Hump's Brewing

Tonight I tried a Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout. It wasn’t the first I’ve tried, but this was the first occasion where I could really place the taste. It tastes surprisingly similar to my Stout Porter (which was intended to be a dry stout, like a good Irish boy might aspire to make, but it turned out to not be dry).

Though I have not tried them side by side (nor, does it look, will I get that chance), it definitely evokes memories of my homebrew. The aroma of the oatmeal stout is a bit less burnt and hoppy, and the mouthfeel is more bubbly and at the same time more luscious (they cheated and used oatmeal!). Side by side, their differences would likely be evident, but – based only on my sensory memory – I am feeling that they taste like long-lost twins.

In other news, I think I’ll brew again this weekend. It has been nearly a month, and I really want something different. The Peachy Ale and Brash Broguish Brute are good, but sometimes it’s hard to drink five gallons of a beverage before getting bored and yearning for the next one!

I’m trying to decide what recipe to whip up. It’s currently a dead heat between five recipes:

1. Hump’s Bostonian – A hoppy Vienna lager (along the lines of Samuel Adams Boston Lager)
2. Hump’s Dunkelweizen – Self-explanatory
3. Hump’s Fat Bastard Ale – A Strong Scotch Ale, weighing in at around 9% abv
4. Hump’s Hare Krishna Pale Ale – An English IPA, standing proud at around 7% abv and 58 IBU
5. Hump’s Praying Monk Ale – An Abbey Dubbel, humbly hovering at close to 7% abv

I said, “dead heat”, but that isn’t true. I’m actually leaning towards something dark, strong, and sweet – so the Fat Bastard and the Praying Monk have slight advantages over the rest of the pack.

I received my copy of Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium on Tuesday. It is a very nice looking book:

It arrived in excellent condition (I bought it used from a seller on Amazon.com since it is hard to find new copies – the book is either out of print or unavailable to book-sellers in the US).

The book is a decent read so far. It has lots of details on the history of Belgium, the history of Belgium’s many unique beer styles, and a great many stories about numerous breweries in Belgium. There are also pictures and tasting notes of many of Belgium’s most acclaimed beers. In fact, the inside covers are covered with pictures of Belgian brews:

Overall, it is a very fine addition to my library. In addition to being a good read (Michael Jackson was, after all, a very good writer), it is also a gorgeous book. For instance, at the beginning and end of each chapter is a huge two-page color picture of something beautiful (always either beer or food).

The history on Lambic and Oud Bruin have been the most interesting so far, but I haven’t even gotten to the chapters on my personal favorites: Abbey and Trappist beers (the latter pictured above).

The only complaint I have is that the book contains a great many typographical errors. In some places it is punctuation, others slightly off formatting, and still others misspelled words. Many of the punctuation and spelling errors appear to be the cause of bad OCR software (optical character recognition). Perhaps the whole manuscript was scanned in from another source prior to this edition being released… Aside from these issues (which are in fact devilishly distracting), the book is laid out well, and the formatting and text is all easy on the eyes.

For any fans of Michael Jackson’s writing, I highly recommend this book. It goes into much greater detail and depth than does The New World Guide To Beer, so if you enjoyed that book and are wanting to learn more about Belgium and her beers, this is the book for you.

What I had previously called Hump’s Best Bitter has turned out decidedly not my best. It isn’t a bad session beer for those of us who love hops. But it is quite unbalanced. My previous impression of it was much more positive. At that time, the beer wasn’t completely carbonated. So perhaps it isn’t just the hops that overpower the malt, but rather a conspiracy of hops, carbonic acid, and biting bubbles.

After a few sips, a soft malt and caramel flavor becomes evident; but it isn’t enough to truly provide balance to the in-your-face level of hopping.

Alas, I will simply rename it: Hump’s Brash Broguish Brute. I know, know: “broguish” isn’t a word. But “roguish” is, and so is “brogue”. And combining the two results in such alluring alliteration… And somehow ‘Brash Brutish Brogue’ doesn’t resonate the same for me, despite being dictionary-compliant. Besides, a brogue is a thick accent – which this beer is not. A brute, on the other hand, is something that is coarse, insensitive, and/or beast-like.

