OK, this isn't a book-related posting, but this is what I did last week:
As I blew into Las Vegas for my first National Homebrew Convention, a 103-degree sirocco slowly began to turn my mind away from bids and federal staffing procurement methods and toward mashing, ale and hops. I stayed at the Orleans, necessitating quite a few taxi rides between there and the Riviera, where the convention was. One side benefit: McMullan's Irish Pub, a pretty darn fine place right across the street from the Orleans. Try it out if you’re ever in town. My first night there, I had two pints of black gold and a serving of delicious steamed mussels while listening to a pretty good Irish band.
Registration was like an issue of Zymurgy come to life - all those photos at the top of the columns were there, and they were moving! I had the good fortune of meeting and talking with Paul Gatza, Jim Parker, Fred Eckhardt, Charlie Papazian, Ken Schramm, and John Palmer. One great thing about the NHC: the world of homebrewing is still tight-knit enough that it’s easy to have interesting conversations with the giants of the field. There were four complementary bottles of commemorative brews, and they were all delicious (If you were at Final Friday, you know this first hand).
Highlights from the festival:
To keep my mind occupied during those long taxi rides, I bought a copy of Garret Oliver's The Brewmaster's Table in the hospitality suite. So far it's caused me to reconsider my opinion of Orval - although Jim Wilson's excellent clone had already predisposed me toward such reconsideration at last month's meeting. I’m now thinking that perhaps the one commercial bottle I tried may have been too old.
There was an entire session on the new BJCP styles. For those who don’t know, they are:
There was a lot of discussion at this session about the new guidelines "ruining" the Porter and Stout categories. I have to admit that I'm not sure I entirely understood the issues under discussion -- I arrived in the middle of the session, missing the initial presentation of the styles. If anyone’s up on this and can explain it to me, I’d be very interested.
Hofbrauhaus: THIS was a fun place. The good folks in Munich have tried to recreate the Hofbrauhaus in Nevada, and while I’ve never been to Munich and thus can’t judge it’s authenticity, I can say that the beer is great, the food is fantastic, and the band is a lot of silly fun. Some members of the Arizona Homebrew Society invited me to go with them to lunch, and I had a blast listening to the music, pounding the stein on the table in time to the music, and watching the “strongman contest” – how long do you think you could hold a full three-liter beer stein at arm’s length straight out in front of you? Really? How about if you had a few beers first?
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Spruce beers were described and presented in two sessions hosted by Geoff Larson of Alaskan Brewing and Pete Devaris, Alaskan homebrewer and BJCP Judge. When exploring what types of beer they would create, Alaskan Brewing did a lot of research into local brewing history. What they found led them to create an ale brewed at lager temperatures (sort of a reverse steam beer), a smoked porter, and an Alaskan Winter Ale that contains spruce tips.
All of these beers have their antecedents in Alaskan history, and Larson contends that local history is a vital untapped resource for many areas of the country. The spruce-containing winter ale was inspired by Captain Cook's use of such a recipe to stave off scurvy in his crew. (Other ships used rotten fruit or slimy sauerkraut for the same purpose, so this invention was a dramatic improvement.) Cook's crew were still upset by the concoction -- this beer took the place of much stronger grog -- but Cook's crew was noted as being one of the healthiest on the ocean. Alaskan Winter Ale is fresh and bright tasting with a very different, fruity flavor provided by the spruce.
As it turns out, these brews have a long history in America, as the dire need for fermentable ingredients and difficulty of importing European barley in colonial times led to creative solutions. General Washington demanded Spruce Beer rations for his troops in 1775, and the Chief of the Royal Navy extolled Spruce Beer as a navy ration substitute for demon rum.
I had a chance to try not only the Alaskan Winter Ale, but also some homebrewed spruce beer and spruce mead. They were all unusual drinks I’d try again. I used to occasionally chew on new pine needles while walking around the woods in college, and the taste was reminiscent of that – tangy, almost lemony.
Devaris was quick to point out that spruce “essence” should NOT be used in beer, and the use of this ingredient may be what has turned people off of using spruce in the past. It smells like Pine Sol, and tastes resinous. Essence is derived from the entire tree, not just the blooming tips. The jelly and the tips are free of this resin stench, and the samples passed around were quite tasty, tart and citrus-like.
In areas where spruce is prevalent, the tips will become "brilliant" (florescent green) for 8-10 days in the spring. This is when they are ripe for plucking for use in beer. Harvested tips will come back with twice the number of tips next year. After several years of harvesting, giant baseball-shaped masses of spruce tips will be hanging off the tree.
The variety of spruce used matters. Black spruce is not a good variety to use; white spruce is sometimes good, sometimes not, and scotch spruce is usually quite good. The sitka spruce of the Pacific Northwest is best, and is what the Alaskan brewers (both home and commercial) use. Individual trees will still vary with terroir.
You can freeze tips for later use, but they become slightly more resinous after a year or two of storage. After some experimentation, Devaris has settled on 60 minutes as the ideal boil time for tips. Then strain and use that water as the brew water. It's very easy to bury spruce flavor with overhopping, so be careful with your flavor/aroma hop additions.
I asked Devaris if anyone he knew had ever attempted a spruce cider, and he seemed interested by the idea. But apparently no one's ever tried it … I think my winter brew has been selected.
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Ken Schramm presented the results of a scientific study of the free amino nitrogen (FAN) levels of mead musts. Beer wort and wine musts tend to provide plenty of FAN, a crucial yeast nutrient, but it’s been thought that mead musts are deficient. FAN deficiency can cause the yeast to autolyze and make higher alcohols, causing off-tastes and increasing the severity of hangovers. For beer and wine, FAN levels of 130-200 ppm are considered necessary for decent fermentation. Levels of 500-600 ppm are preferred, especially for wines.
To find out just how low mead musts are in FAN, Ken sent four must samples and one cherry fruit juice sample to Dr. Ben Gavitt at Cornell for exploratory testing. Results:
Sample 1: Tupelo honey, OG 1.110 -- 10 ppm FAN
Sample 2: Orange blossom honey, OG 1.110 -- 5 ppm FAN
Sample 3: "Pure clover" honey, OG 1.110 -- 14 ppm FAN
Sample 4: Buckwheat honey, OG 1.106 -- 21 ppm FAN
Sample 5: Cherry juice, OG 1.047 -- 262 ppm FAN
(As a side note, Sample 1 was also checked for bacteria/yeast. Some osmophilic —- native honey —- yeasts were found, and NO BACTERIA. Since this must was created using the "no-heat" method, this was presented as evidence that the no-heat method described in Schramm’s The Compleat Meadmaker is effective.)
FAN is most prevalent in these musts in the amino acid proline, which is also the most common FAN source in wine musts. These results, however, show that FAN levels in mead musts are woefully inadequate for yeast nutrition, even with the addition of moderate amounts of fruit juice. Remember that the FAN levels in the fruit juice listed above would be diluted by half or more in most melomels. Yeast nutrients are thus a necessary adjunct to effective meadmaking. We pondered these results over samples of Ken’s latest raspberry melomel.
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Funny sign seen on a trio of kegs in the hospitality suite: “Please drink this mead, or I’ll have to drive these all the way back to Arizona in the hot sun. Kill me now!” I was only too happy to help the poor guy out.
I met some great folks (special thanks to the good people from the Arizona Homebrew Society!), learned about some styles I’d never heard of (roggenbier, double IPAs), and had some fantastic beer. What more could one ask? The next NHC will be in Baltimore, and I’m seriously thinking of hitting my buddy up for some sofa space next June.