Dr. Charles Bamforth

Hey everyone. One of my all time favorites in the craft beer world is Dr. Bamforth of the Brewing Science program at UC Davis. He is a wealth of knowledge, and an interesting guy as well. I have heard him interviewed a few times, and he is alway informative and enjoyable.

A fellow homebrew made me aware of a free webinar that you can take part in on Thursday March 15 from 2:00-3:00pm ET. The site says he will cover: I just registered today.

What You Will Learn

• Why malt makes such a difference for beer and how brewers secure the best malt
• Why “adjunct” is usually not a dirty word.
• How to achieve product diversity with hop materials
• When and why yeast makes a difference
• How water is acquired, conserved and replenished
• And much more…

I just registered today. If it seems like something you are in to, check it out with the link below!

More Advanced Beer and Brewing –Tips, Tricks, and Tidbits You Wish You Knew - Dr. Charles Bamforth

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Heretic Review & Yeast Review: White Labs - San Diego Super Yeast WLP090

So here is a compilation of some of the comments I have strewn about the interwebs the past few days in regard to WLP090, and a brand spanking new review of a couple of Heretic beers. Some of it you may have seen in other crannies of the internet that I frequent, but there are some new angles, and other stories as well.

I had the pleasure of being invited over to a fellow BN'ers (Brewing Network listeners) home to try some Heretic beer, both Evil Twin and Evil Cousin, some of my pilot batches, and some other homebrewed beers. The previous week, I met up with another BN listener that lives pretty close by, so our host, in his generosity extended the invitation to him as well.

First let me make note of the Heretic beers. One of my brewing mentors has been Jamil Zainasheff. Recently he opened a new brewery call Heretic Brewing in Pittsburg, CA. The beers we drank from Jamil were nice fresh examples as they were brought home by our host's daughter, as Heretic is not currently distributing to Michigan. (You can buy it online though). The Evil Twin was really a great beer. The hops were expressive, really jumping out of the glass. The hop character was resiny, and green, very fresh dry hoppy goodness. I got a lot of pink grapefruit out of it. The color was is killer red, and the malt (dark caramel and toast) bill was substantial enough to make it a balanced hoppy beer, with a smooth base bitterness. Really well done. The Evil Cousin was good as well. The hop profile was a bit less aggressive than the Twin, and it was more catty, but in a good way. Jamil and his brewer Chris really know what they are doing.

After those beers we moved on to tasting my Torchlight Munich Blonde and Bulldog Irish Red that were both brewed with the San Diego Super Yeast. I have been working with 090 for a few batches now and I am very pleased. Let it be said that it is a very clean clean yeast in the same vein as 001. The advantage to it is speed and floc time. On the homebrew side, if you have the time, feel free to stick with 001. If you need to shave a few days off your process, give 090 a shot.

It starts pretty fast, under 12 hour if I let the starter go for 24 or so hours. It attenuates well. I mashed my helles type beer (no crystal malt) @156 and got 77% attenuation with 090, with the majority of fermentation happening at 60. It does generate more heat than a 001 fermentation, so keep an eye on your temps. I got 70% attenuation when I mashed at 159 for my Irish Red (15% of grist crystal malt). I have a cal common on now @ 63 and I will report back on that beer when it finishes. That was mashed at 155. Thus far, the beer hit high krausen by 12 hours and by 48 hours was beginning to clear. Stay tuned.

I find that it flocs out 33-50% faster than 001. One day on gelatin in a 30 degree finished beer, and it gets bright.

As we were trying my beers at the Heretic tasting, some people tasted a slight berry type ester, raspberry in particular. It had warmed quite a bit by the time we drank it, but it was there nonetheless. I am curious if others have noted this as well. I also got comments that night, and with other tastings, that the 090 does allow the malt to shine through. It really emphasizes the pilsner malt base in Torchlight.

Anyhow, there is the low down on my recent beer adventures. I will be trying the Heretic beers again when I travel to San Diego in May for the Craft Brewers Conference, so I may come back with a follow up to this review.

Drink good beer with good people!

Follow me on Twitter: @adammmills

Lineup Shift

I have been working with different yeast strains over the past several months. I originally fell in love with White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast. What drew me to this yeast was the rocket speed with which it ferments and flocks out. With it I can get away with many American styles and British styles as well. I spent some time with the old stand by of WLP001 American Ale yeast and it's dry counterpart, US-05 from Fermentis. After being spoiled by the fast finishing 007, the 001 seemed like a snails pace for me. The problem was, I want a clean fermenting yeast like 001, but with the speed and flocculation ability (how fast the beer drops clear) of 007.

Originally I planned on carrying two lagers in Cranker's, a Helles and a Marzen. For production reasons I later decided to handle these beers as ales. I felt as if I was being dishonest as calling my helles a helles if it was done with ale yeast. Therefore our light beer is called Torchlight Munich Blonde. The beer is brewed will german pilsner malt and german hops, and the flavor is so close that, in competition I will still enter this beer as a helles.

After using WLP090 San Diego Super yeast, I believe I may have found my happy medium yeast-wise. It ferments very clean and at low temperatures (60*F). It is a vigorous fermenter, about twice as fast as 001 in comparison. Now back to the marzen.

I have decided to drop the marzen from the lineup in favor of a California Common. The benefits for our beer menu is another hop featured beer that gives diversity in hop profiles between our citrusy IPA and our woody and minty Cal Common. It will take the name from the marzen and be The Local - Cal Common.

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Happy New Year!!!

Here is to a great 2012!

