Smuttynose: Robust Porter

I haven't done a real beer review in a while, so let's do one. It has been a real crappy day! Getting cold again, cloudy and not a lot to do, so lets try a new beer. Today, I have picked up some Smuttynose Robust Porter. On a day like this, you want to grab a beer with some character and flavor.

Smuttynose is a little Craft Brewery in New Hampshire that distributes to 18 states, so I consider it a regional brewery. The name Smuttynose is a interesting name and raises alot of questions, but it is the name of a small island off the New Hampshire coast.
I have tasted several of their beers over the last year and I say they have a different taste. I think their beers have some English style influence, meaning they might not be shooting for the American WOW factor that some breweries try to achieve. They stick to the basics and brew their beer to tradition and don't worry about going above and beyond. Their Robust Porter is one that I would recommend to anybody. This is an awesome example of the style. Moderately hopped and blended well, this one has drinkability written all over it, especially on a cloudy cold day like this one.

Smuttynose has its own thumbprint in the beer community. They have five regular year round brews and a hand full of seasonals, but all are worth a try. If you are looking around at your local store and can't find a good beer, make it a Smutty!

Tuesday Night

We had a great line up last night! With a couple of newcomers and a couple of great beers, this was a lot of fun.

I first walked into Wine world and Derik (Manager) tells me this story about one of his customers. He said, this little old lady walks in with a newspaper in her hand and asks, "Do you have any this Pumpkin Beer? It's called Smuttynose." Apparently she read my article in the Bay Bullet and wanted to taste the pumpkin beer I wrote about. She asked him for the pumpkin beer and when she learned it was sold out, she was interested in other fruit beers. Derik gave her a couple of samples of some beer and finally they found her something she would enjoy. Now, I have to say, hearing this story totally makes me happy that someone out there has had a beer moment and was interested in learning about beer. This is the reason I started to write these little articles. She also said, I don't even drink beer, but this pumpkin beer sounds great. Anyway, that just made my day.

A couple of minutes later, some people showed up for the tasting. Last night we had some very interesting beers. There were a couple beers last night that were to good to be true.
The bottle on the far right is the growler I brought the Old Ironsides. Everyone enjoyed it and I was happy everyone was interested. The next fun bottles were the Goose Island that Kieth brought. He brought a Christmas ale that wasn't spiced like other Christmas ales, but had a very deep malt character. The other Goose Island beer was called Sofie. Sofie is a Belgian Saison that was blended with a barrel aged and young beers.

Next in line was a couple of Trappist Ales from Belgium. Newcomers Tony and his wife brought along a Koningshoeven Quadrupel. This style is one of my favorite styles and I could not wait. Keith also brought a Trappist Quadrupel, but this one was special. His Quad was called Westvleteren 12 and this beer is rated the best in the world by many. According to Beeradvocate and ratebeer, Westvleteren is the best beer in the world. Not only is it extremely hard to get, but it is delicious. Thanks for the great treat and hopefully Tuesdays will get to be filled with exciting beers.

The last selection of the night was a Russian Imperial Stout named Old Rasputin XII. This is brewed from a brewery in Northern California named North Coast Brewing. This was one of their anniversary brews. It is their regular Old Rasputin RIS, but Bourbon Barrel Aged. I personally love beers aged in barrels and I thought this one was off the charts good. It had a great malt backbone that blended well with the Bourbon. But this was a limited release and I might not ever see another one.

That was pretty much Tuesday the way I saw it. If you want to be apart of the fun, you know when and where to find us! Tuesdays at 6PM, Panama City Beach Wine World.

The Brewery in Alabama

Howdy Guys and Gals,
Welcome to another installment of Panhandle Beer forum! Let's get started with the naming of the barreled beer. I thought the best name mentioned was Old Ironsides. This was the name Dave mentioned (I bet he's surprised) and I guess he wins. I'll think of a prize for him or maybe just a high five and an ataboy.

Next, don't forget about the Tuesday Night Tasting. 6PM tomorrow night! The turnout the last couple of nights has been a little thin, but I think tomorrow will be fun.

And on to the topic. A few months ago, we went to the Pensacola Beer Festival and ran across a little Pale Ale made by one of Alabama's newest breweries, Back Forty Beer Co. This brewery is kinda located in Birmingham, but they have the right idea. The beer they sell is actually brewed by Lazy Magnolia in Kiln, MS. Yes, that is where Brett Favre is from. I was recently in touch with Jason from Back Forty and he filled me in on the future of the brewery. They have found a building for their brewery and signed a agreement for their equipment. So, they might be able to be brewing their own beer in Birmingham by May. It is very common for small breweries to start of contracting out their brewing to other companies, just ask Sam Adams. Yep, they also started out contracting their beer to Budweiser of all breweries.
As of right now, the only brew they have on the market is their Pale Ale, named Naked Pig. It is an American Pale Ale (APA) and I would compare it to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale because that is one of the most famous APAs on the market. The American Pale Ale is basically the American version of the English style Pale Ale like Bass.

Jason also said, they will have their second brew out on the market in the next three weeks.
Truck Stop Honey is a Brown Ale made with real Alabama Wildflower Honey. It looks interesting and I can't wait to taste it.

Well, the downside to this brewery is, you can't find this beer in Florida yet. Right now, Alabama is the only place you can find this beer, but Jason says they are planning on making it to Florida in 2010. Being an Alabama native, I find this brewery interesting and it I am glad there are folks in the state that love great beer and will go to the extreme of opening up a brewery to show it. If you are in Alabama, try some out! Or, if you are traveling through the state, stop at one of the locations from the website and buy some. It's good stuff.

Now I've done it!

The unnamed barrel beer has been in the keg for two days now. I pressurized it so it can absorb the Carbon Dioxide and become the fizzy. But I screwed up! Remember when I racked the beer into the keg? I racked from the top of the barrel so I would leave behind all the sediment, right? That was the correct thing to do, but I got a little cocky. Instead of racking it into another bucket first, I went directly into the keg, which caused this!
I thought that if I was careful enough, I could avoid any sediment getting into the keg, but I learned a lesson. Do you recognize those little green things? Those are hop leaves clogging the tube that despenses the beer. Nothing worse than having a keg of beer that you can't drink. Tiger Woods might have his own opinion, but I say it sucks!

How the keg works is there are two valves. One for the gas to enter and another for the liquid to come out. The out valve has a long tube that sucks the liquid from the bottom of the keg. And do you remember where the dry hopped pellets end up? Yep, on the bottom! So, now I just have to keep drawing beer until the tube stops getting clogged, meaning no more hop leaves.

I have actually been able to get a real taste for the beer though. It is good, not exactly what I wanted, but drinkable. I am not going to get too much into the taste because I want people to come Tuesday and taste it. I will bring a growler of this unnamed brew for all to taste this Tuesday at PCB Wine World.

Alright, the lesson of the day is, Don't Be Lazy. I knew better than to do that, but I thought I could cheat the system and just keg it.

-Later

The Beer in the Barrel

Before we get started with the barrel, I have to announce there will not be a beer article in the next Bay County Bullet. I received an email Tuesday telling me that there was not enough room for it this edition. I did not tell what the last article was about because I wanted everyone to buy a copy to help the new newspaper, but it was the "Hold the whipped cream" article that can be found on this site. But, if you would like to read more beer articles in the newspaper, please email the editor of the newspaper and tell them that you want more beer related stuff.

So, I have this beer in this barrel and it has been there since Saturday. I have been taking small samples everyday and I think it is time.
I am siphoning it out of the barrel and into my keg. For those who have never seen homebrew kegs, I use five gallon Cornelius Kegs that were originally used for soda. they are easy to use and much faster than bottling. I use them for beers that are not intended to be aged. Little beers like this are perfect.

Next order of business is to come up with a name for this bad boy. I have this neat
tap handle I got from Wine World. It has this little sleeve that allows you to add your own label. This is great for us who can't get commercial tap handles for our commercial kegs or can't make handles for our homebrew. All I have to do is make up a logo, print it, and slide it into the sleeve. Cool huh? I am going to leave it up to you guys to name this beer. Here is some info you may want. It is an American Style IPA made with Nugget and Cascade hops, about 4.1% ABV and aged in an American Oak Barrel. I was going to call it The All American IPA, but I ended up using some Belgian and English malts. So, what do you got?

And if you are wondering why I was racking the beer from the top of the barrel instead of the little spigot on the bottom?
This is why! As beer ages, it will accumulate sediment in the bottom of the vessel. Also, remember the Cascade hops I dry hopped it with? Those things went somewhere, to the bottom. So, I racked it from the top to leave behind as much sediment as possible.

That's about all I got. Now, don't forget your homework!

What is the deal with Tuesdays?

So, Tuesday Night was nearly a Flop again. I showed up with my selection, which was a fine bottle of Victory Storm King and a bottle of homebrew stout, and I see Dan sitting at the table with another beer guy named Rick. Jeremy comes in with a nice bottle of NOLA's Christmas beer. This beer is not for sale, just made for NOLA's consumption. NOLA(New Orleans Lager and Ales) bottled and handed out a few bottles of this beer and Jeremy was one of the few that got one. I did not get a picture of the bottles, but the NOLA bottle was label less and had a card attached to it that said, Happy Holidays from NOLA, or something. It poured a dark amber to a light brown and had a very burnt smell to me. Jeremy and I will argue about the taste. He says it is very hoppy and I say it had more of a burnt malt character. Even though the malts tasted burnt, the hops were blended very well, I am going to guess they used Warrior hops to blend with the burnt character? I thought it was a great beer and I am glad I got a chance to taste it. And I might add, this was Jeremy's last Tuesday Night Tasting because he will be moving back to New Orleans in a couple of weeks.

