Southern Tier Tastings

Lately I have been enjoying beers from the Imperial Series of Southern Tier Brewing Co in Lakewood, New York.  Here are a few pictures of their Unearthly IPA.

Unearthly is quite a special beer, and I highly recommend it to the IPA hop-head out there.  At 11% ABV it is recommended for sharing.  The hop bill includes Chinook and Cascade in the kettle, and Cascade, Centennial and Chinook Dry Hops, with a Styrian Golding Hop Back.  Its about as close to hop champagne as you can get, and in fact they recommend pouring it into a champagne flute (which I didnt have on hand, had to meet them halfway and settle for a wine glass).

I later tried a bottle of their Hoppe, a slightly less potent “Extra Pale Ale”.  The difference between an IPA and an EPA is something I’m still trying to figure out, because Southern Tier seems to like their hops either way. This one was also quite good, and maybe a better bet for a good summer beer where you dont have to break out the champagne glasses.

Lastly, I shared a bottle of the Creme Brulee Stout last night, which was quite a unique experience.  Also an imperial, it weighs in at 10% ABV and is really on the scale of a dessert wine due to its intense flavor and sweetness.  This is one hell of a beer.  It pours out with a small, caramel colored head, and the vanilla bean aroma is quite powerful when you smell it out of the glass.  Drinking it wou are confronted with a delicious caramel malt flavor, which the brewers were able to make taste extra caramelized, or slightly burnt- hence the name of the beer.  For a minute the flavor borders on sharp bitterness, as caramelized sugar can, and to me is the real genius behind this beer.  It then follows up with a whallop of vanilla and sweeter caramel, which lingers for a while.  However, the beer is not too syrupy sweet, because that bitter  flavor does not give up either.  It all comes together to leave you wanting more.

It contains Columbus hops as the kettle hop and Horizon hops as the aroma hop, a variety which I had not heard of before.  Regardless they do their part in the beer but do not compete with the dark caramel malt and the vanilla beans, which are the stars here.  I enjoyed this beer with an apple crumble and a scoop of vanilla ice cream, an unintended lineup which I sincerely hope to have again soon.

Incidentally Hercules carries several varieties of Southern Tier!

Read Full Post »

Summer Farmhouse Saison Bottling

Summer Farmhouse Saison

This beer was from a Northern Brewer Saison kit, to which I added 1/2 lb of toasted wheat.  here is the ingredients list:

.5 lbs Caramel Malt 20L

.5 lbs Weyermann CaraWheat toasted wheat (same grain I used in the Honey Wit recipe a few months back)

6.25 lbs Gold Liquid Malt Extract

l lb Gold Dry Malt Extract

2.5 oz French Strisselspalt hops (60 mins)

.5 oz French Strisselspalt hops (15 mins)

White Labs Saison I yeast

O.G. 1.055

Saisons are generally brewed in the summer because the yeast strains can still perform at higher temperatures.  I don’t have any brewing pictures, so we can skip that part- things went pretty uneventfully and you can see the cream ale if you want a step-by-step kind of post.  So here is a picture of the bottles all ready and sanitized, waiting to be filled, and the hydrometer floating in a test tube.

The hinal gravity was 1.020, and the ABV ended up being 4.75%.  Here is a picture of the bucket right after I opened it up- 3 weeks in fermentation.

Siphoning it out of the fermenter and into the bottling bucket….

and then the most important part, savoring the first runnings after fermentation.  It tastes different than it will after carbonating in the bottles, but its a good preview.  Its also when the naming happens.  I went kind of unoriginal with this one, but called it a Summer Farmhouse Saison, SFS.  I am planning on brewing another saison, maybe more spicy than this one.  As for the way SFS came out, I was very very happy with the results-it has a similar malt flavor to the Honey Wit i made, due to that toasted wheat.  The White Labs yast gave it some peppery flavor, which is fantastic, and overall it seems to have come out quite well.  I have been pretty happy with the Northern Brewer kits, and when you kick them up with some extra grain, hops, other ingredients, then everything gets better.  So heres to Summer beers! and the chance to make them in September!

Read Full Post »

All Points Bulletin

Normally I would not write a post to describe a store, but this is an exception.  I recently discovered for the 1st time Hercules Grocery in the West Village.  I knew Hercules the store was there, but I thought it was just another deli.  What I didnt know is that it has the finest beer selection on the west side of lower Manhattan- and probably in all of Manhattan if you’re talking about Belgian and German beers…And Hercules loves to talk about beers.  Hercules Dimitratos is a very knowledgeable man when it comes to imbibing, which makes sense because hes been in the business longer than I have been alive.  There were literally dozens of obscure beers there that he was happy to talk about, and he helped me decide what kinds of things to try out, while not breaking the bank either.  I walked out with 3 beers, all german; a Helles-Weiss, a Pilsner, and a Dunkelweiss, and all were really superb. It is always reassuring to go to a store where they really know what they are talking about, but dont pressure you into buying the wrong thing or make you too nervous to ask questions. Plus they have all the standards, though leaning more towards imports in general and less domestic stuff.

So my point is…GO SEE HERCULES! If you are in the NYC area and are interested in trying out a new beer or two without losing a shirt in the process- go check him out.  Great selection and service, and easy to get to- only a block away from Bleecker St and 7th Ave, he is located at 27 Morton St at 7th Avenue (click for more info).  He is open 7 days a week until midnight.  I know I wish I had known about this place sooner.

Read Full Post »

Finally: the hop harvest

The moment we have all been waiting for!

After nurturing them from roots indoors in New York in March, transplanting upstate in April, the hops flowered in June, and started making cones in July.  Late August brought the 1st harvest.  It was not quite enough for a full batch to brew with, but the first year the plants are establishing their roots (so I read, in The Homebrewers Garden by Joe and Dennis Fisher- a great resource).  Anyway, these are some snapshot of the Cascade cones.

On average they were about 1 inch long, sort of like miniature artichokes or pine cones. At the base of the overlapping scales are tiny globs of yellow oil, Lupulin, which are really fragrant if you rub them between your fingers, and make your hands smell like you just bathed in an IPA after picking them.  In other words it is heaven.

After picking, the cones need to dry for a few days, and not be exposed to sunlight or strong indoor light ever again really.   They are very light-sensitive and can go skunky really quick.  I built an “oast” out of a roll of window screen and some scrap wood, which allows for air to circulate around, under and over them as they dry.  Then I packed them into airtight freezer bags, and put them in the freezer.  Im gonna miss that smell until I can use them!  Its very calming…almost like a sedative…although some of that may boil off in the beermaking.  All in all at was a good harvest, and looking forward to expanding and more importantly improving the trellis system to be more effective.  Stay tuned for more brewing! And updates on some west coast beer touring.

Read Full Post »