Poll: Have you grown hops at home?

Similar to what has been done for all our prior blog polls, this takes a moment to memorialize the results we received on the most recent blog poll.  The reader's responses to the question "Have you ever tried growing your own hops at home?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 20

There is little to discuss with this one - hops are on everyone's mind.  Only 10% of the responders did not have an interest growing their own hops.  Everyone else is either interested or already put some rhizomes in the ground.  And interestingly enough, anyone who decided to plant hops planted more than one.

Tom and I are both backyard hops growers.  While Tom has been at it more years than I have, my two hop plants are entering their second year.  I did get a handful of hop cones last year, but I'm looking forward to see what the plants yield this fall.

We'd love to know what you think of the results and how they can be interpreted.  And if you are reading this, we've put up our next poll, which awaits your response.

Slainte!

-JW


"Beer may cause you to digress - and lead a happier life."
-Michael Jackson

Devils Backbone Brewing Company Tour

My homebrewing club, Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA), organized tours of two local brewing companies this past weekend.  The first stop was Devils Backbone Brewing Company (DBBC), which is located  at the foot of Wintergreen Mountain, near Nellysford, VA.  DBBC gained national recognition last year when they the 2010 World Beer Cup Champion Brewery and Brewmaster Small Brewpub award for wining the most medals in their size category at the World Beer Cup.  The brewery started making beer in 2008 and has done well enough for themselves that they are opening a bottling facility to take their beer to a larger market.

The brew pub building is has a very rustic style to it, one that fits well with its mountainous surroundings.  The main part of the pub has vaulted ceilings and walls that are adorned with various mounted animals, making the pub seem like a hunting lodge.  The wall behind the bar has glass windows that looks in on the brewhouse, which is of German design, but was manufactured in Japan (the instructions around the switch board are still in Japanese).  The DBBC brewmaster, Jason Oliver, gave us a tour, which was very informative.  After it was over, we all sat down to have a nice lunch on the DBBC deck, which overlooks the beautiful countryside.

Stay tuned for the second stop on the trip, Wild Wolf Brewing Company.

It was a great day,

Tom

Pictures from the event are below.  I apologize for their quality, as I only had my cell phone on hand to take them.

Mounted big horn sheep adorn the walls of the brew pub

The DBBC copper brew kettle

The DBBC brewhouse switch board, where the labels are written in Japanese

An tank holding aging beer on brettanomyces, with a picture of Bret from Flight of the Concords stuck on it

DBBC cold-conditioning room 

Lunch included a wonderful German bratwurst served on a spent-grain roll, German potato salad, pickle and a few pints of DBBC beer (Maibock and Reilly's Rye Ale)

RFP - Spring In Your Step Initial Tasting

When Jeff and I started the Recipe Formulation Project (RFP) at the start of the year, one of the objectives was to brew the recipe at least twice.  We felt that only by committing to brew with new ingredients, and adjusting the recipe based on our tasting evaluation, could we begin to understand how professional brewers "tweak" and work with their recipes.  With that in mind, a couple trusted palates and I gathered at my house to evaluate my Spring in Your Step RFP beer.

Our general perception of the Spring in Your Step beer was that it fit with the beer concept, which was that the drinker was wishing Spring would come soon.  The beer displayed some citrus character that highlighted one of the theme ingredients.  It also featured a bit of sourness, which increased the refreshing perception of the beer.  This characteristic was complemented by the beer's dry finish and a hint of spiciness.

However, the tasters came away impression that the beer was stuck between "worlds."  While the beer had a hint of sourness, it was not truly sour.  While the beer had a hint of citrus, it lacked a distinctive citrus character.  The beer also seemed too bitter for its body and flavor base, in a way that pushed it towards an American pale ale character.  These different hints of flavors seemed to leave the taster with a muddled perspective, one that made the taster wish the beer would move in one of the three directions.  Add to that impression that the beer lacked any distinctive character from the other theme ingredient, honey malt, and it was obvious that some recipe re-tooling was in order.

After these flavor perceptions, I think the best direction to push the recipe would be toward sour citrus.  I love the flavors of a crisp margarita, especially in the Spring time.  The sour citrus character is refreshing and delightful.  Thus, I think I will retool the recipe to use more acidulated malt and provide more citrus character.  I have a feeling that the bitterness in the beer came from pith on the fruit rinds, so I plan on trying to reduce the pith next time.  As for the honey malt, I do not feel it added much to the finished beer.  So, I plan to reduce its percentage in the next batch's grist to encourage a crisp flavor finish.

Hopefully, the RFP experiment has been of interest to the Lug Wrench reader.  Stay tuned for the next version of Spring in Your Step.

Cheers,

TW

Recipe Formulation Project - Reference Guide
Project Introduction, Ingredient Pool, and Kick Off
Tom's Recipe: Beer Concept Initial Recipe and Brewing Initial Tasting Revision and Rebrew Follow-up Tasting	Jeff's Recipe: Beer Concept Initial Recipe and Brewing Initial Tasting Revision and Rebrew Follow-up Tasting

Fun with Art IV: Meat Sections

I've continued to enjoy Alyson's Meat Section blog.  While the content of her blog focuses mostly on non-beer related, every so often a 'beer' sectioned diagram pops up.  I've highlighted a few of them in prior blog posts, and this one is no different.  The topic: Lost Abbey's Cable Car - a blended american wild ale.

What I particularly love about this piece is how Alyson breaks the beer up by it's three blended components, Red Barn, Avante Garde, and Amigo Lager.  Some of the ingredients are a little hard to read (click on the image to get a larger version), but listing out the hops, grains, and spices included in this super complex beer struck me as just plain slick.  As always, excellent job Alyson!

For the homebrewers out there and up to the challenge, Mike over at the Mad Fermentationist took a crack at cloning this sour beer.  Take a look at his notes and recipe to see how it turned out.

If you've got a moment, take a detour over to Meat Sections, check out some of its content and try subscribing to it's feed.

Slainte!

-JW


"The sum of the matter is, the people drink because they wish to drink."
-Rudolph Brand