Growth by leaps and bounds

I've got brewing on my mind.

In fact, I find that's the case much of the time. I've caught the bug, bad, and it isn't letting go. I see that as a good thing. After all, the result is delicious homebrew.

Most recently, I brewed two batches about two weeks apart. The first was an organic Belgian-style golden strong ale based on the extract version of the recipe that won the organic brewing competition a year or two ago. After getting it into the fermenter, I had an urge to brew a good session beer for the summer and decided on a bitter, basically following the recipe for Palace Bitter in Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing.

The Belgian has been bottled, and it hit the targets for original and final gravity. The sample was very promising, spicy and potent, and I'm eager to see how it matures. The bitter should be ready to bottle by about now. With every batch, I've gotten more and more relaxed about the process. In fact, I find it rather meditative, and I'm able to think more closely about each aspect of brewing. I've gotten into altering recipes to suit my tastes. I've also played around with beginning to create my own recipes. Beer is one of my favorite things; why not make it my favorite ways? I've been encouraged as well by the fact that some of the detail work has become more routine. I'm attentive to it, but I'm not sweating it as much and can really enjoy each aspect of the experience. My wife's been great about it, too. She experiences similar joys in creating fermented foods. Besides, she loves the beer, and that's best of all.

In addition to brewing more, I've started a hop garden, which now includes a few cascades and a couple of nuggets, courtesy of generous homebrewing friends. It's set against the south wall of the house, and I spent some time today running lines as high as I could get them given my ladder. Now all they've got to do is climb and produce. Thanks to our other cooking pursuits, we have a dehydrator, so any hops I don't use fresh can get dehydrated and stored. In addition to my little hop garden growing, and countless others like it, I'm excited that hop farming is catching on in Michigan! Hops grown right here in the great beer state.

Another kind of growth is on my mind as well. Until now, I've been doing malt extract brews with specialty grains. But homebrewing taps right into my creative side, and I have been dying to do all-grain. I want to experience brewing from the starting line.

After reading a wonderful post by Jon Abernathy on Hop Press about leaping into all-grain - actually, he referred to it as "stumbling," but I still see it as a leap, and a joyous one at that - I just had to do it. I couldn't not do it. So, I picked up some additional equipment from Adventures in Homebrewing over in Taylor. It's a hike from here, but man, those folks are fantastic. Going over there reminds me of going to an old-style, full-serve gas station. You know, the ones that were called "service stations" for a good reason? There was one pretty close to my house in L.A. when I was growing up, and the owner would even stop by our house to check out our car if we were having trouble with it. He and his crew seemed able to fix anything, and the folks at Adventures in Homebrewing are similar. They know homebrewing through and through. Patient and enthusiastic, they'll help with every bit of the shopping and set you up right. Well, now I'm all set up, and I bought the ingredients for a brown ale. My first extract/specialty grain batch was a brown ale, and it feels right that it should be my first all-grain batch as well.

As I've delved deeper into brewing, I've thought increasingly about what goes into the amazing commercial beers I enjoy and the folks that make them. When I'm able to do so time-wise, I'd like to write a series - probably cross-posted on my Examiner.com column - of in-depth features on each of our local breweries. We have some great ones, and I'd like to highlight the folks that make them great and the impact they have on our community.

Trappist and bock tasting at Arbor Brewing Co.

Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing.

I attended the bock and Belgian Trappist beer tasting at Arbor Brewing this past Thursday. I had a great time, but my goodness, it's tough to sample quite so many huge beers. It wasn't the alcohol. It was the richness! I was walking around feeling stuffed, grossly stuffed, too full to enjoy the nice buffet they always put out at these tastings, which happen on the second Thursday of each month.

I know, I know, poor me.

I am no bock and Trappist expert, though I do remember a lovely evening spent at Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland when I was 21 or so, enjoying a pitcher of their Rockefeller Bock with friends as I finished up college at Oberlin. That was one of the best beer drinking experiences I have ever had. Since then, I've had bock beers and Trappist ales from time to time, but I wouldn't claim much familiarity. Of course, a tasting is a perfect way to change that.

Trappist Ales

A mere seven monasteries, six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands, produce Trappist beers. Elegant and complex, many consider these beers to be some of the finest beverages ever made. I was particularly entranced by the tasting table featuring Rochefort 6, 8, and 10. The 6 was a light-bodied brew that featured a roasted nut aroma that carried into the flavor, where it combined with citrus peel. It was dry in the finish, and burnt sugar was prominent there. The 8 was sweeter, fruity, and medium-bodied. It had qualities of brown sugar and toast. The 10 was amazingly complex, managing to have caramel notes, fruitiness, and dryness in the aroma. You might be wondering how it could be dry in the aroma; I wish I could explain better, but that was the impression I had. It was bready, slightly sweet, and fruity on the palate, and coffee and cocoa featured in the finish. I could have lived at the Rochefort table, but that would have meant missing so much goodness elsewhere.

