Poll: Where would you like to see NHC 2012?

Similar to what has been done for all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we received on the most recent blog poll.  The reader’s response to the question “Where would you like to see the 2012 AHA Conference Located?” are presented below.  

With this year’s AHA conference in San Diego, CA coming up rapidly, we thought it would be fitting to see where our readers would like to see next year’s conference (which will not be announced until June).  As we have lamented in prior posts,  the conference has not been on the East Coast of the US in over 5 year and is overdue – apparently, our readers believe the same thing.

A criticism of this poll is that most people will vote for locations closest to them.  Therefore, this poll is more of a survey for where our readers (at least those that respond to a poll) are located in the US.  While there maybe a few who live to travel for conferences such as this, all things being equal, the less one has to travel, the more likely they will attend.  I can certainly buy this argument, given our readership (and our content) is very East Coast-centric.

Lastly, I’ll leave everyone with a bit of a rumor that I was privy to from a BJCP judge during a recent competition.  Apparently Gary Glass (Director of the AHA) was recently seen (by this judge) in Philadelphia scouting out potential venues.  This certainly doesn’t guarantee NHC 2012 being in Philly, but it certainly indicates the city is on the short list.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

We’d love to know what you think of the results and how the information may (or may not) be used. And if you are reading this, we’ve put up our next poll, which awaits your response.

Slainte!

-Jeff


"Everybody has to believe in something.....I believe I'll have another drink."
-W.C. Fields

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from Lug Wrench Brewing Company!

Whatever your religious beliefs or thinking, we hope that you and those dear to you have a chance to enjoy Spring and the warming seasons (note that this happens much slower in New England than it does down here in Virginia).  If at all possible, savor a homebrewed beverage as you enjoy time with your loved ones (dinner here featured Mason Dixon Line Mead, as well as some other homebrew).

Cheers,

TW

Untappd - Social Drinking Site

Last year, Lug Wrench documented a neat craft beer recommendation site called Pintley.  Pintley drew its list of beers from a database maintained by the company, and would use a user's past ratings to recommend new beers for the user to try.  The site is pretty neat, and allows the user to see what others think about specific beers, but the user cannot enter beers of their own.  Enter - Untappd.

Untappd is a social media drinking site.  It allows the user to develop a network of friends and see what they are currently drinking.  Untappd provides this information to the user in a giant list, much like Twitter's main feed.  It also rewards users with a variety of badges to help keep their interest and expand their craft beer drinking habits (I received the National Beer Day 2011 badge on April 7 for recording a beer on the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition).  Untappd is configured to work with a variety of mobile devices, which makes it easy to record beers.

Probably my favorite feature of Untappd, though, is that the user can enter beer and brewing companies themselves.  One of the frustrating issues with Pintley is trying a new craft beer that was not listed in the service, so it could not be recorded.  Untappd solves that problem by providing the tools to enter the new beer or brewing company on the fly.  This even extends to homebrew, which is what I use Untappd most for.  When entering a new beer, the user can indicate that the beer is a homebrew, and it is kept separate from the other craft beers (though others can still check in drinking one of your homebrews).  The only downside of allowing user-entered data like this is that the data can be inaccurate (misspellings, multiple entries for the same brewing company, etc.).  But if this issue can be accepted at face value, for what the service is trying to provide, using Untappd is a whole lot of fun.  Drinking sessions can be be relayed directly to Facebook and Twitter.

Give Untappd a try!

Cheers,

TW

Midnight Mini-Wheats

Back in April, I posted an article about how to make a big beer smaller, but still keep the flavor.  The basic idea was to take a high alcohol beer recipe, in this case, our Midnight Wheat - Wheat Wine Braggot, and make a version of it that was lower in alcohol.  The base recipe is one of my favorite beers that Jeff and I have done together, but at 11% alcohol by volume (ABV), it is not a daily drinker.  Using some techniques I described in the previous article, I hoped to make a session beer with much of the same flavor as the original.  The recipe, entitled Midnight Mini-Wheats, can be found at the bottom of this post.

My friend, John, my wife, and I recently had an opportunity to taste the two beers side-by-side (wheat wine braggot is on the left in the picture).  This is the best way to compare similar beers, as it is easier to compare subtle differences when the flavor and aromas are so fresh in your mind.

Midnight Wheat - Wheat Wine Braggot (10.8% ABV)
Appearance:  The braggot pours extremely clear deep amber color, with a thin white head.  The carbonation bubbles are very fine, almost like champagne.

Aroma:  The braggot has a complex sugar aroma that is very apparent.  It contains hints of brown sugar, toffee, caramel, and even a bit of molasses.  The sugar character is also mixed with the sweet aroma of alcohol.

Flavor:  The braggot tastes much as it smells, with a layered complex sugar character.  Molasses is the key dominant character, and reminded the tasters of shoofly pie.  There were also elements of brown sugar and caramel in the flavor.  The tasters compared the braggot to a commercial beer, Lagunitas Brewing Company's Brown Shugga.

Midnight Mini-Wheats - American Wheat (3.8% ABV)
Appearance:  The beer pours a hazy deep amber color, with a thin white head.  The carbonation appears lower than the braggot.  The tasters suspect that the beer has not aged as long as the braggot and has not had a chance to drop out some of the malt fines, which makes it cloudy.

Aroma:  The beer is very neutral in smell, with a very faint malt aroma, but little else.  The tasters noted the lower carbonation level between the two recipes, which could prevent as much aroma development.  Additionally, braggot's higher alcohol may well have driven its complex and layered aroma.

Flavor:  The beer has a distinctive grainy character, much like one can get from straight pilsner malt.  The beer also has a slight bitter and sour edge to it, which was even more noticeable when the beer was younger and less carbonated.  The beer lacks any of the sugar complexity that makes the wheat wine braggot so interesting.  On flavor alone, they are very different beers and, as my wife said, the drinker would likely have no idea they were related unless told so.


In conclusion, the experiment to get the interesting flavors of the wheat wine braggot into a session beer failed.  While the Midnight Mini-Wheats is a good beer, it was definitely found lacking.  However, I am going to take some of the lessons I learned here and try again in the future.  For one thing, I will only try to get down to 6% ABV, as the braggot's alcohol contribution is so important.  The braggot also had a much larger honey character, so I will try to boost the honey percentage in the next batch, while increasing mash temperature to keep a solid body to the beer.  The next batch will also receive a higher level of carbonation.

Cheers,

TW

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Midnight Mini-Wheats

Recipe Specifics

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Batch Size (Gal): 5.0

Total Fermentables (Lbs): 8.5

OG: 1.039

FG: 1.010

SRM: 11

IBU: 29 (Rager)

ABV: 3.8%

Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

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3.25 lbs Maris Otter Malt

2.25 lbs White Wheat Malt

0.75 lbs Torrified Wheat

0.90 lbs Caramel Wheat Malt (46 L)

0.33 lbs Caramunich Malt (56 L)

1.00 lbs Honey

0.50 lbs Rice Hulls

Hops

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0.75 oz Perle Pellet Hops (7.7% AA) at 60 minutes

0.75 oz Williamette Pellet Hops (5.6% AA) at 15 minutes

0.75 oz Hallertau Pellet Hops (5.0% AA) at 15 minutes

Extras

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1.0 Tab Whirlfloc at 15 minutes

1.0 gram Chalk in mash

1.0 gram Calcium Chloride in mash

2.0 grams Baking Soda in mash

1.0 gram Chalk in boil

1.0 gram Calcium Chloride in boil

32 drops of Foam Control in the boil

Yeast

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11 grams – Safale US05, Dry Yeast

Mash Schedule

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60 min at 156°F