Category: Beer

Written by Ken Carman

 One of the more problematic things to really achieve as a judge is decent palate education. You can’t do it by simply drinking more beer. In fact, unless you drink a lot of defective beer, and styles you’re not fond of, and otherwise great beer that’s considered off style: drinking more may be counter-productive when it comes to educating the palate. An occasional defect session run by your homebrew club is great, except these are flavors, aromas and other parameters you need to be very familiar with; time is not your friend: memory fades, can even change.
 The summer before I took the BJCP test again, every week I would stop by Yankee Spirits in Sturbridge: or wherever my tour took me, and buy a beer. Then I would pollute it with Butter Buds, corn juice from a can of corn, Chloraseptic: anything that might mimic a beer defect. I started with NAs and worked my way up to Russian Imperials and Double IPAs.
 Clubs often have off flavor seminars, or club meetings where polluted beer is served: “polluted” with a defect kit offered by the BJCP containing vials of concentrated defect solution that; if you sniff them straight, really are quite “vile.” Beer could be left out in the sun, beer might be very, very old. You too can drink cardboard beer: yum!
 We do whatever nasty thing we need to do to beer to experience the defects we need to be looking for when judging beer.
 Note: I also recommend sessions, to provide just one example, where Anchor Porter, in a label-less bottle, is served as an American Amber and participants tell everyone why this is, or isn’t, an American Amber, or a Dry Stout, or…
 A few years ago I brought a case of Sam Adams single hop series: where they took their Latitude 48 and made several versions with only one hop each, to a Music City Brewers meeting for all to try. I think we found it educational… so I was already interested in being able to understand how different hops affect beer. This concept seems to have been filtered into something called The Hop Experience, where homebrewers can take a very simple beer, usually a light beer, and put different hops in it.
 Enter Clarksville Carboys…
 Millie and I are members of Music City Brewers, but we live closer to Clarksville than most Davidson County residents: out towards Ashland City. I used to live even closer in Cheatham County part of Joelton and worked for a while in Clarksville. So when we found out there was a homebrew club in Clarksville, Tennessee, we decided to visit occasionally, when we had a chance. Our first visit was about a year ago, and three weeks ago we got to visit again. That’s when James Visger, president, told us about their plan to do The Hop Experience. We’re into beer education, so we couldn’t resist. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: The Hop Experience”

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Pop the cap, sniff and I immediately get oak. This year Hoppin’s Christmas comes in three types, the regular which I won’t open until Labor Day 2013 for my beer tastings in the Adirondacks. This seemed like it may be the barrel aged oak forward, as described by the folks at HF, until it warmed up and the bourbon came on strong. The nose is absolutely: spiced. Ginger, cinnamon and some nutmeg. The brown ale nose is way in the back.

Taste: the same. Bourbon pops out as it warms, more in the taste.

Mouthfeel is medium body with bourbon cling to the top of the palate. Low carbonation leaves just a hint of tingle.

Off white, pillow, head. Clarity very good with deep ruby highlights. SRM about 20-22. Nice perfect brown. The magic here is it is so multi-dimensional. The body is medium on the lighter side of, but bourbon and spices make it seem like more. Bourbon sweetness hangs after rest of the flavor fades.

Sipping on this is like savoring a fine light bourbon. The spices are way in the background but the bourbon first, the oak second, the sweet brown malt third and then the spices as a firm after thought. This is a perfect balance for what they were shooting for, and it definitely made me think “Christmas,” even in April. We’ll see next time how savory the oak forward Christmas Ale is.

I was tempted to give it a 5 out of 5. So I did.

Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “prefecto.”

Review: TimberCreek Tap & Table

11191 Highline Drive, Meadville, PA 16335
814-807-1005
(This is Route 19, and right off Route 322. Route 322 is also route 6 at this point in PA)

Written by Ken Carman

  I was headed north for yet another tour and Millie, my wife, decided to tag along. The ball and chain was so hard to drag all the way… hey, I’m talking about the truck we were towing behind us. That “ball and chain!” Not my loving wife, Millie. (Whew, that was a good save.)
  No, goofing around aside, she want to check out a competition I judged at last year: AWOG, or “Amber Waves of Grain,” in Niagara Falls, NY. And she had some time she needed to take off from work, or lose it.
  Anywhosie, I checked out breweries and brewpubs we’d be close to before we went, other than The Church or Sprague in Pennsylvania: both of which we’ve tried and enjoyed. Mr. Google did a beer burp and came up with Voodoo Brewing. I even know the brewer: Matt Allyn, from a previous brew job in Titusville, PA at Four Sons. (Now called “Blue Canoe.”) I did a column on him and Four Sons a few years ago. But the hours didn’t work out for Millie to go there too. Besides, there was a second Google beer burp and…”Look, Millie! There’s this new brewpub and the pictures of the inside even look a little like the old Buckhead brewpub that was in Tallahassee!” Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

…while getting tongue?