I had a bock beer produced by the Dutch Trappist brewery Koningshoeven. Malty and fruity, I noted a distinct sherry quality as well as chocolate and spice. This beer was rich and smooth, with a velvety, creamy mouthfeel. A real delight.

An example that featured hops more prominently was the Chimay Blue. It had a floral aroma that also had caramel notes, and that caramel quality was prominent in the flavor profile.

Achel Brune was one I had never tried and had heard little about, but I enjoyed it tremendously. There was orange peel and breadiness in the aroma, and a nice combination of spice and orange was present in the taste.

Two examples from Westmalle were available. The dubbel had molasses in the aroma and toast and some roast in the flavors. Then, in the finish, some citrus came through. The tripel was a hazy, golden brew that was earthy and citrusy. It was bready and somewhat tart and fruity in the finish.

Finally, I tried the Orval. It had some funk and citrus in the aroma. This orange-amber brew was dry on the palate, with a bit of spiciness, followed by citrus peel and earthy hops in the finish.

Bock Beers
The tasting featured a very wide variety of bocks, a veritable festival of these strong lagers. I very much enjoyed Arbor Brewing's own Usktratch Mai Bock, which was deliciously toasty-malty and had a balancing bitterness that created a very clean brew.

Anchor Bock was new to me; in fact, I can't recall seeing it in stores here. It was roasty and malty, but then it suddenly changed in character with a really crisp, dry quality. It seemed to start as a heavy beer and then become much lighter at the end.

There was a table with two Aventinus brews. I first tried their Dunkel Weizenbock. I noted some smoke in the aroma, but also a hint of banana. It was an intriguing combination, making me think of well-made fried plantains that get a nice, chewy caramelization. The banana carried through to the flavor, and then this huge, alcoholic warming finish hit. Wow. As if that wasn't enough, I then tried their Weizen Eisbock. This was an astoundingly delicious, smooth beer (at 12% abv, no less). Spice - particularly cinnamon - was notable in the flavor profile. There was a lot more there, but frankly, words don't suffice. Just have some if you get the chance.

I enjoyed two very different Michigan dopplebocks. Bell's Consecrator had a very fruity aroma and prominent caramel flavor. Dark Horse Perkulator was for the coffee lover: this beer was a coffee brew through and through, from aroma to finish, yet it was smooth and tasty. As the pourer said: drink this one only if you like coffee. Luckily, I do.

Spaten Optimator was a full-bodied malt bomb, rich, caramely, bready, but with a mildly bitter finish. It ended up a nicely balanced brew.

Weihenstephan Korbinian featured caramel and toffee in the aroma. Coffee and caramel, a pleasing combination, were present in the flavor. Another brew that had strong toffee notes - as well as roast nut - was Ayinger Celebrator. It finished with a pleasant hop bitterness.

Finally, I'll just mention Ettaler Curator. This was like beer concentrate, syrupy and thick, with chocolate and dark fruit aromas and roast nuts - perhaps chestnut? - and cocoa in the flavor profile.

To shift gears a moment, I just want to mention that I had a very tasty and provocative dopplebock on my recent trip to Utah. Now, as you can imagine, Utah has some interesting alcohol laws, and there's a fair amount of tension about all things related to alcohol. Wasatch Brewing makes a dopplebock called Devastator. The label features the requisite billy goat, but this is one pissed-off goat, rampaging through the streets of Salt Lake City and knocking aside landmarks like the LDS temple and state capitol. I'm sure that's popular amongst some in the state. The write-up on the side of the bottle is worth noting as well. I've include pictures here (with apologies for the quality).

Quick review: Short's Cup a Joe coffee creme stout

Though there is a tradition of drinking beer at breakfast, I've not been one to indulge. Til today. Out of coffee filters and desperate for a cup of joe, I had a Short's Cup a Joe coffee stout. Brewed with fair trade, organic coffee from Higher Grounds Trading Co., the beer pours an oily, thick, dark brown with a substantial, persistent, tan head that, as you can see in the picture, got away from me on the pour.

The aroma is dark roasted, coffee, with some berry-like, dark fruit. Mouthfeel is rich and creamy, the influence of milk sugar evident. The flavor screams coffee. Dark, delicious, kick-back-with-the-morning-paper coffee. There's a pleasant, fruity acidity balanced off by sweetness. The finish is long and smooth, cappuccino all the way.

