Transfer and Brew

So last night I finally found time to transfer the IIIPA into the secondary for some dry hopping.  I sure hope this turns out as spectacular as it is supposed to.  I forgot to taste a sample and measure gravity so I am pretty much just wishing and hoping.  And drinking.

Tonight I help Shaun brew a batch of pale ale, and with the copious amounts of yeast I saved from the IIIPA we should be bubbling about 15 minutes after we start fermentation.

The summer of brewing is here.

Also, a pic of my main job at the brewery, Head of Sanitation.

And my new brewers shirt from the good people at Full Sail.

Hop Cast

Found a mention of this site Hop Cast, like pod casts but about beer, on the untapped badge list.  Pretty cool.  We are hoping to transfer the IIIPA tonight and add another giant bunch of hops, so it is an appropriate link I think.

I was beer tasting on the way to and from a family reunion this weekend.  I got to hit up Laht Neppur in Waitsburg, then Skye Book & Brew in Dayton, then Full Sail in Hood River on the way home.  Between those and some other beers last week, I am at 844.  And the fergieweizen was a big hit at the reunion (dubbed Fergie Fest, hence the name) and tonight the Abby's Hefeweizen and NWWPA that I put on tap last week should be ready.  Plus Shaun wants to brew a SNPA tomorrow.  If not for having to go to work every week, life would be perfect.

imperial tasting

We tasted some beers, or to be specific, some imperial IPAs.  Pliny, Hoptimum, Dick's Imperial, Dogfish Head 90 Min and Widmer Nelson Imperial.  I guess technically Pliny doesn't list itself as an imperial, but all these beers were 8% or more ABV, and its spendy and hard to find, so its basically an imperial in my book.

These beers are outstanding.  If you haven't had all of them, you need to go to the store right now and make that happen.  You might want to buy two.  I'm just saying.

Is July Here Yet?

Head on over to OregonCraftBeerMonth.com and start planning your vacation calender.  Besides BrewFest of course, I really want to hit up PuckerFest this year and finally go to Belmont Station as well as By The Bottle in Vancouver on the way down or back, or sometime this month at least.  I still have hundreds of beers to try at Hop N Grape of course, but it is fun to check out other places and maybe catch a few brews from some breweries Dave doesn't stock.  I am up to about 812 beers on my list or so with an IPA tasting planned for tonight during the next game of the NBA finals.  So should probably hit 816 or more tonight.

That would put me about 438th on the Career RBIs list, but the top of the list is unreachable up over 3000.  About 240th on the Career BBs list, but again, the top is unreachable.  Career doubles I have already taken 1st, amazingly the leader had 792, not too many more than Barry's home runs.  I also looked up career hits in the MLB, but that is out of reach.  (It was interesting to find though that Ichiro is 1st, 10th & 18th on the single season records.  That's like coming in first, second and fifth in a jack off contest, but with less mess.  Impressive to say the least.)

So I settled on Stolen Bases, because as it turns out I just passed Tim Raines at 5th and can get to 4th if I catch Ty Cobb at 897.  So I think 900 is my next mark to go for.  I was always fast in baseball and still am kind of fast in softball.  As well as tied for first in the wiffle ball league for SBs.  Henderson is in 1st with over 1400, so getting to the top will take awhile, but I am committed to excellence and will persevere and put in the hours, so I should get there.

all grain vs extract

I don't know which is better yet, but there are definitely a lot of differences in the two styles of brewing.  I thought it was just brew more for less and it takes a little longer.  But there are so many differences I can't even list them all.  Apparently our first batch was already ready, not three weeks like extract would have taken.  And the IIIPA will likely only take a week or two also since I think we didn't get the temperature high enough in the mash.  So it may not be as strong as hoped, but will be sweet and hoppy and probably still amazing.  We had two buckets of hops.  Crazy hops.

Regardless, our first batch from a couple weeks ago is now in kegs, because it was already ready.  And although not carbonated yet, the Abby's Hefeweizen tastes awesome.  Plus we kegged the Mystery GYO NWWPA, so in a week we should get to taste both those.  I kind of forgot to taste the second one because cleaning and filling three kegs took way longer than anticipated with distractions like the NBA finals and drinking a couple Sam Adams beers.  Griffen's Bow is not bad and is a 10% blonde barleywine ale.  I didn't know such a thing existed, but if you want to sleep good tonight you should try one.  Also had their Tasman Red, a Red IPA, and that was good.  I would buy it again.

A couple weeks off from brewing, but we will keep you posted on the results of drinking over that time.  And if we slip in a brew we will be sure to report it so both of you can read about it.

