End of Summer Recap

Summer has fled, and with it, the last of my light, effervescent English Bitter. The time has come for more robust brews: Oktoberfests, doppelbocks, strong ales, porters and stouts -- and for and end-of-summer recap. In addition to numerous impromptu weekend brew sessions in recent months, we grew our membership to 15 and provided a variety of brews to sample at Catholic Man Night with Archbishop Nienstedt in August. The men in attendance were highly complementary of the selection and brews themselves, and I believe we are on tap to do something similar in November

A gathering of Catholic men for Catholic Man Night in August.

Archbishop John Nienstedt speaks on
the topic of "Jesus Christ, Defender of the Family."

Another first for the club: we supplied a homebrewing sampler and Introduction to Homebrewing prize package for the Silent Auction at the St. Michael Catholic Church Fall Festival. The winner, St. Michael parishioner Joe Donlon, received a locally brewed sampler -- two bottles each of Honey Nut Brown Ale and Cream Ale by Karl Becker, two bottles of my English Bitter, and a large bottle of Mike Engel's Scottish Light Ale -- plus the opportunity to brew two cases of the ale of his choice with Bottomless Pint Brewers -- we supply the ingredients, the equipment, the bottles, everything. (We said we would even brew it for him, but it turns out, Joe is interested in brewing and was looking forward to trying it out without the expense of buying equipment and bottles.)

Our first Silent Auction prize package...

The Fall Festival was pleased with the results of this first BPB foray into the Silent Auction -- now all we have to do is brew great beer for Joe! The date for his brew session (the next club session) has been set for Saturday, Oct. 13, at Butch Nielsen's house -- we'll likely start in early afternoon. Anyone who wants to brew is welcome, so come on out!

Chickit Review: Pam Smith's Taddy Porter

I promised I'd give my gal-view of kits we've brewed so I figured I'd work a little bit backwards. The current brew in the keg is Pam Smith's Taddy Porter. It also happens to be my favorite so far. By my recollection, this is the third time we've brewed this kit from Midwest Brewing Supplies.

Butch brewed it this time in anticipation of our vacation (over Independence Day week) because my youngest sister, Anna was supposed to be there and she had tried it one of the other times we brewed it and she raved about it. She's got a refined palate so we respect her opinion about such things. Any time Butch gets such a positive response, he's bound to try to repeat the experience or try to improve upon it but this was the first time we kegged it (the other two times, we bottled).

Speaking of which, Butch is very very anti-bottling now that he has a keg. I'm afraid that when I bought him that thing, I may have created a keg snob. He's mostly afraid that we'll get some kind of major fail (happened before) but part of me thinks he's being a little bit lazy. I actually liked the bottling process and the ability to easily share the fruits of our labor but that's another story for another day.

Back to Pam:

My usual favorite beer is one that has at least some of the following qualities:

1. I should be able to taste the main ingredient (besides the grain/s/yeast/hops) somewhere in there...i.e. if it has "citrus" on the label, I should be able to taste it, even if it's subtle

2. It should have some sort of "boldness" or strength. It should taste...well..."beery". That's the best way I can think to describe it. It shouldn't taste like Zima (stop laughing, you know you gave it a shot once when you were 21 or so) or some kind of horrible wine cooler.

3. It should have at least three flavors to it so that it tastes different on my lips, tongue and back of mouth and have some sort of aftertaste too.

4. I should smile after sipping it.

The first time I tasted the porter, I didn't really notice the hops but the flavor was sort of dark and smokey without being too un-sweet. How's that for a girl's description of things? Okay, so I'm not so sophisticated in my expressions. I think most people can relate to that! I liked it a lot. I smiled. I wanted more. It tasted super beery and wonderful. It was warm and it made me happy.

More specifically, The foamy top had a nice, yeasty flavor, the firstness of the sip brings a little bit of the hops to the fore, the middlish of the sip brings that sort of smokey flavor to the tongue and the aftertaste reminds me of how good the next sip is going to feel. After all of that, the bottom of the glass makes me hope that it's not yet time to clean out the keg for the next batch of whatever Butch decides to brew next!

I think that this is a great beer for a rich meal of some kind of savory kind of meat. It might be nice to have with some sort of hearty appetizers too (picture a big plate of wings, steak tips, or stuffed potatoes and not so much some kind of light vinaigrette frou frou salad or spinach and artichoke dip).

Anna did not end up coming to our family week so the keg stayed home. Good thing it did because I now have a glass of that scrumptious stuff sitting next to me as I type. I'm sure it would be all gone, had it traveled with us this week!

Next review: (my second favorite of all of the beers we done brewed) "The Chewy Belgian" hahaha, just kidding, it's actually called "Grand Cru" (but "The Chewy Belgian" would be a GREAT name for a beer, don't you think?).

Homebrew V: English Bitter

A little more than a month ago, I embarked on my first solo brew. Prior to this, I had always done so with at least one other person brewing, and while the second set of eyes was certainly handy to avoid errors, the coordinated chaos of a group brew session (sharing sanitizer, aerators, wort chillers, etc.) meant that I hadn't really "locked down" the homebrewing process in my own mind.

Since we're headed into summer (and on the heels of my previous post "In Search of Small"), I opted for what I hoped would be a sunny-day-on-the-deck session brew: the English Bitter extract kit from Midwest Supplies.

It's a very simple and straightforward ale, so brewing went smoothly. Fermentation ramped up a bit slower than past brews, and then diminished rapidly once it peaked -- but I suppose this is not surprising for a session beer.  (In fact, I hit my starting gravity number right on, and when I took a second hydrometer reading after I transferred the ale to the secondary, it had already finished.)

After two weeks in the bottle, the pour was a bubbly, with a thick white head. A somewhat thicker layer of sediment appears at the bottle of these bottles than past brews, but if you pour carefully, it stays put, and the appearance in the glass is deep straw in color and crystal clear. (The photo does not do this justice.) The aroma is hoppy, but not staggering; hops predominate the flavor, but do not dominate or overpower. I'm going to describe the malt flavor as "biscuit," but I'm assuming in this case that the biscuits in question are English cookies or crackers, not Southern comfort food. If you get a little of the sediment in your pour, you might mistake this for a pale wheat ale; otherwise, this is an easy-drinking and refreshing "small" pale ale that, at 3 to 3.5% alcohol, can be enjoyed in multiples while remaining coherent.

I would recommend this for new brewers as an easy kit, and to beer-lovers who are used to American pilsners and pale lagers as a great first step into the world of ales. You definitely get that fruitier and more complex ale flavor, in a beer that is just as easy to drink as a Leinie's and as refreshing as a Rolling Rock.