American Sour Beer: Book Pre-Orders

The book (originally codenamed Mad Fermentation, now officially American Sour Beer: Innovative Techniques for Mixed Fermentations) that I’ve been researching and writing for more than three years is available for pre-order! Not exactly breaking news considering it has been listed online since October... but I’d been reluctant to spread the word too much because the cover is a stand-in (the actual one has been mocked-up, but not shot) and the listed release date is overly optimistic (the current projection is May/June).

Tweets/links/posts started flying on Friday about the release, so I decided it was time to loop everyone in. Sunday ASB briefly peaked at #373 on Amazon (not bad out of over 8,000,000 books – top .005%). It’s also been battling How to Brew for the #1 spot on their beer books list (a testament to the lasting popularity of the book that taught me the basics). Last night Charlie Papazian randomly (no kidding) showed up at the DC Homebrewers meeting at Bluejacket, I took the opportunity to razz the president of the Brewers Association about my momentary lead over Joy of Homebrewing.

As the release date draws closer, the blog will be getting some trimmings that didn’t make the final cut (e.g., kvass, gruit, saison, pairing etc.) as well as some online appendices (commercial microbe descriptions and viable bottle dregs) that I will continue to update. I’m really happy with the way all 400 pages of what remained is coming along! The copy editor is about half-way through his review, with a goal of being completely finished in a week or so. From there it’ll be a jump to layout, graphics, indexing, final review etc. Excited to read the forward as well, and odds are you will be too when you hear who’s writing it!

So order now, or wait for the AHA pre-sale (about two weeks before the release) or the ebook (which is coming eventually) if you’d prefer! You’ll be sick of me soon enough. I’ve got articles for BYO (solera-style blending) and Zymurgy (mashing sour beers) in the works, plus I’ll be at NHC Grand Rapids (hopefully presenting) and later GABF this fall! You’ll start seeing ads in the brewing magazines in a couple months, and I’m sure I’ll be making the rounds on the homwbrewing-podcast-circuit.

In the meantime, please tell your brew-buddies about the book, post it to your homebrew club’s discussion forum, name your first-born after it etc. Any added publicity would be greatly appreciated!

Rhubarb Berliner Weisse Tasting

Raise your hand if you’ve ever eaten rhubarb… in something other than strawberry-rhubarb pie. It is one of the few vegetables that manages to thrive in sweet applications (as opposed to the many savory fruits - e.g., tomato, and chile peppers). Rhubarb stalks have a fruity flavor, acidity, but not much sweetness.

Rhubarb contains oxalic acid, the same compound in sorrel, which is added to BlueJacket’s Sidewalk Saison. Oxalic acid can cause health problems in large doses, but it is concentrated in the rhubarb leaves, with malic acid (also found in apples and grapes) the predominant acid in the stalks. Malic acid is often converted to lactic acid by both malolactic bacteria, which are sometimes used in wine fermentations, and by the lactic acid bacteria commonly found in mixed-fermentation sour beers. Lactic acid tastes "softer" than malic, whose sharp flavor I associate with SweeTarts candy.

When I bought a few pounds of rhubarb this past spring, I was planning to add it to last years' Dark (Red) Saison V, but after tasting how acidic it was already, I added membrillo (quince paste) instead. This Berliner weisse hadn't soured as much as I wanted after a year, so I decided it was a good opportunity to use the rhubarb I had cleaned, vacuum-packed, and stored in the freezer. Like most things beer, I wasn't the first to brew a sour beer with rhubarb. The two most popular are probably Cantillon’s annual-experimental Zwanze (both 2008 and 2012), and New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb, the former dry and sour, the later sweet and tart. I wasn't even the first homebrewer, what with Ryan Brew's Rhubarb Berliner Weisse.

Rhubarb Berliner

Appearance – “Wine-cooler" pink as a friend described it recently (the photo doesn't do it justice). Not quite clear, but pretty close. The bright-white head unsurprisingly fizzes away within a minute of pouring. The second pour, containing the dregs, actually appears pinker than the first.

Smell – The aroma is clean, lightly doughy, and fruity. Rhubarb is tricky to describe, it isn’t distinct/powerful like cherries, raspberries, or peaches. It certainly shares some subtle similarities to its frequent companion, strawberries, but considerably milder. Luckily despite the similarities in appearance to celery, it has none of its green-vegetal character.

