I am proud to say that the Trench Run Pale Ale, Jason made is definitely the best beer we have made so far. at least top runner compared to our Local Engagement IPA and Yes,Dear Kolsch. Usually I am not one for tasting the beer before carbonation, but when Jason said it was pretty awesome, I just had to try it. Well consensus is... it is Awesome. I think it will serve its name properly. We ended up bottling the beer last week, and are awaiting the day that we can crack one open and try it fully finished. Our own recipe, for the first time had turned out great!
We also had made a porter, we bottled a couple gallons of just the porter. Then of course our love for experimenting with different flavors came into play with this porter. One gallon is fermenting right now with Tart cherries. (can you tell we really like the flavor of cherries?). One gallon is fermenting in soaked oak chips of Ballast points Three Sheets rum. (YUM). The last gallon is fermenting with Starbucks Italian Roast coffee beans. All of these we of course have chosen based off of what we have tasted in the past and decided we would like to try our own with our favorite items. Of course we don't sit around eating tart cherries, i think our goal is to try and make a really good beer with a good amount of cherry flavor that isn't too overpowering. We already made a stout, and by everyone comments that have tried it they really like it, but wish it was more cherry flavor. We agree, and this time instead of using cherry extract we decided to go with the real thing, Tart cherries and their juice they are sitting in. Then of course who doesn't love to have coffee flavored porter? its morning in a cup as i say when i cracked open my favorite, while in las vegas, the morning of my birthday (Black Butte was the exact beer. my top rated). I think the rum was inspired by a rum porter we had once, cant remember the brewery or the beer, but also want to think my dad had some influence too, even though it might not have been, but he does love his rum!.
We are heading to Indianapolis for a week at Christmas and I'm hoping that we can get some ideas of where the brewery would be a great fit, and possibly try and get some paperwork/literature to read over for opening up a brewery in a state we have not lived in yet. We currently reside in South Carolina, where laws are starting to get better for local breweries, but i just don't see the market for it quite yet here, although we have some great friends who are hoping their brewery opens here in Columbia very soon, and we are super excited and will be huge supporters so keep your eyes and ears open, I think word of mouth is the best form of marketing, plus the beer i have had so far is da' bomb!
Till next time (more like a month with my track record)
-A
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
You win some... you lose some
The Cherry stout did not come out as well as we would have liked. We did not add enough sugar which in the end did not let it carbonate enough so it is flat. However, the batch that we used the smoked woodchips with merlot wine from Biltmore Estates turned out amazing. Probably my favorite one out of the 4 experimental batchs. Smoked woodchips soaked in bourban was the next best, you can really taste the smoked oaky flavor. and the last experimental with the two different smoked chip batches mix which made it a smoke chipped bourbon merlot cherry stout turned out decent. Very flavorful. Eh you win some you lose some right?
Jason brewed a wheat beer using two types of hops. We called the the summer plunder... It is actually my favorite. Not too hoppy, not too bitter but just enough bitter towards the end. Easy drinking for anytime of the year really. Jason and his best guy friend Guy started brewing up an ipa one weekend. We are going to bottle it this week so hopefully in 2 weeks it will be good to go.
Now for the not so fun part, the legal part of investigating the opening of the brewery, which is my forte i suppose than Jason's. I was able to get more information about the laws of distrubution in Indiana as well as the permits needed. Our business plan has been coming along greatly, thanks to no help from anyone but myself and marketing statistics on the Indiana.gov website, but like i said, its more of a me thing than Jason. We are heading up to Indy for Christmas and at that time i would really like to look into getting more information from possibly chamber of commerce, and maybe pick up some literature about small business laws and a good couple of locations to start the brewery. I really enjoy Uplands view point, which is have a main brewery, but spread over the area are small tasting rooms to really get their product out there. Then again from what i have been told about Three Floyds i really enjoy how they are so localized and state wide available, but low key.
Well more research will be needed and spreadsheets will be made. On to the next experiment of beer.
-A
Jason brewed a wheat beer using two types of hops. We called the the summer plunder... It is actually my favorite. Not too hoppy, not too bitter but just enough bitter towards the end. Easy drinking for anytime of the year really. Jason and his best guy friend Guy started brewing up an ipa one weekend. We are going to bottle it this week so hopefully in 2 weeks it will be good to go.
