HolzBrew, For the Love of Craft

Ode to Centennial Hops

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:28:00 +0000

As a young brewer I messed around quite a bit. Non-stop brewing around with all sorts of pretty and fanciful hops. Citra, chinook, cascade, summit, amarillo, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on, and I fear that I may have even forgotten some of their names. I've come to find that there is just one hop for me and Centennial is her name. For the folks that know me this probably isn't a surprise. She shares the same name as the High School I graduated from. The year she was first released to the public, 1990, was a remarkable year for the young HolzBrew. Grunge music starting to set in and all sorts of alt rock bands hitting the airwaves. It was a match made in Heaven. But seriously folks is there a better hop varietal for an american IPA? Look at some of the bests, Stone IPA, Bells two hearted, and Founders Centennial Ipa, the perfect blend of citrus and floral. Need I say more?

Centennial Millennial
Style: American IPA
OG: 1.070
Type: All Grain
FG: 1.018
Rating: 0.0
ABV: 6.81 %
Calories: 229
IBU's: 92.88
Efficiency: 70 %

11.00 lbs 83.02 % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 60 mins 1.036
10.00 ozs. 4.72 % Cara-Pils/Dextrine 60 mins 1.033
10.00 ozs 4.72 % Briess 2-Row Caramel 20L 60 mins 1.034
1.00 lbs 7.55 % Turbinado 60 mins 1.044

Hops Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
1.00 ozs 31.62 Centennial 60 mins 10.00
2.00 ozs 38.31 Centennial 20 mins 10.00
2.00 ozs 22.94 Centennial 10 mins 10.00
2.00 ozs 0.00 Centennial 0 mins 10.00
1.00 ozs Centennial 21 days 10.00

Yeasts Amount Name Laboratory / ID
2.00 pkg Safale us-05 (null) Additions

Amount Name Time Stage
1.00 oz Whirlfloc Tablet 15 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 154.0°F Add 15.31 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 166.0°F
Sparge Sparge 16.47 qt of 175.0°F water over 45 mins
Carbonation Amount Type Beer Temp CO2 Vols 3.7 psi Force Carbonation 35.0°F 1.90

Get hoppy centennial style,

HolzBrew

All Grain Brewing in Close Quarters

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Everyone always asks me how I brew in a condo. The answer is that it isn't all that easy. But a little creativity goes a long way. Below is a video of my sparging setup from this past weekend. Sorry for the sideways video, I shot it on my iPod and I have no idea how to rotate it 90 degrees.

I look forward to having a place where I can spread out and brew outside. But until then, brewing in the kitchen will have to suffice.

Holz

Things to Look Forward to in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:33:00 +0000

As the New Year kicks into first gear and 2011 is in the rear view, its exciting to think about the "beery" things to come in 2012. Here are four things to look forward to in the regional beer scene this year:

1. Spacebar in Falls Church

The owners of Galaxy Hut, in Arlington, plan to open a second location in Falls Church across the street from Mad Fox Brewing by the end of January 2012.

Straight from their Facebook page:

"Spacebar will have 24 rotating "craft" beers on tap, about the same amount of bottled beer, and a few wine options. We do not have plans to serve hard liquor.

The food menu will focus on the grilled cheese sandwich, endless varieties of which will be created behind the bar on a five-foot flat top grill. There will also be galaxy hut staples like tots and veggie chili dogs."

2. 3 Stars Brewing Company in DC opens their own brewery

As reported by the Washington City Paper:

"D.C.-based 3 Stars Brewing Company has been cranking out all sorts of suds this year, including a rye-based pale ale called B.W. Rye and a light, spicy farmhouse ale dubbed Syndicate Saison. None of these libations, however, were actually brewed in the District. The local company has been collaborating with breweries in Baltimore, Delaware and other places while its own 15,000-square-foot facility is under construction in D.C.'s Takoma neighborhood."

3. Hellbender Brewing Company

A new brewery planning to open in mid-2012 will focus largely on supply DC bars with kegs. Their flagship beers will include a Kolsch, a red ale, and an IPA.

4. West Coast Expansion East

Both Sierra Nevada and New Belgium Brewing are looking to expand on the east coast by building a brewery here. There has been much speculation about the location of these new brewing facilities, but most of it has centered around the Virginia/North Carolina areas. I respect everything that SN brews and I look forward to enjoying it that much fresher.

