New favorite LHBS

Señor Brew™ has a new favorite local homebrew shop, or LBHS. It's not the closest one to Casa Brew™, but everyplace is on the way home, if you go the right way. And it turns out this LHBS has a microbrewery and tasting room attached to it!

It's Surf Brewery, in Ventura California.  They have a number of tasty beers on tap, including their delicious South Swell Double IPA, which features ingredients from the Southern Hemisphere.  Of course they have a full assortment of homebrew supplies and ingredients.  Señor Brew™ bought some grain for his next brew while he was there, as well as the nice flight pictured above.

New way to split a batch?

Señor Brew™ has been thinking; I know, this is dangerous.  But as those loyal readers of this blog (I think we're up to 30 now) know, Señor Brew™ likes to get the maximum amount of variety out of his short amount of brewing time.  Partigyle brewing, and splitting a batch among yeasts is one way to this.

But what if you were to boil a batch of beer, say for an hour, draw off a part of it, chill it and get it in the fermenters while you're still boiling the rest of it, maybe adding extra hops to finish it out. The second beer would be more bitter, with more concentrated flavor, and a higher alcohol content due to the longer boil. It would be fairly pronounced, because with the removal of a portion of the volume for the first beer, the remainder would have a lower volume to surface area, and evaporation rates would go up. Plus while the total amount of chilling time would be about the same, each portion would chill rather quickly, and the first part would be chillin' while the second part be boilin' (A reggae song just came while Señor Brew was finishing this sentence).


I'm thinking that this would work for a pale ale/IPA, bock/doppelbock, etc.


What do you think, Brewbuds? Has anybody tried this? Pros, cons, ex-cons?

There's a Party in my Gyle! (3 beers in 1)

On August 12th  Señor Brew™  finally had some time to get a brewday together.  To make efficient use of that time, he decided to make 3 beers out of one mash, one strong beer (you could call it a barleywine), and two medium ones, an Oktoberfest and what he likes to call PseudOfest.

He did this by using different runnings from the mash to brew the different beers.  This is known as parti-gyle brewing, as Randy Mosher, author of Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer, describes so well in the linked article.

The whole point of the brewday was to have an Oktoberfest ready by at least the second weekend of the official Oktoberfest festival, which happens to coincide with Senor Brew's birthday.  Since  Señor Brew™  is out of his award winning barleywine, he thought it would be a good idea to have a strong beer on hand as well.  Of  course an Oktoberfest, being a lager, needs extra time to ferment, and even a longer time to lager to give it that smooth lager finish.  And a barleywine should be aged for many months to really mature into it's flavor profile.   Señor Brew™  can be impatient, so he decided to split the later runnings, post-boil into two different carboys, one with the Oktoberfest yeast, for the Oktoberfest, and one with an ale yeast that would be ready much sooner, the PseudOfest, which is already kegged and delightfully quaffable.  The first runnings  of course were used for the barleywine.

The brewday actually went quite smoothly, unlike most where at least something seems to go wrong.   Señor Brew™  had his old propane turkey fryer burner going to boil 3 gallons of wort for the barleywine, while at the same time, the big natural gas burner was used to boil about another 9 gallons of wort for the O'fest and PseudOfest.

I've exported the recipes for the Oktoberfest and Barleywine from my brew app into separate posts, Barleywine and Oktoberfest.  (Hey I've got to hit my quota to average at least one post per week through the end of the year somehow.) The efficiency is set very low to reflect that only part of the sugars from the mash were used in each brew.  The total efficiency would have been in  Señor Brew™ 's normal range for his setup.  Purists will note a couple things--one, the barleywine's grain bill is not typical, but this is because it was an after thought to the Oktoberfest, which the grain bill is more appropriate for.  I'm going to call it German Barleywine, due to the Munich and Vienna malts.  Also, there was no decoction mash for the Oktoberfest, just a single infusion with some melanoiden malt thrown in to approximate one, even though those same purists will say it's a poor substitute.  Señor Brew™  doesn't care, it makes a fine tasty Oktoberfest.