Now for the not so fun part, the legal part of investigating the opening of the brewery, which is my forte i suppose than Jason's. I was able to get more information about the laws of distrubution in Indiana as well as the permits needed. Our business plan has been coming along greatly, thanks to no help from anyone but myself and marketing statistics on the Indiana.gov website, but like i said, its more of a me thing than Jason. We are heading up to Indy for Christmas and at that time i would really like to look into getting more information from possibly chamber of commerce, and maybe pick up some literature about small business laws and a good couple of locations to start the brewery. I really enjoy Uplands view point, which is have a main brewery, but spread over the area are small tasting rooms to really get their product out there. Then again from what i have been told about Three Floyds i really enjoy how they are so localized and state wide available, but low key.
Well more research will be needed and spreadsheets will be made. On to the next experiment of beer.
-A
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Its all about the Cherries...
Well... we haven't updated in a while, a lot has happened since we brewed our first beer. The kolsch was great. everyone liked it, and i can not complain myself. We brewed it again for our engagement party. Yes we are engaged, which is what happened since the last post. Jason and I believe it was alot better than the 1st batch. I think we are going to brew it one more time and kind of experiment with different ingredients. Jason also brewed an IPA with our friend Joseph that was a huge hit. They put in a small keg, and it was almost finished besides 1 growler. We have made a label for each beer to include in our "sketchpad series".
Our next batch is... you guess it... has something to do with cherries. ;) we are starting tonight on a cherry stout, where we have been soaking oak chips in bourbon and some in red wine. We will be brewing the stout and put 3 gallons with the bourbon chips and 3 gallons with the red wine chips, and the remaining as a regular cherry stout. It should be interesting!
our 5-10 year plan to start our brewery in the mid west is really coming along...
until next time
-A
Our next batch is... you guess it... has something to do with cherries. ;) we are starting tonight on a cherry stout, where we have been soaking oak chips in bourbon and some in red wine. We will be brewing the stout and put 3 gallons with the bourbon chips and 3 gallons with the red wine chips, and the remaining as a regular cherry stout. It should be interesting!
our 5-10 year plan to start our brewery in the mid west is really coming along...
until next time
-A
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Kolsch Brew - 1st brew together.
Well, the time has come to give you the next brew. Today Jason and myself (April) are brewing Kolsch style beer. This style is distinctive to Cologne, Germany. If you were to have an American beer with Kolsch style labeling, it is exactly that "Kolsch style". It is not considered to be 100% Kolsch, because of it being protected under law it must be directly from this area of Germany. It is like a Pilsner than any other beer I can think of. It is light in color, and has a less bitter kick to it than an actual pilsner, while being pleasantly smooth and refreshing. Its basically in my opinion the best beer to have on those hot summer days! One of my favorite styles of beer actually.
We actually have chosen to work with some pre-made recipes for the first couple of batchs of beer we want to do, so once we get everything down pat, we can start making our own recipes and really getting into it with the extra added ingredients. So we got the recipe from liquid brewing.
Sanitizing and cleaning everything was a very first step, so that way the beer has a less chance of getting infected. Since we only have a 5 gallon pot we have to split up the boiling process of the water to make sure that is disinfected as well. We first used 3 gallons of distilled water to boil, then after boiling took it off heat to cool down. That was a pain because this is where a wort chiller would of came in great need, but as of right now we had to make do with what we had on hand... ice packs and sink full of cold water. Once we got those 3 gallons to a lower temp. we transferred it into our fermenting bucket, so we could start with our other 2 gallons to mix in a boil with our first hop pellets ( Tettnang hops). We will bring this mixture up to a boil, then turn heat off and remove from the burner. Once done we will stir in slowly our malt extract and dry malt until it slowly dissolves, then returning it to the heat again to a boil for 30 minutes.
The smell in the house is of course the smell of wort (yum) it smells really good in our opinon. the smell of syrup is pretty much it in a nutshell, because of the malt. Now that the 30 minutes is up we have added the Hallertau hops and boiling that for 10 minutes, then adding the Saaz hops for another 5 minutes. Once that is completely done we will begin transporting the wort into our fermenting bucket, but yet again our handy dandy ice packs and our sink is going to help us get the wort from 200 degrees down to hopefully about 100 degrees before we pour the mixture through a strainer into the fermenting bucket. We had a little trouble pouring the wort into the bucket with the strainer because the strainer is completely flat, but we finally got it.