Taste – I added about 1.5 lbs/gal of rhubarb, and while the oxalic/malic acid enhanced the acidity it didn’t make the beer excessively sour. The fruity flavors meld well with the mellow base beer, not obscuring its mild wheaty flavor. The Brett (mostly Trois/Drie) adds a softy farmyard-hay flavor, nothing aggressively funky. The soft red-fruitiness lingers into the finish. Dry, but the fruitiness prevents it from coming across overly so.

Mouthfeel – Light, crisp, and spritzy, as it should be. About the maximum amount of CO2 (3.4 volumes) I’d put in a bottled beer, on opening foam starts to slowly build in the neck.

Drinkability & Notes – Probably not the ideal time of year to drink this light and refreshing, but that isn't stopping me from enjoying it! With the added flavor of the rhubarb I don’t miss the decotion mash I usually perform for  Berliners (this was my first batch with a single-infusion mash). I still need to write up notes on the plain half, we'll see if that holds true.

Tasting Conan the IPA

I usually schedule at least two batches for each pitch of yeast I buy, especially when I get my hands on an interesting strain. When I received a vial of East Coast Yeast Northeast Ale, I knew that I had to ferment something Heady-Topper-esque with it, but I started with a pale ale (Simcoe & Sons recipe). With how well that batch turned out, I had nothing but high hopes for the IPA recipe that followed (hopped with Apollo, Pacific Jade, and a touch of Nelson Sauvin).

Conan the IPA

Appearance – The dry hopping contributed a minor haze to the golden body. The addition of Biofine Clear (silicic acid - a vegan-friendly alternative to gelatin or isinglass) doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference compared to the clarity of my usual IPAs. The thin white head deflates quickly, trailing coating-lacing behind.

Smell – Over-ripe tropical fruit and citrus are the leaders. The fruitiness is so intense that it almost reads artificial. Smells boldly hoppy, but clear that it is very different than the fresh peach aromatics I detected in Simcoe & Sons. There is also a mild peppery spice, hard to say if it is the Pacific Jade (which some sources describe as "fresh citrus and crushed black pepper") or the yeast.

Taste – Similar hop character to the aroma, big fruit, that is well saturated through the flavor. The phenolic (spicy clove and pepper) flavors are somewhat more pronounced, which makes the flavor palette come across like a subdued Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse. Not unpleasant, but not what I expected. Otherwise, clean, minimal alcohol presence, no diacetyl et al. Sticky, resinous, lingering bitterness, without much sweetness. Not over-the-top bitterness for an American IPA, but more aggressive than many.

Mouthfeel – Medium-light body, especially for an 8%+ ABV beer. Solid carbonation, enough to send out the aromatics without being too prickly on the tongue.

Drinkability & Notes – As I near the bottom of the half-pint the flavor seems to improve: the hops taste brighter, more citrusy, but a hint of spice always lingers in the finish. It is a mostly present beer, drinkable enough, but it doesn't wow me like the hop character of an IPA should. While the repitch attenuated like I hoped it would (1.075 down to 1.012), the flavor profile isn’t as magical as is was with Simcoe, Mosaic, and Citra.

Oerbier Reserva Inspired - Dark Sour Beer

Dark-strong-sour beers have some serious magic in them. They age gracefully practically forever, developing deep complexities. De Dolle Oerbier Special Reserva is one of my favorites: tart, vinous, blue-cheesy, warming (but not hot, despite 13% ABV), and lightly oaky. Russian River Conseration, BFM Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien, The Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme, and Boulevard Love Child are a few others worth seeking.

For the first Modern Times brew-with-Mike Kickstarter reward, I decided to brew something along the same line. I don’t know the recipe for the base Oerbier, but I’d assume a selection of specialty malts and some candi syrup are involved. In a beer like this, the specifics of the fermentables aren't terribly important as the bugs and wood will change their character. I also aimed for substantially less alcohol (8-8.5% ABV) to make it something I can drink with a bit more regularity.

For almost their first 20 years, De Dolle pitched a culture they picked up at Rodenbach. When the source dried up, they continued to repitched the culture, which eventually resulted in bottles exploding as the yeast became more attenuative and alcohol tolerant. The remaining bottles were transferred to used red-wine barrels to create the first batch of Stille Nacht Special Reserva. The result was so good they've released several versions of Stille Nacht like this (although I enjoy Oerbier Special Reserva more). A house Brettanomyces strain for these beers was re-cultured from an old keg returned from Finland.

