The Brutal Truth: Geoff's ESB...

OK! So here we are again, for another heart wrenching episode of The Brutal Truth, where your's truly evaluates another brewers home made creation with no punches pulled. Today, we have this:

We're gonna score this according to BJCP style guidelines and their point system, cause Geoff was bold enough to enter this in a comp. somewhere.. and I just wanna see how close I get to their scores. Here we go!

Bottle inspection: pass. filled good and the cap was on. F'ing righteous!

Aroma: Good. Caramel. Something else I can't put my finger on.. No diacetyl here. low esthers. 8/12

Appearance: Acceptable. Head retention was poor out of the box, and clarity for style is probably a little on the low side. I'm gonna go with 2/3, but I'd probably give a 1.5 if it were an option.

Flavor: Very good for style. A bit of a mineral-ly component, but that's in the range for this kind of beer.. Hops evident, and taste nice.. bitterness on the moderate to upper moderate end of the spectrum. There is a microscopic level of slickness I'm picking up.. possibly diacetyl? Not positive.. but still well within range of this class. I'm gona score this a 15/20

Mouthfeel: medium body, average carbonation. fine for the style. 4/5

Overall Impression: Tates good, easy to drink, hops are quite fine.. a little mineral/metallic thing that distracts somewhat, but others may find that quite refreshing. I think I'd dial that back just a hair, after the source of it was found.. not entirely rinsed sanitizer? Some brewing salt overload? A bit of diacetyl here that becomes more evident the further into the beer I get.. but still, like I said, not offensive. I'll go 6/10

That brings us to a 35 out of a possible 50. That's a "Very Good" according to the BJCP guide.. and about what I'd say this beer is, very good! Some room for improvement, but certainly a solid brew. Good job Geoff! Thanks for the beer!

Hop shipment, and a hike with the kids...

The big hop shipment came in yesterday afternoon.. 23lbs of pure joy. Check it:

This is the 27lb box it came packed in..

This is Timmay, huffing a just opened 5lb bag of Amarillo, so we could get out his 1lb amount that he ordered.

This is how the individual bags of 1lb increments came packaged. the foil is awesome stuff.. nicer than the plastic vac bags me and Pete got a few years back when we last ordered.

Switching gears, this is me and the kids on a picnic hike through the Henry Buck trail inthe American LEgion state forest in Barkhamsted, here.. nice trail, but probably a little tough for a 5 year old.. and tough on the dad who has to start carrying them on his back about 2/3rds of the way through the hike.

This is a big rock:

This was named "The Troll Bridge with No Trolls"... because, well, there were no Trolls!

And this paddle was a nice find, stuck in a swirly bit f water at the rivers edge on the way back to the car. It's gonna be a mash paddle, after I trim it up a bit. The current paddle I have is just a hair too short.. this one will work quite nice as a replacement!

In other beer news, that darned Belgian Stout is *still* fermenting hard core downstairs. How is this possible? It's been going for days now.. sure is gonna be tasty though, I can tell that much already just by the smell of it. The "Delta" Wheat aka Jess's Mean 40th (that I brewed with Pete W. a few weeks back) is also online and ready, and tastes like a million bucks! Real tasting notes in a couple days when it settles just a bit more, but I had my first glass yesterday and it was quite good.

Chickens are still doing well. Starting to move the tractor around the yard now that the grass is beginning to grow a bit. We also started to put in some raised garden beds in the back yard, but I haven't taken any pics of those yet. Stand by and I'll get some of that online in just a few..

Tantrums and a few new brews (Harpoon 100bbl Oyster Stout & Choklat)...

Here's a pic of the few beers me and a few others shared on that Irish day.. what's it called? Anyway..

Actually, looking at it, that Hop Stoopid ain't new to me. Good beer, just not new. There's a review here somewhere on it.. the Harpoon Island Creek Oyster Stout was fairly unremarkable except that it includes oyster juice or something. Me and Jody split this one while brewing up the new Belgian Stout that's in primary right now.. next to it's little brother, the same base wort fermented with Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Bier yeast scavenged from the bottom of a bottle of that beer. Stand by for a sec on that.. Geting back to the Harpoon beer, me and Jody both couldn't get much exemplary out of it except that we both remarked that it tasted "mineral-ly" if that's even a word. Well, it does. And that's about all I can muster on this one.. it was pretty plain. Not that it was bad, cause it wasn't.. it was a solid beer as far as stouts go, but I'm not sure this really stands out for a 100bbl series beer. Hey, just one mans opinion!

