Beer n’ Books: Gardening for the Homebrewer

Title: Gardening for the Homebrewer
Author(s): Wendy Tweten and Debbie Teashon
ISBN: 978-0760345634
Pages: 208
Release date: September 15, 2015
Publisher: Voyageur Press
Genre: Nonfiction/How to
Format: Softcover
Source: Review copy

As I watch my attempt to grow barley wither into brown shrivels of failure, I prepare for next Spring. Winter means reading, research, and learning from my mistakes. I took a ton of notes and wrote quite a lot about my experience growing my own beer ingredients this year, but as much as I’ve learned, I’m still seeking something more comprehensive.

There’s not a lot out there for the intrepid homebrewing soilophile.

There’s a 1998 book, The Homebrewer’s Garden, by Dennis Fisher, which includes solid information, but spreads itself thin, trying to cover too many grains, herbs, and other sundry ingredients. It’s also 17 years old; a lot has changed in beer and brewing (hop and barley varieties, just as a start, never mind technology), making this guide feel a bit sepia tone when read by a member of the internet generation.

Then come the Brewing Elements series from Brewer’s Publications. These four are a must read for any brewer (home or otherwise) who has even the tiniest inkling of interest in the science behind the beverage. But for the wealth of knowledge contained therein, these books are still fundamentally informational; For the Love of Hops contains a brief section on growing your own hops, but is moreso dedicated to the history and scientific workings of the cultivar. The same goes for the other three; excellent books, but lacking practical lessons.

Anyone looking to (successfully) grow any beer ingredient at home likely has to turn to the internet (or, for you AHA members, old copies of Zymurgy Magazine). That’s not the worse thing ever, but correlating loose content from various websites can be as tedious as weeding an overgrown carrot patch.

Fellow blogger Ed from The Dogs of Beer was kind enough to CC me on an offer for a review copy of Gardening for the Homebrewer. I happily wrapped my dirty little hands around the book, hoping for a spiritual update to Fisher’s work.

Physically, the book is gorgeous: full-color macro photographs that look good enough to scratch and sniff, color-coded text boxes with faux-decoupage flair, near-perfect formatting that organizes the content brilliantly. It’s really a pleasure to read, and the visuals don’t detract from the writing itself. While written by two people, it reads in one coherent voice, offering direct explanation and guidance with little pomp or fluff.

It’s broken into distinct sections over seven chapters, starting with a basic primer on gardening that’s simple enough for a total rookie, but also contains just enough for the journeyman. Chapter 2 covers beer, but only spans 25 pages. The malting process is described across two pages, with no images or sundry information to guide the reader. If you are looking for a book on the basics of beer before it’s even near the kettle, this has some good information. If you were looking for a more comprehensive guide to barley, malting, or troubleshooting the latter, keep on searching.

More than half of the book is dedicated to “other” which in this case means grapes, berries, herbs, apples, pears, and more. Much like Fisher’s book, Gardening for the Homebrewer reads an inch deep and a mile long. Trying to cover all these plants and ingredients is an admirable goal, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and readers like me wanting more.

From their bios on the last page and a quick Google, it’s clear that both Tweten and Teashon are very accomplished gardeners. What is unclear is if they are homebrewers (or have ever homebrewed). While all of the information presented is factually correct, there’s a sort of disconnect in the exposition, as if they are more focused on the plants than their role as an ingredient in the brewing process. That could be my beerish romanticism pontificating and not an actual flaw, but it’s worth noting there’s next to no brewing-related content in this book. Suggestions for what beverage the plant might go best in, but not a lot about when or how to include it in a typical brewing/fermentation process.

Regardless of their identity as brewers, the co-authors do a fantastic job of outlining some of the most practical (and sometimes hard to find, even with a black belt in Google-fu) details of growing. Simple but integral details like appropriate USDA growing zone, spacing, and pruning are included for every plant. Most even have a picture of the mature plant, a surprisingly helpful addition for someone who starts with a handful of seeds and isn’t entire sure what elderberry is actually supposed to look like.

Despite not having what I was looking for, I enjoyed this book, and will continue to use it as a reference. The overview of growing conditions are worth the price alone (there are 52 total, ranging from mint to plums), and the rather thorough section of cider apples taught me a lot I though I already knew (but apparently didn’t).

More a book for gardeners who like brewing-related plants than brewers turned gardners, but well written, edited, and presented nonetheless.

The Real Threat to IPA Market Share: Consumer Health

(Warning, this post contains some dietary SCIENCE! I’ll also note that I’m not a doctor or a scientist, so any doctors or scientists who read this can feel free to correct me and I’ll update accordingly)

There’s a lot of buzz in the beer industry about India Pale Ale (IPA) reaching critical mass in terms of market share, and a quick glace at any US beer store might betray a prophecy coming true. But despite an overwhelming selection, the data and money follow the hops, and for the time being, America can’t get enough humulus lupulus.

The legacy of lager rumbles in the background like a storm on the horizon, while sour beers pop up in a perfectly mowed IPA lawn like defiant dandelions. The winds are changing slowly, subtly. If I had to bet, I’d put my money on a trend shift away from IPAs, and my guess is that the move won’t be entirely grounded in consumer burnout or “lupulin threshold shift,” but partly fueled by consumer health.

