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

Delaware & DC.. months later

I know, I've been slacking. Most of you probably forgot that I even ran a blog. Anyways, I'll quickly cap on the rest of my trip from the last time I wrote about NYC. I'll also try to be better about updating the blog. I know, I say that all the time.

Dogfish Head Brewery

Delaware was awesome. I strongly suggest checking it out. Dogfish Head brewery was really fun to visit. A great tour. We stayed a few blocks away from the brew pub which allowed us to sample a large amount of beer. The beach was really nice there. Not too over crowded. I felt that all the locals were very nice to outside visitors. We quickly figured out that we were at more of the "adult" beach and that all the kids liked to go to Ocean City, MD which was a few miles down the road.

Bought those sunglasses just before the paddle boarding trip, Lost them 10 minutes after this picture was taken

Erin and I also tried out Stand Up Paddleboarding. It was an absolute blast. We wanted to go surfing but the waves were not cooperating with us. Overall the Delaware adventure was a ton of fun. Wouldn't mind making it back out there.

After Delaware we finished up our trip in DC. Love the town, hate the people. Everyone thought there shit didn't smell there. Oh well, we did get to meet up with my buddy Torey who took us around Virginia wine country. Had some amazing views and tried some pretty good wine.

Torey, Erin, and myself at one of the wineries

Didn't do a lot of beer-related items in DC, mostly sight seeing. Seeing the white house in person was probably my favorite thing. It was really cool to see it in person. We did do a segway tour, which was actually a lot of fun. We got to see a ton of stuff in a quick(er) amount of time.

Nerd Alert!!

For more pictures, here's a link to the Delaware pictures and here is the DC pictures.

As for brewing, I'll have an update here soon as I'm brewing a lot this weekend.

Prost!

-Ryan

From Minne-Apple to the Big Apple, Brewer in the City

Erin and I don't take a lot of days off from work, but typically when we do it's for a large trip. This year's trip was named "East Coast Invasion, Round 2". Last year we came out east for my buddy Bobby and Heathers wedding, then toured all around. This year we went Mid-Atlantic. NYC, Delaware, and finishing up in DC.

Washington Square Park, NYC

This is my first time to NYC and I didn't really know what to expect. Here's what I was told: 1. It's dirty. 2. It's expensive. 3. Watch yourself at all times 4. People are rude. I'd say everything outside of point 2 was wrong, in my point of view at least. The city was a lot cleaner for an island that is home to 2.6 million people, or so. I'd say it was cleaner then Minneapolis most of the time. The smells do get a bit "fresh" at times. Think of not-so-fresh seafood and warm temperatures, mixed with last nights garbage.

Heart of Chinatown, Freedom Tower being built in the background.

While it is expensive, there are ways to do NYC on a budget. I have to give Erin all the credit here. We rented an apartment in the Lower east side to get a real feel of what living in NYC is like. We also had a roommate, Mike, who helped manage the property along with other properties they own. Our cost: $105/night. This is very very cheap. We also only rode the subway. Public transportation is the shit out east. I love it. For $30/each we got a 7 day unlimited rides metro pass. The subway station was 1 block from our place. Everywhere else we walked. Needless to say while I'd consider myself in ok shape, my feet on the other hand are not used to putting on those kind of miles. I got a blister the 3 day we were there. I don't know the NYC women wear 3"+ inch shoes. F that. I'll take my DC skate shoes.

Our room. It's "snug" in size

8.5oz of Diet Coke. Cost: $2.50. The price we pay to use the bathroom.

Safety isn't an NYC thing, it's a (fill in any major city) thing. Crazy enough, I felt more safe in NYC then I do in parts of Minneapolis. I think maybe it's the fact that there is always people around, be it 2pm or 3am. Be smart and you're fine.


This leads me to my final point, the citizens of NYC are awesome. Their style of no-bullshit, get out of my way I have somewhere to go works perfect with me. I felt myself becoming an New Yorker when I started to get "Rage Walk" as our friend Kelly called it. Basically thing of rage driving, but walking. If you're going to walk slow then move the F to the right and walk single file. New Yorkers also have no issues at all telling you where anything is. They might not tell you the local watering holes, but they'll tell you how to get different places. They really are great people. I also love the mix of people there. It's so different from Minneapolis. There's everyone under the sun and tons of different languages being spoken all the time. It's what I think America is, but in a really small area. A mixing bowl of culture and believes all wrapped into one.

The worst type of people to get stuck behind... The Asian Tourist. Even my Asian friends know what I'm talking about.

 Ryan, what about the beer? This is a beer blog damnit. Yeah, one minute.

