FOOLCiRCLE

So this weekend we went ‘up the mountains’ with some of our friends to their mountain house in Eagles Mere, PA.

The long weekend break at the mountain house was great; nice weather, good company, lots of laughs, long walks - - all that happy mountain stuff. BUT I’m not really about to write about that, I am about to write about a quick stop we made on the way home.

One down side to going up the mountains is that there is no where close by to buy good beer, actually beer at all. There used to be a small shack that sold cases and thirty packs of mass produced BudMillerCoors and of course Yuengling (the best they had). Now there is a time and place for these beers, but when you want something better, well, you want something better. So I started searching the InterWebs for something reasonably close that had decent beer. My options were either 45 minutes further than we were going in Williamsport or 60 minutes before we would reach our destination in Berwick. Since I was really the only one concerned with beer I decided to bring a case up with me of a mixed variety and try to stop by the 60 minute away location since it was sort of on the way home.

The name of the place is One Guy Brewing, and it is just that. It is in a small town called Berwick and Guy Hagner is the owner/operator/brewer. Guy runs the show on his home-made custom two barrel system. Yes, you heard that correctly, two barrels at a time - that’s only four full size kegs! I asked about distribution and he said he only sells out of his place though he has sold a couple kegs for special friends. He is only open two days a week, Saturday and Sunday from like 1-6PM. He says he brews once or twice a week. His prices were fair and the beer was good. He also had enlisted a B.Y.O.F. policy in his tasting room (maybe 25ish seats), that’s Bring Your Own Food - which I wish I would have known about. Karen and I stayed for a couple beers and chatted Guy up since we were the only two in there until the end. We tried the Pilsner, Hefeweizen, and Stout. The Pils was good, clean, and crisp. The Hefe was good, real mild on the clove and banana thing which is the way I like it. And the Stout was OK, a little bit  of light carbonation and body, it could have really been helped out by a nitro pour in my opinion. Anyway, we left with two growlers, one of the Pils and one of the Hefe. He also had a Lager and a “Christmas in July” kind of Wheat Beer thing that I never asked to try, should have.

It was a pretty easy detour that ran parallel to the highway that would probably add 15 minutes plus however long you stay at One Guy’s. Next time we go up I’d consider stopping again and I suggest that other do too. One Guy Brewing, 328 W. Front St, Berwick, PA 18603, (570) 709-1056.

So I guess this is the follow up of what’s happening with the Fool’s Gold, the first chosen beer to be on tap.

So the Fool’s Gold was the first beer I put on tap, I thought it appropriate with my name in it (Fool) and some positive affirmation action (Gold) - - or something like that. Anyway, to no big surprise to me, I was having constant trouble with this beer on tap. It was a slow pour, it was foamy, the faucet was having some trouble, it wouldn’t pour at all, you know all sorts of newbie issues. Sure I was a little pissy and a little disappointed thinking there was something wrong with the kegerator, but I was willing to accept there would be a learning curve. One thing I really wanted to do but never got the opportunity was to play with my new Beer Gun and pull off a few bottles, partially just to do it, and partially to put a few aside for the 6th Fool Circle beer tasting (whenever that finally happens).

Well, I put a second keg in the kegerator last night to put on tap today to see if the pour problem was an obvious kegerator or keg issue, or obvious at all. I cleaned out the line and put keg number two on tap, the RYPA. It poured, period. It was foamy, and a little wild also, so I may have both kegerator (balancing) and keg issues, we’ll have to see. So I pulled the keg of Fool’s Gold into the kitchen and basically said “F-it” and decided I was going to bottle what was in the keg the “normal” way or at the least dump out the contents and see if I could tell what was happening.

The beer poured out with mad sediment, I was actually quite surprised. I guess I transfer more hop debris than I realize after dry hopping, yikes! I know I probably oxidized the hell out of the beer and knocked out most of the carbonation, but screw it, I’ve got five bottles out of it - waste not want not - if it tastes like ass I’ll dump it. After seeing how much debris was still in the beer I was guessing that I may have clogged the out-spout, which I actually had guessed since the beginning that it could have been a partially clogged spout causing some of the foam and the slow pour.

So I took the keg down stairs and began cleaning it and taking it apart. What I found was one clogged-as-shit out spout. There goes my ideas about keg hopping, well except maybe with whole hops. Speaking of which I may need to switch to whole hops for dry hopping too. So the good news is that I definitely had a clogged keg which I will say was why the pour stopped on the kegerator. The other problems (foamy, slow pour) I’m not sure if they were directly related. But the bad news is that I just discovered that you really need to be careful with transfers, and I have five other kegs awaiting to be drank before I realized this, ugh. Off the top of my head I know three of them were dry hopped, which may be my down fall. We’ll have to see how this all pans out. More news at eleven .

