Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is Fantastic!

Picture stolen from here.

We had company today, and while I was out picking up supplies before they came, I treated myself to a FOUR-pack of Dogfish Head's 90 minute IPA.

I told myself on the ride home, "I will wait until the company is gone. While they are here, I will drink the other stuff I have, and... wait no, I want to do the review level headed... I'll drink coffee. ...eh... Maybe not, I'll... just... wait for them to leave...

That didn't happen of course, and I'm finishing the last of the four pack right now, so please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors.

This beer is fanF*ckingTastic.

Now, you only get four of these, so be prepared to be able to appreciate each and every one of them. This isn't a "Hey, the guys are coming over to forget about life so we're going to chug and get hammered and do keg stands!" No. You drink garbage-beer for that stuff. This is a "I want something that tastes incredible and loves me back as much as I live it."

I cracked a bottle, and poured it in my sexy Samuel Adams mug that the 99 restaurant unknowingly donated to me, (and I'll publicly deny having ever mentioned anything about it and say you hacked my website and put that fraudulent, slanderous information on here, and then posted this part of this post pretending to be me denying having removed said glass from their location, trying to throw you off my own trail ) but realized that one 12oz. beer filled a 16oz. glass poorly, and poured a bit of the second bottle in the glass as well, and then finished the bottle...

So the bottle, being my first sip: excellent balance of citrus, floral, and just plain good piney hoppy hops.

The glass: good creamy head stays with it for a long while. The hops really hit in the taste, very nicely balanced, as I said before... but it bares repeating...

My FAVORITE part of this beer is the fact that it's NINE-FREAKIN-PERCENT. That's right 9% which makes up for the fact that it's only a 4 pack, because in Bud Light standards, a 4 pack of this is like a 12 pack, and doesn't taste like ass.

I LOVE IPA, and this is what I wish I could drink all day, every day. This has the perfect drinkability, and an excellent after taste with a great nose-tingling burp.

I am currently only about 1/3 of the way finished with the 4th, but I feel like I've had at least six or seven Sam Adams.

My Goals for Brew-Learning

Hobbies always start with just a simple interest. Nobody knows how to excel in their chosen hobby right out of the gate, but as long as they know what questions to ask, they're off to a good start.

At this point, I have a solid idea of how the brewing process goes, but I couldn't recite it for you off the cuff. I've never really been one to stick to a recipe or even ever really require a whole lot of direction when the process seems intuitive, as like pitching a tent or building something simple. I've got enough mechanical / creative aptitude to sort of fudge my way along.

Cooking, which is really all brewing actually is, is also a hobby of mine. I can generally sit and think about the different ingredients I have and how they'd taste together. I make marinades and soups and stews usually just by feel, and nine times out of ten, they come out good to fantastic. There's always the one dud, but hey, nobody's perfect.

When it comes to cooking, you can't be afraid to experiment, but you also need to know how far is too far. pretty much anyone would tell you that mixing say chicken with ice cream probably isn't going to result in a master piece. But that's because everyone knows what ice cream and chicken taste like. Now say chicken and rosemary with perhaps some thyme, sage, and basil, that sounds pretty good. I'd imagine you could get a little creative and mix in some lemon or honey or soy sauce, etc... Peanut butter? I'd be willing to try I suppose.

I also have a solid enough handle on cooking times, and what food looks like when it's done. I know by looking at the dish if it needs a few minutes based on the color, the texture, the type of juices it's "leaking" now... Chicken will ooze pink juices when it's not done. If you stab a chicken leg and the grease is clear, it's done.. .And then you can put it on for another 10 minutes on low broil to crisp it up. 

But where brewing is concerned, I'm still such a noob, that unless I'm following a recipe with ingredients that were specifically ... uh, specified... I'd be screwed.

But like I say, you gotta start somewhere. Nobody knows everything at the start of a hobby, and at least I have a good idea of what a good beer tastes like. The next step is to learn to identify what ingredients make what kinds of flavors and have what kinds of impacts when they're added AND WHEN they're added.

I'd like to get to the point where I can look at something in a store, and say "Hmm... I bet if I added that to my boil about three minutes before I'm done, it would make the brew taste like this-that-or-the-other. And if I bottle it with a half a teaspoon of honey, and a quarter teaspoon of corn sugar, it'll be carbonated a little more than a Harpoon, and a little less than..." You get the idea... 

My problem here is two-fold right now though... (One) a brew takes a long time from start to finish as compared to a chicken dinner. When I'm done with my experiments, I can eat it, and taste all the different ingredients, and such. A brew... it's sometimes months or more before it's ready to taste, and (two) I can't remember sh*t. By the time it's done, I'm worried that I'll have a hard time remembering the smells of the ingredients and thus not be able to really associate what they smelled like with what they ultimately taste like.

I'm thinking when I do brew, that I should probably get a little extra of each ingredient, to smell / taste when the brew is finally done.