There, that will tie you over until I start talking about beer.

The food in NYC is amazing. There are SOOO many options and different styles that you can't go wrong. I had two food requirements: A good hotdog and good "foldable" aka thin crust pizza. I had both. For the hotdog we hit up Gray's Papaya. Great dog at a killer price. For pizza we hit up the famous Joe's Pizza. Anywhere that Kevin Bacon AND Ben Affleck have ate can't be wrong. Well, maybe it can, but this place is solid. Many thanks to Kelly, Berto, Meara, Nghi, and Bao for showing us some killer food spots.

Tasty Wiener! YAY!

Dim Sum with Berto, Kelly, and Erin. Probably the worst picture ever.

Foldable Pizza with Bao. Crazy Delicious.

Ahhh Cute. Meara and Erin.

Nghi and Erin

 I did require seeing some tourist stuff. Saw times square and promptly left. Yup. It's times square. It's like a non-gambling version of vegas. Saw Central park. Meh. Check out the High Line. Way cooler. Little Italy kinda sucks. People there were pretentious and fake. It's also full of tourists. Go to Boston, much better. Ok, enough with the negative. Here's some sweet places: Dumbo, chinatown, the village, union square (awesome for seeing the crazies), Brooklyn, tons of places. It's great. If you go, hit up the tourist stuff quick and fast, then jump on the subway and go explore. Every stop is an adventure and has tons of cool stuff to see and do.

Dumbo

Above is a video of a crazy dude in a bra rapping with a guy in a banana suit. I couldn't stop laughing.

Ok, let's talk beer.

First day we got in there Berto and Kelly told us to meet them at McSorley's. It's the oldest ale house in NYC and didn't allow women until they were forced to in 1970. They told us that it get's really packed in there, but at 2pm on a Friday we should be ok. They only offer two beers: Dark and Light. It's a beer that's brewed up state just for the bar. They also didn't ask me on a size, which was 2 smaller glasses. They also don't give a shit about the amount of head on the beer, so by the time you get the two beers it's about the amount of 1 pint glass. At $5 for 2 beers, I wasn't going to bitch. What we found out later from a local is that they are known for kicking people out who don't continue to drink or people who only ask for 1 beer when they're busy. They also gave a out-of-town couple some really nasty looks when they walked in and asked what beers they had. So, I did your homework for you. If you go there, Pick a color, order in rounds of 2, don't stop until you're ready to leave.

Might look like a lot of beer, but if Erin can lift 4 of them full you know they're small.

Many people are starting to know Brooklyn Brewery. We didn't really plan in advance to go there and figured we could just jump on a tour. Now they require you order tickets in advance. Needless to say we didn't go there, but I'm really not to bothered by that. I'm not a big fan of their beers. I haven't had one yet that I say "Damn, that's good." They are ok, but nothing great. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't go to their brewery, it just means I'm not gonna cry about it like a sally. Maybe next time.

Chelsea Brewing Company

We did hit up Chelsea Brewing Company. Not bad brews (better then Brooklyn Brewing, IMO) shitty overpriced food. Go there and get the sampler, but save your money for a street vender for food.

Legends Football Factory, Main Level

Legends Football Factory is an awesome place to watch Football (soccer, not american) and get a pint. Really fun atmosphere and a wonderful place to watch some of the Euro Cup.

Sampler Tray at Heartland Brewing

Before we left we hit up Heartland Brewing company. There are a few locations of this and they all brew in house, much like Granite City in Minneapolis. As some of you know, I really do not like Granite City. I think their beer is Ok at best and their food is overpriced slightly higher quality Applebees. Needless to say I went into this place thinking it was going to be just like that. I could not be more wrong. Place had great beers and good food. Pricing was on par for NYC. I'd highly recommend getting there sampler. Also go to the location off Union Square. Should be a little more chill/NYC/less tourists. They had a Czech Pilsner there that made me proud.

Hey Pal, Your Ferrari has some garbage stuck to it.

Ok, This is a lot of reading for you guys, and a lot of typing for me. Our next stop is Rehoboth Beach, DE. That's the home to this little brewery that makes "Off-centered Ale for Off-Centered People". Check in later for that entry as I'm typing out the current entry from there. Ok, I'm off to the brewhouse. (Side note, wrote this post in Delaware, didn't actually post it until we were in DC.)

Don't mess with fire station cat.

Prost!

Ryan

It's Growing!!

