Girl Scout Cookie Beer Pairing...Minnesota Style!

For this past chilly February Jack Of All Brews homebrew club meeting, we tried something new as a special tasting event.  Last year I saw some tweets and facebook posts about pairing craft beer with the highly anticipated yearly release of Girl Scout cookies and was intrigued.  This year we decided to try this as a club event, and here are our results!

Looking at a few articles and blog posts on the subject from last year, I realized that many of these beers were not available in Minnesota (or were so rare that they might as well be.)  Why not stick with Minnesota craft beers only?  Challenge accepted!  Our treasurer Steven--who's daughter is a Girl Scout--supplied us with the necessary sugary discs for this tasting.  I took my Tuesday afternoon to visit a couple of local liquor stores for the perfect beers.

By the time we got to the cookie pairing our group had dropped from about 25 to around 15--more manageable, but still a lot of people to enlist in an organized write-up.  And hey, this was after tasting a lot of homebrews earlier!  I ended up just taking (spotty) notes as people exclaimed or commented on their thoughts.  I've attributed a few of the quotes.

Do Si Do's/Peanut Butter Sandwich and Waconiator Dopplebock

I had planned on using Schells Firebrick--thinking that a malty lager would be a good pairing with this fairly dry peanut butter cookie, but discovered a rare bottle of this even maltier seasonal from my own city's local brewery.

* Nice. Good.

* Maltiness matches well with peanut butter.

* The dopplebock seems less sweet with the cookie.

* The cookie makes it taste better (Bryan).

Shortbread and Steel Toe Wee Heavy

What to pair with a buttery sugar cookie famously from Scotland?  Why not a strong caramel-like Scottish beer like a Wee Heavy/Scotch Ale?  Steel Toe is one of my favorite breweries and I was happy to find a bottle of this locally.  Other potential options for this pairing would be other malty UK beers like English barleywine or old ale.

* Warm alcohol clears the sweet buttery mouthfeel of the cookie.

* Not sure they mix well--the cookie is in one side of the mouth and the beer in the other.

* (Sarajo discovers dunking the cookie in the beer and the whole thing turns for the better!)

* All out dunkage!

* The beer and cookie have similar flavor notes, but this might be better with another beer.  Helles?  Pils?  Bitter?

Caramel DeLights/Samoas and Brau Brothers Moo Joos

Ideally I wished for a coconut stout but Town Hall's Three Hour Tour is long gone for the season.  I opted for the thick and milky Brau Brothers milk stout contrast a bit with the coconut and caramel of this cookie.

* Works with the caramel and chocolate!

* Cookie overpowers the beer.

* The beer overpowers the cookie.

* Flavors seem muddled together.

* Smoke shows up in the flavor of the beer with the cookie involved.

* Too much Yin, not enough Yang.

* Somewhere in between complementary and contrasting.

Lemonades and Surly Furious

Lemon icing topped shortbread cookies?  Lets get away from malty and roasty beers for once and try something citrusy like a strong IPA.  Surly Furious is a MN classic and has a bit of English malt and yeast character as well as a strong hopping.

* This was actually my favorite of the pairings--the lemon glaze on the shortbread really accentuated the citrus hop bitterness in the beer and made it taste even more Furious! (Eric)

* Sour of lemon rind!

* Yin and Yang!

* Thins the beer, but makes it better.

* (This beer was very polarizing--we were divided "emotionally" on this one about 50/50.  Some loved it, some hated it.  Certainly the most interesting of the pairings we tried.)

Tagalongs/Peanut Butter Patties and Fulton Worthy Adversary Russian Imperial Stout

This is my favorite cookie--laden with thick peanut butter, crisp cookie, and a somewhat waxy chocolate coating.  The strong flavors in this need something strong to stand up to it so a Russian Imperial stout is a good choice.  There are not a lot of RIS beers in Minnesota that are available in the bottle (other than Surly Darkness) but Fulton's Worthy Adversary is now year round!

* The beer is too bitter for the cookie.

* Not a good mix at all.

* Each are good on their own, but not together.

* (Several people did not like the beer.)

* This is my favorite pairing--smooth.  (Mike)

* The beer is thin, could be more chocolaty.

Thin Mints and Mankato Brewery Mint Stout

Thin Mints are probably the most popular cookie, and as a result we went with two pairings!  the first was a bold move when I discovered Mankato's Mint Stout sitting on the shelf right next to the other beer I had planned for this.  The pairing of like with like can be amazing, but other times can fall a little flat so this one was a bit questionable.  But hey, how could we pass up the opportunity to try?

* (A collective groan goes through the room as I pull out this beer.)

* Eric, what have you done?  What have you done??? (Chris)

* These wash each other out.

* Pairs well.

* These are a different type of mint and just don't quite go together.

* The cookie makes this beer taste better than on it's own.  But it still isn't good.

* Pepto-Bismol mixed with an after dinner mint.

* Like brushing your teeth, then drinking a beer before you go to work.

Thin Mints and Fulton War & Peace 

Fulton's War & Peace is a Peace Coffee infused version of the Worthy Adversary Russian Imperial stout.  Several other folks have suggested a coffee infused RIS (such as Alesmith Speedway Stout) to pair with this cookie, and this was the only local one I could find!

* The best pairing for Thin Mints is a glass of milk.

* I get chili or chipotle pepper from this pairing.

* Tannic notes from the coffee beans?

* Beer seems thin with the cookies.

Overall Experience

This was a fun event for our brewclub to try out and everyone had a good time.  What we discovered overall is that cookies and beer just aren't incredibly great together.  Most of the beers ended up tasting thin or more bitter after tasting the sweeter cookies.  In the end though, we got to eat cookies and drink beers, so everyone won!

