Of kegs and overpressure infusion...

Cream Ale sitting under 30psi in the fridge

Kegging brew is a whole new animal. It's totally dissimilar from bottling with one exception, everything still has to be uber sterile. Other than that though - there's no bottle conditioning and your brew can be ready to serve within just a couple of hours. It's significantly more consistent than bottle conditioning as you can directly control the carbonation of the beverage and to some extent the head and head retention of your brew at the time it comes out of the tap. On that note - you tap it, how awesome is actually pouring your homebrew from a tap? Not to mention that you can now transport and serve your entire 5 Gallon batch with only a few parts instead of 64 individual bottles, and I for one find that quite excellent!

After sanitizing your keg - standard 5 gallon StarSan solution directly into the keg add some pressure (10psi) slosh it a round a little, then dispense the solution through the draft lines (sanitizing the lines) and empty the keg - simply rack your brew into the keg! Now, you want to force carbonate it right? This is a simple process also; in general add 30 psi pressure and let the keg sit in the fridge for a day or two (CO2 still hooked up and at 30psi). Doing this creates a pressure differential and allows the CO2 to dissolve into the beer, carbonating it. Now disconnect the CO2, release the excess pressure, reconnect the CO2 and dial up 10psi (drafting px) and the tapping lines and it's ready to serve!

Now, there are of course ways to fine tune/tailor this to specific beer styles - this is homebrewing after all, if you can't tinker then what's the point?! To do this you will have to reference a chart that lists the pressure required to dissolve the desired amount of CO2 into solution, and then you have to know how much carbonation you'll actually want. Mr. Papazian provides both of these in his book so that would be a good place to start!

I have already kegged four brews - one five gallon batch (an Irish Red Ale) was run dry in a matter of minutes by my friends!

Let it flow, let it flow,
Jack

Mead! A short history

Often called "man's oldest brew", or the first alcoholic drink, usually both, mead is unanimously touted as a magical beverage. Admittedly it is not beer, but then again it is not wine - as so often it is called; honey wine. It is mead. And Upship! Brewing is making some! So, I thought I would share what I've learned about this mystical fluid.

As early as 7000BC folks have been brewing up mead (in China). These days I can't find the stuff anywhere! The standard ingredients are Honey (and lots of it too), Water, and yeast. From here you can take off in whatever direction you like. There are cysers (apple and honey), Braggot (honey and hops, or honey and barley, or all three? Very confusing), Capsicumel (with chili peppers!), Melomel - current Upship! preference (fruit added), Midus (made with berry juics, herbs, spices, and usually distilled down to a high proof "nectar"), and Great Mead (aged), to name a few - and only a few. The names of these brews alone bely the ancient legacy of this substance, and the few examples I just provided of it's branch off's should give you some idea of the endless possibilities provided by mead.

There is no shortage of myth and legend behind "the drink of the gods" often thought to be the same as the Ambrosia of the Greek Gods, most certainly the drink of legend from norse mythology, and slowly becoming a legend of its on in the brewing community. If you're looking for a recipe yourself, you could start with this basic formula:

-13 pounds of honey
- 3 or 4 Gallons of clear cold water
- Your chosen yeast; there are special strains for mead, or you can use high gravity, or champagne yeast
- You know what to do with it from here, the mead can take between 6 weeks and a year to fully ferment and mature - taste it as you go, and drink it when you like it.
For a little more detail on how I went about it - see the previous post about Y.U.M.!

And finally, a little about the honey and therefore the Bees! As with all brewing, your final product is completely correlated to the ingredients you start with and with mead that starts with the honey - which starts with the bees and the places they collect their nectar from. This is what defines the honey - clover honey comes from clovers, orange blossom from flowering orange trees, buckwheat from - yep you got it - buckwheat! Then there are different grades of honey - based mostly on moisture content (18.6% being the greatest percentage allowed for Grade A), taste (the absence of off flavors - Grade A = totally void), impurities (the visible sort), and clarity; HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH COLOR! Great honey can be anywhere from water white to dark amber - and color has nothing to do with taste either. One thing to note is that moisture content is important as higher moisture content can allow wild yeasts to be carried by the honey - which may throw off your fermentation (haven't heard of any specific examples though). In short, find some quality apiaries and do some research on what kind of honey you want to use!

