December 13, 2015

Into December

December 13, 2015/ Evan

Hopefully dear readers, you too had a good Thanksgiving and survived Repeal Day. For the unaware, Repeal Day marks the anniversary of December 5, 1933, when prohibition was repealed by the 21st amendment. DC has a bunch of events to celebrate it and we attended the Repeal Ball. Fantastic black tie event hosted by the DC Craft Bartender's Guild. Highly recommended event, just drink responsibly and eat a lot.

This year for Thanksgiving we headed down to Austin Texas to visit my brother. My family usually fries a turkey every year but until this year Lisa had never had a fried turkey. Though it involved making a tent out of bamboo and a shower curtain to protect it from the rain, Thanksgiving was a success and I think everyone had a good time. Of course we also made it to a few breweries.

Jester King Brewing

They were at the top of my list to visit with all the buzz I've heard about them. They are located on a working ranch slightly outside of the city. We were so lucky to have the cold rainy weather follow us to Texas, and I managed to forget my coat on this day. Jester King doesn't have a lot of enclosed space.

Far be it from me to let a little inclement weather stop a perfectly good adventure outing.

We all grabbed a few drinks before the tour. The first surprising thing about Jester King was that their beers are not the vinegar acidic sour kind of beer. There is a bit of range in the level of acidity but honestly I'd describe their beers as more rustic. You get a good taste of the farm the beers are made on.

The tour is fairly short, but the barrel room is very nice. It was also much warmer than outside. Unfortunately most of my pictures from Jester King are all blurry from me shivering. They are building a permanent coolship in the barrel room soon and I certainly look forward to what they pump out next.

Jester King is a bit of a hike out of town but definitely worth the trip.

Adelbert's Brewery

The next day Lisa and I ran up to Adelbert's Brewery. They have a great system for samplers and it basically lets you try everything they have on tap. In addition they were also showing the Penn State game on tv, which was a terrible game but gave the brewery some extra points in my book.

The belgians weren't bad but seemed to be lacking a little something. The IPAs were pretty solid. But their barrel aged beers really shined. We even managed to hop on a tour before going to dinner.

The employees working here are all characters. They have a system hooked up to play music when you enter the brewery. It is a pretty standard brewery tour but our guide Mackey was great.

Overall a very laid back brewery, great place to hang out and just pass the time.

North By Northwest

For dinner we met up with my brother at North by Northwest.

They have two locations and brew different beers at each but you can get just about all of their offerings at either location. Most of these beers are pretty middle of the road but they are easy drinking and will cover just about every kind of beer drinker.

Zilker Brewing Company

While wandering down 6th street we happened upon Zilker Brewing company. It was nice to see them in the middle of brewing while we were there. We got a sampler of a few beers and their coffee stouts really stood out. Their "Hold the milk stout" was made with coffee from a local roaster and was probably my favorite beer I had there.

Hops and Grain Brewing

Further down 6th street is fairly large building and hidden inside is Hops and Grain taproom.

I had a few of their beers around town so it was nice to go to the source. They are doing a lot of dryhopping which is nice to have fresh off the tap. Hops and Grain was also one of the few places actually selling hoodies on a cold week.

Lisa wanted me to make sure to share the label from their Volumes of Oak. It is a very well done and thick label. Unfortunately this beer came out a week after we left. You might be able to find it now.

Austin is a fun beer city with a lot of good beer bars and local breweries. We highly recommend Easy Tiger on 6th if you are looking for a neat bakery/bar.

March 16, 2015

Brewery Tour: Mad Fox Brewing Company

March 16, 2015/ Evan

Located almost in our back yard is a nice little brewery, Mad Fox. It has been about two years since we first visited, but only last week did we manage to make it to a brewery tour. Every first Saturday of the month they hold a few brewery tours open to the public. No reservation required but there are only about 15 spots. There is not a lot of room in the brewery itself.

If these photos don't illustrate it well enough, we were packed wall to wall. Its a little cramped but very clean. They use a 15-barrel system and "brew to gravity" for their beers. They have 6 30-barrel fermenters and each beer is brewed one half at a time; giving them a chance to fix anything that may go wrong in the first half.

On our tour we got to hear about the sour beer we reviewed previously. As the story goes, one of their barrels went sour and they blended it with the rest of the batch to make the sour Diabolik.