A Whale A Week: Three Floyds Dark Lord 2012

Now in my second year, A Whale A Week is my challenge to try (with an array of beer loving friends) a rare beer for every week of the year.  Last year I had a great time with this and have continued it for 2016.  Not every beer will be a truly "white whale" beer, but all are hard to find and a treat to try!

Three Floyds Brewing Dark Lord 2012 Vintage

This week we point our attention to a famous brewery from Indiana, Three Floyds!  Located in the small border town of Munster, the brewery started up way back in 1996.  They have grown and become quite famous for their "Its Not Normal" style beers.  I've had the pleasure of getting to the brewpub where it all started a few times now.  The tour was nothing special, but the beers and the food were fantastic!  Each time I went, there was a big line outside 45 minutes to an hour before they opened, so plan accordingly.  The brewery vibe is very Heavy Metal and irreverent, surely influencing other breweries such as Surly here in Minnesota.  In fact Surly and Three Floyds have done a couple of collaboration beers such as Urine Trouble, Baller Stout, and Blakkr.

Dark Lord is the brewery's most famous beer.  This is a big 15% ABV Russian Imperial stout brewed with coffee (Intelligentsia) and Mexican vanilla.  Available in bottle since 2004, the beer is released only one day of the year--Dark Lord Day--at the brewery.  This day has become an epic event with people camping out and traveling across the country to take part in the festivities and get a few bottles of this rare beer.  My friends Rob and Ron of Limited Release actually recorded the 2012 festivities for their show and I've linked it to the bottom of this post if you want to see what this is all about!  Oh and Rob brought me the bottle we are tasting for this Whale A Week from that excursion.  Thanks Rob!  Dark Lord is rated 95 on Beer Advocate and 100 on RateBeer and is much hoarded and traded.  I first tried a bottle of this shared by Chris German of BSG at a Jack Of All Brews event held in his home brewery--perhaps around 2009?  For me that was one of the best beers I had ever had up to that point and it became my unattainable White Whale--until I got to try it again in 2012!

For this tasting we gathered up the largest group I've ever used in one of these tastings--our entire group of Jack Of All Brews officer's--during our 2016 planning meeting.  Things got a little chaotic!
Eric Wenting: Me! BJCP National ranked judge, homebrewer for over 25 years, stout fiend.  Sarajo Wentling: My tolerant wife.  Tyrone Babione: BJCP judge, writer for BSG.  Annette Babione: BJCP judge, knitter extraordinaire.  Joe Lushine: Homebrewer, guy who hates judging beers.  Shawn Wischmeier: Judge, homebrewer, beer hoarder.  Steven Mathistad: Homebrewer, craft beer lover.  While reading the bottle we saw Cyrillic writing on the bottle and Tyrone managed to translate it visually with a cool app on his phone--we were all blown away by this seemingly magical effect!

We cut off the thick red wax on the bottle with The Hopsecutioner (my battle axe shaped heavy steel opener made by my blacksmith friend Martin Pansch).  The bottle opened with only a small fizzing sound.  The beer was poured into a group of waiting snifter glasses for our expectant crowd.

Aroma: In which our party get ready for an complex and sweet beer.

Eric: Dark, dark chocolate.  Deep dark candied cherry is strong.  Vanilla notes.  Hint of roast.  Very sweet smelling and sugary.  Slight oxidation (papery) as warms up.  Raisins.  No hops.
Annette: Dark Chocolate, cherry, toasty coffee, wood (oak) drifts lazily.  Smells like the syrup you wish you could have on a pile of pancakes.  Hint of soy sauce.
Joe: Malt forward.  Small hint of hops. Soy sauce.
Steven: Slight smokiness.  Raisin.  Wet cardboard.  No hop aroma.
Shawn: Chocolate, raisin, molasses.  Deep malty aroma.  Sherry or port-like aroma--like an aged English barleywine (Thomas Hardy's).
Tyrone: Black strap molasses entices one's nostrils deeper into a dark pit--a siren song beckoning those who have only known the light to disappear into darkness.  Sweet songs of perfumed pit fruits, plums and dark cherries, mask the forbidden.  A slight oxidative note warns of old warlock magic ahead...

Appearance: In which our explorers bemoan the lack of head...

Eric: Deep brown to nearly black in color.  Hint of ruby highlights at edge of glass so it isn't completely opaque.  Very fine light tan head fades quickly to a ghost.
Annette: Black in color.  Opaque.  No head.  Rings around edge with little lacing.
Joe: Opaque.  Hint of red.
Steven: No head.  Very dark brown.
Shawn: Dark, opaque.
Tyrone: Dark brown center--absolute clarity with bright orange halo framing the edges.  No head or noticeable carbonation.

Flavor: In which fruit and fortified wine notes cavort across our palates, and Tyrone gets even weirder...

Eric: Holy chocolate covered cherry!  Bourbon-like vanilla notes.  Very very sweet.  Not much roast to this.  Hint of hop flavors.  Alcohol is present but not hot.  Smooth finish but borders on cloying for me.  Dark cocoa.  Not picking up coffee.  Raisin and dried cranberry as it warms up leading to a tartness and a sherry-like oxidation.  Almost no carbonation accentuates the syrupy thick mouthfeel.
Annette: Chocolate cherry that feels heavy but drinks light.  The choco/cherry syrup coats delightfully.  A light bittering compliments the malt and sweet notes.
Joe: Very sweet.  Low bitterness.  Caramel flavor.  Thick!  Maybe a hint of oxidation.
Steven: Plum.  Very sweet.  Doesn't taste like 15%!
Shawn: Same raisin, molasses, dark malt as aroma.  Sherry-like flavors.  Grain bill a bit too much, even for a RIS.  Bordering too malty, giving a strong, overly malty finish.  Flat profile.
Tyrone: Chewy Fig Newton drops a juicy load in the puckering back pockets of my mouth.  A sweet almost golden raisin-like sweetness comes close to making the intrepid hero torn away--until it washes away in a smooth finish, calling him back to his heroine siren.

