Hops.

I just wrote a very long and involved review of the above-pictured hops.  Somehow it was deleted without a draft being saved.  It took me about two hours to draft the first post, but since it was lost, here's a long story made short:

2006 New Zeland Pacific Gem, 16.3% AAU - Stinky.  Smells like garbage.  Looks like gruel to boot.

2006 U.K. First Gold, 6.8% AAU - Better.  Still smells like spinach.

2006 Belgian Kent Goldings, 5.3% AAU - The best so far.  Smells like tea.  Would actually consider putting it in my mouth.

2005 British Target, 13.15% AAU - Again, no good.  The high-alpha hops have, predictably, fared the worst.

2005 German Spalt Select, 4.8% AAU - The best of the bunch.  Smells like a good green tea, or the inside of a German restaurant (in a good way).

All of these hops in dry form smell of cheese and stinky feet.  I attribute this entirely to their age.  I purchased them all a couple of years ago, so the fact that they are so old is due only to me - not to Seven Bridges Organic.

While brewing Drunken St. Nick this weekend I used three hops in various stages - pellet, stale whole and fresh whole.  Each was as distinct from the other as could be.  I was actually very surprised at the amount of variation when each was compared side-by-side.

Pellet hops - "Rough" and industrialized.  Despite their ease of use, lack the "organic" qualities of fresh, whole flower hops.

Stale whole hops (just a few months old, but out of their vacuum pack) - Well, stale.

Fresh whole hops - Perhaps not surprisingly - the way hops should be.  Fresh. Delicate.  Floral.  Aromatic.  Like mowing fresh grass in the summer compared with raking dead leaves in the fall.

Lesson learned:  Always - Always - use fresh, whole hops in any beer where hop flavor is any part of the desired result.

Note:  St. Bernardus Christmas Ale was used in the drafting of this post.  It is brilliant.  Easily one of my favorite beers.

Cleveland.

I was up in the Buckeye State for work last week, and I took the opportunity to sample a few of the local brews.

My favorite was the Grassroots Ale from Great Lakes Brewing, which drank bigger than it is.  It's ostensibly a saison, but it wasn't immediately recognizable as such.  Still it had plenty of character and was an overall decent brew.

Later, I headed to the Great Lakes Brewing pub for dinner with a colleague (though it isn't where I tried the Grassroots).  The food was good and our salty waitress was great.  With our sausage plate, I had a Commodore Perry IPA.  It was pretty well-balanced and had a nice, smooth hop flavor, but I found it to be almost too sweet.  Then again, I like most of my beers, particularly the hoppy ones, to be nice and dry.

Finally, I had the Four C's Pale Ale from The Brew Kettle.  It was another well-hopped pale ale, but again I found it a bit unbalanced toward the sweet side for so much hop.

I'm sure I had some more beers while I was up there, but none that I remember well enough to discuss thoughtfully.  In any event it was a good trip and a good chance to see what's brewing in other parts of the country.

Resolution.

Just cracked open a bottle of the Resolution, and it's really coming into its own.

It pours a nice dark copper with a decent head and plenty of nice bottle-conditioned carbonation - lots of tiny bubbles.  By this point, it's had plenty of time to clarify, and it looks pretty good.

The aroma is mild but with distinct apple and pear notes and sweet bananas fosters smell.

Body is medium, maybe a little stickier than I'd like.

Lots of phenols and esters going on.  Not too banana-like, but still fruity and spicy.  Clove, raisin, alcohol-warmth.  Sometimes almost tart on the backside.

There's really no hop to speak of, which is to be expected.  Now that I think about it, though, it probably could've used another ounce of hops given the gravity - final abv was 8.9%.

It's good, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for in a dubbel.  Maybe a little cleaner?  More hop flavor and aroma but without too much added bitter.  More American.

Still a work in progress. . .

I am a craft brewer.

Greg Koch at Stone Brewing recently put this video together.

I could not agree more.

Christmas brew.

I'm pondering my Christmas brew, aka Drunken St. Nick, which I'm going to be brewing later this month.  I'm going to do what I've only seen referred to as a "Double Double," in Mosher's Radical Brewing.  There are almost no details in the book, so I'm pretty much going to have to wing it.

Basically, I'll do one mash, then use the wort from that mash to do a second mash.  The plan is to run the first mash to get a really fermentable wort, and the second for body - in theory it should work, but it's an experiment, so we'll see.   In any event, the result should be a very malty, very high gravity beer.  I'll be brewing it on May 30 with the goal of it finishing up in time for Christmas.

I settled on a golden ale, but there are still a few details I'm pondering - just how much Munich malt to add, what yeast to use, etc.

In the meantime, the Saison Ike brew went pretty much flawlessly, and it's now fermenting away happily.  Thanks to Carter for coming over and helping out. 

I've got the temperature at the low end of the range for the saison yeast, but I'll be increasing it to about mid-range for the saison yeast over the course of the week.

I was also second-guessing using the Brett, but I had an Orval last night, and my decision was reaffirmed.

High hope yeast.

The Saison Ike yeast has performed remarkably in the starter.  It's just now starting to flocculate out, and I pitched it on Monday.

Assuming it's been working this whole time - and not just hanging in suspension - it's really going to attenuate out and give me a nice bone dry saison.  And it smells fantastic.

The plan is a moderate-strength saison with rye and lots of hops - both bittering and flavor.  I'm going to pitch a vial of Brettanomyces bruxellensis when I move it into the secondary and dry hop it at the same time.  The idea is to create plenty of rustic, barnyard flavors but use the hops to keep the Brett in control.

Stay tuned for an update on the brew.