Holy F#*@ing Citra Ice Cream

I had dinner at Revolution Brewing here in Chicago a week or so ago for one of my buddy's birthdays. I'm not sure whether I'm just a sucker for good marketing, but I signed up for their mug club after the first time I ate dinner there and find myself going back on a pretty regular basis at this point.

In any case, on this occasion I had some of the standards I've grown to love and tried a few new things. Their Eugene (robust) Porter is a consistently quality beer. My wheelhouse tends to be IPAs and shockingly, I pass over their IPA to drink the Eugene instead. Their Institutionalized Barleywine was up on draft, so I opted for a small pour of it with dessert. It poured a deep, clear red and simply blew me away on the first sip. It was rich, complex and remarkably drinkable for a 9.5% beer.

But the real highlight of the evening was the Citra ice cream. I have no idea what process they used to extract the hop "essence" of citra and get it into that ice cream, but it worked. Phenomenally well. The mango, pineapple, tropical-fruity, slightly catty flavor came through and worked perfectly with the basic vanilla ice cream. I detected some bitterness, but it was largely the aroma / flavor you'd get from the volatile oils and not isomerized alpha acids that came through.

Being somewhat of a food nerd as well, I am absolutely going to try to recreate this so I can consume it in massive quantities.

If you live in Chicago, go try it. If you don't live in Chicago, go try it the next time you visit. And if you don't visit Chicago and you're enough of a beer nerd to be reading this, you should give it a second thought. The craft beer and food scene here is worth it.

Happy Barrel Day!

Yep. Jeremy and I got our hands on one of these bad boys. We'll be making a Russian Imperial Stout quite a bit earlier than originally planned this year. I am really, really excited.

Oh and coincidentally, a pound each of Simcoe and Citra showed up at the same time today.

Seriously happy day today.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout (Scoresheet review)

As per my previous post, I'm going to taste each beer Jeremy and entered in competition this winter against the score sheets we got back. Hopefully paying attention to the feedback from the bjcp judges and making some tweaks will help us to get better.

Since the Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout is still on my main tap handle downstairs I decided to lead off with it.

The score sheet I got back on this one is online here.

My notes:

Aroma
Judges' Notes: Malty, slightly spicy, lightly roasted malt in the background, lack of carbonation hurts

My Notes: Bready, sweet, slightly peppery / yeasty, some very slight green apple

Appearance
Judges' Notes: No carbonation, clear, mahogany
My Notes: Jet black / opaque with tan, lingering head

Flavor
Judges' Notes: Munich breadiness, minimal hop flavor, no hot chocolate flavor, phenolic, minimal spiciness from peppers 
My Notes: Sweet, green apple flavor persists, finishes with some roast bitterness and lingering sweetness (presumably from the lactose in the mexican hot chocolate used)

Mouthfeel 
Judges' Notes: No carbonation, light body, minimal astringency
My Notes: Light, moderate carbonation, slightly "slick" (I'm guessing from the lactose or milkfat)

Overall
Judges' Notes: Lack of carbonation really hurt the beer, malt bill was not quite stout-like, more pepper would have been desirable.
My Notes: I missed the mark on this one. The underlying recipe was good, but I think next time around I'll use more of the hot chocolate spices (chile, cinnamon, cacao nib) and skip the actual hot chocolate. I also get a distinct, but not overpowering acetaldehyde flavor from this one. It'll get more time in the fermentor with a temperature bump next time around.

Score: 21

One of the things which stood out in all of the results from this competition was that our carbonation was off. The Blichmann beer gun is an awesome device, but I don't think we quite have the process dialed in with it. I'm going to experiment with it on the next couple of batches we do in order to get an appropriate level of carbonation. It's good in the keg, but it seems like some is getting lost in the bottling process.

The other changes I'll make on this one are upping the chocolate and roasted malts and using a spice blend instead of actual Mexican Hot Chocolate.

Equipment Notes : Fermentation Heater / Brew Belt

Chicago winters are cold. This one hasn't been as bad as they usually are, but it's still cold. And since I chose to live in an old two flat built in the 1920's (before the advent of modern insulation) that means my basement is cold. I keep the thermostat down there set to 65, but based on the little temperature recording thermometer I keep with the "cellar" beer, the air temp at ground level can get as low as 45F.

So all of this produces great conditions for making lagers (duly noted for next year's brew calendar), but Jeremy and I decided to brew a saison so it'd be ready right as the first signs of spring are appearing. And saison yeast likes it hot. I'd initially thought fermenting at 67 - 68 for the first 48 hours and then turning the fridge controller all the way up to 80 would result in a decent free rise and get the 80-85% attenuation appropriate for a saison.

OG: 1.072
Target FG: 1.010
Original Volume: 5.5 US Gallons

Reality: at 72 hours from pitching, the beer was around 1.036 and 61 degrees F. Damn lazy yeast!

Since brew belts are only about $20 from Brew Camp (my awesome local homebrew store), it seemed like a reasonable piece of equipment to experiment with. Particularly since Saison yeast are tolerant of high fermentation temperatures and I only have a controller suitable for cooling which means the brew belt is just going to be on without a controller.

So this past Wednesday night I bought one and wrapped it around my better bottle per the instructions.

In about twelve hours, it raised the temperature up to 70F and by this morning (36 hours later) it was up to 81F. These bad boys actually work really well. If I were to use it on anything besides a Belgain yeast strain that can handle the heat, it'd be necessary to get a digital controller to prevent it from overheating the beer.

I'll post some stats on the finish beer as well as some tasting notes when it's ready.

First Competition Results

After eagerly checking my physical mailbox like a little kid waiting for something fun for the past two weeks, the score sheets from the first competition Jeremy and I entered our beer into showed up in my gmail inbox Monday night.

Original on Flickr here

I was bummed that we didn't place in any of the categories we entered, but after reading through the sheets I was pretty pleased with the feedback we received. We definitely need to dial in the carbonation process when using the BeerGun and to pay even more attention to getting proper attenuation on our beers.

The Beer Judge Certification Program (www.bjcp.org) uses the following scoring guidelines:
Outstanding : 45 - 50
Excellent : 38 - 44
Very Good : 30 - 37
Good : 21 - 29
Fair : 14 - 20
Flawed : 0 - 13

Here are the scores we ended up with:

Octoberfest (03B) : 27
Russian Imperial Stout #1 (13F) : 24
Russian Imperial Stout #2 (13F) : 26
Citra IPA (14B) : 37 (Booyah!)
Extract Double IPA : 25
Extract Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout : 21

All in all, I think we did reasonably well for a first competition. We're going to sit down with each beer and the score sheet to review the feedback with the actual beers over the next couple of weeks. (More posts to follow...)

Firestone Invitational Beer Fest

I just bought tickets for the first Firestone Invitational Beer Fest for the fiance, a buddy (who lived in San Luis Obispo and introduced me to their beer) and myself. I'm stoked.

Depending on how the flights work out we might hit up some of the other breweries in the northern California / San Fran area. Russian River and 21st amendment are on the list. More details to follow.

Wort Chiller Test

My march pump showed up on this past Monday and I finally got a chance to put it all together tonight. Apparently my limited DIY soldering experience did me pretty well. It didn't leak and fired up a pretty vigorous whirlpool! (It's tough to see in this short video, but there were little flecks of crap in the kettle which all started to settle in the center.)

I can't wait to see this thing in action with real wort and the chiller on!