Overall: In which we all need some water...

Eric: Smoother than I remember it, but it has been a few years!  Still very sweet. The chocolate covered cherry flavor is unreal and more spectacular than most actual cherry beers I've had.  Almost tastes barrel aged due to the oxidation and vanilla.  I gave this a 4.5, but ended up dropping to 4.25 because the finish was so sweet.
Annette: Delicious!  While this could have gone the way of cough syrup, it instead was a beverage best served over ice cream.  The coffee, chocolate, and cherry notes blend nicely with the hop bittering--mixing perfectly.  4.2
Joe: Good beer.  A little out of balance toward the malt for my taste.  Is a little cloyingly sweet to start but finishes surprisingly dry.  3.5
Steven: Smooth, medium body.  Very enjoyable.  4.25
Shawn: Exceptional balance in ingredients.  Aging improved the beer a lot and gave way to sherry-like character.  Beer has a bit too much specialty malt character, however, to be excellent.  Alcohol warmth is very appropriate.  The aroma was my favorite part of the beer.  4.25
Tyrone: The Dark Lord rises from the syrup molasses swamp.  He trudges through a thicket of crushed and fermented figs, dates and prunes rain from broken branches and trunks; his skin stained with the crushed souls of raisins.  4.75
Sarajo: It fell a little flat for me.  3.5

Overall Score: 4.1

Below is the Limited Release episode for Dark Lord Day 2012!

Photo info: This week I took a close up of the bottle label and superimposed it with Photoshop Elements over a macro shot of a Warhammer chaos warrior miniature I painted back in my teens.  I thought it was "metal" enough!
Also I created a new Whale A Week intro photo using one of my only watercolor paintings (the other one was stupidly given to a girl) from about 1993.

Jack Of All Brews Octoberfest Wrap-Up

Hey folks,  here's a quick recap on the Jack Of All Brews homebrew club October meeting!  See every once in a while I use this blog for official club business!

As always we started the meeting with the club responsibility statement to make sure members drink responsibly.

Dave and Sarah have been finishing their basement and discovered untold piles of brewerania treasures hidden in those unplumbed depths.  They brought some of these riches to the meeting for us to look at and buy.  I got outbid on the massive solid glass Hamm's glass...Several of these items are still for sale on the JAB facebook group so send Dave a message if you are interested.  I thought the old posters, steins and wooden cases made great set dressing for our Octoberfest celebrations!

JAB Brewcred for the past month:  Byggvir's Big Beer Cup (Renfest!!) medals included 4 first place and one third for your's truly.  Josh Welch took a medal for his famous (he won a mash paddle with that one) brown ale as well!

Upcoming events:

1) Hoppy Halloween in Fargo.  Sj, myself, Tyrone, and Annette are going up for the festivities this year.  Anyone else going to Fargo??  Entry is still open and if you get them into Midwest or Northern Brewer by the 16th they'll pick it up and drive it up for you!

2) Primary Fermenters/JAB bulk cider buy at MN Harvest Orchard in Jordan October 25. Here is the link to the facebook event.  Sign up and pay on the google doc linked on that.   Festivities at Tim Roets' almost open brewery after the cider...  https://www.facebook.com/events/533757170116064/

3) Next JAB meeting is at my place again on my birthday November 13th!  Mash paddle style is wood aged beer, so dust off those old bottles and bring them in for us to try!  I know I've got a couple!

4) December meeting plans:  Anyone else want to host this one?  December is no mash paddle, just a big pot luck with homebrews.  We always do a secret beer gift exchange as well.

Mash Paddle:  This month's mash paddle was for Octoberfest beers.  Bryan Budahn was an overachiever and did an extract and all-grain version!  Overall we liked the extract version the most (strange right?) and Bryan took home the coveted Golden Mash Paddle for the month.

The happy victor!  

Because we had an extra prize we also had a secondary contest between the other homebrews of the night.  The winner was Joe Lushine for his brown ale!

Then we had bratwurst feast, and a ton of commercial Octoberfest beers.  Octoberfeast!!!  We sampled German as well as American versions galore.  My personal least favorite was the watery skunk anal gland leakage that was Hofbrau.  Second on that list was the musty basement rotten cork tasting Sprecher Octoberfest.  My top three in order were Ayinger, Waconia Brewing, Town Hall.  I had a great night and hope everyone else did too!  What were your favorites or least favorites from the incredible line-up of beers??

Jack Of All Brews July 2015 Meeting Recap

Hey folks!  This is the quick recap of this past week's Jack Of All Brews Homebrew Club meeting.  We meet the second Friday of the month with a variable theme, so put it on your calendars now!  This month we had a fairly small crowd (about 15) but that's never shocking in the busy summer months.

Brewcred:

1) Josh Welch will be brewing up his Sundrop summer ale with Waconia Brewing Company as the grand prize in the inaugural JAB/Waconia Brewing Competition.  I'll post details once we have a brew to try!

2) Mike Behrendt's Pub Ale is currently on tap at Schram Vineyards Winery & Brewery!

Upcoming Events:

1) Minnesota State Fair Homebrew Competition--this is one of the premier comps in the state and is run by one of our favorite other clubs the Primary Fermenters!  Registration is now open.

2) Carver County Fair--Entry drop off is Aug 3 from 5PM to 8:30PM, or Aug 4 from 8AM to Noon.  Free entry!  Check details of what to enter HERE.  Registration is HERE.

3) All Club Campout--This is from 7/31-8/2 near Cold Spring, MN.  Details are HERE on the the MN Homebrewer's site.