A tasting of the brute reveals that it is so named for the way hops assault the senses. The beer pours an alarmingly cloudy orange (I’m not actually alarmed – the first few pulls from the keg are always very cloudy). The head pours very thick and consists of bubbles from large (though not quite soapy) to small and beady. The thick, enduring disc of foam stands tall over the cloudy beverage beneath it, leaving large patterns of lace on the glass as it slowly shrinks in stature. The aroma is intensely hoppy. It is full of fresh, grassy, flowery resins from the large dose of Willamette dry-hops. The flavor starts a bit grainy with hints of toast and much more than hints of big, fat, green hop cones. The middle of the tongue detects an astringency in the perfumey tide of hops. After a few sips, faint flavors of toffee and malt can be found, fighting their way to your taste buds. But most of them are swiftly beaten back by myrcene, humulene, and isomerized alpha acids. The finish consists of a rather delightful, soft hop bitterness. But the overgrown, astringent hop flavors cast a shadow that lulls the delight into indifference. The aftertaste is all hops, and burping makes me think of chewing on hop plugs – except wetter.

All in all, it isn’t a bad beer. I’m pretty certain that I’ve had products from overzealous commercial brewers that had similar out-of-balance flaws (though perhaps theirs were less cloudy in appearance). But it is certainly not my “best” bitter. It makes a fine session ale for hop-heads. Those that don’t care for hoppy, bitter beers: beware. And that last fact is a shame, because I enjoy sharing a beer with my wife, but she is not as fond of the hops as am I. She remarked that she liked the brew when it was still flat the other day, but I think she’ll now find its character too brutish.

I kegged my ESB (Hump’s Best Bitter) last night. I sampled it tonight. Luckily, this style of beer is pretty forgivable when it comes to consuming a mostly-flat sample. So despite its low carbonation, it was tasty. It still needs more suds – although if I were serving “cask-conditioned” ale it would be about right already. The beer is pleasant. The aroma is very perfumy and floral thanks to the Willamette dry-hops. The bitterness is earthy, from Target hops, and the rest of the hop explosion is flowery with a touch of citrus, from Goldings hops. It is pretty well balanced.

I had to empty out roughly two gallons of the Farmhouse Ale in order to make room for the new batch. So I have lots of bottles of that. They should keep pretty well, so I’ll make sure that at least one or two bottles survive until 2009.

I ordered a copy of Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium, and it should arrive this week (likely by Wednesday). I’m pretty stoked. It is out of print, but I found a vendor on Amazon selling a hardback copy of the latest revision (5^th edition, from 2005). I’ll likely post some comments on the book after I’ve had time to peruse it. I have no doubt it will be excellent.

Update (Oct-07): My thanks go to Captain Hops, over at Beer Haiku Daily, who was nice enough to add me to the round-up. I thought I was too late. I guess he must have seen the track-back link from my entry, and graciously included my post. So the title of this post and the first few paragraphs are a bit inaccurate – but I’ll preserve them, in all their inaccurate glory, so you can see my post in its full context.

So, as it turns out, when the organizers of the session said “First Fridays”, I should have read that “First Thursdays”. When I sat down at my computer last night, I saw that I was too late, and that the round-up of the session had already been posted that morning. So in order to have made it into the list, I needed to have written my post Thursday evening.

Now I know. So next month, hopefully, I’ll make it into the round-up.

After seeing that I had missed the session, I was less inspired to be creative for dinner, knowing that whatever I came up with would be too little and too late. So I had the most stereotypical of beer and food pairings, but perhaps also the most unanimously loved:

Pizza and Beer

This combination, however common and unimaginative, is always a crowd pleaser, always delightful. For my dinner last night it was a cheesy pizza, with soft-dough crust, tomato sauce that was just a little more sweet than savory, grilled onions, and fresh, earthy mushroom slices (It was a take-out pie from Papa John’s, but doesn’t it sound so much better the way I just described it?). It paired quite nicely with a pint of Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady ESB.

