Culturing Bottle Dregs

Primary fermentation for my Lambic-like beer was completed using Wyeast 3278, a Lambic-inspired blend consisting of a Belgian Saccharomyces strain, a Sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus strain, and a Pediococcus strain. The ratio of each microorganism is meant to emulate the exponentially more diverse cultures found in spontaneously fermented beers. Many brewers report that this particular blend tends to produce beers of much less complexity and acidity than what is found in traditional Lambics. In an attempt to add a bit of diversity to the microorganisms in my beer, I cultured and grew three different commercially available beers. Each of these were subsequently pitched into individual 1-gallon secondary fermenters containing the beer fermented previously with Wyeast 3278.

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Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Tilquin Gueuze, Russian River Beatification

Growing up Your Cultures

Culturing yeast and bacteria from commercial bottles of beer is a fairly straightforward process. The main requirement is that the beer must not be filtered or pasteurized and is as fresh as possible. Luckily, this applies to many different craft beers. A little Googling will typically help you figure out if the commercial beer you’re wanting to grow yeast from can be successfully cultured.

Step 1 – Drink the Beer
It would be criminal to not consume the beer you’re culturing dregs from. Upon opening the bottle, I carefully flame the opening with a lighter. The intent is to grow what is living inside the bottle not whatever might be hanging out on the outside. I then carefully pour the beer into a glass, leaving as much sediment as possible in the bottle.

Step 2 – 200ml of 1.020 Wort
Before opening the bottle, I have 200ml of 1.020 sanitary wort made, chilled, and ready to go. To create this, I combine 12 grams of dry malt extract, a pinch of yeast nutrient, and 200ml of water in a 500ml Erlenmeyer flask and boil it for 5 minutes on the stove top to sanitize before chilling in a water bath. I pour this chilled wort directly into the bottle containing dregs, swirl it up, and cap it with a stopper and airlock. When culturing the low cell counts found in bottles of beer, I like to use an airlock to hopefully limit the amount of oxygen in the bottle and decrease the likelihood of something like acetobacter growing within. I leave this at room temperature for at least a week.

Step 3 – 200ml of 1.060 Wort
For the next step, I prepare 200ml of 1.060 wort in a 500ml Erlenmeyer flask (34 grams DME). I then swirl and pour the entire contents of the bottle I’m culturing into the concentrated 1.060 wort. This dilutes the wort back down to a reasonable growing concentration (1.040 or so) and has worked well for me as a second step. Again, I use a stopper and airlock to limit O2 availability. I let this ferment out for at least a week.

Step 4 – Chill, Decant, & Pitch
At this point in the process, I am able to see some fermentation activity in the flask. Once activity slows, I chill the culture for a few days to let it settle out, and then carefully decant and pitch the slurry. The amount of viable microorganisms in solution at this point works well to give additional character to beers, which have already been partly or completely fermented. If I wanted to use what I’ve grown as a primary fermenter, it would require an additional starter and step-up in order to produce enough viable yeast for primary fermentation.

So, how do they taste?

Before pitching my grown dregs, I tasted each sample and took notes for future comparison with the finished beer. I also wanted to ensure that none of the samples contained hints of acetic acid; which could be indicative of the presence of acetobacter which could spoil the beer.

Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus Culture
Fairly dry, some light residual sweetness left behind. Moderate plastic / burnt rubber Brett phenolic with a very light horse blanket earthiness. Sourness is low, but lactic in character. Pretty mild at this point.

Tilquin Gueuze Culture
Nice big, tart lactic nose. Some nice funky Brett horse blanket character with a touch of plastic phenol. Some tropical fruit esters, which are pretty nice. This beer has the most Brett character and sourness of the three cultures. This beer is the driest of the group yet pours with an odd-looking viscosity — probably the ‘ropey’ character often attributed to Pediococcus.

Russian River Beatification Culture
The sweetest and least fermented of the group. Tamest beer in terms of traditional Brett funk and sourness. This sample had a great tropical nose that is probably a Brett-derived ester. Very pleasant. It’ll be interesting to see where this one goes.

How about the base beer?

At the time that I racked the base Lambic to secondary it had fermented from 1.047 to 1.014 over the course of two weeks. It appears that the turbid mash produced the low fermentability I was hoping for.  The beer has a big peppery saison-like character with only a hint of tartness or Brett funk. The biggest surprise was the substantial hop bitterness and tannin in the beer. I used de-bittered hops, purchased directly through Hops Direct, which appear to have contributed a considerable amount of bitterness. I’m hopeful that since this is a long-term project the bitterness will age out. My primary concern is that the hop alpha acids will inhibit the lactic acid bacteria I’m hoping takes hold and sours the beer over time.