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Toasting the New Year

I have spent some time thinking about what beer styles are most appropriate for most our NYE celebrations, and I have come to some conclusions. Let me first state that this is all my opinion, but please be aware that I agree with all of my opinions that are about to be voiced.

It seems that a lot of NYE partiers fancy spirits or champangne on this occasion. Fine play, but we are talking beer here. I prefer to go with the theme of champagne as it seems more New Year's Eve-ie to me.

 Some champagne?

I am sticking with the recommendation of pale and fizzy, no worries I will not utter the forbidden BMC words. Rather I would like to suggest the country of Belgium. Think Belgian Golden Strong: light in body, effervescent, slight pale fruit notes like pear. They also usually feature slight peppery or spicy notes. Very crisp and dry. In this style I love Duvel. Other options that can be available across the USA are Russian River's Damnation, Delirium Tremens, and North Coast's Pranqster. All are really great beers. Be sure that you decant these beers into some appropriate glassware, because you don't drink champagne out of the bottle (we hope). Another note on decanting: some of these beers may have dregs in the bottom of the bottle. Store them upright, and pour the bottle all at once into your guests glasses so as not to rouse the lees. One last note, when Golden Strong's are done right they mask their substantial alcohol well, they can be 'sneaky' in that regard for their drinker.

Another option is a saison. Saison is a wonderful style sometimes referred to as a farmhouse ale. Saison is not a style that sports a ton of availability. Some classics are Saison Dupont, Saison Silly, and some American versions: New Belgium Saison, and Ommegang Hennepin. These are crisp, occasionally strong fruity and spicy ales, that are again, pale and highly carbonated. The fruitiness of these beers can be described as lemony or orange-like. The spice character in these beers can be derived just from the yeast, or from the actual addition of spices like coriander, grains of paradise, star of anise, etc. Personally I was really impressed with New Belgium's Saison.

I would also like to suggest a few unique beers that are in the wild or sour category, but do not write off these beers by their classification. If you have a good bottle shop around you, also contemplate getting a Flanders Red (Rohdenbach Klassiek, Monk's Cafe Flanders Red, or Duchesse de Bourgogne), a Flanders Brown (Leifman's Goudenband - perhaps my desert island beer), or a Fruit Lambic (Boon Framboise, Leifman's Kriek, Cantillon Lou Pepe).

Pair your beer choices with a wide assortment of cheeses and mix and match your beers with them. Make 2012 they year you ring in the New Year with great beer.

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Year in Review: 2011

This has been a pretty big year for me both professionally and personally. As 2011 winds down I would like to touch on some of the highlights.

Isaac Andrew is highlight number one. This is the first baby that I have been able to spend a lot of time with. As a teacher I always had summers off. Our first three kids were born in either January or February, making them four to five months old by the time the summer came around. We never did the daycare thing, but being able to be home with Isaac right from the start has been a special experience. Babies are amazing. They develop the same way, from the squirming to the squawking. It is fun to see our children's personalities form even as little ones. With Isaac, I feel that he was the first baby that I was really prepared to be a father to. With our other three children, I did a lot of grasping at straws. I don't know. Maybe I am still doing that, it just feels like parental acumen now due to repetition.

2011 was also the year that I began my sabbatical from teaching. Over the past several months I have immersed myself in helping to launch Cranker's Brewery. As part of that, I spent two days a week for three months at Arbor Brewing Company. I learned so much and made great friends. Bill, Mike, Dave, and Brian were all very good to me and made working there not just a great professional experience, but a tremendous personal one as well. Special thanks goes out to Bill, as he is the person that I will always think of as my guide into professional brewing.

The end of 2011 also brought about some great plans for 2012. Bill and I will be brewing our collaboration beer: End of the World IPA, hopefully in December of that year. We are gunning for a big, dry, red IPA that explodes with hoppy goodness. Kevin, Lou, and I will be knocking out #TGBBR in January. We are really excited about it and there will be lots of blogging that comes forth from it. It remains a secret for now, but I will not be lacking in content later. Of course there is Cranker's Brewery to look forward to in 2012. We are shooting for a March opening and things are really coming together. The second half of the brewhouse will be delivered in mid January and Jim and Co. just picked up the bottling line.

In closing, I would like to thank all of those who have supported us over the past year, and those that have been following my blog and twitter feed (@adammmills). In the coming year, if you get a chance to stop in to the brewery or get my beer in bottles, please contact me and let me know what you think! Until then...

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Online Store: The Goods Are In!

I put up the online stores today. They are available both from the Cranker's Brewery website, and from the Cranker's Facebook page. We ended up using the Intuit website designer, which proved to be pretty user friendly. One of the features that I did not expect was the store being available on Facebook. I thought that was pretty cool. We put up: hoodies, men's and ladies t-shirts, Mug Club memberships, and gift certificates.  It is so exciting seeing everything come together.

I have been doing some tweaking and refining to the beers in our lineup. I have just started working with WLP090 as a potential yeast strain. I am brewing test batches of Torchlight and Bulldog Red with it. I am trying to test it's boundaries, by fermenting Torchlight at 60*F, and Bulldog Red at 68*F. I will be interested to note both it's attenuation and ester production. I will report back with my findings.

The brewery build is going quite well. All of the walls are now up, with the hope of getting the roof up very soon. It is so awesome driving by it and watching it come together. I am a bit of a stalker in that regard; I drive by it four to six times a day :) Other than that, I have been busy with the four kids and getting ready for Christmas. I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas season!

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills