Letter to my Senator and Representative.

As many of you know, Minnesota has quite possible the dumbest liquor laws around. We can only buy beer, wine, and liquor in a liquor store. The liquor store has county mandated hours and a state mandate that they aren't open on Sundays. Also when it comes to breweries there is a whole cluster fuck of laws that I've started looking into. For example, if you're a package brewery you cannot sell your own product on site. If you're a brewpub you can only sell your product on site and cannot sell it in any other store or bar. Minnesota really is producing some damn good beers, but our laws are really prohibiting these companies from expanding in what I feel are logical ways. Surly would like to create a new 20 million dollar brewery with a restaurant, bar, and event center. Unlike the Minnesota Vikings who are asking tax payers to flip millions of dollars for their new home, Surly is asking for $0. They just want to be able to create this new brewery, which requires the change of some 80 year old laws.

I've felt pretty strong about a few political things which I try to keep out of this blog (one of which I was reminded of this morning while watching Good Morning America), but as a homebrewer I emailed my senator and representative. I strongly encourage my Minnesota readers to join me in doing the same. Go to this website to find out your local senator and representative: http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts Remember that you want to email the State ones, not the national ones which say "US". Below is an example of the letter I sent to mine:

 I'm writing you on behalf of the current liquor law changes which I've heard are being proposed.

The first one is the Surly Brewery expansion. I fully support their cause. I believe that currently our liquor laws on where beer is able to be sold are holding back Minnesota based companies from expanding. Breweries such as Surly and Summit could benefit by the legislation changing 80 year old laws. I would also like to see smaller brewpubs be able to sell their beer to other restaurants and stores using the current distribution method. As a homebrewer of beer myself, I've looked into what it takes to start a brewery. I feel that with today's laws I'm hesitant to jump into such an endeavor. If I knew that the state did not hinder me to expand my business if it should take off, then I'd be more interested in making the investment. In the beer brewing world, our great state is offering a lot to the American people. I would like to see us promote those businesses and allow them to grow. Not only is the business going to be benefiting, but also the state from the taxes and additional jobs these companies will produce. Surly, unlike some other major companies, is not asking for tax breaks or handouts. They simply want to expand.

The other change which I fully support is allowing liquor sales on Sundays. This "blue law" has run its course in time. I believe it's time to accept that it is the 21st century and prohibition ended in 1933. The taxes which the state will collect by changing this law seems like a no-brainier to me. We're hurting for money and this would be one simple way to collect additional taxes without a lot of effort or burden on the people of Minnesota. If you can buy beer in a bar on Sunday, why not allow people to purchase it at a store? Please vote yes. 

So please join me in changing these laws.

Prost!

-Ryan

UPDATE:

I got an e-mail back from Representative Carlson:

Thank you for writing to share your thoughts about the proposed Surly Brewery Company expansion. I want to share some information with you about what is happening in the legislature in regard to this issue.

As of today, there have been no bills introduced in either the House or the Senate that would allow for Surly Brewing Company to expand on their proposed scale.   However, I am aware that the president of Surly Brewing Company has been meeting with legislators to discuss the proposed expansion to their facility and I look forward to the opportunity to speak with him. I will continue to monitor this issue as the session progresses. In the event that legislation regarding this issue comes before me on the House floor, I will certainly keep your views in mind.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me again in the future about this or any other issues.

Sincerely,

 

Lyndon Carlson

State Representative

Adventure in a Pint

Erin along with the help of other's got me a kick ass b-day present. She was **very** upset that it was so late, but as we know with brewing.. good things come to those that wait. Here's what she got me:

Awesome. Beer in the glass is the I-Paul-A.

Prost!

-Ryan

Superbowl Sunday - Sophie Stout rd 2, Kegs, and I-Paul-A

Hello All!