That Choklat, however.. hmmmm. Now that's a beer! This is an 11% monster that is disguised as chocolate milk. I'm serious, this thing tastes dead nuts like chocolate milk! It hides the alcohol like a ninja and hides behind a wicked tasty milk chocolate flavor.. and a darned good one at that! This one has huge ratings on Beer Advocate, I see now.. and for good reason. It's a nice treat. I'm not sure I could drink more than one of these in a sitting.. maybe, but not sure. It's so peculiar a flavor for a *beer* (this is a beer, right??), that's it really puzzling to wrap your head around. There's really nothing "stout" about it.. except that it's a legit stout. Say Wha? More interesting is how they packaged a thing like this together and got those flavors out of these base ingredients.. really a testament to what you can do with beer and have have it come out tasting so unlike a beer. Man, I gotta get out of this review, because it's so bizarre, but then.. so is this beer. Go get one, drink it and see if you're not as confused as I am!

And, just to save this for future blackmail use, this awesome clip is a tantrum Lynda threw the other day when her momma told her she couldn't wear rubber rain boots without socks, or just needed to put on some sandals to go outside. Totally awesome stuff. I only grabbed 45 seconds of this tirade, but it went on for some time.. really excellent stuff!



That's all for now.. carry on.

Black Bear Belgian Stout aka 'Echo' Stout

Brewed up what appears to be a really sweet beer with Jody R. today.. started at 0930 hours-ish, and finished up in the evening. Midway through the brew, we got interrupted by a fairly midsize black bear that was wandering through the neighborhood.. Check the pics:

Jody, really smacking the smack-packs!

The new sparge rig. Quick disconnect, plus a 90 degree elbow to a length of hose and a custom drilled endcap thingy. It's all to secret, really.. no more details. Unless, you know, you ask nice..

Me, chillin' with some wort.. (disregard that cop car in the background..)

What that? Is that a Bear???? Ah yes, good ol' #79 back again.. this bear has been seen in the neighborhood a few times recently, and has a clearly labeled set of tags with the #79 in both ears plain as day.

Someone grab a camera and get a closeup! Who'se the idiot behind this lens???

So, as you can see, this beer went according to plan *and* we got to see a big ol' bear in the process, thus the name Black Bear Belgian Stout.. that's just how it goes around here. weird things in the brew-day lend themselves to the naming process. The beer is a Belgian inspired thing with the WYeast Ardennes Belgian yeast infusing a fairly complex Stout recipe. Roast, Black patent, Dark Candi sugar, Special 'B', Pils and two row... not too weird, but more grains than a normal Stout by a long shot. It ended up at 1.066 with compensation for temperature. Should be fabulous, as it was mighty tasty out of the hydrometer. I'll keep you posted as time goes on.

In other news.. nah, I'll save that for tomorrow. Stand by..

Kombucha Project update, chickens doing hot laps...

I believe the Kombucha Project is a failure. All at the same time, this saddens me and relieves me. It saddens me because I had hoped to stumble across something new and interesting to use in creating beer, unique beers.. but I think what I've created is completely disgusting. I just poured a 1/4 glass sample of it. Since it's been on tap in the fridge for two weeks, it's had plenty of time to carbonate. For one, it won't hold a single bubble of foam. Two, it smells like malt vinegar (yes, there's a reason for that..), but doesn't taste quite as good. See, I *like* malt vinegar.. but this is more like malt vinegar with a big fresh dose of garlic, Lawries salt, and a pinch of nasty all thrown in the mix. It is not pleasant to drink. It does not remind me of a sour beer.. it reminds me of something gone wrong in a glass of beer that you forgot, which got left behind from last new years eve's party and you just happened to stumble upon now while doing a deep cleaning. Something fuzzy grew in that glass and you don't wanna delve deeper.

It also relieves me, because the thought of the research and future brewing experiments needed to be done to pin this thing down totally made my head spin. I'm just relieved that I'm so put off by this thing right off the bat that I don't have to do those experiments! Don't get me wrong.. I still like Kombucha. Actually, I like it quite a bit.. but the Kombucha tea and the Kombucha infused beer project are two *completely* different animals. Completely.