How about you? Please feel free to comment on new breweries, bars, brews, etc. you look forward to this year.

HolzBrew

Happy Brew Years

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:16:00 +0000

Happy Brew Years to you and yours!

Currently brewing up a little something special for the New Year. Something big and brown inspired by a recent recipe contributed by Drew Beechum (http://www.stoutguy.com/) in BeerAdvocate magazine. My recipe is a bit different.

I'm thinking of adding oak cubes soaked in spiced rum. Thoughts?

Recipe:

The End of History

Style: Strong Scotch Ale OG: 1.134
Type: All Grain FG: 1.039
Rating: 0.0 ABV: 12.44 %
Calories: 439 IBU's: 40.40
Efficiency: 75 % Boil Size: 4.89 Gal
Color: 14.9 SRM Batch Size: 4.00 Gal
Boil Time: 120 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp
Primary 7 days @ 65.0°F
Secondary 45 days @ 72.0°F

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
1.00 lbs 5.00 % Briess Caramel 60L 120 mins 1.034
9.00 lbs 45.00 % Simpsons Golden Promise 120 mins 1.034
1.00 lbs 5.00 % Fawcett Flaked Maize 120 mins 1.034
9.00 lbs 45.00 % Crisp Maris Otter 120 mins 1.038

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
1.50 ozs 32.16 Northern Brewer 60 mins 8.50
0.50 ozs 8.24 Northern Brewer 30 mins 8.50

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg Scottish Ale Wyeast Labs (null)

Additions
Amount Name Time Stage
1.00 oz Whirlfloc Tablet 15 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 90 min @ 157.0°F
Add 25.00 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 170.0°F

Carbonation
(none)

Notes
Add four ounces of Ghanian Cacao Nibs during secondary

Get creative in the New (Brew) Year,

HolzBrew

We be jammin'

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:01:00 +0000

A few years ago, Meg and I were in Portland eating dinner at the Deschutes Brewpub and we had a fantastic sour ale. After inquiring about the name, we were told that it was called St. Ryan's, which Meg loved because that was her maiden name (That's right, I married Meg Ryan). The beer was a one-off of their regular sour brown ale the dissident. This one off creation had marion berries (insert DC mayor joke here) added during secondary fermentation and it was good. Fast forward a couple of years, I'm sitting on 5 gallons of lambic that I brewed approximately 1 year ago, so its just starting to get to the lambic drinkable stage. What do I do to this finely aged, if not soured, beer? Well that glass of St. Ryan's is still swimming around up there in my head, and so I thought I'd try to add marion berries to this lambic. Well guess what? It's really hard to find marion berries outside of Oregon.

So I was forced to settle on 4 jars of marion berry jam. I added this jam yesterday to the fermenter and we shall see how she turns out in the next couple of months.

Holz

Old Vine Barleywine

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:06:00 +0000

The cold and nasty weather here in DC as of late has made me yearn for a blood warming barleywine. Fortunately, this past Christmas I brewed a big English style barley wine, Old Vine Barleywine. During secondary I added merlot juice and aged this brew on french oak for approximately 4 months. Well, I'm glad I did because it is the perfect companion for a cold rainy sunday afternoon/evening.

Bonkers for Basil Brew

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:29:00 +0000

A while back I mentioned that I was interested in trying my hand at another basil brew. Well, I made time today to actually make that happen.

You have a couple of options when brewing with herbs. The big three are 1) add herbs at 5 minutes left in the boil, 2) add herbs at flameout, or 3) create a vodka/herb potion and add at bottling time. The last basil pale ale I brewed several years ago was good, but I felt that the basil flavor faded in to a medicinal taste after a few weeks. This may just be the natural progression of things, but this time I did a few things to try to prevent the "medicinal" taste. First, instead of slicing and dicing up the basil, which can release a whole host of tastes, I froze the whole basil leaves the night before. I've been told that this helps to release the natural oils in the basil leaves without busting out things like chlorophyll (more like bora-phyll). Any truth to this story??? No idea, I'll keep you posted. Additionally, I figured that adding the herbs at flameout involved less boiling and hopefully would minimize any harsh flavors extracted from the basil leaves. I may create a vodka-basil potion (nothing complicated here, 1) add herbs to vodka, 2) let sit for a week, and 3) Add to beer until you've reached the desired taste) if the basil flavor and aroma is not pronounced enough.