It's been a while since I last updated. Been busy and with the weather in the single digits and my lack of a nice heating system in the garage, the brewing has hit the cold months halt. This last Friday it warmed up close to 32, so I had to take that time to brew. So let's get on with some updates:

I-Paul-A:
This beer has had a long journey. After having the thermometer issues in the middle of my mash, I managed to save this beer. After I pitched the yeast back on 12/30/10 I let it sit for 5 days until I put it into a 2nd fermentor to dry hop. I really shouldn't have done that, it was just way to soon. I was so ready to start drinking this beer that I didn't remember the golden rule of just relax and let the beer do it's thing. After sitting on the dry hops for 2 weeks I ran into a bit of a problem. I still didn't have my 3rd keg, I had no free kegs, and I was going to Florida to visit my Dad and Step-mom and enjoy my birthday in some warmer weather. I decided I'd throw it in my fridge to lager. For my birthday my brother got me a keg, so I was all set to keg this bad boy. I finally kegged it and plan on tapping it today during the big game. I did have a sip off of it that was used for the final gravity reading. This beer is full of hop smells. It was really good and I'm very excited to taste the finished product. Here's the final numbers:

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.48 %
Bitterness: 115.3 IBU

Keg Project:
It's done!!!

 

With that said, I'm always looking for beer-related stickers to add to my kegs. If you're somewhere feel free to grab some for me please!

Sophie Coffee Stout Round 2:

The first round of the Sophie Coffee Stout was a huge hit. Before old man winter leaves us I figured I better brew a 2nd round. Come summer I typically move away from the dark stouts and porters. On Friday I went to a new brew store (for me, not new physically) and picked up the stuff I needed for the Sophie Stout. I went to Brew & Grow in Spring Lake Park, MN.  The people working there were **extremely** friendly, even with me walking in wearing Green Bay Packers gear. My only issue: Clearly this place is for the extract brewer and I have a feeling they don't get a lot of all-grain brewers coming in there. They pre-package their grain and sell it by set weights. The grain profile for the Sophie Stout calls for half pound and other odd weights. I could have re-measured some of it, but I just brewed it this time with an extra pound of grain. That extra pound means extra sugar which means it will be a little stronger then the last batch. I also picked up a new thermometer while I was there. Here's some pictures from the brew session:

 New thermometer in action. Works great.

The scale that my father-in-law gave me. On the right is some homegrown hops that Paul hooked me up with. 

Once ounce of hops.. a lot more then I thought it would be.

4oz of Coffee. This coffee was bought in Florida at a Hot Pepper shop.

I had a little issue with the yeast kicking off on this beer, I think in part because the start gravity is 1.072 (Pretty dang high). I'll keep you all up to date with how this one turns out. 

Green Bay Packers and the Superbowl:

As many of you know, my wife is a **HUGE** Green Bay Packer fan. I never really watched football until I started dating her. She has converted me to be a Packer fan. As I'm writing this it's 5 hours before kickoff. Needless to say, even with it being 29 degrees out, in Wisconsin tradition I'll be grilling some brats. Bought them fresh at the local meat market, Hackenmuller's, and they've been soaking in beer for the past 12 hours. Should be some good stuff.   

With that said, I need to go dig-out my grill as it's covered in snow. 

Go Pack Go!

-Ryan

The Phuckented Spring IPA contest

Ted, Paul, Brad and myself are going to do a friendly contest. If you're interested in joining in on this, shit you can even use my gear and I'll help, email me! The more the better!

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The “Phuckented” IPA brewing contest.

Evaluation Day:  Saturday, April 9^th @ 2:00p (this is subject to change)

Location: TBD

All Grain Requirements for 5 gallon batch:

10lbs. American Two-row

1lb. Specialty malt of your choice

1lb. Pale Malt – Maris Otter

8oz.  specialty malt of your choice

8oz. of a crystal malt (Levibond: your choice)

Extract Requirements for 5 gallon batch:

EITHER

(6.875lbs dry malt extract – pale malt)

OR

(8.125lbs liquid malt extract – pale malt)

1lb. Specialty malt of your choice

1lb. Pale Malt – Maris Otter

8oz.  specialty malt of your choice

8oz. of a crystal malt (Levibond: your choice)

*you can round up or down for the amount of extract, we don’t really care, but if you can get close, that’s RAD like Crew Jones.

Must include:

9oz of Hops. (2oz of these are left for a 7 day dry-hop)

Recipe must include THREE different kinds of hops.