For those of you who actively follow my blog you'll know that last year a combo of squirrels and my lack of knowing how to plant hops correctly yielded in me killing off about 5 plants. This year Ted offered me up another 2 plants to try to kill grow. This spring Minnesota had a very odd weather pattern. It became extremely warm (70's) very early, then dropped off in temp again. This made trying to time the planting of the hops a bit hard for me. On one side I had people like Ted and Paul saying plant them. On the other side I had Erin saying wait. Due to some traveling plans I decided to wait. Once again I planted the hops in planters so that I could move the plants if I wanted to.

Much like last year I had the damn squirrels digging up my plants again. I guess they like to hide nuts in the planters. The Chinook plant didn't make it. The Cascade plant survived the first few attacks before I finally figured out how to stop them. I found a tighter opening chicken wire that I wrapped over the top of the planter. That managed to stop the digging.

After about a week of watering and a relocation of the planter the plant managed to hit the wire protection around it. I changed the wire setup and watched in anticipation of yet another round of attacks. Lucky for me there was nothing after 3 days. Yesterday I noticed that the plant was now starting to look for something to grow on. It's time to run the rope.

Most first year plants don't produce many cones, if any. Hopefully I'll get something out of this little guy. I'm not expecting a lot but it would be fun. Next year should be a lot more interesting. I'll keep you updated with pictures as time goes on.

Prost!

-Ryan

Honoring Mike Feltault

Yesterday another good man left our world, Mike Feltault. I knew Mike through Finnegan's beer events and other beer tasting festivals. You could always count on Mike being the man with the camera. He was a fun guy to be around and I always will remember his smile, which he always had.

I ask that you all raise a pint tonight in Mike's honor, even if you didn't know him.

Rest in peace Mike. You will be missed.

-Ryan

Happy St. Patrick's day

Happy St. Patricks day! A few things I'd like everyone to remember on this day:

1. Support your local craft beer if possible.
2. Don't drink and drive.

With the unseasonably warm temps we're having in Minneapolis today, Erin and I plan on taking our bikes out to some local pubs to enjoy a pint.

I'll leave you all with this video which was sent to me by cousin Mike. Enjoy!

Prost!

-Ryan

I caved in...

So, I did it, I joined twitter. As most of you know I'm not a big fan of social media. There's some things I really enjoy about it, but there's other things that just frustrate the hell outta me with them. So my choice to start a twitter account has 2 reasons.

1. People often say to me "Dude, let me know when you're going to brew again". Well, here's the problem. I often brew somewhat last minute. I don't feel like flooding people on my blog and I just don't really ever know who to email. Don't have or want twitter? No problem. Just let me know if you want me to email you if I'm going to brew.

2. I've been noticed with the news that you get quicker responses from companies when you blast them on social sites such as twitter. Now as ridiculous as that is, it's just the way the world is. For example (about to go in a rant) we bought a new couch. The day we got it, the way that the sectional is connects the two pieces of the couch broke. I contacted the company who we bought the couch from who they put in an order to replace the part from the manufacturer, Lay-z-boy. Lay-z-boy then informed me that it will take 2 to 3 weeks. Ok, I'm sorry but you gotta be shitting me. 2 to 3 weeks for a small piece of plastic? So it's been over 3 weeks. I call back asking about it. Oh, yeah, now they tell me it's actually 3 to 4 weeks. My thoughts, post this question to twitter, get instant part.

I'll try to keep the blog to more in-depth thoughts and writings, twitter for the more A-D-D style quick stuff. I'm also on facebook as most of you know, but I don't post on there a lot. So yes, I'm a product of the crap I normally don't care for... blog, facebook, and twitter.

So, feel free to follow me on twitter @ryansbeer

On a beer note, Haven't really done much. I need to brew again here soon.

Prost!

-Ryan

I drink ze beer from ze glass..

Happy Belated Birthday to me. 

I was not sharing that.

So I turned 30. It feels a little weird. I feel like I should be more responsible or something. So what do I do to counter that feeling? I drink ze beer from das boot. What's that you ask? Most Das Boot's are 2 liters in size, along with a whole game that you can google. Also R2 (aka Ryan J aka my sister-in-laws boyfriend) and I attempted to each eat a meter of sausage. We both lost. My buddy Tony finished the meter challenge, with a small help. Now I'm just getting hungry.

So in an attempt to update this a little more often I figured I'd throw out some updates. I tapped Bubba's brew, but it is not ready yet. Good beginning flavor but a *strong* sour note at the end. I really hope time will tame that out and that I didn't get wild yeast in there somehow. My What the Helle continues to lager in the second fridge.