So I went to go hook-up my 4-way gas manifold in preparation of outwardly pimping my kegerator today.

Seems like all went well with setting up the manifold. I cut all my gas lines, one shorty coming in, three medium guys going out, and one biggie going out. The shorty supplies the gas for all four outgoing gas lines, the three medium guys go to the three kegs that will be in the kegerator, and the one biggie will be permanently hooked-up in preparation for use with another new toy, a Blichmann Beer Gun.

Unfortunately, after all went well setting up the manifold in preparation of switching over the tower to three taps and getting ready to fill a few bottles off the keg, things stopped going so well. I went to hook everything back up to the keg and gas first and pull a pint to make sure all went well. Turned on the gas, opened the valve on the regulator to let the gas out, opened the valve on the one gas line on the manifold to let the gas out, checked it was set to 10 psi, hooked it up to the keg and … nothing. No beer would come out. I lifted the keg and it felt pretty light, so I thought maybe I kicked it and didn’t realize it. Released the pressure on the keg, looked inside with a flash light, still like 3/4 to 1 gallon of beer. So now I have everything still hooked up with no beer coming out. Obviously I don’t want to fool with the Beer Gun until I get this in order.

To say this put a slight damper on my Saturday afternoon is an understatement. I really like the idea of having a kegerator, but I am not sure I am comfortable with the process of owning a kegerator yet. After homebrewing now for almost 9 years and having the idea of my own beer on tap be part of the whole grand scheme of things, and then to keep running into obstacles is extremely frustrating. I know I will figure it out, and I know it will be OK, but I just wish it wasn’t an issue in the first place.

Close-up of the gas manifold itself. 

So I transfered the Chocolate Porter off the cacao nibs and vanilla bean the other day.

 It was weird, I’m assuming it was the cacao nibs, but there was a brownish film that was left behind on the carboy that was kind of gross. No problems with racking as others have indicated with the nibs. The beer smelt lightly of dessert and tasted more of a dessert (chocolate/vanilla blend). I was pleased with the results of the nibs and bean, more so than the actual underlying beer. If the beer was better/bigger I may have waited longer before racking, but in this instance I think two weeks was fine. Now it is in a third carboy, not really necessary for conditioning I just need to get my kegs in order. I have three beers ready to be kegged and only one keg ready to go. I have another keg that is available but the pressure-release valve is broken, and seems to be a weird size. Dunno … beer!

So I pulled the first pint(s) from the kegerator last night.

Right now things are pouring slowly and with a lot of foam. Hopefully I will be able to balance the system without too much trouble. As of now I do not know where the problem lies: the tubing, the keg, the beer, the gas, the temperature - lots of variables to figure out. Once things are up and running smoothly I’ll post some more pictures.

It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming…

Well, actually it arrived today, but it isn’t ready to pour beer yet. Actually, all I really need is gas and it’s a go. Very exciting!

So tonight I transfered the Porters to secondaries, one of which is now in line to be Chocolate Porter.

Raw Chocolate and vanilla beans in a porter, yum. Well, porter light, but hopefully it’ll still be all good. So, part of the attraction of doing 10 gallon batches for me is that I can split the batches into 5 gallons of traditional been and 5gallons of an experiment. So this time we have 5 gallons of a Robust Brown Porter and 5 gallons of a Chocolate Porter. I racked one of the carboys of beer onto 8oz of Cacao Nibs and 1 split, scraped, and quartered vanilla bean. It should be pretty good. I figure I’ll let the beer sit in secondary for about two weeks on the nibs and beans and then taste to see how it is progressing. Cacao Nibs are raw chocolate, they were sort of the consistency of coffee beans and chocolate chunks mixed together. Honestly they barely even tasted like dark chocolate, but they smelt like heavenly baked brownies, it smelt just like the air in Hershey, PA.

Hopefully these little suckers aren’t going to make racking to a third carboy or keg a royal pain in the ass, we’ll see!

I received th following email from the Brewer’s Association today and thought I’d pass it on to all my Delaware homies.

Dear Delaware Beer Activists and Homebrewers,

Delaware small brewers need your help! Please read the following information provided by the small, independent breweries of Delaware:

A proposal currently moving in the legislature would raise the state tax on beer almost 50%. The small brewers of Delaware are asking you TO CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR TODAY to ask him/her to oppose this unprecedented increase as an extremely harmful measure to the state’s small craft breweries.

At this point, this proposal has not been formally drafted as legislation, but will be amended into an existing bill and voted on Monday, June 30.

NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL YOUR SENATOR - CALLING IS THE QUICKEST, MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD AS TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

For contact information for your Senator, click here.
You will find links to the Senate roster of members. Simply find your Senator and click on their link for contact information.

