Hump's Brewing

The topic for this month’s “Session”, chosen by Ted at Barley Vine, is Let it snow, let it snow, Winter Seasonal Beers.

To that end, I’ve sampled several seasonal brews and even brewed some. In addition to those that I’ve tasted and brewed this year, I feel like talking about some of my favorites from years past. There’s just nothing like fond recollection…

New Year’s Beers

My friend, Gustaaf DeRidder, and I share the hobby of home brewing. He entered into it earlier than I and has made some phenomenal beers – several in which I have participated in the brewing activities. Before Malin (my wife) got pregnant with our son, we spent the holidays with Gustaaf and his wife at the time, Audra (alas, these two very good friends of ours have divorced). Audra’s older brother, Jason, is in fact a long time friend of mine from my high school era. And Gustaaf and Jason used to brew together when they shared an apartment near USC (the one in Columbia, SC – not southern California).

So, for several subsequent years, Malin and I traveled to visit Gustaaf and Audra for the week between Christmas and New Year’s – a couple of times when they lived in Baltimore, MD and a couple of times in Durham, NC. Gustaaf and I would always brew a beer on New Year’s Day (what better way to nurse the hang-over from the previous night?).

Two of those New Year’s collaborations turned out especially delicious:

• New Year’s Wee Heavy, from 2002. This beer didn’t really resemble a Wee Heavy despite the fact that the recipe was adapted from the Clone Brews recipe for Traquair House Ale. Gustaaf (whose father is Belgian and who is a big fan of Belgian styles of beer) influenced the beer’s overall character with a good bit of Belgian specialty grains – Cara-Munich, Biscuit, and Aromatic malts. We also used way more flavor and aroma hops than one would normally find in a Wee Heavy. We even dry-hopped it!
• New Year’s Grand Cru, from 2003. This beer was one of my favorite home brewed beers – definitely my favorite home brew which was not an original recipe (I say not original because I had a co-conspirator [Gustaaf] who helped concoct it – that’s why you won’t find this one listed as a Hump’s brew in the Brews section of this site). This was a strong Belgian ale (about 7.4% abv) that was spiced with Coriander seed, Curaçao orange peel, and Seeds of Paradise. Delicious!

Hump’s Holiday Ales

I have crafted several of my own winter seasonal beers, which I affectionately call my holiday ales. Sometimes the affection is not 100% deserved – but I dole it out nevertheless, like the mother of an ugly child.

My favorite recipe for Hump’s Holiday Ale was from 2005. This was a strong, sweet ale that was flavored generously with Vanilla bean. Last year’s recipe (2006) was supposed to be a winter-spiced robust porter, but the cloves and allspice stole the show. I’ve referred to it many times as a clove monster. I just kegged this year’s holiday beer tonight, and I think it will turn out pretty good. An initial taste of it last week demonstrated some strong notes of hot cinnamon that were quite peculiar in a beer. But these quirks have toned down. The beer tasted pretty good tonight… Hopefully Monday (when it should be carbonated) it will taste even better…

Commercial Brews

My all-time favorite holiday brew was from the Highland Brewery in Asheville, NC. They release Cold Mountain every year, and they vary the recipe from year-to-year. I can’t remember the year exactly (probably 2001?), but I remember drinking a pint of this winter warmer at Barley’s Tap Room and Pizzeria several years ago. It tasted like liquid ginger bread cookie. It was the first winter warmer I can remember that was heavily spiced, and I loved it.

After that experience, I actively sought out winter warmers. I found a reliable companion in Harpoon’s Winter Warmer. It is a light ale that is pleasantly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. For years this was my wife’s favorite winter beer. The only reason it no longer holds that title is because it is no longer easy to find in these parts (Harpoon beers are still commonplace, but they send much less winter brew our way).

