Rites of Passage

I was doing some cleanup after our last batch and noticed that one of my Better Bottles had some cracks in the bottom rim. It's not the first piece of equipment I've had to retire. I had another Better Bottle which I've designated for Brett fermentation only, an autosiphon which has visible scrapes and scratches all over the inside of it which I pitched, a few beakers which were process casualties and at least a couple of stir bars which made their way down the drain. And not to mention Jeremy and I have started following Jamil's recommendation and replacing all of our soft plastic tubing every year.

All in all, equipment casualties do seem to be par for the course in order to maintain proper sanitation. Given space to "cellar"beer (at least to the best that my basement can maintain cool temperatures during these Chicago summers) we've seen infection crop up in beers after they sit for a while. I know that there's some wild yeast and bugs floating around in my back yard and basement, but changing out equipment seems to have bought us more stable beer for now.

It's not just equipment that starts to fall by the wayside as you get better. Once we hit the point where our beer started to consistently taste really good, it stopped making sense to stretch ingredients. Old hops which had sat warm or grain which had not been properly stored got pitched, as do anything which doesn't taste or smell right before a brew day. Ultimately it's a little less economical on the front side, but I'd rather spend a few extra bucks on equipment and ingredients than end up dumping a whole batch because of contamination. And I'm pretty sure we're all in this hobby to make good beer, right? 

Public Service Announcement

(Lifted from Goose's Website.)

Go buy yourself a four pack of Goose Island's Matilda. And don't drink it. Seriously - do yourself a favor and sit on it for at least year.

I live in Chicago and drink a handful of Goose's beers on a semi-regular basis. I've always thought Matilda was a good offering, but never something I'd seek out. Fresh from the brewery it's a bit too sweet and my take was always that Goose was doing a crappy job of trying to produce a Belgian Golden Strong or a Tripel.

I was dead wrong. I hereby apologize to Goose Island for unfairly discrediting them on this effort. Until I really upped the ante on my knowledge of beer styles (through the BJCP and my own brewing) I was sadly unaware of the existence of 'Belgian Specialty Ale', a category created specifically to capture Orval.

As such, I just didn't get this beer. But last summer I got a few four packs and just let it sit in my basement, waiting to offload it onto some family or friends during a special occasion or a gathering at my house. During that year of aging, something magical happened. The brett introduced during barrel aging woke up and went to work. The beer dries out and gains an entirely different dimension of complexity. T distinct barnyard funk and some of the other more distinctive esters from brett become more pronounced and round the beer out.

So maybe it was just my ignorance of this style, the less evolved and less funk-friendly state of my palate, or maybe it was just the fact that I've never had the chance to try a substantially aged sample of this beer. But I was missing out. And if you've never had Matilda after some cellaring, so are you.