Following are several suggested points to make to your elected representatives:

* Delaware has one of the most vibrant and varied craft brewing communities on the east coast.
* Delaware’s small breweries are good for the economy and very good for tourism. Thousands of visitors journey to the state every year to visit these breweries and experience their unique products where they are made.
* Small brewers are facing astronomical costs increases across the board - from malt and hops to energy and packaging materials - nearly 40% over last year. If a further tax burden is placed upon Delaware’s small breweries in this challenging economy it will surely put many of those small businesses at risk.
* A tax increase of this magnitude will deter start-up breweries from considering locating in Delaware, as it will affect existing breweries’ ability to expand, stalling job growth and possibly forcing Delaware breweries to relocate to states that have more competitive tax structures.
* The small, independent breweries of this state need their legislator’s support now more than ever.

Thanks for supporting Delaware’s small breweries!

Sincerely,
Charlie Papazian
President Brewers Association
charlie@brewersassociation.org

Gary Glass
Director
American Homebrewers Association
gary@brewersassociation.org
www.beertown.org

So I went online and looked up the local Senator. Of course I was a little bit stupid and tried to call Joe Biden the federal senator first, but eventually I found my man. He wasn’t there when I called, so I wrote the following email

To: ‘Harris.McDowell@state.de.us’
Subject: Delaware small brewers need your help!

Senator McDowell - I am a member of your district, so I thought I would bring this to your attention. I was just informed by the Brewer’s Association that there is a proposed tax increase of 50% on beer for the state of Delaware. Supposedly at this point this proposal has not been formally drafted as legislation, but will be amended into an existing bill and voted on Monday, June 30. That is this Monday. I tried to call you momentarily ago to make sure you were aware of this increase but was not able to reach you, so I am writing this email instead. Please do not vote to pass this tax increase. The local beer scene really can not afford to be hit with a huge tax increase like this. After one of the largest increases in raw materials , packaging material , and energy costs with an overall 40% increase to make the same product as a year ago, the last thing the local brewers need is to receive a huge 50% tax increase. Do you remember before we had local beer, before Dogfish Head started in 1995? I do, and look how much things have changed now! We have Dogfish Head, Stewart’s, two Iron Hill locations, Fordham and Twin Lakes. The local beer scene is only getting bigger and better, to the point of people choosing their vacation destinations based off our beer scene and others being presented the opportunity of starting new and growing beer businesses in our local community.

The small, independent breweries of this state need their legislator’s support now more than ever. Please do NOT vote for the 50% tax increase on beer. I thank you for your time.

Brian Moore

I suggest that anyone that reads this before Monday June 30th who is a Delaware resident do something similar. For all I care you can just cut and paste sections of this entry. This tax would be outrageous and ridiculous. Thanks for listening.

Or something. Last night I brewed what was to be a 10 gallon batch of Robust Porter, I think I missed my mark.

I’ve been trying to get into the habit of brewing on weekday nights to help free up valuable weekend time. I still don’t have my routine down, but the concept is sound. So last nights goal was to be a high gravity (1.120 range) Robust Porter split into two carboys and diluted down to achieve two normal strength (1.060) five gallon batches of Robust Porter. I should have known from the beginning that it was going to be ‘one of those days’ when I was feeling a little out of place from the get-go.

I had never done a split batch like this before, and I have now decided that experiments like this should still be attempted but should be left for when you have extra time and feel fresh, not when your crunching your time and feel spent. Anyway, lots of little things added up to a rough night. Measuring and grinding my grains took way too long and is one of those steps that I want to start doing the night before if I am going to continue brewing on weekday nights. So, since the measuring took so long, which is while I heat my mash-in water, I overheated my water, so I had to let that cool. While that was cooling I knew the rain was getting ready to break and I brew outside. So I ran out with my new tarp and bungees I had bought to try and build a rain-fly for the brew area. The tarp was way too big and the bungees were a little too small. Fortunately I rigged it up so it kept most of the water off of me, actually it worked pretty well, it just made the area really muggy for the rest of the night.

Then it was time to mash-in, but I forgot to put my Bazooka manifold in my mash tun. Just as I was beginning to pour the grains in I realized it. Fortunately my mash tun and hot liquor tank (HLT) are built the same, so I grabbed and manifold and inserted it in the HLT, then dumped the water from the mash-tun to the HLT then mashed-in. Between the water and the grains the tun was very full, 13+ gallons in a 15 gallon tun. But between all the over-heating, cooling, switching between containers and adding the grains I totally undershot my target temperature and had no room left to adjust. I was aiming for 155-156 and I hit 149-150, yikes! Oh well, nothing I could comfortably do at this point but ride it out. So I began to heat my sparge water and mash-out water. I couldn’t even use the full amount of mash-out water that was called for. According to Pro-mash everything was going to line up, according to what happened Pro-mash lied or something else went a rye. Anyway, I mashed-out with what I could fit.