Example:

3oz Cascade, 4oz Centennial, 2oz Simcoe = 9oz

Or: 7oz Cascade, 1oz Warrior, 1oz E. Kent Goldings = 9oz

2oz of dry hop must be chosen at random – and put in the freezer for dry hopping later

1oz hop addition (2 cups) at 60 minutes. (pick two cups, add them and write down what they were)

1oz hop addition (2 cups) at 10 minutes. (pick two cups, add them and write down what they were)

All subsequent hop additions added from 6 minutes to 1 minute left in your boil.

American Ale yeast US-05 Ale yeast

            (Safle or Wyeast – your choice)

Bottle Conditioned or bottled from your keg.

Variables

Levibond of Crystal Malt

Your choice of which 3 hops you want to use.

Strike and sparge temps are your call (but you must record your target and actual temps)

Rules

(1)  No brewing software may be used to calculate anything other than strike water temps and volumes.

(2)  All hops are put into plastic keg cups in ½ oz increments.  No scales, only eyeballing the quantity in each cup.

(3)  The type of hop is written onto the bottom of every keg cup into which it is placed (you may want to do the labeling BEFORE dumping in the hops.

(4)  Hop cups are randomized on your counter/brewing table

(5)  After each hop addition, the brewer must record which hop was added and when.  After your 10 minute hop addition, you should have 10 cups left.  The brewer must roll a die ten times and record the roll.  The brewer must add one half-ounce of hops at every incremental time left in the boil specified by the dice.

The number rolled on the dice specified the minutes left in the boil you add a half-ounce cup.

For instance, if your dice looked the picture below, the hop additions would be:

1 cup with 6 minutes left in the boil (1 six was rolled)

3 cups with 5 minutes left in the boil (3 fives rolled)

2 cups with 4 minutes left in the boil (2 fours were rolled)

1 cup with 3 minutes left in the boil (1 three rolled)

2 cups with 2 minutes left in the boil (2 twos rolled)

1 cup with 1 minute left in the boil (1 one rolled)

--------------------------------------------

So with that said, I'm a little bummed about a few thing, but it will make it fun. 1. No brewing software. As some of you know I use beersmith to help me design my beers. It doesn't do the work for me, but it does do some of the math. 2. I just got a scale from my father-in-law. I was really looking forward to using it on this, guess I won't be.


Now on the other hand I just bought a refractometer which should be getting here soon. E-bay Hong Kong special baby!! At least I can use that and feel cool, though I'm sure the wife will make fun of me as I'm looking though it.


-Ryan

Chemistry with Cousin Mike

I know what you're thinking.. "Holy Shit! Ryan posted 2 blogs in 2 days. What the hell? I hope he doesn't keep doing this like some crazed asshole who can't stop tweeting about everything s/he is doing ever second!" Fear not readers as I don't plan on doing that. This post is special to me. It's not written by me at all! HA! Now you don't have to read my bastardization of the English language for this wonderful Friday.

A while back I asked my cousin Mike to write an entry for me. Mike is currently working on his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin - Madtown (Madison). Mike is an extremely smart individual so before writing I asked him to drink a beer or 4, then compose. Well, last night I got an email with his entry. I'm pretty excited. Real quick let's review Mike's qualifications... Czech heritage.. Check! Grandfather grew barley for Coors (R.I.P. Grandpa Joe. Miss you!)... Check! Lives in Wisconsin.. Check! Enjoys beer... Check! Has a degree in chemistry.. Check!  Ok.. I think he qualifies. On to his entry:

----------------------------------------------

Light Beer?

Beer is delicious. Let’s get that out there first. I may be weird, but I drink beer because it tastes great! I don’t drink because it gets me drunk (an unfortunate side effect of the beverage), or because it is healthy (how many Miller Lites can be burnt off in one 10 k road race?) or because it is the socially acceptable thing to do with my friends (my two best friends cannot or do not drink alcohol for various medical and personal reasons). I drink beer because it tastes so damn good. Hence, like Ryan, I have begun a career in drinking craft brews. If I’m only going to drink one to two beers in a given night of “heavy” drinking (yes, I don’t drink much), I’m going to drink something that is possibly going to give me an out of body-, virginity losing-, finding Jesus-like experience. Bud Light probably isn’t going to get that done for me.