The following is the final recipe I put together (I use iBrewmaster to keep track of my recipes and batches, nice software, but the copy and pasting into blogger is only so-so):

Belgian Basil Pale Ale
Style: Belgian Pale Ale
Type: All Grain Calories: 192
Rating: 0.0 Efficiency: 75 %
IBU's: 41.43 Boil Size: 5.83 Gal
Color: 8.2 SRM Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Estimated Actual
Brew Date: - 09/18/2011
OG: 1.059 1.060
FG: 1.013 -
ABV: 6.03 % - %
Serve Date: 10/22/2011 / /

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual
Primary 14 days @ 74.0°F 09/18/2011 09/18/2011
Secondary 21 days @ 72.0°F 10/01/2011 -

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
7.00 lbs 70.00 % Dingemans Pale Ale 60 mins 1.037
1.00 lbs 10.00 % Dingemans Pale Wheat 60 mins 1.038
1.00 lbs 10.00 % Honey Malt 60 mins 1.037
1.00 lbs 10.00 % Turbinado 60 mins 1.044

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
1.50 ozs 25.80 Goldings, East Kent 60 mins 5.00
1.50 ozs 15.63 Goldings, East Kent 20 mins 5.00

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg Belgian Golden Ale White Labs (null)

Additions
Amount Name Time Stage
8.00 oz Malto-Dextrine 15 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 152.0°F
Add 13.50 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 166.4°F
Sparge
Sparge 16.50 qt of 175.0°F water over 60 mins

Carbonation
Amount Type Beer Temp CO2 Vols
8.1 psi Force Carbonation 38.0°F 2.20

Notes
Freeze 1.3 ounces of fresh basil.

Add basil to pot at flameout

Nothing is more full of promise than your next batch of beer,

HolzBrew

Mainely Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Meg and I just returned from a fantastic week long trip to Maine. The scenery was beautiful, the hiking was fantastic, and the beer was pretty damn good. All of the successful ingredients for a relaxing vacation.

In addition to touring and visiting many fine brew pubs and beer bars, we had the opportunity to tour the Allagash Brewery. A fantastic way to spend a few hours if you find yourself around the Portland, ME area. Additional highlights were Navare Res and Gritty McDuff's in Portland, as well as, Lumpoc Cafe in Bar Harbor.

A few pictures from the trip:

Standing next to a couple of barrels of my favorite wood-aged brew, Allagash Curieux

Meg hanging out between the bubble mountains

The Maine shoreline

The End of Summer 2011, San Fran, and an Irene Victim

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:02:00 +0000

Well its official, Summer 2011 is over folks. That's the bad news. The good news is summer lasted at least a week longer this year. Successfully calling the end of summer has been this blog's wheelhouse since 2008. The last three summers ended on August 15th, August 7th, and August 14th for the years 2010, 2009, and 2008, respectively. How have I been able to call the end of summer so successfully? Oktoberfest, that sometimes coppery sometime golden delicious, German larger has been hitting the shelves. Indicating the end of summer. I've gotten a chance to imbibe Oktoberfests brewed by Stoudts, Schafly, Weihenstephaner and Paulaner. And the Stoudts so far has been my favorite. But there are no losers in this group. However, there has been no way for me to sufficiently judge 'fest brews without the release of my all time favorite Okfest brewed by Left Hand. It is the barometer against all other 'fests are measured. Regardless, drink up and enjoy the cool deliciousness that is Oktoberfest. Football is on its way.

Which brings me to my second point, San Francisco is a cool town, but I thought I'd find better beer there. The whole trip wasn't a bust, I was able to run by Toronado for a pint of Russian River Pliny the Elder. Additionally I was able to find this great belgian restaurant called La Trappe in the North beach neighborhood. I had a russian river supplication, which is a wild ale brewed with cherries, some might call it a kreik. I had a hankering for a sour ale and this brew was excellent. I finished the night off with a bottle of The Lost Abbey's Angel's Share. An amazingly complex brew. Start with a belgian quad and then hit it with some bugs to give it a sour twang and then age it in oak barrels for nine months. Liquid Artwork!

For my third and final act, our home desktop computer seems to have become a victim of the hurricane. Base on some Google searching today, it looks likes it has a fried power supply unit and possibly a fried motherboard , or mobo for you computer geeks out there. Currently we are working with an old laptop that Meg used in grad school and neither one of us cared for it. If we decide to make the jump to buy a new comp, should we buy a mac? Possibly a MacBook Pro? Thoughts?