Talk:

This month I gave a talk on making tinctures for addition to beers, meads, ciders, and cocktails.  We tried some of my Belgian Strong with a few drops of hibiscus tincture which changed the aroma and taste just a bit.  I also demonstrated the ease of adding vodka (or you could use everclear) to dried elderberries in a mason jar to start out a tincture for future use.  I hope to use some homemade bitters for a beer cocktail demo soon...


Mash Paddle:

This month's theme was fruit beers, and we had 8 entries for the Golden Mash Paddle.  Several of these were fruited versions of the group lambic experiment from almost 2 years ago.  In order we tasted them:
Joe L.--Orange Kolsch
John F.--Raspberry Rhubarb Cream Ale
Anna O.--Raspberry Wheat
Mike L.--Strawsome (strawberry lambic)
Andrew G.--Stawberry Lambic
Mike L.--Peachness (peach lambic)
Eric W.--Cherry Red (cherry Flanders Red)
Eric W.--Cherry Rhubarb Lambic

And the winner was Eric Wentling (that's ME!) for Cherry Rhubarb.  We had several grain, hop, and swag giveaways for everyone who entered this month.  Put those things to good use!

Next Month:

Next meeting is August 14 starting at 6:30 at Mike and Joan Behrendt's place in Eden Prairie.  We will be having special guest Steve Piatz (author of The Complete Mead Guide to Mead Making) giving us a talk about mead!  The theme of the month is of course also mead, so bring your meads to share and for the monthly Golden Mash Paddle contest!  And maybe you'll learn something to improve your meads in the future.  Also Steve will be bringing some copies of his book to sell and sign so bring some money if you want one.  I already have my copy!

Jack Of All Brews April Meeting Recap

This month the Jack Of All Brews homebrew club met the SawBones Brewery (my basement bar) for the April 2015 meeting.  Here is a brief recap for those who missed it, or want more details!

1) Upcoming competitions
a) First Round Nationals--Judged 4/10-4/11 in Roseville in the dank caves beneath the VFW.
b) Lucid BFD--April 11 deadline
c) Waconia Brewing Pro-Am--Deadline April 18.  Contact me to arrange drop off to me, not the brewery.

2) May Meeting at John Focht's place.  Details to follow...

3) June Meeting: we still need someone to host this one, as myself and Mike Lebben are going to be out of town that weekend.

4) Off Flavor tasting:  Since we couldn't force ourselves to get a macro-brew to mix these vials of nasty into, Steven picked up some Grain Belt for the tasting.  We tried "Grainy", "Hefewiezen", and "Lactic".  The grainy one was pretty tough, since the aroma was worse than the flavor.

5) Pizza!  We had Unhinged Pizza delivered for those who showed up. We are going to try to get food for more meetings per the results of our JAB Survey.  If having food, we will post this on the Facebook group with the other details of the meeting.

6) Mash Paddle: Open category this month, so we had all sorts of cool beers to try ranging from IPA to mead to spice beers.  The winner was Ben Ducklow with an impressively good Lavender Ale that didn't taste like Grandma's bathroom!

7) Melt-Down

9) Next Month:  Mash paddle style is dark or amber lagers.  If we have less than 2 entrants we may open up the category to make it more fun.

Jack Of All Brews March 2015 Meeting Wrap-Up

JAB March 2015 Meeting!

This month Mike and Kristin Lebben were willing to open up their basement bar and brewing area for our meeting.  Thanks guys!  Here is a recap for those who couldn't make it, or who wanted more details...

Upcoming Events:

1) Lucid BFD contest--Register Feb 26-April 4.

2) Judging first round of NHC April 10-11

For those who haven't renewed dues for 2015, now is the time!  At least one of the local homebrew shops has been checking dates on cards and last year's is expired...Also please buy our hoodies so I can get them out of my house.  If you want one contact me or Steven!!!!

Review of JAB survey results: 23 responses

1) 60% wanted more field trips

2) Make-up of club: 65% intermediate, 21% expert, 14% noob

3) 40% would be willing to do BJCP class--however Primary Fermenters are working on one as well...

4) People expect to get to anywhere from 2-all of the meetings (average 5) with special occasions, work, and kids being the biggest barriers.

5) For mash paddle categories 52% want broader categories.  This certainly widens the options for bringing more beers and winning.  However this does cut down our ability to focus on specific styles of beer for learning/education purposes.

6) Involvement:  Not a lot here guys!  A couple people said they could host meetings once basements were finished--so just say the word when you are ready!  I think it might not be a bad idea to have one of our members give a short (2-5 minute) talk about a beer style monthly.  People learn by doing and by teaching, so this may be a way to get more involvement and teach our members who don't consider themselves experts...

7) Communication:  100% want to communicate via Facebook group.  We are letting JAB@thebarn go, since that has been not functioning well for us this past year.  We will look into an alternate e-mail list with only 1-2 monthly reminders of meetings or events--if people are interested.

8) Club funds:  Not a lot of interest in swag this year.  Split between larger club items like beergun and brewing equipment vs. food/beer for meetings.  We will come up with a plan for providing food at some of the meetings...the big issue is we never know if there will be 8 people or 30 showing up.

9) Mike Lebben suggested a mentorship program pairing more experienced brewers with less experienced ones.  65% of the group said they would be interested in this.  Thoughts?

10) Monthly social events: 82% of the group are interested in monthly social meetings of the club.  These would be more informal hang-out events at local breweries and pubs.  We will start our first one this month.

11) Several people mentioned concerns about homebrew taking a back seat to commercial beers at meetings, as well as the focus being more on drinking than education.  I think these are legitimate concerns.  I certainly think that we should limit commercial beer tasting to take place after all the homebrews are sampled--except if we are tasting commercial examples of the style of the month.  I do want to organize our mash paddle tasting to be a little more regimented, but do not want to take the "fun" out of our meetings.  However, I personally like the chance to share some rare beers with other beer geeks, so maybe we make that all happen in the "meltdown" time after all our official business is done.  

