Like a Phoenix rising from Arizona

It's been awhile, but after some summer traveling and general lie-aboutery, I'm back in the brewhouse (aka the backyard) and I have a couple of batches on the make right now. Read about them, why don't you?

Stupid Sexy Flanders is my Flanders Red Ale, an old Belgian style that relies on a variety of bacteria and yeasts to make the signature sour flavor. Duchesse de Bourgogne is the most famous commercial example, along with Rodenbach Grand Cru. They're really complex interesting beers, and take a little while to get used to. They're also great to cook with, which I'm looking forward to.

Stupid Sexy Flanders
Flanders-style Red Ale
Batch Size - 5 Gallons
OG - 1.055
FG - 1.016
abv - 5.2%
Color - 14.0 SRM

Grain Bill
Belgian Vienna Malt
4lb 0oz
Belgian Pilsen Malt
3lb 0oz
German Munich Malt
2lb 0oz
Belgian Aromatic Malt
8.00 oz
CaraMunich Malt 60
8.00 oz
Belgian Special B
8.00 oz
German Wheat Malt
8.00 oz

60 minute boil

Hops
EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.0 oz - 60 mins
Bagged Whole Leaf

Mash Grains at 154°F for 60 mins

Pitch WLP001 California Ale Yeast, Ferment at 70°F. Rack to secondary when SG is in 1.020s, add oak cubes and Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Belgian Blend. Age for 12-18 months, bottle condition.

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On a recent trip to BevMo, I saw a bottle of Traquair House Ale for $5.49. I had to see what a $0.46/ounce beer tasted like.

I wasn't disappointed. Rich, caramelly, malty taste. Drinks really easy for a 7.2% beer. I imagine this is what Groundskeeper Willie drinks in his hovel on special occasions. This should be quite the winter ale.

This recipe is based on the BYO magazine clone recipe, with a couple of slight tweaks. I cold-steeped the roasted barley instead of mashing, as I was going for a smoother flavor without the harsh coffee/chocolate flavor. Cold-steeping is the process of setting apart darker specialty grains and soaking them in room temperature water overnight before brewing. This extracts the sugars and color without the overpowering edge. The other secret to this beer is the drawing off of the first gallon of the first runnings, then caramelizing that gallon for 30 mins before adding it back to the boil kettle. This does a bunch of boring science stuff that even I find too uninteresting to repeat. Suffice to say, boiling make beer taste prettier.

Traquair House Ale Clone
Scotch Wee Heavy Style
OG - 1.076
FG - 1.022
abv - 7.2%
Color - 16.2 SRM

Grain Bill
Golden Promise
16lb 8oz
Roasted Barley
8oz - Cold Steeped

120 minute boil

Hops
EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.5 oz - 90 mins
Loose Whole Leaf

EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.0 oz - 30 mins
Loose Whole Leaf

Mash Grains at 153°F for 60 mins

Cold-steep Roasted Barley in 1 qt room temperature water overnight, add back to 1st runnings

Remove one gallon of first runnings and Caramelize it (boil down for 30 mis & add back to boil).
Collect another 7 gallons and begin boil. With 90 minutes left in the boil, add the caramelized wort and first hop addition.

Primary 8-10 Days, 2 weeks in secondary, 8-10 weeks conditioned in bottle

Oak in secondary

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With all this beer activity, don't think I've been slacking off over at Huevos Caballos, kids. I just bottled Jerry Reed Cherry Mead in a few different iterations. There's the regular flat cherry mead, two bottles that have been fortified with honey liqueur to make a dessert mead, and three bottles of what I hope will become sparkling mead. It could explode, it could be flat, or it could be perfect. Or some combination of all three...only time will tell.

Also there's a gallon of garlic cooking wine fermenting away. I really have no idea what to expect from this, but I had a bunch of garlic and even more free time.

What's next, you rhetorically ask? I have plans for a Smoked Altbier, a 14.5% abv Russian Imperial Stout, a TOP SECRET dessert beer, the 2009 edition of Trappist John MD, and Carbon Nation is gonna keep on rockin'. If you're lucky, you might even be invited to the Oktoberfest party...

If you can't make good beer...

At least make good labels. My Aztec Ale label won Editor's Choice in the 2009 Brew Your Own Magazine Homebrew Label Contest...

Spring Awakening

For those of you that thought I went out for a pack of smokes, never to return, I am here to soothe your frazzled nerves. I did all sorts of crazy things like lose my job (which seems to be really weighing heavily on Richard Branson), switch to all-grain brewing, and start Carbon Nation Homebrewing with some friends. It's been an interesting couple of months, so I'll catch you up with what I've been making.


First, I bottled the 2008 Riesling, which was chronicled extensively in this space. I won't get into the difficulties of getting the raw materials, but I will say that it was worth the effort. I haven't tried the Gran Reserva version of this wine...saving that for a special occasion where I need a wildcard that could either send everything over the edge into sublime perfection or crash the plane into the mountain.

2008 Riesling has some nice fruity character, light body, slightly spicy. It's a perfect summer wine, and Lady Bullock and I sampled some this weekend. I am actually not ashamed to give this to people

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Ctrl-Alt-Delete was the first batch of 2009. Altbier is a German-style, malty ale that's lightly hopped. I like this quite a bit, but some bottles came out undercarbonated. Nice deep copper color, good flavor with a little tinge on hop at the end.

This beer was devoid of drama in all stages of brewing, which makes for good beer, but poor blogging.

Let's just say that I had to fight off a gang of undead shaolin monk grave robbers while I brewed to make it more interesting. It was difficult, but I did it.

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Ol' Murderin' Prospector is my attempt at the California Common beer style, of which Anchor Steam is the prime example. This was the first batch that I screwed up royally, only to find that the beer kept evolving after fermentation and is now my favorite.

When I racked it out of secondary, I was sure that the beer was ruined. It was still sweet as all hell, but I accidentally added priming sugar before I checked, so the only thing I could do was bottle and hope for the best.

At first tasting, the beer was still very sweet, but drinkable. It was after a month in the bottle that it really came alive. Still has a little sweetness, but it's not overpowering any more. This has turned into a really nicely balanced beer. Too bad I'm down to only 8 bottles left.

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Aztec Ale was my first big experiment. I'd been reading about non-barley grains to use in beer in Radical Brewing, and thought I'd give it a try. The Aztecs didn't have beer, per se, but if they did, it might go a little something like this.

My base recipe is an American Amber Ale, but I replaced about 10% of the base grain with amaranth and quinoa, two ancient grains that the Aztecs used like they were going out of style. I also added a healthy dose of honey, agave nectar, blood orange rind, and vanilla beans.

I tried this beer out properly for the first time last night, and it came out pretty well. Good amber color, highly carbonated with a good head and nice aroma. It's smooth with a hint of bitterness, which I think comes from the quinoa...definitely not the hops.

I also used some crazy New Zealand hops like Pacific Jade, Nelson Sauvin, and Pacific Sunrise. I will spare you a discussion of their properties.

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I will spare you a lengthy discussion on these two beers. The short version? They suck. They were to be my first two on-tap beers, but alas, it was not to be.

Tobias Funke's Cream Ale became Light Cream Ale when my wort chiller broke mid-chill, sending about 2 gallons of water into the beer after the boil. Ruined.

Pilkington's Pub Ale was a recipe I got out of a book called Beer Captured. I will not brew anything from that book again.

Behold Mr. Roper, the Kegerator. Soon he will be dispensing Sikander the Great IPA, Brother Seamus Irish Red, and Baby Got Bock. It will indeed be a proud day.

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For those of you who haven't had DeuS, you're missing out. It's brewed in Belgium, then shipped to France to be carbonated in the Champagne method. The end result is pretty amazing, with a nice dry beer that has the fine carbonation of a sparkling wine. It's worth shelling out the $30 for a bottle, believe me.

Naturally Pat, Brian and I decided to make some of our own. We had some good times and some bad times along the way, but we ended up with some awesome beer.

The brewing and fermentation went just fine. Since this is a huge beer in terms of alcohol, it took almost a month for fermentation to be completed, then another month in secondary to clear. We bottled it in March, using champagne bottles with regular beer caps. The idea is that you store the bottles upside down and use a process called riddling to move all the yeast to the neck of the bottles. It would have worked had the caps actually fit the top of the bottles. They didn't, though, and we had to cork prematurely, but that happens to everyone, am I right?

So everything went just magically until the day we were to remove the corks and yeast plugs. On the advice of some jerk on the internet, we used acetone and dry ice to freeze the bottles. This turned out to be a poor decision. I will let the video speak for itself.



Needless to say, we quit trying to do that, and are very happy with our yeast in the bottle, thank you very much. But you can look forward to a new ongoing segment we like to call "What horribly dangerous thing will we do next."

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Here's what's fermenting and bottle conditioning:

Sikander the Great IPA is a traditional English IPA. It seems like every craft brewery in the world makes it their purpose in life to make the hoppiest, biggest IPAs under the sun. I'm not down with that. This does have quite a bit of hops in it, but after drinking it, the inside of your mouth doesn't feel like you just acted as the grass clipping bag on a riding lawnmower.

This also has two pounds of jaggery sugar from India, just to see what it's like. It's a little mapley, but smooth.



The Beast of Gevaudan is a big English Barleywine, and the first brew from Carbon Nation, a group of friends who get together once a month to brew.

It looks great and the bottles are awesome. No idea how it tastes or even what it will taste like. Should be ready to drink in 2-3 weeks.






Stairway to Hefeweizen is the second Carbon Nation brew. It's an American-style Hef. Hopefully it tastes like one. Should be ready in 2-4 weeks.










Being made next: Brother Seamus Irish Red, A Rochefort 10 Clone, and many, many more...Don't you go a'changin'.

A Slow Descent into Madness

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I've gone totally mental. 

