First look: "Jess's Mean 40th" aka Delta Wheat

So here's a first look of the just kegged, and I mean, like, 6 minutes ago.. 'Jess's Mean 40th" American Wheat ale, aka 'Delta Wheat'. As you might have surmised, I've started keeping track of my beers with a military phonetic alphabet designation to go along with the name.. in case I can't think of something for a name, it'll have just a phonetic designation to go along with the beer, in the order in which it was brewed this year, so Delta Wheat is my 4th beer of the year.. but this one is named after Jess V's 40th birthday, which is a mean one! Here's a shot of it, in all it's cloudy glory:

It's currently at 72 degrees, so I'm not apt to drink much.. plus, it's not carbonated, either. It quite literally came out of the primary fermenter a few minutes ago. It has an aroma of pineapple and citrus all mixed together. It's cloudy as all get out, but got down to 1.014 F.G. That makes it a 5.0% abv as of right now. It's also a Brett. 'C' beer.. so it might drop further in the keg as it waits it's turn in line to get into the fridge. I brewed this beer with Pete W., btw.. so, hopefully he's paying attention here.

Flavor is OK! Tastes like.. hmm.. tough call. I think I'm going to reserve judgement here for a bit.. it's sorta hard to pin down. Body is good, no defects I can taste.. seems a little mild on hops, considering what we put into it. I'm getting a hint of a breadiness in the thing.. but can't tell what's going on otherwise. I'm not getting anything in the way of a typical Brett flavor. Interesting. This Brett. 'C' is a really cool yeast.. it just works!

OK, get out of here. Click my google ad before you go, though!

Will's homebrew.. the brutal truth! Smoked Maple Wheat..

Nah, don't be scared kids.. just a regular beer review here. What we have today is Will Siss's first attempt at  homebrew, made in his own home this time. All done on premise in Watertownville, with no outside help other than his co-brewer auntie Michelle. It's supposedly a Smoked Maple Wheat beer.. so let's see what we've got, eh?

I'll give it a 17 SRM or so on the scale.. about a Copper to Deep Copper in color. Clarity is fantastic, there's no haze whatsoever.. newsprint would be readable through this pint glass. There's a trace of visible carbonation in the glass, with tiny bubbles seen rising through the beer, but no real head on it. I've heard smoked malts can have head retention issues, but I've brewed smoked beers myself and didn't have that issue. The cap came off this one with a resounding POP, so I know it's carb'd.. but I suspect another few days in the bottle would have led to more bubbles overall. Aromatics give a faint smokiness, but a distinct, though mild, solvent aroma appears as well. It's a mix of yeasty esters and a drop of paint thiner, but that sounds much harsher on paper than the beer gives in real life. There's no real objection here, from this reviewer. One would suspect a hot ferment, as I've experienced here in my own beers, but conversations with the brewer lead me to believe that's not the issue.. curious. On first sip, I'm actually fairly amazed! The wheat comes right through and the beer blasts through with substantial body and great flavor. No sign of that solvent-y note in the flavor itself.. err.. no, wait, I take that back. This is a real time review, and I'm picking it up just faintly now. and I mean faintly. But the overall flavor of the beer otherwise, quashes it nigh immediately. Again, I'm struck by the really good balance this beer has with flavor, bitterness and carbonation. A bit of an alcohol presence I'm tasting now, alongside what tastes almost vanilla, to me. Wondering what the abv % on this creation is.. stay tuned for an update on that info. About halfway through the glass as I type and bubbles still rising determinedly now, but still no head formation seen even though I'm tossing the glass around. So, there's some issue with foam stability here.. and in a wheat beer, that's mostly hard to do. Wonder what happened there? In any case, I'm towards the end of this beer as I type and I'm ready for another. I know reviews tend to focus on the faults a beer has a lot of the time, but this beer has quite a bit going for it. Fantastic flavor balance between it's various attributes, and a good overall balance in general. I am ready for another, but I have none. I think this would make a fabulous cold weather beer, as it's a little too sweet for a spring or sumer drinker.. but damn, well done! I will not hesitate to drink another when offered. And I *better* be offered another! ;-)

'tis all for now.. carry on!

Bread..

Firm starter..

Chopped to bits and added the flour, water and salt..

Some kid..

Slashed for baking..

Baked and ready for lunch..

Other than that, went to Delaney's Tap Room and had an Ithaca apricot Wheat.. then travelled to Prime 16 where a Brewdog Paradox was consumed, followed by a Stone Pale Ale.. a trip to an Indian restaurant was next, where water was utilized to wash down the spicy, and then finally a stop over at Bar, where a Damn Good Stout was procured for the finale.

Keg down! Oro de Maggie, R.I.P.

Oh, snap! having been on since last MAY, the Oro de Maggie, tribute beer to my ol' dog Magg's went dry a couple days ago. So sad! Almost made it a year, it did. The Kombucha Project was nipping at it's heels though, and moved things along. 