Whew!  I probably spent too much time on this at the meeting, putting everyone to sleep.  However, I felt this was important since it is a snapshot of what the club is interested in.  As always we want the club to be responsive to our member's desires, but in the end the decisions are made by your elected board members.  If you have concerns or questions, please talk to us.  Or run for office yourself next year and get more official power to use for good or evil!  

Talk on Brew Sculptures: 

Joe attempting to bring order from chaos...Or giving a talk at a brewclub meeting...

Joe Lushine was kind enough to give us a fairly extensive talk about brew sculptures.  He covered from basic to expensive store-bought devices.  If I didn't already have a sculpture, I would be itching to get/make one after that talk!  We were also able to ogle Mike's Sabco system in the basement as a nice reference.

Style of the Month:  Irish Red

I did a quick review of the style guidelines from BJCP and we tasted a commercial example of the beer (Smithwicks) thanks Mike B. for bringing that!  Mash paddle was a small sample size this month with only Anna's Irish Lass and my Craic Kills as the contenders.  I would be willing to say that both of our beers were better than the Smithwicks.  The voting was tight with SawBones Brewery getting 9 votes and Irate Princess Brewing getting 7.  

We also tried other homebrews from JAB members, but we had less than usual available.  Mostly we drank a lot of Mike's excellent beers from his huge and well-stocked Keezer.  Professional brewer Tim Roets also brought along some test batches of mead and cyser for feedback, that were quite tasty!

This meeting we waited until the homebrews were all finished before cracking into more commercial beers and I think that worked out really well to cut the chaos and make sure everyone got to try the homebrews.

Overall, a great meeting with a lot of education!  Next Month we get a talk about high gravity brewing from Mike Lebben, and Open Mash Paddle category!  

Jack Of All Brews February 2015 Meeting: "Where you can find IPA's that don't suck!"

For the February Jack Of All Brews Homebrew Club meeting we met up at my place in Waconia.  We had a pretty good showing with between 20-25 members (I was too lazy to actually count.)

BrewCred since last meeting:
Upper Mississippi Mash Out--Brett Lincoln 1st place Barleywines, Eric Wentling (me!) 1st in Spice/Herb/Veg and 3rd in Barleywines.

Dues &Shirts:  We still have many XL and XXL hoodies for sale and Sj wants them out of our house!  Contact Steven to buy one.  If you haven't renewed dues yet this year also talk to Steven--Jim brought our new member cards this month as well so you grab those if needed.

March Meeting topic will be brew sculptures, and the style of the month will be Irish Reds.

Upcoming Competitions:

1) March Mashness in St. /Cloud taking entries now through March 1.

2) 1st Round Nationals: Entries already done but judging is April 10-11 if you are interested in helping out.

Survey:  I released a survey on the Facebook Group in which we hope to gather some intel on what the make-up and desires of our club is like these days.  Please fill it out!

After official business, we broke open a few of the little brown vials of the off-flavor kit to taste some terrible flavors!  We poured each vial into a pitcher filled with Grain Belt (because I couldn't get myself to buy Bud Lite) for what JAB members lovingly called "roofie night".  We tasted through Metallic, Diacetyl, and Bitter--making Grain Belt even worse.  This also led to the great quote of the night: "Make the pennies go away!"

Washing the taste of dirty pennies and buttered popcorn from our palates, we moved on to our Mash Paddle style of the month: IPA!  We had 5 versions that evening with the Mash Paddle going to Mike Lebben for his extract Warrior IPA.  Second place went to Keith Brady for his Living in AmeRakau.  Every one of these beers was stellar and I would have been happy to find them on tap anywhere.  This sentiment prompted Tim Roets to ask the rhetorical question: "Where do you get IPA's that don't suck?  Homebrew club!"

Mike Lebben wins the Golden Mash Paddle!  With intense photobombing by Tim!

JAB Holiday Party Wrap-Up (Unwrap-Up?)

Just a quick review for those were not able to make it!  The Jack Of All Brews Holiday party has been going strong since our first Christmas pot-luck at Brett Schneider's place in Waconia (I think in 2006!)   And yes I will say Holidays, since we have members from different faiths in our mixed group of misfits!  From our very small first gathering we have continued several traditions.  We always encourage spouses to come to the party (and all meetings if they want!) so that we all get to know each other better.  This year Mike and Kristin Lebben were kind enough to invite our rowdy bunch of homebrewers into their basement bar.  Having just finished painting the basement, they improvised an awesome Christmas tree for us to use!

We continued our tradition of pot-luck and this year we had quite the glut of cocktail weenies and different specimens of meatballs!  There was plenty of food to go around as always.

And this wasn't all of it!  MEAT!!!

Of course we raided Mike's amazing kegerator, quickly emptying his stock of Cranberry Cider, Willie Nelson inspired "Always On My Mind Pale Ale," and bourbon barrel aged "Her Majesty's Purr."  We all spent time ogling Mike's Sabco brew system looming in the basement like some shiny religious idol to the gods of brewing.

Many amazing homebrews and commercial beers were cracked and passed around.  I vaguely remember some great Roets Mead and Cider concoctions figuring in there somewhere.  Others I remember are: Sierra Nevada Celebration ale, a disgusting sour travesty of a brown ale, overpriced swill from Guiness called The 1759, Keith Brady's wicked good IPA, Jolly Pumpkin Noel de Calabaza, and Alesmith Wee Heavy...to name a few!

We had door prizes of beers and beer memorabilia to hand out as well!

