KC Beer Blog

Well what do you know. This whole blogging thing seems as if it's panning out. Looks like I'll be writing for the KC Beer Blog now. The current manager of the blog was just too busy to keep it all going by himself, so he put out a call for contributors. There are three of us new guys that will be blogging away about beer now. One guy will handle all the brewery news and new beer releases, one guy will be talking about homebrew news and community, and then...there's me.

I guess I'm just going to be writing about whatever brews up in my head. The staff opinionator, I suppose. Which, when I consider I should probably actually write something once a week or so, it's a pretty daunting task. It's easy to write whenever something pops into my head, but to coax words out of the depths of my mind on command? That's just a whole different deal. So I call on all of you out there! Give me ideas and ask me questions! About beer, brewing, or...whatever!

You can see my first post here!

How Beer Invented the Internet

It wasn't Al Gore, I swear! It was beer! Or so I would like to think. I wrote a guest post over on Mike's blog 1 Barrel Brews somewhat to that effect in any case. Since I've been down at Green Room so much, Mike got tired of listening to my rantings about beer and told me I should just write them down instead. So now I'm using his Internet soapbox to broadcast all of my beer soliloquies. Anyways, go check it out!

Closest representation I could find to a caveman drinking
beer. Thanks for the pose, Adam.

MJ Beer

No, not Michael Jackson beer--Mike and Jay beer! I made my transition from homebrewer to commercial brewer last week. The transition mostly happened with me spilling things on the floor then cleaning them up. Hmm...pretty much what I did as a homebrewer. Shocking. I brewed with Mike Ptacek, my longest running roommate and brother-in-brew, at his brewpub the Green Room! We brewed an awesome belgian pale ale, which we made even more awesome by adding raspberry liqueur and Grand Mariner to the firkins. Mike wrote a much better and more technical explanation about the beer over on his blog, 1 Barrel Brews. Well, I guess as technical as the nano-brewing industry gets, anyways. The beer should be on tap at Green Room next weekend.

Mash paddlin'. 

Frankenbrewery.

More cleaning? Yes. 

Moldy Cheese and Brewing Without Failures

It's been a while since I've updated you all on my DIY food and beverage pursuits. Mostly because I haven't really done much. It's hard to make cheese out of the back of your car in the Everglades. Nonetheless, there is still news!

First, I would like to all inform you of the untimely demise of my colby cheese wheel. Since I wasn't able to coddle it while we were gone for a month to the tropics (i.e., turn the wheel over every couple days to keep airflow over all parts of it), it decided that it wasn't getting enough attention from me and turned to it's second love: mold. However, the best part about hard cheese, is that since it is non-porous (unlike bread), the mold can't actually penetrate the cheese very far. So you can just cut the mold off and eat the rest. I actually managed to salvage about half of the block after some diligent whittling. I then gave it a little brine bath in case any of that mold had an idea to start regrowing. I can report that the cheese actually tastes rather delicious. It has the best texture of any of my cheeses to date as well. 

How long has this been goin' on? 

Ah. Much better. 

In other news, I discovered that I did not, in fact, overcarbonate all of the homebrews I brought out here. Many of you who have come out to visit have no doubt noticed the ridiculous carbonation of my homebrews. Now I just assumed that I had failed to properly calculate my priming sugar, or I hadn't allowed the yeast enough time to fully attenuate, or I had committed some other mistake and that my lack of brewing skills were no doubt at work. Regardless of this, I took a case of my brews with us on our road trip so we could save some money on liquor store purchases. As I discovered, the difference between 9000 feet elevation and 0 feet elevation at the seashore on the carbonation of a beer is pretty monumental. The beers that sometimes nearly exploded and spewed out foam upon opening at 9000'--they poured perfectly at sea level.