Señor Brew™ also got a little kooky with an extra ingredient.  We had a package of wheat pasta in Casa del Brew™  lying around, which was not likely to be consumed-- Señora Brew™  is gluten intolerant, and  Señor Brew™  saves his daily carbohydrate allocation for homebrew.  So we grind it up, and into the mash it goes!  There's no entry for it in the brew app I use, so it got listed as wheat DME (dry malt extract).  Close enough for homebrew.

Finally the PseudOfest recipe is not included, because it would be redundant.  Just substitute your favorite fast fermenting ale yeast for the Oktoberfest, ferment warmer (upper 60s to low 70s), and let her rip!  No need to lager it either.

Enegren Brewery

Hello Brew Buds!

Some of you with OCD may have noticed that Señor Brew™ has updated the "What's on Tap" section of the Brew Blog in the sidebar (scroll down, it's on the right). At the top of the list is Enegren Alt, the first guest tap El Kegerator™ has been graced with. Actually that is not true, we've also had Enegren IPA on tap during the Brew Blog hiatus, but nonetheless, Enegren Brewery is the first non Noble Square brew on tap at Casa del Brew™.

"So what is this Enegren Brewery of which you write, Señor Brew™?" I can hear you Brew Buds thinking. (Yes, Señor Brew™ can hear your thoughts as you read this blog, it's part of the high level HTML* programming language incorporated in the site). It is now Señor Brew™'s official local microbrewery. Located in the adjacent town, Moorpark, CA, just 10 minutes away from Noble Square Brewing, they serve up some tasty microbewed deliciousness, including the aforementioned Alt and IPA.

Enegren was founded by a trio of homebrewing buddies who decided to go pro, the Enegren brothers and some other dude who didn't get naming rights because he was outvoted three-to-one. (We think one of the brothers voted twice). They've got a tasting room, which isn't open enough, although they just recently added Wednesday nights. It also doesn't have air conditioning, but if it is really hot in the tasting room, and you ask nicely, they may let you chill in the beer cooler for a while.

Pictured above in the tasting room are Matt Enegren, and his lovely girlfriend/employee Becki Kregoski. Becki actually works for two different local microbreweries, Enegren and Wolf Creek. She also has a great food and brew blog, Bites 'n Brews, which has way more followers than Noble Square Brewing, but Señor Brew™ is not jealous. At all. (Señor Brew™ is also very happy that the HTML* thing only works one way).



*acronym for Hear Thoughts (on) My bLog

Beer Drinking Socialists, Drinking at Work, and Eggs in Your Beer

Great article about beer and Labor Day on Slate from Troy Patterson. I get the impression he was drinking heavily while writing it, but there are way too many great links for him to finish it inebriated.

A highlight of the article includes the use of the word, "squiffy" for having a few too many.

Please note, Señor Brew is neither a communist nor a socialist, but he does appreciate the contribution of the working man to our great country, and there is a good chance he will be a quite squiffy this Labor Day weekend.

Noble Square Brewing is Back!

Hello Brew Buds!

Yes, It's true. Señor Brew is back after a long hiatus. And he plans to contribute to this blog regularly going forward. In fact, Señor Brew is going to commit to posting here at least once a week for the rest of the year.

So loyal readers (the four of you that are left), you can help out. Please comment with some ideas you would like to read about on this brew blog. Also, if any of you are using an iPad to blog, let me know what apps you are using. It will be easier if I can use the iPad while on the road to post here, but so far it has been difficult. This is being posted with Blogger+, and it isn't optimal.

Stay tuned for a real post within the week!

Noble Square Brewing is moving!

Yes, that is right Brewbuds, Señor Brew™ is packing up the brewery and moving it about an hour north of its current location, to beautiful, wonderful, beautiful Thousand Oaks.

One of the first things Señor Brew™ did was to check out the water in the new location.  As you can see from this water report, the water looks mighty fine for brewing.  He hasn't run it through a water spreadsheet yet, but it looks like for most styles he'll be able to use it right out of the tap, after treating it for chloramines, and adding some calcium for yeast health.