The Topic: Adventures in Braggotland, Part 2

Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay, Salt City and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

  First the news: I won second in Chattanooga for my Bee Czar, and first in Savannah for my 3 Weizen Guys. Here’s the irony: they both scored poorly in the competitions they didn’t win in. If you simply compared the scores forms you would think I mixed up the bottles, except the judges made specific comments that proved to me I labelled them right. Both set of judges thought the brews that didn’t score well might be infected.
  Chuckle.
  Here’s what I think happened. The Dunkelweizen Braggot, aka: 3 Weizen Guys, was not labelled for the judges as using a Dunkelweizen-base for the beer at the first competition, even though I specifically specified that when I entered it. Hence the phenolic sense one might expect in that style were perceived as a defect. And, to be honest, I doubt the judges had much experience judging braggots. That’s common. Meads alone are kind of the poor cousins in beer judge-dom. That kind of makes braggot the bastard child of the poor cousin many don’t want to know, much of which has to do with some judges who think mead shouldn’t even be in a beer competition. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

Profiled by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

I had been warned about this one.

“It’s… ‘OK.’ It’s a… contract’ brew.”

Comment at a homebrew meeting in Pensacola.

So I was actually surprised by this at first, but then it morphed into what I had expected. First sips: not bad, but eventually cries out for better hopping schedule. Though my friends in Florida told me this is a vended out beer, the website seems to indicate not. If this were “vended out:” someone comes up with a recipe and then has some company brews it for them. But everything indicates this was brewed by the name on the label: Florida Beer Company in Melbourne, Florida.

I do think what happened here is good intent on the part of the brewer, but a mismatch of hops: too much Citra-like hop sense. Sometimes it’s compared to cat pee. Now I know why, even more than during judging sessions where over excited brewers seem to have used wet kitty litter for dry hopping. Everything else seems right except the hopping, though it’s hard and harder to tell as it warms… hard to get through the pee to the actual beer. And since hopping is crucial to IPAs, well that’s the main reason for the low rating. If I wanted to drink cat pee all I’d have to do is warm a glass of this in the microwave.

Nice pillow head with edge bubbles. Clarity good. Citra cat pee nose, but less in taste. There’s less cat and more spice to this in the first tastes. But as it warms Citra-cat pee dominates taste eventually and becomes annoying. Medium pale malt body with some carmelization in the background. Fairly well balanced but that cat pee keeps asserting itself and becomes annoying. Reviewers on BA thought it “boozy,” but I really think this is the Citra sharpness is what they’re sensing. Says 10% No way. Maybe 8? But, would be hard to sense swimming in so much liquid cat.

My advice: drink very cold or find something else to drink. Warmth doth not do this brew justice, but cold makes it an OK quaff on to the next, more interesting, beer.

According to Wiki (excerpts)…

Florida Beer Company is organized in the state of Florida as a C Corporation. Originally founded in 1996 as Indian River Brewing Company, the 11,000 square foot brewery on South US 1 in Melbourne produced its first beers, Indian River Shoal Draft and Indian River Amberjack in June 1997; production of Kelly’s Irish Hard Cider and a variety of private label beers began in late 1997-1998. In March 2005 the company entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with Ybor City Brewing Company to acquire the brands, marks, intellectual property, inventory and all business assets of Ybor City Brewing Company and the related entities. The assets and brands included Key West (Key West Brewery, originally of Key West, Florida), Ybor Gold (Ybor City Brewing Company originally of Tampa, Florida) and Hurricane Reef (Hurricane Reef Brewery originally of Miami, Florida). Florida Beer Company is the largest craft brewer in the State of Florida. The State of Florida is the third largest beer market in the country.”

Seems Wiki views FBC as a brewer, even a contract brewery, not one who vends out.

68 “poor” on Beer Advocate, worse on Rate Beer: 41. One reviewer said: “Could not get past smell.”

Two is all I can give it.

Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “prefecto.”

Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.

