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Episode 66 – Flash Frozen Homebrew

Denny Conn during a more musical moment.
SCIENCE TIME!

Sit back and relax, it’s getting frosty in here! On this episode of the podcast, we breakdown the results of our Cryo/T-90 experiment. And since the results were so “weird” – we brought in some extra help in the form of some of the IGORs who helped with the podcast including Brad Macleod, Eric Pierce and Miguel Loza Brown. Together we talk what went right (and sometimes what went wrong with the brew days) and what we all thought of the Cryo beers (including some numbers courtesy of White Labs).

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Addressing the Question: Are Kids Welcome in Breweries?


It was early on a snowy Sunday afternoon at Modist Brewing Co. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A historic winter storm had dumped 20 inches onto the city, clearing out grocery stores and closing some businesses. The roads were passable, however, so while flurries blew around outside, inside the brewery things were hopping.

Among the clinking of glasses and adult conversation, a bulldog and a terrier-mix sniffed introductions to each other while along the street-facing windows, a few toddlers were sitting in a circle playing with blocks and a ball. The place had a jovial mood as parents, happy to be released from the confines of the house, sipped on pastry stouts and lagers, and kids explored new terrain.

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Beer Profile: Westbrook’s Mexican Cake Imperial Stout

Profiled by Ken Carman

I love it when a beer’s name evokes memories that stimulate the palate. This one does but…
Where’s the cake?

Aroma: Sweet chocolate, hint molasses, aroma. No hops. Great complex malt bill with some focus on a dark chocolate sense.

Appearance: black as all hell. Head big but fades into nothing. What there was pure foam. Head that fadedc fast is damn near as dark as the quaff. More brown than black.

Flavor: dark chocolate, very sweet, finishes tad dry to medium. The balance is towards the malt: deep, dark, delicious. Slightest bitter, no hop flavor.

Mouthfeel: light side of heavy, malt with some bitter lingers on the roof of the palate. Dark chocolate hangs the heaviest on the palate.

Overall: Where’s the cake? This mostly tastes like a great RIS with maybe a hint of cake like sweetness, at best. The balance is malt specific and the bitter does balance it well, but it should at least softly say, “Mexican cake!” I do think there’s just a hint astringency lingering in the background as if I’m eating baker’s chocolate in otherwise an excellent RIS.

I admit it is incredibly enticing, quite good. But the Mexican cake I have had is actually fairly delicate. RIS and delicate are not synonyms. Felt like I was chewing on baker’s chocolate is the worst aspect.

4.4 BA.
100% RB.

3.9

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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 “perfecto.”

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_______________Beer HERE

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Deschutes “Twilight” and Passion Fruit IPA: One Birth, One Resurrection

The thing that has – for the entire twenty-eight years I’ve lived here in the uber-verdant Pacific Northwest – made Deschutes Brewery my favorite maker of beers that I can just sit, sip ‘n’ savor is their relentless experimentation.

I get bored easily – very easily – and especially with beer. I try, really hard, never to drink the same beer any more than once in any thirty-day period, the sole exception being when we buy a growler of something and have a finite window for draining it. But if it’s in bottles or cans, it’s in a large rotation and is gonna sit for a while.

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From the Bottle Collection: Carling Dark Beer


 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.

 I’m sure this came from the 60s, at best the very early 70s. Back then, on the east coast, “exotic” qualified mostly as beer like this. Forget anything that would eventually qualify as craft. The closest was probably Anchor, but that was west coast. When we got Coors a lot of folks thought it a “special treat.” In upstate NY you had to go far west or Canada. We chose Canada in 74 and had Guinness Foreign Extra: the one they just brought into the country a few years ago. Then there was Prior Double Dark out of Pennsylvania which, from what I remember, was probably closest to a London Brown, though it may have been a lager.
 Of course I have no way of reviewing something I had almost 50 years ago. I would think it probably would qualify as an International Dark these days: adjunct lager with some food coloring, a few more complex malts at best and not highly hopped. Similar to Shaeffer Dark, Miller Dark, Pabst Dark, Utica Club Dark. It probably wasn’t the best one, either that or all that available. I think we used to drink a lot of Pabst and Shaeffer. Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: Carling Dark Beer”

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A Beer Judge’s Diary: New Scoresheet Anyone?