This is Not a Lambic

This is not a pipe.  - Magritte

This is not a pipe. – Magritte

This is not a Lambic. Many folks would call this beer a ‘pseudo-Lambic’ (pLambic), but I’m not a fan of the term. What is clear, however, is that this is the beginning of a new tradition of wild fermentation for my homebrewery.

Traditionally, Belgian Gueuze is produced by blending portions of 3-, 2-, and 1-year old Lambic. My aim with this project is to create a similar beer, using a similar recipe and methodology, while using cultured microorganisms. With some luck, this beer will become the 3-year-old aged component of a Gueuze-like blend. Of course, there are differences. Foremost, my beer is not fermented spontaneously with microbes resident in my brewery; I live way too close to the Gowanus Canal to do that. Instead, I am relying on a blend of both yeast and lactic acid bacteria produced by Wyeast and then splitting the fermentation into secondary fermenters containing a variety of cultured commercial ‘bugs’.

Aged hops used in the boil.

Aged hops were acquired from Hops Direct and used in the boil. They were quite … cheesy.

Odd looking gray goop leftover in the mash tun.

Odd looking gray goop leftover in the mash tun, a result of the turbid mash.

For this beer, I am using a very traditional blend of raw unmalted wheat and pilsner malt. I undertook a traditional turbid mash which, in a nutshell, involves pulling liquid from the mash, boiling it, and then returning it to the mash in order to hit specific temperatures. By boiling the thin portion of the mash (as opposed to the thick portion in decoction brewing), you end up denaturing a large portion of enzymes and creating a starch-filled ‘turbid’ wort. All of this is done with the intent of creating a very dextrinous wort providing fuel for the extended fermentation that this beer will undergo.

Recipe

Size: 4.25 gal
Efficiency: 74%
Attenuation: 90% (predicted)

Original Gravity: 1.047 SG
Terminal Gravity: 1.005 SG (predicted)
Color: 3.43 SRM
Alcohol: 5.58% SBV (predicted)
Bitterness: 0.0 IBU

Ingredients:
5 lb (64.5%) Belgian Pils (Castle)
2.5 lb (32.3%) Wheat Raw (Rahr)
4 oz (3.2%) Acidulated Malt (Weyermann)

3.25 oz  AGED Cascade (0% AA) – added during boil, boiled 90 m
0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10 m

1 ea WYeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend™

Turbid Mash:

113.0 °F – 10m
136.0 °F – 5m
150.0 °F – 30m
162.0 °F – 20m
167.0 °F – 20m
175 °F – 10m

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 70°F and keep at 70°F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 75°F 3 days

Secondary:
1. Rack to (3) 1-gallon glass jugs
2. Inoculate with (3) different cultures:

a. Cultured Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus
b. Cultured Russian River Beatification
c. Cultured Tilquin Gueuze

Three cultures are being stepped up and added into separate secondary fermenters.

Three cultures are being stepped up and added into separate secondary fermenters.

 

Pumpkin Beer – Brewday and Recipe

2 Sugar Pumpkins were heavily roasted yielded about 3 pounds of sweet pumpkin meat.

2 sugar pumpkins were heavily roasted yielding about 3 pounds of sweet pumpkin meat that was pulverized and added to the mash.

Update: You can find a full review of this beer, here.

People seem to either love pumpkin beers, or love to hate them. Craft beer drinkers consume them in quantity each fall while a certain segment of ‘beer geeks’ gleefully rant about their disdain for the style and write them off as a trend (oh, the irony). Having been part of this latter group, I can confidently say that my tune has changed. In particular, I look forward to the yearly ritual of consuming high gravity samples like Elysian’s ‘Great Pumpkin’ and the signal of fall these beers represent.

Many craft pumpkin beers feature in-your-face spicing paired with a big residual sweetness. For this beer, I am shooting for something a bit different. While malt-forward, the focus is on toasty bready notes, and less on sweet caramel. This beer features low-spicing — hopefully allowing the heavily roasted pumpkin to shine through. The goal of combining a Maris Otter base with biscuit and honey malts was to produce a graham cracker like character, similar to what is found in pie crust.

Recirculating for mashout. Very nice orange color.

