Thirsty Dog Labrador Lager (7/10)

Akron, Ohio’s Thirsty Dog Brewing Company makes a number of great beers.  I’m fond of their 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale, Cereberus, Bourbon Barrel Aged Cerberus, and Wulver Wee Heavy.  During a visit to Brazenhead in Grandview, I decided to give the draft version of Labrador Lager a try.  It’s a Dortmunder style lager.

It pours a clear amber color with a  thin white head that doesn’t last long. 

The aroma is malty and very slightly yeasty.

The flavor starts mildly hoppy, then turns to smoked barley.  The finish is mildly bitter.  It’s pleasant enough to drink, but is nothing I’m in a rush to try again.  It’s another of those that’s not bad, but nothing great either.

Beer Advocate visitors rate it 83/100 or “good” while “The Bros” give it a 93/100 or “outstanding”.   Rate Beer gives it only a 41/100.  My own rating is somewhere between those, at 7/10.

IBU: 22
ABV: 6%
My Rating: 7/10

Abita Pecan Harvest Ale (6/10)

When I saw Abita Pecan Harvest Ale on the shelf at Kenny Road Market recently, I dropped a bottle into my “make your own six-pack” container.  Abita makes some nice products, and I had visions of this tasting something like an alcoholic pecan pie.

The beer pours a clear reddish brown with a thick off-white head that dissipates over several seconds.

The aroma is malty, with maybe a hint of pecan there, but I could be imagining that.  The Abita web site says the oils from the nuts give it a light pecan finish and aroma.  There’s something mildly sweet there.  If I didn’t know pecans were used in brewing it, I wouldn’t have a clue that’s what the aroma was.

The flavor starts with a malty bitterness.  This gives way to a kind of strange grain funkiness with an earthy note to it.  I think maybe I get some pecan in there, but it’s more like a piece of shell you accidentally eat than a pecan “meat”.  The finish is bitter in a very mildly hoppy way.  I want to like this beer a lot more than I actually like it.  It’s… just OK.  It’s not bad.  It’s not good.  I don’t care if I ever have this particular beer again.

Beer Advocate agrees with me on this, rating it just a 77/100 or “okay” on their scale.  Rate Beer is much tougher on it, giving it a 33 overall.

IBU:  20 (which seems a little low… I’d have thought more like 25)
ABV: 5%
My Rating: 6/10

Concentrated Beer for Hikers and Campers?

Pat’s Backcountry Beverages of Golden, Colorado, produces a number of concentrated beverages intended for hikers and others who want to travel with beverages, but don’t want to carry the weight associated with them.  They produce a line of non-alcoholic concentrates, including Terra Cola, Poma Granite Cola, Lemon Cline, Bear Foot Root Beer, and Ginger Trail.  They also offer two “brew concentrates” (by law they cannot call them “beer” concentrates).

The brew concentrates are a distilled version of beer, approximately 10 times the concentration of normal beer.  They’re intended to be carried into the woods with the company’s “Backcountry Carbonator” product.  When the time comes to have a beer, water from a mountain stream is put into the carbonator along with the concentrate.  The carbonator then adds carbon dioxide to the mixture.  The result is, according to the manufacturer’s web site, a drink that tastes “Incredible….our patent pending modified brewing process is capable of producing the same great tasting beer as a standard brewing process… without the water.”.

The staff at the Gizmodo blog, however, have a different take on it.  They tasted some of the undiluted syrup before diluting and carbonating it, and say that “we can fully recommend in good conscience, that you never, never do that to yourself.”  They described the unmodified concentrate as tasting like “potent, regurgitated beer and/or straight garbage” or “an atrociously strong soy sauce mixed with melted tar.”

When mixed properly, Gizmodo says that the “Pale Rail” (essentially a concentrated pale ale) tastes “surprisingly weak, especially for something that’s pretending to be a pale ale.  That being said, it was better tasting and more flavorful than your run of the mill lite beer fare. Plus the beer was super drinkable, and while it wouldn’t necessarily be a first choice, it was by no means offensive in the slightest.”

The “Black IPA” was reportedly “the more flavorful” of the two.  They go on to say that “That pungent, brain-killing soy-saucy flavor mellowed into a rich, malty beer that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.” 

Ultimately, they felt somewhat underwhelmed by the whole experience. 

The brewing process is interesting.  According to the Pat’s Backcountry web site, they don’t brew a beer and distill out the water.  Instead, they start with almost no water, and control the fermentation environment.  They claim that brewing this way benefits the environment by “not needlessly burning fossil fuels to process and transport all that extra water”.

The concentrates retail for about $10 for four packets, and the reusable carbonator costs about $40.  I’ve not seen the product for sale in Columbus (though I’m not likely to frequent the kinds of shops where it would be sold), but it can be found online if you have the need or desire to try reconstituted beer.

