Schafly American Pale Ale

My dad was harping on how good he thought Schlafly's American Pale Ale was. I actually had a Schlafly Pale Ale shirt one time. I bought it when I visited their brew pub in St. Louis years ago.

The pale ale I had at his house had a different label, and I didn't remember their pale ale tasting like this. I thought it was more of an "English" style of pale ale. This one had a better hop profile than say, the Sierra Nevada, which I refer to as the American pale ale standard. It was good. I do still like pale ales, but I think I'm going to put them on the backburner as anything I buy anymore, unless it's one of Shoreline Brewery's pale ales, which are just awesome.

Dad also had some of Schlafly Christmas Ale, which appeared to be a brown ale with spices in it. I thought that it was an excellent beer, although I was drinking it out of a stein mug, and therefore didn't get to see what it looked like except from the pour.

Schlafly only distributes to a 300-mile radius, so I don't get their stuff up here in NW Indiana. I used to be able to get a few varieties when I lived in Mattoon, Illinois, which I thought was pretty great for a town that size.

On the way back, we passed a Schlafly truck. I think a trip to St. Louis in the late spring/early summer would be in order to maybe go see the Cubs play down there and visit Schlafly.

What Does This Tell You?

So, is Miller admitting what I've said all along about Miller Lite? There's seriously an underlying theme here that is pretty obvious: It's piss!

My First All Grain: Esseola 181 Pale Ale

We were finally able to get John's new mash tun and boiling kettle up and running (okay, so really, John did his own work on both of these things). He ordered a Roggenbier kit from Northern Brewer, also All Grain, and I made up a pale ale recipe, loosely based on Three Floyd's Alpha King, but also just on the American Pale Ale style I had seen somewhere else, as well as an early recipe I had made up based on what I thought was the hop profile of Shoreline's SumNug IPA. Top that all off with a song by Jolene called "Esseola 181" which reminded me of Asheville, North Carolina with the chorus, "This town in Blue Ridge..." and there you have the basics.


So after fucking up a few recipes, I've sort of learned some things (I would say for the most part, the beers we've made have been good, but there have been shortfalls: I don't know what happened with the Tongue Splitter kit. I think the yeast didn't have enough healthy food. The first Witbier had like a quarter pound of cloves in it, and was definitely overwhelming on that front, and the Pilsner, which actually was pretty excellent, came out about 0.010 lower in the original gravity than I wanted due to me shoving about 5 pounds of grain into one bag instead of 4, for better utilization of the sugars...pretty much everything else except the Jinx clone which turned out not to be a Jinx clone has been very good), including dry-hopping, using yeast starters, oxygenating the beer with a tank of oxygen, etc.

I have also been screwing around with Promash, which is a software for homebrewing. I think it can be set up for businesses, but then those guys know way more than me, so I'm not sure how they do it. I finally bought the whole version instead of messing around with the sample, and life is good. I totally recommend it.

I was also able to use an 1.25 oz of Zeus hops that I grew in my back yard for this. I opted to use these primarily as the boiling hop, but next time might use the Nugget instead, and use the Zeus for flavoring hops. I put 1 oz in at 60 minutes, and used the remainder of Nugget and Zeus in the secondary. I also got an ounce of Amarillo hops for the end of the boil, because I really like Amarillo hops.

So we made the beer, and after about a week in the bottle, John and his family were over for Christmas Eve dinner and he says, "That beer should be ready by now." I'm skeptical. I always like it to be bottled/kegged for at least 3 weeks, and then wait another week for good measure. I'm patient that way. Plus, I was giving my dad a case at first, for Christmas, but then I ended up only giving him 12 plus 6 Tad, 2 Ciders, and 4 beers he can't get in Missouri.

So we try the beer, and there's definitely not enough head on it for me, but it smells good, tastes good, and it's carbonated. Of course, I figured I would wait and see what happened, and sure enough, on January 11, I tried it, and it's awesome. The hop profile is great, plus, there's this underlying caramel taste that I haven't picked up in a pale ale before. It's very nice.

