The email from Capital Ale House let me know that Blue Mountain Brewery’s MacHayden’s Wee Heavy was a “featured beer” in Fredericksburg this week. That’s a Virginia beer that I’ve not yet tried. Since every Wednesday is “Virginia Beer Day” at all Capital Ale House locations, when drafts of Virginia beers are discounted, I decided to stop by for a pint after work yesterday. Many Virginia breweries are represented in the CAH lineup, including Blue Mountain, Starr Hill, St. George, Blue & Gray, and Olde Richmond.

Blue Mountain MacHayden’s Wee Heavy pours cola-brown with a beige head. (Cell phone photo at right.) There’s not a strong aroma, but I detected light smoke and caramel notes. The taste is very pleasing with bready, dark malts. There’s a bit of bitter hops to go along. I found it to be a well-balanced and enjoyable drink.

I could have easily enjoyed a second MacHayden’s, but I decided to order another Virginia beer that I’ve missed trying out, Olde Richmond Batch No. 11 India Pale Ale. I admit I don’t know much about this Hampton Roads brewery. Batch No. 11 IPA pours a golden yellow with a very thin head. The aroma is light citrus. The flavor was bitter citrus rind with a sweet malt in the background. It was an enjoyable, though not extraordinary IPA.

I enjoyed my brief visit to “Virginia Beer Day” and I got to try out two, new-to-me beers. Since this is a weekly event, I look forward to returning again to support our local breweries.

For hard-core beer geeks out there, I’m about to give you a gift. My gift is knowledge … privileged knowledge.

One of those beers is coming.

What’s one of those beers, you ask? One of those beers is a beer that is incredibly hard-to-find and tends to sell out the minute it hits the retailer’s shelves. That is, if it makes it to the shelves at all. Many stores don’t even put this beer out on the shelves because they opt to take pre-orders and it’s all spoken for before it arrives.

Okay, enough teasing. If you’re not a crazed craft beer fan, this really isn’t that big a deal. If you are a crazed beer fan, but don’t get bent out of shape by events like Dark Lord Day and the like, this news probably won’t keep you up nights either. But, if you’re a fan of hard-to-find, limited batch beers from great American breweries, then this is your lucky day … or week as it were.

Founders KBS is coming to Kindling Spirits … very soon. Never heard of KBS? Perhaps you know it by it’s former moniker – Kentucky Breakfast Stout. You might be saying, at this point, that you’ve already had the Founders Breakfast Stout and this isn’t really news at all … well, hold your horses there, beer nerd.

This ain’t your father’s Breakfast Stout.

While Founders Breakfast Stout is a world-class beer itself, KBS takes that beer and hits you with even more coffee, chocolate and a year in a cave-aged oak barrel before it’s bottled and sold. You can read a little more about the beer on the Founders Website here.

I don’t know for certain if Kindling will be taking pre-orders, but I doubt it. You’ll have to get this one – one of the highest rated beers in the world on major beer review websites – while it lasts.

Oh, and while you’re there you can get your hop fix by grabbing some of the remaining Bell’s Hopslam too.

Beer Mecca.  

A brief update on the ongoing liquor sales ban in Carbondale …

The Carbondale liquor advisory board met last evening and several representatives from city grocery stores were in attendance in hopes that the much-discussed issue of raising or removing the current ban on packaged liquor sales at grocery stores and gas stations in Carbondale would be addressed. According to a story in today’s Southern, the topic was not included in the agenda for the meeting. The minutes were unavailable on the city’s website as of 8:30 am Wednesday.

Until recently, local grocery stores had been collecting signatures on a petition to show support for the repeal of the current ban. It’s not clear what, if anything, will become of the signed petitions. 

Carbondale mayor Brad Cole sets the agenda for the advisory board meetings.

These were the questions I set out to answer for myself a few months ago on a wintery December day. I split one 5 gallon batch of 100% pils wort between the main sugary contenders, including one gallon with no sugar at all. Two weeks later each batch was primed with the same experimental sugar (the no sugar got light DME) and bottled.  Last night I finally had the chance to sit down to do a full, blind tasting, to see what results I could tease out of my experiment.

As expected the five batches were very similar, so I’ll forgo a full review of each to focus on the flavor and aromatic differences. All of the batches had an identical golden-yellow/orange body with a nice white head with moderate-poor retention (I poured from left to right in the picture, so the first two are a bit less heady).  They were all crystal clear as well, so the sugar had no influence on the appearance.  The aromas shared a similar bready/pils malt character and the flavors had just a hint of hop bitterness.  All finished plenty dry within .001 of 1.006 (certainly within the margin of error for my hydrometer reading skills), and none of them came across as more boozy or alcoholic than the rest.

Table Sugar: The most apple character, a bit more sulfur/yeasty, and the spice is more toward pepper.  The sulfur has mellowed from when this batch was young when it was clearly different from the rest.

No Sugar: Brighter, the spice comes across as clove, the flavor also had a bit of less-fermented “worty” character. The hops also came across a bit more than the rest, maybe a testament to the lower alcohol or milder fermentation.

Clear Candi Rocks: This one is the only one that was a bit over-carbonated.  It comes across with a softer/rounder character though, and it also has a nice pepper zip. 

Clear Candi Syrup: The cleanest/mildest of the bunch, no real defining characteristic (although it certainly still had a distinct Belgian yeast character).

Corn Sugar: Another clean/mild one like the syrup, except for a bit of extra clove (second only to the plain).

I would like to emphasize that the flavors/aromas of these batches were all very close (say 95%) and I had to let them come up close to room temperature to get some of these differences. I think most of these differences could not be detected unless you were trying them side-by-side.

The most surprising result was that I picked out the table sugar (for whatever reason) as the most appley, a shock as I have long been a doubter of the so-called “cider” character some people claim cane sugar gives. It also was the only one that showed some signs of sulfur when it was first in the bottle a few months back.

I found it interesting that both the beers with sucrose (table and candi rocks) came across with a spice character of pepper while the no-sugar and corn sugar leaned more towards the clove.  Not sure what this indicates, but it may be that 3787 (Westmalle strain) has different byproducts when it ferments sucrose.

I also found it interesting that I didn’t notice much body/alcohol difference between the no sugar batch and the other four with sugar, although I did pick it out as being wortier.  This is a testament to the fact that all of these sugars are easily fermented by Saccharomyces and left nearly identical final gravities, with just alcohol as a byproduct.

In the end my take away from this was that the difference between these different clear/white sugars when brewing a beer this clean is probably similar to the difference between using two pilsner malts from different maltsters.  That is to say something that you might play with when really trying to dial in a beer, but not something you need to to worry about the first time brewing a recipe.  While these beers did have slight differences, they were so slight that I really didn’t have a preference for any above the rest.

I’ll be running the five samples by more people in the future to get a broader sampling of what people can taste as the difference between these sugars.

3rd Annual Northern Virginia Summer BrewFest
Saturday, June 26, 2010 – 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Sunday, June 27, 2010 – 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia
Advance tickets are now on sale here.
See http://novabrewfest.com/summer/ for more information.

You can see my report from last year’s NoVA Summer BrewFest here.

4th Annual Northern Virginia BrewFest
Saturday, October 23, 2010 – 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Sunday, October 24, 2010 – 11:00 AM – 7:00PM
Special Events Center, Bull Run Regional Park, Centreville, Virginia

Tickets go on sale online August 15, 2010
See http://novabrewfest.com/fall/ for more information.

Read my report from last year’s NoVA Brewfest here.

Both of these are not-be-missed events for craft beer fans in Virginia and surrounding areas. Mark your calendar today!

Our friends over at Nelson County Life bring us this story as a hint of the upcoming Spring. The folks at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton were planting hops on Monday.

Temps made it to the middle 60’s Monday afternoon in the Rockfish Valley of Nelson County, and people that have been waiting on the warmer weather made use of it! Our Paul Purpura caught up with Stan Driver, owner of Riverside Horticulture & Nursery in Nellysford, getting the ground ready and putting in hops at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton.

The hops will be used in the beers produced at Blue Mountain. For more on the hop farm at Blue Mountain see the brewery’s web site.

More photos at Nelson County Life.
Photo By Paul Purpura : ©2010 www.nelsoncountylife.com

The 8th annual St. Patrick’s day parade at the Blue & Gray Brewery will be held on Saturday, March 13. There is a full day of events planned. The parade starts at noon on Saturday, March 13, through the Bowman Center. Irish entertainment will take place at the brewery from 11:00AM – 3:00PM.  The Rappahannock Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society will be giving rides on historic rail cars on nearby tracks starting at 11:00.

