Cousin Mike's review of Three Sheeps Brewing

Cousin Mike sent me an email with a review that he wrote, along with trying to figure out a weekend we could get together to consume lots of beers. As always, his writing was funny and used vulgar words. I loved it. I have to share it with you. On a side note, I'd like to quickly address why I always call Cousin Mike that. To be honest, I'm not fully sure. I think it goes back to NYC and a place we stayed. A guy named Mike who the owner always referred to as "Cousin Mike" helped us with our place. Since then, when I've talked about Mike I've always said Cousin Mike. Hope that's ok with you Mike :)

So check back later for my tasting review on Czech Yourself and hear about my new beer dedicated to my wife. So for now kick back and get ready for a fun read, much better then any of the shit I write.

Prost!

Ryan

People love talking about their favorite brewery. Back in my undergrad days (yes, pretentious graduate students and people with advanced degrees refer to the drunken stooper between the ages of 18-22 as “undergrad days”) you could almost split up my buddies by whether they were Lewis and Clark Brewery guys, or Blackfoot Brewery hombres.  And basically everybody choose their favorite off of a single beer at each brewery! This is, frankly, insane. I don’t know how many different styles of beer are available at a given time from a respectable, small to middle size craft brewery, but it is never one. For those of you statistically inclined, a sample size of one has just about as much importance in the scientific community as, well, what the Pope says about anything scientific (Hey-oh!).

This preamble leads me to my first (of hopefully many) organizational rankings for a brewery. As a baseball fanatic, all winter I get my baseball pr0n via the rankings of the prospects within a given organization. Basically, if you have one amazing prospect that could be an all-star, that is great. But if the rest of your minor league system is complete field fertilizer, then the team’s future looks bleak. I want to look at breweries as more of a total organization. Yeah, they may have a fantastic Oktoberfest, but if that stuff is only available for 8 weeks out of the year, and their yearly lineup is disappointing, then no one should rub up the balls of that place. On the other hand, if 4 out of 5 of your brews are 3-5 BAR, then you have something special going on.

A note on BAR: this acronym coined by the baseball nerd/beer enthusiast community is a spoof on the baseball stat of WAR: wins above replacement. BAR is Beers Above Replacement. How I use/apply it is by asking after drinking a beer “how many replacement-level beers would I give up on an average day for one of these beers.” My personal replacement level is defined as beers like Miller Lite, Miller High Life, PBR, Coors Light, etc. Beers can be below replacement and have a negative BAR. I’m going to go ahead and project that the STRAW-ber-RITA from Bud would be a -3 or -4 BAR. A decent microbrew will run 2-3 BAR (league average), an excellent one will be closer to the 4-5 BAR range (can be an all-star if the mood is right), and a beer I’d go out of my way for tends to run in the 6 BAR range (hall of fame beer, rarified air, second coming of Jesus, first kiss with a gymnast who wants to show you just how flexible she really is as soon as you figure out how to undo her bra). There is soon going to be a website dedicated to this sort of in-depth analysis of beers called beergraphs.com. They were supposed to go live around April 1st, but they have 80 level slack.

Ok, on to the organizational ranking for a relative newcomer to the Wisconsin craft brew scene (or at least to what is available at a quality grocer in Wisconsin): Three Sheeps Brewery, from Sheboygan WI. (3sheepsbrewing.com) They have four year-round brews that are available in bottles (still hard to find taps of all four, so I’m basing all these rankings off of bottles).

