Babble Brew Off!

The Lake County home brew club is having their annual contest, The BABBLE Brew-Off, this Saturday. I entered 3 beers, Superbowl Stout, Tottenham Mild, and J & H Birthday Lager. I took second in the specialty category last year with the 2007 version of the J&H. (It's a Christmas beer--the J stands for Jesus). When the results are posted I'll let you all know how I did. Better than the last contest, I hope.

Buttery?

I got my scoresheets back from the Upper Mississippi Mashout.

• Tottenham Mild 32


• Sloppy Terry's Cream Ale 31


• Decemberfest (in mead category) 26.6


• Decemberfest (in specialty beer category) 24.5

I wasn't hoping for much from the Decemberfest, it was kind of a mistake beer, but I thought I would enter anyway to cover some categories for the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year. (You have to enter 10 different categories throughout the year to be in the running). The other two were rated near the low end of the "very good" category, and I have had beers take a 3rd or 2nd place with scores in the low 30's, but as I mentioned in another post, they failed to place.

I thought that most of the score sheets came back with fair assessments of the beers, with the exception of one on the Tottenham mild. One of the judges (out of 3) decided that it had a "diacetyl problem", causing an overpowering buttery flavor. He gave it a 29, the other judges rated it 32 and 34. I'm not sure where this opinion came from. I taste no diacetyl in the beer at all, and neither of the other judges mentioned diacetyl or buttery at all on their score sheets. Also interestingly, one judge said the beer was too carbonated, and another said it was not carbonated enough. Strange.

I will enter the Tottenham in another competition; I still think it's good enough to win. Maybe in the next contest I won't get a judge with butter on his brain.

Did I say kegerator photos?

In an earlier post, I promised photos of my kegerator. Maybe seeing them will help some of you do-it-yourselfers out there with ideas for making your own.

So above is the inside of the kegerator. As you can see I put a collar on a small freezer chest so it can hold (barely) 4 five gallon corny kegs. Right now I have 3 five gallon and 1 2.5 gallon kegs in. The container of white powder at the upper left is DampRid, to keep the humidity down. There is a 3-way gas manifold on the right side, with a "T" on one of the lines so I can run 4 gas lines out of it. The gas lines are red and have been set up logically and orderly, unlike the clear beer lines, which are all loosey-goosey since I had a couple already hooked up when I put the 3rd and 4th keg in. Normally the beer lines run from each faucet to its closest keg. The wire at the upper right is the temperature sensor.

This is obviously the front of the kegerator. You can see the collar better, it's just 4 2X8's screwed together, with two additional boards screwed to it to hold it on the freezer chest. In hindsight I should have put longer 2X8s on the front and back, and shorter ones on the sides, so you wouldn't see the seams from the front. It needs to be stained or painted too. The faucets are all front-sealing Perlick faucets, except for the far right one, which replaced a Perlick that wouldn't fit on the shank properly. I spaced the faucets as they are so the shanks and nuts wouldn't get in the way of kegs inside. The big tap handles were given to me by my friend Roxanne, who owns a bar in California. I have two others not pictured. I usually will paste my own labels over the commercial beer label on the handle, but I didn't have the time for this party. Instead, I just used fridge magnets to hold paper describing the beers to the top of the kegerator, which you'll see better in the next photo.

Top view. You can see from the labels that we ran out of the Amber (Anglerman) ale and Beat the Heat Wheat.

Superbowl Sunday! Now in 3D!

So what's Superbowl Sunday without a Superbowl party? We hosted one here at Casa Brew, of course with homebrews on tap. So what was on tap?

• Superbowl Stout--brewed on New Year's Day specifically for the Superbowl. A sweet stout, full of creamy dark chocolately goodness. Overheard from one of the imbibers at the party, "it goes great with the football cookies".
• Beat the Heat Wheat--an American wheat ale, better suited for a hot August afternoon, yet still crisp and refreshing on a cold February eve.
• Anglerman Ale--American hops, English yeast, and German malt. An amber ale, made from the same ingredients as a bock, but with ale yeast. Malty, full-bodied, hearty ale which paired well with the chili and lasagna. You've heard of comfort food? Well this is comfort beer.
• Tottenham Mild--Named after the football team. Yes the soccer type of football. An English Brown ale, mildly hopped and traditionally a "session beer". Although this one came in a little stronger than intended. Call it an imperial mild.

The party was a rousing success, and the game was exciting to the very end. Final score: Superbowl Stout 5 gallons, Beat the Heat Wheat 2 gallons (all I had on tap), Anglerman Ale 3 gallons (also all I had on tap), and Tottenham Mild 4 gallons.

If first you don't succeed...