My Day at North High Brewing

Last July, I purchased a certificate on the Living Social web site to brew a batch of beer at North High Brewing.  I’ve brewed beer from extracts before, using the Mr. Beer system, so I’ve experienced a part of the process before… but I’ve not yet watched it go from grain to bottle, so I was excited to give this a shot.  My wife joined me.

We arrived at North High Brewing before 4pm.  The bartender greeted us warmly and offered us samples of any of the North High products we wanted to try.  We tried their excellent Queen Maudine Chocolate Milk Stout and Olentangy Brown Ale.  I was offered a list of the available recipes and encouraged to select any one that I wanted to brew that day.

After looking at the impressive selection, I chose one of my favorite styles – a Belgian Tripel.  I copied the recipe from the master book to a clean form, and was escorted into the brewing area.
Inside the brewing area were eight mash tuns.  One was already cleaned and filled with water.  Kierstin (the spelling of her name here may be incorrect) explained the process, answered our questions about how things worked, and got me started.  As it turned out, I had selected a beer recipe that was extract-based, so the brewing process was a slightly more complex one than I had done at home (on a smaller scale) many times before.  It was a good starting point.

Pouring Malt Extract into the Mash Tun

The mash tuns at North High are kept warm by a steam system.  Initially, you turn the steam valve fully on to get the 15 gallons of water up to a rolling boil.  What happens next depends on the beer style you choose.  Throughout the rest of this post, I’ll describe the extract-based tripel brewing process – but realize that North High does NOT just brew extract-based products.  I just happened to select one.

While the water was boiling, Kierstin helped me measure out the appropriate amounts of Pilsner and Munich malt extracts into large plastic measuring containers.  Ten quarts of Pilsner and two of Munich later, I was ready to begin brewing.  I poured the malt extracts into the water and got them boiling.  After a while, the proteins in the extract have begun to break down.  For the next few minutes, you raise and lower the heat to get them reincorporated into the wort.  At that point, it’s time to add the hops pellets.

The first measure of hops provides the bittering.  Because these hops are in there the longest, they’ll isomerize and create the bitter flavor we typically associate with hops.  The essential oils wind up breaking down and not making it into the final beer.

Measuring Hops Pellets

About 30 minutes later, a second dose of hops is added to the beer. These provide a mix of bittering, aromatics, and other flavoring.  Throughout this process, it’s important to keep an eye on your mash tun.  The use of steam to heat the wort, combined with other customers raising and lowering their wort temperatures, causes steam levels to fluctuate.  This can lead to your wort overheating or even resulting in the boil stopping.

15 minutes after that, seven pounds of Belgian Candi sugar is added to the mix.
Then, fifteen minutes after that, another dose of hops goes in and the steam is turned off.  The mixture steeps and cools a bit, then is ready for the next step.

A clean plastic keg is brought into position.  The filtering and heat exchanging systems are activated and the wort is pumped from your mash tun, through the filter, through the heat exchanger, and into the keg.  The heat exchanger cools it from around 200 degrees down to a more yeast-friendly temperature.

Belgian Candi Sugar

The wort at this point tastes something like a sweet tea, with the hops providing the “tea like” flavor.  It’s a bit cloudy, and kind of a medium coppery brown.

Yeast is pitched into the wort and the keg is moved to the fermenting area, where the yeast goes to work eating the sugars in the wort and turning them into carbon dioxide, alcohol, and the typical Belgian flavors.  This process takes about two weeks.  North High labels your keg and holds on to it for you during that time.

On March 1, we’ll go back to bottle the beer.  At that time, the North High staff will move my finished keg of Belgian Tripel to their large walk-in refrigerator.  It will be connected to a bottling system.  Just outside the refrigerator, I’ll place a bottle in the filling machine, close the door, fill the bottle, cap it, label it, and put it in the case to take home.  When it’s all done, I should have about 80 bottles of 22 ounces each.

Pumping, Cooling, and Filtering Station

At this point, you’re probably thinking “OK, this sounds like fun, but how expensive is it?”  The answer to that question is that by my estimates, ignoring my Living Social discount, I’d be paying about $4.35 a bottle.  With the discount, however, my bottles should work out to around $2.75 each.  Even the New Belgium Trippel, one of the least expensive on the market in Ohio, costs more than that.

If you’ve been itching to brew your own beer, but don’t know where to start, what recipe to use, or whether you want to invest in all the equipment, check out North High Brewing.  It’s a great way to learn to brew without having to fly solo.

The staff at North  High Brewing is excellent.  They’re friendly, knowledgeable, informative, enthusiastic, and just great to work with.  I look forward to going back in a couple of weeks, and hopefully beyond.

Customer Beer Fermenting

North High Brewing
1288 N. High Street
Columbus, OH 43201

(614) 407-5278

Left Hand Sawtooth Nitro (7/10)

Longmont, Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing Company produces a number of really great beers.  Their Milk Stout Nitro is probably my favorite stout.  Their St. Vrain Tripel is a great example of the style.  When I saw Sawtooth Nitro on tap at the 101 Beer Kitchen, I had to try it.  It’s an English style bitter ale.

Sawtooth pours a medium brown with a definite coppery read tint to it.  The head is finger-thick and dissipates slowly.  It leaves behind a spider-web-like lacing on the glass.

The aroma is mildly hoppy, but the flavor is very well balanced.  The nitrogen "carbonation” makes it a bit smoother than it might normally be.   On balance it’s slightly sweet and finishes just a little on the hoppy side.

Reviewers on Beer Advocate are split on this one.  “The Bros” give it 94/100 while the user ratings give it only an 84.  RateBeer is tougher on Sawtooth, rating it only 68/100.  My own rating is 7/10, somewhere in the middle of all that.  I think if the finish wasn’t quite as hoppy I’d have rated it 8 or 9.  Even at 7/10, this is a high rating from me on a bitter ale.

This was on draft at the 101 Beer Kitchen when I had it, but you can find it in bottled (non-nitro) form at a number of Columbus area retailers.  I’ve seen it on the shelves at Ale Wine and Spirits in Powell, the Giant Eagle at Bethel and Sawmill, Grandview Carryout, Northwest Wine and Spirits, Savor Growl, Weiland’s Gourmet Market, and Whole Foods Market in Dublin.

ABV: 5.3%
IBU: 27
My Rating: 7/10

Great Lakes Deschutes Class of ‘88 Porter (5/10)

Deschutes Brewery (of Portland, Oregon) and Great Lakes Brewing Company (Cleveland, Ohio) collaborated on this Imperial Smoked Porter, a member of their “Class of ‘88” series of beers.  The Class of ‘88 series refers to the fact that both breweries were founded in 1988 and are celebrating their silver anniversaries this year.

The beer pours a nearly pitch black color with a thick, creamy tan head.

The aroma contains smoke, chocolate, and slightly hoppy.

The flavor follows the aroma.  It’s very smoky (probably too much so), with a little chocolate, moderate hops bitterness, an almost bacon-like element, and something sort of medicinal that I didn’t care for (maybe glass sanitizer?).  Regardless, I was happy to order a different beer after I finished it.

I’m rating it only 5/10, which puts me in the minority.  RateBeer gives it an 88.  Beer Advocate also rates it an 88.

I sampled this on draft at The Winking Lizard on Bethel Road.  It’s available in bottled form, but I haven’t seen it in any recent beer shopping trips so I can’t tell you where to look for it.

ABV:  9%
IBU: 50
My Rating: 5/10

5 Scientific Steps to a Perfect Pour

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably already mastered the perfect beer pour.  But if you haven’t yet, or you think your pour could be improved, you may want to check out this 5-minute YouTube video, which shares the “5 Steps to the Scientifically Perfect Pour”.  The whole trick, the video tells us, is to control the speed at which the head (aka “nucleation”) is created during the pour.

The five steps are:

1. Select the beverage and a nice clean glass.  A dirty or scratched glass can cause too much head to form during the pour.  A quick rinse with cold water can reduce this effect somewhat.
2. Hold your glass at a 45-degree angle , and hold the can or bottle so that there is a small gap between the interior of the glass and the top of the can/bottle of beer.  The less air that can enter the beer during the pour, the less chance of getting too much head.
3. When the beer reaches the lip of the glass, carefully stop pouring and turn the glass upright.  The pour should have very little head at this point.
4. Pour the remaining beer from a distance into the glass, which will cause it to start forming a head.  Pour until the head just starts to bow up at the top of the glass.
5. Rather than sipping, take “measured mouthfuls” to ensure that you don’t slurp away all the head you’ve just carefully constructed.  This will help to ensure the constant release of aroma from the head as you drink.

 

Every beer is a little different, so some will need more or less distance pouring (step 4) to achieve the desired amount of head.

Frying beer?

A recent post on the Gizmodo “Sploid” blog showed what happens when you heat a frying pan to beyond the boiling point and pour Newcastle Brown Ale into it.  The beer dances around the pan, looking like some kind of living goop and clusters together (think the liquid metal Terminator).

Click the link above to check it out.

The Man Who Keeps Beer from Freezing

Crain’s Chicago Business recently posted an article about a Union Pacific Railroad employee named Bill Diamond and his co-workers.  If you’ve recently enjoyed a Mexican beer, you probably owe this team a little gratitude and appreciation.  It’s their job to keep train cars loaded with Corona, Modelo Especial, Pacifico, and Victoria beers from freezing and being destroyed before they reach the Grand Worldwide Logistics warehouse in Chicago.

With the weather as cold as it has been lately, Diamond’s job is more difficult.  He says it’s necessary to keep the train cars moving so that the beer may turn to slush but won’t completely freeze and cause a problem.  As the cars start getting too cold, Diamond’s team makes sure that the yard master moves the beer cars around to keep the beer from freezing.

For more detail, check out the full article linked above.