MB2015.1 - Sweaty Bretty Petite Redux

My Brother is getting married in a few months and I am providing a few beers for the big event. I brewed a saison (and a couple other beers) for a wedding a few years ago, so it seemed fitting to resurrect that recipe.The goal of this recipe is to be a table beer -- approachable and light for quaffing in quantity, yet flavorful and interesting for pairing with food.

Sweaty Bretty Rye - Brett Rye Saison

I was a bit disappointed in my last saison experiment (in December, no associated blog entry). I believe the carafa II that I used threw some "nutty" notes into the beer, and it turned out an ugly brown. Not what I was going for. (The brett C portion tastes promising though.)

Recent failure in mind, I thought I'd brew up a replacement batch that was more in line with successful past batches. I wanted to make it peppery, but with a soft mouthfeel (I'm targeting something similar to one of my favorite saisons, Logsdon's Seizoen Bretta). For the pepper and mouthfeel I used 15% each of wheat and rye in the grainbill.

Requested Recipe: Little Heater Brett Stout

I've had a few requests for this recipe, so I thought I'd publish it here. It took first in the Belgian Specialty Ale category at Knickerbocker Battle of the Brews in November, and is a great winter beer. Funny thing is this was a "clean out my grain stash" beer, where I tossed a bunch of random stuff together...

Turbid Mash Lambic 2014

If I was to drown in a vat (or hogshead) of beer that I'd prefer it to be Lambic (or Gueuze). For my palate, Lambic's complex combination of funk and tart is heaven in a glass, and I can imagine no better style-driven drinking session than one exploring these beers. They can be a bit pricey, but it is a special treat to sit down with a few friends and drink around a few bottles.

Despite my affection for the style, I have never brewed one before. These beers require not only prowess in the brewhouse (as I will detail shortly), but also patience after brewday. There is no hard-and-fast rule regarding how long you should allow Lambic to sit in secondary (most brewers would say at least a year), but I had previously shunned tying up one of my vessels for such a long time. With a recent purchase of more kegs, I decided the timing was right to try my hand at brewing a Lambic.

Washing and Freezing Yeast with Glycerin in a Frost-Free Freezer

In this post I'm detailing a method I have used to wash and freeze yeast from a slurry, including how I made my glycerin mixture. I did this ONCE at the time I wrote this post, so I am new to this stuff. Yes, this has been done before by others, and I provide links to a few sites where I got my info. This post is meant to track the method I am using.

A big ol' healthy starter. This is what
we're after! 

First off - a warning... This is a new process for me, and I'm still learning all the "best practices." I culled my method from a few sources--most notably a friend on the Albany Brew Crafters homebrew forums who has been banking yeast for awhile now, the washing and freezing yeast page on swedhelm.net, and this great how-to write up on Homebrewtalk. Seriously, check out these resources -- they go into more of the "why" behind this process. Also, I'm doing this for temporary storage purposes of some of the strains that , and don't have a giant lab or complex equipment (beyond that of a geeky brewer). I work under sanitary conditions, not sterile conditions. Some will scoff at this, but I'm going for simplicity here, and don't want to dedicate too much time or money to this endeavor. I use star-san because that's what I have. I don't own a pressure cooker or a microwave (its ok to laugh...), so I use my stovetop and electric teakettle.  I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on the internet!!

Tasting Notes - Haskell's Flanders

A friend, Haskell, threw me a bottle of one of his Flanders beers. I'm thinking its an oaked red, judging from the bottlecap (that said "OAK"), and from what I recall. (I obtained it about a month ago on a trip to Burlington, so the memory is a bit fuzzy.) Working from my memory, I believe it was brewed with East Coast Yeast Bugfarm IV. I thought I'd post the notes up here, just because I was going to write them up anyway.

It looks far darker here than it actually was.
Great looking beer, overall.

Zwanzé Day 2013 - Hill Farmstead Brewery

Here's a quick picture dump and short captions of the Hill Farmstead Zwanzé Day event on September 14th. I was fortunate to get ahold of a ticket through some friends (thanks Ross, Robb and Mike!). It was a blast, and we drank a lot of great beer, and had some good times. There were only 125 people at the actual Zwanzé event, and it felt like even less...

2013.08.18 - Sweaty Bretty Petite

Another saison post here. Basically, my larger saison that is parsed down to be a table beer. 5 gallons of this will go to our friends' wedding in October. (You can check out their captivating blog on farming, The Farmer's Husband, here.) The concept was simply an easy drinking yet interesting beer.

TAP NY and the Albany Brew Crafters

Just a quick post here to plug the Albany Brew Crafters, and drop off a link to an interview I did with a blogger at the 2013 TAP NY Beer and Food Festival.

I'm a founding member and the current Brewmaster General of the Albany Brew Crafters, a homebrewing club in Albany, NY. We've been around since April of 2012, and have about 25 paid members, and 30 regular attendees to our meetings. If you're a brewer in the area, you should really join up -- its a lot of fun, and there are some club members that make some great beer. Also, we have some fairly active forum-style message boards that are free to join.  We meet the second Wednesday of every month at 7:00 PM at The Ruck in Troy, NY.

