Monthly Archives: February 2016

Stoutfest 2016

Beer, Uncategorized,

It’s a terrible First World Problem to have, but there are some really good beers that are just too intense to drink half of bottle of. For example, Russian Imperial Stout is a style we love, but even slowly sipping over the course of evening it’s usually too much – too much ABV, too much epic monolithic taste. So, bottles accrue. They multiply, even. It’s a terrible burden – what can beer geeks with a cellar full of beers like this do?  Luckily, we have friends who are willing to help out with this dilemma. If you’re splitting one of those bottles between six or more people, you’re getting a small pour like you’d get at a beer festival. And, even better, if your friends each bring a bottle or two, you wind up with your own little beer festival.

So, in the spirit of problem-solving and beer, we organized a small bottle-share last night with four friends, and we collectively put together an amazing lineup:

Hill Farmstead Nordic Saison 2014: This was the only lighter, more delicate beer and we thought it would suffer from comparison with the richer, bolder stouts, so we started with it first. (Wind: Plus, I’m a sucker for anything from my hometown region.) It was delightfully light, refreshing and citrusy.  This is a beer Wind and I agreed we could both definitely drink a whole glass of, and it was a great way to start off.

Pretty Things Fumapapa 2015: Unlike many smoked beers, this had a very gentle and smooth smoky character, that blended very well with the creamy stout. But, even still, it’s not something I’d want a whole glass of — but great to have a sample of, to give the smokiness a chance to shine, but not overstay its welcome. (Wind: I’m not usually a huge fan of smoked beers because brewers seem to think that if a little smoke is good then a ridiculous amount is better, but I really loved this. I agree, though, that a full glass would probably have been too much.)

Swamp Head Catherine’s Resentment 2014: A Habanero-infused stout that was painfully (Wind: undrinkably) hot when released, but had now mellowed somewhat. I’ve had a handful of chile beers that I really liked, but most of them are too much for more than a taste.  This is another beer that did very well with just a small sample, and even Wind enjoyed it. (Wind: In fact, I loved it – which surprised me a lot. I think we should age any such pepper-infused beers for at least two years in the future.)

Goose Island Bourbon County 2012 and 2013: The ’12 was much boozier and rougher than the ’13, but they were both luscious, chocolatey, and boozy.  These were 12 oz. bottles and the most balanced and drinkable stouts of the evening. (Wind: Okay, here’s the only place where Redbeard and I substantially disagree – to me, the 2012 was smooth and delightful, and the 2013, while still quite amazing, was boozier. I thought it would probably benefit from another year.)

Free Will Blood & Guts 2015: We took a break with this sour, which was muted by contrast.  It was not too tart, and had a good malty base. (Wind: This got a lot of “Whoa…  yeah… that’s sour!” from the group, with that tone of voice where you’re not quite sure if it’s a good thing or not. To me, this was an amazing sour – tart without that raisin-y flavor that sometimes creeps into sours, sour without making your mouth contract in self-defense. Really looking forward to trying more from Free Will.)

Cigar City Hunahpu 2015: This was very spicy, with cinnamon and chili providing a velvety complexity in addition to the booze and chocolate of the base imperial stout.  Wind and I had split a 750ml bottle of Hunahpu before, and it was overwhelming.  With a small pour, it was great to be able to savor the richness and complexity. (Wind: What he said.)

3 Floyds Dark Lord 2012: Completely different from Hunahpu, Dark Lord is a much smoother beer, with vanilla and coffee dominating.  This is a classic monster imperial stout, and I can’t imagine drinking a full glass of it. (Wind: Ditto. Amazing – so glad to have gotten to have some of this. Splitting the bottle provided the perfect amount.)

Kettle-Soured Saison

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We’ve tried to brew sour beer before, but with little success.  Which is unfortunate, since sours are the main style we like that we can’t easily find in shops.  So we were excited to hear about some alternate methods for souring beers that don’t involve waiting for years for traditional barrel-souring to work its magic.  We read the Mad Fermentationist blog post about a faster souring process,  and then found a really good breakdown of the various souring options.

We decided to go with the sour-kettling technique, which boils down to taking a break between collecting wort and doing the boil to sour the wort with Lactobacillus.  We used the same recipe we usually use for our Saison Bruxellensis, and left the wort in the kettle (bundled up with towels to keep in as much of the heat as possible).

We added pure Lactobacillus culture from White Labs, and let it sour for a few days, watching the pellicle formation and checking the pH with color-change test strips.

This is where we hit our first complication: the pH strips were not nearly sensitive enough to reflect the small changes in pH we were seeing.  So we mostly relied on taste to monitor the souring process.  It was a little hard to judge the sourness, because the unfermented wort has a bunch of sugar in it.  We reasoned that the fermentation would convert the sugar and make it seem more sour, so we stopped when the sourness was noticeable but not dramatic.  As it turns out, the final beer was no more sour, so next time we might let it go a little longer.

We did the boil and fermentation as usual with both saison yeast and Brett Bruxellensis in primary.  The fermentation proceeded normally, the gravity stabilized, and we bottled with priming sugar as usual.  But I think we were too hasty in bottling, because when we opened the first bottle about a week later, it was badly over-carbonated.  Shortly after that, the caps began to swell.  We put as many of the bottles as we could fit in our kegerator, and luckily we haven’t had any bottles explode.

So, there are a few kinks to work out in the process, but overall it seems very manageable.  It does add a few days between the mash and the boil — though that’s probably not a bad thing, since it naturally splits the brew day, and each half fits into an evening instead of taking up an entire day of our weekend.

The final results are very nice, if we do say so ourselves.  A very drinkable sour saison, with a little body, a little funk, and a mild sourness.  It’s not gueuze, but it’s much better than our (basically non-existent) previous sour options.