4.  Rebel Kent The First Amber Ale, 5.0 % abv. 13 IBU 2.5 BAR

I am a total whore for ambers. This particular amber has a good malt profile. It rocks some rye malt (which is an underplayed cereal in the beer world for my money) and certainly fits entry-level expectations for an amber. It is not the sort of amber that works as a gateway-beer for the IPA world (as the old Lewis and Clark Amber Ale was, among others) but the hops play up just enough to balance out the sweetness. It is a good beer, and I could see some love for it. It drinks very easily and the flavor change that comes with the beer warming up does work to its advantage. But its brothers and sisters over shadow it, big time. It is like the petroleum engineer in a family of chemistry Ph.Ds. Really smart, but still the dumb kid at family get-togethers. (Ryan's side note: Cousin Mike's brother Cole is a petroleum engineer. Mike's a Chemistry Ph.D student. Both of them are way smarter than me, but this is some "brotherly love" bashing going on. Cole feel free to write a "dis" to Mike which you review some beers and I'll be sure to post it online

3. Cirque du Wit, Witbier 4.2 % abv. 12 IBU 4 BAR

Honestly, the fact that this beer is only the 3rd best offering at this place says something. This would be a no-doubter #1 brew at conservatively 60-70% of breweries that I have tried beers from. This is a solid wheat session beer.

It starts out on your palate by convincing you it is going to be insultingly sweet, and going to flip you off with a terrible after taste or wild yeast flavor. About the point where you are going to bail on the beer, it morphs on your tongue. Then, ever-so delicately, the hop flavor saves the day and puts the sweet wheat taste in the appropriate context. And not to be out done, the beer finishes with perfect grace. After the first sip, the “insultingly sweet” opening turns into the bell to your Pavolov’s dogs of beer taste buds; more of a harbinger of awesome things to come then the red flag of the first time. This is an ultimate summer session beer. It is a high-wire act that looks at every moment to fail, but ends to the giddy delight of the captivated audience. It begs to be taken to the lake for a lazy day. Perhaps a touch of lime al a Mexican beers may work well with this little fella.

2. Really Cool Waterslides, IPA 6.20 % abv, 60 IBU, 4 BAR

I’m generally harsh on pale ales, and the India variety in particular. This one does well to beat my biases. It certainly has the bitterness associated with IPAs, but it does something with it. The hop profile adds to the taste. Too many brewers are loading up with as many hops as they can get just for the sake of being hoppy. The beer has an excellent malt body, and in contrast to many IPAs, there is a sweet note that plays throughout. Most of the time I have to take my pale ales in moderation. But if it were not for my decreasing ability to find the refrigerator after having a few of these, I’m pretty sure I could dust off an entire 6 pack without much difficulty. Which says a lot for a guy who was IPA free for about three years.

1.Baad Boy, Black Wheat Ale, 5.50 % abv, 13 IBU, 6.5 BAR

This just may be the best beer I have ever had. I have been searching my memory banks since I’ve tried this, and I can only think of a few seasonal beers that might come close. So, first of all, it is a black wheat. A motherfuckin’ honest to god black wheat. I don’t know if any of the readers have ran into many of these beautiful gifts from the Bacchus, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t. I love complex flavored foods and beverages, and this beer does sexually explicit things to my taste buds. I feel violated in the most wonderful way. It has all of the dark chocolate tastes that are expected of a brown ale. It has a subtle, yet important mix of hops to bitter down the symphony of malt flavor while finishing smooth and elegant like one would expect from a wheat beer. I’m not one to judge beers on how they look, but the pitch-black abyss of this beer adds to its mystique. Though it is very dark, and has a strongly flavored body, it is very drinkable. The closest beer to perfection I have found in a long time. I am so happy it is a year-round beer that is finding room on the taps around Madison.

Final Thoughts: This is a fantastic opening lineup for an up-and-coming brewery in Wisconsin. The amber entry may be pedestrian, but the other three options are standouts in an increasingly crowded microbrew scene. There is a certain innovative and risk-taking character to these beers that sets this brewery apart from the many others that seem to be trying to imitate, however successfully, the taste and styles of other beers. For those of you in Minnesota, the trip to Hudson, WI to try this beer may just be worth it.

Feel free to friend me on untappd at the user name Kratochvil. I’m the one with Bucky Badger as the avatar.


PROST!

