Feedback

I gave my friend, Woody, a 6 pack of Sheppy Brew for his birthday.  Actually, I guess technically, you would call him more of a boss, so you could say I was brown-nosing.

But, he gave me some very nice feedback on my beer.

The beers I gave him (in the order he ranked them) were:

1. Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale
2. Phat & Tyred Ale -- actually he called 2 and 3 a tie.
3. Tommy Hawk APA -- actually he called 2 and 3 a tie.
4. Blackhawk Black Ale
5. Monkish Wit
6. Tweedle Beetle Stout

Overall, he REALLY seemed to like 1 - 3.  Thought they were "great".  4 was good, but not as great as 1-3.  5 was ok.  6 he thought was bitter (which I translated to mean he did not really like it).

Considering how wide of a range there is in those beers, I am pretty pleased with 4 out of 6 greats or good.  Wits and Imperial Stouts certainly are not for everyone, so the fact that he didn't like them doesn't mean they are not good beers.  Tweedle Beetle Stout in particular is intense in the hops and dark roasted malts, and it is certainly not for the average beer drinker.

And, of course, if he is like me ... beer preference depends a bunch on what you feel like having.  Sometimes I feel like drinking ridiculously hoppy beers.  Sometimes I want a nice light blonde.  Sometimes I feel more like having a nice average amber.  I think most beer drinkers are like that.

Anyway, thanks to Mr. Woody for the feedback.

Lost Generation

This is better a bit bigger than it displays in my blog.  So, full screen it.

Those of you who read my blog via facebook can go to http://blog.ericshepard.com/2010/05/lost-generation.html

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale

Recently (well .. relatively recently) I brewed Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  My wife picked out a recipe from Jamil Zainasheff's and John Palmer's book Brewing Classic Styles called "Antwerp Afternoon", and I scaled it down and modified it a bit based on some ingredient / process preferences I have developed.

In my humble opinion, the beer turned out great.  My wife says it is her favorite beer, so apparently she thinks it is pretty good as well.  It is a nicely balanced, clean tasting beer with a nice biscuit malt background.  I call it a little brother of my Phat & Tyred Ale.  It is very tasty.

I never had a Belgium Pale Ale before I tried mine.  But, since then, I have tried two beers that call themselves Belgium Pale Ales.  One is made by the Blue Moon Brewing company called Pale Moon.  The other was a seasonal brew at a local brew pub called C.B. & Potts.  Neither of these beers taste like mine.  They do not really taste like each other, either.  The Pale Moon tastes like maybe they included coriander and/or orange peel like a regular Blue Moon does.  The BPA at C.B. & Potts tasted like it had a similar grain bill and hop flavoring to mine, but it also had the funky yeasty flavor that I associate with Belgium wheat beers and / or Rye beers.  I think this is called a "Phenolic" taste.  If you have ever had a Mothership Wit from New Belgium Brewery, you probably know the taste I am talking about.  It is a taste I do not care for.  Apparently some people like it, because it comes through in lots of commercial beers I've had.  The BPA at C.B. & Potts had just a touch of it, not nearly as bad as many I've had, but I could detect it.  My wife's cousin (who was the one who actually ordered the beer) could detect it too (and liked it even less than I do).


So, I'm wondering ... since my Belgium Pale Ale tastes nothing like either of the commercial BPA's that I have had, is my BPA not really a BPA?  Of course, the two commercial examples I have had taste nothing like each other either. 

I suppose it doesn't really matter since I like the beer, and my wife likes the beer.  It is a beer that will not last very long.  I think what I am going to do is brew a double batch of Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  I'll split it into two fermenters.  In one, I'll use the same yeast I used for my first batch.  For the other, I'll use a more traditional Belgium-like yeast.  The key will be to make sure I keep the fermentation cold over the first couple days so that the phenolics don't come through too strong.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to try this.  My next batch will be a Whisky Wife Wheat II and then I need to brew up Quarter Life Crisis and Stone Soup IDA again.  Maybe after those three brews I'll have an opening for the great BPA experiment.