Suspense. Surprise. Satisfaction.

I love the moment when I get to crack open the first bottle of a new batch of homebrew. From listening for the sharp "hsssst" that indicates good carbonation to seeing the head, color, clarity (or lack thereof), taking in the aroma, and having that first taste, it's a total sensory experience.

It's a moment full of suspense. Sure, I could see how things were going while I boiled the stuff, and I sampled some flat brew during bottling, but the moment of truth is that first bottle. The beer is young at that point and will certainly continue to change, sometimes in surprising or even drastic ways, but I find I get a strong indication of how it'll turn out down the road from that first bottle.

The other day, I got to have this experience again. My IPA had been in the bottle for around nine days, and it was finally time to have one. The hsssst sound wasn't quite as sharp as I had hoped, but there was some there. I felt tense and excited, really eager to see how this thing that I had put a fair amount of work into had turned out.

The brew poured a glorious amber-orange. I could see it wasn't super carbonated, but it did form a nice head. I do hope that it carbonates a bit more to carry the wonderful aroma, which was full of blackberry and floral qualities - with more subtle citrus notes - as I had intended with the particular combination of hops I had used.

I had the first taste and literally let out a whoop of joy. Firm and malty, slightly sweet, medium-full bodied, and with excellent grapefruit, blackberry, and floral flavors and a sharp, clean, but not overwhelming bitterness. It's rich, delicious, and bursting with flavor. I was surprised, then delighted, and a wave of satisfaction washed over me. A minute later my wife came home, and I handed her the glass and just said, "Try this."

Now, I should mention that we've been drinking a lot of IPA's and double IPA's lately. She had no idea this was the first bottle of homebrew. She smelled the beer, nodded approvingly, and then tasted it and said, "Wow! This is great! What beer is this?" When I said it was the new batch of homebrew, she let out her own little whoop and hugged me to celebrate.

Satisfaction indeed.

Beer, friendship, and the shared table

Beer-related tweets often include #beerpeopleRgoodpeople, a hash-tagged statement of truth. There are a lot of remarkably generous, kind, fun, smart, and creative people in the beer-loving and beer-brewing world. From craft beer devotees to homebrewers and commercial brewers, the beer world attracts terrific folks. And these folks gather in pubs, at tastings, in homebrew clubs, at festivals large and small, and over meals, not to mention over the net on Twitter and Facebook.

Beer and companionship go together. It's not uncommon to say or hear something like, "Hey, wanna grab a beer?" No one says, "Hey, let's go grab a wine," though they might more generically say, "Hey, let's grab a drink." Regardless, dropping by the pub with a friend and grabbing a beer is one of life's real pleasures. Not that people don't drink other beverages together, but there's an inviting, accessible quality to beer that's lacking in other drinks.

Beer serves as a social catalyst, a bridge between people, and it can also be thought of as part of a broader tradition of shared food and drink bringing people together. Even the president had a "beer summit" - though he appeared to need some advice from the craft brew community about what to serve. Ahem.

The tradition of a shared table (or side by side barstools, whatever suits) is woven into the fabric of human history. Major holidays have also been called "feast days" for good reason. Shared meals have always marked major occasions, whether the meal is a Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas feast, a Passover seder, a state dinner, a wedding feast, a celebration of victory, etc. The masterminds of the American Revolution and, later, U.S. Constitution hashed things out in taverns over ale and other beer drinks popular at the time. My fellow lawyers often talk about fighting in court but being able to grab a beer together afterward, the latter showing that the fight was professional, not personal, and that there is mutual respect.

Beer is part of this human tradition of the shared table, which seems to transcend cultures and therefore be in us. Beer brings us together, eases tensions (in several ways), and is a social spark. Sure, there are other social catalysts that we can gather around, including other alcoholic beverages. For a goodly number of folks, though, beer is the catalyst of choice, and this clearly isn't limited to craft beer.

At the IPA tasting at Arbor Brewing earlier this month, I met folks similarly dedicated to the enjoyment of craft beer and homebrewing. The beer was fantastic, and so were the people. It was a joy to talk with them about what we were sampling and share tales about the triumphs and tribulations - and utterly comical moments - of homebrewing. I ran into the father of one of my daughter's classmates there. Turns out he's a homebrewer, which I hadn't known. We got to talking, and he informed me that he was growing his own hops. After a little more talk, he offered me a couple of rhizomes. Now, less than two weeks later, I have two Cascade rhizomes ready to plant. Beer people are generous, and beer brings people together.