Also in brewing news, my Mom (thanks Mom!) sent me some old brewing books in the mail, which she, her sister, and mom had given my Grandpa for Father's Day in 1972. Never fear, this book was written in Britain. (As we all know, homebrewing was still illegal in the US until 1978 (thanks Jimmy!).) I'm hoping that it will live up to it's name, and allow me to brew beer "Without Failures." What I've read of it so far seems pretty advanced for it's day, considering it actually contains recipes with malt and hops--ingredients which were hard to impossible for a non-commercial brewery to get a hold of in 1972. I believe most home "beer" brewers of that day were making the equivalent of prison-brew: lots of sugar, some baker's yeast, and maybe some hops if you could convince some local brewery or farmer to give you some.

However, I don't know that I will necessarily be reproducing any of the recipes. Unless some of the ingredients specified have drastically changed in nature (which is actually pretty likely), then I have a feeling many of these brews might taste downright terrible. But hey, for 1972, they were probably about the best thing going. It just makes me more thankful than ever for Charlie Papazian.

I wonder if WITHOUT FAILURES is a guaranteed or money back kind of a statement. 

Holy Black Patent, Batman! The most black patent malt I have ever put in a recipe was probably about 6 oz. for a 5 gallon batch. Pretty sure 2 lb. would just destroy your mouth with it's bitterness. Super Stout, it is. 

St. Wenceslas Has Returned

Down boy!

Speaking of Christmas beverages, as Lauren mentioned in our previous post, I have been hard at work in the brewery...St. Wenceslas' Winter Warmer 2012 is happily bubbling away in our basement.

I think this has to be my favorite time of year, due in no small part to the multitude of drinking opportunities. Of course there is Oktoberfest, then we have the grape and hop harvests, all new seasonal beers, free-calorie day (aka Thanksgiving), and finally the king of all drinking holidays: Christmas. Well, for me anyway. I fully subscribe to Washington Irivng's (probably fabricated) historical view of Christmas being celebrated in the Victorian English countryside. Inviting strangers and friends alike to drink wassail and feast in front of the warm hearth. Wassailing used to even involve going door to door adult-Halloween-style demanding drink or threatening a curse.

More contemporary are the German Christmas markets, which solely exist to sell hand-made (maybe)  wooden ornaments, and to drink. Basically, these are open air markets in a city square that last for about a month, where you go and stand around in the freezing rain, sleet, or snow while eating half meter long bratwurst and drinking hot mead, hot grog (spiced rum and water), and/or Glühwein (hot mulled wine). I may have frequented the Braunschweig Weihnachtsmarkt on a pretty regular basis when I lived there.

Anyway, my point is, Christmas is for drinking by the fire (or outside if you are a masochist or German) and preferably with others, whether strangers or family. And aside from all the wine and spirits flowing around at Christmas time, beer is still my drink, so Christmas beer it is! And brewed just in time to be ready by Christmas Eve. You can even make my famous Christmas beer too if you want: just look below those pictures because hey, I just gave you my secret recipe! Don't you just love the giving spirit of the (almost) season?

Grains Steeping away in the mash

Look at that sweet electric brew kettle

Mmmm. Citra hops.

Corriander!

Ceylon Cinnamon, Star Anise, and Cloves

St. Wenceslas' Winter Warmer

Gravity: 1.080
Alcohol: 8.5% (abv)
IBU: 53 (Rager)
Color: Dark brown with ruby highlights

Ingredients (for 8 gal. batch):

Malt:
15 lbs. Golden Promise
2 lbs. Munich II
2 lbs. Victory
2 lbs. Crystal 70-80
7 oz. Carafa

Hops:
1 oz. Citra (15.6% AA), 75 minutes
0.5 oz. Citra (15.6% AA), 40 minutes
1 oz. Goldings (6.9% AA), 15 minutes
1 oz. Willamette (6.5% AA), 10 minutes
1 oz. Goldings (6.9% AA), after boil
0.5 oz. Citra (15.6% AA), after boil

Spices:
3 Cinnamon Sticks, 10 minutes
2 Anise Stars, 10 minutes
6 Cloves, 10 minutes
2 tsp. Allspice (ground), after boil
3 tsp. Corriander (ground), after boil

Yeast: Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire (x2 smack packs)

Mash:
Infusion mash for 90 minutes at 157 deg F and 1.25 qt./lb
Fly Sparge for 90 minutes with 7 gal. water at 170 deg F