And of course the crowning glory of the party is the blind gift exchange!  Here everyone who wanted to take part brought a wrapped or bagged beer-related gift to put under the ghetto tree.  Then drawing names everyone got a turn picking out a gift.  We had some pretty impressive rare beers hiding in that pile!  Thanks to all who helped out and all who came for the festivities.  I look forward to doing it all again next year.

Minnesota Harvest Orchard

 

Recently, the fine folks at Minnesota Harvest Orchard in Jordan, MN invited Jack of All Brews homebrew club out to do a cider pressing demo.  This is the second year we have done so and we were excited to go back!  Several years ago our club invested in an old fashioned 1800's looking wooden cider press and have made good use of it over the years.  This old-school technology still works and looks great out at the orchard, taking one back in time to early American settler days in Minnesota. 

We arrived around 11 AM on a Sunday, swollen orange fall sun shedding rich light on the orchard grounds.  Already the place was bustling with people, but soon would be filled to bursting with families looking for autumn fun.

Over the morning and into the afternoon JAB members and their families trickled in and took part in the apple pressing process.  We soon got things into a pretty efficient pattern.  A few people would rinse the apples in buckets of water, then toss the apples into the grinder at the top of the press.  A few years ago one of our members added on a motor to this, making it much more efficient than hand cranking it!  Once the hopper was full, we would put the lid on it and hand crank the press, resulting in fresh apple juice cascading into our waiting bucket.  We found about 100 apples would give us just over 1 gallon of juice. 

Ready to ferment!

The orchard itself is massive, with a huge main building holding a gift shop, food counter, and now a bar.  Outside were another portable bar, a food truck serving amazing pizza, and more!  Add in the world's shortest sunflower maze, hay rides, ponies, (evil) petting zoo, and apple catapult, and you have a ton of entertainment! 

This year, Tim Roets and his sons Dylan and PJ are presiding over Minnesota Harvest's new farm winery.  Tim is currently working on his own brewery in Jordan as well, but hit a big snag when this spring's monsoon rainfall caused a mudslide into the old Jordan Brewery building where he was setting up shop.  He still hopes to be brewing by this winter.  In the mean time, he is making apple ales, hard ciders, and meads for the orchard.  I got to try a few of his concoctions and was impressed as always with his ingenuity.

A jovial Tim Roets showing off the new tasting bar!

Overall this was a really fun way to spend a fall day!  Thanks to the Minnesota Harvest folks for having us out and providing apples, and to Tim and his sons as well. 

JAB Yeast Experiment

For our September 2013 Jack Of All Brews meeting we rolled out our yearly experimental brew.  In the past we have done several different experiments ranging from doing the exact same recipe on different systems, to Iron Brewer (with crazy ingredients), to a base recipe with an assigned single hop.  This year we had one recipe based somewhere between an American Amber and an ESB, lightly hopped with East Kent Goldings.  Each competing JAB member pulled a different yeast from a hat and were to ferment their beer with that particular yeast.  The goal of the experiment was really to showcase the range of differences in flavor and aroma that the simple choice of yeast can make.  Obviously we couldn't control for different brewing systems and possibly fermentation temperatures, but at least this would give us a decent experiment. Check here for the first posting and the recipe we used.

We had over 15 people sign up for the experiment and a total of 10 final beers to try at our meeting.  Going in no particular order we tasted the beers based on who had signed in first.  I'll go down that list now and give our overall impressions.  Keep in mind that this was during a club meeting, where things get a little loud and chaotic, so we aren't talking quiet BJCP judging conditions!

1) WLP007-Dry English:  This one was mine.  Reviews were mixed, a clean ferment but too sweet instead of dry.  I brewed this on the week of Fringe Festival and wasn't around the house much to keep an eye on the fermentation temp.  I think that the yeast got too cold in my basement (64-65 degrees) and dropped out before it was done fermenting, resulting in under-attenuation.  I wasn't proud of it.  Just yesterday I added some Simcoe, Amarillo and Cascade dry hop to the keg to see if I can add enough hop character to even out that sweetness and salvage the brew for drinking. 

2) WLP001-California Ale:  Very dry finish that accentuates an almost roast character.  An earthy, nearly astringent hop finish.  Very clean ferment and not much yeast character.

3) WLP023-Burton Ale:  Banana and peach esters in aroma.  Flavor like a creamy bananas foster or marshmallow.  A bit of mineral and astringent to the finish.

4) WLP041-Pacific Ale:  Not much aroma.  I got a bit of a soapy flavor.  Neutral flavors with a hint of pear.  Astringent finish.  Buttery.

5) WLP862-Cry Havoc:  Charlie Papazian's yeast strain. Fermented at 50 degrees.  Had a cider/apple aroma to me.  Initially sweet, ends malty but not cloying.  Clean ferment.  Reminded people of Grain Belt Nordeast.  Smooth. 

6) WLP940-Mexican Lager:  Neutral.  Honey flavor.  Subtle roastiness.  Very clean.  Hint of spices.

7) Wyeast Octoberfest/Marzen:  Chemical, Band-Aid, rubbing alcohol.  Not a great one.  Apparently this was an older pack bought from a local store that was slightly inflated at the time of purchase.  We postulated that the yeast was half-dead/stressed even before pitched.  I believe a starter was used as well.  Interestingly this and the Mexican Lager were both the exact same batch of beer, just different yeasts.

8) Wyeast Forbidden Fruit:  Apple aroma, very Belgian clove.  Flavors similar.  Sweet, but well attenuated.  Thought to be fermented on the lower end of the spectrum.  This was the clear overall winner of the final taste-off, and the first time the Golden Mash Paddle has been awarded to a member who wasn't there in person.

9) Wyeast 3068-Weihenstephan Wiezen:  Classic Hefe banana and clove aroma, but less in flavor.  Caramel covers up some of the esters.

