Large scale brewing is fun

Well, there has been some excitement going on since I last posted. Tony and I drove over to Destin last Friday and spent the day with Brew Master Gary. I called the store on Tuesday and asked if it were alright to pay a visit and the rest is history. Gary has been brewing professionally since 1995 and it turns out he is a long lost friend of Wayne Wambles of Cigar City Brewing. I know Wayne because he was brewing in my hometown at a brew pub named Poplar Head Mule Company. I still have a t-shirt. But Gary hired Wayne at Buckhead Brewing in Tallahassee after the Poplar Head gig.

When we arrived at the store, Gary welcomed us and gave us a super quick tour of the brewery and we got down to business. This particular day, we were making McGuire's Stout. And it is a wonderful stout. As we ripped open bags of grain, we started the brew day with some "That's what she said" jokes. And some were pretty funny.
This was not one of those situations where we sat around and watched what was happening, NO Sir! After we added the right amount of grains, I offered recommendations on changes, then we did what any brewer would do. We drank beer. Tony and I brought over some of our homebrews. So many, we didn't even get to all of them. Gary, if you are reading, we forgot to give you one. I guess we ran out of time. We also sampled lots of McGuire's beers.
After mashing the grain, we sparged it just like any other brew. This is where the grains are rinsed to harvest all the sugars that were converted during the mash. This is the part of the beer that is brewed. As you can see in the picture, the grains look a little dark. That is because of all the dark grains that were used. The darker the grains you use the darker the beer is going to be.
But is wasn't just sit around and watch the water flow all day. There was plenty of labor to be done. This is what happens to all the grains that are left behind. I usually just toss mine in the yard, but McGuire's has different ways to dispose of their waste. Their grain goes to the farm. About noon, a man shows up and takes all of the grain to his farm to feed his horses. That is a great idea! There are several breweries that give their grains to farms, such as Highland Brewing Company. This helps with their disposal footprint and helps out the local farmers.
During the brewing process, Gary gave us instruction of when to add the additions. We added two different hop additions, then added some anti-coagulant stuff to help the beer clear during fermentation. This is what Tony is doing now. This is a little off topic, but do you remember those old 1950's commercials where the man was so happy to be doing anything. I think that man was who Tony was shooting for, even with those Big Ass Pork Chop Sideburns. Great Photo!
Here is a little photo of me playing in the Mash Tun. Actually I am not playing, I was scrubbing the sides with a scrubber. I took the time out of my busy job for a photo. This was really a great day a we both had a fun time brewing with Gary. Tony and I both agree that this was pretty much like homebrewing, but add larger equipment and a couple of pumps. We both also agree that we only saw one side of what Gary does everyday. Besides brewing, you have to think about moving the beer to secondary fermentation, kegging and cleaning of all the equipment that is involved. There is actually tons more that is involved, but we didn't get to see. Maybe we were there on a slow day, it was Friday.
We had a very fun and eventful day. My hat goes off the The Brewer and all that he does. Brewing is full of adventure and creativity that mixes well with culture and diversity. We were told that our stout will be on tap at McGuire's in about 10 days. I say you stop on by and try it out. If it sucks, it's not our fault. We just did what we were told. Just kidding, I bet it will be the best stout ever served at McGuire's. See you there!

Homebrewing is fun

Hello boys and girls, welcome to another edition of Panhandle Beer Forum. Today we are talking all about Homebrewing and how much fun it is and why you should do it. First, it is fun. Second, you get great beer from it. Third, it is easy.

Everyone starts off doing extract brews and eventually goes all-grain. What ever techniques you use, it doesn't matter because it is going to be great beer that will make you proud. I promise. I remember the first time I opened a bottle of homebrew with my friend Brad, we still think that is the best batch we have ever made. And it could be. The thing I like about brewing is that there is not a limit to what you can make. Like a chef in action, your mind goes into super creativity mode and you can think up some of the strangest things. For instance, I made an IPA recipe once spiced with rosemary and aged on oak chips and lavender leaves. Does that sound normal?
Recently, my friend made a Kolsch to celebrate the birth of his daughter. You can see it here in the picture and I have to say, that is one of the coolest homebrew labels I have ever seen. The other bottle in the picture is a bourbon barrel aged stout that was made by a Beeradvocate over in Mississippi. I was able to hang out with a couple of local beer geeks in Mississippi when I was there a couple of weeks ago.

