In another belated blog post, I wanted to circle around and talk about the Iron Brewer Championship Round that I was in at the end of October.

I had won my qualifying round of Batch 2 of Iron Brewer competition, and that let me move on to the Championship round against the other round winners and my dreaded nemesis Hopfentreader.

Ah, yes, if you haven’t already, you should head over to Joseph’s Hopfentreader blog, which is infinitely interesting and inspirational and, also, “Like” his Burlington Beer Company on Facebook, which is a brewery he intends to open in the very near future. I expect amazing things to come out of that new brewery. You know, despite the fact that he is my nemesis. Lex Luthor to my Superman. Tango to my Cash.

As a quick review, Iron Brewer is a fantastic national competition created by Peter Kennedy of Simply Beer. In each round, he outlines three ingredients that need to be used in the beer. You can make any style that you want, and use any ingredients you want, but you must use the necessary three ingredients. I’m the kind of brewer who loves to be creative with my beers and this competition demands that.

To play spoiler, I won the Championship round against some very stiff competition. I’m telling you this because, as a reason to read this post, whether or not I won probably isn’t amazingly interesting. The story of it is how I won the final round.

What is the trick to Iron Brewer? I don’t think there is one. Well, not a simple one.

Start by making a good, technically solid, beer. You are shooting for a faultless beer, but creativity goes a long way in forgiving some fundamental flaws.

Be unusual. Think about the most obvious thing you can make with those ingredients, and then don’t make that. And figure out a way to make all of the ingredients apparent. Yeah, they may not make sense or even work together. You might end up unsuccessful, but everyone in that round is using those same ingredients, so it is a level playing field. Making them apparent is part of the mission, not something you are trying to hide.

For the Championship Round, the three ingredients were Sorachi Ace (a Japanese hop), Weinstephaner (German) yeast, and rye malt. The most logical way to have gone with this round would have been to make a roggenbier, which is a German rye beer that is fermented with that weizen Weinstephaner beer. Roggenbiers are cool and rare, but I couldn’t do the obvious thing and I had made a roggenbier in the previous round.

In the end, I decided to go the opposite direction and make a black rye IPA. I love rye as a grain, with its light spice, bready flavors, and the Sorachi Ace is lemony citrus hop that wanders into hints of light dill. The trick of this one was the yeast. The Weinstephaner strain is a common hefe/weizen yeast, and it strays to banana flavors at normal fermentation temperatures, clove at lower temperatures and bubblegum if you ferment too high. That wasn’t going to make any sense in an IPA, but I intended to ferment it cold to minimize the banana and avoid the possibility of bubblegum, as well.

Rye and Chocolate Rye

My curveball on this one was my choice of rye. At the time of the round, rye malt extract had just become available and I knew Peter included it since it was now an ingredient that could now be used by extract brewers. I had done many batches with rye, but this was a cool opportunity to use chocolate rye, which would be an added dimension of malt and complexity to the beer.

The brew day was pretty straightforward and the rye did not cause any gummy mash problems either, although I did throw in some rice hulls for piece of mind. I pitched a huge starter of the Wyeast 3068 yeast and fermented the batch at 65°. After a week, I dry-hopped the batch with more Sorachi Ace and then bottled it 7 days later.

It ended up something quite complex, despite the hammering away I did with big, late hop additions, and very drinkable. It had a clear lemon character from the Sorachi Ace, and the chocolate rye, and its 250 Lovibond, gave a balanced roast and spice character. Not unlike dark pumpernickel bread.

I was happy with this brew and it barely won against a bunch of other great beers. I think I’ve said this each time, but each Iron Brewer round I’ve participated in has gotten progressively more difficult and competitive. I guess the final bit of advice I’d give you about Iron Brewer is to be a bit lucky, too.

You’re going to need it.

