Come on now, admit it. Walking through the beer store, you look briefly at the end of the cooler with the cheap beer and notice that gray twelve pack for under $6 and think “hmmmm?”. Well I succumbed to the temptation all for the sake of my devoted readership.

Steel Reserve is brewed by the Steel Brewing Company  out of… um… well, there are three different answers to that question. The can states “Fort Worth” in the logo, Milwuakee Wi on the side and the website says Irwindale CA.

Opening the can was like opening any other can of beer. It has a color like, well, no I’m not going to pour this out. Frankly, who would drink it from the glass? Ok, on to drinking.  In the mouth it has a sweet clinging with just a bitter hint of hop. More hop flavor than a Bud, but not much. Once its gone there is that warm glow of alcohol in the mouth along with the sweet clinging at the back of the tongue.

Strangely enough, it starts to taste better the further down the can I get. Maybe that has to do with the 8.1%ABV, though. I’m reading the can and getting a good chuckle, too. “High gravity lager, SLOW brewed for a minimum of 28 days” *gasp*. Sure, to get 8.1% the initial gravity does need to be high, but it also tastes like the final gravity is also on the high side.  Slow brewed, huh? I am no proffesional brewer, but this is really funny to me! When I brew a lager, I leave it in primary at lager temps for at least a month, then secondary for a few more.

I’m going to give this one a half mug up. Honestly, it doesn’t taste bad, it doesn’t taste good but I won’t kick it out of my fridge either.

Cheers!

Raise a pint today for the loss of a beer legend. Michael Jackson, beer reviewer, author, pioneer passed away last night.

From All About Beer:

Michael gave us our voice and vocabulary, and grounded the history and traditions of beer. Beginning in the seventies with the publication of the World Guide to Beer, Michael began beating the drum demanding more respect for beer. He swirled and tasted beer, filling pages with new words. He traveled unceasingly, discovering styles and traditions long gone or on their way out the door. He chided the mainstream press for its beer provincialism. He even wore one glove, just one glove, to mock a similarly named celebrity.

Cheers.

Its fun to walk into a beer store specifically because I need to find something to write about the next day! I’m not sure why I continue to purchase fruit beers for review. I haven’t been overly impressed with many of them. It might be that I’m hoping there is one commercial brewer that can match my cranberry wheat.

Today’s choice is Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. It pours into the glass golden with a slight amber tinge and pretty clear. There is a mix of cherry aroma with the wheat beer smell. I let it sit in the glass while I write this, and just took a sip (or gulp, how ever you define it.) There is cherry nose and a hint of it in the mouth, but it seems almost … funky? Grainy? I don’t get much cherry flavor for some reason. My wife mentioned yesterday that it tasted almost like cough syrup (not a ringing endorsement, for sure). Maybe if I drink it from the bottle.

Nope, not there either. Perhaps something is wrong with my taster. Last night when I had the rest of the bottle that my wife didn’t want, I had just ate an Altoid. Not the best thing before tasting.

I am not having trouble drinking this one. It is not overly sweet and cloying, it doesn’t have a huge cherry presence that I can detect and it tastes like beer. That has been one of my complaints with a lot of the fruit beers out there. If I wanted a wine cooler I would have bought a wine cooler, sheesh.

Over all, I wouldn’t give it a two mugs up, and I won’t buy another 6′er, but I will say its a decent beer, one mug up. It won’t stop me buying the sample pack if its in there.

Sam Adams is one of my favorite macro-microbrews and the brewery tour was a great time. Driving out of Boston afterwards was a nightmare for this Minnesotan, but thats a different story. I’m glad this beer lives up to the reputation.

Yup (sorry dear) I like this one. One frosty mug up. It certainly doesn’t make the BrewDad top ten but I won’t say no, either.

Cheers!

(Off to double check my research.)

I present for your brewing pleasure a strong brown ale recipe.

~7.5lbs Muntons Extra Light LME

0.25lb Black Patent

0.25lb Carapils

0.25lb Crystal 40

1oz Cluster 45mins

1.5oz Fuggles 5min

1/2lb brown sugar

London ale yeast

Enjoy,

Cheers!

I have an oatmeal stout in secondary that is waiting to be kegged. One of the best parts of being a homebrewer and having a kegerator is being able to serve stouts, or any beer for that matter, through a stout faucet with that awesome swirling cascade of bubbles rising and falling. It took me a few tries to tweak the process so it would pour for my system.

Here’s how I get it ready to pour. First, rack the finished beer into the keg, purge with CO2. Connect a black beer out quick disconnect on the CO2 line and put on the keg with the psi at about 10. Shake and rock the keg back and forth for a few minutes, then set in the fridge to cool and settle. After an hour or so, remove the CO2 and hook up the Beer gas to beer out at 25psi. I put the gas through the beer out to percolate the gas up through the beer. Who knows if it works better or not, but I think it does, and that is all that matters, isn’t it?

I leave the keg charging for as long as I can stand it. It usually take a couple of days to even out and give me that great frothy smooth pour. When I can’t stand it any more I switch the quick disconnects to what they are supposed to be, hook up to the faucet and pour. I’ve found 25psi works well for a serving pressure with my faucet. Any more and it comes out too fast.

Don’t do this if you don’t have a stout faucet! It needs to be a genuine honest to goodness “stout faucet” with the restricter plate in side. If you try this with a regular faucet you will most definitely get a mess.