1961

The Chicago Blackhawks have not won the Stanley cup since 1961. I was not alive in 1961. All but 6 teams in the NHL did not exist last time the Hawks won the cup. The fact that a team can go almost 50 years without winning is baffling to me. I'm sick of it. Its about time for them to get it done.

Of course, before they won it in 1997, the Red Wings had gone from 1955 without winning. The New York Rangers went from 1940 to 1994 without winning the cup. The Boston Bruins have not won since 1972.

I wonder what it is about the American members of the original 6 and their long droughts.

I am really hoping the Hawks make it to the finals and win it finally. If not, I hope they can win it before the Bruins.

Nano Brewery

I have in the past referred to SheppyBrew as a "nano-brewery" in this blog.

Last night, while listening to a podcast of the Brewing Network's "The Sunday Session", I discovered that there is actually a classification (unofficial) of commercial breweries of "Nano-Brewery".  I thought I was being clever coming up with the term, but apparently, I was not so original.  Basically, a "nano-brewery" is one that brews commercially on a home-brew scale.  One of the guest of the show was actually brewing in his home.

I just want to make it clear, you cannot buy my beer.  If you want to drink it, you have to come over, ask nicely, and let me give you some.  Sorry, but that is just the way it has to be.

---

I'm thinking about brewing a Rye Beer sometime in the near future.  My recipe will sort of be based on the "Can You Brew It: Terrapin Rye Pale" podcast.  I have not plugged it into Beer Smith yet, but here is what I'm thinking:

70%  -  2 Row / Light LME
10%  -  Munich Malt
10%  -  Malted Rye
5%  -  Victory Malt
5%  -  Honey Malt

14 IBU Magnum Hops (60 minutes)
5 IBU Fuggle Hops (30 minutes)
2 IBU EKG Hops (20 minutes)
2 IBU EKG Hops (10 minutes)
2 IBU Cascade (1 minute)
Amarillo Gold Hops -- Dry Hop (.75 oz)
Probably Fermentis US - 05 (Terrapin Brewing company uses WY1272 ... which is what I use for Phat & Tyred and BlackHawk Black, so maybe I'll harvest that from my current batch of P&T)

Eventually, I'll plug this into Beer Smith and get a finalized recipe.  Might brew it up right after Phat & Tyred gets bottled up.

---

I tried one of my Tweedle Beetle Stouts side-by-side with an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout.  I have to say, my beer compares very favorably.  Color of both the beer and the head is identical.  Body is identical.  The roasty malt flavor is identical.  The only differences are that my beer is a bit more carbonated and seems to have a better head, and that my beer has a bit more of a hoppy bite to it.  I expect that if I am able to save some of my beer for a few months, the beers will taste identical, though.

Playoffs start

If it were not for this time of year, I probably would not own a big-screen HD TV or pay ridiculous amounts of money for cable TV.  The HD is nice to have for football, but if I were not a fan of hockey, I probably would not have bothered.  Quite frankly, I know a couple of guys with big-screen HD TVs who don't watch sports at all.  And, I cannot figure out why they spent the money.  I guess most TV shows (other than sports) hold no interest for me, and those that do don't really improve that much with a crystal-clear big picture.  Maybe these other guys have found shows much more interesting than any that I watch.

And, of course, here in Colorado, even the local Avalache coverage is not on free TV.  I suppose I could head out to the bars like I did in my younger years to catch hockey, but if I'm at a bar, I want a beer or seven, and I just cannot recover quickly enough to be a productive member of the work-force in the morning if I go out to the bars every night.

So, I paid for a huge TV and I overpay for cable T.V. most of the year mostly just for watching hockey, and more specifically, playoff hockey. 

And the playoffs started last night.  Life is good.  To make matters even better, the Red Wings lost and the Avs won.  The only thing that would have made it even better would be if the Blackhawks won too, but they don't start until Friday night.  Most likely, the Wings will end up winning their series, and the Avs will end up losing theirs, but right now, I can take pleasure in having watched both of the games last night.

