Brew Day: Two Dry Stouts!

With Saint Patrick's Day a couple of short weeks away, I find myself without anything appropriate on tap! I always try to have something dark and roasty on - either a stout or a porter, o
r both! I am not the type who thinks of darker beers as winter seasonals... I can drink a porter anytime, and a dry stout functions just fine as a "lawnmower beer" for me.

Sláinte Mhaith - my dry stout

I have a standby (award winning) dry stout recipe that I brew at least 2-3 times per year. It is consistent and a pleaser for any fan of the style. I call it 'Sláinte Mhaith' (SLAHN-cha wa - Irish Gaelic for 'Good Health'). It is really just the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles (http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926) by Jamil Zainasheff (@mrmalty) and John Palmer with whatever uniqueness my system/process lends:
70% Maris Otter British Pale Malt
20% Flaked Barley
10% Roasted Barley
I use WY1098 British Ale as my yeast...

I have always loved stout - I was among the first people I knew to like Guinness (I will not admit how early). Like many brewers, I originally fell prey to the "more is better" thinking when formulating my stout recipes. When I sat down to write this blog entry, I looked back through my recipe binders and brew logs... There were TEN stout recipes (American and dry). Each was decent - I don't believe I ever made a terrible stout (I have made a few terrible beers though). But none of them was what I was looking for - thus the ten different recipes, none brewed a second time.

Then I listened to Jamil's Dry Stout  episode on The Jamil Show (http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show) - the original one, not the Brewing with Style newer one... He talked about the simplicity of classic Dry Irish Stout. I brewed that recipe, which he later included in the book referenced above: it was exactly what I had been pursuing! I have been brewing that exclusively as my dry stout recipe ever since.

2015. The year is young, and I have been immersing myself in brewing media: Basic Brewing Radio/Video, the beer engine, Chop & Brew, Brewing Network... Was it time to brew a different stout? Should I put more than one stout on tap? An episode of Chop & Brew and an entry in the beer engine blog featured a Beamish-inspired dry stout - I had tried clones of Beamish in the past, but they had fallen short. This recipe, and the subsequent tasting on Chop & Brew, seemed compelling.

I talked through my ideas with my local brewery's tasting room manager (and former student), and he mentioned he had a nitro system that was not currently in use. What?! He offered it to me on loan! That iced it - I was going to brew both, and serve them both on nitrogen!

Brewed and ready for March 17th. No green beer here - only proper stout!

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Slainte Mhaith
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Category: Stout
                Subcategory: Dry Stout
                Recipe Type: All Grain
                 Batch Size: 5.5 gal
              Volume Boiled: 7 gal
            Mash Efficiency: 70 %
        Total Grain/Extract: 10.00 lbs
                 Total Hops: 2.0 oz

Ingredients
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            7 lbs Maris Otter Pale
            1 lbs Black Roasted Barley
            2 lbs Barley (Pregelatinized Flakes)
              **2 oz East Kent Goldings (Whole, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
           Yeast: Wyeast 1028 London Ale

Notes
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Mash @ 152°

Vital Statistics
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 Original Gravity: 1.044
 Terminal Gravity: 1.009
            Color: 27.47 SRM
       Bitterness: 41.8 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 4.5 %

** I actually shifted 10% of the hop bill to 10 minutes to match the Beamish-inspired recipe (for analoous comparison purposes)

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Squeamish
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                   Category: Stout
                Subcategory: Dry Stout
                Recipe Type: All Grain
                 Batch Size: 5.5 gal
              Volume Boiled: 6.5 gal
            Mash Efficiency: 72 %
        Total Grain/Extract: 9.25 lbs
                 Total Hops: 1.9 oz

Ingredients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
            7 lbs Maris Otter Pale
            1 lbs Malted Wheat
         0.75 lbs Black Roasted Barley
          0.5 lbs American Chocolate Malt
           0.6 oz East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
           0.4 oz Perle (Whole, 8.25 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
           0.5 oz Hallertau (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
           0.2 oz East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 10 minutes.
           0.1 oz Perle (Whole, 8.25 %AA) boiled 10 minutes.
          0.15 oz Hallertau (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 10 minutes.
           Yeast: Wyeast 1098 British Ale

Notes
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Mash @ 152°

Vital Statistics
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 Original Gravity: 1.042
 Terminal Gravity: 1.008
            Color: 28.44 SRM
       Bitterness: 39.1 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 4.3 %

New Beer Annex: The Acme, Tacoma

I look forward to drill weekends... Not because I love donning the uniform, not because I love the Army, but because I love the guys I work with. I truly look forward to seeing them every month. One of the highlights is our Beer Club (this is a totally lackluster and uncreative name)... We get together and drink beer well into the night. It often becomes a prideful contest to see who can last the longest, but it is mostly about drinking and talking about good beer.

