Town Hall Brewery

With the incredible explosion of new commercial breweries in the area over the last 2 years, it can be easy to forget about the pioneers in the field.  Town Hall Brewery, a small brewpub in the 7 Corners area near the University, has been around since the 1990's and has been frequently winning medals at the GABF for its amazing beers.  Since my friend Dave turned me on to this place about 5-6 years ago, it has become my favorite local brew-joint.

The menu is fairly typical pub food, but the 7 Corners Burger is my favorite in the Twin Cities, loaded with bacon, stout BBQ sauce and cheese.  And yes, I do always order the same thing.  The venue is in an old building with tin ceilings and has a relaxed vibe.  Patio seating is very popular in the brief MN summer months.

The beers are brewed on premises by Mike Hoops and his assistant brewers and are quite varied.  They have a set of 6 beers that are always on tap, including the fantastic Hope & King Scottish ale.  There are usually 5-6 seasonals on tap and rotate very frequently, often including a fruit infusion.  If you are lucky they will have one of their Imperial Stouts or Barleywines on tap.  There are also usually 1-2 cask beers on, which was unheard of around these parts until the last few years.  Since I don't get down there as much as I would like, I often get the seasonal sampler to test out all the new brews at once.

Earlier this year the brewery had a garage sale to sell of some old merchandise and make room for more offices and equipment, and I was able to get my grubby paws on one of their old brewery signs that was up for silent auction.  It now holds a proud place in my garage brewing area, since it was way too big to hang in my basement bar.  On my way out of the brewery with the sign it was pretty hilarious listening to all the people outside freaking out that I was stealing the sign in broad daylight.  Ah, good times!

NHC update

I am giddy with excitement about my upcoming trip to Seattle for NHC! I've got plans for a beer dinner at Pike Brewing, tours of breweries, a beer breakfast at Rock Bottom, dinner with a couple sets of friends, and more! The only disappointment is that my wonderful wife can't come with me to enjoy it.

My two beers that are going on to second round have been shipped to Seattle, quasilegally and have hopefully arrived in good shape. I had to input my recipes and send a picture of myself in case I win gold--then I would get both in the upcoming issue of Zymurgy magazine.

I'll stock up on lots of info and pics to post over the next few weeks, and maybe some posting from the event.

Chillin'

I thought today I'd talk about the chilling process...as it related to beer of course.  There are several methods to chill beer; drop your hot pot in an ice bath; a copper coil chiller that is dropped into the pot; and a plate chiller.  I have used all three and my favorite is the Therminator plate chiller from Blichmann Engineering.  The idea is to run cold water from the hose through the plates within the chiller and then also run the hot wort through it at the same time.  This counterflow results in heat from the wort being absorbed by the cold water and run out the exit hose, while the cold water also cools the wort.  With this process you can chill 5-6 gallons of boiling wort in 5-10 minutes, depending on your ground water temps.  Here in MN it works fast, but in the South it can require some prechilling of the water with ice. 

This gizmo isn't cheap, but has saved me about 30-45 minutes off my brew day.  The only issue I have with it is the difficulty in cleaning it.  I have a back-flush hose and run water through it each way after use, but I still remain paranoid that there is crap left in there.  I usually also run hot PBW through it for 10-15 minutes with my pump, then soak briefly in Starsan before each use.  Do not let this sit without at least flushing it right after use!

Cream Ale

Quick one for today, as I'm busy as anything.  Jack Of All Brews' July beer style of the month is cream ale, so I figured I'd better get cracking if I want to take part.  Luckily this is a fairly quick beer to ferment out, so if I keg it up I think I can make it!

Recipe for 10 gallon all-grain batch with est. 78% efficiency

7.5# Rahr 2-row
7.5# Weyerman pilsner malt
1.25# flaked corn
0.75# corn sugar to boil
1.8 oz Liberty hops 3.9% AA at 60 min
0.8 oz Liberty hops 3.9% AA at 1 min
Wyeast American Ale smack pack without starter
Mash at 149-150 for 90 minutes (due to pilsner and corn adjunct)
Boil 90 min.
OG 1.052

Hit all the numbers well and ended up probably the lightest color of any beer I've made.
I've separated it into 2 five gallon batches, fermenting one half with classic American Ale yeast, with the other half using Saison yeast.  I might do some tinkering with the Saison half depending on how it tastes.

Rahr! Where Does Brewing Malt Come From?

When you drink a beer do you ever stop to think where the ingredients for that beer come from?  If not, you should take a few minutes and do that!  Beer is a food product and comes from natural ingredients like barley malt, wheat, and hops.  The grain for malt is grown all over, especially here in the Midwest, where we have lots of great cropland.  I believe that Rahr Malting is the biggest single-site malting facility in the USA, and is located right in Shakopee, MN.  Several members of Jack Of All Brews Homebrew Club work at Rahr and Brewer's Supply Group and have been kind enough to give tours of the facility.  This place is enormous, with its own water treatment plant and railyard.