Hawks are going all the way this year ... I can feel it!

Another LHBS

Not too long ago, I mentioned my LBHS's (Local Home Brew Shops) on this blog.

I have recently started working in "the Tech Center" of the Denver Metro area, which means I no longer work close to Stomp Them Grapes .  But, now I work close to another LHBS called The Brew Hut.  I went there today to get grains for my Phat & Tyred Ale.

I like this place too.  Their grain price is slightly better than Stomp and seems to have similar selection.  Their hop prices are better than Stomp, but not quite as good as Beer at Home.  Their extract prices are better than  Beer at Home but not as good as Stomp Them Grapes.

So,  now, I guess I have 3 LHBS's that I will go to.  If I want extract, I should go to Stomp Them Grapes.  If I want hops, I should go to Beer at Home, and if I want grains, I should go to The Brew Hut.  Of course, when it comes right down to it, Stomp Them Grapes probably will not get a ton of my business just because I will not be "up North" very much.  I think what I need to do is work on the guys at Beer at Home and The Brew Hut to improve on their negatives.

Anyway ... just another benefit to living in the Denver area ... choices when it comes to LHBS's.



Oh ... a couple other advantages that The Brew Hut has:  it is attached to a brewery with a tasting room (Dry Dock Brewing) and it is open 7 days a week!

Hawks win

Avs suck.

Avs fan

Check out the hot avs fan I picked up tonight.

I hope I get lucky.

Tweedle Float

I tried a Tweedle Beetle Stout float today after dinner. I put the ice cream in first which seems to have caused extra foaming. If I ever try this again, I will scoop the ice cream in the already-poured beer instead.

This probably would have been better with my Leprechaun Stout. The hoppiness of Tweedle Beetle Stout clashes a bit with the ice cream, whereas the chocolate peppermint of the Leprechaun probably would have complimented the taste. Of course, the Leprechaun Stout is gone, so that will have to wait until I brew more.

Hoppy Spring

When I started brewing beer (way back in 2009) ... I did not consider myself a "hop head".  I never really cared for really hoppy beers.  I never ordered IPA's.  I stayed away from APA's whenever possible.  Anything that was considered dominated by hop flavors would usually not be something I asked for.  My preferences were clearly with balanced or malty beers. 

Somewhere along the way, I have discovered that I really like what higher amounts of hops bring to a beer.  I started to see that malts really need some hop bitterness to balance the beer out.  I think the first beer where I really started realizing that I needed to start paying attention to balancing out my recipes was my first attempt at Dragon Spit.  My notes mentioned that the beer would be better if I basically took the hops from Northern Amber with what I had done with Dragon Spit.  On my second batch, I thought I had overdone the hops until I tasted the beer, when I realized that it was better than I had imagined it could be.

After that, I made a real effort to make sure my Bitterness to Gravity ratio was at least .50.  I still thought I preferred balanced beers, so the closer I got to .5, the better.

But lately, I've started moving toward IPA hoppy.  My Tweedle Beetle Stout is .976 on the BU:GU scale.  My Quarter Life Crisis was "only" at .785, but significantly "dry hopped" to add an intense hoppy taste and aroma.  And my Stone Soup IDA has a high .976 ratio plus is dry hopped even more than the QLC, which gives it a double IPA taste in a black beer.  And, I think at the moment, these are my favorite beers.  I mixed up my second batch of Tommy Hawk APA on Saturday, and at the last minute added more hops than I had planned to.  My initial reaction to my Brother Bear Bock was "wow ... that could really use some hops" even though we all know dopple bocks are purposely low on the BU:GU scale.

I might as well admit it:  I am a "hop head".  I am not sure when this occurred.  I think maybe I always was one, just didn't realize it until I could start exploring beer flavors in my own recipes.  I like how hop bitterness balances out malty sweetness in a beer, and I really like the intense hoppy taste that dry hopping adds.

