German Beer Fest

There are still tickets available to Beeradvocate's German Beer Fest Saturday at selected outlets throughout Boston. Regardless of your personal opinions about the Allstrom brothers, you have to admit they put on a pretty awesome beer fest. This is their first attempt at a German fest, but their Belgian fest is usually one of the most popular of the year. Looking at the list of breweries and beers I'm very excited to see a bunch of choices that aren't available commercially in the USA. I expect most of my time will be spent at these booths.

I'll be there (Session 2), will you?

-Dave

Centennial IPA and Future Partial Mashes

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my brewing recently and I've come to the conclusion that I need to simplify things. I don't mean my methods, as I actually think I need to become a bit more sophisticated, but in my ingredients and recipes. After learning about German brewing methods that produce fantastic beer with the simplest of ingredients (1-2 types of grain, 1 type of hop, and a house yeast strain) I realized that you don't have to have a complicated grain bill nor a complicated hop bill to make truly great beer. Most of the recipes I've been brewing I've taken from the internet and to be honest, I have no idea what the various pieces contribute to the final beer in terms of taste. In fact, many of the grains I've been using to steep actually require mashing.

As such, I've decided to simplify my recipes to better learn what the various ingredients actually contribute. As part of this decision, I've also decided to move to partial mashes. I don't want to continue steeping grain that isn't supposed to be steeped, but I also don't want to limit myself to a fairly small sample of specialty grains for my recipes. The answer is partial mashing. After doing some extensive reading on the subject, I won't need any extra equipment and it will only add a 1/2 hour or so to my brew day (I already steep for 30 minutes). It seems like mashing is simply steeping for a longer period of time under more strictly controlled temperatures. I already have the materials for an extract/specialty grains porter, which will be my next brew, but after that I intend to make a wit using the partial mash methodology. Who knows, maybe I'll see such a large difference in my beer I'll be inspired to go all grain.

My first brew under my new simplified philosophy was a one hop IPA brewed on Saturday:

5 Gallons, 4 Gallon boil

.5 lb Crystal 20L
6.5 lbs Light DME
1 oz Centennial Hop Pellets 8.8% (60 minutes)
.5 oz Centennial Hop Pellets 8.8% (45 minutes)
.5 oz Centennial Hop Pellets 8.8% (15 minutes)
1 oz Centennial Hop Pellets 8.8% (5 minutes to flameout)
1 oz Centennial Hop Pellets 8.8% (Dry Hop)
1 tsp Irish Moss (15 minutes)
WYeast 1272 American Ale II

I made a 1 qt starter the Wed. prior. My usual procedure is to make a starter on Wed., then put it in the fridge on Friday night to drop the yeast. On brewday, I pour the liquid off the top and make another 1/2 quart starter. By the time my wort is ready for the yeast, my new starter will have a nice krausen. It worked on Saturday with a lag of less than 3 hours. The next morning I woke up and I was maybe an hour away from having to clean up a huge mess as my airlock was completely clogged and the lid on my fermenter was starting to bulge!

I'm hoping that this simple IPA recipe will teach me about crystal malt specialty grains and centennial hops. A pretty simple request considering they're basically the only ingredients in the beer! My SG was 1.060. I don't have the stats on me, but I do remember the IBUs on the high side and the color on the low side. I'm sick of my IPAs looking like mud compared to things like Smuttynose IPA. I purposely shot for a lighter color.

I'm excited about trying a partial mash brew, but first I need to make my porter...hopefully in a week or two. Fortunately, October is shaping up to be a relatively slow month so I should have plenty of brewing opportunities.

-Dave

The House of Brews Huntsville, AL

After Mason's Pub, we walked one block up Washington St to Northside Sq., a very pretty pedestrian area of downtown. Our destination was The House of Brews, a combination coffee house and beer bar. The first floor of the building houses the coffee shop and they provide free wifi. It is a wide open space with an industrial warehouse feel to it. You can order either coffee or beer downstairs, but the actual bar is upstairs. Here you find another open floor plan with tables and seats scattered around all facing a small stage where they frequently have live music. The actual bar is in the back and very small. They only have a handful of taps, but they were all devoted to craft beer. Among the offerings were Terrapin Rye, Brooklyn Brown, Blue Moon, Murphy's, and Sam Adams. As with Mason's, I wasn't taking notes and I've since forgotten the others. They also have a rather impressive bottle collection in a cooler sitting next to the bar. I didn't take a very close look, but I noticed many imported choices.







This was a cool little spot, but I'm not sure I would make it a destination in and of itself. I could see getting a pre-dinner beer here, eating at Mason's, then coming back after for either beer or coffee depending on preference. The downstairs is more social, very well lit, lots of traffic. The upstairs is more chill, darker, a place to sit and enjoy the live music. There's also an outdoor seating area, which was perfect on a warm late-summer evening.



-Dave

Mason's Pub Huntsville, AL

We made it back from AL without any major problems. On the way down we stopped at Captain Lawrence and filled our three growlers and I was even able to buy a bottle of Smoke From the Oak (actually, rum). We killed the growlers in AL, but I've still got the bottle of Smoke and it's sitting in my fridge as we speak.

Other than Captain Lawrence, there really wasn't much beer-related to speak of other than two quality stops in downtown Huntsville, one of which was Mason's Pub.