By Ken Carman
By Ken Carman
 My regular readers may remember my column on AHA scoresheets. I admit: I wasn’t too kind when it came to the check off judging sheet used mostly at Nationals. My opinion hasn’t changed. Now there’s a new BJCP/AHA score sheet. I like it, but…
 One change they never seem to consider is to scoring: drop the top aroma point value from 12 to at least 10 and maybe add it to mouthfeel?
 Oh, I understand aroma contributes a lot to beer. How many entries have I judged with almost no aroma that otherwise are to style and phenomenal? Yes, the link between the two is substantial, but is it so important that the range be so wide that might punish an otherwise great entry? Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: New Scoresheet Anyone?”

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A Beer Judge’s Diary: Erie County Fair Home Brew Competition


 This ABJD is even more “diary” in nature than some because the story behind the adventure is as interesting as the event itself, and admittedly I know less event specifics than I should. For a complete list of winners please keep checking Erie County Fair’s Facebook Page. According to a recent post the first in show was Kevin DiTondo of Cheektowaga, NY with his Vienna Lager. Part of his winnings are having his beer brewed at Flying Bison Brewery in Buffalo.

By Ken Carman
  It’s April and I have a situation. I have lots of situations: story of my life, but I’m already veering off course. It’s Ken writing this, right?
 Anywhosie, like some fool writer who makes up his own words, Ken tends to make his own “situations,” and is good one. We have a boat to tow up north and, this year, a car too. The somewhat obscene sounding two ball rule means I can’t do the more dangerous thing and tow both. And for many unmentioned reasons that would extend this tale towards tedious, some of a somewhat self sabotaging nature, I need to tow the boat first.
 On the bright side, with my increasingly buff 64 year old body I’ll be able to fulfill my not so wet dream fantasy of flipping the 90 horse Evinrude upside down, use it like a propeller, and slide across the ice of Stillwater ten miles to Beaver River. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: Erie County Fair Home Brew Competition”

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Brewing Dortmunder Adambier


Picture courtesy Beer Archives. NOT Woodland Brewery’s Adambier.

A dated article, but I have heard no one talk of this style. Just had one in Marcy, NY. Interesting-Ken Carman

A Dortmunder Adambier is malt dominated strong ale from Northern Germany. No one can be certain on the origin. Dortmund was one of the cities in the 14th Century Hanseatic League (along with Einbeck — the home of Bock); the city was best known for beer and brewing. In the 19th Century, King Frederick William IV of Prussia was known as a hard drinking man. He visited Dortmund and some Adambier put him under the table for more than a whole day! With the development of lagers, this style fell out of favor among German beer drinkers, and now is very difficult to find. Even the BJCP (sadly) abandoned the style when they revised the guidelines in 1998.

My first exposure to Dortmunder Adambier was when I was judging European Ales in the mid 1990s. There was this wonderful strong beer that tasted like a cross between an English Barley wine and a dopplebock. I later found out that Bruce Brode and Brian Vessa were the brewers and have since brewed several myself. The only commercial example of an Adambier I know of is Hair of the Dog’s Adam. Brewer Alan Sprints goes to great trouble with this flagship beer. Each batch is numbered, and the carbonation comes from krausening, where Hair of the Dog adds some new fermenting Adam to some that is ready to be bottled. One can tell, Adam will last many years if kept cold, and the head is as intense and rocky as any beer I’ve ever seen. Alan adds some smoked malt as well — peat if you can believe it. If you haven’t tried Adam, do yourself a favor and get some. Stuffed Sandwich has many aged magnums going back a number of years.

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