The beer model is not a "hop head".  I do not think she will ever be a "hop head".  She is already prejudiced against anything darker than Phat & Tyred despite my attempts to explain to her that "dark" is not really a flavor.  I think eventually I can convince her that "dark" beers can be ok.  But, I do not think I'll be able to alter her tastes to prefer my Stone Soup or even my Tommy Hawk.  She will probably never even be a fan of my Dragon Spit even if I can nudge her towards appreciating some "darkness".

That is ok.  In fact, it is probably good, because it means I'll continue to brew beers lighter in color and lighter on hops.  Most (all?) non-beer drinkers ... those who claim to like Coors Light, Bud, Rolling Rock, etc... will prefer those beers over my intensely hoppy, highly flavorful beers.  And, if I am going to have beers on hand that appeal to guests, the fact that my wife forces me to brew some of those beers means I am more likely to have beers that appeal to everyone, not just "hop heads" like me.

Of course, ideally, everyone would like what I like so I can just brew the good stuff.  But, quite frankly, that is not going to happen.

Hoppy Spring, everyone.

Happy Birthday Con-Man

My "little" boy is always getting bigger.  Today, he turned 5.  It blows my mind that he could be so old.  It seems just yesterday he was a tiny little baby in Tyler's arms.

I do not know how I got so lucky to have two such a wonderful little boys.

Palm Sunday

Our church put on its annual Passion Service today. Every year it seems it becomes a bigger and more impressive production.

Most of the churches I have been part of in the past probably have less people attending on a typical Sunday than were putting on the service today. The choir alone was about 50 people. The orchestra was probably 30 more. The main cast was probably about 15 people, but I have no idea how many extras there were plus children who sang and danced. It was a lot of people. Whoever coordinated all that did a great job.

It was a wonderful show.

1st Quarter Stats

Well, I mixed up Monkish Wit in Rutt yesterday.  Tuke still has another week to finish up Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale, so for all practical purposes, the first quarter of 2010 is done.  You may remember in SheppyBrew 2009 Stats I discussed the beers that I had made in 2009.  I was curious to see how I've been tracking in 2010, so I took a look through my brewing calendar for what I have done so far this year.

So:

• 2009:  I brewed 29 batches of beer. 
  2010 so far:  I have mixed 9 batches ... putting me on pace for 36 batches in 2010 (around 81 gallons give or take)

• 2009:  There were 18 completely different recipes. 
  2010:  so far, all of them have been different recipes.  7 of them are brand new in 2010.  2 (Phat & Tyred, Fools Gold) were repeats (with minor tweaks) of recipes I brewed last year.

• 2009:  All my brews were ales. 
  2010:  I have done a lager (Brother Bear Dopplebock)

• 2009:  26 Sheppy Brew recipes. 
  2010 all so far have been SheppyBrew recipes.  Monkish Wit might be debatable, but I did come up with the additions on my own, so I am counting it as mine.

• 2009:  93% were good, very good, great, or oh-my-god fantastic. 
  2010:  100% (so far) have been good, very good, great, or oh-my-god fantastic.  (of course 4 have not really been tasted fully carbonated, yet.  I'll let you know if I have to modify this stat).

• 2009:  5 batches were partial mashes. 
  2010:  3 have been partial mashes (2 are new recipes in 2010:  Quarter Life Crisis and Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale).

• 2009:  6 batches had no Mr. Beer ingredients. 
  2010:  6 already have had no Mr. Beer ingredients.

• 2009:  The person who consumed the most SheppyBrew (other than the Brew Master) was Tracy Shepard. 
  2010:  Still the Beer Model.

Interesting stuff, huh?  Well, I might be the only interested party.
Lately, I've been doing big hoppy darkish beers.  The beer model does not prefer big, hoppy, or dark.  We are running dangerously low on Wetta Blonde and Girly Berry, which are the Beer Model's favorites.  It has been requested that I work on getting the light beer inventory up.  I have started doing that.  Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale, and Monkish Wit are answers to that request.  I am pretty sure that one of my next batches will be a Girly Berry, and I certainly want to do a Whisky Wife Wheat so that it will be ready for early summer.  I have to take care of my #1 customer, you know.