With all that said, anyone reading this that wants a keg of gross, or a growler or two for fun, please speak up. I'm going to take it off line maybe tomorrow, and set up the Brett. Pale Ale in it's place. I'll put this keg off to the side for a while, but eventually I'm going to flush it. Tis will be beer #2 that I will consider a total failure. Not through mishandling, just through bad recipe development. Not bad in an 8 year span of home-brewing.. but man, this keg has got to go!

In chicken news, the birds have taken to doing laps around the yard the passt few days. I've let them out of the coop late morning, and they mosey down the southern edge of the property, travel up the eastern edge through the woods at the base of the hill in the back yard, come across the north edge through the thick section of woods through our neighbor pals section of scrub, and then just walk across the front lawn like they own the joint to get back up to their coop. It's funny to see them marching around the property like this, all in a row.. talking and clucking and scratching up dirt the whole way. It's a slow march and takes a couple hours, but it's still funny to watch.

Thomas Hooker Munich, anda big black bear..

I wasn't home when this happened, but the wife says she saw a big black bear out near the chicken coop yesterday. Brave woman that she is, knowing her priorities, she immediately tried to startle the bear with banging pots and pans. When that failed, she Rambo'd up, and got the keen idea to simply attack the creature with THE FAMILY TRUCKSTER before it could do any damage to the chickens or the chicken coop. What a girl! Apparently, that worked quite well, cause the bear ran off quick on seeing my angry wife behind the wheel, bearing down on it at full speed. Or something.  Good job, Sa!

In other news, this is the latest beer I've gotten my hands on thanks to Timmay, from his cohorts in the Thomas Hooker brewery, in Bloomfield, CT. The Munich Lager. they call it a German Helles style.. but I'm not so sure. Timmay did the packaging on this, or at least a bit of a restyle of the stuff. Pretty dapper! It pours a nice gold color, but doesn't keep much of a head for some reason. I get a couple of aromas on the nose.. one is a fruity, bubblegum like note and the other is the tell-tale Munich grain flavor. Quite fun! Very easy drinking... sort of like a mini-me version of their Nor'Easter.. sort of. It has that same sort of flavor. Almost as if it's spiced, but not by very much. A bit of a Vanilla taste comes through as well. It's a curious flavor.. and I like it. There's a definite bitterness here, well dampening the malt.. and if they came through a bit louder, you might be able to pick out which hops they were, but I can't seem to reach that deep right now. I do have a bit of a lingering head-cold at the moment, so maybe it's just that..

Anyway, good beer.. sad to see I've just opened my last one. Tasty! Ah well, 'tis all for now. Carry on...

Got bubbles?

No pics for this one.. but just wanted to drop a note to indicate the new Brett. Stout is carbed up and ready for consumption. I just had a small taste (more on why in a moment..) and found it good to go. I assume the Kombucha project is the same, since it was kegged the day before.

Anyway I only had a small taste of the new stout, cause I'm a little under the weather still.. been battling a head cold/ear infection for the best part of a week now, and it's put my beer stuff on the back burner. Drats! I'm not sure what's worse, a serious illness or lack of beer! ;) In an case, the Stout tastes quite good, and is definitely reminiscent of the old one that was *so* good.. except, since this one was done up with brettanomyces yeast, it's got a slightly different taste to it. And, not in a negative way do I mean this, but it has a bit of an 'iron' flavor to it. I'm not sure how to put it other than that. It's a good chocolate stout, with a serious chocolate flavor and good depth and complexity.. but a hint of iron bite to it in the end as well. Not bad, just unique to the yeast, I guess. Interesting. Stop by for a taste and let me know what you think?

Chickens are all happy to be let out the past few days, since it's warmed up so much and is nice and all outside. The feed bill has definitely gone down since I started letting them out. They hardly touch the food bucket when they're outside.. right now, you can hardly see them down the hill the're so far from the house. I worry.. a bit.. but I know they have a bit of shelter from the flying predators in the bush they're in like that.

Gallery opening yesterday afternoon. The Boss put on a good show and things seemed to go well. They definitely had the most interesting stuff to look at.. there was only one other artist in the house that had anything decent otherwise to look at. But then, *that* guy didn't have Hudson Valley Applejack at his booth, either. ;) Strange stuff, that. 80 proof, just like any other whiskey or brandy.. but smelled only of fruit and flowery stuff. Keep in mind, my send of smell in my current condition is terrible, though.. but it packed a kick like anything else labeled 80 proof. Like I said, interesting stuff... thanks Kevin!

That's it for now.. I'm hit. Gotta take a nap.. blah!