Buzz Buzz Buzz,
Jack

Y.U.M. (Mk1) - Strawberry Mead

Yak's Uplifting Mead! I may quit this beer thing all together if this mead tastes anything like I think it's going to taste which is simply AWESOME! Started it on 20 February - added (A LOT) strawberries on 18 March and the fermentation kicked back into high gear - the entire pantry smells like strawberries now! I literally have not brewed anything that has tested my patience as much as this mead with the desire to taste it; stoked.

Here are the basics of what's in Y.U.M. and how I put it all together.

Ingredients:
- 20 lbs of Grade A fancy White Clover Honey (SueBee Honey) - I went cheap
- 1.5 Gallons of fresh filtered water (additional as required to fill fermenter)
- One Vial of White Labs Mead Yeast (sweet mead)
- 5 medium packages of ripe strawberries (just cut the tops off of them - and as required to get in the secondary)

Process:
- Brought about 1.5 gallons of water to boil while the honey "loosened up" in a sink full of hot water
- Let Water cool to ~160 degrees F (maintained at this temperature)
- Added all honey and kept at ~160F for 35 minutes
- Poured the pot into the fermentation BUCKET (had cream ale in the primary and the barleywine in the secondary).
- Added cold water to fill to the 5 Gallon line - took temp reading and pitched yeast (might have been a bit hot for the poor yeast ~75F)
- Sealed and put in the pantry - Fermentation was active for exactly 2 weeks.

That's it! To start with...then there is the strawberries!
For those, I sanitized the secondary (5 gallon glass carboy) rinsed it (yes somewhat taboo for a no-rinse sanitzer - I use StarSan - but we're working with ~11% ABV at this point and I was not worried about any last minute contaminants). Then I sat down with the strawberries and cut them up and added them one at a time to the secondary. Finally I siphoned the mead into the secondary over the top of the strawberries and put the stopper/airlock assemply on. Easy. Minus the damn fruit flies that are bugging the hell out of me - no pun intended. One finally made it INTO the airlock water?! Bothered me a fair amount so I added a couple dribbles of StarSan to the airlock to ensure the sterile barrier - again not worried, thanks to the excellent alcohol level!

Hard to tell but its actually RED now thanks to the strawberries!

Bottling soon...or maybe kegging - I'm running out of bottles! Look for an update to come on the flavor - speaking of, I sampled some of the dregs after I racked into secondary...already tastes like heaven; hence the anticipation! Y.U.M.!

Upship! out.

Yin and Yang: The tale of Big Beer and Little Beer

This is the story of two more firsts for Upship! - a barleywine and an american light beer. The plan? To start two very different - and yet very similar - brews side by side, see how they progress, and ultimately: how they compare side by side with some of my favorite beer drinking buddies! Also, I'm going to provide you with a chance to vote - starting..........now -  for which of the two beers you expect to turn out to be the most favored among these chosen beer snobs and fanatics. At the end I'll throw together some crude graphical representation of what you as the readers expected at different points throughout the brew, and how each poll stacks up to the end result!

 At this moment the Barleywine is in it's secondary fermentor - the OG was approximately ~1.08 and the FG at the time of racking was ~1.01 providing about 9% ABV. I'm hoping to see a little more by bottling time. My laziness with this batch may have affected the final outcome of the brew. Due to a failure in the post boil filter operation a large amount of hops made it into the fermentor and stayed there during the two weeks of primary fermentation. It was hoppy at the time of racking into the secondary but still tasted very much so like good beer, and even more so like barleywine. So, far so good.

The light beer is currently in primary fermentation - looks like it will be a hair darker than I was hoping for a true light beer; more of an amber. Turns out the Golden LIGHT extract I used was much heavier than I expected. I should have used much more Light DME and/or rice syrup solids to get the proper body and color. My friend Jimbo will never let me live this down...but, I have developed a new appreciation for "those damn light beer brewers" in the commercial industry. Additionally, a true american light beer is lagered, I used an ale yeast but I intend to "lager" it while it's in the secondary.

Next up: Irish Red Ale! Mead! And Kegging! The light beer is going to be the first beer to go into the keg.

Until then,
Jack

Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg Texas

One word for the experience....excellent (like the bill and ted kind)! Fredericksburg is a small town - relatively. But there's one thing you notice right away when you get your soles on the pavement: the people of Fredericksburg are all about the celebration. I meandered through a few small shops, shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, and didn't buy a single thing. The shop owners and managers were still courteous and kind. That set a good mood which was only enhanced when you got to the town square - yes it's literally an old school town square - and found out that anyone who didn't have to be working to keep their business open was gainfully employed at the actual Oktoberfest! And they too were bright and smiling, and unusually helpful - based on my experience with such events. Let's get to the meat of the issue though, this Oktoberfest has it all. Beer, by the barrel; not the keg, the barrel! Wurst, schnitzel, and sauerkraut enough to feed all of Texas. And more tubas than the Macy's day parade. There were three separate stages which all had live music. A play ground for kids which makes the "family outing" much more legitimate. And a number of vendors to give you something to gander at while the first 3 or 4 pints start to kick in. Speaking of pints, the beer itself was very reasonably priced! It came to $5 for ANY import and the selection was vast! I actually had so many I can't honestly remember which was my favorite. I know it was my second one, and I know it was German, and it was definitely a Marzen/Oktoberfest...I suppose I have no other option but to go again next year! I am going to cast my vote for Oktoberfest Fredericksburg as being the number 1 underrated event in Texas. Next year EVERYONE should go! It will stay firmly seated as a destination event for the Unofficial Texas Beer Tour!

Get ready for the BARLEYWINE!!!
Jack

Texas Beer Tour Update

Spent a night in Fort Worth this weekend. Turns out there is a pretty sweet Draft House there called the Flying Saucer. I wish I could say it was awesome...but they had a cover. Lame. Very very lame. And the service was a little slow to boot. Now that I got that out of the way, the rest of the experience was pretty good. They have HUNDREDs of different brews on type from all over the world and in every possible style you could want! It's about $5.50 a pint for pretty much anything and if they don't have what you ask for they are quick to suggest a similar brew you may not have tried. They also had a small bar menu if you're hungry, although I didn't look at it too closely. If you're in the area, or looking for a destination where you can get good brews try Fort Worth (or any of their other 5 locations in Texas!) and the Saucer. It will be permanently added to the UTBT!!

The Unofficial Texas Beer Tour

I have to admit, spending five years in Colorado I was more than a little spoiled when it comes to good beer! And just as spoiled when it came to "beer tours," beer festivals, and just the sheer amount of beer produced in Colorado. I have had this notion in my head that Texas was significantly more deficient in beer and, even worse, beer festivals. I am very happy to report that neither of these facts are true. And in order to help dispel this unsavory myth I've created the Unofficial Texas Beer Tour. It focuses on the best and biggest; there's more to do and taste, but everything has to start somewhere. Let's take a look at it in chronological order starting in the now time frame:

Beer Festivals:
          - Oktoberfest Fredericksburg Sept 30th through Oct 2nd; Fredericksburg is a true German town, as such this celebration is pretty damn authentic. The menu is incredible, the entertainment runs all day, and there is plenty of beer; German and otherwise. There will be a full report on this one in the future, as there will be for.....

          - Wurstfest  Nov 4th-13th; New Braunfels is another German settlement north of San Antonio. This celebration is the largest, AND longest, in Texas. It also has the greatest volume of brautwurst and sausage, as well as good beer!

Breweries:
          - (512) Brewing Company is a MicroBrew based in Austin, they have a number of different beers including two versions of their Pecan Porter. One being a double which is aged in whisky barrels. Personally, I'm looking forward to trying some of their "ONE" Belgian Strong Ale.

          - Spoetzl Brewery is perhaps the most well known of Texas' breweries being the producer of Shiner Bock, named after the town the Spoetzl Brewery calls home. It's also the oldest independent brewery in Texas, which along with its notoriety makes it an easy addition to this list.

          - Wicked Beaver Brewery, currently producing Wicked Beaver Black ale, is a Craft Brew in Lubbock. According to their website they designed their brew kettles, mashtuns, etc. themselves and had them custom fabricated by a steel fabrication shop. I find that reason enough to make the visit since it means getting a look at something a little different than every other brewery tour out there.

          - Thirsty Planet Brewing will be the last "brewery" on the tour for now. Also located in Austin they currently serve three beers; an IPA, a Wheat, and an Amber. And not only do these guys serve beer, they are also green and give back to the community (community being a worldly noun in this case)!

- Brew Pubs/Draft Houses
           - Fredericksburg Brewing Company is "the oldest and most acclaimed" brewpub in all of Texas! You can find it in, yep you guessed it, Fredericksburg, TX and get this: they're a "Bed and Brew"!!! That means that you may even be able to get by claiming this is a romantic getaway for you and your other half, in case they are less beer inclined. They brew in 500 gallon batches, with up to 7,500 gallon capacity, and currently are serving 6 different brews!

           - Cypress Street Station and Abiline Brewing Company offers a selection of rotating craft brews throughout the year. The brew house has the capacity to have 3 brews tapped at any time with their 3 five-barrel tanks (that's 155 gallons of beer in case you were wondering!!). This touted as "Abiline's Landmark Restaurant and only Brew Pub!"

           - The Draught House Pub and Brewery just made it to the TOP of the Upship! Unofficial Beer Tour list. Here's why: They have a number of house brews on tap, including a cask ale! Not only that, they've got standard pub fare, including real pizza made to order - which hits a soft spot for me. This place has over 50 different beers on tap, and just shy of 20 more available bottled. Bonus! - they have daily specials including, $2.75 pints, buy a pint keep the glass, and free brautwurst day!
           Awesome.

           - Blue Star Brewery located in San Antonio also serves cask beer - another "Awesome." Additionally, they've got 6 other brews currently on tap, and you can take a 1/2 gallon growler for $10. And interestingly enough, they've even got full kegs you can take home. Still better - more pizza, and a huge selection of additional food on the menu...and, yep, wait for it...live music! These guys have probably figured out the equation for the perfect beer drinking atmosphere, and I'm excited to test that theory.

           - The Flying Saucer in Fort Worth is a pretty sweet draft house. I wish I could say it was awesome...but they had a cover. Lame. Very very lame. And the service was a little slow to boot. Now that I got that out of the way, the rest of the experience was pretty good. They have HUNDREDs of different brews on type from all over the world and in every possible style you could want! It's about $5.50 a pint for pretty much anything and if they don't have what you ask for they are quick to suggest a similar brew you may not have tried. They also had a small bar menu if you're hungry, although I didn't look at it too closely. If you're in the area, or looking for a destination where you can get good brews try Fort Worth and the Saucer.

Biergartens:
           - The Auslander Biergarten and Restaurant is located in Fredicksburg, but unlike the Oktoberfest they're open all year round...meaning good food and beer can be had all year round - German and otherwise. Finally, not only does The Auslander look like it was literally plucked out of a small German Dorf it's another establishment that provides live music regularly too.

And for now ladies and gentlemen, I will leave it at that. This, for the moment, is the Upship! Brewing "Unofficial Texas Beer Tour." Disclaimer: admittedly, many fine establishments have surely been left out, and less surely one or two herein listed may not quite live up to our unquestionable taste, but that is the point - to add, modulate, and perfect the "Unofficial Texas Beer Tour" to truly experience it. After all it's not the destination that makes for a good time, it's the experience, so get out there and fill your gullet with good food and great beer! And report your findings for others to enjoy!

Prost!
Jack