Phew. Glad I got that off my chest. Now to my true specialty: chemistry.  Beer is arguably the reason why my field exists in the first place. The pH scale (measure of acidity/basicity) was developed in 1909 to assist in control of wort production (this work was done at the Carlsberg brewery/ laboratories, yeah, pretty much a dream job.  They give a daily beer ration of a 6 pack a day, or so I’ve been told by chemists who would know). Louis Pasteur (the guy that pasteurization is named after) studied bacteria in beer, and developed his famous process for beer production, milk go eat your heart out. The reality is that you cannot (in my opinion) truly understand and appreciate a beer without understanding some of the science behind it, and in it.

Ok, quick disclaimer. I am a scientist. Currently I would be described as a bioorganic, biomaterials chemical biologist. I used to do speciation/evolutionary studies in entomology. I make my living by trying to understand things in the world around me that no one else understands yet. And that sort of mentality cannot be left in the laboratory if you truly are a scientist. You take it to the tap room after work, too.

So, let’s start with something that I hold as scientific truth, and even my cousin (whose knowledge of beer I greatly admire and respect) may disagree with. Beer tastes best out of a keg. Ok, I know Ryan agrees with that. Beer taste second best out of a can. Yeah, I went there. Beer taste third best out of a bottle. Now good beers generally are sold in bottles and the awful cheap stuff tends to be sold in cans, but if we throw out that trend, I feel this order holds true.

Here is why:

Light is an awfully nasty form of energy in the chemical world. It does all sorts of crazy shit to molecules. Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is in beer and it is a photo-sensitizer. This means that when a photon of light of the right wavelength strikes it, the chemical is energized (activated) and can give its energy to another molecule. This activated B2 forces iso-alpha acids (from the hops) to undergo a homolytic cleavage forming a free radical, which reacts with the amino acid cysteine to form 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol.

Ok, what the hell does all that shit mean?

Light puts energy into the chemicals in the beer, which leads to the formation of a thiol. And all you need to know about thiols is that they smell like skunk. Hence, the infamous skunky beer smell and taste. Sad day. Free radicals (like political or religious radicals) equal bad tasting beer.

Back to the container debate.

So, a keg lets practically no light through, which means the formation of this nasty thiol is slowed to a crawl. A can is basically a handheld keg. You can’t taste the metal, it is coated with a polymer (plastic lining) which prevents any metal actually making contact with your beer and the polymer does not degrade into the beer, leaving beer the way it is meant to be.

Now to bottles discussion. Amber bottles are that particular color because it is most effective in reflecting the particular wavelength that begins this cascade of beer flavor homicide. But the reality is that some light does get into the beer. Corona, in their brilliance, uses a clear bottle. I think it is fair to say that their beer degrades faster than any others, because pretty much all light is let into the bottle. They might counteract this problem with what is called a “free-radical scavenger”, which is a chemical that reacts quickly with the light-activated chemicals that lead to the skunk flavor. I don’t remember seeing free-radical scavengers as one of the four acceptable ingredients of beer.

Now, for a final thought on all of this: drink beer when it is fresh. It is easy to find fresh beer. The fresh beer is the stuff made by your local craft brewery or in the garage/basement/kitchen of people who are practice a tradition that goes back to the beginning of civilization. So, drink craft brews because they are going to be the highest quality, least photo-decayed beer that you can find.

And if you like it out of the bottle more than the can, I won’t judge you. Beer taste too good to fight over.

Until next time, enjoy that beer. If it tastes skunky, blame free radicals forming thiols in your beer.

Scrumps!

Mike Kratochvil

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Awesome entry. Now some quick side notes. No, I do not disagree with you on your discussion about cans. Surly Brewing which is extremely well known here in the Minneapolis area only offers their beer in cans. At $10+ for a 4 pack of 16oz cans, it better be damn good. 

Well here's a Prost to my cousin for his help on this entry. Note the beer is Angry Hank's, a local tap room from Billings, MT where Mike grew up. 

If you're interested in being a guest blogger on Brew It Yourself, feel free to contact me! 

Prost!