You’ll Shoot Your Rye Out (Black Rye IPA)

Starting Gravity: 1.065 (9/10/11)
Final Gravity:  1.016  (9/24/11)  Days
6.5% alcohol (by volume)
Apparent Attenuation: 74.4%
Real Attenuation: 60.9%

Mash (60 minutes ~153º)
12 lb Maris Otter Pale Malt 2-row
3 lb Rye Malt
1.0 lb Munich Malt
1.0 lb Crystal 40L Malt
0.75 oz Chocolate Rye
0.50 oz Roasted Barley

Boil
1.0 oz Magnum Pellet Hops (13.1% AA) (60 min)
1.0 oz Sorachi Ace Pellet Hops (10.9% AA) (10 min)
1.0 oz Simcoe Leaf Hops (14.1% AA) (10 min)
1.0 oz Sorachi Ace Pellet Hops (11.6% AA) (0 min)
0.6 oz Simcoe Leaf Hops (14.1% AA) (0 min)
0.5 oz Amarillo Pellet Hops (8.2% AA) (0 min)
2.0 0z Sorachi Ace Pellet Hops (11.6% AA) (Dry Hop) (9/17/11)

½ tsp Brewer’s Choice Wyeast Nutrient Blend (Boil – 10 min.)
1 tab Whirlfloc (Boil – 10 min.)

Primary (65º F)  
Wyeast #3068 –Weihenstephan Yeast (2000ml starter)

Secondary (º F)

“IBC” on caps

Notes:

7 gallons of 1.053 collected pre-boil

I’m horrendously behind on blog posts, so I wanted to get this one out about the wet hop ale that I brewed a few months ago.

The quick background on this is that hops are quickly dried after harvest to reduce their perishability. But they can be taken fresh off the vine and used immediately in a beer. The effect is that the beer will have a very, very fresh hop flavor and aroma. When one of the local homebrew stores extended the offer of wet hops, how could I say no?

So I ordered a pound of Amarillo, and a pound of Citra wet hops. When harvest time came around, they could only get in Amarillo hops, so I ended up getting 2 pounds of that. Having no idea what I wanted to do with them, I figured I could either make a American pale ale, in order to really maximize the effect of the hops, or I could make a malty IPA base in an attempt at a balanced beer. I decided to go with the IPA base but, in the end, that didn’t seem to matter at all.

So I went with my usual IPA base, Maris Otter, which I prefer over American 2-row for this style for a fuller and nuttier malt flavor, and some Munich and crystal malts. I wanted a firm bitterness, too, but I had to do that with pellet hops since the wet hops are only good for late additions to the boil. For that, I used an ounce of 13.1% AA Magnum hops for 60 minutes.

The Amarillo hops finally came in and the volume of hops, which I knew would be absurd, was…absurd. I’ve been growing my own hops for many years, but I’ve never used that much in one batch.

A few of the Amarillo wet hops

Back to the grind

In an attempt try to keep my system from clogging up forever, I put the hops into bags for the boil.

While weighing out the hops, I discovered that I had over 2 pounds of wet hops, so I threw 5 oz in the mash just for giggles. The rest of the hops were broken into two 14 ounce charges. One went in with 10 minutes left in the boil, for flavor, and the other at flame out, for aroma. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but weights are deceiving. It seems to be a given that 5 ounces of wet, and therefore heavier, hops equal an ounce of the dried cones.

The only real concern for me was the amount of wort that I knew the hops would absorb. To counteract that, I started with 8 gallons of 1.053 wort. In the end, that was still too little because after evaporation and absorption, I was only left with 5 gallons in the carboy. My only real screw up of the day was forgetting to put Whirlfloc into the boil, but this beer probably would have been insanely murky no matter what I did.

Check out the crazy oils just floating on the top of this beer.

The wet hop IPA in the glass

I tried to turn this around as quickly as possible since this type of beer diminishes quickly. I let it sit in primary for a little over 2 weeks, although I did cold crash it during the last three days, and then bottled it right out of primary.

How did it turn out? I really like this beer, and I’ve gotten very positive feedback from friends and other brewers about it. But it was nothing at all like I had expected. I knew there would be some grassiness in the beer, but the grass was big and dank. And I knew that hops and marijuana were closely related, but this beer removes all doubt.

My biggest takeaway was that the wet hops just laminated over my malt and bittering hops. The bitterness from the charge of magnum was non-existent, and all the delicious British malt that I put into the beer just disappeared, too. The hop oils took over and dominated the beer. But not in a deeply bitter, and hugely citrus American way. In a way that was earthy, moist, and dank. Strange, but strangely addictive. But it led to no munchies.

I’ll try to make another one next year. Perhaps on an APA base. Damn the torpedoes, and all.

