I wonder what 356 weeks of Beerologism does for the designation. Get you a PhB?

Being The Blockchain Beerologist definitely has its perks, including but not limited to getting paid to tour breweries and sample new beers! When I am not globetrotting or brewing my own beer, my fridge looks like a colorful mosaic of regional craft beer I enjoy sharing with the #beersaturday alliance of #beer bloggers on #hive.

This week, I am back at our brewery, brewing up a couple more batches of beer and sharing the process of IPA and Cream Ale!

Pint of the Week

Before we get started, we have to enjoy a pint right. True for my #beersaturday post and when brewing as well. When you are grinding and boiling and hopping and sparging, you develop a thirst. Besides that, hard work in the same room as a few draft taps inevitably lends itself to a social pint or two.

This is the house stout that has become a staple at this garage operation. Cacao nibs, coffee and even finished off with nitrogen as the beer gas give this wonderful pint the legs and magical cascading settling motion that you get with a proper stout. Aside from all of that, a wonderful tasting stout as well and perfect for an evening of brewing.

Let's Brew!

In previous chapters of my brewing experience, we brewed for the cheap and plentiful beer, and took the easy way out. That is, brew from a kit which is basically a can of malt that would resemble molasses, ferment in a bucket, rack into a big glass carboy, then bottle after a couple weeks and carbonate with sugar in the bottle. We graduated to kegs but stuck with the simple and affordable kits but you are limited by the style and quality of this processed product. Don't get me wrong, it is perfect for when you are starting out and a solid brewing practice with proper sterilization and customization makes it easy for anyone to brew.

One of the things I love about our current operation is that we are starting right from bags of grain. This is 2-row malt which is such a good base and we have a little mill that crushes them up to release the sugar and flavour characteristics of each style of grain. Besides the malt, we added some crushed oats and even some flaked corn for one of the styles we get into this week.

Another fantastic part of this brewing operation are the Grainfather all-in-one brewing system. At first, I thought it a little premium overkill as it really is just a boiler and why would you need a $1200 system when a $50 pot on a stove would work as well? As I worked with them, I came to appreciate the control and consistency of temperature and timing during the process. It also has an ap for your phone where you can input the beer style, manage the stages, get alerts when it is time to move to the next stage and how it goes smoothly from grain bill to mash ready for fermenting all in 1 unit. Less to clean too!

Here, we have our 2 grainfathers with our next IPA in the back and our first cream ale in the foreground.

IPA!

Our last IPA was a banger. Well over 7% abv, wheat(for that hazy texture), and sport hopped/dry hopped with 5 different hops. This time, we were out of wheat but had the galaxy hops and decided to use my 3 core preferred hops. Citra for that popular citrussy aroma, Mosaic for that berry & tropical taste, and the Australian Galaxy for that punchy fruit and citrus augmentation. This are the hops any long-time followers would have expected me to combine as most of my favourite beers have some or all of these.

The funny thing is that the folks we grew with are malt guys, having dabbled in IPA but preferring Ambers, golden ales and assorted stouts. When you look at the swamp of hops we add to our IPA, it makes them laugh and shake their heads. Probably 4 times what they add to their beers at least so this looks a little excessive to them.

Once the boiling part of the brew is done, we pull the basket of grain up and rinse it in a process called sparging. This flushes the excess sugar out of the grains to increase the malt flavour and the yeast produces more alcohol. funny to see so much hops residue on the brewer at the end to confirm we are making a serious IPA!



Once we are ready to chill to room temperature and transfer to the fermentor for a week with the yeast, we take a little sample into the hydrometer Here, we measure the relative gravity which gives us an idea what the alcohol content will be in the finished product. I still have to understand the differences in reading at different stages but this one is weighing in at ~63 on the hydrometer or 6.3%abv. Our last IPA was 62 and ended up feeling way more potent than 6.2% ABV so we will have to see how this one turns out!

Cream Ale

Since we dispense the beer at the Town Crier Marketing gallery office, and we have 2 taps, I decided we should maybe offer something more accessible and lighter than just IPA. Cream Ale was the obvious choice as a nice upgrade in taste and texture to a plain ale as far as I was concerned. This meant we added a little crushed corn and dextrose to the grain bill, and used different hops. Mainly cascade hops with a sprinkling of chinook and amarillo.



The final stage of the initial brewing session is transferring the finished wort to the fermenter. In the past, we would mix the recently boiled mash with cold water to try and bring it down to room temperature so that fermentation could start. It was tough to get it right so that it was not too cool or didn't have to wait while exposed to oxygen while getting down to the ideal temperature for the yeast to start.

This genius contraption comes equipped with a heat transfer coil so that the hot wort, along side cool tap water, comes out the other end at a precisely-monitored 18 Celsius. Not only that, it was pumped from the brewing pot right into the stainless steel fermenter easy mode and is immediately ready for yeast and a week of fermentation. Now we play the waiting game.

You will have to wait for one of the next few #beersaturday posts to see whether either beer snags the coveted beerologist seal of approval.

#BEERSaturday!

Down with hipsters and web2.0 screwing with breweries! Tip well and share on web3.0 so that everyone can be rewarded. Join me, @detlev , and the other beerologists because there is always room for more beer bloggers at this week's Beer Saturday gathering... @detlev/beersaturday-356

This week for #BeerSaturday, I am inviting @caspermoeller89 who sampled Oral for Hive and would fit in well with the crew! Take a few pictures, tag #beersaturday and raise a glass with us on Hive!

Cheers to our global family of beer-drinkers!!

Cream Ale or IPA for you?