NHC 2013: The Great Berliner

This post reflects upon my Berliner Weisse that made it into the second round of the National Homebrewers Competition (NHC). I've entered the NHC the past 3 years, and this is the first year that I have advanced any beers to the second round, so I must be either becoming a better to-style brewer (or I'm beginning to game the system in some fashion). I hope my reflections and the scans of the score-sheets I received from the competition are helpful to others interested in doing a quick Berliner.

Sweaty Bretty (brewed 4/13/2013); AND 3 things I have learned about my taste in Saisons

I started this blog when I began honing my saison skills (about a year ago), and have pretty much dialed in a "house recipe" at this point. While I do like the "classic" saisons (Dupont, certainly!), I find most commercial saisons to lack the full ester profile that these wonderful little yeasties can kick off if they are treated right. For those who know what I *really* like to drink (don't judge me!), I suppose it is also no surprise that I love the pairing of the spicy yeastiness of the saison yeasts with a earthy and fruity Brettanomyces character.

The basement lab set-up.

Before I shoot out my basic recipe to the world for the scrutiny of all, I wanted to list three rules I've adopted for my saisons. If you've read the above paragraph, the first might not be too surprising...

The Barrel Project: The Acquisition

Bourbon barrels at Hillrock Distillery awaiting adoption. 

This is the second post in The Barrel Project series. On the back of my rather vociferous rant about the container-ship of barrels, I will post here some pictures of our trip to Hillrock Estate Distillery, along with a bit of narrative. In the next post I'll provide some more details about the group nature of the project, including our decision on a recipe and some of the barrel prep.


I had been wanting to do some sort of barrel project for awhile, but never really had the space. When we moved to our luxurious new suburban rental home (replete with full basement), I knew the time was close. After getting the brewery set up and insuring all would be good with the ol' landlord, I began absorbing barreled beer knowledge that I could--by both research and osmosis.

The Barrel Project: The Philosophical Implications of a Barrel...

The Heidelburg Tun in Germany. A very dilute
surface to liquor area... 

"Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen hundred thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of expense."                                   - Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

I think that it is fair to say that within the past few years the oak barrel (in its various iterations and usages) has joined the hop as one of the hottest trend in the craft beer world. And for me it is almost more exciting than the hop. Here's why...

Keep it Crispy: Slightly Soured Citra Saison with Peppercorns

Coca-cola my ass! What's missing is a nice porter...
it could be sitting right there...

Battling a drafty house and consuming porter for warmth, I've recently been planning the nice crispy beers I will be drinking to slake my thirst during the summer. Although not a strict votary when it comes to drinking, I do find my year to be divided into two brewing seasons that correspond to my schedule at the university: richer malt-forward beers in late summer, fall and early winter (the "fall semester," in prep for the alcoholic hibernations of winter break); and drier, crisper beers in late winter, spring, and early summer (the "spring semester," gearing up for the horseshoe tournaments and canoe trips of summer).



While mid-winter is made for cast-iron stoves and comfort food, mid-summer (as Shakespeare has taught us) is for free-wheeling adventures and drinking in quantity with reunited friends. It being spring semester, I'm in prep mode for crispy summer drinking.

The Enchanted Silver Bullet: Keeping Coors Light Classy

Round about 10 years ago a legendary, now-forgotten, shaman-schwiller of cheap beers introduced me to a method "enchanting" my silver bullets. I have no idea the origin of this spell, nor have I the desire to take the effort to research (google) it. It would be interesting to know if any readers have heard of this technique, so do leave a response. The effect is, well, flavor.

Forgive me Gambrinus, for I have sinned. It has been a thirty-pack since my last confession...

Next stop -- Flavor Country!

I confess that I have a special place in my heart for Coors. I grew into a drinker favoring their Banquet Beer, and still find myself tapping the rockies frequently during summers. I love the aesthetic of their cans, love the feel of a beer-laden koozie in my hand, and never get tired of "silver bullet jokes" (its the only thing that can stop a wook!). I am not claiming that it is the finest beverage on the planet, nor am I attempting to persuade you to become a Coors drinker (honest!). Rather, I am confessing that (for me) there is a time and a place for affordable light beers to be drunk in mass quantities, and Coors fits the bill.

Glüten-Tag! - Malting Buckwheat

In an attempt to design a more "beery" gluten-free beer, the Special Lady-Friend (SLF) and I turned to buckwheat. I first heard about brewing with buckwheat on a Sunday Session podcast on The Brewing Network (an excellent resource for all things brewing), and then followed the directions for malting the buckwheat found on Jon Plise's website. This post is meant to document my process, while providing a redacted step-by-step how-to. Be sure to check out Jon's site for more extensive (and aesthetically pleasing) instructions.

Glüten-Tag!: The Gluten-Free Beer Project

With a recent revelation in my Special Lady-Friend's (hereafter SLF) dietary regimen, I have been provided with another brewing related challenge -- to find and capture the ever elusive tasty gluten-free beer!

You can learn a lot more about gluten sensitivities from websites and blogs by people with far more relevant PhDs after their surnames (see links below), so I will spare you from this pedant's attempt to explain SLF's situation . Just know it sucks, and this dietary limitation is not by her choosing. I'm sure it must be even more torturous living with an obsessed brewer and borderline alcoholic while such a ban is in place. Pause and reflect on a fallen drinking homette next time you are sipping a nice malty brown or IPA -- she would appreciate.