At the Holidays, my homebrew baskets for the unit fundraiser raffle have become legendary. People start asking if I will be providing baskets about three months in advance! I also usually provide kegs for barbecues, picnics, and special events after drill. I have rallied quite a bit of interest in good beer and homebrewing through such beer diplomacy... Over the past year, our gatherings have grown and grown, often attracting upwards of 20 folks; likewise the number of homebrewers in our midst continues to rise.

However, our unit moved from a location we had occupied for the past five years. We had established drinking routines: either drinking in-house with a variety of offerings brought in by revelers or a walk to the local dive bar just off post. Faced with a new location, one which we share with many other units (visibility is the enemy of discretion), all eyes were on me for a plan.

Google is my friend, even if many of the sites I wanted to visit were blocked by government internet filters! Using Google Maps, I was able to locate several local haunts within 15 minutes walking distance. The walking distance part is non-negotiable for me, because I don't want anybody driving after we've been out drinking. Several of the potential establishments were also music venues, so they were going to require a cover and be fairly crowded. We decided on a place, which from all appearances looked to be a good dive replacement, that was only 4 blocks away!

The Acme Tavern in Tacoma was two blocks north and two blocks east of our armory - can't beat convenience! And it was not a dive at all! They strive for the dive feel - shunning any trendy embellishments. Tables, chairs, bar games, a jukbox, pounders of Rainier and PBR, taps of American Macro-swill... And 4 local micro/craft taps! The bar tender was a super guy, and the local bar flies were friendly and welcoming.

We filled the jukebox full of quarters and waxed indecisive about what we wanted in the music queue... We drank four pitchers of Odin Brewing Co.'s Odin's Gift, and were sold on our new beer annex! If you haven't had a chance to try any of their brews, their tasting room is open most Friday afternoons... They are located in Seattle, near the Museum of Flight (9130 15th Pl. S. Suite F, Seattle, WA, 98108).

Odin's Gift is a ruby-colored dark ale. I don't know how they classify it, if at all, but it is definitely a pecialty beer. I detected juniper berries (I think) and rich dark-fruit malty overtones providing the sweetness to carry the alcohol (I'm guessing 7-8%), balanced by a just enough hop bitterness to keep it from being cloying... This beer had a lot of potential to be a one-pinter, given the fruity nose (from the dark malts and the juniper berries), but it was well-attenuated and finished much drier than I expected. This beer was like a juniper-cautious Alaskan Winter on steroids!

2/21/10 - Brewing is Always Better with Company!

So earlier in the week, my wife informed me that we were having company on Sunday... It seems that my kids and their DI team needed a bit more practice for their upcoming competition. I wanted nothing to do with it - so I told her I was going out to the garage to brew.

I emailed my buddy Micah to see if he'd be available. He confirmed. However, I told my wife that I'd take care of my part of cleaning the house, and we were booked up on Saturday. I called Micah around 1PM, and he was still game...

He barely made it to the local homebrew shop before they closed - 4PM on Sundays. It was just about 5 by the time he arrived... This kind of defeated the original purpose, since I wanted to be out of the house during the practice (which I accomplished anyway by going to the dump!), and this raised a glare from my wife (along with some facetious comments).

But Micah came through for me! He brought her a bottle of wine - Riesling, her favorite - and a bunch of awesome snacks for after dinner. So Micah bailed me out of the doghouse I was going to be in for missing all of the kids' bedtime routine by winning over my wife, and my kids (who think he is their newest best friend).

Micah also brought three kits ready to brew straight from the LHBS, which saved me from having to throw together an ad-hoc recipe. As we broke out the food and beer making supplies, he also gave me the beer he had brought - a Mickey's 24 ouncer. This turned out to be a joke, but I drank it later in the week anyway! After a dinner of fresh brats with fries and good beer, we got to brewing!

He opted for a cream ale recipe, and I brewed the nut brown ale he had brought (supposedly a Samuel Smith clone - which is great since that is really the only nut brown that I choose to buy on a regular basis!). It was a bit chilly by the time we got brewing (and frosty, literally, by the time we finished), so we decided to brew on the deck and split our time between there and the kitchen table.

We went through many different beer tastings in between talking through the brewing process (I think Micah has fewer than 5 batches under his belt since I first got him going last fall) and snackage... We drank some Widmer W'10 - their interpretation of an PNW Black IPA (a lot like a Broken Halo made black as night, with just the slightest hint of roast)... Lagunitas IPA... Maybe Lagunitas Pils or Sierra Nevada Glissade... (I don't remember - I should check the empties!). The highlight of the night was the last bottle we drank: de Koningshoeven Trappist Tripel. It was 750mL of cloudy, golden heaven! And I had Micah almost in tears as I repeated the name repeatedly as we drank it!

As with drinking good beer, it is always better to brew with a friend.