But homebrewing is a very adventurous hobby and I wish more folks were into it. Now onto the next topic. My brew bud, Tony and I have been planning a Big Barley Wine brew for while and we finally got around to doing it. We actually were planning a Party Gyle, which is making two batches of beer with the same grain. How it works is you make a high gravity beer with your grains and re-mash the grain to make a low gravity beer. Sounds simple, huh? In order to have enough equipment, Tony acquired a new burner that he got for free and I
must say, it does a great job burning! It burnt the sides of the pot, the bottom and could have burnt a bunch more. But what can you say, it was free? We needed to have at least one other burner ready to heat water, but we ended up not using "The Torch from Hell", as we thought it was dangerous.

Our sparge went well. We ended up with about 67% efficiency, which is a little low, but we will end up with a 9% beer when it is all done.
As you can see in the picture, that when we started to mash out, the beer is different colors. This is because the grains in the two cooler are different. The one on the left has mostly base grains and the one on the right has a lot of the specialty grains. They all mix in the end anyway.
This is just a fancy little shot of the spent grain after the mash was over and they make some great cookies. Amy has an awesome recipe, I will post it one day when she makes more and I can be inspired. But all of that was turned into tree food. Yes, returneth to the Earth.

After the sparge, we fired up the Brew Kettle. Nothing pumps you up more than firing up the Brew Kettle.
And Tony was pumped up. We boiled that bad boy for an hour and a half, to ensure a quality fermentation. We were shooting for an American Barley Wine and it should have a big hop character. We hopped the BaJeepers out of it and according to Tony's computer projection, it could have upwards of 160 IBUs. There are those letters again, IBUs. I have been told that the human palate can only recognize up to 90 International Bitterness Units, so this should be a fun beer to taste.

As for the other beer, we were able to get a 5 gallon brew out of it, after adding more grain. But we got our Barley Wine. That's all that matters, right?

By the way, I had to retype most of this because when I went to post the first one, Blogger deleted half of the post. I was as pissed off as a legless Ethiopian watching a doughnut roll down a hill. I was mad.

Oh, and I shaved off my beard. See ya.

I am alive!

I know I am such a slacker and I should post more, but I have been busy. There is a bunch of stuff coming up and a bunch of stuff to tell you about. You want to hear what I've been up too? Ok.

We finally got to get together for the Big Brown Tasting and it was fun. We tasted all of the beers blind and tried to guess which one was what. I am not sure anybody got all of them right. But It was fun tasting all seven beers side by side. Yes, there were seven. We did some fancy side boy action and added some flavors to mix things up. Keith fermented one bottle with maple syrup, which nearly exploded. Tony aged one gallon of his brown one a vanilla bean, which was the best beer there. He also dripped a few drops of Maker's Mark in a bottle. I aged one gallon of my brown on some espresso beans. That's how we got the seven beers. There were also other beers for taste too.
Here is Morrie showing us how he is out of beer and needs another one. We had lots of bottles floating around. Dogfish Head Squall IPA, Cigar City Jai Alai IPA, various homebrews, Alesmith, Jolly Pumpkin just to name a few. It was fun.

This past week, I went to Biloxi for most of the week. I was a volunteer at Fallen Oak for the Mississippi Gulf Resort Champions Tour event. And I have to say that golf course is off the charts. Designed by Tom Fazio, this golf course would drop the jaw of someone that doesn't play golf.
This is one of the photos I took. Check out this crazy bunker. Could you imagine hitting out of it? The green is behind it in front of the Golf Channel tower. There were lots of these bunkers and it was impressive to see all the ins and outs of the course.

Also while in Mississippi, I got a chance to see Lazy Magnolia. Just a short drive from Biloxi, Amy and I headed over to Kiln Mississippi to tour the brewery. We showed up a tad bit late and caught the last five minutes of the tour, but Gar and Brandy were nice enough to stick around and show us the place.
This 15 Barrel brewery has lots of character and makes some really good beer. Being the only brewery in Mississippi, they are not afraid to make the beer they like. And I like that. They make beer that they would drink. If you are ever in the area and want to do the tour. It is on Saturdays at 10:30 am.

And Last but not least, Victory is in the area! Monday night, they did a release thing at the Mellow Mushroom.
Tonight at Wine World Panama City Beach, they are doing a tasting of some of their beers. This news has been floating around for a while, but now it is for rizzle. After talking with the Victory rep for a couple of minutes, I found out that the Panhandle is not the last place in Florida to get victory beer! Nope the word on the street is that the Orlando area is last. I can't believe it. Maybe that is what they tell everybody. Well, for those of you who subscribe via email and get this on Thursday morning, sorry. The tasting was last night. Maybe I should of written about this on Tuesday.

Panama City Beach Wine World at 6PM. Be There!