Snow Blowers

There are only a couple of times a year when I wish that I had a snow-blower.  Usually those days are during one or more of our annual March (or sometimes April) snow storms.  Today was one of those days for awhile.  The snow today, like most of the Denver snowstorms in March (and April) was deep and wet.  Translate as HEAVY.

My neighbor started his driveway just a bit before I started mine.  It took him just as long with the snow blower as it took me without a snow blower.  In fact, he started before me and I finished a little before him, so I guess I was faster than he was.  He had to keep stopping to clear out clogged snow from the machine.  He swore at it a few dozen times (and those were just the times I heard him swear.  I assume he did more swearing that I could not hear).

Our driveways are about the same size ... not big.  It only takes a few minutes to clear our driveways when the snow is light and fluffy, so I would not need mechanical help on those days.  And apparently, on days like this, when the snow is wet and heavy, and I would like to have help removing snow, there is no real advantage to having the snow blower either.  I'll have to remember that when I am thinking of buying one next time.

Of course, I was a lot more tired after shoveling than my neighbor was after pushing his machine.  But, I did swear less.

The boys were off school today due to snowy roads.  Both my wife and I worked from home.  It is much easier to deal with wild children as a team effort.... especially when work is expected to be completed during the time with those wild children.

Picture Day

Somehow, we lost 3 months of pictures off the SD card of our camera.  It is unusual that I go 3 months without copying our pictures to the home computer so that I can work on our yearly calender and/or the Colorado Shepard DVD, but for various reasons, I had not copied the pictures yet this year.  So, most of those pictures are really truly lost.  This sucks, but I suppose worse things have happened.

So, today, we started off the day with the task to get family photos for January, February, and March.  Luckily, it was just a beautiful sunny day after a day of pretty decent snow fall.  This combination makes for great family pictures.

Here are some (not even close to all of them) of the pictures we took today.

Here we are at Red Rocks.  Not a very original picture for those of you who get the calendar every year, but it is a nice view ... especially in the snow.

 The boys at Red Rocks.

 This is the family in front of the Table Rock in Golden.  The boys used their snowshoes to get up this path, to this point.  We didn't go too much further up the path ... even though I had geo-cache coordinates loaded into the GPS.  Apparently, when my kids spend hours playing in the snow, socks and feet end up wet and cold even when they are wearing snow boots.

 This is a picture of the boys in front of Golden City Brewery, which is Golden's 2nd largest brewery.  We have been past this several times, but I've never been in to try a beer from here.  Today, we did stop in and get a sampler platter.  Both the beer model and I think that SheppyBrew has a better lineup of beers, but GCB does have some pretty decent beers.  Unfortunately, the beer I was most interested to try, their Evolution IPA, was out-of-stock.  I guess I'll have to go back sometime and try that one.  They also have some interesting sounding seasonals that I will have to try.

 Here is another picture of the boys.

So, we did get great pictures today to cover the first 3 months of the year of our calendar.  I guess it was not worth crying over losing the photos we lost after all.

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This morning was also a decently busy day at the SheppyBrew brewery.  I bottled up my Stone Soup IDA.  The beer finished up with a final gravity of 1.016, which makes this the best attenuated beer that I have ever done.  Based on the sample, the dry hopping really seems to have turned out well, making this a great example of a double IPA ... except the chocolate malt makes it almost black (IDA stands for imperial dark ale).  I am really looking forward to trying this beer after carbonation.

I also did a yeast starter of Wyeast's 3944 (Belgium witbier) yeast.  My intent on this starter is to divide it up to use in 3 or 4 batches of various witbier recipes that I have designed.  Since my last few brews have been darker and/or extremely hoppy beers, my supply of lighter beers for my beer model have been dwindling, so I need to brew some beers that my wife will enjoy.  My first of these will be Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale, and the next one after that will be one of those witbiers.  I think I'll brew up the Buckwheat tomorrow.  The first of the witbiers will probably be a Tuesday night project.