It was nice to finally see the brewery up close. As you walk into the building, behind the welcome desk, you are greeted by the bright tanks. In the dining room you are able to see the brewery through the windows. Along another wall of the dining room there are a few racks of barrels.

The bar is a little different than most bars in the area as they have up to 6 cask ales. The cask ales are usually a little different than their normal line-up of beers, for example dry-hopped IPAs or traditional English ales. They typically have about 10 house beers on draft, advertised by the blackboards on the walls. Most drafts are available in growlers and we've been known to use them as gifts.

Both the normal drafts and casks change fairly frequently as the place gets packed at times. The restaurant side makes great food, almost all from scratch. They even make their own ketchup. It's hard to go wrong with anything on their menu, I highly recommend brunch. They occasionally hold special events, such as the annual barleywine festival. Mad Fox is definitely worth checking out.

February 22, 2015

Brewery Tour: 3 Stars Brewing

February 22, 2015/ Evan

Today marked the kick off of the 2015 Illuminati Reserve society at 3 Stars Brewing in DC. Mike McGarvey and Dave Coleman have been putting out great beers since founding 3 Stars in 2012. Located in the North East quadrant near Takoma in DC, I don't make it out there too often. In 2014 they offered a membership to their Illuminati club promising five special release beers through the year. They certainly delivered on that, as of posting this I have only opened two of the five, and they have been some of the best beers I've tasted out of their brewery.

The 2014 memebership helped 3 Stars buy their bottling line, which in turn basically made the members the guinea pigs for new bottles. Aside from the special Illuminati releases, 3 Stars released their Pandemic Porter and Peppercorn Saison in large format bottles in the DC area. I was surprised to find at today's event that they now have five different varieties bottled.

The 2015 membership expanded from the original 200 members to 400 members, and is funding the expansion of their tasting room. The new tasting room will be build inside the warehouse, that is the brewery, and sounds like it will be a little more accommodating than the generic picnic tables uninsulated by anything currently.

They had pulled a lot of barrels for tasting and blending. I am particularly interested in the Green Hat barrel aged beers they have, which I believe were filled with their Ghost white IPA.

If I remember correctly (and if wrong I will correct this) they are running a 10 barrel brew house and have a number of 20 barrel fermentation tanks. They seem to know what to do with their barrels and how to blend their beers as proved by last years illuminati releases. I still think they have the best chocolate beer ever (Ebony and Ivory) though it was unfortunately not available tonight. They also announced tonight that they are starting a sour beer program this year. Other than announcing it, there was not very much information otherwise. I look forward to what they come out with, as they tend to have some of the most flavorful beers, usually big in body and ABV, in the DC metro area.

I was a little disappointed to see nothing new on the menu tonight. Fairly standard tap line up, I had their Southern Belle, From Russia With Love, and their Peppercorn Saison. Southern Belle is an imperial brown ale with toasted pecans. It has a nice sweetness to it with a dry finish from the toasted nuts, I'd give it a 3/5. From Russia with Love is an imperial Russian stout and I think the only beer on the menu I had not previously had. It's a big 8.5% stout, boozy with a roasted finish another 3/5. I finished my time there with a peppercorn saison since it had been so long since last having it. I feel like they have toned down the peppercorn influence and made it a much better balanced beer. A lot of spice that compliments the saison yeast character, 3.5/5 overall.

While their standard beers pack a solid punch of flavor, their barrel aged series from the Illuminati keep me excited for what they come up with next. Mike was saying they recently expanded the brewing staff, with four new hires, so it isn't just Dave and Mike coming up with beers. "Nothing is too crazy to at least try a batch" is what Mike said about talking about the creativity they had brought in and is very much inline with how I feel about brewing.

3 Stars also has a homebrew shop, definitely worth the trip for supplies and or a pint.

February 16, 2015

Brewery Tour: Troegs Brewery

February 16, 2015/ Evan

It was a very chilly weekend; the roads were treacherous and temperatures were so cold that the the wiper fluid lines on our car froze. After having to stop a few times to manually, clear off the windshield, we made it to Hershey, Pennsylvania, the current home of Troegs Brewery.

Founded in '96 in Harrisburg, Troegs expanded to the current brewery in Hershey in 2011. Walking into the compound, the store is to your right and the tasting room is straight ahead. You check in to your tour at a desk in the store. You can also see their original homebrew set up in the store.

We grabbed a drink before our tour started in the tasting room. The main brewing kettles are situated behind the bar. The opposite side opens up to a deck overlooking the parking lot, which is obviously not open in the winter.