Mike

I'm on Untappd

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I'm now on Untappd (www.untappd.com). Untappd is like a facebook for beers. Check into bars or mark what beer you're drinking along with your ranking, or something. I just signed up for it now so I haven't done much with it. Feel free to add me on there. Ryan K or try crackrk. I'll be the one with the dave chappelle tyrone biggums avatar.

My current beer, Czech Yourself, in fermenting well. I haven't taken a gravity reading yet, but it looks pretty nice. I have the beer fermenting a little cooler than I wanted, but the lager yeast likes the cooler temps anyways. It's amazing how hazy the yeast made the beer. I'm hoping it will settle out. I figure another week or two before I keg it.

Fermenting right around 56 degrees, camera flash is messing with the temp gauge

Prost!

-Ryan

Back in the saddle

Before you begin reading, this post was written to music. I ask that you hit play on this youtube video and then read below.

It's been a while. Why you ask? I believe I had brewer depression. Last time I brewed was Sep 9th, 2012. Besides the quality of the people around me, nothing went right. Nothing went right with the brew I did before that either. What's wrong you ask? Brewing efficiency. Brewing efficiency is a percentage number that most, if not all brewers watch. It's a percent of converted sugars from the grain. Basically, if you put in 10 lbs of grain, how much of that actually converted to sugar, which then makes alcohol. Most homebrewers shoot for around 75%. Why not 100%? Not even the "big boys" shoot for 100% because at that rate you're starting to introduce off flavors from the process to convert that much sugar. Plus it would add time to the brewing process which is already at around 3 to 4 hours (at least for me). So, I set my sights a bit lower at 72%. My last two brews were 61% and 54%. That's not bad, that horrible. Something was wrong, very very wrong.

I felt like for the most part I had my all-grain brewing process down pretty well, but I just couldn't get over the fact that I consistently hit low numbers. Something I was doing was not correct and I needed to figure out what. I talked to my normal sources of information (Ted and Paul) and I also searched the internet. I came up with a lot of answers but one kept showing up, the crush.

The crush is cracking the grain in order to get the maximum amount of enzymes to convert to sugar. I'm sure cousin Mike can go into more detail on that, but basically by crushing the grain at the right amount you can pull off the most sugar. This would make your brewing efficiency go up. I had always crushed my grain at the local homebrew store, Midwest Supplies. I never really paid super close attention to the setting of the mill. I figured hey, they're crushing hundreds of pounds of grain for customers everyday, it must be set correctly. I couldn't be any farther from the truth. Both Ted and Paul own their own mills, but they did tell me they would always run their grain through twice at Midwest because people mess with the settings of the mill. I think my other problem was that I didn't know what a proper crush looked like. The main thing I kept hearing was "You don't want to crush it too fine because you'll get stuck sparges". A sparge is where the water goes through after sitting on the grain. If the grain is too fine, it will clog up the mesh bottom. Being afraid of having this happen, I think I always though the crush was fine.

I was at Midwest talking to one of the people their and they even told me that I want to buy my own mill or pass it through a few times because people mess with the mill setting all the time. I have come to learn that it's such a problem at all of the local homebrew stores around here that Northern Brewer actually put the mill setting under some sort of lock. The guys as Midwest informed me they'll be changing the grain room here and be doing the same thing. In the end, I was tired of messing around with this and I had decided that I would buy my own mill. This was in October/November time frame. Time passed and I still hadn't bought my mill yet. It was cold outside and I didn't feel like sitting in the garage freezing. I was also still bitter about how my beers turned out and I had 2 full kegs of it. To me the beers weren't that good. My one beer, "Kitchen Sink" was exactly that. I used a bunch of hops I didn't know which were probably too old. It tasted horrible. I tried to let it age out but in the end it got the drain. I deemed it not worthy for human consumption. The other beer, hopped up Irish Red wasn't too bad.

