Stout & Chowder Recap

This past Saturday night Rolling Barrel Events hosted their first annual Stout & Chowder Festival at the Independence Seaport Museum. I arrived, not knowing what I would be pouring, and was lucky enough to be assigned to the Weyerbacher booth. I was pouring their Winter Ale all night but was able to sample most of the other breweries' offerings. I'd have to say that Dock Street's Satellite Espresso Stout was my favorite of the night. I had had majority of all of the other brews in attendance but this was a new one for me and it was very very impressive.

It was a rather small event, a very manageable beer fest that wasn't too overwhelming for the guests. I'd like to  see them expand the number of breweries just a little to offer some more variety for the more seasoned drinkers but I can't complain, I didn't pay to be there.

The volunteers were given most of the leftover bottles so I took home some Imperial Pumpkin, Storm King, and Yakima Glory. Not too shabby for a few hours "work". Judging from that night, Rolling Barrel sure can throw together a great event and I look forward to attending or working at their next.

Cheers!

Stout & Chowder Festival

What better way to spend a brisk November evening than with some robust beers and hearty chowder?

Join the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM) and Rolling Barrel Events for an evening filled with dark / seasonal beers and belly-warming soups.  Tickets to the event will include a commemorative glass mug (yes, real glass), access to over ten “Burly Beer Stations” featuring all local breweries, a special breakout session showcasing pumpkin beers, and numerous hearty soups, stews and chowders.  Proceeds will benefit the Independence Seaport Museum

Tonight is the First Annual Stout & Chowder Festival and the lineup looks mighty tasty. Corey from Rolling Barrel Events was kind enough to let me man one of the "Burly Beer Stations" at tonight's event at the Seaport Museum so there is even more reason for you to buy a ticket. Not sure what I'll be pouring yet but I'll be sure to throw some updates on Twitter. Sounds like it is going to be a great night so I hope to see you there! Get your tickets here!

The brewery list is as follows:

• Manayunk Brewing Co.
• Lancaster Brewing Co.
• Flying Fish
• Weyerbacher
• Dock Street
• Victory
• Philadelphia Brewing Co.
• Troegs
• Yards
• Intercourse
• Dogfish Head

Cheers!

Brew Masters on The Discovery Channel

It was only a matter of time before there was a show about the wonderful world of craft beer.

Brew Masters premieres November 21 at 10pm on The Discovery Channel and will follow Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione around his Delaware brewery and the world as he finds new recipes and ingredients for their "off-centered" brews.

I honestly can't believe it has taken The Discovery Channel this long to put together a show like this. With the countless number of shows about quirky bakeries or families contributing to the surplus population of the planet, it is nice to see show coming out that will actually interest me.

I know some people are looking down their nose at Sam Calagione for doing this but like a new beer, don't knock it before you try it. I think the concept has a lot of promise and hope it works out well. If it's a real success I would like to see them branch out and follow other "Brew Masters" around to see how other breweries operate. Either way, I know I'll be watching.

You can watch the short preview that came out last week here.

On a somewhat related note, if this show does well it just might encourage Spike to pick up Three Sheets so you should watch as well!

Cheers!

Adventures in Homebrewing: Coffee-Brown Brewday

Surprise brewdays can be fun.

I was supposed to go into work yesterday but I got the word that I could have the evening off which meant only one thing, time to brew! I had picked up everything from Princeton Homebrew earlier in the day and was ready to go by 2:30.

All of my grains were steeped in one bag, filling the kitchen with those delightful aromas that no one else in my house seemed to enjoy. My recipe was pretty simple and things went much smoother than my last batch which was a real mess. I was much more diligent in taking temperature readings and what not, I felt pretty good about the whole brewday.

I was a little nervous about my yeast given the problems I had with my pumpkin ale and it was also the first time I had used liquid yeast. I had originally thought I was going to use Wyeast's British Ale II but after going over some other strains with Joe I decided to try White Labs' Pacific Ale. It came recommended for the style and should create a maltier profile which I'm hoping will balance out some of the bitterness from the coffee.

This is the first time that I've set up a blow-off tube which really calms my nerves about any explosions that my parents would not appreciate with the carboy sitting in the dining room. I'm probably going to let this one sit in the primary for about a week before racking to the secondary where I'll add the coffee. I have basically just enough time to have this ready for the December 7th competition so I hope nothing goes wrong.

Cheers!

Adventures in Homebrewing: Brown Ale Recipe

I was planning on brewing a red ale for the holiday season but then The Draught Horse came along with another homebrew competition so I decided to put together a brown ale that I could enter. I wanted something that could be sessionable but also fully flavored. What I came up with is a bit of an English-American hybrid:

 

Grains

0.5 lb Crystal Malt 60L

0.5 lb Biscuit Malt

0.25 lb U.K. Chocolate Malt

LME

6.6 lb Muntons Amber

Hops

1 oz U.K. Kent Goldings (bittering)

1 oz Fuggles (finishing)

Yeast

White Labs - Pacific Ale

I was going to go with an English yeast strain but decided to go with this Pacific to accentuate the malts a little more.

I'm going to make this a coffee-brown ale. I've been reading up on using coffee and I will probably end up doing a cold extract into the secondary, just need to figure out the specifics on that process.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to name this one though, if you have any ideas I'm all ears. They are judging the beers on appearance, drinkability, taste, body, smell, concept, and NAME so it's gotta be a good one!