Recirculating for mashout. The malt bill and pumpkin produced a very nice orange color.

Recipe

Size: 2.75 gal
Efficiency: 70%
Attenuation: 72.0% (projected)

Original Gravity: 1.086 SG (Actually hit 1.077 due to pour efficiency)
Terminal Gravity: 1.024 SG (projected)
Color: 16.26 SRM
Alcohol: 8.2% ABV (projected)
Bitterness: 27.9 (projected)

Ingredients:
6.25 lb (65.4%) Maris Otter (Crisp)
1.3125 lb (13.7%) Munich TYPE II (Weyermann)
8 oz (5.2%) Biscuit Malt (Dingeman)
8 oz (5.2%) Flaked Oats (Briess)
6 oz (3.9%) Crystal 45 (Crisp)
6 oz (3.9%) Honey Malt (Gambrinus)
4 oz (2.6%) Belgian Caravienne (Belgian)
3 lb Roasted Sugar Pumpkin

8 g (100.0%) Magnum (14.5%) – added during boil, boiled 90 m
0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10 m

1 ea Cinnamon (Stick) – Whirlpool 10m
.125 tsp Clove (whole) – Whirlpool 10m
.125 tsp Nutmeg (ground) – Whirlpool 10m

WYeast 1056 American Ale™
1 ea Vanilla Bean Soaked in Bourbon (1 bean in 2 oz. bourbon) – Secondary

Mash:
120 °F – 5m (Beta Glucan)
154 °F – 60m (Saccarification)
168 °F – 10m (Mashout)

Yeast Starter:
Final Volume into Fermenter = 2.25 Gallons
Yeast Required = 132  billion (per Mr. Malty)
Yeast Production Date: 8/16/13
Yeast Starter = 1L @ 1.040 on stir plate (per Mr. Malty) =  4 1/8oz. DME

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 60* F and keep at 62* F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 70*F 2 days
3. Crash to 32*F 5 days

Reactive Brewing – Czech Pils Brewday and Recipe

Hop Union Czech Saaz leaf hops packaged in one ounce nitrogen purged opaque bags.

Hop Union Czech Saaz leaf hops packaged in one ounce nitrogen purged opaque bags.

Most of the time, brewdays go smoothly; there can be a zen-like dance between brewer, equipment, and ingredients  where all marks are hit, stress is minimized, and all is right in the brew-world. This was not one of those days. Learning how to react to the variables thrown at you during the course of a brewday and making intelligent reactions is critical to becoming a better brewer. No matter how much preparation goes into your brewing, things happen; your reactions determine what impact unexpected variables will have on the final beer.

Before I get into the brewday shenanigans, let’s talk about why I’m brewing a Czech Pils.

Blichmann Hop Rocket inline between the pump and plate chiller.

Blichmann Hop Rocket inline between the pump and plate chiller.

First and foremost, Czech Pils is delicious – enough said. Czech Pils also happens to be a clean, hop-forward lager that showcases the Saaz hop. This style would serve as the perfect platform for testing out my new toy – a Blichmann Hop Rocket. This contraption acts as a hop back, sitting in-line on the hot side between pump and chiller. This allows you to run hot wort through a bed of leaf hops and then chill almost immediately. It prevents too much trub from getting into the chiller, but more importantly gives another opportunity to push hop aroma and flavor into your beer. For this recipe, I am specifically interested in seeing how much and what kind of hop character the hop back provides. In formulating the hop bill for this recipe, there is a singular bittering charge with everything else going into the hop back post-boil. I can be reasonably confident that any hop aroma or flavor can be primarily attributed to the hop back addition.

The Brewday

Living on the edge, boiling 4.5-gallons in a 5-gallon kettle.

Living on the edge, boiling 4.5-gallons in a 5-gallon kettle.

Problem 1: Yeast Selection
My problems started three days before the scheduled brewday when I went to pick up ingredients at my local homebrew shop. The recipe I developed originally called for Wyeast 2001- Urquell Lager. Unfortunately, my local shop didn’t have this strain in stock. A quick look at Wyeast’s web site led me to select Wyeast 2278 – Czech Pils as a back up. Luck would have it that they had this in stock, but the packs were 5 months old. The brew shop offered to give me a second pack at no cost, but adding yeast that old to a delicate lager was not an idea I wanted to entertain. I finally ended up selecting Wyeast 2124 – Bohemian Lager. This strain is the work horse used in most commercial lager around the world, and should work well for my beer. Best of all, the pack was only a week old. The lesson to take away is that when it comes to yeast, I’d rather compromise on strain selection and get the freshest yeast I can, rather than risk using yeast that likely has low viability – especially when brewing a lager.