Mason's Pub is a restaurant/bar located right in historical downtown Huntsville on the corner of Washington and Clinton. It resides on the third floor of a quaint building.


As you walk in, the restaurant sprawls out in front of you. There are tables to the left, booths to the right, pool tables in the back, and a bar on the right. One gets the sense that Mason's has a bit of confusion with regard to its identity. It's part family restaurant, part college bar, part pool hall, part sports bar, and part men's club lounge. It's a comfortable place full of wood and light fixtures with an open floor plan. Still, it hasn't been open very long and you wonder whether it's trying to be too many things to too many people.




The food was standard American pub fare, but very tasty. There weren't any complaints around the table of 8. The ribs were good, but the highlight of the meal seemed to be the chicken tortilla soup, which was a special that day. Prices were reasonable, though maybe slightly higher than the chain restaurants that dominate in Huntsville. Then again, the food was much better than the chain restaurants. The service was fantastic.

As for the beer, they only had 6 taps, or so. There was nothing very interesting to note, though it was above average for AL. I'm willing to give them a break in this area though, as 2-3 of their taps were devoted to Olde Towne, which has since burned down. They replaced these taps with uninspiring choices like Stella, but one can hope these are temporary placeholders. Mason's stands out with their bottle list, however. By far the largest I've seen in the Huntsville area. I didn't take notes so I can't remember all the details, but I was very happy with the choices. I had a Paulaner HefeWeizen and an Anchor Porter. Mandy had a Terrapin Rye. I remember Mackeson XXX Stout, Brooklyn Brown, Brooklyn Weisse, Sam Adams, and many other very nice craft choices.


I'd recommend this place in a heartbeat to any craft beer lover who finds himself in Huntsville.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the second beer-related destination we discovered, a coffee shop/beer bar called House of Brews.

-Dave

Road Trip!

The GPS is set, the bags are packed, and the car is loaded; Mandy and I are set to take a roadtrip to her parents' house near Huntsville, AL. I'll hopefully be able to leave work a little early tomorrow and we'll take off immediately after I get home. After stopping for the night at a cheap hotel somewhere in VA, we'll arrive in AL sometime Saturday afternoon (it's about 1,100 miles and takes about 17 hours...we do it at least twice a year). I've created a google map showing 25 possible beer related stops along the way, though we'll be lucky if we hit more than 1! We're leaving at an odd time such that it'll be past dinner time when we pass the spots in PA and I probably won't feel like stopping for just a beer on our way through. We'll probably drive past all the spots in VA the next morning before lunch! We're definitely stopping at Captain Lawrence to fill the 3 growlers and hopefully score some Smoke From the Oak, though.

I'd post the google map if I knew how.

Once we arrive in AL, we'll probably need to rely on the 3 growlers of Captain Lawrence. Otherwise it's wine. Actually, I do have a couple of places lined up that we've never tried. House of Brews and The Nook both look like they're committed to bringing in better beer and I'm excited about checking them out. Olde Towne Brewery used to be Huntsville's sole microbrewery, but it unfortunately burned down recently.

Huntsville is a fairly progressive city, but it still must obey AL's draconian alcohol laws:

6% cap on ABV for beer only
16 oz is the largest size bottle or can you can buy, so no bombers
No beer on Sundays (same for CT, sadly)
Many dry counties
Brewpubs have been legal since 1992 (why were they illegal before then?!), but they must have a restaurant attached (fine) and they must be in a county that was home to a brewpub prior to Prohibition (WHAT?!?!?!). That limits the legality of brewpubs to just 5 counties in the entire state.

The grassroots organization Free The Hops is trying to change some of these outdated laws, but are running into ignorance and greed.

It'll be interesting to see what the Nook and House of Brews have in store...I'll be sure to give an update, hopefully with pics. Even if I could just get Terrapin's wonderful Rye Pale Ale, I'll be very happy.

-Dave

Perkuno's Hammer Reincarnated!

As Lew Bryson reported on Friday, Perkuno's Hammer is back! The Hammer was originally brewed by Heavyweight Brewing Co. in NJ, which has since closed its doors. Unfortunately for me, they never distributed to CT, so it was always a brewery I kept my eye out for when travelling. Perkuno's Hammer, a Baltic Porter, was a favorite of mine, so it was great news to hear that Victory Brewing Company would be brewing the same recipe, but now the beer will be called "Baltic Thunder" in recognition of its style.

Of course, I have no idea whether CT will get any or not. I'll definitely be keeping my eye open for it.

-Dave

Death of Thomas Hooker?

It was a sad day over a month ago when I logged onto the New England forum of Beer Advocate and found this post. Apparently Paul Davis would no longer be brewing for Thomas Hooker, my favorite non-brewpub CT beer. He made a fantastic doppelbock, second maybe only to the Andechs we got to drink while in Munich. His imperial porter, barleywine, Oktoberfest, and IPA were all fantastic also. Rumors swirled surrounding this news, but I don't really think it's appropriate to share them here. We were warned to snatch up what remained on the shelves because it wouldn't be there for long.


For the last two weeks I've hit Thomas Hookers' website only to get a "cannot find server" message. No official announcements. Huh.

It'll be interesting to see what surfaces in the next few months. In the meantime, I'm mourning the loss of one of CT's finest brewers. I wish him all the best and hope his future plans involving "New Hampshire and Lagers" work out.

-Dave