Everyone have a good weekend.

Leprechaun Stout

I brewed a special beer for St. Patrick's day, and called it Leprechaun Stout. Right up until the last 5 minutes of the boil, my plan was to just do a pretty typical stout, but right at the very end, I added 1/2 tsp of pepermint extract. My "logic" was something like: "This has to be special for St. Patrick's Day. Everyone wears green on St. Patrick's Day, but there is no way I am going to make a stout green. Mint is green. I will add peppermint to my beer." Not sure that all adds up, but that was my thought process. I added the peppermint.

For most of the fermentation process, I was sure that peppermint was a mistake. While tasting my first sample before bottling, my fears were "confirmed" .... The mint taste was way too strong. My sample at bottling time was not as bad, but still I thought "that is too minty".
But, my QA tastes got better. The beer got to tasting a bunch like a thin mint girl scout cookie. Too much mint for an everyday beer, but not a bad "dessert" beer. 

Today, I think the beer has the perfect amount of peppermint to compliment the dark roasty chocolate malts. This is no longer just a "not-bad dessert beer", but a good everyday brew. Maybe it is just my mood today, but today I think this is a great St. Patrick's Day Brew.  It still reminds me of a thin mint with the chocolaty dark malts and the now-not-so-strong peppermint, but it is a bit more restrained than it was.  I've never really had (or even really heard of) a beer with peppermint in it, but if I were to try one, this is how I would want the peppermint to come through. 

I am very glad that this beer turned out so nice.  Most beers to which I've tried to add experimental flavors have turned out a bit disappointing (the first batch of Girly Berry, Maple Brown Ale, Vanilla Porter).  This one, I might brew again next St. Patrick's day.  I may even put some peppermint in my next X-Mas Ale.
 
Happy St. Patricks's Day everybody!

Here is a photo of Connor after finishing off Tyler's birthday cake.  Sometimes I am frightened of this child.

Bike Directions

I just found out from New Belgium's Facebook page that maps.google.com now has the ability (in beta right now) to map a bike route for you.

I've actually been wondering (actually even mentioned it out loud to some people) when google would add this functionality.

Here are directions I just did.  These will take me from around my house to around where I will be working on a daily basis in a couple of weeks. 

As I mentioned, the bike directions are in beta.  Who knows how good they are, but I'll be using them.  I think this is awesome!  It is about time!

Extra Kids

We had extra kids this weekend.  We had an extra 4-year-old and an extra 7-year-old for the whole weekend, and we had 3 additional extra 7-year-olds Saturday night.  One the the seven-year-olds could not stay the whole night, so we only had a total of 6 boys (7 if you count me) spending the night Saturday.

The 2 4-year-olds did the dishes Friday night.  Not sure why they think that is so much fun.  Very weird children. (note to facebook readers:  videos don't come through the facebook import of my blog.  If you want to see the videos, you'll have to go to the actual blog post:  http://blog.ericshepard.com/2010/03/extra-kids.html)

Batman and a fireman playing LeapPad.

Here are the older goofballs that came over for Tyler's birthday party.  Clockwise starting with the birthday boy:  Genghis Khan, Mongolian Warrior, Dead Man, General Straub (not sure I am spelling that right), and General Zaharas. 

The above is a video of us exploding diet coke using mentos. This was not the time that Mongolian Warrior got completely soaked.  (don't tell his mom that we doused her kid with diet coke).

A video of the singing of the birthday song.  Cha cha cha.

A picture of cake and kids.

Fun was had by all.  It was much easier than I expected.  Sort of makes me wish we had 7 boys all the time.

By the way... in case DeadMan's and Oso #4's parents come by, here is a link to the youtube video we told you about:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM (others can look too)