Hopped Hard and Put Up Wet – (Amarillo Wet Hop IPA)
Starting Gravity: 1.065 (9/5/11)
Final Gravity: 1.012 (9/21/11) 16 Days
7.0% alcohol (by volume)
Apparent Attenuation: 80.6%
Real Attenuation: 66.0%

Mash
(60 minutes ~152º)
12 lb Maris Otter Pale Malt 2-row
1.0 lb Munich Malt
1.0 lb Crystal 20L Malt
4.0 oz Crystal 60L Malt

Boil
5.0 oz Amarillo Leaf Wet Hops (Mash)
1.0 oz Magnum Pellet Hops (13.1% AA) (60 min)
14.0 oz Amarillo Leaf Wet Hops (10 min)
14.0 oz Amarillo Leaf Wet Hops (0 min)
½ tsp Brewer’s Choice Wyeast Nutrient Blend (Boil – 10
min.)

Primary
(68º F) Crashed down to ~35F during the last 3 days
Safale 05 – 2 packets

Secondary
( º F)
None

“WH” on caps

Notes:
8 gallons of 1.053 collected pre-boil

I grabbed a Stone 13^th Anniversary Celebration Ale on draft at Timberwood Grill on the way home from the gym last night.  It is an Imperial Red ale and it clocks in at 9.5% ABV.  Stone says they used more hops per barrel in this brew than any beer that they’ve made before, which is impressive in and of itself.  The starting gravity is 22.5 Plato (about 1.094 by my messy math) which means they backed up those hops with a ton of malt, too.

This one came in a brandy snifter, and the color was that of a dark mahogany with sparing ruby highlights.  The head was creamy, beige and persistent.  The smell was what I was expecting: a nosegasm of simcoe pine and centennial grapefruit.  In the end was a bit of sweet melon.  Perhaps honeydew or cantaloupe.  The resins were tangible, and almost seemed to add a sort of texture.

The taste continues that theme, but the malt kicks in with some sweetness and noticeable alcohol warming.  In another beer, these two attributes would be overwhelming but they are keenly balanced with the landslide of hops in the 13^th.

As it warms, the malt blossoms a bit more and the hops settle down for the ride.  Amazingly, despite the size of this beast, it is very drinkable.  I could certainly have a few of these over the course of an evening.

As a side note, I thought the back label on the bottle (I have an unopened one at home) had an interesting line:

“No matter where you are, we are thankful and hugely flattered when you choose Stone.  However, if you’re outside of our region and you often choose a quality craft beer that is more local, we understand.”

This is a very cool sentiment that echoes Greg Koch’s mission to encourage locavores.  The label also alludes to Stone rolling through their teenage years, which is a departure from Arrogant Bastard-speak of the past.  I had heard that Greg mentioned needing to write the label for this brew during the SAVOR weekend in DC.  It is easy to see how the camaraderie of brewers of that event facilitated those words and beliefs.  It was strange for me to read at first, but it sounds like a company that is growing up and becoming a leader in the craft brewing industry that it deserves to be.

On the bottle, they tell you to drink the Stone 13^th Anniversary Celebration Ale now and to not age or cellar it. 

Good advice, I say.

I was pretty excited to hear about Victory Brewing Company’s  WildDevil Ale.  Victory makes a lot of great beers, and what they did with this one was brew up a batch of their HopDevil, a hophead’s dream of an IPA, and then ferment it out with 100% brettanomyces.  This sounded like a very interesting idea and a bold experiment.

I bought two big bottles of WildDevil and brought one to a party to share, and stowed one away for myself to review when I could give it my undivided attention.  When I tried it at the party, and shared it with friends, it was a letdown.  It was getting towards the end of the evening, after a good bit of Oberon and some of my homebrewed lambic, but it can across as strangely both dull and prickly.  I was hoping that tasting it under optimum conditions would change my opinion. 

No such luck. 

It was in a 750-ml bomber that was corked and caged.  The bottling date was April 22, 2009, and I poured it into a tulip glass.

The beer was a glossy, stained wood brown with bold orange highlights.  The head was thick, but wispy sea foam in composition (not the color).  Each bubble was apparent and separate, and did not meld together into a creamy top.