Jeremy moved here right about the time I started to get the idea to write articles. I was getting ideas what to write about and was being persuaded to start the blog by others. I technicaly met Jeremy on Beeradvocate.com and we both had the same ideas about building a community in Panama City. Jeremy already had his New Orleans Beer blog, The Beer Buddha , and I thought why not? So, after I started the blog, Jeremy helped me with some of the ins and outs of how to do little things to my blog into the world. So, now it's time for all of us to say bye to The Beer Buddha, at least from Panama City. And we hope your to hear from you time to time.

Even though Jeremy is leaving, Tuesday Nights are here to stay!

Tuesday Night Tasting

Tuesday Night Tasting is on tomorrow night, Ya'll!

Barrel Pale Ale

Well, today is a very nasty rainy day, so I decided it would be a good day to transfer the pale ale into my new barrel. I had water in the barrel, to prepare it for the pale ale. As I drained the water out of the barrel, I could really smell the oak aromas the water had absorbed. I read somewhere that the small barrels will give a lot of oak flavor and aroma very quickly because of the amount of liquid that comes into contact with the oak. And I believe it. This was oak flavored water.

Also, while I was in the transfer mode, I added a half of an ounce of Crystal hop pellets for a little dry hop action.
Crystal hops are usually used for dry hopping because of their floral aromatics. This is an American low Alpha Acid hop that will not contribute to the bitterness, just aroma.

Now that the pale ale is in the barrel, I will take small samples daily. When the desired oak flavor is achieved, I will keg it. Just to let everyone know, this is an experimental brew and might actually be the worst one ever. Just covering my bases.

Panhandle Brewery

When we were in Asheville, I was having a conversation with a man at the Crazy Jack's pub. This man's name was Mike and I actually mentioned him in one of my blog posts while we were in Asheville. He is the one retired from Genessee Brewing Company in New York. Anyway, as the conversation went on, it was where you from? What are ya doing here? Where all have you been? stuff like that. I was telling him that we are from florida and we came up here to see the mountains, Biltmore and see some breweries. I also told him that the Florida Panhandle was a beer desert and there are no breweries or much less cask ale in our area. He was reading a Southern Brew News newspaper and flipped to the state of Florida. These newspapers have breweries listed by state and have a map with all the breweries marked. He says, "So, where is Panama City on this map, show me where you are", and I pointed to our area. He replied, "Damn, you're right there is nothing there, that's terrible". I said, "see, I told you, no breweries in sight, we have no breweries in the panhandle"(Mcguire's doesn't count), and he said with a nonchalant voice, "open one".

Now, I have not really researched opening a brewery, but I am sure there are a ton of taxes, fees, licenses and initial overhead. If breweries were so easy to open, why wouldn't someonne have already opened one in this area? Is it because no one thinks a craft brewery can survive in this area or because no one has thought of it?

My question to you is, do you think a craft brewery could survive in Panama City Beach?

Tuesday Night Tasting

Tuesday Night Tasting came and went again. There was not a large turn out, but we had beer. We started out the night with a very light beer, but one that no one has had before. We tasted a Budweiser Select 55. That's right, Budweiser now has a 55 calories beer. And that's all I have to say about that.
Next we tapped into a bomber of Sweetwater, Big Ol' Belgian Blue Balls. This Belgian style ale is supposed to have a blueberry flavor, but everyone agrees there was not much blueberry taste. Last, we opened up a bottle Below Decks, Barleywine style ale, which was very alcoholic. The ester flavors overwhelmed the beer and no one wanted a second taste. I think this was the first tasting that everybody thought all the beers sucked. Sorry to be that guy, but they did. Oh well, I say next week.
Now, there is one more bit I would like to mention. This past Saturday, it was cold and I did not want to go outside so I brewed up a little beer to age in my new barrel. I had some leftover grain and hops, so I decided to do a little IPA to age in my barrel. If you notice, the color is very cloudy and it will clear as it ages. Just needs a little time. I have the barrel filled with water to fill all the gaps and I will probably rack the beer into within the next week. I'll keep you posted.

One last thing, you will notice a new gadget on the right side. You can Subscribe with you email and every time I post on the blog you will recieve an email telling you about the post. Everyone sign up! Please.

I've been had!