Go Hokies!

Women and Beer, both works of art ...

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:36:00 +0000

... despite how beautiful they are separately, nothing is more beautiful than a woman who loves beer.

Mash up to Full cups

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 02:19:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to keg the surly bender clone this weekend. Nothing quite beats the convenience of kegging. Today after work seemed the perfect time to pour up full glass and see what its all about. I enjoyed it immensely. The perfect mixture of sweet maltiness and some roasty toasty flavors too, but finished off with some nice finishing hops. In short this beer drinks well. I definitely recommend this clone kit from Northern Brewer.

Honey Basil Pale Ale

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:23:00 +0000

You heard about it. It'd been done already. A couple years ago I brewed a Honey Basil Pale Ale. Well it just so happens that I'd like to brew an all-grain version of that beer. I plan to keep it simple with one twist, belgian yeast. So the recipe should look a little like this:

7lbs - Pale Ale Malt
1lbs - Honey Matt
.5lbs - Malted Wheat
.5lbs - Malto Dextrin

1.5 oz of EKG at 60
1 oz of EKG at 20
2 oz of fresh basil at 5

Yeast White labs Belgian Golden

I'm also putting together a recipe for a Farmhouse Brett Saison.

Keep Brewing, don't ever let up. Use your tanks and keep them full.

Holz

Galaxy Hut coming to Falls Church

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 14:55:00 +0000

Galaxy Hut will be opening a second location planned for this fall in Falls Church at 709 W. Broad St. Right down the street from Mad Fox.

Mash ups

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 02:48:00 +0000

I finally got the opportunity to employ the new all-grain equipment that Meg got me for my birthday several weeks ago. It was officially my first 100% all grain batch of homebrew. I've done plenty of partial mashes over the last couple of years, but I hadn't made the jump to all-grain. I usually don't buy kits, but I thought I'd play it safe and choose one of the excellent kits at Northern Brewer for my first all-grain batch. It had to be something malt-centered, as AG brewing is best at showing off the beauty of glorious malt. I decided to go with the Surly Bender clone kit that NB is currently offering. Every Surly beer I've ever had has been great, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. All in all everything went pretty well. I had a little difficulty hitting a mash-out temperature of 168F on my first go at it, but that was nothing another gallon of boiling water couldn't take care of. The recipe was as follows:

Surly Bender
Style: American Brown Ale
Type: All Grain Calories: 196
Rating: 4.0 Efficiency: 70 %
IBU's: 32.78 Boil Size: 5.83 Gal
Color: 27.8 SRM Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Estimated Actual
Brew Date: - 07/02/2011
OG: 1.060 1.062
FG: 1.015 -
ABV: 5.90 % - %
Serve Date: 08/20/2011 / /

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual
Primary 14 days @ 69.0°F 07/02/2011 07/02/2011
Secondary 21 days @ 72.0°F 07/16/2011 -
Bottle/Keg 14 days @ 74.0°F 08/06/2011 -

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
8.00 lbs 64.00 % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 60 mins 1.036
2.00 lbs 16.00 % Aromatic Malt 60 mins 1.036
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Simpsons Medium 60 mins 1.035
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Special B Malt 60 mins 1.030
0.75 lbs 6.00 % Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 60 mins 1.033
0.25 lbs 2.00 % Simpsons Chocolate 60 mins 1.034

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
0.50 ozs 9.24 Williamette 60 mins 5.50
0.50 ozs 23.53 Columbus (Tomahawk) 60 mins 14.00
2.50 ozs 0.00 Williamette 0 mins 5.50

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg British Ale II Wyeast Labs 1335

Additions
(none)

Mash Profile
Sacch' Rest 60 min @ 153.0°F
Add 18.75 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 167.6°F
Mashout 10 min @ 168.0°F
Heat to 168.0°F over 2 mins

I hear it bubbling away right now. Can't wait to keg it in about 5 weeks.

-Holz

Visiting Brasserie Cantillon

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:06:00 +0000

If you like sour ales, chances are that you've at least heard of Cantillon. While I was in Brussels I had the opportunity to visit the brewery. When you first enter right off the streets you get the feeling that you shouldn't be there. You find yourself in a warehouse type building. And it is somewhat dark and there is the constant drone of machinery in the background.