Hop back fully loaded with 2 oz. Czech Saaz hops.

Hop back fully loaded with 2 oz. Czech Saaz hops.

Problem 2: Where’d my Volume Go?
My mash went perfect; all temperatures and steps were hit. The problem occurred when I transferred everything to my kettle. When I measured my pre-boil volume I was about 0.7 gallons short of my target. My initial reaction was to start heating water to add back to my mash tun and collect more runnings. Stepping back and pausing for a moment, I decided to measure the gravity of the runnings I had collected in order to calculate how much sugar I had already extracted. It turned out that while my volume was low, I had the right amount of sugar in solution to hit my projected target gravity. To correct the problem, all I needed to do was simply top up my kettle to the projected pre-boil volume. To avoid this problem in the future, I plan to recalculate my mash tun dead space to better hit my projected volumes.

Spent hops in hop back.

Spent hops in hop back.

Problem 3: Cheesy Saaz Hops
For this recipe, I was working with two lots of Saaz hops that I had acquired from two different shops. The first leaf hops were sealed in clear vacuum bags that had been broken down by the brew shop into smaller lots, and were noticeably brown. The second set of hops were sealed in nitrogen purged Hop Union opaque bags. Since the hops in the clear bags didn’t look great, I had planned to use them to bitter the beer and use the Hop Union sealed hops in the hop back. Once I opened the clear bag hops of dubious provenance, it became clear that they had tell-tale oxidized hop smell of cheese / stinky feet. There was no way I could use these hops in a beer, even for bittering. With the aid of brewing software, I was able to replace the 2 ounces of cheesy Saaz bittering hops with 12 grams of Citra hops; the only other hop I had on hand. This is an extremely unconventional hop to use in a Czech Pils, but in a pinch it should work. There may be some residual American hop character in the background, but I find that preferable to an oxidized hop character.

Problem 4: The Hop Back Drank All My Work
My boil went well. I knew based on the Hop Rocket’s design that it would be difficult to determine how much wort the leaf hops would absorb, and how much wort would be trapped in the Hop Rocket canister. As it turns out, I lost about a half-gallon of wort within the hop back. This lost volume will be taken into account for future beer formulations that use the hop back.

Problem 5: Warm Ground Water
We’ve been riding a heat wave here in Brooklyn with high humidity and temperatures in the mid-90’s. Consequently our ground water has warmed considerably. Even with completely throttling down the wort flow rate through my plate chiller, I was only able to get the wort down to 68° F. With lagers, I like to pitch around 46° F and ferment 48-50° F. After running the wort through my chiller I placed it in my fermentation fridge to bring it down to 46° F before oxygenating and pitching yeast. This took about 4 hours, but should help ensure a clean lager fermentation.

The Recipe

Size: 3.25 gal
Efficiency: 72% (Measured)
Attenuation: 77% (Projected)

Original Gravity: 1.052 (Measured)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (Projected)
Color: 5.09 SRM
Alcohol: 5.24% (Projected)
Bitterness: 48.4 IBUs

Ingredients:
6.5 lb (91.2%) Bohemian Pilsner Malt (Weyermann)
6 oz (5.3%) Cara-Pils® Malt (Briess)
2 oz (1.8%) Melanoidin Malt (Weyermann)
2 oz (1.8%) Acidulated Malt (Weyermann) – Added for pH Correction

90m       1 oz (29.2%) Czech Saaz Leaf (Hop Union Flushed Bag) (2.4% AA)
90m       12 g (12.4%) Citra™ Pellets (14.1% AA)
15m       0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets
10m       0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient
0m          2 oz (58.4%) Czech Saaz (Hop Union Flushed Bags) (2.4% AA) – Hop Back

WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager™

Original Gravity 1.052

Original Gravity 1.052

Mash Regiment:
10m       147 °F
50m       153 °F
10m       168 °F

Notes:
Final Volume into Fermenter = 2.75 Gallons
Yeast Required =  200 billion (per Mr. Malty)
Yeast Production Date: 7/1/13
Yeast Starter = 1L @ 1.040 on stir plate (per Mr. Malty). Use 1300ml Starter (5.5 oz DME)

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 46* F and keep at 48°F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 58°F 3 days
3. Crash to 32°F and lager 21 days

National Homebrew Conference – Philadelphia 2013 Recap

Brewing up a RevolutionFree flowing beer, seminars given by people whose beer knowledge dwarfs my own, camaraderie with fellow beer geeks, and the chance to mingle with the pseudo-celebrities of our niche hobby are just a few things that awaited those who headed to Philadelphia for the 2013 National Homebrewers Conference. The conference has made a habit of being in my back yard two years in a row now, so making the trip to Philly was an easy decision. This was my second NHC, and from my limited experience, I’d say this is one show you don’t want to miss.

