Professor Good Ales

“Serving the technical side of homebrewing”

By Kai, for braukaiser.com

Water composition is important for brewing and many brewers either send their water to a lab for analysis or build brewing water from scratch using very soft (e.g. reverse osmosis water) and salts. It is, however, also possible to test brewing water at home. The precision and amount of detail of such a water test does not match that of a professional analysis, but it is sufficient to estimate the residual alkalinity of the brewing water with an acceptable accuracy. At home water testing also allows regular testing of a water source in order to detect seasonal changes which may warrant a more precise professional analysis.

LINK

…and a “Where Are They Now” Brewer Profile: Todd Hicks

By Ken Carman

Perdido Vineyards
22100 County Road 47
Perdido, Alabama 36562
(251) 937-9463
http://www.perdidovineyards.com
Owner: Jim Eddins

I’ve known Todd Hicks for many years and through quite a few phoenix like rebirths. The first time I met Todd he was brewing at McGuires in Pensacola with Steve Fried. Since then he has brewed at the various rebirths of a brewpub in downtown Mobile, Alabama. It’s been Cannon, Hurricane; amongst other incarnations.

Can a brewpub be Buddhist in nature? If they used milk in a Milk Stout would the brewer wind up being reincarnated as a cockroach under foot for punishment?

Todd has been involved in almost every attempt to start a brewpub west of Tallahassee, east of Mississippi. Todd took Santa Rosa in Fort Walton from a brewpub that sometimes hooked up a Bud or Miller keg; claiming it as their own, to a brewpub that had one of the finest red ales I’ve ever had, and one of the strangest owners. Marketing “Death Cigarettes?” Luckily that brand name went about as far as where it was first placed: in the movie “Waterworld;” a multi-million dollar, four time nominated for a “Razzie” award including worst picture, worst actor, worst director and worst supporting actor, fiasco.

Santa Rosa may have gone the way of Death Cigarettes, but Todd “the immortal” lives on. You have to admire his stick-to-it-tive-ness and his ability to find ways to continue to perfect his craft. His last brewmaster job was at the now folded Hurricane in Mobile. I had a feeling it wouldn’t last. The menu alone was so sparse and unimaginative I could tell the owner didn’t seem all that serious. The brew business: and more specifically the brewpub business, in this area has always been a bit rocky, with McGuires being pretty much the sole survivor for many, many miles in any direction.

I could go on and provide a long list of achievements and where he has been, but this isn’t just about what Todd was, but where he is now and what his plans are.

So while Todd looks for investors to, yet again, reopen the old downtown Mobile location, he has also been providing his talents to a winery in Perdido, Alabama: about 50 miles north of Mobile, just off of I-65, on the east side of the interstate. Hard to miss. About the only thing at the exit.
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

Ben Self, head of quality control at Good People Brewing Co. in Birmingham, draws a sample of the brewer’s Snakehandler Double Indian Pale Ale. (Michael Tomberlin/Birmingham News)

Written by Michael Tomberlin for The Birmingham News

The beer advocacy group that brought higher-alcohol craft beers to Alabama is now looking to release breweries and brewpubs from red tape and what it considers outdated laws that stymie the industry in the state.

The group, Free the Hops, is pushing the Brewery Modernization Act, which has been introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives. A similar bill is planned for introduction in the Alabama Senate.

The goal is to inject common sense into the laws that apply to breweries and brewpubs across the state, according to Free the Hops’ president, Stuart Carter. “Why are breweries and brewpubs under different legislation? At the end of the day, they both manufacture beer.”

Dan Roberts, head of legislative issues for the group, said the Alabama Brewpub Act from 18 years ago has not led to the expansion of breweries inside restaurants that many hoped for because the law made it difficult for brewpubs to find an approved location and to make a profit. For instance, brewpubs are limited to opening in historic buildings and other narrowly defined locations.

Today, only Birmingham and Huntsville have open, operating breweries. Several brewpubs that opened under the current law have closed, including some in Birmingham, Mobile and Auburn.
Continue reading “Alabama bill aims to help brewpubs through deregulation”

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AB
UK

And…

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Wakehurst Place
Ardingly
West Sussex RH17 6TN
UK

Quotes from Kew Gardens’ site regarding their mission: saving hops that might otherwise go extinct…
Continue reading “Kew Gardens and Hops”

Written by hywel

(For hywelsbiglog.files.wordpress.com)

THE Bethnal Green Food Center has been useful lately. Over the last few weeks, they’ve sold more bottle conditioned British ales than I knew existed. Here is my most recent purchase. A £1.99 pence bottle of Young’s Kew Gold.