10) Wyeast 1028-British Cask:  Cinnamon, some fairly strong diacetyl flavors.  Overall, the buttery notes worked with the beer and didn't detract too much.  Slightly alcohol warming from some tasters. 

Overall, this was a fun experiment with a wide variety of yeasts sampled.  There were some beers that were hampered by technical difficulties which may have skewed the results a bit, but we got a taste of how different yeasts can widely effect a single beer.  Thanks to all the JABbers who contributed to this event and I hope everyone felt it was worth the effort!  One of the things I love about being a member in a homebrew club is being able to take part in group events like this.  We are currently starting to plan the upcoming year's events so if anyone has any ideas for next year's experiment please send them my way or comment here!

  

Byggvir's Big Beer Cup Award Ceremony 2013

On Wednesday the 28th of August a plethora of local homebrewers from several different clubs converged upon an unsuspecting Town Hall Brewery for the 7th Annual Byggvir's Big Beer Cup Award Ceremony!  OK, I guess Town Hall expected us since the back room was roped off for us, but that intro sounded way cooler...  In my previous post I spent quite a bit of space describing the competition itself, and here is a shorter description of the award ceremony. 

Right after work on Wednesday, Sj, Steven and I rocketed out of Waconia on our way to Chaska to pick up Matt and Anna.  From there mistress leadfoot (Sj) got us heading up I35W in great time...until some sort of accident farther up-stream caused a huge car log-jam leaving us in stop and go traffic for the next 35 minutes.  Luckily Jerry and Mike L. had saved us a large table and even had drinks waiting for us upon our tardy arrival.  Thanks guys, that is a wonderful welcome! 

The place was hopping, with most of the back dining room filled with eager homebrewers.  At least 10 JABbers were present, as well as some folks from MHBA, Primary Fermenters, and some of the other smaller clubs that I need to get better acquainted with.  Gera Exire Latour and Tim Roets had organized a few tables into first, second and third place prize piles before we arrived and set up a small microphone.  They were kind enough to wait until our carload of JAB arrived before starting the ceremony, but a lot of the folks had been there since about 5PM.  We promptly ordered food and got to work on our drinks.  I was pleased that there was plenty of Thunderstorm (a Belgian with lemongrass and orange blossom honey) to go around, though some of my less discerning friends (Mike and Jerry) who I won't name here are not fans.  They are incorrect!  The AC either wasn't working or couldn't keep up with the crowd and the 95 degree weather outside, so the place got pretty toasty as the evening went on.  That just reminded me of our Extreme Beer Judging at the Fest grounds, but minus the dust and turkey legs. 

Gera began the official proceedings with some background on the competition and about the special Historic beer category before launching into the winner list.  She would read off several categories and then take a break for Tim to read off some raffle winners (everyone present got a ticket.)  This was as nice way to extend the event a bit, giving us time to talk to winners, drink great Town Hall beers and eat our dinners!  Tim also came by a few times over the night with Beer Trivia for each table so we could win bottle openers and other cool prizes.  Tim and Gera did a great job on getting sponsors and swag this year so there was plenty to go around!  The Renfest medals had not arrived in time for the ceremony, but they had given us enough mugs that each first place winner received a large and colorful 2013 commemorative mug.  I was lucky enough to get several of my beers into the winner's circle and ended up with a large pile of prizes.  This more than paid back the cost of my entry fees to the competition.  A lot of my friends won medals as well including Jeff Malek, Kyle Sisco, Brett Glenna, Joe Lushine, Mark Glennon , Wayne Doucette, and more! 

Once all the categories had been announced, Mike Hoops came up to talk about Tim's Kolsch (the winner from last year's BOS round and currently on tap at the brewery,) and about the potential difficulty in getting into the GABF in the next few years.  He and Gera then announced the Best of Show winner that will be brewed at Town Hall for the coming year: Ben Adair's Colonial Ale!  This is the first time one of the historic beers has made it to BOS and I'm very excited that the beer will be brewed commercially.  I would have preferred if my stout or apricot beer had won, but hey maybe I have another shot next year!  Interestingly myself and Jeff both won medals in that category as well, but were apparently beat out by a pretty amazing beer.  I brewed a Gose beer with French grey sea salt and coriander specifically for this competition (mainly so I wouldn't have to judge the category for the fourth year straight!) and was pretty pleased with the result.  A perfect refreshing and tart beer for a crazy hot end of summer.

My rockin' swag!

Overall I had a great time at the award ceremony.  I loved hanging out at one of my favorite breweries with a bunch of my fellow homebrewers, and the event was a great excuse to get down there during the week.  Let's have a big "Huzzah!" for the 2013 Renaissance Festival and Byggvir!  Thanks to Town Hall, Mike Hoops, the MN Renfest and all of our other sponsors.

The official winner's list can be found HERE!

April 2013 JAB Meeting Recap!

Since I am "technologically challenged" and can't seem to make The Jabber work for me (we need you back TIM!) I'm doing a blog entry about out most recent meeting.  For those who missed it, this should be almost like you were there...minus getting to taste the great commercial and homebrewed beers! 

The meeting this month was at my basement bar, and actually seemed to be a smaller and quieter group than usual.  Present were Jason and Dan from Enki Brewing, who both talked a bit about the current status of the brewery and their test batches of beer.  Both are now proud owners of shiny new JAB membership cards!  We also had a couple other new members show up, so welcome to all of you!  Some old-school members (Kramer, Rick) were able to make it--always good to have some old blood to balance all the new. 

Keeping in touch with JAB:  we have a facebook group (different from the facebook page) so you can ask questions or post comments and ideas.  If I haven't invited you yet, you can request to be added from that page and I'll send you an invite.

We talked a bit about upcoming events (check the website or JAB Facebook Group for more details.) 

1) We have a Big Brew scheduled at Excelsior Brewing:  it looks like they want us to bring a couple of homebrew set-ups and do this at the brewery.  Bryce will give us more info soon.  If anyone wants to be involved, post on the Facebook group or shoot me an e-mail.

2) Next month's meeting is at my place and is our Belgian Brew Off.  So bring your Belgian homebrews, and if you don't have one, bring something actually Belgian to share with us!  We will hopefully have a few prizes and what-not.

3) In June we will be distributing the yeast assignments for the experimental brew (September meeting.)  No details posted on that yet, but we plan to have one base recipe (all-grain and extract versions) with every person getting a different yeast to really showcase the different yeast characters.  I'd like us to have a lot of entries and see if we can get it published in BYO or Zymurgy.

4) We are nearing completion on the first JAB barrel ale!  We need folks to start signing up for making portions of the next beer so we can fill the barrel right away after emptying the current beer.  Our upcoming batch will be a lambic.  e-mail me or post on JAB FB group if you want to take part in this one.  We need to get going quick!  I have my materials and hope to brew in the next 2 weeks.

Gera gave a short talk on BJCP style judging, with fancy hand outs and everything.  I'm glad this was a smaller group, since the noise level was better than usual!  Thanks for the talk Gera!  I really want to keep our educational aspect of meetings, so I appreciate the work and effort that our members put into these presentations.  If anyone has any ideas for a quick talk, please don't hesitate to contact me about it!

Sorry Gera, the other pics were too blurry!

We had a bunch of good homebrews to try this month, with Gera taking home the Mash Paddle for her Cocoa Cardamom Mild.  We had an amazing Simcoe IPA from Garret that was a big hit amongst the hop-heads in the group.  Mark also had a very well balanced IPA.  Kramer wiped the cobwebs from some 2007 Beet Meade and some 2011 Tart Cherry for us.  I dug out a 2007 bretty version of his Cherry from my cellar and we tried them side by side with interesting results.  I knew I was saving that for something!  Joe discovered a new category of English Bitter: The Way Bitter Bitter.  Gary sampled one of the more interesting beers I've had: a pale ale with Sriracha hot sauce.  We promptly named this beer Hot Cock Sauce, and so it shall remain named for all eternity.  Sorry Gary.  Oh, and Alex had a peach and tea beer that was very interesting--but I'd up the sweetness on it next time.  Last, but not least, Scott brought a keg of smoked Scottish ale that was very easy on the palate!  We also had a few nice commercial beers like a growler of Town Hall's Twisted Trace barleywine.  Less commercial beers this month, but we also had my 6 taps free to sample and we had plenty to for us to drink!

Overall, a very laid back and fun meeting.  Perhaps the calm before the storm, because next month is Belgian Brew Off!!!

Jack Of All Brews Meeting 2/8/13: Rahr Bierstube

I had originally meant to do a recap of each JAB meeting here on this blog.  That has not happened, as I'm sure you have noticed!  I've had a great time at every meeting since we began having them in 2006, but some meetings seem to be special.  One such meeting was this last Friday.  Member Chris German of Brewer's Supply Group/Rahr was able to get the Rahr Malting Bierstube in Shakopee for a new meeting place.  The private bar/tasting room is just a bit over a year old now and this is the second time we have been invited out there to enjoy the venue.  There is a very spacious bar with a combination of old world wood and new stainless steel, as well as ample seating and good acoustics.  Old brewerania line the walls and classic German steins populate the display area behind the bar.  They also had two homebrews and some great commercial Minnesota beers on tap.  Love the Steel Toe Size 7!

JAB members listening intently to Enki Brewing founders

Both times we have been to this amazing venue a huge proportion of the folks showing up were new or prospective members--we had seven or eight new people this time.  Of course this sets the bar high for putting on a good meeting in the future!  We had over 25 people at this particular meeting.  The owners of the upcoming Enki Brewing in Victoria, Dan and John, were there to talk a bit about their plans and get to know their future local supporters.  I'm very pleased that they seem to have embraced our club as a partner for the future, and hope we can do a lot of things together in the next few years.

The wonderful Chris German

There was a lot of other business to cover this month.  We started with a quick introduction of new folks and then moved into Brewcred and bling for the last two homebrewing competitions-- 9 medals for Mash Out and 1 for the Beer Dabbler.  Tim talked about our new Dickie's work shirts and took pre-orders for those.  If we can get over 50 shirts pre-ordered we plan on having the club cover the cost of embroidering names on the front.  I call "Doc!"  Tim also managed to get a bunch of candi sugar and free Belgian yeast samples to give out for our May meeting's Belgian Beer Brew Off event.
  

I did a quick style spotlight on Belgian Dubbels with commercial examples Westmalle Dubbel, New Belgium Abbey, and one from Choc brewing.  We then moved into a quick talk by Tim about the unusual but effective method of eising beers, meads and ciders.  He was able to give us some pre and post eis samples from his personal stock to show the difference in the resulting flavor and aroma.  That eised berry melomel was amazing and I can see why he won the coveted Eis Anything trophy from Mash Out for the second year running.  Minnesota winter is the perfect time and place to try this out!

Then the meeting quickly devolved into fun drinking and socializing.  I think we accomplished quite a bit considering how large a group we had.  I'm guessing all the new guys were quieter than they will be in the future!  It was great to hang out with old friends and some new.  One thing I love about our meetings is never knowing who might show up--it could be an old member from years past, or a brand new brewer just getting passionate about the hobby and wanting to up their game by joining a club.  Personally, joining this club was the best thing I could have done for my brewing, but also for my social life.  We tried a few good homebrews and Ben and Bob won the Golden Mash Paddle this month for their black IPA. 

Thanks again to the folks at Rahr, especially to Chris and Jeff.  We all had a great time this month and look forward to getting back here in the future!