Esseola 181
5 gallon batch - All Grain

11.0 lbs U.S. 2-row Pale Malt
1.0 lb Crystal Malt 60*L
0.5 lb Caramunich
Steep at 155*F for 45 minutes
1.0 oz Zeus @ 60 min.
0.25 oz Nugget @ 30 min.
1.0 oz Amarillo @ 5 min.
0.75 oz Nugget - Dry Hop
0.25 oz Zeus - Dry Hop
Wyeast American Ale II Yeast

Boulevard Smokestack Seiries - Saison

My friend, P-Mart, guest-wrote a blog on this site about Boulevard's Doublewide IPA, which is another of the Smokestack Series. While in Missouri over the holidays, I got to try the above-mentioned beer for myself, as well as try two of the other four in the series. The only one I didn't try was the Long Strange Tripel, mostly because my dad opted for a bottle of this Saison, again, after we had one the first night I showed up. I've been a little tripeled-out, lately, so I wasn't too disappointed. Since it looks like they're going to brew this style year after year, I can probably try that one at a later time.

The Saison pours and appears like you would expect a Saison to pour and appear - golden and cloudy with a nice, white, fluffy head. There is a smell there that somehow reminds me of when I first smelled beer in Germany. I know it's the yeast, but it's not necessarily the entire smell you get from the yeast. You get a distinct sharpness in the nose that tells you this isn't any normal ale or American lager. It's a stinkiness that I enjoyed.

The beer has a smooth flavor with a slight hop bite at the end. It's a very good example of the style, maybe even better than the bottle of Saison DuPont I shared with my dad over Thanksgiving.

This was my Dad's third beer of the first night we were there, and I think he was full. He said, "We should have started off with this one," and left half his glass full. After about 10 hours in the car, which was a longer trip than I expected, due to a driving delay on the ice-rink that I-94 became the day after Christmas, I just wanted to go to bed as well.

New Belgium Tripel

What we enjoy in life helps to add character to who we are. For me, a place becomes more tolerable when it has a decent beer selection. When I say place, I can mean anything from a gas station to a restaurant to a town.

For example, we were going to a business dinner one night at a Mediterranean restaurant (Sahara in Michigan City). I figured I would probably be drinking water there because they more than likely were not going to have anything except American Lager. I was suprised to find Rogue Mocha Porter and Bell's Two-Hearted Ale there. The dinner was great, of course, but the beer selection made it even better to me.

When I travel to see my folks in a small town in southwestern Missouri, I know there's not going to be a lot going on. It's nice that way, because really, I am there just to see them. However, at the end of the 8-hour drive I know that I'm going to be able to go into my Dad's fridge and find a variety of New Belgium and Boulevard beers there.

Before coming up for Thanksgiving, my Dad said they had loaded their old treadmill into the back of the truck and he was wondering what else they could bring. I told him I wanted some New Belgium 1554 and anything else he wanted to bring. He ended up bringing me some New Belgium Tripel.

I thought that a Trippel was a Trippel. Then I remembered over the Labor Day weekend, I had two really good Trippels at a friend's house in Illinois, and one average Trippel. La Fin Du Monde and Victory's Golden Monkey rate up there with a nice flavor, and a decent alcohol kick. I have to say the New Belgium Trippel was just okay. Not as strong as the two mentioned, and not as spicy as say the Dark Horse Sapient Trip Ale or Flying Dog Kerebos versions I had in Illinois.

Also, that yeast that they use I suppose I've gotten used to, but the harsh bite of dirt is there with the first drink. I can't describe this any other way. Can I say "Earthy?" Mayhap that will do.

Still, it kills me that the old man can buy cases of New Belgium beers at his local Sam's Club. I guess I shouldn't complain, I can get 4 kinds of Three Floyd's at my local Jewel grocery store.

Beer Social Networks - Sharing the Love

I wanted to let everyone know about a new social network called Must Love Beer. I found this through a facebook link. It looks like it's just starting up. I already frequent the boards on Northern Brewer and ratebeer.com. I think some Bud drinkers must be hacking ratebeer.com, though. It's been crashing a lot lately. And someone took my Cheap Trick icon down.

As you may already know, blogging about beer isn't an original idea. I've got a few bloggers listed to the right, and most of them are from people who have linked to me or left comments. One thing I am kind of interested in are women who appreciate craft beers. Let's face it, for the most part, it would not appear that there are as many women interested in different styles of beer and brewing as men are. I'm not saying that there aren't ANY women out there who really like beer and want to try a lot of kinds, I'm just saying, you're not showing up in large quantities. This, of course, is reflected in what American society considers as beer, and depending upon what you read, when all the men went to war in Europe and Asia from 1941 - 1945, this affected how brewers made their beer (lighter, less hoppy).