After your eyes adjust to the light and you acclimate yourself to your new surroundings, you kind of shuffle 10 - 15 yards from the door where you are greeted by an attractive middle aged blond haired woman. She efficiently explains that you have signed up for a self guided tour of the brewery, which upon your completion you are entitled to two free beers. She gives you a quick run down of your stops along the way and sends you stumbling off into the brewery.

Once you find the first stop on the tour you start to realize just how cool the place is. The brewery is somewhat old, but very functional. The immediate charm of the dusty brewery starts to rub off on you. You realize that this place brews ale that is spontaneously fermented, so they really can't risk cleaning the brewery head to toe with bleach, because the brewer wants to attract the microbes that are required to inoculate the brew. Their coolship is beautiful and the barrel room even more striking. And the cobwebs, ah yes, the cobwebs. The brewery is full of cobwebs because as the wort cools overnight in the coolship the brewer believes that the spiders catch errant insects lurking around the brewery, therefore keeping those bugs out of the cooling wort.

Their beers are unmatched in terms of quality. The basic gueze is a blend of aged and young lambic, and more importantly it is incredibly quaffable. The Kriek and Framboise, aged with Cherries and Raspberries respectively are not sweet girly beers. These bad boys pack some sour punch and they finish quite dry. As complex as any wine you've ever had. In short, you've got to try them.

The brewer and owner Jean-Pierre Van Roy was a teacher by training. However, his wife was a Miss Cantillon. And her father who was the previous brewer and proprietor asked Van Roy to take over the brewery or he was going to close it. No real option, he took it over. Below is a picture of me and Jean Pierre.

If you've got the time and your in Brussels and you want to see how authentic Belgian sour ale is produced, this is your place!

-HolzBrew

Belgium Flashbacks

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 02:33:00 +0000

-HolzBrew

Good News Abound, Norms and Sierra Nevada Brewery

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:20:00 +0000

Great news! Norm's of Vienna is here to stay, as reported by the Washington Post this morning:

"The Fresh Market, which is set to open this summer, issued this statement, and posted it on the “Save Norm’s” Facebook page: “Being responsible and active participants in the community is what The Fresh Market does and is an important part of who we are. As we have learned more about the Vienna community it has become apparent that Norm’s Beer & Wine is an integral part of the fabric of Vienna. We will work with Norm so that he can continue to serve his patrons from his existing location. We look forward to being neighbors with Norm’s Beer & Wine and together serving the residents of Vienna for many years to come.”

I actually was at a going away party this weekend for a Norm's employee, Jeff (he's moving to Cali). I had the opporunity to sit down and ask Norm how things were and he said that things with Fresh Market were on the mend and he hoped to have something final from them soon. At the time I had no idea he meant this soon. Alls well that ends well, I suppose. The Save Norm's Facebook page attracted over 1,700 supporters. Maybe there is something to this Facebook (this is a huge acknowledgement coming from a non-Facebooker).

In other news I read an article today in the Roanoke Times that Christiansburg, VA is currently #2 on Sierra Nevada's list of top locations to build their east coast brewing facility. The current #1 spot is in Blount County Tennesse, about 90 miles south of Knoxville.

"The company began looking for an East Coast site several years ago and narrowed the list from several hundred east of the Mississippi. The Christiansburg site and the Tennessee site were "head and shoulders" above others looked at in terms of quality of life, Manley said"(company spokeman)

The list of things that SN is looking for is refeshing. From a business perspective they would like good quality water and access to rail and shipping. Additionally, and perhaps more important they would like a nice community, low crime rate, good music scene, and closeness to the outdoors. Christiansburg/Blacksburg has got all of those things, that's why I loved going to school there. Maybe there is a homecoming in the works if SN decides to get started in C'burg.

"The new plant, which would include brewing and bottling facilities and a restaurant and brew pub, would employ about 100, from busboys to engineers, Manley said. Proximity to Virginia Tech is a plus, he said. The company often hires students from California State University at Chico for its plant.

The new brewery would produce up to 500,000 barrels of beer a year (a barrel is about 31 gallons), or roughly half what the Chico plant produces."

Last, your boy ordered an all-grain kit from northern brewer. I don't usual brew from kits, I like to come up with the recipes myself, but when I saw that Northern Brewer was offering clone kits in their pro beer series for Surly Brewing Co of Minnesota, I had to buy one. A nice big malty amercan brown ale should make for a good first all grain experience. I'm hoping to squeeze some brewing in on Saturday morning. I'll keep you posted.

