Marin Brewing Co's Hefe Doppelweizen confuses me like a bad accent

Coincidentally for the beer of the day, all evening I've been reading about homebrewing and specifically about a critical analysis/breakdown of award winning wheat and bock style recipes.

This beer notifies me in big golden letters that it's a Hefe Doppelweizen, which is German for "Yeast Double Strength Wheat Beer" (the 'yeast refers to a specific type unique to southern Germany), but underneath that Marin proudly proclaims, 'Unfiltered American Wheat Ale."

Color me confused. So let's say, just for example, that all my impersonations using a foreign accent sound Italian (sadly). Now, if I was impersonating Antonio Banderas but it actually sounded like Luigi from Mario Kart, you would mostly likely experience a moment of confusion before calling me and idiot and laughing at me - not necessarily in that order. That's what's happening upfront. It's confusing to reference the beer as one thing when it's really a different style, but labeling your beer as foreign in order to market your product better domestically, is hallmark American (that's my sneaking suspicion). Capitalism always wins.

At 7%, it's has close to double the alcohol a German Hefeweiss has and has a very clean profile. I'm tasting sweet banana, but otherwise nothing outlandishly German. As the beer warms up I can taste the American Wheat tartness, which is one reason why I chose a Kolsch yeast instead of an American Wheat when I brewed my wheat beer, Heisenberg's Honey Wheat. It's a flavor very specific to American Wheat yeast which I personally dislike.

Overall, like it's title, the beer is a confusing mix of American and German wheat flavors that don't appeal to me. While this won gold at three gold medals at the World Beer Championships in 1997, 2000 and 2005, the brew only received a B-- rating on beer advocate. After diligently reading tonight on styles, I've learned that judges grade based on criteria and not necessarily taste. For me, this is an THE ISLAND rating.

Also, Southpark's season opener "HumancentiPad" lost me after the second defecation joke. Is that a sign of maturation? If so, then shit...don't hangout with me cause I ain't gonna be fun no more.

Lagunitas Gnarlywine should age better than Jack Nicholson

Had Mantastic day with Nick G and Nic -shooting pistols and shotguns at the range in the morning, then In-And-Out followed by watching the bloody SUPER starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page in the afternoon, then beers at Cabo Cantina. I capped off the man-day by bottling my latest homebrew (whose title I've changed), Heisenberg's Honey Wheat.


Kinda ran into a problem though. I've made three homebrews in the last three months and I'm incredibly low on unused bottles. Either David and I needed to drink 10 bottles or it was time to dive into previous bottles we've drunk and saved and see if I can sufficiently clean them out in time to bottle. Much to David's disappointment, I was able to save enough Stone brews (which we drank in October!) to bottle the batch, although we still drank Belgian Home Brews - ya know - just in case we needed more bottles. I decided to spray paint the Stone label to avoid confusion. The result was a bottle as bloody as the film SUPER.

I dig the barleywines and I'm excited to try this. It has a VERY rich malt of caramel and toffee. It's fun to drink, but I think it's way too sweet still and needs time to age. Love the big malt though, and this characteristic reminds me of Stone's Double Bastard. I'm very tempted to buy this and age it another year in the closet. It could be a Transformers, but currently it's simply ARMAGEDDON.

Estrella Damm Inedit goes well with shrooms after transferring some home brew

Oh Saturday, I love thee. Time is on my side today. In one week from now, I'm able to taste my Belgian Red. But today, I'm charged with transferring my Heisenberg's American Wheat that I brewed last Sunday (Heisenberg's American Wheat Home Brew) from the bucket to the carboy. The sample tastes fine, but it's a little early still to draw assumptions. However, let the record state that I'm patting myself on the back for the temperature control exerted while this is fermenting. I've definitely been sleeping in what little cold weather clothes I own. The Kolsch yeast works best between 55 and 70 degrees, but the first 24 hours after brewing I brought the temperature up to 72 degrees (to get the yeast working). Then over the course of the week I've slowly decreased the temperature in my room to from 72, to 70 and down to 66. When it's in the carboy I'll sustain a 64 degree temperature and Let It Ride like Bachman-Turner Overdrive.


I realized this is my 4th home brew in as many months, and I've never posted a picture of the trub. You'll see why in a second. Trub is the output of the yeast interaction with the fermentables and what's left after transferring the brew to the carboy. It's essentially heavy fats, proteins and inactive yeast. If left in the bucket for too long, the trub can impart off-flavors.

Yep. Like staring into Satan's butthole

So in transferring the beer to the carboy, we separate it from the trub and allow it to settle, which creates additional color clarity in the beer and precludes the trub from imparting any off flavor. 

Wallah!

So now I wait a week or two and then bottle it. It should settle to become a dark yellow - light gold color.

Nick G is coming over for dinner and that means a guys night out filled with Chile con Queso, Steaks, Beer and Mush-Shrooms.

Unlike David, I rarely cook nice meals but fortuitously for me, this beer was actually created to be paired with food. Hailing from Spain, they probably thought we'd be pairing it with more complex food but whatever, American Steak rules. Also, Estrella has a beautiful bottle and I love its shape.

It pours a golden goodness and it's malty smooth. The Damn Inedit is a wit / lager chimera and it definitely has the wit spicy floral and citrus notes and finishes like a sweet lager. They were right about pairing this with food, but steak wasn't the best choice.

Problem is, the beer is decently unique but it never really grabbed me. If this beer was a stranger, it would be someone who had a great ice breaker but was a mediocre conversationalist. Still, it's worth introducing yourself to one mister Estrella Damm Inedit. ARMAGEDDON rating.

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.