For me, beer has even helped to rekindle a friendship that has been dear to me for over 25 years. Beer writer Sean Nordquist and I became terrific friends at the age of 12. Seventh grade, new school, awkward adolescence: you get the picture and probably lived it, too. When we were teens, Sean had a space in his family's garage that he cleared out and made into a hangout, and we and a couple of other friends would hang there into the wee hours, drinking strong coffee - brewed beverages have apparently always mattered to us - and talking about life, the universe, and everything. Eventually, though, we went to college far apart and ended up in Florida (him) and Michigan (me).

We were in each other’s weddings, and our friendship at its core has never wavered. But we did go through long periods of not picking up the phone or writing. I think that if you had asked either of us about our closest friends, each would name the other right away. I have no doubt that he thought of me often, as I thought of him. With our history, our friendship was enduring, but actual contact had become too rare.

I know it sounds hokey, but our interest in beer brought us back together. I had become interested in homebrewing, and it turned out that he had been brewing for some time. We started talking a lot about it, and about beer in general. Then he had a business trip to Cleveland, not far from here, and I was able to get away for a night, which we spent at the Great Lakes Brewing Co. over beer flights and great food. Sometimes it takes something concrete, and it can be a little thing indeed, to rekindle a friendship.

Now, Sean and I talk often about beer, brewing, and beer writing, but we also talk about so much more: our kids and marriages, politics, our jobs (real and dream), mutual friends, old times, current times, and the times we hope lay ahead, adventures we’d like to share and how we might achieve them – and sometimes how we might not be able to. It's all part of life, and it's all fair game.

I have another friend who moved from Michigan to California, and he and I use Skype to have a beer "together" and chat. He's too far away to share the table or hang at the pub together, just like Sean is, but we do try to keep our tradition of grabbing a beer alive with the technology we have at our fingertips. I've also used technology, particularly Twitter, to connect with other craft beer devotees. I'd love to meet them in person someday, but for now we're having a pretty good time connecting over the internet. 

It all comes down to human connection, and for me, beer has facilitated that, and the connection is, in turn, more important than the beer. So, on that note, "Hey, wanna grab a beer?"

IPA tasting at Arbor Brewing Co.

Spice, lemon, pine, flowers, grapefruit, caramel, orange, herbs, apricot, hops forward, malty, balanced, bitter, huge, subtle, dry.

Just a few flavors and descriptions for the brews poured at Arbor Brewing Co.'s fabulous, sold-out IPA tasting last night. Call this blog entry a thank you note.

The folks at ABC know how to put on an event. There were enough tickets to provide for a great crowd, but it wasn't so crowded that we had to wait for a pour or couldn't move around or pause to chat. The beer selection was wonderful, and there was plenty of brew for all. Fortified by a nice buffet, everyone appeared to have a great time. I met fellow homebrewers, chatted with ABC brewing staff, and communed with my hophead brethren.

Some highlights for me included the frighteningly drinkable Bell's Hopslam and Lagunitas Hop Stoopid. The Bell's featured huge grapefruit aroma and flavor softened by apricots and buoyed by a honey-malt sweetness. The Lagunitas also had apricots in the aroma and was somewhat earthier and very well-balanced. Those were two of the high ABV, 100+ IBU giants tucked down in the cellar, where I could also take a gander at a small beer cellar where ABC barrel ages some brews. A couple of barrels were in active use, with tiny airlocks perched incongruously on top. I'd love to try what's inside.

Here are a few more of the brews that I especially enjoyed:

• Michigan Brewing Co. High Seas IPA: Well-balanced, with a mild sweetness, pine, and lemon. A nice dry finish.
• Bill's IPA Lot from ABC: Tiny batch. Quite golden in color, with an amazing hop flavor sequence of grapefruit, then lemon, then pine, then back to grapefruit. Delicious.
• ABC Arborealis: One of my absolute favorites of the night. Beautiful balance, piney with grapefruit and spice as well. Simply a gorgeous beer. Actually went back for a second sample of this lovely elixir. Apparently, this is on tap at ABC's Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. ABC, please bring it to the mother ship.
• Founders Double Trouble DIPA: Somewhat vinous aroma joined by citrus and apricot. Citrus and apricot feature in the flavor, but also very floral and somewhat piney. Malty as well, yet didn't feel too heavy. Outstanding.
• Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree: Hefty, malty brew, a bit syrupy, orange and earthy flavors, caramel as well. An amazing beer. Can't wait to have more of this one.
• New Holland Mad Hatter Imperial IPA: Huge, hops forward brew, grapefruit aroma, flavors include pronounced orange and pine.
• Great Divide Titan IPA: Floral but also surprisingly biscuity aroma. Balanced, then bitterness predominates in the finish, offset by a touch of remaining sweetness. Lemony and resiny in the finish.
• Lagunitas Maximus IPA: Huge malt profile with some biscuit, all there to support the citrus and floral hop profile.
• Meantime IPA: The only English IPA in the tasting. Very different than any other beer I tried there. Caramel, toffee aroma. A touch fruity, but not citrusy. Sweetish, with a spicy hop profile. Bitter in the finish.