I was given multiple gift cards to my favorite place, Midwest Supplies, so I'll need to find some more stuff to get :) For my fellow brewers, please be careful when moving your glass carboys. One of the employees at Midwest was seriously injured when he dropped one. Check out that story here.

I'll leave you all with these gems:

So much meat.

What the Helle is going on with Bubba's Brew?!?!

Let me begin with saying Happy Holidays and a Happy 2012 New Years!! Yeah, that's only 14 days late. So I've been meaning to update my blog for a while now, but things just keep coming up. Lame excuse. So, how about some updates then if you're too damn busy to update your blog, slacker.

Beer: What the Helle, my Munich style Helle (German for light) is coming along nicely. Being a lager beer, it takes a long time to ferment at colder temps. I had it in the basement for a month before racking it to my secondary fermentor. I then brought it to some warmer temps (i.e. my closet) for a few days so it could rest. This morning I put it in the 2nd fridge to start the lagering process. At this point the beer is done fermenting, but what the cold temps of the fridge does is allows the beer to age and drops out any leftover yeast or sediment from brewing. This style beer should be super clear in the glass. The beer that is the background to my blog is the Munch Helle, actually at Octoberfest in Munich, Germany when I went. It was there that I decided I wanted to start brewing all-grain style after talking with a buddy. I'm thinking the Helle should be done sometime around March.

Bubba's brew on the left, What the Helle on the right. 

Bubba's brew was an interesting beast. I made the yeast starter as I showed in the last post. Being that I've never worked with a Belgium yeast before I didn't really know what to expect. Christmas day after being out with the family the whole day and out of the house, I came back and opened the door to the office where I keep my ale beers when fermenting and there was a **VERY** strong brewhouse smell. Now, I love the smell of a brewery, but this my friends was a little too much. I was actually scared that my work clothes which I keep in the closet in the office would smell like a brewery. I know some of my coworkers wouldn't mind (Lee, Christian, Walski), but I don't think my boss would care too much for that. Lucky for me after another 24 hours the smell went away and my cloths did not smell like a brewery. After hanging out in that glass container for a little over 2 weeks, I pulled the gravity reading on it to see if it was done. Yes, it was very done. Final ABV: 7.8%. Wow. This is my strongest beer to date. Let's hope it tastes good. Its been sitting in the keg carbonating now for a week. I just moved it to the lower psi of CO2 and I'll start the aging process. Should be ready to brew just after my birthday (End of January).

Other Things: So, why not give an update of what I've done since brewing Bubba's Brew. The holidays were "classic" to say the least. Christmas Eve we go to my mom's, Christmas Day we go to Erin's parents, then Christmas Day Dinner we have with both families. I really enjoy that our two families really are one. Needless to say I wasn't at my house a lot, which is fine. I'm sure we all feel a little crazy around the holidays. With starting the new job I no longer have shutdown week like I did at my last job. Shutdown week was the week between Christmas and New Years which they gave that week off. Years past I've spent that time with my brother who would fly in from out of town. Due to travel issues he was not able to make it this year, which I guess was good being that I didn't have any time off. Instead I was very deep into my work project which involved digging deep into my brain for my Java programming skills that I did 10 years ago in college. It's amazing how quick you can pick some of that stuff back up again. New years eve we went to Green Bay to visit Erin's cousin and go to the New Years day Packer game. More about the game in a minute.

New Years Eve is when I meet Tim Ek. Ok, ready, prepare yourself.. Tim is Erin's cousin's fiance's sister's husband. Tim is a big time biker (peddle, not vroom vroom) and also runs a blog: http://timekchronicles.blogspot.com/ Tim just so happens to be sponsored by the bike company I've been watching for a while, Salsa Cycles. I've wanted to build a bike for a while, but never really pulled the trigger. He informed me that the frame I've been looking at for some time was no longer made, the Ala Carte. Well Tim, I found a frame on ebay, brand spankin new and I pulled the trigger. Along with his help I plan on getting back on the mountain bike more and a little less on the street bike. Don't worry Erin, I'll still ride the street bike with you. I'm sure I'll update this blog with the bike build info.

Sexy bike frame is Sexy

Some people might ask "Why the hell do you want to build a bike when you can just go out and buy one?". If you haven't figured out from my blog yet, there's some things I just like to do on my own. I've been building my own computers since I was 15. I've actually only had 2 computer cases my whole life, but I've ran more parts through them then I can count. Even with beer, I could go to the store and buy beer, which I do, but I still enjoy the fruits of my labor in brewing it myself. So, me wanting to build a bike from scratch shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone. If I had the space, funding, and time I'd build an old car ('68 Mustang Fastback or '43 Willys Jeep). 

