BYO Blogs

My BYO 15th Anniversary Ale — which I brewed in March of this year, and the recipe for which was featured in the September 2010 issue of BYO — is now about 7 months old. Despite coming in at a calculated 12% ABV, this beer conditioned rapidly and was in drinkable shape after only about 6–8 weeks. I've been sampling it off and on since then as it continued to mature.  Now I would say that it has hit a plateau. 

The fully conditioned beer isn't that much different from the younger version, but there are a couple differences. The phenolic edge from the Trappist High Gravity yeast has mellowed just a bit and malty character from the Vienna, Munich and melanoidin malt has come forward. It wasn't out of balance before, but now it tastes more integrated, with the malt flavors, hop bitterness and yeast-derived characteristics all mingling together. The maltiness is the most noticeable character, to me at last, but it doesn't overwhelm the other aspects of the beer. Although, it's a big beer, it's now very sweet or chewy; in fact, it's almost dangerously drinkable, given the alcohol content. To me it almost tastes as if it's the strength of a doppelbock (7–8%). 

I suspect that this beer will hold in good condition for quite some time — which is good, since its really  yummy (if I do say so myself) — and may post further updates on its aging. 

I went to the first annual Summerfest of the Massachusett's Brewer's Guild on September 3rd. This was the night that Hurricane Earl was moving past Boston, but it stayed out to sea and didn't cause any problems. 

Over 20 breweries had booths and most were serving 4 to 5 different beers. I sampled a lot of good beers including a porter from Mayflower Brewing, a heather ale from Cambridge Brewing Co. and an ale that was wet hopped with Glacier hops from Harpoon. 

Given the time of year, many of the breweries had an Octoberfest on tap. I've always thought that brewing a good Octoberfest is difficult, and tasting the festbeirs at Summerfest only reinforced that idea. Of the 4 Octoberfests I had, only one was decent. And even that beer — although it was well-made — really didn't taste much like a German Octoberfest. (I had an Ayinger Octoberfest on tap at the Sunset Grill yesterday and it was yummy.) The worst of the lot was swimming in diacetyl — why would you even bring a beer like that to a beer festival? 

If Summerfest was any indication, most breweries these days are trying things that are new and creative to interest their customers. There were a lot of beers on tap that fell outside of the boundaries of "everyday" beer styles.  There were plenty of barrel-aged beers, some sours, a wet-hopped beer, beers with unusual ingredients, etc. And most of these were pretty good. 

My homebrew club, the Austin ZEALOTS, recently held it's competition, The Inquisition. Our club's Primary Fermenter (President) Corey Martin hosted the event at his house and also threw an after party. There, club members could pick leftover duplicate bottles and give them a try. For the most part, everyone would pick a bottle and pour a small taste for themselves. If the beer was good, they would pass it around. One thing that struck me as I played homebrew roulette that evening was the consistently high quality of the beers. 

A buddy of mine from the Houston Foam Rangers, Doak Proctor, was also at the party and we got to talking about how much homebrewers have improved over the years. Both of us have judged at a fair amount of contests and we mentioned how, many years ago, at a typical homebrew contest, about one-third of the beers were likely to be problematic (and contamination was a very common culprit); the middle third would be drinkable, but not good by any stretch of the imagination and the final third would be solid. 

These days, at a typical homebrew contest, almost every beer is pretty good, and a few are fantastic. The winner in a flight is not just that beer that doesn't show any faults; to win today you have to beat multiple beers that are actually good (and, in BJCP shows, good representations of the beer style). Lagers in particular, have gotten a lot better. Back in the day, almost every homebrewed lager you would taste had a distinct character to it that pegged it as homebrew. These days, many homebrewed lagers are as crisp, clean and well-conditioned as comparable commercial examples. 

Sure, contaminated beers still crop up, and there are beers that may taste fine (or at least are not  contaminated or showing any major beer faults), but don't bear much resemblance to what they are supposed to be. However, by and large, a flight of homebrews at any present day contest is likely to contain mostly well-brewed beers. 

Got 12 beers? Want to be a scientist? Well, you’re in luck, because James Spencer (host of Basic Brewing Radio) and I are proud to announce the 5th in our series of BYO/BBR Collaborative Brewing Experiments. This experiment is very straightforward, all you need to do is take 12 bottled homebrews, store them under different conditions and sample them at the appropriate times. Here’s the details. 

It’s best to store beer cold, and it’s best to drink beer when it’s fresh. But we all know that sometimes that’s not possible. Sometimes there’s no room in the fridge and a case or two of homebrew may need to sit out at room temperature. In this experiment, we test how different conditions of beer storage affect homebrew. Of course, this has been well tested on the commercial side with fizzy yellow lagers, but we’re talking about homebrew. Homebrew may be bottled conditioned. Homebrew may be strong, Homebrew may be dark, or brewed with a funky Belgian yeast or any number of other things. Do these factors alter the aging process? To what extent? And how long can you store homebrew under different conditions? These are the questions we’re asking. Here’s the experiment we hope will provide the answers: 

Take 12 bottles from one batch of homebrew, ideally all in the same type bottles, and treat them all equally until the experiment starts. If the beer needs to bottle condition, do this before the start of the experiment. Separate the 12 beers into 4 groups of three bottles. The four groups will be cold storage, cool storage, warm storage and variable storage. Place the three cold storage beers in your refrigerator. (Label them so you don’t accidentally drink one before the proper time.) Place the three cool storage beers in a relative cool place (like a basement). Cover them so that they aren’t exposed to light. (It’s dark inside a refrigerator.) Take the temperature they are stored at. (If possible, measure temperature over the entire storage time with a high-low thermometer, so you know the range.) If you don’t have an actual cool spot in your house, pick a spot that’s room temperature. Take the three warm storage beers and place them somewhere warm, or even hot (like an attic or outdoor storage shed). Again, keep them dark and record the temperature. 

Finally, take the three variable storage beers and put them in the fridge. After a week, move them to warm storage and repeat so the variable storages beers cycle between a week in the cold and a week of warm storage. (There will be one slight twist on this schedule for the first sampling.) 

James Spencer (host of Basic Brewing Radio)  and I are happy to announce the fourth BYO/BBR Collaborative Brewing Experiment. This time around, we’re asking the question, “How much difference do wort clarifying fining agents such as Irish moss and whirlfloc really make?”

Irish moss and whirlfloc are two clarifying agents that brewers add to their kettles near the end of the boil. The idea is that these fining agents will stick to potential haze-causing molecules in the hot wort, drop out of solution and be left behind when the wort is racked from the kettle. But, how well do they really work? Is one better than the other? Do they also reduce the body or certain flavors or aromas in the finished beer? Do they work equally well with all beer styles (for example, pale beers vs. dark beers)? These are some questions we hope to answer in the fourth BYO/BBR Collaborative Brewing Experiment — and, as usual, we’re hoping that some of you join James and I in performing this experiment.

To answer all these questions, we’ve designed a straightforward experiment with a few different options. The basic experiment would be to brew two beers, identical in every way except that in one you add the recommended amount of Irish moss or whirlfloc and in the other, you do not add a fining agent. (If you don’t want 10 gallons of the same beer, consider brewing two half-sized batches.) As an option, you could brew three beers, one with Irish moss, one with whirlfloc and one with no fining agent added in the kettle. Or, you could brew two batches — Irish moss vs. whirlfloc.

We’re hoping to get a number of homebrewers, brewing a  variety of different styles, to brew two beers with us and then compare them, looking for differences in clarity and in flavor. Here’s the basic experimental protocol, with the data we’d like to collect: