crown codes

I've posted about bottling before, and in that post I mentioned the idea that each bottle can become its own world, with the contents of that bottle following a unique path that won't necessarily replicate the path of the other bottles. For example, in every batch of beer I bottle, I seem to end up with varying levels of carbonation--some fizzier than others, no two exactly alike. It's likely that these differences result from different amounts of priming sugar entering each bottle--I add a specified amount of priming sugar to the fermenter just before bottling, but that sugar doesn't necessarily disperse perfectly evenly. It's also likely that different bottles end up with different amounts of time to condition--I keep my bottles in an 75 degree Fahrenheit basement, and throw them in the fridge a half dozen at a time, so the last half dozen to leave fermentable temperatures for the yeast-numbing fridge temps might have had an extra month or two of time for the yeast to build CO2.

Recently I finished bottling another batch of my Southern Breakfast Stout, and I realized that I've developed an esoteric sort of coding system for the crowns, in hopes of giving me a hint of how the beer in the bottle will turn out. I think it's interesting when new information--like the meaning of the marks I put on a bottle's cap--sort of develops out of its own volition. In the picture above you get a hint of what I mean by coding. Every bottle in the shot comes from the same batch, but you've got three different types of cap markings:

SB: On every bottle, stands for Southern Breakfast. Most homebrewers probably initial their caps, in order to tell the beers apart once you've got selections from several brews sitting side by side. I certainly do.

SB underlined: I didn't sanitize enough crowns for the batch--I had a second pile of crowns that I forgot to throw in boiling water for a quick pasteurization. I could have left the bottles open while I brought more water to a boil, and threw the extra caps in, but I didn't bother. I just capped the bottles with unsanitized crowns, and marked those crowns by underlining the SB. If something goes wrong with those bottles, I'll have one possible reason why.

SB starred: Usually, at the end of a bottling session, you end up with a bottle that isn't completely filled. Oftentimes I'll try to top this bottle up by pouring some of the dregs from the bottom of the fermenter into it manually. Extra yeast and sediment, more potential oxygenation, and an abnormal level of liquid. I drink it anyway, but I mark it with a star to know which bottle it is.

wild yeast infections

I've lived in Hawaii for about a year now, and during that time I've brewed about a dozen beers. Of those dozen beers, at least three started out lovely, and then developed problems after a few months in bottles. The most persistent problem I've had has been extreme overcarbonation, leading to gushing when the bottles are opened, or even reaching levels that cause the bottles to explode. I brewed a few dozen batches of beer back in San Francisco before moving here, and never had this problem there, so I started thinking it must have something to do with the climate in Hawaii.

My thoughts about the cause of this over-carbonation have developed over time. The first beer to over carbonate was my Lilikoi Amber, and the first theory I came up with was the addition of lilikoi juice in secondary fermentation shocked the yeast into temporary inactivity, and then, when the beer had gone into bottles, the yeast recovered from its shock and started fermenting the new lilikoi sugars. For a while I was convinced this was the answer. But then a bottle of a different beer--without lilikoi--exploded.

The next theory I came up with was that the priming sugar I was using--regular old table sugar--was resulting in more vigorous bottle-conditioning than the refined dextrose sugar you buy at the brew shop. And so I switched back to dextrose for a batch... and had the same problem develop.

Another thought was that the warm fermentation temperatures were responsible. A lot of the beers I brew use English style yeasts that prefer fermentation temperatures in the mid 60s. The coldest I've been able to keep my fermenters here has been closer to 72 degrees. And so I decided to try a Belgian yeast known for enjoying fermentation temperatures in the mid 70s. The beer turned out great, but the few bottles I have left are turning into gushers too.

So the over-carbonation problem doesn't result exclusively from using lilikoi juice, or table sugar, or from having yeast-strains that react badly to Hawaii's warm climate. All of those things might be contributing, but the crux of the biscuit is probably something else.

My new theory is one of the first ones presented to me, by my friend Danny (of Deeper Roots brewing). It's also the main theory that shows up in the "trouble-shooting sections" at the back of basic homebrewing books, and it's the theory offered by most of the beer judges who sampled my gusher entry to this year's Longshot Competition. Being that it's the first theory often presented, of course I ignored it until now.

What's the theory: wild yeast.

I brew outside, in the open air, at the back of Palolo Valley. Palolo Valley is a lush place, with lots of rainfall and lots of dense, jungle-like vegetation. The air is thick with life, probably literally.

For many of the beers I've brewed here, I finished the process by hand-ladling the cooled wort from the kettle to the fermenter, and I did this out in the open air. On several occasions I had a breeze kick up during this part of the process. Usually the breezes here are a welcome relief, but when you're out in the open with five gallons of highly fermentable liquid, the feel of the wind blowing over you--and the thought of all the invisible yeast spores it carries--is pretty disheartening.

So, in hopes of addressing this problem, I'm trying to limit my wort's exposure to the breeze. With the last batch I brewed I erected a wind-block (as shown in the picture above), kept the kettle lid on during cooling, and transferred the cooled wort to the fermenter while indoors. Chances are I won't know if it worked until three months after putting the beer in bottles--in the experience I've had here so far, all the beers seemed fine at first, and then started gushing after a few months capped--but if I still have overcarbonation problems, I might try using Campden tablets.

Does anybody else have any other suggestions? Feel free to leave them in the comments section.

LongShot 2013 Results

Back in May I submitted one of my Lilikoi Amber beers to the Samuel Adams LongShot Homebrew Contest, and I've finally got my results. As I discovered in July, that batch of beer turned into a bunch of gushers, so I didn't have high hopes for how my beer would measure up. The judges confirmed that every bottle gushed, but I didn't get slammed as bad as I feared I would, and in the end I'm considering this a positive experience. This is the first homebrew contest I've ever entered, and though I don't have plans of entering another anytime soon, I did find it interesting to hear what the judges had to say. Here are some of the highlights:

Judge 1: "Not as bad as I thought it would be considering the explosion out of the bottle. It did have some slight sourness and plastic-like flavors, but not overwhelming. Watch infection especially with fruit... The passion fruit did come through which was nice and a little surprising." Result: 22/50

Judge 2: "Very distant pilsner malt sweetness with no detectable hop. Remote hint of strawberry. Fleeting breadlike malt aroma emerged with warming, as did tartlike acidity. Persistent off-white finely beaded head. Dry lightly tart/fruit character sits on top of a smooth Brett character." Result: 25/50

Judge 3: "Kept fermenting in the bottle and I think the low alcohol made it susceptable to infection from wild yeast from the passionfruit. Try waiting until beer is finished fermenting and add in the passion fruit with higher alcohol or buy passionfruit that is from concentrate to avoid wild yeast." Result: 23/50

Judge 4: "Faint caramel malt aromas. Maybe some citrusy (grapefruity) hop aroma, and a big passionfruit - sweet scented... Light amber color - a little cloudy with a long-standing ivory head of very fine bubbles... finishes dry with a strange heat... This may have been a really good beer--it seems like a good idea anyway, but there is a wild yeast or bacteria in this bottle that is killing the goodness." Result 28/50

Another interesting aspect was the sense of personality revealed by each judge's comments, and the ways those comments differed. For example, Judge 4 described the beer as "light amber" in color, while Judge 3 called it "dark amber"; and Judges 2 and 4 considered the head-retention to be "persistent/long-standing", but Judge 1 thought the head-retention only "decent", and Judge 3 said it "went flat fast" and seemed "lifeless".

MICROBREWED ADVENTURES by Charlie Papazian; the Waves of Craft Beer

One of the very first books I read about brewing was the third edition of Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. It's a great book, commonly considered the homebrewer's bible--if a homebrewer has only read one book about brewing, chances are the book they've read is Charlie's. Recently I've been working my way through another book written by Papazian: Microbrewed Adventures. I've been enjoying it, and wanted to mention a few of the thoughts it brought up.

First of all, I should probably mention that the book feels a bit pieced-together. I'm guessing the text consists largely of reprinted articles he'd originally published in Zymurgy magazine. The pieces are mostly thematically linked, either by travel or by relevance to the American craft beer scene, but the order they're arranged in is dictated by region and subject, not by time. That means you've got stuff Charlie wrote back in the nineties spliced in with stuff written in the 80s and even stuff from the last ten years. On the one hand, this results in a sort of jumbled reading experience. On the other hand, the book offers of-the-moment thoughts and feelings about the state of beer in America. I kept feeling like I was digging through a pile of info, and occasionally unearthing time-capsules from long past.

I felt more interest in Charlie's words about the American craft-beer movement than about his travels (though some of the travel experiences were also fascinating). As I read the first section of the book, I started thinking in terms of "waves" of development in America's craft-beer scene. The first wave would be, in my mind, people (especially homebrewers) becoming interested in beer styles beyond the mass-produced, light-flavor/body "fizzy yellow lager" that dominated the beer market from the prohibition to the late 70s. Some of those people started opening up breweries--especially in the form of brewpub restaurants--that offered beer that was obviously different from that ubiquitous "fizzy yellow lager." These people--folks involved with breweries like Sierra Nevada, Anchor Brewing, New Albion, Boston Beer, Boulder Brewing, Red Hook--were real pioneers. They had to start the industry from scratch, which included a certain amount of legal-wrangling and a massive amount of learning. This wave seemed to carry through to around the late 80s.

The second wave would probably start in the late 80s, and included breweries like Dogfish Head, Stone, Rogue, New Belgium, Left Coast, Brooklyn, and Magic Hat. The first wave had established working business models, had familiarized people with non-"fizzy yellow lager" styles like Pale Ale and Porter and Stout, and had ironed out some of the brewing-related laws. I'd say that the second wave was typified by people starting to push the boundaries a little--creating new styles or exaggerating certain styles--and by people bringing in a more sophisticated business/marketing sense.

The third wave--which isn't really discussed much in the book--is (in my mind) where we are now, and it basically is a furthering of the developments that affected the second wave. The market is now massive, the competition is fierce, the beers are bigger and crazier than they've ever been (necessitating the development of new techniques and equipment). Everybody knows about craft beer, and it's a mad-dash to make a name for yourself and get your share of the market. A good example of a brewery that fits in this wave, and typifies its characteristics, is Maui Brewing. They've shown their killer instinct (successfully capturing headlines by constantly attacking rival brewer Kona Brewing), their mad-scientist approach (featuring all sorts of exotic, rarely-before-used ingredients like Papaya seeds and cocoa nibs), and their business savvy (packaging in cans--cheaper shipping and materials costs = greater profits; massive facility developments currently in the works).

Honestly, reading Charlie's words about that first wave made me nostalgic for an era I never really experienced, when the market was less aggressive, and the atmosphere more convivial and relaxed. And something that I fit into that era, and which I love about Papazian's writing, is the more art/history/mystery-related, less business/science/innovation-focused attitude. For example, Charlie writes fondly of the old Ballard Bitter, and the enjoyable presence of diacetyl--caramel/butterscotch flavor which is commonly considered a flaw--in its flavor profile, which has now been purposefully eliminated by more exacting brewing techniques. There's a wonder and a joy that comes through in those early days, a sense of the brewing of beer as a magical thing. You get a sense of that wonder in Charlie's writing about Mead in chapter Chapter 6. Or here's another example, taken from page 161:

"There are many facets of beer and brewing that go far beyond art and science. They are mysteries and miracles. These are the things that intrigue me the most. I enjoy being able to appreciate them even though I don't fully understand them."

Now we're in an era more focused on the strict, the specific, the scientific. You can see it in how Charlie's Complete Joy book is being challenged for "brewer's bible" status by John Palmer's science-heavy How to Brew. You can even see it in Zymurgy, the magazine Charlie started, which now features a science-heavy column titled "For Geeks Only", with a reader's advisory telling you to keep it away from poets.

Because of all that, I enjoyed reading Microbrewed Adventures even more. It's nice to read the writing of someone who appreciates the poetry of beer.

Beer tasting at the Waikiki Wine Stop

My mother-in-law bought my wife a Groupon for a beer/pupus event at the Waikiki Wine Closet a few months ago. We finally got a chance to use it on the 8th of this month. Lemme tell you about it.

We got 8 tastings, but there were only five beers on offer. The beers were poured out of bottles. Here's the lineup:

Wells Banana Bread Beer
Big Island Brewhaus Golden Sabbath
Big Island Brewhaus White Mountain Porter
Big Island Brewhaus Overboard IPA
Widmer Brothers Barrel Aged BRRRBON (I don't remember what number)

I didn't really care for the Wells Banana Bread Beer, and I've already had all of the Big Island Brewhaus selections. The Widmer Brothers was pretty good, but it'd probably be more appreciated by someone who loves Bourbon, as that flavor was definitely dominant.

The guy pouring didn't seem to know much about any of the beers on hand--the info he gave while pouring basically consisted of the name of the beer and its alcohol level. He tried to tell me that Big Island Brewhaus has been brewing Golden Sabbath since the 1700s--the brewery has only been around since 2011; I think the guy might have read that the style of beer comes from the 1700s, or something like that, and he confused that information. In my opinion the selection and order of pours didn't really reveal deep beer-knowledge, or a cohesive vision, either.

After we finished the five beers, the guy tried to move us on to some kind of honey whiskey, and some kind of tequila drink that had a pink-colored mixer. We passed on those and went back for more Big Island Overboard and Porter.



There's some novelty to drinking in a store, surrounded by bottles on shelves. There are some downsides too, like the lack of a bathroom (you had to leave the store and take the building elevator to the hotel bathroom on the 4th floor). I noticed, while I walked around, that a lot of the prices seemed pretty inflated. But then again, the place is in Waikiki.

The event pupus (appetizers) consisted of a tray of pretzels and other snack mixes, and two medium sized pizzas cut into 2-inch-square slices.

It wouldn't be hard to criticize the event, but in the end we didn't have to pay for it, and free beer is almost always a good thing.

tasting the Saison

This beer was originally intended to be my first shot at a Saison, but I ended up picking a different yeast than the one I'd intended (I grabbed WLP545--Belgian Strong--when I'd meant to grab WLP565--Belgian Saison I). As far as I can tell, it still fits the profile of a Saison, but it might be a bit drier, and the yeast phenolics are probably less pronounced than they would normally be.



Aroma: Banana and clove phenolics. (Belgian styles aren't typically my go to beers, so the banana-clove aroma isn't something I'm used to. Consequently it dominates my perception of the aroma. Somebody with more familiarity to Belgian yeast strains might be able to pick up on things that I'm not sensitive enough to notice.)

Appearance: Lovely "straw" color. Slightly cloudy/opaque. Had a nice bright-white head, but it didn't last (maybe because I forgot to rinse the glass first--dishwasher soap residue might have knocked the head down).

Flavor: Pronounced banana-clove, but not as cloyingly pronounced as a Hefeweizen. The only notable hop-presence is a mild bitterness that lingers in the aftertaste. A very slight hint of light malt from start to midway through, but you've got to be paying attention.

Mouthfeel: Very light, very crisp. I've been trying to adjust my brewing techniques in order to produce beers better suited to the warm climate in Hawaii, and this beer in particular is a very successful example of me meeting that goal. That said, the way the Belgian flavors come through sort of counters, in my banana-clove hypersensitive mind--some of the lightness of the body.

Overall Impression: I'm still getting used to Belgian style beers, but I'm actually quite pleased with how this beer turned out. My goal was to produce a light, refreshing "session-able" version of a Belgian beer, and this beer successfully meets all of those requirements. I don't know if it'll inspire me to write poetry or to ponder the deeper mysteries of life, or anything like that, but it serves very well as a crisp thirst-quencher. I'm giving it a thumbs up.

Last Drop

I just found out that Zymurgy published my account of exploding barleywine in the Last Drop section of the current issue. I haven't received my copy of the issue yet--always seems to take a few extra weeks to arrive in Hawaii--but I saw it in the online eZymurgy edition. If you're a member of the AHA (American Homebrewers Association) and you're logged on at the website, you can view the issue online here.

breaking brews into batches

I made my first cider a while back, which left me with the four 1-gallon glass jugs that the apple juice had come in. I figured the jugs would be perfect "mini-carboys," and on Sunday I got a chance to try using one in that capacity.



I was finally getting around to bottling the Belgian-yeast beer I brewed almost two months ago. I'd left that beer sitting in secondary fermentation for six weeks because I wanted to see if an extended secondary would help mellow the yeast further before bottling--I've been having trouble with bottles over-carbonating and turning into gushers. I've collected a lot of lilikoi juice in that time, and I thought it would be cool to rack some of the Belgian beer onto a few ounces of lilikoi, to see how the flavors would blend.



So, after sanitizing one of the 1-gallon jugs, and pouring three ounces of pasteurized lilikoi juice into the bottle, I added about four-fifths of a gallon of beer to the jug (I wanted to leave it with some headroom, just in case it kicks into another vigorous fermentation). Then I put a sanitized cap on the bottle and shook it up. A sanitized airlock on top, and it was all set.



It's already bubbling, and I'm eager to see how it turns out.

Kona Brewing

Two weekends ago my wife and I went to visit my mom and step-dad in Kona on the Big Island. We were there for three days, and visited two breweries during that time. Last week I wrote about our trip to the Big Island Brewhaus; this week I'm posting about our visit to Kona Brewery.



This isn't the first time I've been to the Kona Brewery Brewpub--my wife and I stopped by once around six years ago. This is, however, the first time I've been to the brewery since it was acquired by Craft Brew Alliance, which also owns Red Hook in Seattle and Widmer in Portland. The brewpub has undergone some serious changes since that acquisition, but in all honesty (and despite my anti-big business, commie-pinko leanings) the changes I noticed during this recent visit seemed positive.

First of all, and perhaps most-importantly, the Kona brewpub offers more beers than ever before. I've had their bottled offerings, and I stopped by the Koko Marina pub on Oahu earlier this year, but the Kona location offered another half-dozen "seasonal" beers beyond that, and the server mentioned them as if they were all on tap and available right then (instead of seasonally). I'm guessing that there are more than 15 beers to choose from. I tried three beers--a Marzen, a Steam, and a Red--that I'd never had before.

Secondly, the seating area is largely expanded--and very nice. Last time I stopped by you had the choice of sitting inside--which was a bit dim and dank--or sitting on the outside, covered porch--which was also a bit dim and dank. Now they've significantly increased the outside seating: dozens of sunshade-covered tables running along miniature palm planters that are crawling with green geckos. It's a very nice place to drink yourself mellow, and the food was good too.

And thirdly, the money-flood that seems to be hitting Kona Brewing is being used in some cool projects. They've installed a ton of PV solar panels to offset their energy use, and they've made some other environmentally-oriented decisions. They commissioned a huge mural on the side of the warehouse. They've turned their brewing facility into a pretty massive operation (you can see the keg yard in the picture below) and both the brewery and restaurant seem to be hopping with staff--so lots of good jobs for people in Kona.

spent-grain thin mints

I'm a big fan of the chocolate-mint flavor combo, and my wife is kind enough to indulge me. She recently made a batch of the Spent Grain Thin Mints featured in the Brooklyn Brewshop recipe site. The comments on that page are kind of mixed, but the cookies my wife made turned out great--very minty and chocolaty. There was a slight grittiness from the spent grains, but it actually added pleasant texture (and helped to slow me down a bit--I've been known to go through a half dozen thin mints before I even realize it).

Big Island Brewhaus

Last weekend my wife and I flew over to the Big Island to visit with my mom and step-dad, who were in Kona for vacation. We stopped in at both the Big Island Brewhaus and Kona Brewing. I plan on writing about my impressions of both places, starting with Big Island Brewhaus this week.



Big Island Brewhaus is located in a little town called Waimea. It's about an hour's drive from Kona, and about a million miles away in terms of atmosphere: Waimea is paniolo (Hawaii cowboy) territory, with lots of ranches and cattle and big trucks and motorcycles. The altitude is 2670 feet above sea level, and the air is cooler and moister than Kona seaside air. The people in the area struck me as more of a mix of European and Polynesian ethnicity, whereas Honolulu definitely reflects more Japanese and Chinese influence.

The Big Island Brewhaus brewery itself is located in a tiny little strip mall, alongside a hunting supply shop and a bicycle store. The place was locked up and empty when we were there--the only sign of life coming from a bubbling barrel of trub on a pallet out front--but I peeped through the window to get a look at the brewing set-up. I'm guessing it's around 15 barrel system, with around four fermenters. They've also got a small bottling system for the 22 oz bottles you can get on Oahu. There's a picture below--if you've got a different guess about system size, or if there's anything else interesting you notice from the picture, please feel free to mention it in the comments section of this post.



Big Island Brewhaus also owns and runs a small Mexican restaurant and bar, located in a free-standing building on the property. We went in for lunch and got a sampler of every beer they had available (picture below). Despite the German-influenced name of the brewery, the beer lineup didn't swing toward lager-dominance. Of the eleven beers we tried, about half of them were Ales, and the majority of the rest of the lineup used Belgian-yeasts. Here's a link to the beer descriptions they list on their website, though the list doesn't reflect all of the beers on hand during our visit. Another thing I noticed: grain-wise, the beers on hand seemed to focus on what I think of as "mid-range" grain bills--mostly pale and some caramelized grains, mostly 5-7% alcohol. The only beer that had any roast to it was the White Mountain Porter--I guess they also brew a Guinness style stout, but it wasn't on hand when we were there.

All the beers tasted good to me. My favorite was a Sierra Nevada-styled beer called Paniolo Pale Ale, and what I loved about it was the way the cascade hops came through in the aroma. They smelled super green and fresh, just like the smell you get right when you throw the hops in the boiling kettle. And that helped solidify another thing I've been noticing about beer on the islands--that heady, resinous aroma that I love about West Coast Pale Ales and IPAs is hard to come by here, even in beers that are famous for it like Sierra Nevada, because boat-shipped beers are never gonna be as fresh as what you'll get on the mainland. One more argument for homebrewing in Hawaii.



Another beer that stood out to me was, I think (memory's not too clear on this one), a Pale Ale brewed with ginger. I swear to Ninkasi the beer tasted almost exactly like the Sage Pale Ale I brewed a couple months back, though they say they used ginger and not sage.

As for the food, it was pretty good--probably better than a lot of the Mexican food I've had in Hawaii, but still not up to California standards. My wife gives them super-extra-credit for having real chips--actual tortillas cut into triangles and then deep fried. But my step-dad thought the hot-sauce was seriously lacking in sufficient hotness. I'm not a spicy food connoisseur, but I agree the spice seemed pretty tame. And I also think it's worth noting that the dude who served us was friendly and helpful and on top of it, even though he was working alone during the lunchtime rush.

Griz

(This picture of Griz sleeping in his habitual location was taken by Chris G., originally posted on Yelp.)

Back when I lived and brewed in San Francisco I got most of my ingredients and equipment from SF Brewcraft. A dominant, unforgettable (and almost unavoidable) feature of that store was Griz. Griz was a grizzled old guy who looked like Santa Claus dressed in overalls. You were pretty-much guaranteed to see him unless you came in near closing, and if you saw him, guaranteed he'd be sitting in the easy chair in the back right corner of the shop. No matter what you knew about brewing, what you came into the shop for, or what type of person you were, Griz would be a key part of your Brewcraft experience.

Griz was an interesting guy. Despite the fact that he never seemed to get out of that easy chair, his presence filled every corner of the shop. You could ask him about any topic related to brewing--and probably plenty of topics completely unrelated--and rely on an opinionated answer. And Griz was an unapologetic contrarian, too; so if you ever came to him with a plan or an idea, chances are you were wrong. (I wrote about this phenomenon on my old brewing blog, Parkside brewing.)

Some people didn't like the type of experience Griz provided. Whether these people were thin-skinned or just preferred a different level of propriety, there were Brewcraft customers who'd swing by the store right before closing specifically so they wouldn't have to face Griz. And truth be told, I butted heads with Griz a few times myself. There probably aren't many who didn't, unless they had absolutely no stomach for a fight.

That said, I also want to say this: in all of the experiences that I had with Griz, he never struck me as a bully. He spoke his mind because he cared about things, not because he wanted to bend you to his way of thinking. And on the occasions when I saw him realize his plain-spoken manner was bowling someone over, he changed his course and held back.

(I've come to value the unapologetic, opinionated attitude Griz displayed more than ever, now that I live in Hawaii. The brewing scene is so small here, and so fragile, that people seem to go to lengths to avoid confrontation. (You can see it in Beer in Hawaii's post on Aloha Beer's closure, in which author Tim Golden tells us that "the real facts are murky and we may never really know what happend, nor should we really care.", though that's hardly the only example.) I miss being around someone like Griz, who wasn't afraid to ask questions and point out bullshit.)

Here's my favorite Griz memory: I stopped by Brewcraft on a Saturday to pick up grains for the next day's brew. There were a few people in the shop ahead of me--brewing newbies with lots of questions and lots of doubts--and they were peppering the guy behind the cash register with worst-case type scenarios. Griz was in his easy chair, like normal, looking more agitated with each additional question. Before I'd managed to gather my grains, a few more people came into the shop behind me. Apparently Griz's maximum-capacity level had been reached, because he started loudly complaining that there were too many people in the shop. "Eric," Griz shouted, "you gotta get some of these people out of here! It's turning into a clusterfuck. Come on!" Honestly, I can't think of any other time, in my entire life, in which I witnessed a shop owner getting upset about having too customers in his shop.

Thinking about it now, Griz's unapologetic stance might be the greatest thing he ever showed me about brewing. Getting your hands on great beer is pretty easy nowadays, even here in Hawaii, because craft beer is a growing market and plenty of breweries are producing awesome product. Homebrewing isn't a necessity anymore, so if you're gonna homebrew, you should be doing it because you love it, and because you have a particular vision you want to pursue. Passion is the prerequisite, not compromise, and Griz was an incredible example of that.

About a week ago I got an email from SF Brewcraft with the following message: "On the evening of Monday, September 23rd, our friend and teacher Greg Miller, endearingly referred to as Griz, passed. In honor of Griz, Brewcraft will be closed for the next two days and will reopen Thursday, September 26th. We are making plans to have a celebration of his life. We will be posting details soon. Until then thank you for your love and support and for this week please raise a glass and tell a story about Griz."

In my life I've only had the privilege of meeting a very few people who seemed honestly, uncompromisingly themselves, and Griz was definitely amongst that small number. The homebrewing world is a poorer place, now that he's no longer with us.

following up on past posts

There's been a couple of interesting developments in the Oahu brew scene recently, and I figured I'd follow up on the ones that relate to things I've posted about here. If you want more comprehensive coverage of the happenings in Hawaii's beer scene, Beer in Hawaii is still the place to go. But if you're just following my blog and are curious about the places I've mentioned, here's what's new:



First of all, back in March I wrote up a pretty extensive post about a visit I'd made to the Aloha Beer brewery. Dave Campbell, Aloha Beer's brewmaster and partial owner, gave me a behind-the-scenes-tour and chatted with me about the brewery's planned expansion--including a massive increase of brewing area/capacity and the creation of a new "Beer Sanctum" space where Sam Choy's bar used to be. A few weeks later, while drinking a few beers at Aloha and chatting with the bartender on hand, I heard a different story: no "Beer Sanctum," no planned expansion, but the brewery would be shut down temporarily for upgrades. The brewery did indeed shut its doors about a month after that, but I haven't seen or heard of any work being done since then, and the doors are still closed almost three months later.

At the REAL tasting event in August I heard a rumor that Aloha Beer's extended closure might have legal reasons behind it--the guy I was talking to hinted that there'd been some kind of "serving to minors" violation--but considering the venue and circumstances(post-REAL-event/more than six beers deep), I didn't put too much stock in it. The most credible news to appear concerning the whole situation came just a little while back, in an online article posted by the Pacific Business News. The article sort of touches on the murkiness of it all--Campbell will neither confirm or deny permanent closure; James Lee (another Aloha Beer owner) claims he's withdrawn his ownership interest, but maintains the "only closed for upgrades" story; Steve Sombrero, the third owner, won't even return calls for comments--but it does provide one firm fact: "The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Unemployment Insurance Division in April filed a tax lien against Aloha Beer Co. for $105,740.65 in unpaid employment security tax." That's a pretty large amount of money, and I'm betting the rent owed for the past three (customer-less) months is pretty hefty too. In the end, I'm getting a very bad feeling about the chances of Aloha Beer re-opening ever again.

And speaking of closures, here's more bad news: this is officially Hawaiian Islands Brewing's last month of business. HIB was handling the brewing for VICE Inferno at Ward Center. I wrote about my visit to the place back in February, and I had my doubts about the company's chances of success even back then, though I did think their beer was pretty great. With Aloha Beer indefinitely closed, and Hawaiian Islands Brewing officially closing, Oahu currently has only one commercial business brewing its own beer: Gordon Biersch at Aloha Tower.

But on the bright side: REAL is having enough success to go ahead with expansion--they'll be opening up a smaller pub in Kaimuki called BREW'D pretty soon. And a new 7-barrel brewery called Honolulu Beerworks is in the works for the KaKa'ako.

Tasting the Sage Pale Ale

The Sage Pale Ale I brewed a while back is at peak drink-ability right now, so I figured I'd write up tasting session notes for it, like I did for my Poi Wheat Ale back in March.



Aroma: Floral hop notes mixed with an apparent sage smell, and, inexplicably, a hint of "soap."

Appearance: Rich yellowish orange color. Clear enough to see the rising bubbles sharply, but not clear enough to read through. Copious frothy head that fades to a loose-packed, big-bubble cap.

Flavor: Pronounced bitterness initially, with sage kicking in halfway through, and sage and bitterness lingering long afterwards. Malt flavors are definitely taking second-seating to the hop-bitterness and the sage. And the sage flavor brings poultry dishes to mind, though of course there isn't any chicken/turkey taste to the beer. (This flavor-association phenomena reminds me of a tasting I attended at the Alaskan Brewing Company in Juneau. The standout beer on tap was, by far, their Smoked Porter, which features grains smoked with alder wood. Alder wood is commonly used to smoke salmon, too, and the alder flavor present in the beer made some people think the beer had fish in it.)

Mouthfeel: Very light in body (a successful result of my low-mash-temperature approach to this brew). Despite the flowing bubbles, the beer doesn't have any serious carbonation tingle. When you get most of the way through the glass, the hop and sage oils start to make the tongue feel a bit pickled.

Overall Impression: Pretty good! Provides the crisp, herb-oriented satisfaction of a Pale Ale, but it's definitely a unique experience because of the sage. I also appreciate the fact that it offers that herb-fix without the weight of an IPA (OG = 1.044, FG = 1.006; 5% estimated abv).

Other Info: I'm pretty happy with how this beer turned out. In fact, I'm happy enough to feel like it's worth sharing. If any local Homebrewing in Hawaii readers are curious to see how culinary sage fits into a Pale Ale style, feel free to send me an email at: mf.soriano (at) yahoo (dot) com. We can do a homebrew bottle trade!

learning to love Belgian yeast strains

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: British and Irish ales are my favorite styles of beer. Back in San Francisco I brewed those styles, or American takes on those styles, more than anything else. I've been trying to do them here in Hawaii too, but it hasn't been easy. Most British and Irish ale yeasts prefer cool-fermentation temperatures, ideally around 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The climate in San Francisco (where I lived before moving here) is often perfect for that; the climate in Honolulu... not so much.

I've brewed around nine beers here so far using British Ale yeasts, and the fermentation temperatures have always been over 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the beers have turned out okay--but the fermentations were often violent, with foam-overs and even one spectacular eruption. And the flavors haven't been as clean as what I was getting in San Francisco.

So I'm starting to experiment with Belgian yeasts now. A lot of Belgian strains are happy fermenting above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and some of them have no problems with temperatures even higher than that. For my first Belgian beer here in Hawaii, I used White Labs 545 Belgian Strong Ale yeast. The label on the vial gives the fermentation temperature range as 70 to 75 degrees, and I think my fermentation managed to remain within that range. I definitely noticed a smoother, less violent fermentation. I'll try to remember to post here about how the final beer turns out.

British Beers at House of Brews

Bar 35 hosts a beer event every Wednesday called "House of Brews." It costs $25 a person, and that gets you 9 beer tasters and a few pizza appetizers. Last week (August 28, 2013) the event focused on British Beers, and because of my love of British styles, my wife and I decided to check it out.

It turned out to be a pretty low-key affair. Basically, you let the man behind the bar know that you're there for the beer event, and they give you a blue wrist-band with nine pull-off tabs (you can see it in the picture above). After that you can sit anywhere in the bar, or out on the back patio, and they bring the beer tasters to you one at a time. Event organizer Tim Quirante (who was recently interviewed by Beer in Hawaii) makes the rounds, sitting down with you for a few minutes with each beer to give you the scoop.

The line-up for last week's event featured eight beers, with a chance to revisit a beer with a second tasting after you'd had them all. The beers on hand where: John Smith's Extra Smooth, Newcastle Werewolf, Newcastle Brown Ale, Boddingtons Pub Ale, Samuel Smith's India Ale, Harviestoun Old Engine Oil, Greene Kind Old Suffolk, and Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout. The Harviestoun and the Greene King were new to me, and Greene King's Olde Suffolk in particular was a standout--rich and complex, with a notable Oak character--excellent! Apparently I wasn't the only person to think so--they ran out before I had a chance to revisit it with my ninth taster. I ended up going back for seconds on the Samuel Smith's India Ale instead--a great beer from one of my favorite breweries.



Toward the end of the event I had a chance to chat with Tim Quirante about his new job brewing part time at Hawaii Nui, and about his Chico, California roots. He mentioned he'd be flying to the Big Island on Sunday for his first solo brew on Hawaii Nui's system, a batch of Mehana Mauna Kea Pale Ale. I was a bit surprised to hear that. Brewing five gallon batches is hard enough to do alone--I often force my wife to help me out with certain steps--but Tim's going to be doing a brew on Hawaii Nui's 30 barrel system all on his own. Apparently that's they way they do it there.

beer fountain

Ever since my first days as a homebrewer, I’ve been dreaming of trying my hand at a barley wine. Described by some as “the drink of the gods,” and capable of being aged for years, barley wine stands in the minds of many as a test of a brewer’s mettle. And with an original gravity of as much as 1.120 (or even more!), it’s about as big as beer gets.

Of course, to make a beer that big you need to start with a lot of ingredients. Malt is often doubled, and hops are too. And, in order for the yeast to have a chance to get through all that sugar before succumbing to the stupor-inducing alcohol, I’ve heard it’s best to pitch at least a pint of healthy yeast slurry in a five gallon batch.



Lucky for me, I have a yeast connection. A few months ago I had the good fortune of meeting the Brewmaster of my local brewery, Aloha Beer Company, and when I mentioned my dreams of making a barley wine, he offered to give me as much yeast as I could carry. I ended up walking out of there with two quarts—definitely more than I needed, but that’s the size of the container I’d brought, and he filled it almost to the brim.

It was lively yeast too, coming straight from a twenty barrel vat, raring to get back to work. In the few minutes I stood there chatting with the Brewmaster, the yeast swelled to fill the container. A few minutes more and the sides of my plastic container had begun to bend outward from the pressure.

I hurried to my car, put the yeast on the floor in front of the passenger seat, and turned the AC up full blast. For the whole ride home I was on edge, wincing at every bump in the road, afraid the yeast would go off like a bomb.

In the end I made it home in time, and got the yeast in the fridge without incident. Little did I know, “incident” was just taking a rain check.



Next day’s brew went fine. I started with ten pounds of Maris Otter grain in the mash, boiled the wort for an hour, adding four ounces of hops during that time. And then I took the kettle off the burner, mixed in four pounds of pale malt extract and three pounds of honey, and brought it back to a boil for thirty more minutes. I wound up with about four and a half gallons with an original gravity of 1.095—not as high as I wanted, but still within style guidelines.

Once the wort had cooled, I pitched the yeast. I wasn’t crazy enough to add all of it, so I split the difference and only threw in half. If a pint was good, I reasoned, then a quart would be twice as good.

And here’s where things went wrong. In all of my research about barley wines, I’d somehow failed to take in the importance of a blowoff tube. I figured a six and a half gallon carboy and an airlock would be good enough. Turns out it wasn’t. Not even close.

About two hours after pitching the yeast, my girlfriend and I heard a percussive sound, sort of a mix between a pop and a thud. “What was that?” she asked. I was afraid I knew.

I ran to the door to the basement, where I’d put the beer. It sounded like it was raining in there. I pulled the latches back quickly, and threw the door open.

The top of the airlock had blown off, and my carboy had turned into a beer fountain. A mighty stream of liquid shot straight up, to splatter against the ceiling, and then rain down on everything else.



I was able to jerry-rig a blow-off tube pretty quickly—amazing how fast you can make something when you’re supplied with the proper motivation—and I ended up saving about three and a half gallons of the beer. While it’s true I ended up losing almost a quarter of the batch, and several hours time spent cleaning up the mess, I gained something from the experience, too: a name for my barley wine, Kīlauea.

spent grain veggie burgers

My wife likes to try to use the spent grains I have left after brewing. Her most recent creation was veggie burgers. She based the recipe on one posted by the Spent Grain Chef, but she didn't use bbq sauce, and she added in some other vegetables, garlic, veggies, pepper, ginger, sunflower seeds, and some Shoyu (soy sauce). The burgers were actually pretty great--I didn't think the grains would be all that palatable without being further ground-up, but the burgers were delicious!

Brewing with Sage

Sage is a classic herb--just ask Simon and Garfunkel. I've got a bush growing in my vegetable garden, and I recently decided to try to use it in a homebrew.

Typically, sage is used in savory dishes, especially poultry dishes of chicken or turkey. Its flavor is unique, sort of peppery and bitter, but hard to define in more specific terms. It's also used for medicinal purposes, and has been recommended for treating just about any ailment you can come up with. And, perhaps most famously, sage is burned for spiritual reasons--it's smoke is considered a cleansing agent in rituals carried out by hippies and certain Native American tribes.



I decided to try to use sage in a Pale Ale. I thought its peppery bitterness might blend well with the hop-oriented nature of the Pale Ale style. Sage is an herb that combines in wonderful ways with other spices, such as thyme, and it's also sometimes used to accent acidic/sour fruit flavors, such as fruit-based vinegars. With that in mind, I figured I'd pair the sage with Centennial hops, a hop known for its citrus-like aromas and bittering qualities.



I cut five large sprigs of sage from my plant, rinsed them in fresh water, and then chopped them thoroughly. Five sprigs turned into a bout three large handfuls when chopped. I added half of the sage right and one ounce of Centennial right at the start of the boil, hoping to utilize its bittering qualities. I added the other half of the sage at flame off, to see if it would contribute to the beers aroma. I also made sure that all of that chopped and boiled sage made it into to the fermenter with the yeast. I've read that certain chemical components of sage are most effectively extracted by alcohol (also apparently true of cannabis, though I can't say I've got any first-hand knowledge of that), so putting the sage in with the alcohol-producing yeast was a way of trying to utilize that concept.



The beer is in bottles now, and won't be ready to drink for another few weeks. After making the beer I realized there's an entry for sage in the book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Buhner says that "sage ale was one of the primary ales brewed throughout the Middles Ages." He also describes some of its medicinal uses--everything from healing infection to inhibiting Alzheimer's disease--and he mentions that sage is known to make beer "especially inebriating." I'll let you know if I find that to be true.

Mahalo and Aloha to Tony from REAL Gastropub

(Above picture taken from the website for REAL a Gastropub. Below pictures taken by my wife Tara.)

I'd stopped in at REAL a few times since arriving in Hawaii last year, but it wasn't until last month's tasting event that I finally realized what an incredible place this is. The tasting events happen once a month in the upstairs seating area, and they give REAL's beverage director Tony Raso a chance to pour five beers grouped around a key theme. Last month's event focused on beers that had been awarded the highest ratings at Ratebeer.com. The beer lineup included Trois Mousquetaires's "Porter Baltique," St. Bernardus's "Abt 12," Birra del Borgo's collaboration with Dogfish Head called "My Antonia," and North Coast's "Old Rasputin"--and amazingly, all of these beers were poured from draft.

Anyway, the beer was awesome, but what blew me away more than anything else was the sense of knowledge and passion for beer displayed by the presenters, especially by Tony. The guy has managed to bring an incredible variety of beers to Hawaii, in many cases for the first time ever. He's been working with breweries across the mainland, and with distributors supplying product from breweries worldwide, to give people on Oahu a chance to try some truly remarkable beers they'd probably never get a chance to try otherwise. The beers often come in one-time shipments, sometimes of just a few bottles or a single keg, and the fact that Tony is putting in the effort to secure beer in such limited quantities strikes me as incredible. Effort like that only comes from one place: a true passion for the endeavor.



Just take a look at the picture above (click the picture for a bigger version), which shows the beers on offer on the night of last month's event. The variety is impressive, but it's even more impressive when you consider what it takes to get these beers to Hawaii. For example, take the Moylan's beers listed in the lower right corner of the board. Moylan's is a relatively small brewpub in Northern California, so small that they didn't have enough kegs to spare for Hawaii shipments--the wait for the kegs to travel by boat to Hawaii, and then to return by boat to California, would have left the brewery without enough kegs for normal operation. But Moylan's produces some incredible beers--including the 100+ IBU "Hopsickle" Imperial IPA, and the multi-award-winning "Ryan Sullivan's" Imperial Stout--and Tony wanted to be able to serve those beers at REAL. He kept contacting Moylan's until the brewery agreed to purchase one-time use, plastic kegs to ship the beer to Hawaii. The effort was above and beyond normal business practices, but Moylan's beers made it to the taps at REAL, and it wouldn't have happened without Tony's efforts.

Alas, as indicated by the title of this post, Tony's time here in Oahu is coming to a close. He's recently become a father, and he and his wife have decided to return to their hometown so that their son can grow up near his extended family. This past Monday, August 5th, was Tony's last beer-tasting event. Tony set it up as a sort of "swan song," with an emphasis on beer's from his native state. The lineup included beers by Ballast Point, Moylan's, Coronado Brewing, and Sierra Nevada. My wife and I attended, and though the event was bittersweet, the beers were excellent.



Tony's duties as beverage director are being handed over to Anthony, and next month's tasting is an "Oktoberfest Pregame" scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on September 9th. REAL is having a farewell soiree for Tony on August 13, 2013, from 2:00 pm – 11:30 pm. If you live in Hawaii and you love craft beer, consider stopping by and expressing your thanks.

Mahalo, Tony.

bottle grenades!

A few weeks back I mentioned I'd had a bottle explode. It was a bottle of my Lilikoi Amber, and in 35+ batches this was the first time I'd had it happen. Well, now I've had it happen a second time, and with a different beer. One of the last remaining bottles of my Palolo Gold, which I brewed back in January, exploded. I didn't actually hear it happen, but I was snooping around in the basement, and I saw the evidence (shown in the picture above).

I put the rest of the Palolo Gold bottles in the fridge. I've been drinking them since the busted bottle, and they pour fine, with no sign of the gushing that started happening with the Lilikoi Ambers. So why did this bottle bust?

My thought is that it's a combination of time, temperature, and bottles. Seven months is a pretty long time for a beer to sit in bottles, unless it's a low-carbonation beer like a Barley Wine, and the temperature in the cellar is warm enough to promote vigorous fermentation. So pressure must have just kept building in that particular bottle. Why haven't other bottles exploded, and why don't the other bottles of Palolo Gold gush when I open them? Maybe that particular bottle got more than its fair share of priming sugar, and maybe the bottle itself was somehow flawed.

Which brings up another important point: both of the bottles I've had bust were re-used Kona Brewing bottles. I've noticed that Kona Brewing has changed their bottles recently, and I don't if the change relates to defects with the bottles, but I suppose it's possible.

making sidra

Back in May I attended the Big Brew Day event held by local brewclub HOPS (Homebrewers on Pacific Shores). I met a bunch of people there, and drank a bunch of homebrew. One of the drinks that stood out to me was a home-made cider. I can't remember the name of the guy who did it, but he confided that it was the easiest thing he's ever brewed: just buy a bunch of unfiltered, unpasteurized apple juice and throw it in a carboy with some yeast. I decided I wanted to give it a try.

And so I have. I went down the local, organic grocery store and bought four one-gallon jugs of Mrs. Gooch's cider. Cost me about $35 bucks. Then I went to the brew store and bought a packet of dry champagne yeast for $1.75. I poured the juice in a sanitized carboy, pitched the yeast, and stuck an airlock on top. Two weeks later I primed it with 2/5 a cup of brown sugar and put it in bottles. I started drinking it the next day.

At this point the cider has been in bottles for less than a week. I'm not sure how it'll change, but right now it really reminds me of the "sidra" you get in the Asturias region of northern Spain. (The picture above shows me pouring sidra in the traditional manner, in which you try to maximize the fall to force air into the drink.) It's lightly carbonated, just enough to give a certain sharpness to the drink (cider never really forms a head like beer because apple juice doesn't have the same proteins found in grain, its carbonation is more like soda). It tastes mostly like apple juice, with a hint of champagne. And it's deceptively strong--about 7.5%, but you end up drinking it faster than beer, and you might be two bottles in before it starts to hit).

All in all, it's a decent drink. Try it!

(Here's another picture, showing a guy wearing traditional Asturian clothes, pouring cider in the traditional way--though it looks like he's missing the glass more than hitting it.)

swamp-cooling a carboy

Hawaii has two main seasons, winter and summer. They aren't as drastically different as seasons on the mainland, but they're distinct nonetheless: winter is rainier, with more clouds in the sky; and summer is drier, with clearer skies and slightly hotter temperatures. After an unusually long and wet winter here on O'ahu, we're finally moving into summer. And that means that the temperature of the basement where I've been fermenting and storing my beer has moved from "barely cool enough" (72 degrees Fahrenheit) to "really just too hot" (75 degrees) for the English and Irish styles I prefer.

The reason I'm using the basement for fermenting is because it's the absolute coolest part of the house. There's nowhere else on this property that's cooler, so I can't just move my beer somewhere else. That means I've got to find some way of beating the heat.

I've mentioned in past posts that I'm not a real gadget-oriented person--I generally prefer to try to do more with less. I'm also famously cheap. For both of those reasons, I didn't want to go the route of buying a refrigeration unit just to be able to keep brewing--though I know there are plenty of homebrewers in Hawaii who eventually do just that. What I've settled on, instead, is a swamp cooler.

A swamp cooler is, basically, a system set up to lower temperatures through evaporation. You can probably find plenty of info on the scientific principles by doing an internet search, so I'm not gonna bother to go too far into it here. All I really needed to know is that when water (or other liquids, I guess) evaporates, it reduces the temperature in the immediate area. That's why we sweat--it cools us down.

So, to keep my carboys cooler, I've started using a very basic swamp-cooler. I found a basin wide enough to fit a carboy into (my cheapskate nature was pleased to be able to find one on the property, instead of having to buy one), and then I set the carboy inside. Next I wrapped a towel around the carboy, and poured water over the towel. I filled the basin with a reasonable amount of water to continue to supply the towel with moisture--it draws the liquid up through its fibers in another scientific process I'm not gonna bother to explain--and that's it.

The temperature in the basement is currently getting to about 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the heat of the day. But the swamp-cooler keeps the carboy at around 70 degrees. Easy, simple, cheap, and good enough for now. If the temperature rises significantly, I'll have to find some other way of dealing with it. But for now I'm pretty pleased with this solution.

gushers!

It's been a little while since I last posted on this blog. I've been sort of busy. First of all, I released my first novel, which I mentioned in the last post. Secondly, I got married.

But now I'm back. I've been brewing, and doing brewing-related things, throughout this month-plus gap in posts, and I plan on trying to catch this blog up with at least some of that stuff. I've also been dreaming up some new brewing projects, and I plan on writing about them here, too. So, hopefully I'll manage to be a little more regular with updates on this blog in the next few months (or at least until something else distracts me).

I figured I'd start by catching any readers up with the newest news on my Lilikoi Amber. I've written about lilikoi on this blog before, both how to grow it and how to brew with it. I've also mentioned that my Lilikoi Amber turned out to be such a lovely beer that I decided to enter it in the Sam Adam's Longshot Contest. Well, now I've got something new to report.

Every bottle of Lilikoi Amber has turned into a gusher. I pry off the top, and the beer just foams for days. You can see a picture of this up above.

This wasn't an issue during the first few months of drinking the beer. I brewed the Lilikoi Amber back in March, and it was a delight throughout April and May. But a few weeks into June I had a bottle explode, which has never happened to me with any of the beers in the 35+ batches I'd brewed before this. I tried opening another bottle that had been sitting in the basement, and it gushed foam vigorously. Fearing that all of the bottles had built up a dangerous level of carbonation, and worried I'd have more exploding bottles if I didn't act, I put all of the remaining bottles of Lilikoi Amber in the fridge--to force the yeast into dormancy and prevent any additional carbonation-pressure. I've been trying to drink through them quickly since then, but the gushing just keeps getting more pronounced. The beer still tastes great, but I only end up with a few ounces from each bottle, and those ounces have a good amount of suspended yeast.

Why is this happening? When I transferred the beer to secondary--which is when I added the lilikoi juice--the yeast seemed to have already done its thing (converted all the fermentable sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide). It didn't really bubble at all for the next two weeks. And so I bottled, thinking all was kosher. And now they're gushers. Why?

Here's my theory: despite its tartness, lilikoi juice has sugar in it. Because of it's tartness, it took the yeast an adjustment period before it could start fermenting that sugar. So, despite the fact that the secondary carboy didn't bubble, the yeast was still adapting to the new sugar, and it finally roused itself after I'd already put it in the bottle. It got used to the lilikoi sugar, and started to consume it.

This is important for anyone who wants to brew with lilikoi: expect a delay before a secondary fermentation period. If you're going to try adding lilikoi juice to secondary, like I did, don't bottle it until the gravity drops back down to near where it was before you added the lilikoi. It might take more than two weeks.

Of course, knowing this now doesn't help my chances for the Longshot competition, and I figure my beer doesn't have a chance if it gushes like a volcano when they open the bottle. (It is sort of a funny image, though--judges gathered around a table, numerous samples scattered in front of them... they crack a bottle labeled LA and all of a sudden the whole table gets flooded with foam!) Oh well, live and learn.

I've got another crop of lilikoi fruit on the vine now, and am thinking about brewing this beer again soon. I'll be sure to take what I've learned into account for that beer!

Blood Brothers eBook available today

This isn't really beer-related--other than the fact that I drank a lot of beer while writing the book--but I wanted to post that I've written a fantasy novel and it's now available on Kindle. Here's a description of the book:

Ostracized by society because of the birthmark that mars his face, Grillis Bloodborn has lived all of his short life in a cottage in the forest, cutting wood and tending pigs. Upon the death of his grandmother, the only family he has ever known, he sets out on a quest to find favor with the Gods for her soul. Grillis’s travels bring him to a city where a young trash-picker named Athemon has just begun to discover the power to punish the men who have made his life a hell. As fate draws the two youths together, they learn that payback comes with a price of its own. Meanwhile, in the depths of the unconquered wilderness a young mystic named Verlvik begins to experience a series of miracles and visions… and the visions lead toward Athemon.

And you can click here to go to the Amazon page.

Please consider buying a copy! Thanks!

Sam Adams Longshot Competition 2013

Last week I shipped four bottles of my Lilikoi Amber to the mainland to have them compete in the Sam Adams Longshot American Homebrew Contest. This is the first homebrew contest I've entered. I generally have very little interest in competitions, and I doubt that I'll be entering another competition anytime soon. But my friend Chris (of Lewy Brewing) had a good experience with last year's Longshot, and it doesn't cost anything to enter, so I figured I'd give it a try. I'll post an update when I get the results.

If you're interested in participating, you have until May 26 to enter the contest.

HOPS Big Brew Day

On Saturday, May 4th, the Homebrewers On Pacific Shores brew club (HOPS) organized a Big Brew Day event. Homebrew in Paradise provided free extract-recipe ingredients for either a Belgian Blonde or a Dark English Mild. I went down there with my girlfriend and our friend Matt, and we brewed up a batch of the Dark English Mild. Homebrew in Paradise is also providing kegs to hold the beer, and the plan is to get everybody together on Father's Day (June 16th) to sample the brews.

It was fun to meet a few of the other Oahu-based homebrewers, and to see the gear and techniques they use for their brewing. There was also plenty of homebrew to sample--I tried four different brews in the first hour, and had to put the brakes on after that. A lot of the other brewers seemed to forge ahead without fear, and I was impressed by their ability to keep their brews going while drinking double-fisted. I was also impressed with the HOPS linchpin--I think her name was Cindy, but my memory of the event is somewhat impaired so I might have her name wrong--in her valiant efforts to maintain a sense of meeting order in the face of all the imbibing and brewing and other distractions. There was a rep there from Sam Adams (I think they flew him in from the West Coast) who didn't fare as well.

I'll be sure to post an update on the Father's Day tasting.

Beer in Hawaii website

(Picture taken from the Beer In Hawaii website.)

I stumbled across this website a little while back, and I'm in awe of the webmaster Tim Golden's industry. As far as I can tell, he started the site just a week after I started this blog (his first post is dated January 18th, 2013), and in the time since then he's put up nearly 60 posts (my lazy ass has barely managed 22 posts in about the same time). He seems to be on top of every significant beer event on the Hawaiian islands, which he covers in his weekly Beer Blasts (one comes out every Thursday). He's also got an interactive map that shows all the important Hawaii Breweries and places where Craft Beer is served. If you're looking for the definitive source for information on craft beer in Hawaii, Tim's website gets my vote.

Click here to go to the Beer In Hawaii website.

baking with spent-grain flour

My girlfriend recently used some of the spent-grain flour she'd made, which I mentioned in a previous post, in a batch of spinach and cheese hand pies. She based the dough on the "Spent Grain Apple Hand Pie" recipe from the Spent Grain Chef page of the Brooklyn Brewshop website (a great recipe resource), though she modified the recipe some. The spinach she used was grown in our garden, and the pies were delicious!

I think it'd be awesome to open up a cafe like the Cerveceria de Mateveza that focused on small-batch craft beer and spent grain hand pies. What else do you need in life?

Hawaii Nui declares bankruptcy

On Friday the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Big Island based brewery Hawaii Nui has filed for bankruptcy, and that the lender who has provided the money to keep Hawaii Nui operational during bankruptcy is aiming to acquire ownership.

Current Hawaii Nui president Andy Baker said the company went into bankruptcy because "double-digit distribution growth over the past six months" made it difficult and expensive to acquire sufficient bottles and packaging. The company estimated the value of it's assets between $100K and $500K, and debts between $1 million and $10 million.

The article also mentioned that the brewery has "about a dozen employees" and produces "about 5,200 barrels a year." In 2009 Hawaii Nui acquired Mehana Brewing Company, another Hilo-based brewery.

Now, I'm sure that there's a lot more to know about the situation than what can be gleaned from the Star-Advertisers relatively brief article, but I'm still pretty stunned by the facts on hand. First of all, the looseness of the numbers is pretty alarming--between $1 million and $10 MILLION of debt? That's a HUGE difference. They can't narrow it down any more than that?

But even if you go with the best available numbers--the company is worth $500K and its debt is $1 million--the resulting situation is still baffling, especially when you read that the company president attributes the current disastrous situation to "growth." They're selling more product, and because of that they're losing more money?

There's something very wrong with a business plan when selling product costs more than it gains. And when you've got debt that is potentially 100 times greater (assuming the worst case scenario of $100K assets and $10 million debt), and it all happened in the last six months, something is very, very, outrageously wrong.

Oh well. The beer itself is actually pretty good, even if the people involved seem to have royally botched the business side of things. Hopefully the beer will remain as is, and the new owner will fix the rest of it.

Spent Grain flour

Usually I just compost my spent grains, but I'm always keeping my ears open for other ways of using them. Baking with spent grains is a pretty well-known option, but a lot of the recipes I've seen use the grains while they're still wet, which means you've got to get them into a baking project shortly after they're taken out of the mash (otherwise they'll start to stink pretty quick; spent grains still have residual sugar, and are a fertile environment for bacteria). Since I'm usually busy with the brew at that time, and not eager to get into another project just after finishing a brew session, I normally don't try the wet-grain baking option.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, is a baking enthusiast. She's been interested in finding ways of using the spent grains too, and recently she decided to try preparing the grains in a way that would lend them to longer-term storage. She decided to make them into flour.



First she dished a few pounds of the grains onto two cookie sheets, until the grains were about a quarter inch thick.

Then she put them in the oven at 170 degrees Fahrenheit, and left them in until they were bone dry and slightly toasted (which took a few hours).



Then she dished the dried grains into the food processor and ground them into dust.



She's planning on using the flour soon, blending it in 50/50 with whole wheat flour for dough. I'll let you know how that turns out.