Der Stammtisch lebt!

For those of you who want to improve your German skills while talking (or, technically, writing) about beer, join us at der Stammtisch ("the regulars' table") which is hosted over at realbeer.com. This week's Stammtisch can be found by following this link. Oh, and if your German is as bad as mine, I recommend Babelfish and dict.cc. Tschüß!

Trib wine critics review . . . Gatorade?

So this is somewhat off-topic, but too funny not to share. A while back this Onion article in which a "potato chip connoisseur" describes the flavor of Sour Cream & Onion Lays as "robust without overpowering the fragile potato" made the rounds and everybody had a good laugh. Even the most hardcore beer reviewer has to step back and laugh at him/herself every once in a while, right? Well, this might be even funnier because it's real. Behold, from today's ChicagoTribune.com:

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame flavors lack distinction
Critics pan new sports drinks released in his honor

July 11, 2009

Gatorade, one of Jordan's longest partnerships, is releasing a Limited Edition Jordan Series to honor his September induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

There are three new flavors, each representing a phase of his career, and each comes in two different labels. Sports drinks are certainly not meant for sipping but, nonetheless, we asked our wine critic Bill Daley and his wine tasters to temper their palates and rate the taste, the color, the aroma -- and the aura -- using the same criteria they use with finer vintages.

Then: Championship blue (berry cherry blend)

Two labels mark his early rise to stardom, including high school basketball in Wilmington, N.C., where he was cut from the varsity team as a sophomore, and his heroics at North Carolina.

Review: Bright Scope peppermint blue color. Smells like Hawaiian Punch's Fruit Juicy Red drink with lots of ripe berry scent and a slight citrus spritz. But taste is thin, like over-watered Kool-Aid. Potassium is noticeable but not overwhelming. Short, tart finish. Serve with protein bars, vanilla ice cream, Skittles.

Now: Championship gold (citrus orange blend)

Gatorade says these labels "shine a spotlight on Jordan's business acumen." One represents him as part owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. The other plugs his company Michael Jordan Motorsports.

Review: A golden color only an urologist could love; more opaque than the other. Smells like Tang on a bender or melted orange Life Savers. Tastes harsh, chemical-like. It's citrus without the sweetness, like chewable vitamin C. Serve with pretzels, popcorn, Waldorf salad.

Forever: Championship Red (berry blend)

This flavor highlights his "enduring legacy." One shows his career highlights. The other focuses on Game 5 of the 1997 Finals, where he overcame the flu to score 38 points "all while drinking Gatorade on the sidelines," the company says.

Review: Strawberry colored and strawberry scented and, more or less, strawberry flavored. Think Jell-O before the chill sets in. Serve with sliced bananas, strawberry pie, grilled pineapple, potato chips.

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So how funny is that? I think my favorite is the pairing with Skittles, as it reminds me of an exchange I had with Kevin at the Michigan Beer Buzz blog in the comments section of this post.

Anyway, to keep this somewhat beer-related, I'll add the following notes for the record... Finally finished off our Maibock on Thursday night so I put the Hefe on tap yesterday. Meanwhile I'm hoping to rack the Black Moon to the keg today. Looks like I'll have to give the (really old) Dunkelweizen the boot soon!

FotoFriday #5

Ogie, my brew dog, watches intently in the hope that I might spill some wort. A couple points of interest... First, in the lower left-hand corner you can see the hose running from my mash tun to a small thermos cooler (which I use as a makeshift grant). Second, in the upper right-hand corner you can see my laptop—on which I run Beersmith—balanced perilously on a hockey skate. I don't recommend that technique.

Fed up with BeerAdvocate... Where to go?

So I've posted about BeerAdvocate from time to time. It has a (mostly) wonderful group of users that include professional brewers, homebrewers and plain ol' beer geeks. I've learned a lot about brewing from fellow BA's, and I've met some pretty cool people there. However, I have one problem with the site: the guys who run it. The Alström Brothers (sycophantically referred to as "the Bros") run the site like the Stasi ran East Germany. They constantly chide people for not staying focused on beer like we're a bunch of eight-year-olds. My favorite was a recent "Late Night BeerAdvocate" thread (a sort of open thread where people shoot the breeze about what they're drinking that night) where somebody started the post by asking what people were drinking to pay tribute to Billy Mays. This was promptly deleted because Billy Mays has nothing to do with beer (though he did pimp OxiClean, which I use to clean the majority of my brewing equipment).

For me the last straw came this weekend. I studied in Germany in college and have been looking for a way to brush up on my vocab. Somebody on BA suggested starting a weekly thread in which we would discuss what's new in our (beer-related) lives--auf Deutsch. We called it "Der Stammtisch," which translates roughly into "the regulars' table." It was great. After three weeks I saw my syntax improving; I learned new words; I was thinking German much more often. Then on Saturday I went to reply to den Stammtisch and it was gone. The Bros deleted it because they couldn't moderate what they couldn't understand. I appealed to them to reconsider, but they weren't interested in what we had to say. When I emailed other users who regularly post on den Stammtisch, I found many users felt as I did: that they had been getting increasingly upset with the overmoderation of the forum and that this was the last straw.

Anyway, that's my unnecessarily-long preface to the question I'm getting at... What forums do others post on? I love beermapping.com (and nobody would compare Jonathan to a Stasi officer) but their forum isn't nearly as active as BA's. We've discussed moving den Stammtisch to realbeer.com, which seems promising. Any other suggestions for forums to frequent?