Right now, I have SIX different wines and a beer fermenting, with the ingredients for another wine in the fridge and yet another on a truck on its way here from Lodi. Oh, and Lauren got me a gift certificate for Culver City Home Brewing Supply, so I'm headed out there later today to pick up more beer kits, with an eye on a beer tasting party for the holidays. Seriously, you guys. 

It's not like I even drink that much to begin with. Lauren and I rarely have wine with dinner, and even less often have ambassadors over for fancy dinner parties. "What's that you say, Count Du Rainier? Of course you can have another glass of Pinot. Why yes, that is a hint of burned ammonia on the nose."

I took a couple of days off last week to celebrate my 31st annual gestation cessation celebration, and devoted a goodly amount of time to the creation of some new wines. The kitchen counter tops ran red with the juice of blueberries, strawberries, pumpkin, and blood orange. I'll be posting more when I press the fruit this weekend, for those of you awaiting news with baited breath. 

But that's not the point. One year ago, I had ONE wine, the little Pinot that could, sitting in a plastic bucket. How then, I query, did Huevos Caballos have a 700% increase in wine production in one year? 

It all started in 1929, when my grandfather, Bernard Schneider, made moonshine. At least that's what he told me when I was younger. My mom claims that he bought it at the state fair, but I choose to believe he was a bootlegger criminal mastermind, secretly running Windthorst Texas during prohibition. 

As he snuck off into the cold North Texas night air, Ben scanned the fields around the family farm carefully for anyone watching. Once he felt secure in his solitude, he checked again. 

His was an operation with no room for error. Elliot Ness was after him, and the slightest misstep could spell doom for him and his men. 

As he crept down the rows of corn and sorghum he grew as a cover (Grandpa hated sorghum passionately. "Goddamn sorghum," I often heard him muttering around the hearth) he felt at peace.  He had fooled everyone, including his own beloved family, into thinking that he was a simple dairy farmer. He smiled to himself confidently as he saw the first glimmer of light from his massive distilling operation. 

As he crested the hillock down into the ravine that hosted his "little operation" as he called it, he heard the unmistakable click of a revolver. 

"Freeze!" he heard someone say in a voice barely above a whisper. 

He turned around slowly to see the surprised face of Armando, one of his trusted guards. 

"Oh, Mister Ben, I am so sorry. I did not realize-"

"It's all right, old friend. How are we doing tonight?"

"Good, good. Esteban has stabilized the bourbon. I think you will find it most excellent."

"Very well," he said, as they descended into the hub of the production. 

Copper tanks lined the banks of the ravine, spewing out an obsidian smoke. (Most bootleggers in those days operated with coal-powered stills) A small one-armed boy ran up and handed Ben a blue speckled granite cup, brimming with a corn whiskey that doubled as an engine de-greaser and hobo poison. Ben took a small sip. 

Most men buckled at even a whiff of the undiluted product, but he was no ordinary man.  At his funeral, a family friend told me in confidence that he once drank a bottle of Drano and chased it with a jug of 230 proof horse whiskey, and still made it to church in time to play the procession on the organ. The Knights of Columbus of Windthorst still regard that day as the finest procession ever played in their small town. 

"Good work, son." The boy, whose name no one was sure of, smiled meekly. Someone had left him at the door of Ben and Mary Agnes, and Ben told her that he'd shipped the boy off to the service back in '22. The boy rarely spoke, and did little but make spirits. His blood alcohol level, tests would later reveal, had a standard baseline of 0.30. 

Ben and Armando continued their walking tour of the operation, watching as the hooch was filtered, bottled, and boxed up for shipping all over the country. They smiled in contentment, their empire humming along like the mythical perpetual motion machine. 

They heard a cry coming from the back of camp, and rushed over. Luke, the night foreman, had a worker by the shirt collar. He was red in the face with anger. 

"What's the matter here?" grandpa said, in his stern, managerial tone. 

"I found this man stealing a slice of corn pone from one of the others. He must be punished," Lucas hissed. 

Ben took Lucas' hand off of the man, and comforted the shaking worker. Ben gingerly checked inside the man's lower lip. 

"This man has a tapeworm," Ben said, patting him on the back. "No wonder he's still hungry."

Grandpa laughed and smacked Lucas on the back playfully. The laugh grew and grew, crescendoing until Lucas couldn't do anything but laugh himself. 

WHAP. The back of Ben's hand caught Lucas' unexpectant cheek. 

"Don't ever treat one of the men like that again, no matter their transgression."

"Y...yes, Mr. Schneider. I'm sorry, sir." 

"Now see this man fed and mix up a cup of the rye and two of the malted corn. That'll take care of the worm and any other critters that might've taken residence in his lowers."

"Yes sir."

"You take care, friend. You're a good man, and we need you healthy," Ben said to the afflicted man. A caring look washed away the sternness Ben had exhibited to Lucas. The man smiled. 

"Thank you, Mister Schneider. I will not let you down."

"There's a bright future for you in our little operation, son."

The man smiled as Ben walked away, but then felt uneasy as he noticed the glare Lucas directed at Ben. 

TO BE CONTINUED. 

So you can see how I got into home wine and beer making.