SheppyBrew Going Professional

SheppyBrew Brewery is going Professional! Yes, we have decided that we are going to sell our beer ... for money.

The Brew Master has decided to quit his day-job and raise the capital for a brand-new 7 barrel brew-house. If you have a couple million dollars you wish to invest, we are open to discuss how you can help get this shiny new brewery open.

At this time, we have not decided on a location, but we are fielding offers from multiple municipalities who want us.

We will continue to employ gnomes to do most of the day-to-day brewing. Gnaughty and Gnasty will be promoted to co-head brewers and we will be hiring a small army of other gnomes to assist in the brewing and packaging process.

We will not discriminate against leprechauns, tommyknockers, elves, or any other kind of small, mythical woodland creatures, but there will be absolutely no consideration to any creature who is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings and we will certainly not be hiring ANY Green Bay Packers fans.

Pompously Apricot

The BlackHawks lost last night. This does not make me happy. All four games so far  went to overtime. It is possible that they come back to win the series, but not likely.  I sure hope they do, because at this point I cannot think of another hockey team I can endorse this year.

Any team that is as offensively gifted as the BlackHawks are but have such a pathetic power-play does not deserve to win a championship. Besides as a Hawks fan, I cannot be too greedy. I have already seen my once-every-50-years Stanley Cup.

Last night I needed a "New Brew Thursday" beer. As I didn't have any and really did not want to go out and buy one, I decided to try blending the two beers that are currently in my keggerator.

Blending, of course, is a technique a fair number of commercial breweries use. For the most part it is done with barrel aged and/or sour beers as a way to add consistency to the final product year after year. They can also use it to come up with new beer flavors that would be difficult to achieve with one beer.

New Belgium, for instance has the sour base of La Folie (they call this base something, but I cannot think of the name they give it). They blend it with different styles to get most of the sours in their "Lips of Faith" series of beers.

Pompously Illegitimate vs Arrogant Bastard

About the time that I kegged up my Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale (PIRA for short), I picked up a bomber of Stone's Arrogant Bastard (AB for short) knowing that eventually I would like to compare the two beers. Of course if you are new to this blog (or were just not paying attention), you may not know that PIRA is the SheppyBrew Brewery's tribute brew to AB and the Brewing Network's "Can You Brew It" (CYBI) attempt to clone the beer. You can read a bunch about this on this blog by reading through the labels "Arrogant Bastard" and "Pompously Illegitimate".

Today, I popped open the bomber of AB and poured myself a glass of PIRA.

Kegging PIRA

Last night, I kegged up my Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale (PIRA for short).

Of course as I have discussed on this blog, PIRA is a tribute to (not a clone of) Stone's Arrogant Bastard and the Brewing Network's quest to clone the AB recipe. You can see the posts Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale and Brewing PIRA for more information on PIRA and scroll down on the Arrogant Bastard label on this blog for information on the BN CYBI efforts.

I have to say that I am very pleased with the results so far. I have not had the AB in awhile, but I think the malt and yeast characters are pretty close. I am certainly going to do a side-by-side tasting at some point down the line (stay tuned for that SheppyBrew fans). I mentioned in Brewing PIRA that I was a bit concerned about how the yeast starter tasted, but in this beer (or at least the sample I had last night going into the keg) I really liked how the WLP 007 Dry English Ale yeast fermented. It gives a nice dry character and it flocculated extremely clear. I really should have harvested this yeast, but decided I would rather get it in the keg than delay to prepare the whole yeast washing process.

Brewing PIRA

Enzymes at work inside the mash tun

Well, as I mentioned a few days ago, I designed a recipe as a tribute to Stone's Arrogant Bastard and CYBI's attempt to clone the beer. If you don't remember, go ahead and read the blog post "Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale".

You can review the recipe on the "Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale" page. It is hoppy and pretty big. I should end up a little over 7% ABV with somewhere around 76 IBU.

Just a note ... I will probably abbreviate Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale as PIRA on this blog. Don't let that confuse you.

Today was nice and warm, but it was windy, so I did the brewing in the garage. Tyler had a sleep-over birthday party over the weekend, and Tracy left this morning to teach Sunday school, so technically I probably should have been watching the kids, I suppose. Nothing bad happened to them and none of the parents complained that I appeared to be neglecting their kids when they got picked up. Well, for the most part everyone picked up while the mash was going on, so they probably did not realize that I was neglecting their kids.

The kids were fine.

Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale

Arrogant Bastard
It is not a secret that I am a fan of Stone Brewing Company and their Arrogant Bastard Ale.

It is not just that I like to drink the beer (although I really do). Stone just has this in-your-face craft beer arrogant attitude. They know they brew great beer and they celebrate a snobbish attitude that not everyone is going to like their beer.

As they say right on their bottles and website:

This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory–maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beverage will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make things taste better. Perhaps you’re mouthing your words as you read this.

Isn't that cool? Call me a sucker for marketing if you want, but that description influences me want that beer. Seeing half-naked women in multimillion dollar BMC advertisements doesn't make be want a particular beer, but I have to admit that Greg Koch telling me that I am unworthy sort of does make me want to drink the Arrogant Bastard. Of course the fact that I love the beer's flavor profile doesn't hurt.