EDIT: I have been informed that der Stammish will indeed live on at realbeer.com! Jawohl!

FURTHER EDIT: I realize that moderating forums is often necessary, and I'm not suggesting they shouldn't try to keep things in order. It's just the combination of (what I see as) excessive moderating AND a reluctance to consider the opinions of members that led me to be fed up with the website.

FotoFriday #4

Spent grain in the mash tun from brewing Black Moon.

Chicago readers: free beer tomorrow at Rock Bottom!

I generally don't get into politics on this blog (it is just a brewer's log, after all) but I've always found a strong connection between beer and freedom. From our forefathers (forebrewers?) fighting to repeal the 18th Amendment to more recent campaigns to legalize homebrewing and high-alcohol beers, there's just something about brewing and drinking beer that is liberating. Hell, even in The Shawshank Redemption, the one time Andy Dufresne felt free while at Shawshank was when he got the one guard to bring them all beer while tarring the roof of the prison (as Red narrated: "We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men").

I suppose it's no coincidence then that beer is a staple of the 4th of July barbecue. Of course, if you're like me and don't want to wait until Saturday, I invite you to stop by the Rock Bottom just north of downtown Chicago (on State and Grand, to be specific) tomorrow from 6-7pm for the tapping of Pete Crowley's American Dream IPA! I had a sneak preview of the beer straight from the conditioning tank last Thursday and it's good stuff. Oh, and I suppose I should also mention it's FREE. How's that for freedom?! I know Brian from The Daily Ikura will be there, and Señor Brew is no stranger to Rock Bottom either (maybe he'll show up to bask in the glory of his recent victory). Hope to see you there too...

Final analyses: 59° Fahrenheit Maibock and It's A Boy/Cloud-to-Cloud Dunkelweizen

So I've been a little lax in posting final analyses for my beer, but before the kegs are kicked I figured I should do a wrap-up of our 59° Fahrenheit Maibock and our It's A Boy (for this particular batch)/Cloud-to-Cloud (for all other batches) Dunkelweizen. We'll start with the Maibock first...

Style: Maibock/Helles Bock. Original gravity: 1070. Final gravity: 1020 (I think).
ABV: 6.5%. IBU's: 32.

As you can see from the picture above, this light lager never cleared for some reason. I've made a handful of light lagers and hybrids (i.e. Kölsch-style ales) and never had a problem with haze before. Not sure what happened but I'm not really too worried about it. Otherwise it looks great... a light honey color with a nice white head. The aroma is spot-on too. Nice and grainy, but not too grainy, with just a touch of hay-like noble hop aroma.

Moving on to the taste, the first sip is nice and balanced. Whereas a normal Helles would be all sweet up front, you get a touch of hop flavor--and sufficient bitterness--to keep it balanced as a Maibock should be. In the middle you get nice sweet, bready notes before a decent hop bitterness keeps it from being syrupy. I think I achieved nice balance in this beer, which is key to a Maibock, so I don't plan on tweaking the recipe next time. However, there is one problem. There's a slight pineapple note in the finish. I left the carboy in the basement for the first night (which I estimated was around 60°F), moved it to the 55°F chest freezer the next day when fermentation started and dropped it again to 50°F the next day for most of fermentation, so it would seem like I had the temperature under control, but it went from 1070 to 1031 in a whopping six days, so it must've fermented hot. In the future when I brew a high-gravity lager I'm going to try to pitch closer to 55°F and keep it at 50°F through the first week of fermentation. Additionally, I have a probe thermometer that I want to turn into a submersible thermometer so I can monitor the actual temperature IN the carboy. That'll give me a better idea of if I'm fermenting hot with high-gravity lagers.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the Maibock, and it was well-received at my nephews' birthday party. I just have to watch my fermentation temps.

Moving on to the It's A Boy/Cloud-to-Cloud Dunkelweizen...

Style: Dunkelweizen. Original gravity: 1054. Final gravity: 1012.
ABV: 5.5%. IBU's: 14.

I was shooting for a relatively light Dunkelweizen on this one (so as to not scare off people who think they don't like "dark beers") but ended up with a beer that pours a cloudy, deep chestnut color. As one would expect from a wheat beer, the head is ample.

The beer has a spicy, inviting aroma with notes of chocolate, clove and brown sugar. The flavor, however, isn't exactly what I was shooting for. The wheaty sweetness that greets the tongue up front is great, with notes of dark breads and molasses. However, the finish is off. I wanted the beer to be clove-heavy, but the phenols on this one are too much. Combined with the noble hops, the clove-like spiciness comes off as almost muddy. There's also a slight sour note that was unintended; not sure if that was due to an infection or underpitching or if it's the yeast bite combining with the phenols. I also think the chocolate wheat kind of mucks up the flavor profile. I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

Overall, it was a good beer, but I'll definitely change some things next time. First of all, I fermented this one really low (like in the mid to upper 50's). Next time I'll try to keep it in the low to mid 60's. Also, looking at the recipe, I think I needlessly complicated things with Pils, Munich, chocolate wheat, and two types of CaraMunich malts. Next time I'm thinking straight Munich with maybe a touch of Carafa or chocolate malt to give it a slight roasty edge. After that I can start adding malts to develop the flavor profile, but better to start simple and add stuff one at a time. It'll be interesting to see what I end up with down the road.