Seminars

Each day of NHC offers between 3 and 5 separate seminar sessions to go to and learn about a variety of topics. Frankly, the seminars vary wildly in quality. Without sounding too much like a douche asshole, many of the presentations are either geared towards very basic topics, or presented by those that can’t seem to effectively present the thoughts in their heads. Since there are multiple seminars happening during each time slot, you have to make some educated guesses when picking which to attend. My strategy was to look at the credentials of the presenter first and choose seminars that seemed like they had a good chance of not sucking. My advice to the AHA would be to somehow pre-qualify their speakers. Additionally they could offer different seminar tracks based on a brewer’s level of knowledge or particular interests. Seminars are an opportunity to present new research or otherwise interesting information within the broad spectrum of topics that brewing embodies; unfortunately this is rarely the case. I’ll briefly run through each seminar I went to in a minimal fashion. If you’re an AHA member you can delve into each with more care, by (someday) downloading the presentations off the AHA website.

Process Improvement and Beer Enhancement: The Nano Experience – Andy Tveekrem
I was really hoping this seminar would discuss the trials and tribulations of operating a nano-brewery and challenges of process and quality control brewing on a small scale presents. Instead we got a brief overview of the speaker’s background and then a rundown on the basics of homebrewing. Not really worth the time unless you’re completely new to homebrewing and don’t know the basics of things like sanitation, yeast management, etc.

Methods of Maintaining a Wild House Culture – Kyle Kohlmorgen
The information that was presented was far too basic. I was expecting a talk about plating and isolating cultures, selecting for strains with positive brewing attributes, maintaining them in cold storage, and then propagating and blending to create new and interesting fermentations…or at the very least a talk about building and creating a consistent house culture.

Blame the Maltster: An Overview of Malting Operations and How They Influence Beer – John Mallett (Bell’s Brewery)
John presented a balanced in insightful talk about the decisions a maltster must make during the malting process and the balancing act that is required in order to create the best end product. A fair amount of the seminar was spent discussing malt analysis sheets. Hearing the perspective a large brewer brings to developing their malt specification and analyzing the specifications they actually receive was pretty interesting.

Because Not Every Beer is Stone Enjoy By IPA: Preserving Hop Aroma – Stan Hieronymus
While this seminar was mainly an overview of topics covered in detail within Stan’s hop book, his seminar did get the wheels in my heading turning on the topic of the bio-transformation of hop oils during the fermentation process. It is kind of mind-boggling that two different hop oils can be present pre-fermentation and be transformed into completely different compounds via yeast metabolism.

The Science of Beer Flavor – Roger Barth
A great speaker (with a PHD) presented what is happening on a neural level when we are experiencing the taste and flavor of beer. Well presented, humorous, and definitely worth revisiting.

Cider Revolution: How to Brew Great Cider from Everyday Ingredients – Christian Banker
Really dull, and somewhat insulting to those who spend a lot of time making ciders and blending apple varietals in order to create the end product they envision. Not really any new or interesting information.

Alternative Wood Aging Techniques – John Gasparine
One of the top three seminars. The speaker is not a professional brewer, but does consulting for those looking to add interesting, and unconventional wood flavors to their beers.

Brewing Chemistry 101: pH and Buffering – Bob Hall
This seminar managed to take water chemistry as it relates to mash pH and make it very clear and easy to understand. If you’ve been boggled by the nuances of mash chemistry, this seminar presents a fairly complex topic in a brief and easy to understand manner.

Step up Your Starters: Insight into Yeast Propagation for Homebrewers – Kai Troester
While there weren’t any earth-shattering new ideas presented in this seminar, watching Kai and getting a better understanding of the methodologies he uses was a joy. Kai is the mad scientist of homebrewers; any information he presents is always welcome.

