Brewing Beer, Drinking Beer, Listening Beer

It just doesn't get any better. The child is asleep, the wife is upstairs watching CSI: Tallahassee, and I am currently drinking a Bohemia, brewing my Belgian Wit, and listening to an archive of the Brewing Network Sunday Session. It's like having sex, while watching porno, while listening to the Sirius Playboy Channel, except the beer thing takes 6 hours.

I'm looking forward to UFC tonight, and big money Cain "Don hates me b/c I beat Kongo" Velazquez is fighting Antonio Rodrigo "The Oldest looking 33 year old on the planet" Nogueira. Normally I drink beer from the same places as the fighters, but how much Xingu can a brotha consume. And all these Brazilians also train out of Vegas, and I can't get any Sin City beer.

Pretty soon I'm going to be cracking open some IPAs to keep it going. But first

Bischoff Falkensteiner Ur-Weisse
A good friend of mine brought this from deep in his beer cellar. Let's see if I can get this review going before everything comes to a boil. Oh my that nose hit me hard with the bret and sweetness. Had to pull back b/c of that sourness and feet smell. It actually does smell like feet. Damn. Moderate cloudy gold color with creamy white head (no homo). Not bad on the sweetness, toastiness, and moderate but kinda sad sourness to it. Low carbo and very smooth. That foot taste and smell is all throughout. Seems like it's barely working, as it's not too terrible. It's making me sneeze though. Sneezing so much it's hurting my traps. Dammit man. The beer is not as harsh as I keep drinking it. Getting more pleasant and Belgian wit like, just a bit too aged. I know I had in my cabinet for about 5 months, so who knows how long my friend had it, or wherever the hell he got it from. High 2 Stars.

Oh shyt, they are showing the USA rugby on ABC. Hell yeah. Lot's of you brothas don't know that I played rugby for nearly 3 years. Then for some reason I switched to long distance running and marathoning. Now I'm looking at some MMA and Jiu-Jitsu. I think I'll try to hit all the white guy sports before I get too old. Sitting here watching these dudes on 15KM Cross Country skiing. Come on, ski motherficker, SKI!

Got the extract in there now, just waiting for boil. Looks like this Santa Fe Pale Ale is not bad, but I've got extract on my fingers, so no more typing for now.

Ok this Santa Fe Pale Ale is not hitting it. Time for some IPA.

Deschutes Inversion IPA
Picked this up yesterday at Specs at Barker Cypress and 529, shouts out to my boy LT. Nose is very citrusy hops. Huge Mother-of-Pearl head on a copper colored beer. Good citrusy hops, a little light on the malt, but very refreshing. Crisp. Head has good lace. 3 Stars.

Well, I followed the same procedure and my original gravity is 30 points higher, 1072. Anyway, I'm going to whoop some arse on Wii Resort Swordfighting. Holla.

Ok I'm back. Great wort sweet flavor. Looking forward to this one a week from now. hell yeah.

Drinking Beer while Brewing Beer

It's like eating while watching the Food network. It's like playing touch football during the halftime of a football game. It's like having sex while watching porn.

Is there ANYTHING better than drinking beer while brewing beer? Right now I'm heating up the water for the specialty grains while disinfecting the fermentor. Which means I'm really just sitting here listening to Walton & Johnson podcasts and about to crack open...

Beer Log: Right now 11:51AM
State: Waiting on the water to heat up.

Great Lakes Eliot Ness
I picked up a six pack of this while in Buffalo. I tore through about 4 of them while I was in Buffalo prompting my mother to think I'm an alcoholic. I had a few left so I brought them along with me back to Houston. Nice to see that they have some great beer in my old hometown and birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio. Nice malt and delicate toastiness on the nose. Copper color with strong white head in my cupped pilsner glass. Damn I needed that. Moderate to strong malt with just enough grassy hops to balance. Moderate carbonation and whatnot. Finish has a sweetness to it, almost cloying. The bottle says it's an amber lager but if the brothas told me it was an American Brown Ale I would believe it. I just really enjoy this sweet amber lager, though not as crisp as I figured out. But I like the gentle bitterness and toastiness. 4 stars. CLEVELAND ROCKS!






I think the challenge with drinking beer while brewing beer is not to get plastered as you'll be sitting around for a while, but you can't exactly leave the house for a few holes at the golf course as you'll burn your house down. I'm looking through our kegerator and we have hardly any new beers that we have more than one bottle of. In other words, I can't just go drinking all these beers we brought from the ATL and Buffalo and Maryland while the wife is not here. We actually have some GB Blonde Bock and a sixpack to boot. I haven't reviewed this one since I was back in the ATL for some recruiting.

Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock
Pours a tinged straw color in my NORTH CAROLINA 2009 NCAA BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPION mug. I last had this beer in a sampler, but on its own I imagine it will be a little better. Strong poofy white head. Has a kind of Munich malt smell and German noble hop thing going on. Think of those random green bottle German beers (link) you get at the liquor store, just without the long plane ride to the states. Taste has a nice syrupy sweetness to it characteristic of a bock. Totally messes with your head considering the light color. Low carbonation a lightly hopped. Seems like they have it down. High 3 Star. Fantastic purity law beer.


I just got off the phone with the wife about Oktoberfest, and it turns I actually drank the last of the Eliot Ness. She hadn't tried it yet so I kind of screwed up there. As such I'm slugging down a can of Fat Tire right out of the can along with my Enchiladas from Sylvia's. I'm telling, I go into WITHDRAWAL if I do not have some good Mexican or Tex-Mex at least once a week. If your town doesn't have at least 10% illegal immigrants, your Mexican/Tex-Mex food is probably not up to snuff. I'm doing a full 5 gallon boil on the stovetop, so it is taking FOREVER for this thing to reach a boil. And it will take forever again after I add the extract. So I'm sitting here listening to 2 Live Stews podcasts and watching UFC Wired.

Just added the hops, got a little boil over, so the beer won't be as hoppy. But then again it's for the wife so it should be all good. I may slap in the other hops a couple minutes early to get it going. How about some Zon.

Boulevard Zon
Coming out of Kansas City. Banana yeast nose. Quick dissapearing fizzy white head on a cloudy yellow beer. Strong yeast flavor like my old Belgian witbier homebrew before it fermented out. Beer is much more pleasant than I remember. Nice poofiness to its body and whatnot. Dammit I hate boilover. Low 3 Stars.

Well, I'm still cleaning up the Zon I just spilled on the carpet. Backed right into while watching UFC 101 for the 20th time. I poured myself some Anchor Bock with it's roastiness and whatnot in my Carolina mug. It's 3:30PM and I'm out of ice and the lowest I can get the temperature is 82 deg F on the wort. The OG is 1044. Tastes super sweet and moderate hops on the wort. Already added a gallon of 42 deg F wort. I have not freezer or anything for temperature control, so I'm just going to live with 82 deg F and pitch the yeast. Whatever happens happens.

Ok. I need another drink...some Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yella Pils should do the trick.

This is some BULL SHYT. I made ENTIRELY too much money to be sitting her trying to cool down my wort with a bunch of ice in the kitchen sink whatnot. Dammit I was hoping to hit my IPA as well today, but screw that. I'm pitching yeast at 82 deg F like an idiot. I've got to get some better equipment going. Mama's pils is much better out of the can btw. This is terrible. Will let you know how it turns out.

UPDATE: 6AM this morning

The beer is fermenting up a storm right now. Temperature is down to 75 deg F. I do expect the Golden Ale to be a little fruitier than normal, but that's okay. I may try to get my IPA going tomorrow morning. We'll see.

To Brew or Not to Brew (To Style)

I was listening to an archived episode of the Brewing Network's The Session featuring the brewers from De Struise, the 2008 Best Brewers in the World according to Rate Beer. The brewers stated that they brew to taste and that they were against the whole idea of having styles.

(In case you don't know, the beer styles are defined by the American Homebrewer's Association. Each style has a defined range for color and gravity, along with a desired flavor profile.)

There's definitely strong arguments for both sides of the debate: brewing to style can restrict creativity, but it's the only way to win a medal at a large, nationally known competition like the GABF. Breweries like Magic Hat who don't brew to style are unlikely to medal at those competitions, no matter how good their beer tastes. However, styles provide guidelines and allow us to categorize and compare great beers. Jamil Zanischeff has remarked that when you think you are brewing your own style, you're really just brewing another style.

What do you think? Do you brew to style or taste (or both)? Why?

It's 4 O'clock, do you know where your engineer is?

Well, I'm supposed to be offshore right now, working on a killer idea to increase our platform's oil production by 30%, thus solidifying me as a top engineer in my peer class and putting me well on my way to an authority engineer in our company. I do that, and I don't have to do real engineering work anymore, just travel the oil-producing world evaluating others' engineering work. Which means I can try new beers all over the world, ON EXPENSE. But instead, I'm back at my house, having driven over 700 miles in the last two days.