806, tasting, and all grain

We brewed another batch of all grain, this time The Judge GYO IPA.  I think its a triple, since we had a couple buckets of hops we added over 90 minutes.  We got two carboys full of hoppy sweet goodness.  So my closet is happy again with 5 carboys full right now.  The keg fridge was a success with three beers on tap and more in bottles we had at least 5-10 visitors while brewing Sunday.  And everyone is nice enough to say they like all the beer so far, which is awesome.

And to top it off, we cracked a bottle of Fergieweizen and Apocaweizen (a blend of the Fergie and Apoc) and it tasted like Apocalypso.  No surprise since that's the stronger beer.  But it's cool we have a handful of bottles of the Apoc so I can take them along to fergie fest.  But between those and the Grain Belt Premium, I hit 806 yesterday.  I am moving up that Tennis career win ladder.

And if you haven't heard of that last beer, that is because my neighbor brought it over when he heard I was keeping a list of different beers.  It's a midwest staple, probably similar to a Schahfer or something like that.  The August Schell Brewery has a ton of what appear to be micros, but they are multi state and the bottles just look like they are all cheap beer.  But the beer wasn't that bad, and they may actually be one of those rare big breweries that actually does more than just lager.  If anyone has a multipack of their beers I would love to trade for something in our area.  Cheers!

800 and counting

Thanks to a tasty tray of beers from Hop N Grape on Friday while planning out the first all grain batch with the Judge, and a couple new beers this weekend while brewing and then in between wiffleball and softball, and lastly the consumption of an excellent Rouge Double Mocha Porter last night, I am officially at 800.  It will take me weeks to get them all into untapped (cool app by the way, thanks Nate) and I should be a master or whatever badge they give you when you pass 500...

Ninkasi and Fort George and Rogue and Southern Tier and Southern Oregon and Widmer and Pyramid and Fat Tire and oh my oh my, this has been a good month already...

The Cowlitz Black Bears have their home opener tonight, so probably some stadium beers so no new beers, but maybe one when I get home.  It's so good, once it hits the lips...

trial all grain batch

Thanks to the Judge, we have brewed up a first trial batch using the all grain set up.  Not to hard, kind of like extract brewing it seemed a lot harder until you do it yourself.  I am too tired to upload photos twice, but there are bunch on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/eriknabby.guttormsen

I'm about 80% sure that I didn't screw something up.  Because 60% of the time it works every time.  Just like Sex Panther Cologne.  Couple weeks we shall see.  As long as the Abby's Hefeweizen doesn't explode all over my closet....

big beers

But onto other news, I would like very much to find one of these.  I have a couple of vases that double as huge pilsner glasses.  Ashtown has a couple vases that double has huge pint glasses.  But I don't know anyone that has one this large, or one of those german boots from Beerfest.  I need to track one down so that I can limit myself to one beer a day.

We didn't get to brew last weekend, so the Judge and Abby's Hefe are still on the schedule for the upcoming weekends hopefully.  And I got my kegorator up and running and will put a nice picture of it once it has a couple kegs and a bunch of 22s and 12s hopefully tonight.

And I am up to 788 beers.  A couple days of drinking L-Town brews mixed with a few Full Sail, Pyramid and a others have me a step closer to 800.  I hope to get there by the end of the weekend.  Wish me luck.  If I can get to 807 I will be 7th on the alltime career match wins of the ATP Tennis Tour.  A stat Nate would appreciate from his days of high school tennis.  Federer hit 800 last fall and is the only active player still climbing, but I figure I can top him, and maybe even Agassi and McEnroe this year.

Jimmy Connors 1242-277 (81.8%)
Ivan Lendl 1071-239 (81.8%)
Guillermo Vilas 923-284 (76.5%)
John McEnroe 875-198 (81.5%)
Andre Agassi 870-274 (76.0%)
Roger Federer 830-189 (81.5%)
Stefan Edberg 806-270 (74.9%)
Pete Sampras 762-222 (77.4%)

Here Comes the Judge!

This weekend Gus and I will be attempting our first All-Grain Brew.  Since Gus bought the AG brew rig from a local retired judge and that same judge gave us multiple bags of hops that he had grown we decided to name our first AG brew after the judge. 

Get ready for The Judge GYO IPA. 

This IPA is going to be roughly based on Dogfish Head's 90 minute IPA.  We will be doing a 90 minute boil and it will be continuously hopped with a mixture of Zeus, Columbus, Cascade and Goldings hops with a couple other mystery hops thrown in for fun.  Basically it's just going to be a nice, light colored IPA that will be a hopsplosion!

While we are doing our brewing we will also be tasting a couple of other Imperial IPA's in a blind test to see which is best.  We've got our very own Stormtrooper IIPA, Southern Tier's Unearthly Double IPA and Hop Valley's Alpha Centauri Binary IPA to compare.  Instead of knowing exactly what we're tasting I think we'll go about it blindly to see which IIPA comes out on top.

