The Challenge! (My first beer review in ages as well)

In an effort to prove to myself that this blog was a good idea, and that I will in fact post in it regularly, I have challenged myself to a blog post a day for a week! In order to keep my spirits up, I need everyone to post comments, suggestions and questions. That way I will feel like someone is actually reading what I am saying and I won't feel like I'm talking to an empty room!

Anywho, for my first post of the week I figured I would get things started with a beer review. When I posted these on Facebook, people seemed to read them and like them, I hope that works here too!
I was totally in the mood to sit down with a delicious homemade beer this evening, but unfortunately The Nerd Brew ales are currently in the bottle conditioning process. Drat. Well when the homebrew can't be found, it is always a great idea to settle down with one of my all-time favorites. New Belgium's 1554 Enlightened Black Ale. Besides, I am a little too biased to write a review of my own beer anyways.

So here goes.


One of my fondest memories of the trip to Colorado for my cousin Brian's wedding was a visit with my whole family to a certain restaurant. I don't remember what the name of the restaurant was, but it was the type of restaurant where you buy steaks ala carte and grill them yourself. I remember the food was great, and we had a fantastic time. My family sat around at the restaurant that night laughing, enjoying themselves, and drinking New Belgium's Fat Tire. Needless to say, when I was finally old enough to enjoy adult beverages, one of the first breweries I wanted to sample from was New Belgium. Once I found out about New Belgium's major steps towards sustainability, my dedication to their company my love for their products grew even larger.

Arguably my favorite New Belgium beer is their 1554 Enlightened Black Ale.


One thing I love about the brewing industry is that behind every beer, there is a story, and this one has a pretty interesting one. If you want to read a cool story about a flood, a researcher, and lots of delicious beer tasting, check out the New Belgium website where I harvested these images from and some of the information on this beer.

1554 Enlightened Black Ale

ABV 5.6%
IBU 21
Hops - Target
Malts - Pale, Carapils, Black, Munich, Chocolate

My Rating (1-5): 4.75

I understand that deliciousness is in the buds on the tongue, but I highly suggest that anyone out there try this beer and I strongly believe you will feel the same way.

I poured this beer into one of my frosted Guinness pint glasses pulled straight from the freezer. When poured, this beer appears to be a surprisingly sharp yet opaque black color accented by a striking creamy white head. The head settles slowly and creates nice white lacing to contrast with the black ale.

1554 does not have a strong or complex aroma, but it is pleasant none the less. It is deliciously malty and chocolatey scented.

For me, the flavor and mouthfeel of this beer makes me totally rethink my preconceived notions of what a dark ale should be. The most noticeable flavor that stands out for me is the delicious bitter chocolate malt goodness. Smokey and toffee flavors come on equally moderately and make for some nice background notes. The beer is sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, and very well balanced. There is basically no real hop flavor or aroma, but there is a nice contained spicy flavor throughout. One of my favorite things about this beer is the body, which is moderate but clean and crisp at the same time. This beer proves, in my mind, that a dark ale can bring all of the delicious flavors involved without being so thick that it has to be chewed.

What a great beer, and a great way to get in to my one week challenge.

What are you drinking? Let me know because I do take suggestions (and donations!) Also, if there are any talented artists out there who are willing to trade logo designs and beer labels for homebrew, let me know!

Happy quaffing everyone! Cheers!

Bad Blogger! Bad Blogger!

Hello dedicated blog readers. I'm sorry I haven't posted in so very long, I have been readjusting to school once more. To be honest with you all, I don't think I ever REALLY adjust to the new schedule a new semester brings until it is almost over. Oh well, what can you do. In lieu of posting the 10 beer reviews I have queued up and ready to go I thought I would first post an update on the most recent brews. They won't have as much multimedia as I would like, because I forgot my camera up in Duluth. This may be the only real downfall of my life of dual citizenship, I never know what is where and when. Right? Anywho.

Padellford's Private Label Sauvignon Blanc
The wine was fermenting in a 6 gallon plastic fermentation bucket (fancy term for a bucket eh?) Before racking the yeasties had to decrease the sugar to the point where the SG was at or below 1.010. Dad and I did all of our second stage of brewing work this past Saturday. When I checked the gravity on Friday evening it was a solid 1.005. We racked the wine from the bucket into a Better Bottle plastic carboy and put the airlock back in place. The main point of this is to get rid of all of the sediment that was at the bottom of said previous bucket. I'm glad we are keeping track of the gravity of this one. I don't believe that the last kit we had fermented completely, as it is still very sweet to this day (but drinkable of course!) When Dad and I tasted this one it was already drier than the red, and carbonated!

Tom Hennessy's Irish Ale
After bottling the most recent beer endeavor I decided two things: 1) To drop the "Red" from the name because it is not red, but more coppery and 2) to name the beer after Samantha's grandfather who was 100% Irish, and whom I unfortunately never had the pleasure of meeting. I had this idea before I even brewed this recipe, but I wanted to make sure it tasted good before officially titling it that. After fermentation, but before conditioning and carbonation, the beer is already delicious (at least in my opinion). I am really happy, because I was worried about this one. I changed my mind at least 8 different time on the hop and malt bills, and in the end just ended up making some quick decisions in the brewing store. Like any recipe, I will likely end up tweaking this one a bit and I already have ideas of things I want to try differently next time. However, I do think this one is going to turn out well and I can't wait to taste it! Once finished, I hope it does the name proud. For those of you who want to try it, I am going to make a list so I don't forget anyone this time. Please let me know and I will make sure I get a bottle to you!


In other news, I recently created a brewing log for Castle Danger Brewery from scratch. I'm really enjoying my internship there, and geekily enough I extremely enjoyed creating a brewing log for them. The picture of it is below. If anyone would like the PDF file for it, just give me your email address and I will ship it out to you.



Happy quaffing everyone! Crack one open, and let me know what you're drinking!

A Day for Liquid Creations

Samantha and all of the girls were getting together tonight to make the wedding favors! My dad and I decided that we couldn't let the females be the only ones who slaved the night away, and we decided to plan our first ever double brew day. So, after a morning of getting things ready to make the favors and helping cook a huge pot of white chicken chilli, the manly brewing event commenced! Incredibly enough, we managed to handle both a batch of beer and a Sauvignon Blanc wine kit all at the same time.


The beer recipe of the day was one I recently came up with to try and master my dad's favorite style of beer, an Irish Red Ale. Luckily for you all, I just got a brand new camera and you won't have to look at lovely pictures taken by my phone any longer.

Not much to do while you are waiting for the boil...so why not make some wine?!

Meanwhile in the world of beer...still no boil...

But it's close! We pass the time by indulging in the very last bottles of our last attempt, a delicious Cream Ale (made with corn!)

We rounded up some of the usual suspects. The other ingredients are already in the kettle at this point.

After the boil we decided to make use of the delightfully refrigerator-like temperatures Minnesota has to offer to cool the wort.

Finally, we just add our respective yeasts, cross our fingers, and drink another beer.

I hope you all enjoyed my first brew day post! If you are lucky you might get a chance to partake in the fruits of our labor.

I would just like to mention that, though my photography skills are probably just a tad better than sub-par, I hope to improve them via this blog. Therefore, I will try and stop more often and take some nice pictures instead of spending all of my time doing this:

And I should probably try and quit doing this:

Oh wait, I only wish I could sleep with such skill, raw power, and athletic prowess.


I hope you all have a lovely night.

Please please please give me some input on my first post. Tell me what you like, don't like, and what you want to see!


Cheers!

New Beginnings

I'd like to start out by explaining why I'm here (not the ambiguous, searching-for-God life question). The answer to this question is still quite complex, however. If you ask me what personal reasons I decided to create a blog for, it would require little thought. To me, this blog will be a way to keep track of my projects, rantings, and other random aspects of my life. To be completely honest, the majority of my rationalization for this blog is purely selfish. I am not so self-important that I believe a lot of people will actually read this. However, if there is a person who is reading this right now please don't stop! You may ask why I chose to blog instead of something more private if my motives were so self-serving. The answer to this question comes from my uncanny need to expand my knowledge about the world far past the limits of my already over sized cranium. This blog will be mostly a space for records and reflection. I do, however, want whomever is out there (and bored enough to read this) to expand my world! This is the second and probably more important aspect of why I wanted to make a blog. I do not pretend to be an expert at anything I say or do. This is why you are here! I, more than anything, want people to interact with this blog and give me your insight on life, liberty, and the pursuit of good beer. I suppose in this way, the blog is even MORE self-serving than I originally thought. True as that may be, please feel free to comment/question/laugh/ridicule me. Most likely you will read, shake your head, and pretend this never happened. Here are some topics you are likely to see me post about:

1.) Beer and Brewing
2.) Politics
3.) News
4.) Movies
5.) Music
6.) Food
7.) ??????
8.) Technology
9.) Life

If one or all of these interest you, prepare to be disenchanted! I will also likely share links, pictures, recipes, etc. to try and accommodate my multi-media loving friends.

So please relax, put your feet up, sip on some coffee and enjoy yourself while I try to harvest some of your precious time.

Thanks for coming.