But thats not all! The Rump Wrecker Rye, Ancho chile stout, has gone the way of the Oro de Maggie as well. The dreaded double-whammy!Two kegs beaten to death, simultaneous-like! What to do? Replace 'em with new kegs, of course! A re-brew of the Chocolate Rye Stout has taken the place of the Chile Stout and the previously mentioned Kombucha Project has taken the fridge space of the Oro de Maggie.  Give me a week and I'll have some results from that stuff, tasting wise.. 

And then, from out of the blue:

..a picture from Lynda. Good job, kid! Just like her momma.. an artist!

Limited time today, kids, I'm out of here...

Rodenbach. Brewed yesterday. 'Jess's Mean 40th - Wheat"

This is the regular Rodenbach, not the Grand Cru. The Grand Cru is one of the finest beers I've ever had the pleasure to drink.. it is lovely. This regular version is also a fine beer, just not in the same ball park. It's a sour beer, a bit, but not overly so. A normal person could drink this and not get irritated. :) I drank this one with Uncle Jack the other night and had a grand time. It's just a touch sour, but wickedly complex. And when I say flavors of prune juice abound, don't take that the wrong way.. it's really delicious. I am a big fan.

Brewed a beer yesterday with Pete, but we got no pictures. Didn't really think much about that until too late.. Here's a shot of it in the fermenter now, bubbling away. I have to give thanks and props to Jody again, cause this is my 3rd re-pitch of this particular yeast, and it supplied the beasties for Pete's half of this beer too.. that one vial has gone into 20 gallons of beer so far, and I'm not sure we're done just yet.
Brett 'C' may be the new house yeast here, depending on how things go. Heh.. There may be a time in the not too distant future.. like, say, 3 weeks, when every beer on tap is Brett 'C' fermented or some other wild culture.

We're calling this one "Jess's Mean 40th - Am. Wheat", because.. well, nothing went wrong in the brewhouse this week. That makes it like 4 brews in a row with no disasters.. and if you're not familiar with how 2nd Shift Brewery get's it's beer names, it's always been based on disasters and things that go wrong during the day, no matter how small they were. Well, with a bunch of smooth beers brewed recently, I'm having issues with coming up with names. I'm trying to think of a new way to name the beers now, sort of like the way weather people name the storms, or something. That was The Boss's idea, and I kinda like it. But I'm not sure.. suggestions welcome. I was sorta thinking about doing the Military phonetic alphabet thing somehow, and that would also help me keep track of the numbers of brews I do in a year, too. Any thoughts?

As an aside, I notice about half of you jerks that are "following" this blog don't have pictures attached to your profiles, and that really irritates my OCD parts. Can you people fix that, before I have a fit? Thanks! ;-)

RastafaRye

Strange. I drank this beer and forgot to post on it..

Yeah, so there's this weird guy on the label of Blue Point Brewing's RastafaRye.. kinda creeps me out. It's described as  Rye beer, and that's about the sum of it. I want to like Rye, as a grain. I use it, or, rather, try to use it in a lot of my beers, and in my breads for that matter.. but I'm generally not that impressed with it. I'm just *trying* to be impressed with it. I think I may have found its calling, but it's in a Stout I make.. and a Chocolate Rye stout at that, so it kinda get's buried a bit.. in this beer here, that's not the idea.. the rye is supposed to be front and center. But, it isn't really. You do not drink this beer and say "Oh, snap! Here comes the rye!" it just ain't like that. Not that it's a bad beer.. it's just not that fantastic. It's rather.. err.. average. Except in it's abv% which is like, 7.5%.. totally uncalled for in this beer, really. Sad to have to be so blunt, but there it is.

Brewing with Pete tomorrow. Need a pale ale in the worst way. I'm starting to get complaints from the guests and management that there's "nothing normal to drink" on any of the taps. Sissies! In Germany, most of my lineup would be considered perfectly normal! Yeah, we're not in Germany.. ok, I'll brew a pale ale. This is three weeks in a row now, brewing. Life is good. :)

Pellicle.. that was quick! Stout update..

Just a quick update to shoot up a really crappy picture of the Brett. Pale ale.. check it:

And there you have it. Pellicle. Snap! That was quick... I think it only took about 4 days to start to see the faintest film of funk on the top of this thing, and now, with this pic taken just yesterday, it's really coming along good. Powdery white with a couple of weird jagged 'lines' running across the top of the film, it looks legit. It's in a Better Bottle.. which is supposed to be oxygen impermeable.. so I doing that had anything to do with it, but I did just cap the top with a piece of tinfoil, as I've been doing a lot recently.


The stout I repitched this slurry into is also pretty much finished. I'll be kegging that in the next few days as well, cause I'm about to kick the Ancho Chile stout. This beer should be superior in more than one way, since I actually remembered to put in the chocolate malt this time that I enjoyed so much last time around. Plus, with the possible benefit of the Brett yeast, we'll see if that has any noticeable flavor impact at this short of a time frame.. probably not, but we'll see.

I'm also re building that  fantastic Reinhart San Fran sourdough I did a couple weeks back, but it's a difficult bread to do with your schedule isn't cooperating. I'm going to end up refrigerating the firm starter portion overnight again, for a total of two nights, and hopefully getting it going into dough shape tomorrow morning, with a final overnight tomorrow night. We'll see how that goes.. stay tuned.