There were a lot of other terrific brews there, many of which I tried, some of which I sadly didn't get to. Only one brew that I sampled missed the boat, in my opinion, and since it may have been that it was just late in the tasting and my palate was probably toast, I won't say more about it now.

I'm a big fan of ABC. The place has supported the Ann Arbor community and been a huge part of the beer scene here for 15 years. They've hosted too many charity events to keep track of, been instrumental in efforts to keep downtown vibrant, and have supported local farms by sourcing more and more of their menu items from them. Oh, and did I mention that they make fantastic beer, too, in a remarkable range of styles?

ABC has a beer tasting on the second Thursday of every month, and I'm looking forward to several more this year, including bock and Trappist beers next month, fest beers in September, Michigan beers in October, and Belgian ales in November. I'm grateful for the opportunity. In the meantime, the IPA tasting has me looking forward with glorious, delicious anticipation to when my homebrewed IPA is ready. That batch is going into the secondary fermenter for some dry-hopping tomorrow. 

Maybe the third time really is the charm

It was brewing day here in the House of Fermentation this past Saturday. I put together an amply hopped IPA that, I hope, will have just as ample a malt foundation to balance and support the hops. Time will tell, as it always does in brewing.

Two days after brew day, my five year old woke up super early because he had to go to the bathroom, which just happens to be the room with the easiest to control temperature in the house at this time of year.  So, it's where the fermenter is perking along almost like a tiny steam engine. It smells like a brewery in there, or maybe like a hop farm, and he remarked in a sleepy voice, "What is that crazy smell?" Of course, he wasn't surprised at all when I told him it was the beer.

This was my third batch of homebrew, but my first one with organic ingredients, and I want to mention briefly how this came about. I think quite a bit about not just craft beer itself, but the beer business, the place of these breweries in local and regional economies, the environmental impact of brewing and stewardship of the environment by brewers, and community and political involvement by breweries. Along those lines, I recently read Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher Mark O'Brien. In the course of touching on many aspects of the industry, the environment, and politics, he made a pretty compelling case for brewing with organic ingredients as much as possible.

Brewing with organic ingredients is totally consistent with how we cook at home, and O'Brien discussed his involvement with Seven Bridges, an organic brewing supply coop in Santa Cruz, California. So, I visited their website, and before long, I had ordered up an organic IPA recipe kit. I also ordered some additional hops to spice it up further. Now, I've finally gotten to brew it up.

I'm an extract brewer, and a novice at that. As I said, this batch is just my third. The first was a brown ale that went fairly smoothly except for a brief fiasco with a too-small brew kettle, and the second was a steam beer that turned out as a malty amber after I discovered too late that the original gravity was too low when I first brought the wort up to volume; I had to add more malt, and it made it taste like a rich and fruity amber ale. You learn from every batch. Maybe it was that this was my third brew and three's the charm, or maybe it was that the kit was really well put-together, but this batch went great. I was able to totally relax and enjoy as the elixir came together, filling the house with its pungent aroma. The windows were open, music was playing, and making this batch was the meditative experience that I was hoping for. The other two batches were fun to make, but this one was even more than that.

While I've found both of my previous kits (not from Seven Bridges) to be a bit under-malted, this one was perfect. I could have gotten a touch over 5 gallons out of it and still hit the mark on the original gravity, but I wanted the OG a tad high in an attempt to balance the additional hops. The kit was easy to use, and Seven Bridges was straightforward to deal with. The website is pretty well-organized, and my kit arrived promptly and in pristine condition.

I'm eager to get my next kit from Seven Bridges; I've got my eye on a Belgian-style golden ale, which just sounds awfully good right now. And I have to admit, it feels rather good to brew organic. I'm curious about whether the availability of organic barley and hops will increase and whether we'll be seeing more commercial breweries brew up organic offerings. Just like with every batch, time will tell, though if it's something people want to see, they needn't wait to make their voices heard at their favorite breweries.