The new location has natural gas piped out to a built in grill in the back yard, so Señor Brew™ should be able to use his amazing wok burner.  I believe that there are electric outlets in the same spot, so he can use his electric HLT heater as well.  Señor Brew™ can't wait to get the first brew in the new place going--probably a session ale, something that can be fermented out quickly to be ready for the housewarming party.

Then, just for fun, Señor Brew™ decided to look up who some of his neighbors might be.  According to this wikipedia article, notable current and former residents include Megan Fox!  I doubt she still lives there, but if by some chance Señor Brew™ runs into her, he will be sure to invite her over to give her a tour of the brewery and show her the keg named after her.  Then he'll tap that (keg).

2012 Home Brew Competitions

Hello Brew Buds!  Señor Brew™ intended to post this calendar before any of the competitions listed actually occurred, but he didn't. Sorry!

It's not a comprehensive list of competitions by any means, just the events that Señor Brew™ intends to compete in this year.  As you can see, most are in Southern California, where Noble Square Brewing is now based, but a few are national, and of course the list includes the Chicago Beer Society competition, where  Señor Brew™ is a member in exile.

The dates are an approximation of when Señor Brew™ needs to send in his entries, not the actual date of the contest.  If you're entering any of these competitions yourself, first of all, good luck. You'll need it competing against  Señor Brew™--look at all of his shiny ribbons at the top of the page! Secondly, check the sites for the competitions for the actual dates--Señor Brew™  may have them wrong, they may not be available yet, or he may be sending them in the early part of the entry window due to other circumstances.

America's Finest City, San Diego  entries were due 2/22 (Sr. Brew™ entered but did not win).
National Homebrew Competition entries were due 3/5 (entered, first round begins in April)
Mayfaire, Los Angeles entries due 4/12
California State Fair, Sacramento entries due 4/27
Orange County Fair, Costa Mesa entries due 5/12
Sam Adams Longshot, Boston entries due 5/25
Los Angeles County Fair, Los Angeles entries due early July?
Pacific Brewers Cup, Los Angeles entries due 9/6
California State Homebrew Competition, San Francisco entries due mid October?
Spooky Brew Review, Chicago entries due mid October

Please note that some of the above links go to last year's competition site if the 2012 site is not up yet.

It's Good To Be The King

It is good to be the king, especially when you're Omega King.  I finally got around to dry hopping and bottling a portion of the Omega King IPA.  I even made labels this time for the bombers I bottled as you can see from the above photo.

The only difference I made in the recipe was to use all 2-row barley for the base malt instead of a mix of 2-row and pilsner malt.  With all the hops in the recipe, I don't know if I could even tell the difference.

This beer was originally designed to be a clone of 3 Floyds Alpha King.  I'm not sure how close it is, I know I probably tweaked the recipe along the way.  I should do a side-by-side taste test to see how it stacks up.  The problem is, I don't know if I can get Alpha King in a bottle out here in California.  I can't say I've looked for it.

My label uses the font from the Alpha King label; I created my own letters if they didn't appear on the original.  The photo was scanned from a Disney book--all the mermaids are singing to the king. Having half a dozen young ladies in bikini tops sing to you is not a bad thing, even if they're half fish. In hindsight I should have photo-shopped a beer in the king's hand--I'm sure he would have been enjoying a nice IPA during the mermaid serenade if it were not a Disney book.  Unfortunately the labels are already printed and affixed to bottles.  I'll have to make that change for the next run.

At least one of the bombers is going be to sent out to my buddy Pete, who got me to formulate the recipe the first time.  He's a big fan of Alpha King, and I wouldn't have brewed this beer if it hadn't been for him.  He's got three little girls, so they'll probably enjoy seeing Ariel on the label too.

I've got a case of regular sized bottles ready, so stay tuned to this blog to see how this batch fares in upcoming competitions.  The recipe can be found by clicking the "Omega King" link in the first paragraph.