The unmalted grains come in from rail and are steeped in warm water to germinate, simulating wet spring conditions that encourage the seeds to start growing into plants.

After a couple of days the grain is transferred to these long beds that are periodically stirred up with gargantuan augers, and continue to grow rootlets and plump up.

After they have reached the right stage, they are transferred to the kilns and roasted to the specifications of the maltsters and brewers.  More time in the kiln results in a darker grain.  The majority of the malt coming through here is lighter 2-row or 6-row for the larger brewers, but more craft brewers are having specific malt or blends made from Rahr too.  Once the grains are fully dried, they are run on giant conveyor belts to the trucks or rail cars.  The amount of grain here is mind-boggling and the pictures lack the scale of this operation.

Think about the time, effort and skill it takes to create that basic ingredient in your beer.  Trust me, you will appreciate the final product all the more!  I use a lot of Rahr malt in my home-brews, and many of my favorite commercial beers use it, such as Summit and Magic Hat.

The best view of Shakopee, from on top of the facility

Let's get "arty"

Blackbird Cafe Belgian Beer Dinner

Beer style brought back from extinction in the 1970's

Our friends Carol and Kevin clued us into the third beer dinner to be done by the Blackbird Cafe in Minneapolis last night.  The two of them and our other friends Chris and Hassan were all able to make it out there and we had a blast!  The six of us met by being frequent fliers at the Happy Gnome beer dinners over the last several years and have started meeting for other beer-centric events since. 

This dinner was Belgian themed and we were greeted with a fantastic charcuterie plate (house cured meats, olives, pates, kimchi, etc.) and a bicep pumpingly huge glass of Hoegaarden Belgian Wit.  Not a bad start to dinner!

The dinner continued with tasty white asparagus and Belgian Endive salad paired with Orval...all three having a similar tart note.  A palate cleanser of blackberry and black pepper soup came in the world's tiniest tea cup with a doll-sized spoon.  Great flavors that I'm going to use in a beer sometime.

Next up was smelt fries (along with normal fries,) paired with Westmalle Dubbel.  Fishy but done perfectly, and a nice pairing.  Wonderful presentation as well.

A palate cleanser soufle was served up in a tiny canning jar and was a high point of the meal.  Not even mentioned on the menu!  Then came the main meat course with a perfectly done venison loin along with an amazing herb salad.  That was paired with Rochefort 10 and was certainly the best pairing of the night.  The cherry and sweet onion jam on the venison really brought out the dark fruit notes in the beer.  Yum!

Desert was a chocolate cake with ice cream, paired with Lindeman's Framboise.  Both were better on their own, but both tasty!  Overall we had a great time and enjoyed this quaint cafe.  We were able to take home our Hoegaarden glasses and also 10$ gift certificates to the cafe!  Oh we will be back...

Blackbird:  where hipsters and antlers meet

Kegerator Time

I have finally upgraded my bar to include a four-tap kegerator system!  I figured I'd chronical my construction and hook-up of the process for posterity.  I'll admit I had a carpenter actually construct the wooden frame/collar that went on the top of the chest freezer, as well as the faceplate on the bar side, so I'm not spending much time talking details on those.

1) The faceplate on the bar side is the beautiful face of the tap system.  I got the idea from my friend Kent, who created a similar style of tap directly from his wall.  Beer...from the wall!!

2) The back section of this plate goes through the drywall and has a bracing back plate.  The tap shanks come through both plates and are tightened up with a nut.

3) Next we pull out the temp control gauge.  This lets you control the temp of the chest freezer to keep it warmer than a typical freezer should run.  I don't really want to serve beer flavored slushies.  This plugs into the wall, and the freezer is plugged into it.

4) The temp probe goes into the freezer through a small hole drilled in the wooden collar around the top.  When the temp gets colder than the set point on the controller, it breaks the circuit and the freezer shuts off until the temp warms up enough to warrant another chilling cycle.  I have connected the controller to the side of the freezer with velcro for easy movement.

5) Next we put some kegs in to see what type of room we have.  I have 3 full sized soda kegs and one shorty sitting on the ledge.  This leaves room for the CO2 inside the freezer, though some folks like to keep that outside the freezer for easier tinkering.

6) CO2 tank is hooked up with a gas line to connect to the gas manifold.

7) The tank fits nicely in between the kegs.

8) Gas lines come next.  I have installed a manifold with four outputs.  You can also see that there is a layer of insulation along the collar.  Many internet sources say you don't need this, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to keep temps correct.  It was a big pain to connect all the end pieces to the lines, but looks great when it is finished.  Top the gas line with the grey gas keg posts.  I did all my pieces with the unscrewable ends for easier upkeep.

9) Liquid lines to the wall shanks.  These connect with a nipple, washer and nut.

10) Next we go through the holes drilled into the wooden collar.

11) Put all the end pieces onto the liquid hoses and connect the black liquid keg posts.  Pretty much done now!

12) Finishing touches!  Tap handles and you are good to go.  Now I just need to fill some of these empty kegs to have four more beers on tap.