Waiting for everything to cool around 90 degrees and then we will be taking a hydrometer reading which is supposed to be at 1.050-1.055 for beginning specific gravity before we introduce the yeast into it. Gravity ranges are different based on the type and style of beer, which is also how you can read the percentage of alcohol in the beer as well.
Hydrometer reading at beginning :1.043 looks like we might be a little off. but im not too worried.
The yeast is now in the fermenting bucket and we have sealed it and stowed it away in our 2nd bathroom.
I think we are going to wait about a week to see if the fermenting has stopped and if so then bottling time!
Dont have exact name yet for this one. Because it is a recipe batch i think we will just name it recipe 1 kolsch.
Up next Jason and I will be conducting a blind taste test of other ciders and our cider. we will post the results... :\ i hope its a good result!
We actually have chosen to work with some pre-made recipes for the first couple of batchs of beer we want to do, so once we get everything down pat, we can start making our own recipes and really getting into it with the extra added ingredients. So we got the recipe from liquid brewing.
Sanitizing and cleaning everything was a very first step, so that way the beer has a less chance of getting infected. Since we only have a 5 gallon pot we have to split up the boiling process of the water to make sure that is disinfected as well. We first used 3 gallons of distilled water to boil, then after boiling took it off heat to cool down. That was a pain because this is where a wort chiller would of came in great need, but as of right now we had to make do with what we had on hand... ice packs and sink full of cold water. Once we got those 3 gallons to a lower temp. we transferred it into our fermenting bucket, so we could start with our other 2 gallons to mix in a boil with our first hop pellets ( Tettnang hops). We will bring this mixture up to a boil, then turn heat off and remove from the burner. Once done we will stir in slowly our malt extract and dry malt until it slowly dissolves, then returning it to the heat again to a boil for 30 minutes.
The smell in the house is of course the smell of wort (yum) it smells really good in our opinon. the smell of syrup is pretty much it in a nutshell, because of the malt. Now that the 30 minutes is up we have added the Hallertau hops and boiling that for 10 minutes, then adding the Saaz hops for another 5 minutes. Once that is completely done we will begin transporting the wort into our fermenting bucket, but yet again our handy dandy ice packs and our sink is going to help us get the wort from 200 degrees down to hopefully about 100 degrees before we pour the mixture through a strainer into the fermenting bucket. We had a little trouble pouring the wort into the bucket with the strainer because the strainer is completely flat, but we finally got it.
Waiting for everything to cool around 90 degrees and then we will be taking a hydrometer reading which is supposed to be at 1.050-1.055 for beginning specific gravity before we introduce the yeast into it. Gravity ranges are different based on the type and style of beer, which is also how you can read the percentage of alcohol in the beer as well.
Hydrometer reading at beginning :1.043 looks like we might be a little off. but im not too worried.
The yeast is now in the fermenting bucket and we have sealed it and stowed it away in our 2nd bathroom.
I think we are going to wait about a week to see if the fermenting has stopped and if so then bottling time!
Dont have exact name yet for this one. Because it is a recipe batch i think we will just name it recipe 1 kolsch.
Up next Jason and I will be conducting a blind taste test of other ciders and our cider. we will post the results... :\ i hope its a good result!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A start of something new!
Jason and I (April) are very excited with our new adventure. We have started the idea of home brewing together to allow us to connect more and give us a fun activity to do together we both enjoy. Its great because we are learning so much. Jason first starting home brewing back in 2009 with a home recipe kit of an Irish stout. With being the very first try, it turned out pretty decent. we still have some to this day, and it seemed to get better with age in my opinion.
Our first time brewing together was a Hard Cider. Not exactly beer, but cider is a favorite of mine, so we started it. In 2010 we decided to put organic apple juice in the fermenting bucket mixing brown sugar and champagne yeast in as well. Jason and I actually sat the fermenting bucket with the mix in the spare closet and forgot about it for almost an entire year. (oops!) Recently, before bottling the cider, to finish we put more brown sugar, pitched another batch of champagne yeast, and acid (type has slipped our mind). We let the batch sit again in the fermenting bucket for a week. The following week we put priming sugar in the mixture and starting bottling the Cider. The Cider had to sit in the bottle two weeks to let the priming sugar mixing to allow for carbonation.
The outcome... Great! for first cider that is. I really enjoy it. We let several other family and friends try it as well and the reaction was a success!
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