All my credibility as a beer drinker has gone down the drain. My buddy Dave came over today with a sixer of St. Paulie Girl, Special Dark. I also whipped out a bottle of Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout that I recapped the night before. The plan was... as we drank, I was going to show Dave how I make my chili. It is a good recipe, but nothing special. We poured a little bit of each beer in a couple of glasses and I resumed cooking the chili. After a while, Dave finished his little bit and kept asking how my beer was and was wondering why I wasn't drinking. Little did I know, he swapped the beers and I was drinking the German lager and he was drinking my stout. I was busy making chili. He did ask one time if I could taste Cappuccino notes in the beer? And I replied yes, but I thought he meant in general. Remember, making chili. I guess I should stop writing this here blog and start carving wood sculptures or something. In my defence, the two beers look nearly identical and I did taste a difference, but thought it was because the beer was recapped from the night before. Oh well, I've been had by Dave .

A little reminder, 6:00 tomorrow night. Panama City Beach Wine World, bring one bottle of great beer.

Bay County Bullet

To all the locals out there who have been stuck in their day to day lives and have not had a chance to venture out of the norm, there is a new little publication on the market. The Bullet is a small newspaper that has been popping up on new stands around the Bay County area. I do not have all the history of the newspaper, but I will tell you that you can find one of my articles in there. I am not going to give out any secrets as to what the article is about, but I will say it is mighty fine.

As many of you know, this area is lacking a beer community or culture for that matter. I have to say thanks to the people at The Bullet for allowing articles, like mine, to be printed and enjoyed by everyone. In the real world there is a such thing as food and wine columns, so why not beer? Why does beer always have to be put into its own little category where people forget how much respect it deserves?

The Bay County Bullet is not available everywhere yet, but you should be able to find it at just about every Publix or Express Lane in the area. I urge everyone that is interested in reading the article to go buy a copy. It will only cost you $1 and it is full of local entertainment and news as well. Also, I urge everyone who wants to read more articles to email the Publisher/Editor and let him know that you like reading beer articles and maybe there will be more to come.

Thanks again to The Bullet!

Saranac Beers

Let me start off saying sorry we cancelled the Tuesday Night Tasting and it will resume next week. We will be full steam ahead next Tuesday and I am going to do a invitation thing on FaceBook to help gather newcomers.

Now, on to the beer. One of the regular Tuesday Night Beer Tasters and all around good dude brought me back a couple of brews from his hometown area. Matt, is from Indiana and was up that way for the Holidays. While he was there, he loaded up on some beers and made a few of us very happy campers.

Two of the beers he brought me were named 'Saranac', brewed by Matt Brewing Company located in Utica, NY. Checking out the website, they have about eight core beers, around a dozen seasonals and some soft drinks. Not too bad for a little brewery.
I drank these two beers together so I could get a real feel for their style. I started with the IPA and it was a very bitter IPA, which I am not a fan. I am more of a fan of the citrus IPAs instead of the overly bitter IPAs. Don't get me wrong, this was not a bad IPA, just a not my style.

The next one was the Nut Brown Lager, which looked interesting to me. This beer pours just how it sounds. Light brown, like a brown ale, but clear like a lager. I thought this beer was a very good example of a hybrid beer. You take the malt nut brown ale character and splice that with the crisp/clean texture of a lager. I thought this was a great beer and I hope I am able to get more one day.

As mentioned before, Tuesday Night Beer Tasting is on like Donkey Kong, so grab a bottle of brew, a friend and see you there!

Cigar City, 'Marshal Zhukov'

Hello all, let me start off by apologizing for not posting for a couple of days. The holidays have been a little crazy and then my buddy got married this weekend, so I have been busy. Today was a fun day! I get to work and it is 30 degrees, great day. Well, the second I get to work I think about how much fun it is going to be to go home make some chili and build a fire. And that is exactly what I did.

My friend Dave stopped by while I was making chili and he brought a couple of beverages. He brought over a 'Woodchuck' cider and a French-Belgian Style Ale named 'Belzebuth'. I have to say they both were interesting, but not my favorites. Sorry Dave.
After the other beers, we popped open a bottle I have had for a couple of days. Another friend that was here for the wedding brought me a bottle of Cigar City's 'Marshal Zhukov' from Central Florida. This Russian Imperial Stout is definitely one of the darkest beers I have seen. It weighs in at 11.5%, but it is hidden well. If you look at the picture, you will notice that it pours very opaque black with a light tan head. Dave noticed it has a burnt smell that is probably due to the black malts. You can also notice a slight bitterness that is common with Russian Imperial Stouts.

The story behind the Russian Imperial Stouts is that the stouts were made for the Russian Imperial Court and the British brewers would add more hops and make it more alcoholic, which are natural preservatives, to help the beer make the long voyage to Russia without spoilage.

I have to say this beer is a great one to drink on a freezing cold night like this one. It will help make your skin thick.

On a different note, Tuesday night Beer Tasting is on and I am not sure who all will be attending. I know Jeremy will be there, but that is all. Like I said, I have been a little busy. I might not be able to make it, but if I do it will be brief.

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's and Please leave some comments!

-Jeremy