This is the same Young’s that brought us Special London Ale and Luxury Double Chocolate Stout. And part of the same Wells & Young’s behind Banana Bread Beer and Bombardier Satanic Mills. As such, hopes are high and the bottle looks very familiar.

Why do I like bottle conditioned ales? Who wants yeast floating around in their drink? Simple. It turbo-charges the flavour, and it’s divisive. And that makes for interesting comments at the end of this post.

Continue reading “A Report on Young’s Kew from England”

Mendocino Brewing
Saratoga Springs, NY

Profiled by Ken Carman

I’ve been by this brewery more than a few times, but never stopped. It’s in a factory like facility just slightly north of downtown Saratoga. It was a local brewery by another name before Mendocino bought it out. I would assume they still have a brewery out west as well, though their site seems a little vague under contact information.

Greeted by a nice, somewhat, deep gold when poured. Small but nice head. Caramel aroma with plenty of melanoidin sense: no hop in aroma or taste.

Taste? That’s where it falls apart. OK, it’s mild… in the background… but it’s there: phenolics. That “zip:” a bit like a water through a green rubber hose; plastic… some call it “band aid.”

Disregarding the obvious defect, and the fact I didn’t have a second bottle to make sure it wasn’t just the sample I had, this slightly hazy pale bock, just wasn’t complex enough. Some caramel and caramelized sense to it and a bit of “deep malt” aroma, But it fell apart upon first taste. Not all that impressive or memorable, except that slight, but annoying, phenolic zing.

How unfortunate. Try again guys. Add more malt and get a more complex grain bill. Double check your yeast, sanitation, shipping problems/storage conditions and all the other possible sources for phenolics, just to be sure.

Written by Charlie Papazian for examiner.com

There is a special beer awaiting beer enthusiasts, but for now it languishes in the “cellars” of a small Brazilian microbrewery because the government regulatory agencies can’t figure out how to approve such an astounding example of the brewer’s art.  On New Year’s Eve I savored a sample.  It was one of the best imperial stouts I’ve enjoyed in my life.  It was a good way to end my year and start another. But the beer remains imprisoned.

Founder and brewmaster of the Colorado Brewery, Marcelo Carneiro da Rocha.opened the unlabeled bottle just before midnight.  It is 10.5% alcohol by volume, made with English malts, Styrian Golding hops among others and black rapadura sugar.  Brewed in early 2009 he reveals that a sampling of the beer in June met with polite “not quite ready, a bit astringent” remarks.  But I can assure you due to the government’s slow not-yet “approval” process the beer has aged exquisitely.

With gentle licorice notes and a perfect balance between roast malt bite and hop bitterness the yet to be named “Colorado Imperial Stout” is smooth as velvet and has developed into a world class beer.

One of the key ingredients is black rapadura.  Rapadura is a unique sugar produced with unrefined sugar cane juice.  The juice is evaporated until natural sugars form a hard sugary cake.  There are amber and dark versions.  It is one of the cheapest forms of sugar in Brazil and is looked down upon by most Brazilians as not worthy of consideration – for much of anything.  Its taste is complex and delicious.  In beer it contributes a wonderful complexity for dark beers and a background foundation for light ales or lagers.  Hints of caramel and authentic molasses are but a couple of characters attributed to rapadura.  Granulated rapadura found in some specialty stores and supermarkets in the USA are rather bland and refined compared to the cake blocks sold in Brazil.

The Colorado Brewery is one if not the first pioneering micro/craft breweries in Brazil, it began brewing in 1995.  Called the Colorado Brewery because the brewing equipment was purchased from a Fort Collins, Colorado, USA based manufacturing company at the time.

Photo left: Marcelo Carneiro da Rocha listens to his beer.

Continue reading “Imprisoned beer – Brazilian Craft Brewers Fight Almost Insurmountable Odds”

Quite a few commercials. Some funny. Some OK.