARLEY, HOPS, BRETTANOMYCES YEAST, SACCHAROMYCES YEAST, LACTOBACILLUS, AND PEDIOCOCCUS."

The obvious details: 10.25% ABV, Barrel-aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels, and sour. Now for the name of the beer, "Dihos Dactylion." 

"Dactylion" translates into "The tip of the middle finger." 

"Dihos," however, does not directly translate. There is a Greek word, "dichos," which means "without." I would surmise that this is what they intended, as this would make the title of the beer "Without the tip of the middle finger."
[Update: from <http://en.allexperts.com/q/Greek-2004/proper-grammar-1.htm> :
"...there's a similar expression in Greek: horis metania.'horis'...means without and 'metania'...means regret. It could also be as: dihos metanoia.'dihos'... also means without."]
Now to tie it all together. The description hints at someone moving on, perhaps leaving Avery Brewing Company. Sleuthing Avery's website, I navigated to the Staff page to look for clues. Reading several staff members' blurbs, I came across one that was a perfect match, Jeff Rizzo:

“The second of two Vermonters on the Avery staff, Fred…moved to Boulder shortly after [graduating Keene State College in 2006]. Since October of ’06 Fred has served Avery in all aspects of brewing, proving himself particularly adept at learning the art and science of crafting beer. Outside of the brewery you are apt to find Fred killing it in tye-die V-necks, original Frogskins, his favorite pair of moccasins as well as the occasional button down Polo…”

Mystery solved. Dihos Dactylion is a "farewell beer" to a crew member of Avery, and they're parting with friendship and with fond memories, "without the tip of the middle finger." It is ironic, then, that this will probably be a particularly sour beer.

[UPDATE: from a Facebook post by Avery:
"Dihos Dactylion, our newest release in the barrel-aged series. Five saison yeast blend for primary ferment, secondary with house Brett then soured in Plumpjack wine barres for 18 months."]
Now that I had cracked the code of the next Barrel-Aged beer from Avery, it was time to check on the progress of my own beer. I pulled the bottle of my porter out of the refrigerator, poured it into a glass, and...

It was sour.

The lactic acid flavor was a sure sign that my inaugural batch of homebrew had been contaminated, later to be determined that it was my bottling process. As I pondered this unexpectedly sour beer in my glass, the irony struck me. In two weeks' time, I would be waiting in line to purchase a beer that showcased the very flavor that indicated I had ruined my first batch of homebrew.

Cheers! See you next week!

Newton's 3rd Law of Beer

As Sir Isaac Newton states in his 3rd Law of Motion, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Little did I know that this would become the theme for the evening this past Friday.
For the past few months, I had been eagerly anticipating Avery Brewing Company's release of the 6th beer in their small batch Barrel-Aged Series, Margarete. Avery Margarete is a stout, brewed with sour cherries, and aged in bourbon barrels, clocking in at a hefty 15.43% abv. They were scheduled to release just 59 cases of the beer at 6PM on Friday, January 28th, at the brewery. Sounds pretty awesome, no? Well, that's what I was expecting. I had attended the release of the 4th in the series, QuinQuePartite, and was operating based on my experiences there. I thought that if we made it to the brewery by 8, I would be able to get my hands on two bottles of Margarete. So, as I was getting ready to leave my apartment at 7, I got a text from my friend Cedric that sent my heart into the pit of my stomach:

"They just ran out..."

More than a little concerned, I gave him a ring. "Yeah, they just ran out. They even pulled out extra cases... I guess some people were lined up at 4:30 yesterday. I saw people walking out with cases full of it though, and asked the guy selling them if there was a bottle limit, and he said no..." Aaaand no Margarete for me. He, his wife, and his dad were meeting my girlfriend and I at Avery to celebrate his dad's birthday. I suggested that if he wanted us to meet them somewhere less crowded, I'd be all for it. [Edit: I called Avery the following Sunday, they said that there was a 6-bottle per person limit for the beer] On our way up, Cedric notified us to meet him at Lefthand Brewing. We arrived 30 minutes before last call, and my eyes were greeted with several treats on the tap list, including Fade to Black no. 2, Wake Up Dead Imperial Stout, Wake Up Dead on nitro, and oak barrel aged Wake Up Dead.

After finding our friends, and finding out that Cedric and his dad were drinking Wake Up Dead on nitro, I knew what I had to do. I walked up to the bar and ordered the oak barrel aged variety of Wake Up Dead. After warming up to proper drinking temperature, it was delicious. It had great oaky, vanilla tones over a good, slightly roasty, chocolate base.  As we sat and drank our beer, I talked with Cedric's dad about homebrewing.