The nose of this was a perfumey sourness, with citrus and lemon zest.  A mild brett character slid through occasionally.

The taste was all over the place.  There was little of the barnyard character, but it was mired in an unfortunate amount of dryness that drags the off-flavors to the forefront.  There was a soapiness delivered on a dry aspirin platter than made this one hard to get through.  Sometimes a beer is undrinkable, or you just want to call it a day and walk away.  This one wasn’t quite that bad, but every time I put it down, it was easily forgotten.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to drink it, but rather than there was nothing in it to make me want more.  It was an absent-minded chore to get through this bottle.

I cannot recommend this one, and I’ve having a hard time believing that laying this one down for a few months will help improve it. 

The mouthfeel made the Victory WildDevil unsessionable (because I have to make up at least two or three words in every review).  It is nice experiment gone awry.  A potentially cute girl with lots of pointy elbows.  Spooning a porcupine.  But I digress.

I look forward to Victory’s next brett experiment.  I believe in you, but let’s put this one behind us.

“….the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, ready to remind us… the immense edifice of memory.” – Marcel Proust

Your senses trigger memories. We’ve all felt the power of a single smell or sound which can conjure up entire scenes from the past. And studies show that our odor memory seems to be the most resistant to being forgotten. Images often begin to fade in a matter of hours or days, but smells can trigger memories for as much as a year.

The brewer is an artist working in mouthfeel, flavors and aromas just like a painter works in colors, textures and forms. The most rewarding beers are the ones that offer up complexes and, sometimes, uncomplimentary components. This is part of the wonder of trying beers: seeing what experiences we bring to the glass.

I was set on down this path by tasting a Brooklyn Blast IPA the other day. I had had this beer at a Brooklyn Brewing Beer dinner that was hosted by Garrett Oliver a few years ago. As Oliver explained, it was born out of a drunken 3 am dare between him and the usual suspects of Pizza Port and Russian River Brewing. The west coast vs. east coast rivalry was alive and well, and Oliver delivered something I thought I’d never see: a hoppy Brooklyn beer. Apparently, the brewers loved it so much, that they never released it outside the bar in Brooklyn. It was insanely hoppy and citrus, but remarkably green. In homebrewing, one of the best parts of making a batch is breaking out the hops and smelling the grassy intoxication of the pellets. The aroma of this beer is the closest I ever smelled to hops straight from the sealed bag. This was humulus heaven. Oliver said it was dry hopped with eight different hops, half American and half European. I cannot believe I didn’t hit him up for the recipe later.

When I stopped by Beer Run, once of the beer shops in town with a bar, and saw this Brewmasters Reserve beer on tap, I had to order it again. But it was very different this time.

It was served in a brandy snifter and it was a murky amber color. It looked more like a cider than a beer. It had a meager head which quickly dissipated, but the lacing on the sides of the glass was very impressive as I drank.

There was an immediate hop bitterness that was full and expanding. It grabs your tongue and fills your mouth with some of the greenness I tasted before, but not to the same degree. This time the flavors was dominated a resinous earthy flavor.

The earth flavors ran the gamut of dirt, leaves and dryness, but not quite in the direction of the pine flavors I enjoy from a Great Divide Titan IPA or other beers that seem to have those Simcoe-like influence. And I hesitate to throw in the dirt reference because it is not a bad flavor, but one that I could only describe as such. The taste, and to a small degree the smell, were the heavy, musty smell of warm dirt.

The back note, and this is the one that trips memories, was that of a dry, leafy character. It was multi-colored brittle leaves spinning to the ground on a fall day.

There’s a moment each fall where all the pieces come together. The sky is full of dark, sedan blue clouds that emit just the right type of light that enhances the colors of everything underneath them. The garish leaves are that much brighter and the world seems to be a little clearer for a moment. A stern and searching stare into the coming winter. The air smells like fresh fragile leaves before they turn a wet nesting of decay. And the air tastes, because words are bigger than things, like football.

The Brooklyn Blast captures that moment for me. It is not a beer that I could have more than a few of at a time, but it was very interesting. I think it would be amazing paired with vichyssoise.

It is night and day different from the Blast I had had before, but it felt like Garrett Oliver had done away with the east vs. west thing and taken this back as his own. Another beer on his own terms. I look forward to seeing if, and when, this evolves again.