Let’s make no pretenses: as much as we love it, beer is not a health food. The contemporary spike in beer appreciation means a lot more people are putting a lot more beer into their systems, which will, at some point or another, manifest as slight (to severe) medical complications. By graduating from pale adjunct lager to IPA, we’re ingesting record numbers of hops and their constituent chemical parts, the impacts of which have yet to be realized (but no, for the millionth time, you won’t grow man-boobs).

Alpha Acids

The metric used to measure a hop in brewing is alpha acid. Typically listed as a percentage by weight, this term as Stan Hieronymus defines it in For the Love of Hops, “in fact refers to to multiple acids that are similar in structure but significantly different.” The three that matter most to beer are humulone, cohumulone, and adhumulone, which, when isomerized in a brewing boil, become the six iso-alpha acids that give us that desired bitterness.

The amount of acids extracted during the boil is reliant on the pH of the mash and wort, but IPAs tend to have significantly more parts per millions than other styles:

“Commonly, these iso-alpha acids are found in beer at levels from a staggeringly low value of 1.6ppm (Michelob Ultra) to over 40ppm (Ruination IPA)” -Beer Sensory Science

TL;DR – IPAs, by nature of being an aggressively hopped style, contain more iso-alpha acids.

A few months ago, a former coworker and brother-in-writing-arms sent me what I thought was an innocuous message over Gmail chat:

“I’m telling you, since I quit drinking IPAs, no more heartburn.”

I dismissed his comment as a personal gastrointestinal discovery, thinking maybe the rest of his diet was contributing to his over-achieving acid production. But the thought stuck with me, festered as if it were indigestion itself, until one night a few weeks ago, when I drank a Bell’s Two-Hearted IPA.

Heartburn after about half a beer. For the medical record, as to not appear to be falsely attributing causes, I’m an athletic, water drinking, veggie eating young man, with no predisposition to acid reflux in my genetic history.

I’ve had plenty of Two-Hearted in the past, love the beer, and never had an averse reaction to drinking it. But recently, any IPA over ~50 IBUs sets me off, and if I dare drink more than a couple in an evening, I wake up feeling like I used my esophagus to put out a campfire.

Time to dig deeper, said my brain. Time to drink more water, said the rest of my body.

Beer pH and You 

A normal human body has an overall  pH that hovers around a very slightly alkaline ~7.4 (remember from Chem 101: the logarithmic scale is 0 to 14, acid to alkaline). Beer’s pH varies by style, but is always acidic (~3.1-~4.5). For reference, black coffee tends to have a pH of ~5, while soda pop sits around ~3. That’s a lot of liquefied acid.

Basic logic and chemistry means that when we drink beer, we’re adding an acidic solution to an alkaline environment, which, after diffusion, will bring down the alkaline levels of the body in turn. This is normal; hell, our stomach is filled with 1.5-3 pH hydrochloric acid, but the deeply alkaline environment of our bones and muscular system help balance everything out.

Homeostasis is amazing.

The problem appears when consistently introducing acidic solutions to a body trying to remain neutral. While its pH remains similar to other styles, IPAs tend to have more additional acids in suspension waiting to be processed by your body, meaning the style contributes even more acid increasing compounds on top of an already acidic drink. While all beer will eventually lower you body pH, (in theory) IPA will do it faster, and with more gusto!

Eventually, if chronic enough, a low body pH leads to a condition called acidosis. This condition can cause serious respiratory and nervous system issues, but is also one of the main causes of acid reflux and GERD. Combine IPAs with other acidic or acid-promoting foods (like those found in large majority of American diets), and you’ve got a recipe for a pretty miserable existence where popping Prilosec like Larry the Cable guy becomes a morning ritual.

Alcohol, too

Brewing an good IPA is a beautiful tango between sweetness and bitterness, between malt and hops. As the amount of hops in a recipe rises, the brewer needs to use more malt to retain a semblance of balance. More malt means more sugar, more sugar means more alcohol. It’s the reason a lot of modern IPAs clock in around ~7% or higher, and why a lot of people (like me) think session IPAs lack body and taste like hop water (not enough malt for the amount of hops).

Alcohol inhibits your kidneys’s ability to regulate phosphate ions against mineral ions, which helps balance body pH. Mixed with a physical increase in the amount of acid in your system, you’re looking at a spike in acidity that your body can’t effectively control. If you consume hoppy beer daily, your body never has a chance to reestablish a neutral base, increasing your chances of developing acidosis and its sundry symptoms.

RIP IPA

What does this mean for the future of our beloved hop-bombs? Young, healthy people tend to process alcohol and acid quickly and efficiently. But as the “craft” beer market ages, and the average drinker’s body is not as able to process additional acidity as effectively, we may see beer drinkers move onto styles that contain fewer suspended iso-alpha acids, or at the very least, significantly curtail their consumption of IPAs. Ultimately, the trend may shift not because of taste, but as consumers are forced to consider the detrimental effects of too much beer, or vis a vis, too much acid in their diet.

The solution to the potential IPA-to-acidosis problem seems obvious, I’m sure: moderation plus a healthy diet. But some of the underlying hedonism of being into beer juxtaposes “just having one,” as evidenced by the World Health Organization’s survey noting that the average American drinks 778 drinks per year (or ~2 every day). Beer enthusiasts (myself included) are probably guilty of even more than that, on occasion (thanks a lot, SAVOR).

While moderation is the ideal, those with IPA-laden habits are not likely to break them. Not unless they have to for some major reason.

Like, oh I don’t know, their health?

(Obviously this post contains a lot of conjecture. I just wanted to probe potential health issues related to pH, so don’t take any of it as gospel, please. I should also note that there are some fringe health benefits to some of the alpha acids in hops, but most of those come from ingesting small amounts, and are probably lost when talking excessive drinking.)

 

 

How to Transplant Hops

I took the unseasonably warm weather this Saturday as a sign that I needed to get outside and do something. I need that vitamin D.

I toyed with making an impromptu brew day out of the faux-spring revival, but a lack of prior planning and fresh ingredients kept my kettle dry. I thought about washing the cars, but figured I wouldn’t tempt the weather gods with some pristine paintwork to defile. I even considered going for an extended run, but the overindulgence of the holidays still rolled in my belly like an errant skateboard on a halfpipe.

So, instead, I decided to transplant two of my hop plants.

When I’d first planted them, I broke ground in a dizzy revelry, overwhelmed with the idea that I would soon be growing my own delicious nuggets of lupulin. I’d painstakingly prepared an area for the gangly rhizomes; tilled, pH tested, de-rocked and de-rooted. I built for them a nest where they could sprout and grow and be happy. The one sort of definitely major thing I didn’t consider as I buried them a few inches down, was how much light they’d be getting in the rather secluded plot tucked next to my deck beneath two oaks.

Turns out it wasn’t nearly enough. While the bines did grow in the flat, sun-starved dapple, they didn’t exactly flourish. The fatal parallel was finally drawn when some first year hops I planted in a much sunnier spot grew to twice the size and produced dozens more cones. I knew they had to be moved. The problem was, I didn’t know how to move them.

I don’t have a lot of luck moving plants. Two bushes I tried to move last year did very impressive impressions of dead versions of themselves by the end of the summer. I’m also psychologically averse to pulling an established plant out of the ground. It feels like I’m ripping an organ from the earth with crude tools, in some barbaric verdant ritual.

But it had to happen. For the good of the hops! Lack of knowledge be damned. Armed only with a shovel, my hands, and some guidance via Stan Hieronymus, I set to giving my harrowed hops a happy new home.

How to Transplant Hops

Things you’ll need:

• Hops to be transplanted (sort of a no brainer)
• A shovel (given the size of the root networks, you’ll need something big)
• Your hands (they’re gonna get dirty, so plan ahead)
• A new place for the hops (see the first item of the list)
• Some extra topsoil (I had some left over from summer planting)
• A beer (I chose Troegs HopBack Amber because hop back. Get it!? I need help.)

Step 1: Find the Nubs

If, like me, you decided to transplant your hops in the late-fall/winter, you’re going to have to find exactly where you cut the bine down from the previous year. If, also like me, you were dumb enough to winterize your garden by dumping shredded leaves all over the soil before you moved the hops, you’re going to have to do what I like to call, “exploratory dirt surgery.”

Just dig around with your hands for a while until you find the nub where you cut down the bine. Don’t bust out the shovel quite yet; you don’t want to cut through any major roots. And yes, “nub” is the technical term. You can trust me, I’m a scientist.

A hop “nub.” It has been so temperate here in Maryland that the hops are sprouting like it’s April or something.

Once you’ve found the nub(s), you can start to excavate the area around said nub to see where the major roots are. After a little bit more hand-digging, you should reveal what looks like a miniature stump with hundreds of differently sized roots shooting off in every direction.

A hop “stump.” Looks kind of Lovecraftian style terrifying, actually.

Step 2: Dig around the Stump

Now comes the somewhat tricky part: you need to dig around the stump far enough to not accidentally sever any major hop-arteries, but close enough to actually be able to pull the tentacled beast from the ground. It’s a fine art. I started pretty far away and worked in closer until the whole ground heaved when I levered the shovel upwards.

Protip: The roots spread out very wide, but don’t go very deep. Sort of like bamboo, but way less intrusive and annoying.

At one point, I cut a pretty major root off of the rhizome and felt really super bad about everything. Before I was too overtaken with grief however, I remember that when I planted these things, they were barely the size of pencils. Hops are resilient little dudes. Don’t intentionally hack off a bunch of roots, but if you do hit some while you’re digging, it’s OK. Chances are the plant will be fine. Probably. Hopefully.

Step 3: Pull it out of the Ground

I’m not being metaphorical or anything, literally grab a hold of it and pull it out of the ground.

A second year hop plant’s root system, no longer in the ground. Believe it or not, this is all connected and about 60% of it is not in frame.

Step 4: Drink beer and Admire your Green-ish Thumb

And your high school guidance counselor said you’d never amount to anything. Just look at what you grew! You nurtured and loved a living thing! And then summarily ripped it from its comfortable home for selfish reasons. Maybe that counselor had a point.

Anyway, drink some beer and maybe pour some out for your hop-homies.

Step 5: Dig up the new spot

Given that your plant is much, much bigger now, you’ll need to dig deeper and wider than you would for new baby rhizomes (I dug down about 5 inches and out about 10, but this will vary depending on the size of your plant). You’ll also want to position the stump so that the nub is facing up, and planted roughly where you want the bines to grow. Both of my plants seemed to sprout bines from the same part of the plant each year, so there’s a good chance where you place the stump will be where your new growth will pop its little head out, come spring.

Once you’ve placed it where you want it, dump the dirt back on top. Remember that the nub was technically above ground before, so try not to bury it completely in the new spot, either. For good measure, I added a new layer of topsoil and patted it down to create a uniform bed for the hops to sleep in through winter. I then tossed some mulched leaves on top to keep the soil from getting too hard (you obviously wouldn’t want/need to do this if you’re transplanting in the spring).

A patch of ground,
And not a sound,
But worms and roots turning.

Step 6: You’re done!

Pray to Gaia that your plants like their new home, and that you’ll be seeing little reddish-green spears shooting up come the long-thaw. Drink the rest of your beer. Rejoice. Then go clean all that mud off your shoes before you track it into the house and your significant other yells at you.

Mashing in Masham (A Tour of Theakston Brewery)

Against a backdrop of rows of ivy-covered cottages, tiny winding Yorkshire roads lined by impossibly close hedges, and the idyllic contrast of bleach white cricket uniforms on verdant green, that unmistakable pungent waft of yeast lets you know there’s a brewery nearby. You can see it from the road, but unmarked and austere it looks like any old industrial remnant in a small English town; one square, stone smokestack rising up like a Gulliver among Lilliputians.

You have to search a bit. First for a place to park in the crowded but lively square of Masham town, second for a sign that actually points you in the direction of the brewery. Down a side road, past some private residences. Through a stone alley with a slowly rusting black iron gate. Under a long pergola shaded in fragrance by thousands of budding, nascent hops. Finally to a little patio that welcomes you, cheerfully, to the “Black Bull in Paradise.”

Tucked back in a cozy alcove of the town like a beery nest for migratory drinkers, there’s an old cooper’s house grinning the same stone and wood smile (plus some minor dental work) it has had on its face since 1827. To the right, a darkened doorway leads into a room with a low ceiling, exposed beams, and a rough stone floor. To the left there’s an impromptu beer garden, framed neatly by a rainbow menagerie of empty casks (not kegs!), all awaiting their filled fate.

A brief stroll through a surprisingly stocked gift shop and past two green-clad employees, will drop you into the quaintest of pubs, half ripped from a Tolkien novel, half planted firmly in reality, all the English whimsy a beer-minded American could dream of. This is no modern, urban American tap house; only 6 pulls line the bar with perfect parallel panache, each connected to a classic beer engine, with nary of molecule of carbon dioxide to be found in the entire building. You overhear a patron mention malt between sips of his Black Bull Bitter; a cheery woman at the end of the bar waxes brewlific about the
protein of two-row barley, and how to combat inevitable haze. Her vocabulary has all the hallmarks of a brewer, so you gently inject yourself into the conversation. Lynne. She’s not a brewer, but your tour guide.

Lynne leads the small group, six plus your party of five, back under the hoppy pergola, down a different side alley, past freshly painted red windows and doors. As she walks she talks, giving a brief history of the nearly two hundred year old brewery, describing the founding, sale, merger, and eventually reacquisition of the facilities to bring it back “under old management” in 2003. It’s impossible to ignore the stark difference of the building – and its history – when compared to the contemporary breweries you’re used to, State-side.

Her green shirt like a green light to explore the premises, Lynne leads you up some worn stairs to a room piled high and wide with bags of Simpsons Malt. A large pulley-powered conveyor lifts the fifty pound sacks to the top floor of the building; the first in many steps to use gravity (not pneumatics) to move and brew beer in the classic tower-style brewery. Several winding red staircases later and you’re at the very top, in a room that smells like Sunday morning; toasted bread and sweet cereal. The mill cracks the grain at the apex so that it can be easily passed into the lauter tun, one room away and about 5 feet down. Before leaving, Lynne describes all the ingredients – from the pale and crystal to the Bramling Cross plugs. Each in the group takes turn cracking the malt between their teeth. Some smile at the surprise sweetness, others cringe after crunching too hard on some astringent roasted barley.

You stop at the sadly empty lauteur tun. It’s a behemoth, ringed by cast iron, topped with a braced and riveted wooden lid. Lynne explains that it’s almost original, and the cast iron bowl only had to be replaced once in 187 years of brewing. The wooden top, subject to hours and days and years of hot mashing, hasn’t managed the same longevity. Across the open room but one platform down, between two catwalks, the copper kettle gapes its maw at you, like it’s yawning out of boredom from not having any wort to boil. When you look back again, it’s physically unchanged, but this time it looks like it’s laughing, grinning, very pleased with itself that it gets to make beer soon, and you don’t.

Without much else to show, Lynne’s green shirt descends again, this time pointing out the tubes and valves that carry the wort from the kettle onwards, to the “basement” of the brewery. This basement turns out to actually be on the ground floor (but still lower than the kettle) where like massive pans of rising bread, the beer ferments in open top containers. You resist the urge to dive into the feet-deep krausen froth, but flash Lynne a cheeky smile. She laughs, like she can read your mind. As she moves the tour forward, you sneak into a side room to admire the neatly lined up samples of various beers; quality assurance turned art, accidentally.

Finally gravity’s natural decline brings you to the logistical heart of the brewery, where some more familiar processes and equipment greet you with shining brilliance. But while the stage may look the same, the actors play different roles; where an American brewery worker protects and primes kegs with shields of C02, these casks are filled with fresh, uncarbonated beer, giving them a shelf life of a few weeks, not a few months. The casks look fatter, jollier than their American counter parts, with a round hole that must be plugged and hammered to keep the beer inside from the harsh oxygen outside. The full casks travel down a conveyor to awaiting trucks, who, if everything goes to pubby plan, will return, empty, to the brewery in fewer than thirty days.

Back in the Black Bull, Lynne lets you sample the products of the mashing Masham marvel you just toured, pulling third pints into branded glasses, letting the creamy head settle, then explaining the recipe behind each. A pale, subtly citrus wheat beer plays guest this month, mainly in celebration of the large bicycle ride that passes through Yorkshire each summer. A roasted barley number called “Smooth Dark – Extra Cool” is not very cold compared to American beer, but that hardly matters as your head swims in the delicate balance of coffee, chocolate, and sweet grain. The rest of the line up echoes English brewing tradition; heavy malt melodies with very, very subtle hop accompaniment, smooth, low alcohol, all approachable, none too challenging for even a novice palate. You try to pick a favorite, but can’t really, because they’re all so exotic when put head-to-head against the 7% ABV, aggressively hopped IPAs of home. Each is very good, and you half-plan how to get a cask past those pesky TSA agents on your trip home.

Noting your fascination and legitimate interest, Lynne lets you pull some pints. She invites you back behind the bar, something you’ve never done before (especially not in a brewery taproom in England), and gives you a quick tutorial on the “two hard pulls” needed to first set the head, then finish filling the glass. The engines feel substantial and heavy, even sticky, and each satisfying pull connects the muscles in your arm to the beer itself, makes you feel like you earned that beer, didn’t just have some forced gas rush through a line and dump it into the glass for you.

You don’t really want to leave. There’s something in the whimsy, in the deliberate, old-fashioned methods that speak to you, remind you that every pint you sip carries with it ancient tradition. You thank Lynne, who oddly thanks you back, and make your way for the door. Before you leave, you grab two souvenirs – a pair of half-pint glasses with the Theakston logo printed on the side. The rules of the airline may not allow you to check a full cask of beer, but you’re pretty sure they’ll be OK with you carrying your memories on, 10 ounces at a time.

See below for a full gallery of the brewery tour.

How to Make Hop Tea

In a former life, many years before this one, I was prominent Egyptologist. During an expedition into the Medjai, my team and I discovered the tomb of a powerful sorcerer, one who was known to dance with demons, and conjure the servants of Anubis to fulfill his pharaonic duties. The massive earthen sepulcher, dotted with hieroglyphs and other drawings, warned us not to draw near, lest we face the magic man’s wrath. Despite all the desperate urging and wails from our terrified local guides, I forced crowbar into and cracked seal of that ancient resting place, unleashing a fetid wind that blew by and whispered a curse that lives on to this day:

“For disrupting my eternal sleep, I doom you and your entire bloodline. From this day forward, you will never be able to travel via airplane without getting a very annoying flu-like virus”

Ignoring how the ancient Egyptians could have preordained modern commercial air-travel and classification of specific orthomyxoviridaes, the curse has plagued me my entire life. No matter what I try – vitamins, rest, exercise, diet – nothing seems to be able to keep my normally strong immune system safe from being confined with 100+ strangers in a box full of recycled air.

I just got back from a trip to England, and they haven’t finished that trans-Atlantic bridge they’ve been talking about, so here I sit, sick. I’ve sweated like I just finished a marathon, taken more medicine than recommended by the label on the bottle, slept for so long that the beginning of one SyFy movie blended into the end of another. My biggest issue with being sick isn’t the actual symptoms; sure, they’re annoying as hell, but they can be dealt with, assuaged. The real punch-in-the-stomach of being sick is the down time. The inability to write or edit because of brain fog, the muscles aches that keep you from covering distances any longer than bathroom to bed, the full-fledged loss of hours or days that could have been productive and full of life, all because your immune system refused to show up for work.

I’m always willing to try home remedies, especially those that are tangentially related to beer. Andrew of Das Ale House mentioned throwing some hops into my tea as a beery panacea, and since I was going to make some anyway, I figured I’d give it a go. Hops act as a preservative for beer, and some medical research suggests they are also anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-insomnia. Plus, they smell and taste great, which is a much needed psychological boon when you can only breathe out of one nostril.

How to Make Hop Tea

Things you’ll need:

• Hops (I picked a few fresh cones off my bines, but pellets would do)
• Tea (I used green, as I didn’t want to overwhelm the hops)
• A cup (to put the tea in)
• Hot water (because cold steeping takes way too long)

I know this isn’t the most sophisticated recipe I’ve ever come up with, but whatever, I’m sick.

Step 1: Heat up the water

I used the microwave, but the kettle works too if you’re going to be all English and prescriptivist about it. You have to get the water pretty hot, as you’re going to want to pull all the good oils out of the hops (mimicking a brewing boil, I suppose).

Step 2:  Add your tea

I used a plain-unflavored green tea because I thought black tea would overwhelm the subtlety of the hop aroma, and add too much acidity when mixed with the alpha acids of the hops. I think white tea would work too, but I didn’t have any to experiment with. Orange pekoe might be a good partner in this bath-time ballet, too. I’m no tea expert.

Step 3: Add your hops

I didn’t let the hops dry (because I’m impatient), so they needed to steep a bit longer. I used six, largish cones from my first year Willamette bines. Any less and I don’t think you’d notice the aroma much, any more and the tea would probably be too bitter to drink.

Step 4: Let steep

Let the tea bag steep for ~45-60 seconds. Remove the hops when they sink to the bottom, or leave them in while you drink the tea. Warning: if you leave them in the whole time, the last few sips are intense (read: acrid and bitter).

Step 5: Drink

It may be because I’m a little partial to the smell and taste of hops, or it may because I can barely smell anything given the amount of mucous that has taken residence in my sinuses,  but I thought this was some excellent tea. Time will tell if it makes me feel any better, but either way, it’s the closest I can get to an IPA without actually drinking an IPA.

Journey to the Center of the Beer

Every time I homebrew, I eat a bunch of the ingredients. I scoop big soggy spoonfuls of spent grains from the mashtun and scarf them down like a heaping helping of Frosted Flakes. I nibble on hop cones and pellets, immediately regretting the decision as my mouth is berated by bitter fury. I’ve even sampled the yeast, which I cannot in any way recommend.

All in the name of knowing my ingredients better. I’m still, to this day, amazed that four relatively basic foodstuffs can ultimately turn into something as complex and complete as beer. So today, I’m going to shrink myself down (using my macro lens). Aided by my friend, J. Cousteau (no, that’s too obvious…we’ll go with Jacques C. instead), we’ll journey deep into the heart of the beer, discovering the natural beauty hidden in what some people may regard as simple ingredients.

You ready to go Jacques?

Oui, d’accord. 

20,000 Leagues Under the Beer

We begin our journey as all who inevitably give into their wanderlust do, lost in fields of grain that blow sweet starchy scents across the nostrils of the soul. The endless plains of husks split and broken mimic Grecian ruins, bygones of a time lost to time, myth and legends seeping from their cracked remains. Every story ever told over a pint dwells in the history of this American 2 row. What do you see, Jacques?

Ze grain, she is beautiful and enigmatic, like a mermaid with a fish face and human legs. 

Um, yes. I guess. Well said.

But beer never stays in one state too long; dry becomes wet, sugar becomes alcohol, the beer itself ultimately graces our toilet bowls as blessed urine. Next we move into the sea of mashtun, that veritable Aegean trapped inside a red Igloo™ cooler.

The water swirls together with the simple sugars. Frothy bubbles rise as the near-scalding water sucks the starch from the grain with time honed practice and honored tradition. The mash paddle breaks up doughy balls, setting the saccharides to work.

Ah, ze mashtun, ver ze hopes and dreams of all ze sugars come together. Bath time for ze dirty soul of la bière.

Dirty bath time indeed.

As the grains are baptized by almost boiling, we explore the other ingredients. With Jacques help, I cast a net out across the beery world, hoping to ensnare the most lupulus of the humulus, to pull from the deep hop fields of Yakima Valley.

We find half a pound of pure paradise.

Ze hops, zey look like ze shit of a horse.

What? No. These are decadently aromatic Citra hops pressed into pellets. They burst with fragrance, singing a bitter song to balance out their grapefruit guise. They are the beating heart of the beer, arguably the most distinctive ingredients in the sweet concoction…

Regarde comme de la merde.

Moving on.

The grain is spent now, all its energy taken by the water, two separate spirits now joined as one in wort. It pulled its content and color from the medley of different malts, and after an hour long soak is ready for its long roil.

Ah yes, zis is when we sink deep into the liquid embrace. In ze wort we can return to ze womb, be one, again, with mother ocean. 

Now you’re just being creepy.

To float free in ze stomach of life is all man seeks. Ze bière, she washes over us like crashing waves. She is bottled ocean, twelve ounces of jeux de vie. 

I’m starting to regret bringing you along.

Sulfides soar skyward as the propane feeds an hour long boil. The beer is on the air, in the smells, in the wispy silks of evaporating wort forever disappear into winter’s chill. Some call it the angel’s share, some call it tragic but necessary loss for the cause. I call it the herald of the ale, the vanguard of a two-week war to be waged in white buckets and glass carboys.

Jacques? Oh crap, where did he go?

Nope, not sniffing the yeast. Not with the whirfloc tablets or Irish moss, either. Where can an old French dude wander off to in a beer?

Oh. There he is.

Ze airlock, she bubbles with ze zest of life. Like millions of fishes saying hello from ze ocean floor, ze bubbles show the world below ze surface. It is truly magnificent.

Yea, totally. I was just thinking that exact same thing. Thanks for the insights, I think.

In Defense of the Alternative Beer Review

If you’ve been around for some of my Beer Fiction Fridays it’s not exactly breaking news worthy of auto-tune treatment that I don’t write traditional beer reviews. Sure, I’ve written quite a few nonfiction, more review-ish reviews, but even those tend to fall more on the side of narrative story than they do classic, “here’s what I think and why,” no-frills review.

An article from Focus on the Beer had me doing a Ctrl+F on my soul this weekend, delving deep in my psyche and emotional past for the reasons I write beer reviews at all. I think the obvious reasons are because I like beer and because I like to write. The rest just seems inconsequential, the unimportant details that seem to work themselves out without much extra thought.

But I’ve never been the type to actually read reviews of food and drink with an air of seriousness, never acted like the opinion of the critic or reviewer or dude in his basement somehow matters. I do often find my browser landing on Beer Advocate because, hey, checking out what the collective hive-mind thinks can be fun and a hands-on lesson in collective sociology. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never consciously recalled any of those reviews in the liquor store, saying to myself, “beerstud1991 only gave it a 2.63, no way I’m buying that junk.“ I can say with confidence that I’ve never let a beer’s “score” influence whether I’m going to purchase it or not.

Why?

Because taste is subjective. More so, I’d argue, than any other sense. We can pretty much agree (short of color interpretation) that we all see the same things. Aside from the thickness of different ear drums slightly adjusting incoming MHz, we all hear the same things. We can also agree that week-old cat litter smells bad and a freshly baked apple pie smells good. We can even agree that 300 thread count sheets are soft, 60 grit sand paper is rough, and a baby’s butt is the unequivocal standard unit of smoothness against which all other smoothness should be measured.

But taste has few standards; it is permeable, water soluble, in constant flux. Some people out there legitimately don’t like cupcakes. Others legitimately do like tripe.  Every late-to-work scalding coffee burn, every jalapeno charged capsaicin rush, every chewing-too-fast-bit-the-side-of-your-tongue is part of the formula that always equals how you go about tasting, no matter what variables are added or changed.  Your tongue, like a gross pink snake, sheds its skin and taste buds often, reacting to all kinds of things you put in your mouth, making it so you can’t even trust your own opinions over the course of your life.

And because taste is flawed, the classic beer review is flawed. Just because you liked a sextuple dry-hopped Imperial IPA, doesn’t mean everyone else will. Just because your palette isn’t as open to bitters and coffee malts, doesn’t mean that a coffee stout is bad. Reviews will always be biased and tainted by the reviewer’s in-born, unavoidable subjectivity and thus can’t logically be universally valid. There is no basis against which the goodness of a beer can be measured (although the BJCP is certainly trying to establish one) and as a result, what another person thinks about a beer will remain forever nebulous, floating in a foamy, lacey, off-white head of doubt.

I sound like I’m about to give up on the beer review. Far from it. Actually the opposite. The beer review is still a great thing, still has a place in our writing and beer worlds, but maybe not in the traditional Appearance+Smell+Taste+Mouthfeel form.

When you drink a beer, you’re doing a lot more than just putting some water, malt, hops, and alcohol into your body. You’re doing a lot more than just tasting a drink and reporting your findings. You’re becoming part of an ancient tradition that dates back ~10,000 years. You’re joining a enthusiastic community of like-minded brewers, maltsters, yeast-biologists, and hop-farmers who toil away to bring life to a beverage, a drink that has shaped and supported mankind’s rise to greatness like a pint glass supports an ale. You’re raising a glass to salute the infinite muse of alcohol, and sharing good times with your family and friends. Beer is more than the sum of its ingredients, it’s a glorious gateway, a cultural connection.

When you write a review, you’re telling the story of how you made that connection. You’re filling your reader’s head with the same warm, spinning buzz that filled yours, via a story or anecdote or worded snapshot of life. You’re not just telling them about the beer, you’re taking them with you on the experience you had drinking the beer. Write your reviews to show us the truth that was hard-brewed into the beer, the connection to that timeless tradition that inspired you to take bottle-opener to cap in the first place.

Don’t be so caught up in what people expect from a review. If you want to write about the hop characteristics because that’s just your thing, go for it. If you want to write about a memory that this beer brought surging back to the front of your brain, by all means. If you’re like me, and you want to write a story based on the taste and appearance of the beer, don’t let anyone stop you.

Drink what calls to you. Write what the beer inspires you to write.

“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) -VS- Brooklyn Pilsner (8)

The first side of the Pilsner Madness bracket finishes up with the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephaner, facing off against New York’s finest, Brooklyn Brewery.

The Contenders:

Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) – Weihenstephaner, a name I can never seem to spell correctly, has claimed to be the oldest continuously operated brewery in the whole world. With documentation regarding local Bavarian farmers paying hop-tithes (the best kind of tithes) to the Weihenstephan Abbey dating back to 768, it very possible that this is the oldest brewery still around. Weihenstephaner has a pretty extensive line-up (comparable to a lot of craft breweries in the US) including a Festbier, A Hefe-Dunkel, and even a non-alcoholic hefeweissbier!

Weihenstephaner also has a very well designed and highly navigable website that uses an animation of a beer glass being filled as its page loading indicator.

Brooklyn Pilsner (8) – My love affair with Brooklyn Brewery started with a simple pint of Pennant ’55 Ale. Since then I’ve sampled a lot of their suds, often satisfied, rarely disappointed. This brewery is 1219 years younger than Weihenstephaner, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t done some great things since it was founded in 1987. Owners Steve Hindy and Tom Potter, encouraged by their success and love of beer, wrote a memoir/how to brewing book (titled Beer School) that details their experiences with starting their own brewery and all of the business challenges therein.

Brooklyn pilsner was brewed in a style reminiscent to the light golden beer that was preferred in New York prior to the prohibition. The recipe boasts two-row barely malt and both Perle and Hallertauer hops, making this a very faithful recreation of the classic German-style pilsner.

The Fight:

The young Brooklyn pours a beautiful pale yellow with a twinge of amber, echoing the orange of its label. The old Weihenstephaner pours a perfectly clear pilsner-yellow with no off color, almost like liquid gold in a glass. Both bubble and billow into a large head as they’re poured, but retain very slight lacing that sends very subtle hop notes up your nose as you bring glass to lips.

A pretty even match.

Brooklyn’s flavor is enviable. Clean, crisp, surprisingly complex for the style of beer. Despite the overall quality, it has a very subtle carbonation burn on the tongue and the hops tend to get lost in the malty aftertaste. Weihenstephaner, somehow, is even more enviable. There is almost no acidity and the hops find a perfect harmony with the malt, making for lip-smacking refreshment. I felt it was very slightly under hopped, but that may just be an issue of personal preference. I guess nearly 1300 years is enough time to really get the recipe down.

I really enjoyed Brooklyn’s pilsner, but I have to give this one to Weihenstephaner, just because of technical brewing prowess and pedigree.

Review: Sam Adams Noble Pils

Ah, Noble Pils. The spring seasonal that changed my life. For the better.

The amazing bouquet of hops, sharp citrus bite, and thirst quenching power makes this like a carbonated alcoholic Gatorade full of flowers. Yea, it’s that awesome.

Flavor like this is the reason I drink beer. It’s complex but delicious; not overwhelming to the palette, but not weak by any means. It perfectly walks the line of taste and refreshment, something not many other beers can boast.

I bought Noble Pils during it’s inaugural year (2010) on a whim. I liked the green of the label and the bottles caps. I’m a sucker for marketing, what can I say?

But I’m hella-glad I randomly chose that 6-pack. Before Noble Pils, I had considered all Bohemian style pilsner to be bland and generic, good for slugging down on an oppressively hot summer day, but not much else. I used to scoff at beer drinkers who argued over the subtle differences between Pilsner Urquell, Heineken, Grolsh, and Stella Artois, wanting to scream, “All pilsners taste exactly the same!”

But I was oh so wrong. I let my ignorance of the style cloud my better beer judgement.

A pilsner is technically a bottom-fermented pale lager. What gives it a distinctive taste is the low bitterness but high aroma of the hops used during brewing. The term “noble” refers to four strains of central European hops (Hallertau, Tettnanger, Spalt, and Saaz), some of the oldest and most established hop-farms in the world. Sam Adams claims to use the five noble hop varieties because they include Hersbrucker, which replaced Hallertau in the 1970s due to widespread agricultural disease.

These hops make for a beer that is very drinkable, but packs a lot of flavor and smell (a lot like my new found love, session ale) The subtle bitter of these noble hops balances the sweetness of the malts, resulting in an unmistakable type of beer, that is popular for obvious reasons.

But then there is Sam Adams Noble Pils. Sure, it’s a Bohemian style pilsner brewed with noble hops. Sure, it’s hyper-drinkable, has a small, lacy head, and has the letters P, I, L, and S, in the title.

All similarities end there. Noble Pils is Bohemian-style on crystal meth and PCP. Imagine that Harpoon IPA and Amstel had a wild romp one night. Nine months later?

Noble Pils.

I highly, highly recommend you try this beer if you haven’t already. It’s available year round as of March 2012, so you have no excuses other than being a masochist who likes depriving himself/herself of all things that are good.

10 out of 10.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s ale?

Next up: Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale!

Review: New Belgium Ranger IPA

“Kyle. Kyle!”

“What?”

“It’s your turn.”

“Oh. What do I do again?”

“Roll the dice. The same as the past 8 turns.”

“OK.”

Kyle rolled the oddly shaped dice. He had no idea why he’d accepted the invite to this eccentric meet-up, but here he sat in a poorly lit basement, slugging down high alcohol beer in hopes his drunken stupor would lead to some fun.

“Are you kidding me? This guy has to be the luckiest player I’ve ever seen.”

Apparently Kyle’s roll was good. He had no idea what was going on. The leader of the group, who was sitting behind a piece of elaborately decorated cardboard, began to speak.

“A half-giant approaches from the north. He smells like filth and goats. Seeing you on his territory sends him into a rage!”

“Uh oh.”

Kyle didn’t know if this was bad or good. At least half-giant didn’t sound as drastic as full giant.

“I have a pet or something right? A bear?”

“Yes, a bear.”

“I want my bear to fiercely maul the half-giant.” Kyle took a large swig of his IPA. It was hoppy enough to remind him of a cool summer night, far away from small, stuffy subterranean hovels.

“Your bear can’t just fight it alone. It’s a half-giant for christ sake. You have to help!”

“Why? It’s a bear. I think he knows what he’s doing.”

Kyle poured more delicious beer down his throat. It was a shame; a brew this fine should be savored. The gaze of the players around him were piercing, burning, seethingly angry. He had tread on sacred ground. He had defiled their haven. To make matters worse, he was too drunk to drive home at this point.

“OK, then I shoot the half-giant with my bow. Can I do that?”

The Dungeon Master looked at him and sighed.

“Roll.”

The dice fell clumsily on the foldable card table.

“No way! He has to be cheating.”

“Critical hit!”

Two of the party members cheered. Another scowled, checking the character sheet to make sure Kyle wasn’t cheating. Kyle decided he was going to sleep in his car, and chugged the remainder of his current beer.

The DM broke character and told the group to take a break. The largest member, a halfling illusionist of some note, labored to rise from his chair, grunting as he waddled over to the fridge for another Pepsi Max. The DM asked Kyle to step into the next room.

“Have you played before? We invited you here for a beginners game, but you’re ruining it for everyone else. It seems pretty clear you’ve played the Ranger class before.”

The pock-marked face was fuzzy, like Kyle was speaking to him through a waterfall. He felt dizzy, but happy.

“This is my first time. I’m just doing what you tell me to. Shit, I don’t even know what a Ranger is.”

Kyle felt a burp slowly creeping from his stomach, up his throat. There was a chance he could throw up on this kid.

“I only picked it because it had the same name as my beer.”

9 out of 10.

+3 against thirst (and ogres)