Memories of Beer

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30393192.post-7428103336294520292007-05-30T13:19:00.000-05:002007-05-30T13:37:43.791-05:00Memories of BeerI had a beer-intensive extended Memorial Day weekend. (Is there any other kind?) On Thursday, I made two yeast starters (for an IPA and a porter) and a gallon of kräusen beer. Friday morning, I added the fermenting kräusen beer to my Vienna lager. That beer should be just about ready to keg and I hope to get that done later this week. On Saturday, I went to Austin Homebrew Supply and picked up ingredients for two batches of beer (pale ale and stout). While there, my wife and I heard that some of the Austin ZEALOTS were checking out the new brewpub in Austin (Uncle Billy's BBQ) that evening. So, we headed there after we ran all our errands. Brian Peters, who formerly brewed for the Bitter End (the Austin brewpub that burned down last year), is Billy's brewer and he had five beers on tap — a blonde ale, a pale ale, an amber ale, an IPA and a hefe-weizen. My favorites were the blonde (nice grainy taste and good balance), the pale ale (good hop bitterness, flavor and aroma — from Simcoe hops, I think — nicely balanced with some crystal malt) and the hefe-weizen (yummy German wheat beer flavor, aroma and "zip"). Brian was there and gave a tour of the brewhouse and dispensing room. He said he was smoking some malt soon to make a smoked beer to go with the barbecue. I'll definitely want to check that out. I had planned to brew my IPA on Sunday and my porter on Monday, but I pushed that back by one day. So, on Monday I brewed the IPA (which appeared as Roswell IPA in the May-June 2007 issue of BYO). I bitter this beer with big dose of Magnum hops, then add Centennial and Cascade hops near the end of the boil. (I'll dry hop it with Cascade and Amarillo in the keg.) I got big, fluffy hot-break during the boil and that made me happy. (Yeah, I'm a simpleton.) I pitched the yeast around midnight and the beer was fermenting the next morning when I got up. You can smell the hops coming out of the fermentation lock. On Tuesday, I brewed my porter (a partial-mash version of which appeared in the October 2006 issue of BYO). For me, one nice thing about brewing a dark beer is that I don't have to dilute my water — which is very carbonate-rich — with distilled water. Since I have been brewing frequently, my brewday went very smoothly. The only hitch was that a thunderstorm blew through midway through wort collection. I brew out on my carport and for 20 minutes or so, the wind was blowing fairly hard and — even though I was in the middle of the carport, under the roof — I was getting misted by rain. But soon enough, the sun came out and the rest of the day went by smoothly — so smoothly that I kept wondering if I had forgotten something. This one is fermenting nicely, side-by-side with the IPA. So, now I have a bunch of different batches of beer in progress, but only one on tap — the "speed brew." It's maturing very nicely, and — of course — the keg is almost gone. I brought this beer to the ZEALOTS meeting six days after I brewed it and it tasted pretty good. It did show some diacetyl then, but this matured out in the next few days. Overall, it was a very thirst-quenching summer bitter with a nice malt presence (from a 2-row pale ale malt made from Maris Otter barley) and just enough hops for balance. Later this week, I need to add my reserved kräusen beer to my high-gravity lager, keg my Vienna lagers, make two yeast starters and brew my pale ale and stout. (Oh yeah, I also have an "oddball" beer I'm going to brew. More on that later.) My club (the Austin ZEALOTS) has a booth at the upcoming club night at the NHC and hopefully one or two of the beers I have been blathering about will be on tap there.Chris Colbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09735905624976795753noreply@blogger.com