-Ryan

I'm going to get yelled at for this one...

So I was just talking with a coworker, who shale remain nameless to protect him, about trying different beers. He dropped the following quote on me:

Tastebuds change/evolve.  And, unlike a wife, you can get tired of your old beer and try something new whenever you want!

I found that very funny. Note that like me he is also happily married.

So enjoy the quote and I encourage everyone this weekend to try a beer you've never had before. I'm hoping you're going to pick a craft brew and not a bud select, which is total crap.

A link for the guys (work safe)

Prost!
-Ryan

Houston we have a problem.

So let me start off by saying that no, I did not complete my goal. Now let me explain why. I had a giftcard to midwest brewing. I *very* quickly spent that on my kegorator setup and the supplies for the Bombs Away I-Paul-A. When I was looking at kegs, the options at midwest clearly were hit hard by the holiday shopping. Yes I understand that they are used kegs, but the dents in these kegs were not of my liking. I went back 2 different times and both times they had almost no kegs with massive dents. With that being said, I decided not to make the 3rd brew yet, but I will soon. Now onto my issues.

I ran into a lot of issues over the last few days. After 3 days, the irish red stop fermenting. It shouldn't stop that soon. UGH. I gave my buddy Paul a called and talked about a few choices. I decided I'd run to midwest and pick up a 2nd package of yeast because I thought that might kick it back off again. When I was there I was talking to one of the very helpful employees. He informed me that I might have not aerated the wort well enough before I pitched the yeast. Wtf is aerating? I had sort of read about it, but I had no clue so I picked the midwest employee's brain about this. What he informed me is that the only time it is ok to aerate your beer is just before pitching the yeast. I've actually never done this. They sell items which hook up to an electric drill and spin the beer extremely fast. Otherwise there's a few different ways to do this which don't require buying more gear. Well, my dumb ass didn't buy that and I just pitched the 2nd yeast pack. It's now been 4 days and the stupid thing still hasn't taken off. My gravity is still reading at 1.022. So I sanitized my plastic paddle and I stirred up the beer. Let's hope I didn't screw up the batch. Now onto the real issue..

The Bombs Away I-Paul-A is not a cheap beer. That sucker cost me $38 in materials alone. $13 in grain, $3 in yeast, and the rest in hops. I started heating up my strike water (the initial water which is added to the mash) and my electric thermostat says that I've reached my target temp of 168. Awesome. Of course I didn't check it and I dumped it in with the grain. I take a temp reading on the mash hoping to hit 150, the thermostat says 181. This is not possible. I freak out and run to grab my manual thermostat. It's at 135, which is way to low. I scramble to get it warmer by taking 1qt of water and bringing it to almost boiling. I dump that in which only brought the water up to 140. I just accept that i slightly screwed that up and try to recover. I let that soak for 40 minutes, then I hit it with the 2nd round of water at 160. I let that soak for 40 minutes then went onto the boil. In the end I was shooting for a gravity of 1.072 and hit it at 1.060. Not bad for a major issue. Tonight I put it into the 2nd stage for dry hopping after 5 days in the primary fermentor. This beer is tasting great and will only get better.

So onto what I learned:

• Brewing isn't necessarily a science, go with the flow. This is something that sometimes I get frustrated at my wife with because when she cooks she tends to go exactly by the book. I try to remind her that just because she doesn't do exactly what the book says doesn't mean the police are going to show up and arrest her. I needed to take a bit of my own medicine with the Bombs Away. In the end, it seems like everything worked just fine. 
• Aerate the Wort. I'll be making sure that I get a good aerate before pitching from now on so that I don't wreck 4+ hours of work. 

So I know I've been bad about updating the blog over the holiday's with my brewing, but here's some picture's over the brewing of the Bombs away. Enjoy!

The middle picture is cooling down the beer. The floor in the basement is ghetto. The 2nd to the bottom picture is me moving the beer into the secondary fermentor with the dry hops. We had a shower added to our upstairs bathroom which required cutting a whole in the wall. We haven't picked a color for the office yet. The last picture is the beer wrapped in towels to keep out the light hanging out in the office which is a wonderful 68 degrees.

Until next time...

Prost!

-Ryan