Do any of you other home brewers do this?? Any input is welcome.

The Latest IPA

So like I was saying before, I just brewed my first all grain brew, by which of course, I mean I stood there while my friend Mike said "Ok, pour in this." and then stood there until he told me to pour in something else. What was it all? I dunno really. I know there were grains, hops, and water. All in different measurements, and added at different times.

So yeah, when I refer to this brew as "mine" it's only cause I was his puppet for a few hours, and when he left, he didn't take it with him.

I DO however, have a few pictures of it to share:

 

Here you'll see the brew about 18 hours after we'd finished. The yeast has had a chance to settle in, get comfy and start producing alcohol. The airlock on top blubbled forth yeast farts every 5 or 6 seconds, and I hovered above waiting to furiously sniff. 

Yeast farts at so nice.

These are a day later. You'll see how the foam is beginning to rise? do you like the jacket?? I was told it was best to keep the light off the brew. I think if I could draw, I would make a comic about a carboy who wore a jacket, and the airlock was his head. That orange hande could be used as a sort of neck tie.

I would read that comic.

Anyway, at this point, the yeast as active as it got the whole time, giving me a yeast fart every 4 seconds. We expected it to go faster than that, but I think due to the fact that the ambient temp in my basement was only 50°F. it went more slowly.

 This is day five, and it's a good thing the yeast didn't get too crazy, cause that junk would have spurtted up through the top there. As you can see, it got pretty close!

That's all I have for pictures. Aint he handsom!?

I feel the need to name this brew, because I'm tired of calling it "my first all grain brew" because A) like I said, it's not technically my brew, even though it's in my possession, B) "my first all grain brew" is just too long to keep saying, and C) I like naming things.

I think I'll call it Al (Short for All grain).

Al and I will be good friends once he's mature enough to hang out with. At least for the week or so it takes me to consume him...

I'll let you know how it goes! :D

BrewNewb

I've been wishing to brew for a long time now, and recently I had an opportunity to do so with a good friend of mine. Now, my problem is dollars and mobility. I have neither. Fortunately this friend of mine was kind enough to pack up his mad-laboratory into his SUV and set up shop out in my front yard.

I've brewed a few times before, as I've chronicled on this site over a year or so ago, but it was with a kit. Not that that's bad mind you, but it's a little like baking a cake out of a box, whereas all-grain brewing is more like baking a cake from ingredients that you grew. And milled. And like, milk that you squeezed from the cow, and eggs you pulled from the chicken.

Alright, well that's a little drastic, but suffice it to say that using a kit is skipping a lot, and honestly it's only ever going to be as good as that kit allows. Doing it with grains gives you much more control. Not to mention it adds a substantial period of time to the process, which if you're nuts like we are, means more enjoyment.

I regret not getting pictures.

Still though, the pictures wouldn't have been the great part of the whole day. I could not share with you the unimaginably wonderful aspect of the day via pictures, for pixels cannot capture smell.

The boil smelled like a gigantic 7-gallon cup of bread-tea... If that makes sense... It was good! You know that warm pleasant feeling you get when mom (or whomever) bakes a bread for the holidays or what not... It was like that, except outside.

As wonderful as that part was though, it paled in comparison to the addition of the hops. I love hops... We were making an IPA, so there were several kinds we added, and as I recall, it was all I could do not to snort the cascade hops. I would buy hops flavored toothpaste, air fresheners, body powder, and eye-drops if I could find them. 

Currently the whole brew is churning slowly away in my basement awaiting the bottling, which I am eagerly awaiting.

This whole process was a little more than just something to do on a brisk Saturday. I had a whole lot of fun doing it, and that's saying a lot cause I stood the whole time, and like any credible beer-enthusiast, I'm on the beefy side. I don't typically stand for very much. For this, I stood all damned day, and was grateful for it.

This suggests to me that there's something rather wrong with me. Not that this came as a surprise really, but I am acceptionally interested in this, woefully without experience and access to learn, save for the internet, and the kindness of others... But I will one day know the things about brewing that I wish I knew right now. Right now, I am without doubt a Brew Newb, hence the new website name.

What better time to get a real URL for this site, which will be the chronicle of my climb to BrewMaster?

For now, I happy call myself the Brew Newb.

Join me if you will, I welcome any and all input, suggestions, comments, and opinions (unless they suck).

That said, with the advent of the new site URL, I'm going to be making changes to the site itself as far as layout goes. I may have need for some art.

Wachusett Brewing Night!

Busy night tonight! I bought a 12 pack sampler of Wachusett beers, and today has been such a day that I can easily do several reviews... Cause today sucked, and beer makes things less sucky.

So I started tonight with a Samuel Adams Boston Lager to get the pallet going... sort of a baseline...

