Year of the Sour Mash
Now that the 2015 NHC Seminar List has been published I feel better about announcing this in a more official capacity: I have been selected to speak at the 2015 National Homebrewers Conference to give a talk titled Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and its Applications. To commemorate this auspicious moment (and to focus myself for the conference) I am hereby dedicating 2015 as Year of the Sour Mash. It is my hope to not only inspire and inform my fellow homebrewers about the techniques and applications of sour mashing, but challenge myself to elevate the state of the art through experimentation and education.
Why sour mashing? Sour mashing is a fun, fast, and easy way to begin experimenting with sour beers, a topic more and more folks are getting interested in. I want to equip homebrewers of all skill levels to be able to successfully perform a sour mash and work it into a variety of their beers. A review of the conference seminars of past few years show that there have been no presentations dedicated to sour mashing and I want to be the one to change that.
Schwarz – Schwarzbier
Check out the rest of my recipes in the index.
There is a attitude in craft brewing (sometimes from brewers and certainly from consumers) that I cannot quite understand: lagers are garbage and should be avoided like the plague. I get it, we have all been abused by crummy American Macro Lagers for the better part of a century, but do not throw that baby out with the bath water! Haters gonna hate, but I find I will choose a high-quality, well-crafted lager over any number of ales 80% of the time. I consider the opportunity I had to sample unfiltered Pilsner Urquell straight from the barrel to be one of the highlights of my beer-life.
https://twitter.com/thechurch_ie/status/482851189470801920
Malty, hoppy, light, dark, or smokey, it did not matter: the lagers I had in Europe were excellent in way you write home about. I often find myself longing for the crisp, refreshing lagers I consume by the gallon while I am over there. San Diego being the craft-dominant town that it is I find that if I want to drink a classic-style lager I have to make it myself. Enter the schwarzbier: crisp, clean, and dark as night; a Pilsner with an identity crisis. If you think about it, the schwarzbier is the the original hoppy black beer.
Neomexicanus Hop Review: Chama
Part of my series on neomexicanus hops.
I am a firm believer that there is a certain terroir that should go into the beers you make. The local combinations of water, malt, hops, and yeast created the beer styles we know and love today; true ingenuity comes from working to make the best with what you have. To this end, I am constantly on the lookout for truly local ingredients to use in my beers. This usually means using San Diego tap water, California grown barley, and yeast from White Labs. But where are you, sweet hops? Am I forever doomed to use varieties derived from European lupulus hops?
As a way to justify the cost I resolved to do a bit of research and share the details, which became this series. Due to travel and the holiday season it took me a longer to actually brew with the hops than I was anticipating, but I am excited to finally share the review of my batch made with Chama hops. Stay tuned in the near future for my review of the Latir hops.
Chama Details
The Holy Hops website does not have the same broad analysis of the composition of Chama that they have for Latir, but they do provide the following. Interesting to note the high levels of beta acids, which are about the highest I recall seeing.
Availability: Holy Hops
Description: Citrusy, herbal, fruity.
Alpha: 7.3%
Beta: 8.2%
HSI: 22.1% (stores decently)
2015 Brew Years Resolutions
The new year is upon us: a time to look back and a time to look forward. It is a bit shameful to say, but as someone who works making WordPress I will be the first to admit that in the past I was not a good blogger. Though I “started” this site almost two years ago, it was only until my experiences at the 2014 Beer Blogger’s Conferences in Dublin and San Diego that I finally got the moxie to start writing and publishing real articles. I have been inspired by the large group of really great bloggers out there and feel challenged to step up my game for 2015. So here they are, my reflections and resolutions for 2015.
RSS - Posts