This year, I’ve tried several new winter seasonal beers that are a bit of a departure from the two just mentioned above:

• Allagash Grand Cru: This beer is a very strongly flavored Belgian specialty ale. For the most part, I really like it. But some of the fruit and spice notes clash somewhat. I’ve tossed one bottle into my cellar to see how well it rounds out after a year or two. Overall, despite these bold, contrasting flavors, I think it is an excellent winter beer, and I highly recommend it. I was really stoked to find it in the store as Allagash brews are only very recently available here in Georgia.
• JosephsBrau Winterfest: This beer is a doppelbock that is sold only at Trader Joe’s stores. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t particularly authentic. It is malty, but it has a character (perhaps from the yeast?) that is definitely more reminiscent of a strong American lager than a strong German one. I haven’t yet tried any of the other Trader Joe exclusives, but this one was only mediocre. I picked it up recently during my very first trip to a Trader Joe’s here in Atlanta. I’ve been to these stores in California before, but they’re a recent addition to Atlanta’s repertoire.
• Victory Hop Wallop: Whoah! This beer was a very interesting brew. It is amazingly light in color considering its style and strength (Imperial India Pale Ale, 8.5% abv). It is also intensely sweet. And at the same time it is incredibly hoppy and bitter. The hops are distinctly American, and they contribute a “shampoo” flavor (a term coined by a friend of my sister’s upon tasting Sierra Nevada Bigfoot). In other words, loads of pine and some citrus. Its great punches of flavor combined with its alcoholic strength definitely make it a sipping beer. I stashed one of them in my cellar, next to bottles of Golden Monkey and Storm King that I bought in the Spring. It will be interesting in a few years to see if/how the hops mellow over time.

That about sums up my thoughts on winter beers… I chose to write a little about a lot of different brews instead of going into detail about any one brew. I guess I haven’t yet had a winter seasonal this year that could really inspire me to write a post wholly dedicated to a single beer.

Stay warm, everyone!

I bought some peppermint flavored coffee this past weekend at the grocery store. My wife and I both like the stuff – and I am getting sick of the pumpkin spice coffee that was acquired for Thanksgiving…

It reminds me of a category of brews I’ve only heard about but never had the opportunity to taste: Mint Stouts.

After drinking mint coffee in the morning for three mornings in a row, I’ve decided that this type of beer sounds awesome. I imagine a strong, sweet stout (perhaps around 7% abv) with coffee (or espresso) and fresh peppermint leaves. I thought about doing that instead of a winter spice beer for next year’s Holiday Ale. But I may not be able to wait that long. If the winter is cold and frosty in January or February then I may be in the mood to cook this one up soon.

Hump’s Freshmaker Stout has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

I had a brief taste of Hump’s Holiday Ale for 2007. It isn’t bad, but there is too much cinnamon. It has the flavor of a decent American brown ale (hoppier than I intended) with a distinct note of hot cinnamon. I plan on adding some lactose (“milk” sugar that provides residual sweetness to beer since it is unfermentable by brewer’s yeast). Hopefully the residual sweetness and the cinnamon will combine in a way reminiscent of cinnamon toast. Now I know: less hops and less cinnamon.

This has happened virtually every time I’ve made a spice beer – too much spice. I always revise my recipes after each attempt, but I’m still struggling to get it perfect. The one time the beer turned out right was for my wedding. And for that I intentionally brewed two half-sized (2.5 gallon) test batches to make sure the recipe was great.

I managed this year to finally perfect fruit beers. The Berry Weizen and the Peachy Ale turned out excellent. Now I just need to master the use of spices.

The cinnamon beer is ready to package – I’ll probably keg it tomorrow night. I do think it is a step in the right direction compared to last year’s holiday brew – the wicked clove beer. I’ve only made one spice beer that was a complete failure – my first Holiday Ale recipe in 2000. I had to pour it out. The next year’s beer was close to a failure – funky ginger overload. I didn’t mind it, and my brother-in-law liked it, too. But the general consensus was that it left considerable room for improvement. The year after that, 2002, saw a very interesting beer. It was spicy and still had a hefty amount of ginger, but was substantially better than the year before. I then took a hiatus from holiday brews for a couple of years. In 2005 I made the best Holiday Ale to date: a strong, sweet ale flavored with vanilla bean. In 2006 came the clove monster, and this year comes the cinnamon monster. Hopefully, however, the cinnamon will prove to be less monstrous than the cloves.

I’ve re-formulated Hump’s Holiday Ale for 2008 to have less hops, a lot less cinnamon, some nutmeg, and more orange peel. I’m excited for a return to normal, no-spice beers: this weekend I will be making a Belgian Pale Ale using the same yeast that New Belgium Brewing uses in their Fat Tire Ale. This is the kind of beer that I know will turn out great.

Yesterday (Sunday the 18^th) I brewed up this year’s holiday beer. This year it is a modest gravity (1.056) brown ale. I used a bit of torified wheat and a good bit of oats in the grist to give it some tang and elegant body.

I chose a relatively unattenuative yeast (Wyeast Northwest Ale Yeast) so that the finished beer is a bit on the sweet side. That way its flavors meld with the spices (dry, hoppy beers don’t typically lend themselves to wintry spices). I didn’t completely shy away from the use of hops (resulting beer should be close to 20 IBUs). Instead, I chose a variety (Centennial) whose citrus character will hopefully blend well with the spices I chose: cinnamon, coriander seed, and orange peel. I also used a little bit of Saaz for aroma.

The resulting wort certainly smelled good – though perhaps too much cinnamon. I’m thinking it will fade since, in virtually every other beer I’ve made using cinnamon, the spice is always strong in the aroma immediately after brewing, but muted in the flavor of the finished product. The last thing I want this year is another spice monster (last year’s holiday beer might as well have been called Hump’s Cloven Porter and come with a complimentary pack of Djarum cigarettes…).

Fermentation was evident in less than 12 hours and was really vigorous in less than 24. A quick start to fermentation is always a good sign that things are going well (and, luckily, is the norm once you start using a wort aerator). The bubbles emerging from it smell sweet like candy with a touch of spice – almost like Big Red chewing gum, except less cinnamon.

The bubbles from the fermenting carboy actually smell surprisingly similar to the aroma of Hump’s Praying Monk Ale (now on draft in my basement). This Belgian Dubbel turned out quite well. I’ll add tasting notes on it to the Brews section of this site soon.

In my last post, I mentioned a couple of special brews that I picked up recently: Fantôme de Noël and Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence. They were both decent (the latter considerably more palatable than the former), but I have much higher praise for my most recent acquisitions: Unibroue 16 and Victory V12. They were absolutely delicious.

They certainly had their similarities. The Victory V12 was astoundingly drinkable for a beer that is so strong. The Unibroue, at 10%, is certainly no featherweight either. Both hid their alcohol well, and would probably be adored by any fan of Belgian strong ales.

My wife was out at a “girl’s night out” with a few of her friends, so Will (my almost-three-year-old son) and I had a bachelor-style evening. He saw me taking pictures of the beer and decided that he wanted some of the camera’s attention. Here he is, trying to steal a sip of the 16:

Luckily, I was able to outwit him and prevent him from snagging any of it. But he was persistent:

I didn’t get a chance to photograph the Victory brew, which was packaged in a very extravagant bottle. But I think these photos, with their entertainment value, more than make up for that absence.

My last batch of homebrew was original recipe #47. I have a Holiday Ale planned for next week or the week after: a sweet brown ale made with oats and with a touch of spice (only a touch – unlike last year’s clove monster). In the first half of December I’ll be using the Fat Tire Ale Yeast that I picked up the other day to make a Belgian Pale Ale: Hump’s Humble Monk Ale.

And then, on New Year’s Day, I will ring in 2008 by brewing up Hump’s Fiftieth Brew. It will be an American Stock Ale – strong, dark, and hoppy. If it goes well, it will turn out somewhere between Stone’s Arrogant Bastard and Avery’s Fourteen… and not unlike Rogue Brewer. All three of these are delicious examples of American Stock Ales – which, by the way, do not yet have their own category in the BJCP Style Guidelines. If I were to submit it to a homebrew competition, I would have to enter it as an Imperial IPA and then put a note about it being an American Stock Ale. The guidelines suggest that they may break it out into its own official style later.

Last Saturday was the first time I’ve been out to buy beer in some time, so it was exciting to see all of the new stuff that is for sale right now. I was at the Green’s on Ponce De Leon (the best beer selection I’ve ever seen), and I had to pick up some beers as a gift for the hosts of a party which we were to attend that night (a pumpkin-carving party).

I bought a couple of cans of Oskar Blues Gordon IPA and a bottle of Saison Dupont. While there, I drooled over the Victory V-12, Victory V-Saison, Dogfish Head Chateau Jihua, and Unibroue 16. I know none of those are holiday beers or recent seasonal offerings, but they aren’t available at the stores in my neck of the woods. I may have to make a trip back to Green’s this upcoming week to snag the limited edition brews…

I was pleasantly surprised at the party to see that the host, Rob, had acquired a Sweetwater limited edition beer. At this point I have to comment on the immaturity of Sweetwater’s marketing folks. Even when I was still in college, I knew that they were trying to market towards a younger (i.e. college) crowd. Their flagship product, 420, is named after a drug reference (to Marijuana – see here for more info). Their summer offering, Summer Hummer (a Belgian-style wit bier), is a sexual innuendo. And their latest “catch and release” series is named after an incredibly foul sexual manuever: Donkey Punch. Despite the fact that they name their beers in a childish way, I am a big fan of Sweetwater, and Donkey Punch – a hoppy American Barleywine – was not a letdown.