Current Techniques and Recent Developments for Brewing Great IPAs – Mitch Steele (Stone Brewing)
The biggest idea and realization made in this presentation was that popular breweries who make great hoppy beers (like Stone) are often blending in portions of hops most homebrewers typically wouldn’t use in an American IPA as a way to add complexity and accentuate the beer’s hop profile. Hearing Mitch call Sterling one of his favorite hops was pretty eye-opening and makes me consider a lot of hop varietals I would have previously written off.

Hops vs Malt: A Smackdown with Cheese – Janet Fletcher

What can I say? Great beer is nice with great cheese.

What can I say? Great beer and cheese is a no-brainer.

­­Hospitality Suite and Trade Show

Tricked out stealth-bomber-like brewing rig by Brew Station.

Tricked out stealth-bomber-like brewing rig by Brew Station.

The hospitality sweet was great this year. While perhaps one in every five beers I sampled featured some sort of off-flavor, in general the beers were quite good. It was a lot of fun grabbing a homebrew and walking around the exhibition floor to check out all of the cool gadgetry. Blichmann in particular had some cool new products, including a stainless steel RIMS coil that plugs into their hop rocket shell and works with their controllers. There was also a company called Brew Station building some incredibly tricked out stainless rigs. Jess Caudill and Greg Doss were omnipresent at that Wyeast booth to answer your yeast questions. And of course, Sabco had their rigs setup at the show giving me an idea of what my homebrewery would look like should I win the lottery.

The ‘Big’ Events – Pro Night and Club Night

Opening Toast at Club Night

Opening Toast at Pro Night. No idea what was said, but fun none-the-less!

Pro-Night was a blast, although somewhat forgettable aside from Lagunitas having a fitting blow on one of their kegs sending a beer geyser 20 feet into the air. Don’t get me wrong, the pro-beer was great, but that really isn’t what NHC is about. That honor of course is reserved for Club Night, where the true creativity and skill of homebrewers is put on display. There were some phenomenal booths with unique designs and smart draft setups. Theatrics aside, it is really about the beer. There will always be dumpers when you’re sampling this quantity of homebrews, but in general the quality was very high. I was especially impressed by the large number of outstanding sour beers. This has to be the biggest trend that I noticed this year, along with the large variety of outstanding meads and ciders that were available. I was able to sample a lot of beers from a ton of different clubs and had a great time. If I had to choose one club that absolutely knocked it out of the park, it would be the Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale and Lager Enthusiast Society. Their booth was simple, but everything I sampled from them was outstanding, including some insane iced ciders.

New York City Homebrewers Club Booth

New York City Homebrewers Club Booth – The club that has taken in this lost West Coaster.

Club Night

Whatever the topic of conversation was, you know it was awesome.

Club Night

The wives of C.R.A.B.S. club members serving up some great beer.

Club Night

5 Santas, a Penguin, and an Excited NYCHG Club Member

Steam Punk Inspired Draft Setup

Steam Punk Inspired Draft Setup

Grand Banquet & Awards Ceremony

No homebrew competition awards ceremony has the energy present at NHC. It was a ton of fun watching the winners of the National Homebrew Competition collect their hardware. I didn’t enter this year, but knowing first-hand how much fun going up on stage to collect your medal is, fueled my excitement for those I was watching. Charlie Papazian was noticeably missing from the ceremony; hopefully he’ll be back next year.

The banquet food kinda sucked, and furthered my perplexity as to why people give so much praise for Sean Paxton’s (The Homebrewed Chef) meals. I’ve had three now, and all have been mediocre. I don’t expect much from banquet meals such as this, but it was pretty bad.

The Commemorative Beers

He never had a chance...

He never had a chance…

Boom goes the can! Seriously. Numerous cans of Round Guys Brewing’s – Cluster’s Last Stand commemorative beer literally exploded. Some faired a bit better only becoming rock hard and over-carbonated. One can I saw had its concave bottom popped out like a pregnant woman’s belly button — that’s a lot of pressure. I can’t help but chuckle at the irony that the  commemorative beer given out by the AHA was infected and produced can bombs. Over carbonation aside, the flavor was a bit butyric and phenolic (plastic) affirming the suspicion of infection. The other beer given out, a rye saison by Sly Fox, was better received and pretty tasty.

Next Year…NHC 2014

Next year the NHC circus travels to Grand Rapid, MI… also known as the hometown of Founders Brewing company, and apparently a lot of great homebrewers. Yes, Michigan is in the middle part of the country, but don’t hold it against them; they make outstanding beers. I for one am completely stoked to travel their next year and do it all over again!