Cheers!

(Beer gas is a mix of N2 and CO2 used to serve fancy stouts through the stout faucet and commercially to push beer over long distances without messing up the carbonation balance.)

Ring of Fire Wheat is named because of the special adjuncts added to the secondary where the existence of alcohol better extracts the essence of the addition. There are maybe one dozen people who know what my Ring of Fire tasted like, and I mentioned it in a previous post. It is my pepper beer. Here is the recipe. The peppers themselves were roasted in the oven at 375degF for 10 minutes for each addition. If I do this one again, I’ll just toss them on the grill to get a lot more smokey flavor. My idea came shamelessly from the Brewhouse in Duluth MN. Thanks Frank!

The nice thing about adding to secondary over a few weeks is being able to get the heat desired without burning it.

Ring of Fire Wheat

6.6lbs Briess Bavarian Wheat Malt Extract

1/2oz Cluster hops 7.1%AA 60min

1/2oz Liberty hops 5.0%AA 10min

1/4lb Anaheim peppers, halved length wise and “roasted” in the oven

4 serranos treated as above

2 Jalepenos treated as above

Add roasted peppers to bottom of secondary, taste after a few days to determine heat then add more if needed. The idea was to give it a nice burn along with the smoked chipotle flavor. I likened it to eating chips and salsa while drinking beer… without the chips and salsa.

Cheers!

Thanks Scott!!!!

Up for today’s review is Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s 90 Minute Imperial India Pale Ale. Before I taste it and write my impressions I wanted to describe what I know about the beer first. It is a legend in brewing communities for crazy hopping. The only beer talked about more in hop circles is the Dogfish Head 120 minute. They continuously add hops for the full 90 minutes of the boil extracting a full spectrum of hop character from start to finish. It is looked at as a hop lovers paradise of crazy hoppiness.

No, I haven’t tried it yet.  I’m hoping I’ll not be disappointed!

Upon opening I received a whiff of hoppiness that dispelled quickly. It pours into the pint glass fairly light and faint amber with a short white head and a little cloudiness.  There is a definite hop aroma from the glass, but not as strong as I would expect from a dryhopped beer.

The sip.

Oooh, amazingly malty with those wonderful bitters in the back, not at all what I was expecting. This could be a scary beer, looking at the bottle it rings in at 9% abv. It definitely has that warm glow after I swallow, but again, I am truly amazed that it is as well balanced as it is! I could sit and drink a few of these if I had them. Thats scary.

For being as strong as it is, and knowing the hopping ratio I am really surprised at how balanced and GOOD it is, not from a hop fanatics standpoint, but from a general beer stand point.  It is a class of its own, Surly Furious has way more hop character in your face bitter than this, this is almost mellow in comparison. Quite good! (I let my wife have a taste, she gave me that “eew” face, she’s not a fan of big hop.)

Overall, I am really surprised at its balance and delicacy for being such a big beer. I truly look forward to putting my mitts around the 120!

Cheers!

(I have to finish the glass, I should have waited until after I mowed the lawn, now its going to be all erratic and goofy )

A fellow brewer posted about about an article on the Bostonist. Someone bid $500,000 for a bottle of beer brewed in 1852.

Now, everyone who knows me knows I take my beer fairly seriously, but…

Half a mil?

Wow.

“But one beer lover’s gain is another’s loss. Seattlest notes that the beer first appeared on eBay and was sold for a measly $304. The buyer turned around and sold it for $500,000. The seller – a guy from Lynn, actually – is probably wishing he got that sucker appraised at Antiques Roadshow before putting it up on eBay. “

You know what, I’m afraid if I found that thing, I’d crack ‘er open to see how it tastes! Then find out what it was worth.

Cheers!

Ron at Hop Talk wrote up a solid description of Beer Butt Chicken, if you like grilling, beer and chicken but don’t know what its all about, hop over and take a read.

I’ve done this a number of times as well, but never on a gas grill. Since my new gas grill has a rotisserie, I don’t know if I’ll try it on the new one but I’m not getting rid of my little smokey joe, it holds one beer butt chicken perfectly. I like to stand it up in a pie tin, keeps the juices near by and like Ron’s foil, prevents flare ups.

One huge modification I did on the beer butt chicken was smoking a beer butt Turkey. In my stand up smoker it cut the cook time in half. I had to buy a sixer of cheap beer and a tall Beamish can. You guessed it, drink the good beer, pour the cheap beer in. The taller can kept the bird upright and stable.

One final add on to it, stick half an apple or onion in the neck to really seal in the steam and add some additional flavor!

Great post idea, guys!

Cheers!

Our house will be busy busy in the coming week. We’ll be having house guests from Tuesday until Friday afternoon. The big transfer happening on Thursday when E & R leave in the morning and M,F, & J arrive in the afternoon! How in the world does this pertain to beer?

Aah, I’m glad I asked.

All of our guests enjoy it. In fact, most of our guest enjoy the very same types that I enjoy. Therefore, it is nearly a foregone conclusion that I will be enjoying a beer or two in the coming days. Possibly even more than one or two.

Here is the fair warning. I am guessing the coming week will have a couple of recipes and a couple reviews! I need to keg that oatmeal stout and rack the rye. Maybe I’ll let the stout ride another week, though.

If I’m really lucky it will stop raining, so we can enjoy the beer and conversations out on the deck!

Cheers!