At the party I met another home brewer. This guy does 10-gallon all-grain batches, and he offered to invite me up next time he brews. I told him I would be grateful to come by and see the process. I’ve read a lot about it and talk with Doug, the owner of Just Brew It!, about all-grain brewing every time I’m in his store. I figured that watching it and experiencing it firsthand would be a good first step before making the investment in new gear for me to tackle all-grain myself (I currently do a mini-mash with about 4 lbs. of grains, and then use malt extract for the remainder of the fermentables).

This past Friday, on the way home from work, I made it to my usual haunts for craft beer and picked up a four-pack of Samuel Adams Hallertauer Imperial Pilsner, a 750ml corked bottle of Fantôme de Noël, and a 750ml corked & caged bottle of Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence.

The Sam Adams Imperial Pilsner is absolutely fantastic. I was a bit surprised since most Sam Adams beers tend to fall a little short for me. Although it does not taste like they use 12 pounds per barrel of hops. That is the equivalent of over 30 ounces of hops in a 5-gallon batch of homebrew! And if you were using a high-alpha hop (instead of the Hallertauer Mittelfruh used in the Sam Adams beer) that is still over 6 ounces. For perspective – in case you don’t homebrew – a really hoppy IPA recipe would probably use only 2 to 4 ounces of a high-alpha hop. That level of hopping sounds like it would produce the most incredibly unbalanced, bitter beer the world has ever seen. But it is in fact palatable, balanced, and delicious (at least if you’re a hophead – which I am).

I haven’t had a chance to open the Fantôme or Ommegang beers. They are both large bottles of strong beer, so I have to split them with someone. And Malin wasn’t up for it this weekend.

I did have another tasty brew this weekend: a glass of Ommegang Rare Vos on draft – a decent abbey-style ale. I also tried a cask-conditioned Imperial Stout from Atlanta Brewing Company. I need to call the place at which I tried it (Tap in midtown) to get the details on it because there is no listing for it yet at RateBeer.com. It was very good – roasted and coffee-like in the aroma, and then roasted, semisweet, and malty in flavor with a hint of savory notes. Its strength was evident in the flavor, too, as the alcohol was quite warming. I wish they would release the brew in bottles as it would make an exceptional winter beer (sipping by the fireplace…).

I’ll post again after trying them to let everyone know what I think.

This month, Tomme Arthur, renowned head brewer at The Lost Abbey, has chosen a topic of Beer and Music.

I have many stories on this pair of topics. Admittedly most of the “best” stories (i.e. the most embarrassing) more often involve whiskey or tequila along with music. But I have some fond memories that unite beer with music.

In addition to being a homebrewer and craft/artisanal beer aficionado, I am also a lover of music. I play guitar (rock, jazz, improv, uncategorizable…) and compose a good bit of music. I also love music that focuses on improvisation: jam bands (Phish and their ilk) and jazz (surely no example required).

Most recently, I went to see G. Love and Special Sauce at The Tabernacle in downtown Atlanta. I went with my wife and two friends of ours (a woman with whom I work and her husband). We enjoyed ourselves for the most part except for two small let-downs: one involving beer and one involving music.

The first disappointment was encountered whilst searching through the glass door of the beer fridge behind the bar for a decent brew. The Tabernacle has no less than eight bars in it (they know how to keep the beer lines short when there is a crowd). The first bar had several decent brews, including Red Hook ESB on draft. After we found a place from which to enjoy the concert, the nearby bar had nothing on draft. There were bottles of decent local brew on display over the bar (Sweetwater 420), but I could see none in the beer fridge. I later learned, to my regret, that these brews were kept in a cooler underneath the bar – not on display. So I suffered through a tallboy of Budweiser because that was all that could be seen (aside from the many slim cans of Red Bull). Red Hook ESB is very far from an intense beer, but -nevertheless- Budweiser follows it like a bottle of water.

The second disappointment was the middle act. There were three bands playing that night: Ozomatli, Slightly Stoopid, and then G. Love and Special Sauce. To say that Slightly Stoopid was less than stellar would be definitively mild. Closer to the truth would be to say that they were terrible. My wife and I were unimpressed, and quickly found ourselves wishing for them to get off-stage.

That was my most recent encounter with live music. It wasn’t the best when it comes to beer and music. Which brings me to my fond memories… memories which are in stark contrast to our recent encounter with Bud & Slightly Stoopid: memories of college.

Read More »

I’ve read a great many blogs lately that talk about the recent shortages in both malts and hops. This is the second year in a row that has been bad for hop harvests in Europe. Doug, the guy who runs Just Brew It! (the local homebrew store), mentioned that he couldn’t order any pellets – all that was available were leaf hops. Apparently this year, it was also a bad harvest for American hop-growing regions, so there is a major shortage of these beautiful, blessed plants.

In addition to the hop problems, there are also, apparently, similar problems with the supply of barley malt. Some of the blogs I’ve read even indicate that some small-scale brewers may not be able to get any malt in the near future. This could be devastating for small producers of craft brew, which is truly a shame.

So, expect to see prices going up at your local retail store for craft brew. Macro-brew isn’t as susceptible to these sorts of shortages. Very large brewers have the buying power to forge longer-term contracts. Their contracts give them higher priority when it comes down to who will get part of the limited supply of malts, and they also keep prices relatively stable for these big brewers. Furthermore, macro-brew is not particularly strong with either barley or hops. So any increase in price will be less evident than would be seen in all-malt, high-gravity, hoppy brews. If the price of water goes up however…

Who could talk about brewing and beer ingredients without bringing up the l’il beasties? Of course, I speak of yeast. I noticed this past weekend, while buying supplies for my last batch, that Doug had posted on the yeast and hops fridge a piece of paper that indicate the origins of several of Wyeast’s varieties. I searched for the same information on the web, and I found what will likely be an invaluable reference: especially considering I was a big fan of White Labs yeast before Marietta Homebrew closed (Just Brew It! only carries Wyeast liquid yeast). The reference shows the origins of nearly all varieties of both White Labs and Wyeast yeasts. It also has useful comparison charts that are good to have when trying to find the right Wyeast product when a recipe called for a White Labs strain. That reference can be found here.

Despite the fact I didn’t receive votes for it, on Sunday I brewed a Belgian Dubbel. I’ve named the batch Hump’s Praying Monk Ale since many of the brewers of Belgian beers (particularly Dubbels and Tripels) are either Trappist Monks or otherwise associated with an Abbey or Monastery. I’ve made two other “monk” ales in the past. One was a strong, dry, and overly hopped Belgian Pale Ale named Hump’s Sleeping Monk Ale, and the other a very, very strong, sweet Belgian-style specialty beer named Hump’s Dancing Monk Ale. The names roughly correspond to the strength of the beer: the stronger the beer, the more active or crazy the monk for which it is named.

I think the brew will turn out decent. I racked it to the secondary fermentor last night. It has attenuated decently, though not spectacularly. One of the main reasons is that the mini-mash was at too high a temperature. This means that the carbs contributed to the brew from these grains still contain lots of unfermentable sugars and starches. I was hoping the use of dark Belgian Candi Sugar would offset this. Candi Sugar is just that: sugar. So it is highly fermentable and frequently used to reduce the body of strong ales that are in roughly Belgian style.

On another note, my latest, hoppy concoction has mellowed considerably. So much that I’ll be renaming the brew back to Hump’s Best Bitter. I should have known from my last such experience that hoppy beers (perhaps just dry-hopped beers) transform considerably during their first few weeks of age. Or at least this one did, as did the Humble Hop Juice that I made earlier this year. The beer is quite delicious. So much so, that if I had no self control I’d probably have 3 or 4 each evening. Luckily I have some self-control – I limit myself to 0 to 2 each evening, perhaps 3 on the weekends. If only I could consume it and absorb neither the alcohol nor the calories… Of course, were that the case the batch would probably be gone by now.

Next Friday will be the next “Session”. This month’s topic is Beer and Music. I’m struggling a little bit with this one, so I’m not at all sure what I’ll write about. Perhaps something will come to me over the next week.

Before I leave, have a link to some figures on craft brew sales in 2007. I found several nuggets there quite interesting – most particularly that New Belgium’s Fat Tire is pacing (possibly out-pacing) Michelob.