I get to our heliport to go offshore for my normal rotation and another "14 days without beer", but they hit me with the drug test. It's only my second time being tested, and like the first time, the well is dry. Just like last time, I had nothing to give to the little cup as I used the restroom earlier that morning. But unlike last time, our flight was the first one out, so I missed my flight while trying to pee in a durn cup. The guys wouldn't let me out of the drug testing trailer, so after three attempts, I manage to DRAIN about 1/3 of a water cooler in the trailer. About an hour after I first got there, with the guy running the water in the sink, I finally can fill up the line in the cup without soiling myself. It would have been easier donating sperm at that point.

Our platform manager (who luckily I do not directly report to) calls me up on my cell phone and I am ready for a classic ass chewing. Fortunately, they say this happens every day with some poor sap not being able to put out a few milliliters before flight time. First off, I vowed to chug a huge thing of Gatorade 2 hours before each flight, and just go to the bathroom for the next 10 hours. Secondly, it all worked out for the best as the platform was overbooked with people starting on Monday. So he was going to send me home early anyway. So I drove back to Texas, stopped in Beaumont for a Banana and some Gatorade, and hit my favorite Chinese joint for 2 full cups of chicken/shrimp fried rice in Houston. How is it that this happened to me twice?

I have some Christmas/Winter beers that I'm going to start a new series with, from now until Bock Season. I'll probably split it all up into three categories, Christmas Beer, Winter Seasonal/Winter Warmer, Barley Wines. I tried a few of them before I was to go offshore, so I'll start that up on another post. Future travel plans include going to Louisiana and stopping in Lafayette for their local seasonals, Atlanta for a week in December and trying their brewpubs out there, and going to Maryland/DC area for Barack Obama's Inauguration. While I'm there, I'm going to try and squeeze in some beering at the local bars in DC. Good luck.

But while I'm at HOME, why not try some HOMEBREW. I this the second beer I ever brewed. I slopped this up with a Coopers IPA extract, some extra Centennial Hops. Did this one a few months ago. It took FOREVER for it to settle to something somewhat drinkable. It goes well for cooking as well. I named this one after the Houston Texan's loss to the Indy Colts where we were up by 17 with less than 4 minutes to go, but had three turnovers and lost the game.

Bitter Defeat IPA

Pours with a decent 1 finger head out of the kegerator tap. Smells rather flowery and malty. The taste is smooth, very low carbonation (just the way I like it). The hops are very strong in this one but not biting at all. The aftertaste is malty at first and then gets pretty bitter and stays that way. I'll have to work on that. I love a clean finish. It's low-medium bodied with excellent drinkability. I'd say it's a good IPA save that aftertaste. Not all IPAs need that hop-bomb bite to make them work. I will adjust this recipe later on, but for now will focus on perfecting the American Pale Ale style and the Belgian Witbier. Probably the worst IPA I've had with that aftertaste, but the style is a kickass style, so 3 Stars.

I just need some spicy food to try it on. Shelf life is probably starting to get low sooner or later, so I'll probably take it to my friends house in town, hook it up to their kegerator, and kill the keg with them. When I first started homebrewing (mainly to better understand beer), I figured I could do some serious damage on a keg. Then we got on weightwatchers before the kegs started rolling in, now the beer just sits there most of the time. By the way, I've gone from 245 down to 210. Mostly fat. None of my pants fit, and my shirts are too puffy. Brothas like things to be extra medium these days. And I lost the gut, while averaging a new beer a day since starting the program. Looks like it still works.

Posts from the Wife: ChoqlitQT

Well, the Beer Brotha has been trying to come up with his own recipes. After discovering that a few other people had already brewed beers with the flavor profile he wanted, I, being the diligent wife that I am, wanted to help him come up with a new beer. In order to get the flavors you want, you need to know what flavors the malt, yeast, and hops impart. This information also comes in handy when you're tasting beer and trying to figure out what hops, etc. are in the beer.

Here's what I found on the web:

Hop Guides:
These sites describe the aroma and flavor for varieties of hops. The hopunion site gets into alpha acids and shit… really detailed.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/hops.php http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/hopschar.html
http://www.hopunion.com/hvcb/

Malt Characteristics:
http://www.learntobrew.com/page/1fbcj/Shopping/Malt_Styles_Chart.html http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/malts

Yeast characteristics:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/yeast
http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain.cfm

Additives:
Here's some of the extra shit that you can put in your beer and why you would do it.
http://www.homebrewery.com/beer/beer-additives-herbs-spices.shtml
http://www.annapolishomebrew.com/shopadditivebeer.asp http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByCat.aspx?Cat=40

For general beer stuff:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/
http://www.tastings.com/beer/index.html