The three week drought of posts should indicate that I have been up to other extremely important things, namely enjoying getting to know my new son Archer. But it felt like time to spend a few minutes with my other, much more neglected child.

So, what’s new with beer in Eugene? So much I’ll probably only scrap the tip in this post. First off, Falling Sky is open, their beer is flowing and they make a damn fine Pork-belly Cuban Sandwich. Eugene Beer Week is also shaping up nicely, despite me crashing the website for several hours Wednesday night. We shot big, asking $750 dollars for the top level of sponsorship and three businesses have stepped up so far. This put some much-needed funds in the coffers and right now work is being done to funnel some of that money into T-shirts and other EBW branded items. I’ll be sure to post some schwag-shots once they arrive. And once again, I’ll mention that if you are interested in sponsoring Eugene Beer Week, hosting events or just want to know what the hell this fine event is all about, head on over to the official website, eugenebeerweek.org.

On the homebrew front, I picked up a couple 3rd place ribbons from the KLCC homebrew competition for my Dry Stout and Berliner Weisse. I also got my first brew of ’12 in a few weeks back, a Norther German Alt, fermented on Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast. I tried to get my son involved, but being two months old at the time, holding the mash spoon was the extent of his contributions.

I also have a new MaltMill on it’s way from Jack Schmidling, my first piece of commercial-scale equipment…small comercial-scale equipment. I ordered the iconic Maltmill gear-driven and with case-hardend rollers. This is the same setup the boys at Bonfire used to start their 3-barrel brewhouse and should last me from homebrewer on through to struggling 1.5-2bbl system operator.

And speaking of commercial brewing, we have a pair of new brews from Ninkasi coming out in the first half of April. Commonwealth, a multi-grain session ale brewed with Amaranth, Millet and Teff is being released April 1st, on draft and in bombers. The beer celebrates Eugene’s 150th Anniversary and all profits benefit Food for Lane County and the City of Eugene’s Cultural Services. On April 15th, Helles Belles is returning, this time on draft and in 6-packs. The German-style Helles is brewed using a traditional step-mash and lagered for a full 6 weeks. Belles is the first beer in Ninkasi’s Prismatic Lager Series.

Finally, a beautiful care package arrived in the mail today from Widmer. Inside the reclaimed-wood box were two bottles of Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout ’12, a tulip glass and a little bottle note tag, so notes can be taken on one bottle now, then stored with the second bottle for tasting against Rx2IS ’13 next year. More to come on this one.

Cheers!
Kevin

Well, it appears that no matter how hard I try, there is no possible way I am going to be the proprietor of Eugene’s next brewery. Not that I’m waving the white flag on my nano-plans or anything like that. It’s just that Jason Carriere is going to beat me to it.

Jason, the owner of Valley Vintner and Brewer and recipient of a 2011 Glen Hay Falconer Foundation Brewing Scholarship, is in the process of building Falling Sky Brew House, an 8.5 bbl brewpub. The new brewery will coexist with the soon-to-be-renamed homebrew shop at Valley Vintner’s current location on 13th Ave. in downtown Eugene.

Falling Sky will be another welcome addition to the craft beer corridor that has began to grow down E. 13th. Across the street from Mr. Carriere’s new brewery (in the back of the former Oregon Fields Brewpub building) is Cornucopia’s Maize Lounge and the 16 Tons Taphouse is just a couple blocks away.

Cheers to Jason and Falling Sky Brew House!
Kevin

The nanobrewery idea is still on hold until after the baby is born, but I thought I’d share a picture of my latest project.

This barrel happens to be one of the freshly-dumped, French Oak, Pinot Noir variety. Now I have to decide whether I want to brew a half-dozen back-to-back batches to fill it, or upgrade the old brew pot.

Cheers!
Kevin

Note: This is the first post in my new Going Nano series, a platform to discuss the various stumbling blocks and hurdles I encounter while attempting to go pro.

Over Labor Day weekend, my salacity for session strength spirits led me to brew a beautifully-bantam British Bitter. No, it’s not going to be one of those posts, the alliteration itch just needed a bit of scratching.

And with that silly business out of the way, let’s talk a little about recipe formulation. Living in Eugene, I am pretty blessed when it comes to brewing options. Between the two well-stocked, local homebrew shops, I have 100+ grains from over a dozen maltsters at my disposal. And barring the occasional outages of Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe, every major hop is available too. As a home brewer, having such an enormous palette is fantastic, but as I work out the logistics of becoming a fledgling nano brewer, I am finding that I may need to narrow my tools.

