ionia ales

Posted by Brendan at July 14th, 2008

Picked up a 6pk the other day.

I used to love it, but this just tasted poor, stale and bad.

Posted by Brendan at July 12th, 2008

Jesse Becker, a wine expert shared a bottle of my barleywine over the fourth of July, and he was inspired enough by it to write a little blurb about it in his wine blog.

he makes it sound pretty damn good! (it was/is!)

Barleywines are beer, but they often come close to wine-like strengths with McGinns 2007 barleywine nearing the 12 percent mark. Barleywines can develop remarkably wine-like flavors, with this example showing great aromatic complexity and a layered finish of sage, lilac and crusty rye bread. These beers develop their high strengths and wine notes from the use of ale yeasts (saccharomyces cerevisiae), often fermented and matured over long periods. Some American brewers have been known to use wine yeasts, capable of even greater alcoholic strength, but I preferred McGinns, fermented with a classic American ale strain, to any other barleywine I have tasted.

Posted by Brendan at July 4th, 2008

From “My Beer Pix” blog,

http://www.mybeerpix.com/isabelle-proximus-releases-saturday/

A few of USAs best breweries made some wort and split it up between various barrels that they brought in. It’s a lambic experiment, should be pretty damn interesting. Maybe I’ll have to ask brother bernie in SF to keep his eyes peeled.

From the Lost Abbey website…
SAN MARCOS, Calif. – At 10am on Saturday, June 28th 2008, Port Brewing will release highly anticipated Isabelle Proximus. A collaboration between five of America’s best craft brewers – Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey, Adam Avery of Avery Brewing, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River, and RobTod of Allagash – Isabelle was created from a common base beer to which each brewery contributed a yeast strain and barrels for aging. After 16 months in oak, the beers were blended to create the final product.

Posted by Brendan at July 4th, 2008

No posts for a while, but  it’s ok.  I have made some beer.  A golden, a spontaneous fermentation and a maple syrup esb.

I spent a few days in california and had some good beers.

Best were the IPAs from Russian River. 21st amendment had a nice IPA but it was similar to the three - (blind pig, rr, pliny) from Russian River.  I picked up a few bottles, Temptation (now I have one from Batch 2 and Batch 3), Supplcation (brown ale aged in pinot noir barrels with cherries) and Beatification (spontainiously fermented in barrels.)

Work is going really well.  Both Production and Sales are up. Wednesday the 2nd saw the packaging of nearly 350 cases of beer, 45 1/2bbl, and 24 1/6bbl kegs.  It took just under 11 hrs for setup, packaging and cleaning up afterward.

Posted by Brendan at March 17th, 2008

So, I still haven’t posted very much stuff.

Brewed my first BeerQuest(atEmpyrean) beer, an IPA.  It’s all done fermenting.  Originally chilled to too low of a temp, I pitched more yeast after 24hrs of lag time, bythe next day it was ROCKIN’!

I found some bark in the back of the beer truck.  And helped a local florist unload some hollowed out tree trunks with the forklift.  It was a wacky day.   Irish Red at Lazlo’s is great, but one of my new favorites is the BetterWorld Wheat  a wit sans corriander.

Posted by Brendan at February 17th, 2008

Yep,

I just joined, this. 

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW.

Posted by Brendan at February 16th, 2008

I can’t wait for more of this…

ipa fall o7 
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to brew.  Or had mulitple batches going.  Here’s the plans.

I need to brew:

Some IPAs.

Strong Golden

Maybe a Wit?

A stout for St. Patricks day?  - i haven’t actually done that yet.

Sour beers!  - so that might be a turbid mash day.

I’d like to get some pure cultures, but I know much of my gear is infected, so maybe I see what’s left of my house cultures.

There’s much need for organization of equipment/keeping funky gear away from clean equipment.   Not that I am worried of a airborne transfer, but I don’t want to accidentally grab a bucket or hose that might ruin a “clean” IPA or other beer.

Not too long ago I had a “bomber” of Left Hand’s Warrior IPA.

Also, relatively new to the Lincoln Market, as of the holliday season.  Decent beer, this bottle was beginning to show the effects of oxidization.  ie, Tinny hop flavor.

Rogue’s Monk Madness was an interesting take on an abbey style.

But it was Rogue through and through.  Dark fruit notes and some alcohol.  An example of great brewing and knowledge of malts, hops and their house yeast.

Posted by Brendan at February 16th, 2008

My favorite style.

Rocky Mountian IPA - Ft. Collins Brewery.

Great floral nose.  Amber color.   Good bitterness balances the caramel notes.   Hop bitterness fades and flavor remains.   Very good beer.   No real flaws. However, After it warmed I got similar hop notes as the Cold Hop from Boudler Beer, which I really dislike.

Lakefront’s IPA was the second of the two “new to lincoln” IPAs.  I enjoyed it.  It was a good version of a standard IPA.  Nothing was heavy handed.   I’d buy a 6pk.

I’ll get some photos up soon.

Posted by Brendan at January 18th, 2008

I suck.  I admit it.  I haven’t posted for what a Month?  Jeez!

Good beers have been had.  Photos have been taken.  But no posts.

Let me explain. 

Working at a brewery hasn’t killed my love for beer or my love for talking about beer. (ask justin who was back for the hollidays and he maybe heard two sentences from my NOT about beer, and I am sorry I never really got to hear what the hell he is up to.)  But, I do not seem to have the motivation to write posts like I should.   Here’s a recap.

 I really hurt my back in mid december.  I was lifting a keg. (go figure!) It wasn’t a normal beer delivery and I did the damage while lifting the keg into a van.  OUCH! Then I had to deliver the damn beer.   The pain was sharp and terrible.  I have never felt anything like it.   A day later I went to a chiropracter and he’s been a big help.  I think things are better but the more difficult the work days the more it hurts.   About two weeks after I injured myself I had a string of days where I was running the bottler.  This was good since I needed to learn how to work the machine (which is like a glorified AK bottler with bells and whistles) and my injury got me of the delivery routes long enough to learn the in’s and out’s of the microbrewery staple  - THE MAHEEN!

So in the homebrewing world of mine, I haven’t been brewing.  Not enough time, and it’s been cold.   The beer brewed with ChrisJ has turned out awesomely! Very Crisp and delicious.  And a few of my sour beers are getting better and better.  Sidenote- I might be getting the peasure of donating a few bottles to the UNL eastcampus microbiology dept for a lab where they will “plate” out the beer in petri dishes to see what the heck is in there.   In the real world they’d be searching out “wort spoilage organisms” - and there are many in my beers.   Multiple strains of Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, maybe some others.  When I hear back about that I will deffinitely post about that!

More updates this weekend.  I’ve got to move some kegs.

Posted by Brendan at December 7th, 2007

Ok, this is the first of two posts about Shawn’s IPA.  This is the cooler/warming up bottle, I will follow with the room/cellar temp bottle.
hazy light orange color.

Well attenuated and quite carbonated.

I enjoy this beer because it is dry and crisp which causes me to take another sip and before long, there isn’t much left but some lacing on my pint glass.

As for the hops, they play a strong role but it’s not out of control.  A wonderful and almost downplayed malty-ness is at the center of this well bittered beer. At a lower temperature the hops seem to change character between floral and citrus but there are fruity aromas floating around as well.

The beer dances on my tongue and feels prickly.  and i am going to take another sip right ….   now.

Thanks Shawn.