2011 Stone Old Guardian Barleywine, home brewing and the awesomely long post

Today is a big day, full of sunshine and life and BEER. BEER BEER BEER. I'm going to drink lots of beer while I brew one beer and bottle another. Guess what's on tap at Casa de Davis/Brooks? Goose Island Demolition Belgian Style beer for lunch. Desert will be a Bruery Loakal Red. Stone Barleywine is the beer of the day and then after we bottle and taste my Belgian Red, a flight of Home Brew Beers - King Moonracer's Revenge and the Belgian IPA (which I codenamed the 'Double Dutch Rudder'). Got a lot on my plate. Beerspeed me:

Home brewing equipment. Nice yeast pouch

Heisenberg's American Wheat: Werner Heisenberg is a renowned German physicist famous for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for the creation of quantum mechanics and also the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. But for everyone else who hasn't starred on JEOPARDY, this name might be more familiar from the AMC original show BREAKING BAD. 3 time Emmy Winning actor Bryan Cranston (he's the Meryl Streep of TV) uses 'Heisenberg' as his drug dealing alter ego in the show.

The American Wheat Ale style is a very American take on a traditional German style dating back hundreds of years. An American style based on a German style deserves an equally imported name. Thus I give you, Heisenberg's American Wheat, a light and crisp wheat ale for the upcoming summer months.

Almost every American Wheat Ale recipe I researched was incredibly basic and simply used the Wheat Extract without any other fermentables or steeped grains. That sounded perfectly boring so I whipped up my own grain bill and picked out some Santa Monica farmer's market honey to spruce the recipe up.

Malt Extract:    Alexander's Wheat Extract   6 lbs
                       

Sugar:              Sage Wildflower Honey 1 lb

Grain Bill:         Caramel/Crystal Malt 10 L 6 oz
                        Caravienne Malt 4 oz                       

                        Cara-Pills 3 oz            

Hop Schedule:  Amarillo (11.0%) .35oz at 60 mins
                       Amarillo (11.0%) .35oz at 30 mins
                       Cascade (5.9%)  .75oz at 20 mins
                       Cascade (5.9%)  .67oz at 5 mins

Yeast:            Wyeast 2565 Kolsch
                    

Potential Alcohol 5.1%
33.4 IBU's 

Starting Gravity 1.051

Color is 5 SRM (Yellow to Gold).

Notes: I didn't like the attributes of an American Wheat Ale Strain (I don't want my beer to be 'tart'), so I used Kolsch, a German Yeast, and threw in American Hops. Kolsch is an interesting yeast strain because it produces quick-conditioning pseudo-lager beers and ferments well cold, but it can also ferment at warmer temperatures (like my room) at 68-70 degrees. But I really chose the yeast strain because the beer will hopefully exhibit some fruity character of an ale with a clean lager like profile. The Amarillo and Cascade hops will also bring a slight citrus and fruit flavor. That's exactly the kind of beer I want to have whilst in my hammock this summer.

Hey ladies, check out my wort cooler...Is a line I should use more often

This will be the 4th barleywine from Stone we've had - check out the other three Vertical Flight of Stone Old Guardian Barleywine - and it's hot off the press. It's really sweet still and could definitely benefit from aging. David pointed out that it's so sweet it actually tastes a little like bubble gum. Still, it's delicious and has a great hop balance. TRANSFORMERS rating.

Each Stone beer has a story or letter on the back 'label.' This barleywine has a letter from the man, the myth, and the legend, Greg Koch, the head brewer of Stone. He was sitting in a Belgian Bar discussing beer with someone very knowledgeable about the state of beer in the world. This Belgian fellow basically said that the American beer scene is number one in the world, followed by Belgium and lastly Germany, which has really fallen far from the taste tree. It reminded me of an interesting article Nick G sent me about the state of German beer which you should check out "Germany's beer culture is in decline"

It got me thinking about how fortunate I am to be exposed to so much ingenuity, to be on the forefront and experiencing a virtual revolution and explosion of the craft beer world. Plus, I live in California, near the San Diego breweries (Stone will be the first American Craft Beer to open a brewery abroad later this year, in Belgium) plus breweries like Eagle Rock, Bruery, Bootleggers, Russian River and more. Germany's beers are governed by the purity laws, and that has really suffocated their beer industry. A large number of their brewers are gravitating towards the freedom and opportunities afforded by the craft beer movement. It kinda reminds me of the 1950's and 1960's (not that I was alive), but the idea that the best and brightest turned to government organizations, such as NASA. They worked for something they believed in. The U.S. is experiencing a renaissance, and I think this was a fortunate yeart to try 365 different beers.

That being said, drinking beer all day also reminded me that I need to watch my intake least I turn into one of those Kobe Heifers. David has a 1 beer a day rule and it's time I implement it. Beerspeed me.