Well I'm still bummed that none of my entries even placed in the Upper Mississippi Mashout. That means it's time to enter another contest. As mentioned previously, I plan to concentrate on the competitions in the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year circuit. The next competition on the circuit is the Great Northern Brew-Ha-Ha. Unfortunately, the deadline for entries is January 30th, and I don't think I'll have everything ready to ship today, which is probably already too late to send without incurring rush shipping charges. So that one is off the list for me.

The MHBOY rules state that you must enter 4 competitions and 10 different categories throughout the year, which should be no problem. The next one is the Babble Brew Off, and you have until February 19th to get entries in. Conviently held in the Chicago 'burbs, I can just drop off my entries. (If you haven't figured it out yet, this blog is based in Chicago, specifically in the Noble Square Neighborhood).

I think I'll enter my Superbowl Stout, J&H Birthday Lager, and possibly Tottenham Mild, depending on how it's scoresheets from UMMO look.

Soy un perdidor...

I'm a loser baby. I entered the Upper Mississippi Mashout with 4 entries, and not a single one placed. I'm not surprised about two of the entries, they were just ok, but I thought that Sloppy Terry's Cream Ale and Tottenham mild were ribbon winners. We'll see what the scoresheets say when I get them back in the mail. The results are listed in a PDF here. Congratulations to the homebrewers who did win.

Angerman Ale

The Angerman (AmericanEnglishGerman) ale is fermenting quite nicely now. I bet it took off right after I racked it to the Superbowl Stout yeast cake. It looks like I will have 3 beers on tap for my Superbowl party--Angerman, Superbowl Stout, and my Tottenham Mild. YAY!

In hindsight, I could have called it Anglerman ale, and put a picture of a big fish or a dude fishing on the label. Maybe a dude just sitting in a boat drinking beer. I'll have to think about this.

Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast

So Bosworth and I walked down to the LHBS again today. I called ahead to confirm that they got their new shipment of yeast in, but unfortunately they still didn't have the Wyeast Munich Lager that I used in my award winning Maibock last year. I really want to brew it this Sunday, so I broke down and substituted the Bavarian Lager yeast instead. It should be close, I mean Munich is the capital of Bavaria, right?

According to the Wyeast website, the Bavarian's fermentation range is slightly lower, which is good for me, since the basement of my coach house has an on-the-floor temperature right now of about 48F. The Bavarian is also slightly more attenuative, meaning that it ferments more dry, which is also probably fine since there is a high percentage of (less fermentable) cara-malts in my recipe, but I did like the full-bodied malty goodness of last year's brew. Maybe I'll mash a couple of degrees higher to compensate?

Anyway, the pack is smacked and swelling already. (I know that probably sounds dirty to non-homebrewers, but it's not). I'm debating on whether to make the starter tonight or tomorrow. I think I'll have another Tottenham mild, and make the starter tomorrow morning.

At what temperature do you drink your beer?

I'm enjoying a nice Tottenham mild right now, and for the heck of it, I decided to see what temperature it was in the glass. (The kegerator is set to 42F, I just wanted to see how much it warmed up in the glass). 43.5 degrees Fahrenheit, according to my handy dandy digital thermometer. I know, I'm a beer nerd. I think that is perfect, because it will warm slightly by the time I finish the pint. Realbeer.com says it should be a little warmer.

Upper Mississippi Mash-Out Beers Shipped!

I walked down to the local UPS store and shipped my entries for the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out. Of course it's about a mile a way, I'm carrying two boxes full of fragile bottles (I shipped some beer to my brother in Southern California too), and I'm walking Bosworth the Wonder Dog at the same time. (See label photos). The boxes had a combined weight of 19 pounds, which doesn't seem like a whole lot, unless you're carrying it precariously balanced with a extremely energetic 60 pound Portuguese Water Dog, who has chosen this very moment to act all crazy psycho, snapping at the leash, pulling as hard as he can, lunging and snapping at other dogs met along the walk. Somehow we made it.

Here's what I entered:

Decemberfest--an Oktoberfest with honey and maple. (Don't ask--actually do ask, I'll post the story how this came about sometime soon).
This was entered in two categories, 23 Specialty Beer, and 26C Other Mead.

Sloppy Terry's Cream Ale--named after my long time (24 years) friend Terry, aka T. Francis. I brewed this beer for his wedding in November and had a few bottles left over. I wish I had saved more, it's a mighty fine cream ale.

Tottenham Mild--Another long time (32 years) friend, Matt, is a big fan of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club. He helped me brew the first (extract) version of this, and now it's all grain, all grow's up. Tasty, but maybe bittered a little too much to win.

Stay tuned to see how they do in the competition.