So as I was sparging I realized I wasn’t going to be able to collect as much wort as there was sugar in the bed, I could just feel it. I ran it slow and hoped for the best. After the sparge was over I ran out what was left in the tun into a bucket, almost four gallons at 1.038 at about 120F, ugh. Plus, while I was moving my kettle from the floor to the burner (no handles) I spilt hot wort down my arm and into the gloves I was wearing just I was having my dinner brought down to me. So not only did I mildly burn myself, I was embarrassed. Fortunately I wasn’t really hurt (except my pride) so I turned on the burner and ate some food which helped. In preparation for this batch to be split I planned on using a bunch of hops, six ounces of pellet hops, I’m not a big fan of using that much pellet hops especially in this high gravity of a brew. I also didn’t realize I had any Whirlfloc left and used Irish Moss instead, no big deal, but the Irish Moss is my back-up, I prefer the Whirlfloc. I need to organize my stuff.

So the boil went fine I suppose, cleaned a couple carboys and the mashing equipment while it was going on. I began to chill the wort and remembered that it was summer time; it was going to be a while. After an hour I was tired of waiting, the thermometer read 78F and I was tired and pissy and didn’t care, so I was done cooling. I began to transfer the wort to a carboy. My idea was I would transfer to one carboy, see what volume I collected, and check the gravity. If it was in the “proper range” I would then split the batch half-and-half and dilute with bottled water up to five gallons, retake a reading and go from there. The goal was 1.120, I hit 1.098 at 78F, so I knew it was really at least 1.100 if I adjust for the temperature. Of course the valve on the kettle clogged twice before completely clogging (did I mention I love using large quantities of pellet hops) and I had to do my favorite, the ol’ dump technique. So since I gathered six gallons via that technique, I figured with all the trouble I went through, I might as well split the batch and hope since I was putting a little bit more than 2.5 gallons in each carboy to start with that the new OG might be higher than 1.050. Lets just say this turned out to be messier than expected and I was starting to crack a little.

After all the transfers I took a little bit of a break from the wort and cleaned everything up. After clean-up I took a second reading of the new diluted wort, 1.048 - wha, wha, what!? I tasted the original sample next to the diluted sample, I shouldn’t have diluted it. I hate this beer. So I’ve been having problems with my O2 stone, it just hasn’t been bubbling properly. So even though I thought my tank was pretty full I bought a new tank to test because the tanks are cheaper than the stones. No difference. After sort-of oxygenating my wort I pitched the yeast, a third generation WLP001 yeast cake split between the two batches. By this point I had basically been “brewing” this batch of beer for almost seven hours and it was nearing midnight. I was wooped and wanted to go to bed and just forget about this beer. Hopefully it turns out drinkable since I have ten gallons of it. Originally it was supposed to be a Robust Porter. Now it looks more like a Brown Porter, but with Robust Porter attributes. So maybe a Robust Brown Porter, I dunno.

Oh, and I was sober the whole night, brewing without drinking beer is almost unheard of in the homebrew community .

Two weeks ago was the annual BUZZ Off competition in West Chester, PA and I just received my results the other day.

This year there were 401 entries for this competition, one of ten (I think) qualifying events for the MCAB. Because it is a qualifying event they actually get more entries (in my opinion) they they typically would, plus they are entries from all over the country instead of just the same local guys. Fortunately there are still a lot of local (PA, NJ, MD) guys that place during this competition.

Here are some descriptors from my results on the two beers I entered:

• Vader - 13F Imperial Stout - 35/33 = 34 - “Very nice drinking beer - this is good now, but with some age to mingle the flavors this will be a fantastic beer!” - “Nice big stout, flavors are slightly unbalanced toward bitterness, will benefit from more aging.”
• Tripel - 18C Belgian Tripel - 36/35 = 35.5 - Third Place - “Well made beer, a drier finish would bring this even closer to style.” - “A good beer, but a little on the sweet side for style with a low hop bitterness.”

I did not judge this year. I was going to, but I wasn’t “feeling it.” I did go out the night before which was part of it, and I did get home late that night, and I did have other things to do that day if I wasn’t judging, but in all honesty, I just wasn’t feeling it. I was told they had 40 other judges, which meant a long crowded day of judging. Wake up at 7:00 (on a Saturday 8-O), leave by 8:00, start judging around 9:00, break for an hourish lunch around 12:00, finish judging around 4:00, sit around the bar drinking beer waiting after drinking beer all day (honestly, this is the longest part) just to hear the results later between 5-6:00, then drive an hourish home after drinking all day, just to get home and almost collapse. I know ‘poor me I have to drink beer all day and talk about it’, trust me it is more like studying for a big test then fun. Whatever, until next time.