Holz

A Few Amsterdam and Belgium Shots

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 23:15:00 +0000

Birthday Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Unfortunately I haven't had the time yet to post much about our trip to Amsterdam and Belgium. I feel like I stepped off the plane and landed in a quagmire of work that I'm just starting to tred my way out of.

Now, today is my birthday and my fantastic wife purchased me a 10 gallon all grain brew setup. After partial mashing and extract brewing for the last 5-6 years, I'm finally launching in the world of all grain brew. Can't wait to whip up my first batch! It only gets better from here.

Keep brewing,

Holz

Closed for Business

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:38:00 +0000

In Belgium (and Amsterdam).

Sierra Nevada East Coast Brewery

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 01 May 2011 22:06:00 +0000

I saw this over the weekend and couldn't stop thinking about how much sense it makes. Sierra is potentially looking to open an East Coast brewery. Official comments from Sierra on the subject can be found here.

According to the comments from SN, their East Coast demand is quite strong and its costly and environmentally unfriendly to ship mass quantities of brew across the country. So why not open another brewery on the east coast?

Now, not to get too carried away with the rumor mill, but one of the suggested locations for the new brewery was Blacksburg, Va. I can't imagine a better place. Centrally located on the East Coast, and a fairly cheap area to operate a business. Additionally, you have a major research institution right next door. I'm sure they would have plenty of internship candidates willing to work for beer.

Dreaming of Hokie Heaven,

HolzBrew

The curious case of the dry hops

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 03:46:00 +0000

I found myself racking a red seal clone I brewed a few weeks back into secondary this afternoon. And it occurred to me that I need to hit up the secondary fermentation with some dry hops. Dry hopping is a pretty simple process, just add hops to the secondary ferementer after racking. People talk about dry hopping like its some sort of an art form, but it is a simple procedure used to hit the wort with one last blast of fresh hop goodness. If done right it will add hop aroma with a very fresh quality. If done wrong it can introduce harsh grassy and vegetal notes to the finished product.

Brynildson (of Firestone-Walker) says that three to four days of dry hopping is optimal. Cilurzo (of Russian River) believes the appropriate time to be 7 to 14 days. Regardless, keep your dry hopping to less than 2 weeks and you will be good to go.

How do you hop?

-Holz

Some cities

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Some cities just aren't beer destinations. I've been in Miami for a few days and the craft brew options at the restaurants I patroned were more or less nothing. I managed to find the only brewpub in Miami Beach (however, I don't think they brew on premises), Abbey Brewing Company. Despite what is listed on the website, they only had one self-brewed beer available, an IPA. After telling this to Meg she said that they weren't really a brewery, but rather an IPA-ery. The brew wasn't half bad, but not hoppy to really be considered an IPA.

-Holz

always plan ahead for a brew day ... unless you don't

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 03:24:00 +0000

The day got filled with things. Trips to the mall, grocery, and the gym that made it look like another Saturday without brewing. With Sunday in sight i had already planed to fill that day with non-fun things like work and homework, maybe a jog if i was lucky. So the lady and i were planning a quiet dinner at the house, complete with netflix. Then it dawned on me. i could start brewing now and possibly pull it off. i had ingredients for two very different brews, a flanders red, and a hoppy red ale. i didn't have the spare time to do the partial mash that was required for the flanders, so i pushed ahead with the hoppy red. Extract for the base no doubt due to the time crunch. 6 oz. of 80l crystal malt for flavor and color. 6 oz. of carapils for head retention. i also added one pound of wheat to add to the light body and head retention. cluster hops for the bittering. then wave after wave, like an unstoppable rebel force, of late cascade hop additions. currently this beautiful red head is coolimg down to pitching levels where she will be greeted by two packets of us-05 california ale yeast. and then dry hopped a week from now with more glorious cascade hops, then consumed 4 weeks from now.

the inspiration for this brew was red seal ale. i think i will call it red dawn.

i wear my sunglasses at night when i'm brewing.

-holz

rye fox

noreply@blogger.com (HolzBrew) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 02:37:00 +0000

Stopped at Mad Fox for dinner. They had their wee heavy aged in rye barrels on draft. Very interesting. The rye accentuated the natural smokiness of the brew but also made the beer very dry. I personally enjoy their regular wee heavy more, but it was worth trying. if you like scottish ales then you should give it a try.

-Holz