Cheers!

Adventures in Homebrewing: Brew Target

While anxiously awaiting my pumpkin ale I've been trying to decide what to brew next. The homebrew contest at The Draught Horse has encouraged me to go with a brown ale next so I've been working on coming up with a suitable recipe. For a novice like myself this can be a little daunting. Yes I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing but I'm not trying to act like an expert here.

That's where Brew Target comes in to save the day. Brew Target is a very useful program that allows homebrewers like myself concoct their own recipes while the software takes care of the sometimes complicated calculations. I would encourage anyone to double check the calculations but it is a great tool to formulate a recipe. Input all of your ingredients and particulars and Brew Target will give you an estimated read out of how your brew will turn out. Once all of your ingredients and procedures are in the program it will tell you the estimated IBUs, SRM, ABV, and more. If you have even the slightest idea about brewing then the application is pretty self-explanatory. It's rather fun to make up recipes without having to worry about spoiling a whole batch. Of course there are some improvements to be made but nothing's perfect. I would assume this would be quite useful to seasoned and amateur brewers alike. The best part about it is that it's free!

Here's a video demonstration of the program:

You can download Brew Target for yourself here.

Cheers!

Brewery Tour: Troegs Brewing Company

 
I went camping with majority of my family this past weekend out in Manheim, PA which is only 20 minutes or so outside of Harrisburg where the brothers Trogner have been brewing since 1997. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit one of the breweries that helped me get into craft beer a few years ago so I took a break from the wilderness and headed for the capital.

Luckily my girlfriend is used to these sorts of diversions on vacations (visiting Maui Brewing Co. when we were in Hawaii this summer was a priority) so she was my brewery co-pilot. We drove over the railroad tracks to find Troegs nestled away all by it's lonesome. I spotted a Troegenator van and got very excited about it, somehow I haven't become jaded yet and each new brewery I visit gets me all a twitter.

We had reservations for the 1:30 tour so with a little bit of time to kill we checked out the gift shop which had one of the biggest selections I've seen. They have a t-shirt and a glass for nearly everyone of their beers. Everything was priced pretty reasonably which made my decision on what to buy all the more difficult. I ended up grabbing a brewery work shirt for $10. They have a bunch of used work shirts with employees names still on them which I found to be much cooler than the regular swag.

Our group was called in for the tour which I was excited to realize would be led by Chris Trogner himself. I really appreciate when a tour is led by a brewery's founder or brewmaster rather than a schlub that works in the tasting room. Chris led a pretty standard tour, starting with the labs and mill room. There was one guy in our group that was constantly interrupting with completely irrelevant questions. I think he saw that they offered something free to do on a Saturday and decided that he should bring his entire weird family who couldn't have cared less about what was going on. Even Chris couldn't hide his annoyance with this guy, there always has to be "that guy" on a tour I guess.

 

The tour carried on and Chris led everyone through the whole process, handed out some grains and hops for everyone to see, told us that the spent grains get picked up by some farmer for his cows, same old same old. One exciting moment in the tour was when we were shown the hopback chamber. They only use it for a few of their brews (obviously Hopback Amber is one of them) and when Chris mentioned that that was where Nugget Nectar was born, all of the beer geeks started smiling and nodding their heads while their girlfriends just stared at the stainless steel chamber.

We ended up on the other side of the facility near the bottling line where they have a number of barrels stacked against the wall where they have some exciting experiments going on. These barrels are home to their Splinter Series, barrel aged brews that are only available at the brewery in very limited quantities. What we saw aging was their Russian Imperial Stout which after maturing for 8 months will be available around Christmas. The way Chris talked about it I really wish I lived closer because it sounded like it is going to be delicious.

The tour winded down and Chris stuck around for any lingering questions so I asked him about the big move to Hershey. He said that things were going well and as of right now they are on schedule and should be brewing by June 2011. I was shocked to hear that they were taking the entire operation to Hershey but from what I've read the new location is going to be much more spacious which will be great improvement because we were quite cramped on Saturday. The tasting room is going to have large windows which will allow visitors to watch while they brew, something that I can't wait to check out.

A mock-up of the new brewery

After the tour we grabbed a sampling tray since my girlfriend wasn't familiar with their selections. For $7 you get to try all 7 of their drafts which that day included their year rounds plus Dead Reckoning and Scratch 34, a Belgian style brown. The samples were pretty generous but I was really hoping they would have Mad Elf on tap, but alas. They also have Philly soft pretzels available and you can fill your growler for pretty cheap but of course I neglected to bring mine along for the trip. We finished our sampler and I picked up a bottle of The Flying Mouflan before we headed back to the woods.

The Troegs variety pack was one of the first few cases I bought when my roommates and I were starting to explore the world of real beer so it was a pleasure to visit it's home in Harrisburg. I'm also glad I got to visit their original location before they move out but I think their new brewery will be bigger and better so I would recommend planning a trip next summer. If you happen to find yourself in our state's capital, a place that can get pretty boring pretty quickly, head over to Troegs for a beer because they won't be there for long!

Troegs Brewing Company

800 Paxton St
Harrisburg, PA 17104

Cheers!