Here's what fascinates me most: Women homebrewers. What kind of styles do they like to brew? Are they pretty much the same as most men? (Although, I have to admit, some homebrewers out there pick some pretty boring and standard stuff to brew). Do they do a better job with their ingredients, are they more creative? I'm not sure, but I bet you the folks over at Beer for Chicks could tell you. Obviously, as I don't possess the correct equipment, I am not privy to this site. However, that does not stop me from supporting the cause.

Another good place to check out is the forums at Northern Brewer. I've received good advice from the brewers over there.

Places like Must Love Beer, Beer Advocate, and Rate Beer all allow you to talk about beers you've tried, and also look up beers you've heard about to see what people think and maybe determine if you want to find something new. Plus, if you're one of those youngsters out there who has some kind of mobile internet device, you can check out BA or RB right at the store, if you can get a connection. Find out right on the spot if you're getting something great, or pisswater.

Have an excellent weekend!

Trip to Southeast Ohio

Sorry about not posting last week. I was in meetings all day for two solid weeks and then I had to go on a business trip to the southeast Ohio/West Virginia area.

I flew into Columbus and rode with some other people to Marietta. At the airport, there was a Columbus Brewing Company restaurant just outside my gate. I had two hours to wait for my co-workers, so I decided to see what kind of beer they were serving.

They had two offerings from Columbus (as well as offerings from Budweiser and Miller), a pale ale and a porter. I got the pale ale but wish I would have tried the porter. I was feeling like something hoppy, though. I thought the pale ale was reminiscent of the Sierra Nevada pale ale. Good, but not very original.

Marietta is a cool, little town. There are lots of good restaurants and it's sort of an "artist's town" if you know what I mean. Two rivers run next to it, the Muskingum on the west, and the Ohio River to the south. Very hilly, and lots of cool bridges. Across the way in West Virginia are small towns, curvy two-lane highways, and a good bit of industry. Still, this is small town, rural Ohio and West Virginia, and the fridges of the people around here are like most small town fridges in the U.S., full of Bud Light.

During the trip, I had the opportunity to eat at the Marietta Brewing Company. It would appear that they don't keep their website up to date, or they had a massive turnaround of their beer since last Tuesday. At the time, they had 5 beers of their own on tap, plus Woodchuck Cider. The beers, as I remember, were the Marietta Pale Ale, McLaren's Scotch Ale, a raspberry wheat, a smoked porter, and a "weiss" beer. I was able to sample each of these.

The MBC knows the people in the area, and having to stay in business, caters to these tastes. I was told the place was packed on the weekends, and it was doing good business on Tuesday night.

The MBC pale ale was similar to the Columbus pale ale, in the way it tasted pretty much like Sierra Nevada pale ale. In my opinion, it's pretty much the standard for American pale ale.

I didn't care much for the Raspberry Wheat. I like a good fruit beer, but this reminded me too much of the raspberry tea that I've had in certain chain restaurants while travelling.

The Scotch Ale was dangerous. No alcoholic aftertaste. This batch was 7.8% ABV, and I was told by a person I was eating with that it had been higher. I told one of my co-workers to be careful with this one. Sweet and malty, and disguising the higher than average ABV. He didn't listen, and subsequently was looking around the opposite end of the hotel parking lot the next morning for the car. He didn't drive the night before.

The smoked porter was very smokey, almost had a "hammy" taste to it. This was very nice.

The "weiss" beer tasted like a Belgian Wit, even though the waitress said it was a German weizen beer style. The ingredients are pretty close in those style of beers, but the yeast tasted to me like a Belgian. Whatever. My palette hasn't always been as true to me as I've wanted.

The food at MBC was excellent. I can't recall any specifics other than decent burgers, even a buffalo burger, other sandwiches, and full entrees. I know it was pretty standard stuff, but solid.
Definitely support the local brewer if you're in this area. Also check out The House of Wines up 3rd Street, as they have over 400 beers in the shop, but no "Make your own 6-pack" option.