Then I started the learning process with their Blueberry. Now, I don't really like fruity beers as a general rule. I don't even like flowery or fruity hops, let alone beer that's actually flavored like fruit... But I gotta say, this was a hell of a beer. The second I cracked the cap, it was like inhaling blueberry pancakes (which I DO like). It poured very pale, and somewhat cloudy. It had a crisp refreshing taste, a little yeasty, not bitter. It was sweet with a slightly sour finish. I liked this beer very much. I'd buy it again for those times when I just want one or two. I probably wouldn't drink a ton of these in one sitting (like I tend to do...).

I then moved on to the Pale Ale. I'm not the biggest pale ale fan. I find that they tend to be sort of bland and on the wrong end of my spectrum. I like heavy bitter hops generally speaking. ...once again, I have to say "That said..." this was a good beer too.

It was sorta bready, lightly carbonated, and, as the name implies pale. When I say bready, I mean that it really tasted like more of a baked good than a beer.... a biscuit, perhaps?

So now, we're up to date... BUT! I'm not done. I have at least two more beers to yap about.

Just FYI, I'm milking these, so it's not like I'm pounding them and eventually my writing will increase in typos and everything will taste the same to me... No, if there's one thing I do well, it's drink beer... And type. So. We're good. ...moving on.

I'm excited with the next beer. It's an IPA, my favorite type of brew. I was thrown off a little by this beer, because in this sampler, there were two different IPA brews (I know, awesome right!?) and I saw the other one first... If you look at this picture, the label is purple... I didn't read it right away, because I thought it was the blueberry.

I ALMOST drank this one first thinking it was blueberry. That would have thrown off my whole post! I started with the more mild stuff so that it wasn't as much of a pallet shock going from beer to beer... sorta worked up to the IPAs.

Right now, I've got a glass full of this stuff sitting right next to me, so you get the reaction as it happens. Don't you feel like an insider now?!

When I poured it, I poured it slowly. Even still, I got a dense head, about an inch thick. Even now, (after all my rambling!) about 15 minutes after I poured it, it's still got some suds on the top. Impressive, eh?

It's a pale amber, almost yellowish. It's not overly aromatic, but that may be because it's sat a while. I forgot to whiff it when I opened the bottle.

First mouthful was not bad. Better than I'd expected, given the lack of scent. It's generally more citricy than I go for, but it balances out well.  Light and crisp with a strong bitter finish on the back of the tongue. It's got a lingering sensation, almost like a halls cough drop. When I breath out, I feel like I can taste the fumes from it. Might be due to the slightly higher than usual alcohol content, at 5.6%.

I can say that I WILL buy this one again. Possibly this month, even.

So the next brew is also an IPA, but I don't have one with me... I also have to finish the current one, and I don't want to chug it. I want to taste it. So you're just going to have to wait.

OK, I'm ready.


This brew is called "Larry".

Once again, I'm excited. I love a good IPA, and when I cracked this one, it was like I crushed up pine needles and snorted them.

If you've read this blog before you may have read that I like a bitter pine cone flavored IPA any day of the week.... I like it to taste strongly, and I like it to burp just as powerfully. I've set myself up with some pretty high expectations here...

So let's get to it.

I poured it just as slowly as the last one, less of a head initially, but it grew a little more after the pour than the other one did.

Oh. My. God... OK, I have to share this... I was double checking the scent, and I accidentally tipped the glass a little too far, sniffed a little too sharply, and got a nose full. Obviously it was a shock. But I am looking at this as an opportunity! Where else can you get a review of a beer based on the sensation of snorting it?!

OK, so now that the initial pain or carbonated fluid surging through my left sinus, basically everything smells like bread.

Back to the task at hand here, this IPA, like the last, is still a little sudsy after about 10 minutes, and a nose dunk.

First mouthful... I'm a little disappointed. Bear in mind though, I really pumped myself up for this one, so it's not the beer's fault. I'll accept responsibility for that initial reaction.

This beer tastes much like the last one, the other IPA. Interestingly, the first post at Beer Advocate says "Tastes good, but not quite so good as the aroma had me hoping for." I bet he didn't SNORT it though... Still, he gave the beer an A+ and really, I have to agree... This beer is damn good.

Best part: This beer is 7.5%. For those of you who don't know what that means, Bud Light (which Beer Advocate gives an F, by the way... just saying...) is a 4.2%

SO! In conclusion, THUS FAR, Wachusett doesn't make bad beer... But I haven't had all the brews yet.

...yet.

Woodchuck 802

I am continuing my research into hard cider tonight. I picked up a "Woodchuck 802" six pack.

This is a very pale version of the Amber I talked about before. About the same amount of carbonation, but a bit dryer, almost like the difference between Schweppes ginger ale and Canada dry. I like it, though I think I'd like anything I made to be just a shade dryer, maybe slightly more bubbly.

I still say a peanut butter sandwich would be the PERFECT compliment to hard apple cider.