Written by Ken Carman

Old Nutfield Brewery
Derry, NH

  I remember the day I bought this. I was waiting for a movie and decided to stop by for a beer in Nashua, NH.It was a small bar that advertised they had “our own craft beer.” They called themselves the Nutfield Pub. It was actually a bar/hotel complex from what I remember. Makes me wonder if it was a bar owner trying to climb onto the craft trend in a somewhat dishonest way, or if Jim Killeen actually had some connection to the pub. I think that’s why I thought it might be a contract brew at the time, since obviously there was no brewery there or bottling line.
 Not that memorable, but not bad from what I remember. A nice mild, nutty, amber beer
  Ratebeer.com gives no score and says, “formerly brewed at Nutfield Brewing Company, 22 Manchester Road
Derry , New Hampshire, NH.” Then says they’re out of business.
  My web search revealed the brewer was Jim Killeen, born October 1955, died October 2010, who left the corporate world as an employee to become his own employee: starting a microbrewery. He had worked for Lockheed Martin.
  He operated his brewery in the 90s and died while joggin in 2010. The brewery died before that “when plans to expand fizzled,” often meaning a company over extended itself.
 The brewery was a 25 barrel brewing system which was actually set up by New England craft beer legend, Alan Pugsley.According to a book on New England craft breweries Jum contributed a description of his brewery to they had open fermentation tanks, and that was the 90s before Belgian brewing became quite the trend.
 When Bob Dole was running for president he decided not to stop by the brewery because they had a beer called, “Old Man Ale.” Bob was being criticized because of his age. That produced a lot of negative press, so he stopped anyway.
 The brewery is now owned by Alan Pugsley: famous for starting Shipyard and their brewpub in Kennebunkport: Federal Jacks, but turned it into a contract brewery. The beer brand doesn’t exist anymore.

Jim Killeen, left, with wife, Tina, on their backyard deck.

Written by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

 Often the first, and the last, contact a traveling: out of town, beer judge has for a competition is the judge coordinator, or “director” as they’re sometimes referred to. Last year my work schedule took me close to New York State, and I wondered, “Wouldn’t it be a hoot to judge beer in my native New York again?” Previous to that I had judged in Albany, NY at a competition known as the Knickerbocker.
 So that’s how I wound up at Amber Waves of Grain, or AWOG: Buffalo area. Held at a Knights of Columbus in Niagara Falls, New York.
 This year my schedule seemed cooperative, so I offered my Certified judge services up to Mr. Terry Felton again: beer judge director at AWOG. Yes, I’m “Certified,” but my readers already knew that: even those who read my other, non-beer related, columns, right?
  Millie, my wife and also a beer judge, decided to go with, so we towed my work truck up to a client’s parking lot in Cortland, Ohio, looked at the snow surrounding my ancient tour bus in the storage area about 5 miles away, and decided to crash at a service area on the New York State Thruway instead of possibly getting stuck in a lot in Ohio.
 Late March, snow, Ohio? Yup, and we could hear Phil from Punxsutawney laughing just across the border, while Bill Murray was muttering about an “over sized rat.” And, yes, I wrote that before all those Facebook Phil jokes.
 So two semi-rested beer judges registered and headed off to see what we were judging after a very brief talk with Terry Felton. Actually: correction. No need to “head off.” Terry already had our assignments up on a big white board that latter he erased and reused for the second sessions. I took a picture of the board, but it didn’t come out, but you can see part of it to the right in the picture of Terry.

Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: AWOG’s Terry Felton”

Written by Brandon Jones for embracethefunk.com

I’ve been looking forward to the day when I had the chance to write this blog entry…the day I get to talk about brewing a full size batch of sour goodness for the Embrace The Funk series at Yazoo. Yep on March 2nd Linus Hall and I brewed a full 40bbl batch on the big system! (Our previous batches together have been 10bbl) What an awesome experience it was to plan and gather up everything we needed to brew a Lambic style ale.

One of the first items on the list was to figure out which yeast/wild yeast/bacteria blend to go with. We already have a single barrel batch (59 gallons) of Lambic style beer fermenting which we have been very happy with it’s progress since early Fall. That batch was fermented with a few goodies from my stockpile of funk and Bug Farm 5. So in what has been one of the coolest moments of my sour brewing adventure I worked with the Brewing Science Institute (BSI) on building up a proprietary sour blend based on our first batch. Working out the proportions of the different microbes to make up our ETF1 blend and actually seeing 40bbl pitch of it was one of those brewing moments I’ll always remember.
Continue reading “Big Batch Brew Day!”