Hmm, that paragraph sounded a lot better in my head, let me see if I can explain it a different way. I recently brewed a Bourbon Rye Helles Bock, The grain bill consisted of Great Western 2-Row, Gambrinus Honey Malt and Weyermann Pilsner, Munich and Rye malts. No problem. I walked into one of my local shops and everything was right there on the shelf. How did get there? Who cares! I just scooped the malts out of the little bins, paid the proprietor and went on my merry way.

Well, when (or if – Reality Editor) I go pro, I will have to start caring. Homebrew shops and breweries purchase their malt from suppliers. Different suppliers represent different maltsters, each having minimum order requirements and freight charges. Ideally, I would find a single supplier that sells all the different malts I use. Easy, right? Not so much. The Helles recipe uses malts from Great Western, Gambrinus and Weyermann. Great Western is distributed through Country Malt, Weyermann, through Brewers Supply and Gambrinus, through both. So, that’s two suppliers, two minimums and two freight charges to accomplish at the nano level what was a 5 minute trip as a home brewer.

The other issue is what to do with the leftover grain. As a home brewer, if I need half a pound of Honey Malt for my batch of Helles, I buy half a pound of Honey Malt. As a nano brewer, if I need 4 pounds of Honey Malt for a one-barrel batch of Helles, I buy a 55 pound sack and then figure out what to do with the additional 51 pounds. This same logic also applies to hops. I may have a great IPA recipe that uses 7 different hops, but when I move from buying hops by the ounce to purchasing them in 11 pound packages, I better be ready to either brew that great IPA every week, or come up with a lot of other recipes that can use up to surplus. That is, of course, assuming that the hops I want to use are even available at the spot price and not all spoken for by contracts. 

So, with all this in mind, I sat down late last week and roughed out a recipe for ~4% Bitter. The goals were to keep the number of specialty grains to a minimum and choose both malts and hops that would work in a wide variety of beers. 

Bantam Bitter

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

6.5 lb Great Western Northwest Pale Ale Malt (81.3%)
7 oz Crisp Crystal 50-60L (5.5%)
5.5 oz Crisp Brown Malt (4.3%)
1.5 oz Crisp Chocolate Malt (1.2%)
10 oz Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar (7.8%)

1.0 oz Goldings (4.5 AA%) @ 15
0.5 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ 15
1.0 oz Goldings (4.5 AA%) @ Flame Out, steeped for 1 hour
0.5 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ Flame Out, steeped for 1 hour

1 pt slurry of Wyeast 1469 – West Yorkshire (Timothy Taylor)

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.043
Estimated FG: 1.011
Estimated ABV: 4.1%
Estimated IBU: 24(?)
Estimated SRM: 12

Mash @ 154º(F) for 1 hour

Ferment @ 66º(F)

As you can see, I stuck to two maltsters for this recipe, Great Western and Crisp. I have been leaning toward using GW for all my base malts for a while now. I really like how consistent their malts are to work with. They are also the most local of the American producers, with malting plants in both Washington and Idaho. My favorite malt from GW is their Northwest Pale Ale malt, a sort of Maris Otter-light grain that works great in British-style ales and isn’t so strong it couldn’t be used in cleaner American beers. As for Crisp, they produce my favorite British chocolate malt. It has a rich, roasty cocoa flavor and an insanely-deep color, averaging 630L. Their brown malt if very nice too, coming in somewhere in the middle of the other maltsters. It has a full, toasted flavor and some light coffee notes, but avoids coming across as roasted.

For hops, I chose Chinook and Goldings. Golding is one of my go-to hops and, while distinctly American, I have found that I really enjoy the flavor of Chinook as a late hop in British-style ales. These are two hops I would use in a wide variety of beers and two that are readily available. With this beer, I attempted a late-hop only schedule, ala Pelican’s Kiwanda Cream Ale. This technique requires more hops to reach my desired IBUs, but results in a very smooth bitterness and a bursting hop flavor.

Sounds good so far? Well, here comes the rub. Great Western and Crisp are distributed through two different suppliers, bringing back into play the situation outlined above. Since I am pretty much set on the GW base malts, moving from Crisp to either Hugh Baird or Thomas Fawcett would be the frugal choice. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Hugh Baird specialty malts, though McMenamins and Rogue use them to much (depending on who you ask) success. I don’t have much experience with TF, except that I find their brown malt too burnt of my liking. What to do, oh, what to do.

I decided to listen to the inner-Republican and plow on, brewing the recipe exactly as written. Compromise be damned! This should give me a solid base line, from which to work. Once I get the beer on tap in a couple weeks and have an opportunity to dissect it, I will brew it again, subbing out the Crisp malts for HB or TF. This should allow me to see exactly the “cost” of frugality. And who know, I may even stumble into something I prefer.

Finally, if anyone in the Eugene area wants to give the test batch of Bantam a try in a couple weeks, let me know and I will see what I can do.

Cheers!
Kevin