BrewMagician\’s Blog

So, I’m a hypocrite.

 A long time ago, I submitted my beer for competition.  I got two wildly different judgements for the same beer that I swore off competitions.  How could the same set of standards laud a beer at one place and slam it at another?

 Well, it can’t.  People are the variable, and they interpret the guidelines.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Recently a friend of mine (Steve Ruffin) got all fired up about competitions.  Good for him.  He’s a great brewer.  He started winning all kinds of stuff, but he was submitting all kinds of stuff too.  His enthusiasm was infectious, and other club members started submitting beers and placing in competitions.  Steve wanted the club to participate more, so I entered a couple to try to get the rest of the brewers excited it in a “lead by example” type of way.

Well, I got first place for my Baltic Porter, and it feels awesome.  Validation after 4 years of brewing.  My Premium American Lager got a nod with an Honorable Mention, which is nice even without the win.

 I want to jump up and down I’m so excited, but I have to remember that sometimes the judges like it and sometimes they don’t.  Got lucky this time. 

 I’ll have to submit that beer to other competitions before I hang that recipe out as a standard.

 Either way, I’m really excited!

As we creep into Summer, I’m excited to have my 10 gallons of Boston Lager bubbling away.

I’ve been wanting to do a Baltic Porter for years, and April is the month.  Also doing an English Mild.

 Starting to miss some IPA’s though…  I need to get some of them rolling.  Shouldn’t be hard with MBB splitting out of the Market demos.  Not their fault, I’ll come up with something.

 Maybe I’ll just do a kit of the month for a few months. 

Yes, more beer.  That’s the last thing I need.

I’m starting to worry that I don’t like beer.  My tastes have gotten REALLY picky recently.  There is lots of beer that I like, but in the grand scheme of things, a lot of beer tastes like water.  Not just BMC. 

It should be noted that I’m trying to brew a lot of new styles, and they aren’t necessarily beers that I like.  Maybe it is time for the summer of pale ales…..

Ramping up my lagers with the addition of the chest freezer Steve and I split.  I have a Premium Lager planned, as well as a Baltic Porter that I’m doing with a lager yeast.

 Brats and Brews on March 28th at Steve’s house.  (That’s bratwursts.)

Anyways, I greened up a wheat for a party.  One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done…

Oh, now I remember what I was going to write about.  I’m building a keg washer.  I’ll keep you posted, but it only entails a submersible pump, tubing and ball lock fittings…  Should be fun.  Also, floated my barleywine, All-Cascade Pale Ale, and that green wheat.  Thank God that green demon is gone.  Ugh.  Hard to drink that stuff….

On a high note, “My Bastard” turned out better than I could have hoped for, and I’m doing a Stout Experiment:

 One recipe for Oatmeal Stout + 3 Tbsp. vanilla extract + 2 liberal shots of Gentleman Jack….  Thinking about adding 15 shots of espresso too….  We’ll see!

Oktoberfest and “My Bastard” have fermented out and need to be kegged.  Lucky for them, I just floated one of my Oatmeal Stout kegs.  (This leaves me with 2 out of 12 kegs empty.)

 The Irish Red is “ok.”  Nothing special, just a beer.

The Chattanooga Market has asked us to do brewing demos the 4th Sunday of every month, and I agreed.  Should be a good time.

 I’m most excited about the “My Bastard” beer.  It’s a tribute to Stone’s Double Bastard, not a clone, so we’ll see how it turns out…

 Weather’s warming up, so I have to get my full kegs into some kind of refrigeration…  Or drink more beer…

 We’ll see.  Barley Mob Club membership is fairly new this year, so I’m excited to meet some new people.

Gourmet club should be a good time too.  See club site for details (Feb 28th at 10 AM: http://www.barleymob.net)

Brewed an Irish Red for the first time.  Check the Online Cookbook for the recipe…  Brewing an Oktoberfest this weekend…. 

Baking crookneck squash (aka “Neck Pumpkin”) for the Pumpkin Ale recipe in Zymurgy this month.  I skinned it first and cubed it, and sprinkled brown sugar on it.

House smells awesome.

Just realized it has an OG of 1.071, so I also whipped up a 2-liter starter.

Brewing this one on Monday after I keg my Wheats.  I’m making a spice tea with the spices from the Pumpkin Ale Recipe to make a Pumpkin Spice Wheat (No actual pumpkin, just spices).  Also, using extract to make a Cranberry Wheat (What else to drink on Thanksgiving??? ) and a Blackberry Wheat.

I have room for 6 kegs in my fridge, and after I brew on Monday, then an Oatmeal Espresso Stout on Saturday, I’ll have filled 12 of my cornies.  Good thing the garage is a constant 46 degrees!!

In December, I’ll brew a 5 gallon batch of 1.035 beer, and split it up into 8 or 9 2-liter batches to stick in separate freezer bags for starters in 2009.

Who doesn’t love beer?

So, I’ve bought more kegs to keep around to meet my supply.  I don’t know why I’m brewing so much now, the bug has bitten me and the only cure is lots and lots of brewing…

 November 15th:

Brewing 5 gallons of a Mackeson XXX Stout clone, then 15 gallons of my AM Wheat.  I will spice one of the wheats (5 gallons) to taste like pumpkin pie.  The other two may be raspberry again or apricot.  I really liked those extracts from William’s…

Then, maybe over Thanksgiving, I’m brewing a pumpkin ale using neck pumpkin instead of porch pumpkin in hopes that quality will increase, my Oatmeal-Espresso Stout, and maybe a red ale….

I’m going to start cask-conditioning my beers to increase the time between having to empty out my keg fridge…  Or maybe I just need another keg fridge….

We’ll see, I need to get ingredients from Chris Hunt before this weekend, and get my starters going…

I will need 7 lbs of Gold / Light Malt Extract for the All Cascade pale ale. 

I’m thinking about an All-Cascade Pale Ale, so I’d need some Cascade hops too (~5 oz @ 6% IBU). I’ll use that beer as a starter for my California V yeast, then when it’s done, pitch 15 gallons of a wheat on top of it.   

So, at the end of all this, I’ll have: 

1)      5 gallons of Cascade pale

2)      5 gallons of Spiced Holiday Ale

3)      2-3 gallons of Mead. (Yuck.  I judged 2 meads at the competition, and if I never taste a mead again, I’ll be a happy dude.)

4)      15 gallons of Wheat I’m also making a Mackeson XXX Stout clone for December… 

Also thinking about making a Baltic Porter (Just sounds delicious) and a breakfast stout (Oatmeal and Coffee – Cause that’s what I eat for breakfast. )

 Oh well, enough rambling…

Holy cow.  I have a heck of a week ahead of me.  I brewed a Honey Cream Ale this morning, then a 3-gallon starter for my Oktoberfest I am brewing on Wednesday or Thursday (depending on starter activity) and the 2 gallon starter for my 15 gallons of my AM Wheat Ale that I will brew on Thursday or Wednesday. 

Probably do the Wheat on Wednesday, and the O-Fest on Thursday.  Let the lager yeast get it’s wheels spinning…

 I have 10 beers planned to enter into the Greenlife / Barley Mob homebrew competition on Oct. 11th.

1) TCP/IPA
2) Turtle-Nooga Rye Pale Ale
3) Oktoberfest - (Will be young, but it’s free to enter, so who cares? )
4) Honey Cream Ale
5) Apricot Wheat
6) Raspberry Wheat
7) Smoked Peat Stout
My porter - I forget what I called it.
9) AM Wheat
10) Signal Mountain Cider

Fun fun.  At the Oktoberfest Demo, I’m brewing an extract holiday spiced ale, and hopefully a mead.  Should be fun!

Tony

Hey guys,  great showing at the festival last night!  Thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen, and special thanks to Rich for his beers, and to Bret for his extensive time and effort on the Hitman draft system.  Also to Pete and Lee for their setup help, Cory and everyone for their help on Tuesday, and Courtney, C.D., and Kevin for helping to get the Hitman into the U-Haul. J  (Wish we had pictures of that…)  Thanks to Scottie for bringing the entertainment.

And major thanks to Moccasin Bend Brewing for their help in brewing the Big Brew ESB, and the loaning of equipment to make the Hitman possible.

Remember, funds from the SBF ticket sales helped fund the Hitman draft system, so thanks to everyone for that!

Sorry if I’ve forgotten anyone, I drink a lot.

I’ve uploaded pics to the Barley Mob website.  Email me pics if you want them uploaded to the system.

http://www.barleymob.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1060

(Please note the rare sightings of Denver, Captain Homebrew, and Heriberto (Eddie)….)

Our total volume of beer was 145 Gallons, up from 107 Gallons in 2007.  Our goal for this year was 120 gallons, and we surpassed it by a mile.  I wouldn’t shoot for any  higher than 150 gallons, as that’s what the pros bring.  We don’t want to be the last ones with beer, or beer left over.

I’m setting the 2009 goal tentatively at 150 gallons, with the club brewing 80 gallons in two 40 gallon batches, or one massive batch with the help of Bend Brewing.  I figure if we can do a huge batch of something cheap and easy like a pale ale to end the night, and put the exciting, neat recipe stuff up front for the people who like to talk about the beer and ask questions.  By the end of the night, none of the patrons care about how many decoctions you did.

 COMING UP:

Sept. 26^th – Sept 28^th: Music City Brewoff: http://www.musiccitybrewers.com/brewoff.php

-Let’s start thinking about getting a big crew of judges, stewards, and support to head out to Nashville and help out the Music City Brewers this year.   We didn’t do a pub crawl this year, so this can be our out-of-town trip.  Also, I’d like to strengthen our ties to other Tennessee clubs, including the Smoky Mountain Brewers that Scottie and I met last night.  We will be inviting the MCB’s down to help judge with our competition at Greenlife, so it’s only fair for us to send a sizeable contingent.

 Oct. 11^th: Greenlife Homebrew Competition: 

-Bottle of your favorites before they’re gone!  The Homebrew Competition at Greenlife is ON!  I need judges and stewards to help with this, and I’d like to see full club participation.  Either brew, compete, judge, or steward.  Good experience for everyone.  If you’ve never done a competition, stewarding is an easy way to see how things happen behind the scenes, see how judging is done, and you get free beer!  Rich is donating beer for the staff, about 5 people have volunteered to judge, and Moccasin Bend Brewing has offered to brew a batch of the winner’s beer (with the winner) to be bottled and sold at Greenlife!  Very cool. 

-I also need people who can query beer companies (White Labs, Boscos, All Seasons, AHA, MoreBeer, etc…) for prizes, raffle items, etc…  Let me know if you’re interested.

-Bret, if you have the electronic format of our scoresheet and entry card, it would make my life easier if you could send those to me.  Thanks!

 Oct. 26^th: Oktoberfest at the Pavilion: 

-OKTOBERFEST!!!  Yeah, I know, it’s lame at the Pavilion…  But Homebrew demonstrations make it better!!!!  I’d like to do a beginner’s demo this year, and do an extract batch or two.  Any one interested?  Cory?  Patrick?  Best way to sharpen your skills is to teach….  Let me know if you are interested.

 1^st Week of November: Beer Dinner 

- Beer Dinner at Greenlife!  I’m still working out the details, but Charlie at Greenlife and I will hash out a menu, and get the courses paired with beers.  More info to come on that.  Any comments on price, menu requests, etc???  Kosher meal for Kevin R.???

 Beer and Cheese Pairings:  

-I will be sending out periodic messages when we will have Beer and Cheese pairings.  Also, I’ll send out messages for Wine and Cheese tastings if you like.  Get us some culture…

All for now!  Great job everyone!

Tony