Beer Styles

There is a thing called Free-Form brewing, where expert brewers reject beer styles in favor of going for a certain flavor, aroma, appearance, etc. that they want, which may or may not be defined by a "narrow" style guideline.

I am as much for innovation as anyone out there, but I think that this rejection of beer styles is not appropriate. In order for a person to be able to reject beer styles, they must first get to know beer styles. EE Cummings didn't start writing without capital letters or punctuation until after he got to know the proper rules quite thoroughly. If you don't know the beer styles, you can't rebel against them. If you don't know them and you don't follow them, you are sort of operating in chaos. If you don't know beer styles, how do you know that a beer you are making isn't part of an existing beer style.

I will keep working with beer styles, and where I feel like it, I may improvise a bit. I combined Trippel and IPA. But it was all based on beer styles. There's nothing wrong with knowing about beer styles, there's nothing wrong with using and following them, and there's nothing wrong with rejecting them.

All this gray area around beer styles highlights the need for well informed beer serving staff and thorough beer menus. If everyone starts working outside style guidelines, and even with the wide variation within a style, consumers really need to have accurate and complete descriptions of beers available for purchase at any retail establishment (bar, restaurant, or liquor store).

Miller and Coors Hookup

I have just realized that I should be talking about beer news here on my beer blog, too.

The biggest news that I can think of right now is the Miller-Coors joint venture in the US. Now it isn't clear to me exactly in what ways they'll be pairing up, but they're supposed to save $500M per year by combining. I expect they'll still keep their flagship brands of each company. Maybe they will join forces to try to make higher-flavor beer. But they have been calling it a move against A-B. But yet combined, they're still maybe half the market share of our old Buddy Weiser, and their partners Busch et. al.

It seems to me that unless they are changing something about the products they make, this joint venture will just have a temporary cost savings that will probably be used up wastefully in some other area. This waste theory is just based on work I've done in the software inudstry for large companies. Let's just say that they're not normally the most efficient places to get something done.

I, for one, am happy about a joint venture between these guys. I think it weakens the mass-market beer segment, which leaves additional room for craft beer. I wonder what Coors fans who are Miller haters (and vice versa) will do now? Maybe try a nice locally produced Kölsch or Pilsner style beer?

American Beauty Tasted!

American Beauty, my Belgian Trippel IPA, has been in bottles for 11 days now, and the plastic "barometer" bottle is hard as a rock, indicating that this is ready to go! I put one in the fridge this morning, and cracked it open tonight!

I was impressed by the aroma of the beer, which revealed the corn sugar used in latter fermentation, and also gave a clue as to the classic Belgian hops used for bittering and aroma. The head was not as vigorous as I wanted, so I will probably leave it warm for a few more weeks to let it fully carb (although the basement is getting colder now that it is 40° F overnight here). The flavor was a combination of strong sugar sweetness expected from a trippel, alcohol presence expected from a trippel and an IPA, and hop bite expected from an IPA. It is almost exactly what I wanted.

Halfway through drinking it, I asked Aimée, my wife, who is 4 months pregnant, if she wanted to smell it. Obviously she wouldn't drink it, but she can still enjoy an aroma. She took a whiff, and then immediately said "Why did I do that?" She was so tempted by the smell of it to try it. I felt bad for her, and at the same time happy that I wasn't pregnant.

I will change next time: use American hops, probably for everything. Use very high alpha hops to get 116 IBU bitterness, and perhaps combine Styrian Goldings and Cascade for a Belgian/American fusion aroma.

BrainardBrewing.com Almost Ready!

I have been working on www.BrainardBrewing.com and it is almost ready!!!!

Soon this blog will be moved mostly to that site. I may still continue some aspects of it here, but I think that for the most part, I will write about my beery adventures on the main site!

Check it out! It is awesome!

Keith

Oatquake Fermentation Update

Oatquake fermented well for several days. It is now apparently complete. The airlock on the bucket has stopped bubbling. But I know that it is not quite done yet. I will let it sit for another week or so, then check it out.

The cool thing is that I got some StarSan the other day, so now I have a simple spray sanitizer I can use. So I popped off the airlock, took a peek at the surface (noticed some small bubbles still - yeast are still working!) and hit the airlock with some starsan prior to re-inserting. Cool!

The great thing is that almost no matter what happens, Oatquake 2 (this one) will be stronger than the original Oatquake (which was 1.8% ABV). And even if it is still only 2% ABV, if it is anywhere near as tasty as the first, I'll be happy.

Next I need to make a normal IPA for daily use.

Aging Maple Cider?

I added a pound of Full Circle Organic Maple Syrup to water to make 0.40 gallons a month or so ago, and now I am wondering how long I should let it sit before I bottle it. And should I bottle it still or prime it to make is sparkling? Hmmm....decisions, decisions.

If anyone out there has made a fermented beverage out of just maple syrup and water, I'd be interested to hear your advice. My OG was about 1.072. I used Nottingham dry yeast.

Thanks!

American Beauty Bottled

I bottled American Beauty the other day. That's what I've called my Belgian Trippel IPA. It was a small all-grain batch, about a half a gallon. I had oats and wheat in it, as well as a dosage of corn sugar after primary fermentation was complete. It stood up well to the dosage, and it has gained a bit of trippel character from the sugar. And a few days later (that's today), the bottles are starting to carb up already. The plastic bottle I used is getting hard, which is great news!

The taste is a bit harsh on the hops side. I could have toned that down a bit. Fortunately, that will mellow with age. So I might have to restrain myself and age these for a few months or longer. The ABV ended up at 9.2%, which is good, especially if it carbs right up. I wish I made a bigger batch. All I can say is that I will never make a 1-gallon all-grain batch again. Unless I find myself with only the capacity to do so. But it is a lot of work for a little beer. I ended up with five and a half bottles of beer. But one bottle was 16-oz. So I guess it's about a six pack. But still... to spend like eight hours to make a six pack is silly. When I could spend like eight and a half and make two cases. Oh well... live and learn.

I can't wait to try it all carbed up and cold!