Luckily the De Dolle's brewer’s yeast strain is purportedly available from Wyeast (3942, Belgian Wheat), unluckily the night before brewing I managed to knock my precariously balanced 5L flask off my under-sized stir-plate. A good reason to always keep a selection of dried yeasts on hand!

Rather than risk pitching bottle dregs from such a strong beer, Nick from The Yeast Bay offered to culture and isolate the dregs from a bottle of the 2012 vintage that I shipped to him. The two yeasts he isolated turned out to be not particularly attenuative, which may not be the worst thing for a strong beer like this. I pitched both strains because multiple Brett isolates generally preform better than one. I saved some of each culture for single Brett trials when I get to it though.

I added a few Port-soaked oak cubes I’ve had sitting in a mason jar for a couple years when I racked to secondary. I always have oak cubes sitting in a variety of liquors, ready to add when I need them. Another nice thing to have on hand.

Hopefully this batch turns out well, we've got 30 bbls of a similar recipe (with different microbes) aging in red wine barrels at the Modern Times Beer Fermentorium!

Rocksteady

Recipe Specifics
-------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 15.00
Anticipated OG: 1.070
Anticipated SRM: 20.9
Anticipated IBU: 13.7
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
--------------
63.3% - 9.50 lbs. American Pale Malt
18.3% - 2.75 lbs. German Munich Malt
6.7% - 1.00 lbs. Candi Sugar Syrup D90
5.0% - 0.75 lbs. Biscuit Malt
5.0% - 0.75 lbs. Crystal 60L
0.8% - 0.13 lbs. Carafa Special III
0.8% - 0.13 lbs. Sauer(acid) Malt

Hops
------
0.63 oz. Palisade (Pellet, 6.50% AA) @ 60 min.

Extras
--------
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.

Yeast
------

DCL Yeast T-58 SafBrew Specialty Ale
Yeast Bay DDOSR C1
Yeast Bay DDOSR C2

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 151 F

Notes
-----
11/13/13 Made a 3 L stir-plate starter of Wyeast 3942, nearly 3 months old. Started quickly.

Broke it...

5 gallons of mash water, w/ 3 g CaCl. 4 gallons sparge water with 3 g of CaCl. 2 tsp of phosphoric acid added to the batch sparge. Collected 7 gallons of 1.053 runnings. Added D90 candi syrup.

Chilled to 70 F. Added 1 packet of T58, and pitches of two isolates from Yeast Bay of De Dolle Oerbier Special Reserva (DDOSR C1, and DDOSR C2).

12/7/13 Racked to secondary with 1 oz of Port-soaked French oak cubes.

Added dregs from Modern Time Empty Hats as there wasn't much funk.

10/23/15 Added 16 oz King's Orchard Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate (equivalent to ~10 lbs of cherries!)

9/10/16 Bottled resulting 4.5 gallons with 92 g of table sugar.

5/15/17 Tasting notes. FG 1.011, ~8.5% ABV including the cherry concentrate.

Rum-Raspberry Sour Brown Tasting

I have a complicated relationship with fruited sour beers. When I’m buying I shy away from them because the fruit tends to conceal the interesting flavors from the fermentation and barrel. Some of them are so delicious though, that I can’t help myself. When I drank Jester King’s Atrial Rubicite earlier this year it was one of those “wow” beers for me, saturated with concentrated raspberries (from hundreds of pounds of fruit in each barrel), without being sticky sweet like New Glarus Raspberry Tart.

For my take on the concept, I soured a brown base for four months in a third-use five-gallon rum barrel. When it had extracted sufficient character from the toasted oak, I racked four gallons onto 14 lbs of frozen/defrosted raspberries (purchased for $50 at Trader Joe’s on the way home from proposing to Audrey… I’m romantic). Considering a gallon of beer weighs a little over 8 lbs, adding 3.5 lbs of raspberries to it is pretty significant.

Recently someone asked me where I get the ideas for my recipes. In this case, in addition to the Jester King beer, I’d read that a compound (ethyl formate) found in both rum and raspberries is what the center of the milky way smells like, talk about brewing a clone!

Intergalactic Raspberry Sour Brown

Appearance – Light pink/tan foam floating on a ruby-brown body. Mild haze when held to the light, but pretty clear. Not actually that much redder than some of my Flemish reds. The head dissipates fairly quickly.

