Professor Good Ales

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!”