“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about… BEER!” -Friar Tuck from the movie Robinhood.
“A great beer is like a great glass of wine except without all the pretentious bullshit.” -me
Beer Is Good
Most of the American founding fathers were brewers (including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison). The oldest recorded recipe in the world found on Egyptian scrolls from 5000BC is for beer. Malted barley and beer like residue were left behind by Mesopotamians circa 10,000 BC. Beer kept Europeans alive during the plague with nutritional benefits and as a safe alternative to water. Belgian and German monks made several innovations in a renaissance of beer making during this time. There is a 500 year old purity law in Germany stating that beer can only contain barley, hops, and water. The Germans don’t mess around with their beer (and the Belgians do). I studied for a summer in Munich Germany and every morning I would run the Octoberfest grounds before class while they were slowly building everything in preparation for the biggest beer fest in the world. In the evening I would try another amazing German beer and that’s where my journey as a brewer started.
My Brewing Masterpiece or Cat Urine?
After many years of home brew batches, I am trying my hand at making a Belgian sour that takes 18 months to age. It’s kind of in the style of Duchesse De Bourgogne which is one of my favorite beers. It’s kind of a scary commitment. Will I keep the light out and the temp stable over a year and a half? Will I forget to top off the airlock and turn my brew into vinegar a year into it? Only time will tell but it will be kind of hilarious if I take that first sip and it ends up tasting like fermented cat urine.
Beermaking in a few easy photos
I started by taking a mix of 5 different malted grains and steeping in hot water for 90 minutes in an insulated cooler to keep the heat in. This lets all the sugars and flavors come out of the malt just like a giant teabag steeping JLP’s morning Earl Grey, Hot!
After draining the liquid from this mash, I did a few steps of boiling and adding hops at different intervals (for aromatics and/or bitterness):
The sugary hoppy mixture that I have at this point is called wort for some unappetizing reason. I drain this wort through a chilled line to bring the temperature down quickly (cleaner flavor this way) and then once the temp is low enough I pitch in a mix of yeast strains and bacteria (bacteria is the secret to sours). I let this sit sit in a sealed 5 gallon bucket and the magic of fermentation begins:
After about a month, I transfer this fermenting beer to a glass carboy. This gets rid of lots of sediment left behind in the plastic bucket which can impart off flavors over the giant year and a half that this beer will age. I wonder if people will still be drinking beer that far in the future.
In the pic above, you may notice the floating brown chunks in my beer. Fear not, that’s just oak chips. These are to impart a barrel aged taste since I don’t have a spare cask laying around from my french winery.
Now we wait one year, and then will repeat this whole brewing process above blending the 2 batches. I’ll update this as progress continues.
This is what the beer is looking like after 10 months. All that funk on the top is actually normal. It is the blooms from the yeasties and the “good” bacteria that would have kept you alive by drinking beer during the plague instead of water:
This could be the greatest beer I’ve ever made. My Sistine Chapel of brewing…..or cat urine. Stay tuned….this should be ready for tasting by January 2020 haha