The Apocalypso is also now ready to drink so I'll be filling up a couple of growlers of that to share with Gus.  All in all it should be a great brew day filled with some delicious brews.

Have a great weekend everybody!

The end is coming

Shock Top has a cool opening splash site with an End of the World countdown timer.  Then it says It's The End of the World.  Live Life Unfiltered.  Now I know Shocktop is made by AB, but still, it's not horrible, and I grabbed a couple bottles of their other flavors (raspberry and lemon with spice) from Hop N Grape along with about 14 other beers.  And when I went online I saw they have a Wheat IPA.  I am on the lookout for that now, curious to see what a wheat IPA would taste like.

I went in for a bottle of Unearthly IPA to enjoy tomorrow with the Apocalypso, and couldn't resist loading up on a bunch of 12oz bottles (and a few other 22s) of stuff I haven't had yet and didn't feel like buying six or twelve packs of.  Maybe a little more per bottle, but definitely cheaper than drinking them on tap or buying packs of them.  One of the many upsides of Hop N Grape.  Plus I needed a few empty boxes for 22s.  One could say I have a problem, because my fridge is still overflowing.  And if one said that, one would be correct.

But in addition to adding those to the "ondeck" portion of my list, I found a handful of others I have already had that weren't checked off or weren't on the list.  Shock Top for one, Wild Blue for another, Hop Devil by Victory was another.  So even though I had a Widmer tonight (the spiced IPA is good) that I have already had, I am still at 776 on the list.  Not to shabby, should hit 780+ by this weekend.

Deep Thought for the Day

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drank, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'" - Jack Handy

Tap House Grill

So many choices, so little time

This past weekend I was in Seattle visiting my girlfriend Barbara and she suggested that we check out the Tap House Grill in Bellevue.  She told me that they had 160 different beers on tap and that was all I needed to hear. 

We got there yesterday early in the afternoon and I just stared in amazement at the selection that they had.  I thought for a brief moment that I had died and gone to heaven.  The bartender asked me what I wanted to drink and I asked if they had any Pliny the Elder.  I've wanted to try Pliny again after first sampling it four or five years ago at Brewfest in Oregon.  My heart raced as the bartender told me that she thought they had some.  My heart sank as she pulled the tap and only foam came spitting out. 

Instead I decided to try the Left Hand Brewing Milk Stout that was on nitro.  I made a terrific choice.  It was such a nice, creamy stout that I almost didn't want to finish it.  I say almost because I had other good beers to sample.  The other stout I tried was Elysian's Split Shot Stout that is also a milk stout but it's brewed with espresso.  This was also a terrific beer.

Left Hand Milk Stout

After polishing off the stouts Barb and I decided to split a four beer sampler.  I picked two beers and she chose the other two.  For my first choice I went with Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale which is even more delicious on tap then it is out of a can.  My second choice was the Hoppy Bitch IPA from Trade Route Brewing.  Now I consider myself a bit of a hop-head and I was hoping for a super-hoppy IPA.  And honestly, I was left a little disappointed by the Hoppy Bitch.  Not quite hoppy enough for my tastes. 

Barbara went with Eel River Brewing's Double IPA and it was pretty good.  I was once again expecting a super hopped beer since it was a double IPA and I was left a little disappointed.  Her other choice was a Scotch Ale from a brewery whose name escapes me at the moment.  It was pretty good for a Scotch Ale but I've had better, like the Wee Heavy I enjoyed with Gus a few brew-sessions ago.

All in all it was a great time and I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of selections.  I'll definitely be making a return trip in the future in search of the ever elusive Pliny.  If you are in the Seattle or Bellevue areas you should definitely check this place out.  And if by chance Pliny is back on tap enjoy one for me.  Cheers!

We Be Famous

http://bottlemark.blogspot.com/2012/05/l-town-brewery.html

If you haven't yet had our beer or seen our caps, you are missing out.

And I am at beer 771 still since I spent Saturday in the yard and then couldn't resist picking up another 25.4oz bottle of Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale which is just so f'ing outstanding I can't wait to do a fresh hop ale this August.  Sunday I spent drinking our beers and no new ones and letting a few more people try them.  I also brewed with some of the Judge's hops, so now we have the GYO CCWA NWPA in the primary and bubbling away nicely with some Hef Yeast for a change of pace.  But there are still plenty new beers in the fridge just beggin for it.  I am thirsty already...

Untappd

Yesterday I heard about the beer drinkers social network, Untappd.  Five minutes later I had it downloaded and was signed in to start recording my beers.  Basically you earn badges for drinking different beers, different styles and visiting different breweries.  I'm just now getting started on it so I'm not sure how it works completely but if you're on there look me up, Nate_LTB.