The In the Red Red

We were going to take a hike today, but the iffy weather and Cindy's b-day make it the perfect day for brewing! It was awesome to see Kelly Patterson and Mike at Brew Craft today. This is our first brew with the new equipment and without any of our senseis (CD, Snake, or the Arbses). We are departing from the pale ale/IPA track briefly to try a West Coast ( = hoppy) red ale. If it's yummy, I'm hoping to do the same recipe substituting mugwort for some of the hops. We'll see!

Pavement on the hi-fi, cats helping out, leftover Mexican food to sustain us. And only two calls to Snake.

Grains:
2 lbs Maris otter
1/2 lb 30-37
1/4 lb aromatic
1/8 lb ?caraffee (can't read Griz's writing)

Malt extract:
6 1/2 lbs

Bittering hops: Northern Brewer and Willamette
Aromatic hops: Willamette

1 tab clearing agent

Yeast: California ale

Learning points:
1. As Snake already knows, less wort is betta in terms of heating up/cooling down time. Start with pot 1/2 full (vs. 2/3) and sparge sparingly.
2. The dextrose is not the gypsum. (So there wasn't any gypsum in this one. What difference can a tsp really make with our good SF water, anyway?)
3. As far as the endgame, we put 1.5 gallons of cool water, added all the wort at about ~85 (though all we really know is < 100), pitched the yeasties, and topped off with about another gallon of water, then stirred. Vigorously indeed.

Should be ready to drink on Earth Day (4/22)!

SF Beer Week Opening Gala 2010

Have to say, I was feeling some major NorCal brew pride last night. We have so many quality craft breweries, and lots of people were out enjoying them. Most of the breweries present have been stops on past Brew Tours, so we focused on the places we've never been. Though the old faves broke out some special brews that were definitely worth tasting. So in celebration of Arnie's birthday, we raised our commemorative glassware a few too many times...

We started off with Linden Street, a pretty new brewery in Oaktown. We all had the black lager and dug it: smooth like a lager with more complexity of a dark beer. Brew Crew, we should pay them a visit sometime.

Then we hit Napa Smith and tried the Red Ale, high gravity for a Red at 7.4%, and the pourer called in their "amber on steroids" with a stronger hop profile, straight hop nose. I agreed it was like a "pushed" red with good results -- one of my favorite beers of the evening. Their IPA was just released, and it needs a little tweaking. Had that "weed" nose that SG loves so much, but then the taste didn't back it up, kinda thin and acidic.

We grabbed a Humming Pale Ale from Anchor, which uses Nelson Sauvin hops, which I've never heard of. Apparently they're from New Zealand? Anyway, SG thought it was less bitter than the Liberty, with a light almost soapy finish. We heart Anchor.

On to Drake's Brewing from San Leandro, and man, they are making some good beer out in the burbs. I had their 1500, a dry-hopped pale. Beer of the night, in my opinion, with nothing to distract from the crisp hop and an effervescence in the flavor, not just the carbonation, if that makes sense. They were cagey about which hops were used, something about Columbus, Simcoe, and Amarillo. They do Friday afternoon tasting room stuff, people -- may have to forsake Speakeasy one of these weeks.

Then I was a brave girl and tried the Twelve Quadruppel from Black Diamond in Concord. (Cind, I'm going to try to talk you into a Bay Area Brew Tour again one of these years, my friend.) It kicked my ass with alcohol content but sort of serendipitously helped cut the chipotle salsa on my delicious Tacolicious tacos. I was glad to be sitting down, though.


Speakeasy was pouring the Imperial Common that was some kind of collaboration between local breweries for this event. He poured us FULL GLASSES of the stuff, saying, "That's how it should be poured." Mind you, there was one dump bucket in the whole room, and the few times I asked for a half pour, I was openly mocked. Though beer is being treated a little bit more like wine, it never will go all the way there, and that's a good thing. Anyway, the Imperial was surprisingly drinkable, not too sweet or syrupy. Pretty nutty, oat-y, and full, but like I'm saying, refreshingly like a regular beer.

I tried the Lil Opal from Firestone, which was a Saison aged in Viogner barrels. They're doing a lot of this barrel aging stuff, which I think is an interesting direction for those breweries that are also wineries. As I wrote about North Coast's Le Merle, I think saisons will be my entree to Belgians, and this Viogner situation put "training wheels on the training wheels." Blunted the dreaded Belgian edge even more. SG went straight for his beloved Union Jack.

I thought I was done but then I saw that my home brewery, Marin Brew Co was doing an herbal ale called the E.S. Chi. Complete with this printed flier spewing all this bullshit about Chinese Medicine and how this was a yin-yang balanced beer. Um, yeah. But it tasted OK, very rooty, and I did chat them up about gruits and making a mugwort beer and whatever.

Then we went and washed it all down with coconut pineapple "margaritas" at Chevy's. We love you, birthday boy!

Overall, a super successful tasting with some new discoveries and a cool sense of brew community. Drink local! Speaking of, apparently a new place called Social Kitchen and Brewery is going to be opening out at that 9th Ave location...