Beer by the glass and food will be available for purchase. Homemade soda and hot dogs for kids too!

Like all Blue & Gray events, the St. Patrick’s Day celebration is family-friendly. This is a always a fun day and I look forward to seeing you there and enjoying some fresh, local beer.

Pictures from previous years are here and here.

Here’s an early look at the first in a new series of beers from O’Fallon Brewery they’re calling the ‘Brewer’s Stash Series.’ O’Fallon Wee Heavy weighs in at a massive 10.4% ABV and promises to be both substantial and delicious from what I’ve heard. I understand a portion of the grain bill employs cherrywood-smoked malt to add a new twist on a classic scotch ale technique. Who needs peat after all.

I recon that O’Fallon did not use their house kolsch yeast strain to create this monster beer, so it will be very interesting to see something completely new and different coming out of the little brewery that could. Free these guys up to brew big beers and they go crazy! I love a good wee heavy, so bring it on.

I’ve got to say, too, that the label is terrific. I’ve been an advocate of O’Fallon’s beers for years, but I’ve also always been very critical of their “cartoon-like” labels. I just feel like they don’t do the brewery any favors with winning over critics. This one is just the right balance of whimsy and professionalism, I think. Well played. 

On another quick O’Fallon note – those of you who are fans of the made-for-summer Wheach – a peach flavor-infused American wheat beer – you’ll be able to find it in cans this year just in time for your summer time events! Here’s hoping that the label (see afore-mentioned criticism) gets an upgrade as well, but I’m not holding my breath. Regardless, break out the can koozie and enjoy this summertime favorite! 

In general I’ve had mediocre to poor luck with “concept” beers, my Oatmeal Cookie Beer being the prime example.  My father is a big oatmeal raisin cookie fan, so back in 2006 I decided to try brewing a beer for him with similar flavors as a Christmas present.  I started with a relatively standard brown ale base and added home toasted oats, brown sugar, raisins, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and toasted walnuts (sounds good right?).  The flavor wasn’t terrible (although it wasn’t great either), but what really killed the drinking experience was the complete lack of head retention and the oily mouthfeel both due (I suspect) to the fat in the walnuts.  I knew something was wrong when the beer fermented without a krausen, who knew that 1 cup of ground walnuts in the mash would provide enough oil to have such an impact?  Lesson: Be careful when adding fatty ingredients to a beer.

One of the beers that got me into “good” beer early on was Ommegang Hennepin, the subtle ginger flavor really struck me (especially since I was into Jamaican ginger beer/ale at the time).  My friend Jason and I wanted to do something a bit more “interesting” though, and when you are first brewing that means strong.  We took a clone recipe from BYO and increased the malt/sugar/hops by 50% to make it closer in strength to a Belgian Strong Golden.  The recipe suggested 1 oz of dried ginger (we upped it to 1.25 oz), which turned out to be far too much, especially because I used ultra-potent ground ginger that I picked up at Penzeys shortly before brewday.  Farmhouse Ales suggests only .5 -1.2 g of ginger in 5 gallons of saison (I had good luck with the saison I brewed for my Cable Car clone falling those guidelines).  After choking down most of the batch I am still sensitive to the flavor of dried ginger in beer to this day.  Lesson: Don’t trust any recipe, even if it is from a “reliable” source. 

The first all-grain batch I brewed was a English Pale Ale named Dodgy Hampshire with my second brewing partner (and my buddy since 3rd grade), Jason.  It was so good that soon he and I brewed a second version, this time adjusting our local water to match Burton-on-Trent (specifically by adding gypsum and Epsom salt to get close to 800 ppm sulfate).  Needless to say the beer came out tasting like harsh mineral/chalky flavor that made it almost undrinkable.  I still have a couple bottles and I think the minerals dropped because it is a much more balanced, drinkable beer today than it was back 4 years ago.  I had a nearly identical experience with a Westvleteren 8 clone I brewed using the water listed listed for the brewery in Brew Like a Monk (even though I reduced the bicarbonate to make it easier to work with).  Lesson:  Don’t emulate a classic water profiles.

Luckily these failed batches have been few and far between, and each one has taught me a lesson about recipe design, ingredient selection, or water adjustment.  If you have a brewing FAIL you’d like to share please leave a comment letting everyone know what went wrong (and hopefully what you learned).