Cedric's dad, John, had an "issue" with his latest batch of beer. He brewed an Imperial Brown Ale, which showed signs of promise in early bottling. As time went on, a maple flavor made its presence known, but John hadn't used maple in the brewing process. When I opened one of the bottles I had, I noticed a faint ring of residue at the waterline on the neck. The carbonation was very lively, but the beer wasn't overly foamy, and didn't foam up when I opened it. Talking to John, he thought he might have narrowed down the cause. Currently, he homebrews in "sections." He only has a 3-gallon carboy and a 6 gallon bottling bucket. He brews half a batch, then when it's done in the primary, puts it in the bottling bucket. Then he brews another half batch, and does the same. This adds up to a full 5-gallon batch. However, he uses a full pitch of yeast for each half batch. usually when he bottles, he marks the bottles that come in at the end, so that he can keep track of where the bottles with the most trub are. With his Imperial Brown, he didn't mark the bottles, so he doesn't know which bottles have more sediment than the others. He supposes that I got a couple of the bottles that have the most sediment, and that I just hold em tight for a while, and hopefully they'll turn into a pretty darn tasty brew in a few months. I've got my fingers crossed, I guess we'll see!

Like I said, we arrived at Lefthand 30 minutes before they closed, and by the time this conversation - and my beer - were finished, it was time to move on. We were mulling over options, when, with much vigor and fortitude, John proclaimed, "Let's go to the Pumphouse!" It had been decided, and we departed. We showed up at Pumphouse (a popular and long-running Longmont brewpub and restaurant) 30 minutes before the restaurant side closed. At least it can be said that we were consistent.

The draft list held promise; all of the standards, plus a few gems. We got a table, ordered some appetizers, and I started out with their Imperial Stout. Tasty, albeit standard, but definitely drinkable. Cedric got the Red Alert (American Amber), Cedric's wife Becky got a delicious berry mead from Redstone Meadery, and John got their 4-Alarm Copper Ale. I ordered a taste of one of their special brews, "Sour Barrel-Aged Springtime Saison." This small taste, it came to pass, deserved much deliberation. The aroma I picked up was of old, earthy, dry wood. Cedric noted blueberry, with a subtle hint of strawberry. Upon tasting, there was a delicious flash of tartness, similar to what you might find in a fresh, wild raspberry. This was followed by flavors of blueberry, currant, strawberry, and clove, or as John put it, "graham cracker."

After taking a taste of the beer, John posed a question: "Grapes are to wine as what is to beer?"
"Hops?"
"Malt?"
"Yeast?"
Yes, yeast. He concluded that, because yeast is responsible for an amazing amount of flavor in beer, it could be said that the varieties of yeast are to beer as the varieties of grapes are to wine. Now, this certainly warrants some discussion. For many styles, such as hefeweizen, pilsener, lager, certainly belgian ales, and wild fermented styles such as lambics, the yeast carries as much weight, if not more, than the rest of the ingredients. I would suggest the same could apply to non-blended varieties of wine such as cabernet sauvignon, syrah, riesling, chardonnay, etc. I'll leave the rest of the discussion up to those who want to comment.

Not only is yeast an extremely important factor in the overall flavor of a beer, it's also one of a brewer's best tools for consistency. It's fairly easy to acquire the same hops, grains, and other ingredients, and on a large scale, breweries usually start taking control of their water chemistry too. With yeast, they have to make sure to keep the same culture and use it on every batch of the same beer. That's where the consistency comes in. If they were to switch the yeast for whatever reason, there would be a noticeable shift in the flavor of the beer, which could potentially be bad for business. Amazing how much effect those little yeastie beasties have on beer, eh?

The consistency with which they brew some of their beers can also be what affords them the ability to explore new styles and recipes, too. That's the glory of one-off and special-release beers. There's no expectation of consistency, since the beer is probably only going to be brewed once, so the brewers can really go all out and explore different realms of style than they normally do. Perhaps trying a wild-fermented or sour ale, perhaps a crazy stout brewed with sour cherries and aged in bourbon barrels, which nobody will get to try... Alas, Newton's 3rd Law of Beer had been satisfied. I missed out on Margarete, but I got to taste not only a very well done oak aged imperial stout at Lefthand, but a true gem of a sour at Pumphouse Brewery in their Sour Barrel-Aged Springtime Saison.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, cheers!