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Brewcrafting: Prepping for BrewUnited

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BrewUnited Challenge logoAs I hope you are well aware, the 2015 BrewUnited Challenge is officially underway and I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the recipes I am going to brew. I have entered each of the three categories (Malty, Balanced, and Hoppy) in an effort to win the coveted BrewUnited Homebrew Hero award, which goes to the brewer(s) with the highest sum of entry scores. Word is that the Homebrew Hero will receive a cape as a reward, so the stakes are high! I thought this might also be a good time to discuss the different elements of the competition and examine how I go about building and brewing a recipe for a maybe continuing series I am calling “Brewcrafting.”

I know, I know, I can already hear you asking, “if you give away all your secrets will you not lose your advantage for the competition!?” Now, in both my personal an professional life I am of two core beliefs:

  1. Good ideas should be shared–a rising tide lifts all boats and all that.
  2. Good ideas are a dime a dozen–it is the execution of the idea that is important.

After all, if we remember Brulosopher’s Brewer’s Thumbprint xBmt we learned “that even when using the exact same ingredients, mash temp, and fermentation schedules, every brewer is going to produce a unique beer.” So really, if you glean enough from this to beat me in the competition you were probably going to beat me anyway. 🙂

Read on and let’s take a look!

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Extra Bestest Boy – ESB

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Secret Puppies

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I have been doing a bad job writing up recipes recently, I let a few get by me while I worked on my big sour mash and lacto starter posts. In an effort to not lose momentum by agonizing about things left behind lets just leave those write-ups for the re-brews.

Speaking of re-brews, I have mentioned before I am a big fan English style pale ales; it is one of the few styles I revisit frequently as I attempt to perfect my technique. While not the hop bombs that American ales tend to be, English ales are packed with malt and yeast character that make them supremely drinkable, even better that they tend to be very sessionable. In my mind a good English style ale is dependable, full of character, and always by your side–just like a certain four-legged companion!

In honor of my (not so) Miniature Long-Haired Dachshund–Professor Snugglesworth–I have named my English pale ales after him: Good Boy Bitter, Bestest Boy Special Bitter, and Extra Bestest Boy ESB. When they are on tap I certainly want to fetch them again and again!

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Fiesta Cumpleaños – Vienna Lager

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Fiesta Cumpleaños wide

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Anton Dreher

Anton Dreher

I have a curious attraction to Vienna Lagers, a style that all but disappeared off the face of the earth, save for a handful of breweries in Mexico. If you do not know the story, it goes a little something like this: in the early/mid 1800’s a fellow from Vienna by the name of Anton Dreher formalized the process we know today as lager brewing with a beer he called Märtzen. At the time the “pale” malts were significantly darker than they are today and produced a beer that was a coppery reddish-brown with a significant amount of toasty melanoidin character. Flash-forward to the late 1800’s and an Austrian immigrant to Mexico by the name of Santiago Graf (whom little is known, unfortunately) opened a brewery using the traditions he brought from home, with the addition of a small percentage of roasted malt to compensate for the alkaline water of the region. Thus, as Vienna-style lagers began to disappear in their homeland (favoring pale Pilsner style lagers), the style lived on in a handful of breweries in Mexico.

My own interest in Vienna Lagers is due to San Diego’s proximity to Mexico: we are too far from Europe to easily get any interesting European imports, so in the bad old days before craft beer took over there was only bland macro lagers or a handful of Mexican imports to choose from. If you were lucky, a restaurant or supermarket would have Negra Modelo available; a fine beer and just about the perfect pairing for Mexican food. To this day, if I go somewhere that has Negra Modelo on draught I will likely choose it 80% of the time. Now that San Diego is a craft beer mecca it has gotten harder and harder to find any Vienna-style lagers (or lagers in general), so I have decided to take matters into my own hands.

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Schwarz – Schwarzbier

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Schwarz schwarzbier wide shot
There is a attitude in craft brewing (sometimes from brewers and certainly from consumers) that I cannot quite understand: lagers are garbage and should be avoided like the plague. I get it, we have all been abused by crummy American Macro Lagers for the better part of a century, but do not throw that baby out with the bath water! Haters gonna hate, but I find I will choose a high-quality, well-crafted lager over any number of ales 80% of the time. I consider the opportunity I had to sample unfiltered Pilsner Urquell straight from the barrel to be one of the highlights of my beer-life.

Malty, hoppy, light, dark, or smokey, it did not matter: the lagers I had in Europe were excellent in way you write home about. I often find myself longing for the crisp, refreshing lagers I consume by the gallon while I am over there. San Diego being the craft-dominant town that it is I find that if I want to drink a classic-style lager I have to make it myself. Enter the schwarzbier: crisp, clean, and dark as night; a Pilsner with an identity crisis. If you think about it, the schwarzbier is the the original hoppy black beer.

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Mit Schuss – Berliner Weisse

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Mit Schuss wide shot

Depending on who you believe, the Berliner Weisse was originally a specialty of the town of Hamburg, Germany that was copied and developed by the 16th century brewer Cord Broihan, or alternately brought to Germany by migrating Huguenots who developed the beer from the local red and brown ales as they moved through Flanders into Northern Germany. Whichever story you choose one thing is for darn sure: it really hits to the spot on a hot summer day (and boy there seem to be plenty lately).

Mit Schuss mashThe goal of this beer was to be a by-the-numbers sour mashed Berliner Weisse as a model for the presentation I was giving to my club and is one of the simplest grain bills in my recipe database. Don’t feel like a Berliner needs to be anything fancy (a bit of melanoidin malt is fine if you want to replicate a bit of the character from a decoction mash), what you’re looking for is a simple wheat base for lactic tartness and maximum refreshment. The recipe as-is is actually a really nice base for making a fruit beer (if you’re not the syrup type), I’ve had good success adding two pounds of kumquats in secondary to make a Kumquat Berliner that was really well received. Otherwise, feel free to sub out WLP011 European Ale with any clean, dry ale yeast. Some folks also like a bit of Brett character in their Berliners, so you can also pitch some Brett in addition to or in replacement of the Sacc.

Sour mash in processNote: this recipe requires a sour mash, but please don’t be intimidated! Sour mashing is fun and easy to be successful at if you follow a few techniques. Really all we’re doing is creating an optimal environment for Lactobacillus and sub-optimal environment for things like Clostridium, Acetobacter, and mold. If you’re not familiar, please refer to my presentation on sour mashing, it should have everything you need to get started!
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