Smell – No getting around that this beer is all about the fruit. The aroma is saturated with jammy raspberries. It is good, but a bit seedier than I intended, thanks to five months spent on the fruit (I would have preferred only three, but I was in San Diego at the time... the sacrifices I made!). As it warms the vanilla from the barrel peeks out, but otherwise there isn’t much else going on.

Taste – Tart, but not forcefully sour. The fruit carries through nicely, unlike many raspberry beers that impress in the nose and fall flat on the tongue. There is a hint of toastiness, I suspect from the oak. Fresh and lively. Not much Brett presence yet, shares many similarities with the rounded lactic acidity from our bourbon barrel (no coincidence considering it got dregs from the Sour Brown from it).

Mouthfeel – Medium-full for a sour beer (not chewy, but enough body to support the fruit and malt). The medium-low carbonation is all I need in a dark/sour beer.

Drinkability & Notes – Despite the intense fruit flavor, it is easy to drink. The added lactic acid from fermentation really helps the fruit to pop. It would be a perfect beer to pair with a rich dessert, loads of flavor and enough acidity to cut through without providing a double-dose of sweetness. Mine is not quite as vibrantly colored as Atrial Rubicite, but nearly the level of raspberry aroma and flavor. It’ll be interesting to see how the gallon I reserved without fruit tastes.

Brett/Rye Farmhouse Ale (Not a Repost)

Going back to one of my favorite combinations: saison with rye malt in the mash and Brett in the fermentor! My friend Nate and I were both furloughed from our federal government jobs for a few weeks in October, during that time we decided to enjoy a sunny afternoon drinking beer, eating fried fish, and brewing. A couple years ago, we brewed a similar batch, that we wanted to refine. Young it was enjoyable, but it became obnoxiously horsey/rough/funky as it aged. That character could have been the result of several things, but I suspect it was simply the strains we pitched.

We split this batch three ways to try three different Brett blends, each with the same combination of saison ale yeasts. The Brett we pitched came from bottle dregs (from the abovementioned drinking), and a couple isolates that Bootleg-Biology Jeff dropped off a few weeks prior.

As with hops, sugar, and other ingredients, split batches are a great way to learn about microbes. This is especially handy with mixed-fermentation beers as the feedback loop is so long. If a batch takes a year or longer to be “ready,” the tweak and re-brew method could take a decade to arrive at the ideal formulation and process. As fun as the single-strain Brett experiments that I’ve done in the past have been, mixing strains is where things tend to start getting interesting!

Brett'd Saison - Furlough Edition

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 10.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 21.40
Anticipated OG: 1.055
Anticipated SRM: 4.0
Anticipated IBU: 30.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
------
42.1% - 9.00 lbs. German Pilsener
28.0% - 6.00 lbs. American Pale Malt
18.7% - 4.00 lbs. Rye Malt
9.3% - 2.00 lbs. Wheat Malt
1.9% - 0.40 lbs. Sauer(acid) Malt

Hops
------
5 ml HopShot (Extract) @ 45 min.
4.00 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 2.80% AA) @ 10 min.

Extras
-------
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
1.00 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.

Yeast
------
White Labs WLP585 Belgian Saison III
White Labs WLP568 Belgian Style Saison Ale Yeast Blend

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 147 F

Notes
-------
Brewed 10/8/13

Stir-plate starter made the morning of, 2L with two Saison III and one Saison Blend.

4 g of CaCl to 8 gallons of pre-boil filtered DC water.

Mash pH measured 5.6 initially, so we added 2% acid malt. Should drop it to 5.4 at room temperature.

Added 4 g of CaCl and 1.5 tsp of phosphoric acid to 8 gallons of filtered DC water for the sparge.

Chilled to 78 F and pitched the starter. Very clear wort, left a gallon or so with the trub behind.

Pitched a half bottle each of 100% Brett Nanus and Naardenensis into one third of the batch, two Bootleg Biology Pithos isolates into another third, and dregs from a Dark Saison IV into the final third.

Placed at 68 F to begin fermenting.

12/2/13 Still sitting in primary, ambient is upper 50s F.

12/7/13 Racked to three 3 gallon secondaries.

8/7/14 Bottled each aiming for 2.8 volumes of CO2. 2 7/8 oz table sugar n DS4, 2.75 in Nanus/Naardenensis, and 2.3 oz in Pithos.

5/12/15 Tasting notes on all three versions.

The DS4 version ended up being one of my favorite batches of funky saison!