The pizza was actually left-over and re-heated. On Wednesday night, when the pizza was fresh, I had the pleasure of a thin-crust pizza with barbecue sauce, grilled chicken, diced bacon, and onions paired alongside Left Hand’s Rye Bock. That also worked well.

It is difficult to put my finger on exactly why these sorts of pairings work so well. Neither the pizza nor the beer were particularly bold or strongly flavored. I find myself always drawn towards pale ales and bitters as most fitting to drink with pizza. The roasted flavors in darker beers sometimes clash with the mellow mozzarella. Stronger beers and more complex, ester-full beers (like Belgian strong ales, Barleywines, and the like) tend to totally overpower most pizzas. Though adventurous, gourmet pizzas – like one with goat cheese, roasted fennel, and balsamic – can sometimes pair quite well with big brews.

Another awesome, though slightly out-of-the-box pairing is Fantôme Saison alongside a seafood pizza (white sauce, shrimp, scallops, and clams). Earthy pizzas – like one with mushrooms, caramelized onions, and ground beef or steak – can pair well with darker ales like a Stout or Robust Porter. The roasted flavors of these styles of beer go best with hearty, earthy ingredients and red meat (though an American Pale Ale fits the bill quite nicely here, too). And I bet a pizza with barbecue sauce and ham (or Canadian bacon if you prefer) would feel quite at home next to a dimpled mug full of Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier.

I’m not sure if I’ve tasted a pizza that made me say, “This would go perfectly with a Baltic Porter or Imperial Stout,” but I am certain such pizzas exist – it seems unavoidable. Pizza just belongs with Beer. I certainly don’t mean to say that pizza is the best and only thing to eat when drinking beer. But, when eating pizza, wouldn’t you rather a beer than a glass of wine? It just fits.

A national toast was held last night across the world (particularly, the US and the UK). The toast was made in honor of the well-respected and highly influential author of things beer (and occasionally of things whiskey, too), Michael Jackson, the Beer Hunter.

After reading some of the things said last night and this morning on other beer blogs, I came across a link to a fantastic article about Mr. Jackson. It was written by Alastair Hook, the head brewer at Meantime Brewing in England. In it, he recounts his memories of Michael Jackson, having met him on more than one occasion. Here is the link to that article. I encourage you to read it.

Another interesting read discusses the etymology of the name Belgium and its interesting relation to Michael Jackson. Read more here.

My basement fridge is now armed with another pleasant addition: Hump’s Peachy Ale.

This beer turned out pretty nicely. It is a very dry, fruity, wheat beer that was fermented with an interesting breed of Belgian yeast and was infused with 7.5 pounds of peaches. The peach is mostly noticeable in the aroma, but I have a feeling that the flavor of peach will slowly grow (just as the flavor of berries slowly grew in the Berry Weizen I made earlier this year).

I’ve recently updated my Homebrew Helper software to include the latest information from the BJCP 2004 style guidelines. They changed a bit from when I first setup the styles – for instance, Imperial IPA is now an official style. Also, American IPA and English IPA are officially two different styles (before 2004 there was only one style for IPA). I think both of these points make sense. Entering all those descriptions of beer made me thirsty, so I decided to whip up some Imperial recipes.

The first of these recipes, Hump’s Ethereal Red Ale, is more of an Imperial Amber Ale, but that’s beside the point. I originally crafted this recipe a few months ago, but have revised it now that I have a little better understanding of formulating amber ales vs. pale ales (they’re slightly darker, will have a spicy character to their hop profile, and focus a little more on malts than hops – although they are still pale and hoppy and use markedly American ingredients). I then created a new recipe: Hump’s Brain Bludgeoner – a big, ol’, nasty Imperial IPA standing at ~9% ABV and ~100 IBUs. After playing with these two recipes, I made an update to an old American Barleywine recipe that I have yet to brew: Hump’s Old Humperdink Barleywine. Finally, I decided to round out my portfolio of strong American beers with Hump’s Back-Breaking Brown – a strong, hoppy, American Brown Ale.

Now all I have to do is find time to make them all… I’m getting thirsty just typing about them.