The holidays came and went, then it was my birthday. Someone was trying to tell me something. I got 2 gift cards to Midwest Supplies. This would cover the cost of my new mill. Still, I didn't make the jump. I was just in a funk and couldn't get over it. Finally all my kegs were empty, but at this point we were working on our basement and I my brewing storage area was a mess. I couldn't even get to most of my stuff anyways. About 2 weeks ago the basement was finally finished and we started organizing stuff. I could see that there was a warm weekend coming up and Erin had plans for that whole day. Perfect. Just me, the dog, and my brewing stuff. It's time to get back in the saddle.

The morning started with emails back and forth between myself and the brew masters (I.E. Ted and Paul). Lucky for me they both have kids so not only were they up, but very quick on their emails. After a few emails back and forth I was set on the Monster Mill 2. I also figured out which recipe I was going to brew. I jumped in the car and was one of the first people in the door at 9am. Coffee in hand I went into the grain room and grabbed my grain. No milling for me my friend. I then went hunting for the mills. They have a few options there for mills, though I was rather set on the Monster. I talked with the people at the shop and they agreed that the best bang for your buck comes from the Monster. This thing is a hoss. It weighs about twice the amount of the other only real option, the Barley Crusher. Oh yeah, this was the smaller version of the Monster also with only 2 rollers. They offer a 3 roller option for you real bad asses. So I grabbed everything I need, checked out and went out to the car. I was ready to take on this brewing devil.

Everything I need, or so I thought

I get back home and I start putting it together. Just to give you an idea, those rollers are 6" long and 2" diameter. I really thought that it should have come with a "Keep hands away" sticker.

Awesome. So before I just start rifling grain through I thought I better read the manual just a little more to make sure there's nothing I'm missing. Oh yeah, how about this line. "Before milling, run 1 lb or more of grain through to remove any manufacturing residue". Crap. Back in the car, buy the cheapest 2.5lbs of grain I can get, go back home. Ok, now it's time to start putting this bad boy to work. A few adjustments and I had it pretty dialed in. I did quickly figure out that my drill can only handle so much grain at one time, which made for an interesting milling experience. Had a few mishaps but I got it figured out. I also sent a few pictures to Paul to confirm my crush was good.

Mill locked up, sending the drill spinning and grain flying everywhere. The dog loved it. 

A much better crush

With a quality crush in hand I started my brew processes as normal. The beer I was brewing was figured out while I was out skiing in Montana. There's an awesome brewery out there called Red Lodge Ales. They have a beer called "Czech Mate" which I couldn't get enough of. It was a nice well rounded beer that would be a perfect summer beer. It was great in the hot tub after a day of skiing too. My buddy Berto told me I should make a clone of it called "Czech Yourself". I thought this was a great idea. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Well breweries don't just give up their recipes, so I had to guess. I'm hoping that someone from Red Lodge ales reads this post and lets me know if I'm close. I really wish I could get that beer here in Minneapolis. Here was my recipe for a 5 gal batch, 90 minute boil:

10 lbs Pilsner (Weyermann)
8.0 oz Carapils (Briess)
1.50 oz Saaz - Boil 75.0 min
1.00 oz Saaz - Boil 45.0 min
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 5 -
1.00 oz Saaz - Boil 15.0 min
0.50 oz Saaz - Boil 2.0 min
white labs san francisco lager wlp810

I finished up the boil and cooled down the wort. Now was the moment of truth. Did I actually fix my problem? The answer, Yes. I was so happy. I was shooting for a OG of 1.054, I got 1.062. It gave me a brewing efficacy of around 78%. I'm finally back in the saddle. My beer sits in a dark part of my basement fermenting at a cool 56 degrees. Hopefully this one will turn out to be a keeper. I'm already planning my next 2 beers to fill my 3 keg setup.

Many thanks to the people who didn't know they were pushing me to get back at it. While I drink this beer I'll be thinking about Montana.

Me at the top of Lone Mountain. 11,166 ft.

Prost!
-Ryan