Getting back on track, New Year eve was good times. The Packers game was wonderful (we won) and overall it was nice seeing the Green Bay people. I'd post pictures but I spent the last hour searching Erin's computer for them while she's sleeping with no luck. On a side note I did finally setup nightly backups for her laptop and realized that my nightly backups profile somehow was erased. Not good. Needless to say after 2 weekends of lots of travel, I was ready to relax and not leave the house. 

I still have yet to figure out my next brew, but I know Sophie's Stout is already half gone and the Wet Ted is cached. I'm guessing I'll do another Sophie's stout, but I'll need to figure out a few more ale's. Any suggestions?

I'll leave you all with this year's holiday card photo:

From my family to yours, Happy 2012. 

Prost!

Ryan 

Twas the day before the night before Christmas.. Bubba's Brew

A few months ago my friend Lauren asked me to do some work on her car. She offered to pay but I gave her the standard friend price of "just buy me some beer". Being the bitch she is, she also got me a gift card to Midwest Supplies. Her request was to brew a beer "with a kick ass name". After a few ideas, I came up with Bubba's Brew. My typical recipe design process goes: Style of beer to make, Name, Research and build the recipe. Let's go back to the beginning of August.

The place that changed it all

Back in August Erin and I did our East Coast Invasion to visit our friends Bobby and Heather for their wedding. Part of the east coast trip was to go up to Maine to visit a large amount of breweries. As many of you know, I hate(d) Belgium beers. I think it was the fact that I never found one that I actually liked. I also really didn't care for the after-taste of most Belgium beers (called "spicy"). When the four of us walked into Allagash Brewing I quickly noticed all the beers were Belgium style beers. Shit. It was our first brewery of three for the day. I always try to go into new foods and beer with an open mind. Even though I thought I'd hate the beers, I tried them anyways. Allagash's staple beer is called "Allagash White". That beer changed my beer life. Seriously, no shit. I finally found a Belgium I liked. Hell, I loved it. It was love at first sip. The more and more I had that beer, the more and more I loved it. By the time we left our vacation I was on a mission to find something like Allagash out here in Minnesota. Nothing quite like Allagash White, but I've found a few good brews (Avery White Rascal is up there).

Allagash Test Brewery and where it all started for them. Looks like my buddy Ted's setup. 

Fast forward to now. So, Bubba's Brew. First off, let's have a look at that big boy. 

Bubba and Lauren aka Mom

Bubba is a white miniature bulldog. Being an all white dog, it made it easy for me to decide to make a Belgium White with Allagash White as my inspiration. Now, if I thought that Allagash White was a tasty beer, I got a lot more respect for it when I started researching and figured out how tricky it is to make a quality Belgium beer. I'll tell you this much, to do it right this shit is not easy. Longer mash times, longer batch times, longer boil times. Everything just takes longer. So after googling around I found a thread on some forum where someone actually contacted one of the Allagash brewers to find out the grain bill for their white. Awesome! Now I have a great plan of attack for making mine. Some of the other tricks to a quality Belgium is using ingredients I've never used before such as bitter orange peel and coriander seed. Before starting any of this, I need to make a yeast starter. 

Yeah... dirty desk. 

I made the yeast starter 2 days before. I started the brew day knowing that things would be longer. With some changes to the brewing setup to fix my thermometer issues, I found that I'm actually able to heat up my strike and batch water quicker. I was very happy to see everything moving smoothly. I also ran with two thermometers to make sure everything was correct temp wise. I was very happy to see everything was spot on. 

Temp Gauge mounted to side of the kettle. I should have done this a long time ago

Brew day setup. Hot Liquid tank on the burner, Mash tun (orange cooler) and the boil kettle on the ground

Items used on Bubba's Brew. White bag is Belgium Rock Candi

Inside the mash tun. Smells great

First run off of the mash

Another shot of the first run off of the mash

The boil

Now, from my last entry you all read about how I was happy I was finally able to hit my numbers again. Well everyone, for this brew not only did I hit my numbers but I actually did better then I expected. I pulled more sugars off the grains then I expected. There's something called brewing efficiency which I believe I've talked about before. I have my brewing software setup for a 70% efficiency. I actually hit 75% which made me happy. With hitting the better numbers, Bubba's brew is looking to be a strong beer. I had an original gravity (O.G.) of 1.064. Depending on how the beer finish out, I'm look at what could be a 7% abv beer. Damn. Strongest beer made by me yet if it does hit that number. 

I think your beer will taste better ;)

Prost!

-Ryan