Next week I will keg Hump’s Best Bitter and see if it lives up to its name. It is currently sitting on a half ounce of Willamette dry-hops.

I recently saw information on something called The Session. Numerous beer blogs participate in it. The idea is simple: organizers choose a topic each month. Then, on the appointed day, the participating beer blogs all write an article about that month’s topic. The posts from these contributing blogs are all rounded up and made available for reading in one place.

You can read the round-up of posts from previous sessions here. There have been seven such sessions to date.

I am hoping to participate in this gig. The next session is on Friday, October 5^th, and the topic is Beer and Food.

ichael Jackson, the world’s premier beer anthropologist and historian, passed away a couple of weeks ago. I remember my wife, Malin, walking into our office to tell me when she saw it on the news.

I own one of his books: The New World Guide To Beer. The original edition of this book, from the 70s, was the first formal categorization of the world’s beers into what we recognize today as beer styles. In addition to writing numerous books, Michael Jackson also wrote for All About Beer Magazine for 23 years. Their website currently has both his very first and very last article available for reading. You can get a sense for his style and see that he was a great writer, in addition to being an iconic figure in the world of craft beer.

Without him we may not have had the craft brew movement in America that has led to such a fantastic variety of great beer here. Also, we may not be enjoying the wonderful array of imported Belgian beers that are now commonly available in many restaurants and beverage stores.

In his last interview, it is evident that Michael Jackson was ill. He had been suffering from Parkinson Disease for over 10 years, and it had taken a toll. But he seemed in good spirits and certainly did not appear close to his deathbed. The video seems very sombre, particularly in retrospect now that he has died. Despite his battle with Parkinson Disease, it was a heart attack that ultimately took his life. You can read more about Michael Jackson from these articles, published after his death: Associated Press and Seattle Weekly.

Last night, I saw something on the web that reminded me of the tragic news: a national toast in honor of the man known as the Beer Hunter. The toast is two weeks from Sunday, and one aspect of the toast is to raise money for the National Parkinson Foundation.

I have been disappointed thus far in my failed attempts to find a place in Atlanta that is participating in the national toast. I have called and left a message for the operators of The Brickstore Pub in Decatur, hoping that they will show some interest and perhaps spread the word. I’ll also give a call to the Five Seasons brewpub in Sandy Springs. I will keep looking and doing what I can to bring this toast to Atlanta, even though I may not actually be able to attend (9pm on a Sunday up in the city won’t be the easiest thing to make happen). And I will send a check to the National Parkinson Foundation.

I had never before understood how some people get so emotional when a celebrity dies. For instance, that so many people who never even met Princess Diana wept at her death struck me as surreal. Though I did not weep when I heard about Michael Jackon’s passing, I did feel a sincere sense of loss and sadness – especially after taking time to read more about this great man. I still don’t completely understand how a person could be so grief-stricken by the loss of someone they never knew, but I can empathize a little better now.

Here’s to the Beer Hunter. May he dine and drink well in his afterlife, and may his life and death continue to conjure passion in – and inspiration for – the great brewers of this world.

Hump’s Farmhouse Ale is a raging success! It is one of the best beers I’ve made – absolutely delectable.

It has two very minor flaws which prevent it from being perfect: the taste of ethanol is a bit strong, and the bitterness on the back of the tongue is slightly astringent. The latter is quite minimal in perceptibility and may improve with age. The former will definitely improve with age. I will definitely be siphoning off some of this delicious juice into 22 ounce bombers for consumption over the next few years.

I now have a slight problem – Hump’s Peachy Ale is ready to keg, but Hump’s Blissful Bock is nowhere near gone. In other words, I have an overrun of homebrew. What’s worse? I plan to brew more next weekend, which may exacerbate the issue.

Oh, well, let’s face it: there are worse problems to have! Tomorrow I may empty the Bock into 22 ounce bombers and give some away to friends and coworkers so that I have room to keg the Peachy Ale.

The next batch, as I think I have mentioned in a previous post, will be Hump’s Best Bitter: an English-style pale ale, also called an Extra Special Bitter. It should satisfy my hop cravings for a few months.