The tour starts outside of the lab. Right off the bat you see how interconnected the brewing side is to the customer/drinking side. The brewery is part of the tasting room, and everything else in the process is able to be seen through the "self guided tour". This is the only brewery with two tours I've been to.

John, our tour guide, led us behind the bar into the grain room. They do a good job with keeping the dust down. John mentioned they spray the grains down to prevent dust from getting kicked up.

John gave a nice brief overview of grain and how they impart different flavors, even passed around a few containers of grain. Munich malt seemed to be the main base malt used from the way John discussed everything. From here we are lead up a few steps in the grain room to the brew deck, overlooking the tasting room.

Brew deck with self tour in the background

The brew deck is where the magic happens. The main brewhouse is a 100 barrel system with the biggest hop back I've seen.

Towards the end of the brew deck is the boil kettle and the tool for hops. Here we got the normal spiel about bittering hops and aroma hops and how those contribute to flavor. We had a sample of citra pellets and cascade leafs passed around for people to smell. From the brew deck we walked down a flight of steps, through a door into the fermentation area.

The tasting tour (as this is called) has the lovely opportunity to taste beers straight out of the fermenter.

After a talk about the differences between ale and lager yeast and the importance of temperature during the fermentation process, we arrive at a tasting table in front of three giant foeders.

John our tour guide and I believe flying mouflan fermenting in foeders

We got to taste Cultivator helles bock, Troegenator double bock, Jovial dubbel (out of primary), and Nugget Nectar ale.

After the tasting we are led around to the first bottling line for corks and caging. Past this you can see the bright tanks which lead to the kegging line and the bottling and canning line.

The tasting tour ends back in the gift shop and you exchange your lanyard and safety glasses for souvenir pint glasses.

We went back to the tasting room to grab some food and drink before hitting the road to go back home. The tasting room has a bunch of long tables which is very german biergarten-like. Food is available at the far end of the tasting room. A variety of different dishes are available. They have the standard pretzel and brats, as well as substantial sandwiches, soups, and popcorn. We got a bratwurst and a venison open faced sandwich to split, which were both very good.

The tasting room is also home to the scratch beer series, experimental small batches of beer only available at the tasting room. On tap for our visit was #172 Chocolate Stout.

From the tasting room you can walk through a set of doors to go on the "self guided tour", which is a glass-lined hallway with information about the process of making beer. The self guided tour ends at the barrel room, which was closed with the lights off.

The beers

Cultivator

Evan: Light bodied, light flavored, easy drinking lager. We were in a bit of a rush when we first got there and ordered. This through me for a loop until I realized it had 25 ibu and was a lager. A clean and unoffending beer.

Lisa: A light, refreshing beer.

Troegenator

Evan: A much more robust lager. A bit on the dark side and clocking in over 7% with a nice malty backbone.

Lisa: Mahogany in color with a malty sweetness, a delicious American double bock beer.

Nugget Nectar

Evan: Hard to beat a fresh hoppy beer straight from the source. Almost juicy from the hops, it is full bodied and full flavored.

Lisa: This is my favorite beer that Troegs makes. A hoppy amber ale that is amazing.

Jovial

Evan: I had no idea they were making Belgian corked beer until this trip. Off of the primary it just tastes young. It was under carbonated but rather mediocre. We got a few bottles to take home, which were way better. Out of the bottle it has a fantastic belgian yeast character smell and flavor. Surprisingly though is has almost no body at all, easy to drink and not too filling.

Lisa: The Jovial we had from the fermenter on the tour tasted very young, very bland and not very Belgian. The bottle we had later tasted a lot more flavorful and Belgian. It still tasted light for a 7% Belgian Dubbel, but it was tasty.

Scratch #172 Chocolate Stout

Evan: Easy drinking and less filling than youngs double chocolate stout. Decent chocolate flavor without being overly sweet, still lets the roast from the stout through.

LaGrave

We opened a bottle of LaGrave we got at the Troegs' store while writing this post.

Evan: Light belgian yeast nose and a nice clear golden color. Doesn't drink like a true belgian tripel, more like an american triple pilsner. Tastes very light for 8% which is great but dangerous. It is a nice clean beer but not very belgian, though it has more body than Jovial.

Lisa: This is good, but has less body than I prefer my Belgian tripels to have. Tastes lighter than 8%.