Posted: February 26th, 2008 | Author: Stacy | Filed under: Bottling Beer, Grand Cru, Homebrew | 1 Comment »
I’m bustin’ my chops to get this beer bottled!Sometimes I feel like I live in an I Love Lucy episode. Or, like I live in that SNL Gilda Radner sketch where she plays
Lucy handling nuclear weapons.
I always obey the Joy of Home Brewing edict “relax, and have a homebrew” while bottling. So far, I’ve never made a skunky beer. I maintain that brewers are as superstitious as sailors, so I must have a homebrew while bottling to keep the mojo alive and ward off the bad bacteria that might ruin my beer. Since I already had a homebrew earlier (o! delicious brown ale), and am on a one beer a day ration, I had a cider. All the other ciders I’ve had from that batch have been very nicely carbonated, but this one decided to pull a Vesuvius on me and spray all over the counter and floor like a cheap sparkling wine. Fie!
Look at all those glorious bottles of beer!I had already siphoned the grand cru from the fermenting carboy into the bottling bucket, and when I went across the kitchen to start filling up bottles I noticed that the spigot on the bucket was leaking. Double fie! Hoist up 5 gallons of beer (good thing I’ve been going to the gym) and get Kathy to cram a kitchen towel under it to soak up the leaked beer, then BOTTLE LIKE MAD. I had all of the beer in bottles in about 20 minutes! I probably lost one beer to the leak, but that’s not so bad. And I’ve since tightened the spigot, so the next beer should bottle without a hitch. When I make Belgian style beers, I always like to use a special colored cap so I know exactly what’s what. Duvels are silver, and now Grand Crus are metallic red.
The good news is that the beer smells really good. Spicy, banana esters, cardamom notes, a little hint of honey. And the color will be great when it clears. It will condition in the bottle for at least a month before it’s ready to drink, but right now I think it’s going to challenge Celis White as my favorite wit/grand cru style.
Posted: February 21st, 2008 | Author: Stacy | Filed under: Beer Reviews, Brewpubs, Craft Brew, Events & Tastings, Gluten-free, Newsworthy, Tripel, What's that in your fridge? | No Comments »
It’s time for the finale in my three-part Green’s gluten-free beer review series. I’m kind of wishing all six other styles were imported to the states so I’d have a few more gluten-free beer choices, since this puts me at the end of the line for what I’ve been able to find so far.
On opening the bottle, a lovely malty aroma wafted out and nearly fooled my nose into thinking I was going to have a regular beer. The Quest pours nicely, with finer carbonation and a decent (but not truly Belgian Tripel-quality) head — not nearly as airy and, well, huge as what I’m used to seeing. In under a minute it went from a 1″ head to a .25″ head, as you can see in my photo. But the color is a nice honey gold/red and very clear, though probably not what I’d describe as a “blonde.”
As with the Endeavour dubbel, this beer needs to warm a bit to taste good. My first sip was tart and a bit off-tasting. Not tart and weirdly fruity/grapey, more tart like a dry cider but without the apple taste. Not even lambic or geuze tart, which still has a fruitiness to it. Gone, though, is the up front acrid sorghum bitterness and metallic flavor in my mouth.
Once Quest warms up, it tastes moderately like a traditional tripel — definite spicey aroma, warm feeling in the mouth, honey tones to the sweetness. But there’s a slight bitterness to the finish, just a little bite that’s not quite right.
So far, this is the most convincing “Belgian” style gluten-free beer I’ve tried. I don’t think it’s an every day drinker like the New Grist ale could be, but for the price it’s worth the occasional splurge. And again, if I hadn’t had regular beer within fairly recent memory, this would probably be sweet ambrosia on my lips!
Posted: February 20th, 2008 | Author: Stacy | Filed under: Beer Reviews, Craft Brew, Dubbel, Gluten-free, What's that in your fridge? | No Comments »
Green’s Endeavour does look nice in a proper glass.Apparently, Green’s has
nine gluten-free beer styles, but
Merchant duVin only imports three of them in the US. Bummer, kind of.
Today’s selection is the Endeavour Dubbel Ale. What a weird beer. On pouring, the color is just right for a dubbel, it smells right, the head is a little more convincing that in the Quest. But this beer is like Two-Face; one beer when cold, another when warmed to around 50 degrees.
Fresh out of the fridge, Endeavour tastes more like a Flemish Red Ale than anything else. Grape soda flavors, large carbonated bubbles, a strange savory/sweet tang, and raisiny esters abound. A bit off-putting if what you’re looking for is a dubbel and not a weird Flemish Red. (If you’ve never had that style before, I do recommend Duchesse De Bourgogne from Brouwerij Verhaeghe — it’ll make your taste buds freak out)
Once it warms up, this does begin to taste like a dubbel. The carbonation is finer, I can taste more of the subtle sweetness and there’s a banana ester nose. There’s still some tartness in the finish that’s not quite right, but it’s still probably the sorghum adding it’s weird tart/bitter flavor to the beer. At last, this is not so bad to drink!
Kathy reports that she saw Green’s being sold at our local Fred Meyer, which is interesting but not entirely surprising. Since we live in the hippie/nutty-crunchy part of town, the Hawthorne Fred Meyer tends to carry lots of gluten-free and alternative options. But at $6 for a 16.9oz bottle, it won’t be a frequent repeat purchase.
Next up, Green’s tripel!
Posted: January 25th, 2008 | Author: Stacy | Filed under: Grand Cru, Homebrew | 2 Comments »
Grand Cru at 24 hoursI’ve made a few beers from the
Complete Joy of Home Brewing with great success and always wanted to make a Grand Cru. I got a shiny new 5 gallon brew pot for Christmas, so it’s maiden voyage was Who’s in the Garden Grand Cru. Honey always boils high in the pot, and every time I brew a beer with honey in a 3 gallon pot it boils over and makes a huge mess. If you don’t have a 5 gallon (or larger) pot, go get one now!
I hadn’t made a beer with spices in it yet, so adding coriander and sweet orange was exciting. It really smelled good, that’s for sure! And with the current hops shortage going on these days, it was handy that all I needed was 2oz of Hallertauer hops rather than something harder to find (no Northern Brewer in these parts, for example).
Grand Cru yeastIn the past, I’ve made a Duvel with 2 pounds of honey in it (one of my favorite beers to brew), and every time I make that beer it takes f o r e v e r for the yeast to get active. Seriously, like 3-5 days sometimes. Just enough to think I may need to pitch more yeast. So that’s what I expected with the Grand Cru. In under 24 hours, it was vigorously fermenting and had a lovely yeasty foam on top. About a week later, it’s still bubbling along and probably will keep it up for another week or two.
I’m a little unorthodox in my brewing methodologies because I don’t check my initial and final specific gravities. Why not? Because I’ve broken two hydrometers and I’m tired of buying new ones! But it’s also pretty easy to tell when a beer is done fermenting and ready to bottle. Also, I bottle and don’t keg beer because I don’t have a keg fridge, and I don’t really need the temptation of beer on tap in my own home all the time.
Anyway, it’ll be neat to taste how this turns out. I figure I’ll get to drink it some time in March or April.
