The Lupulin Reunulin!

Note: I started this post the day after the event, but unforseen circumstances, a job interview, and a 3.5 day music festival complicated things. Better late than never, right?

Man oh man, was the Lupulin Reunulin fantastic! My understanding of this event is that it is the evolution of a friendly competition between a few east and west coast brewers to determine who made the best and biggest IPA. I believe this is the second year of the "Reunulin", where some of the best brewers and brewery owners get together to talk about beer, the beer industry, and bust each others balls on stage for a few hours, while the audience members get to sample a ton of amazing beers, laugh and learn.

On the stage last night were:

1. Tomme Arthur from Lost Abbey/Port Brewing, in San Marcos, CA.
2. Adam Avery from Avery Brewing Company, in Boulder, CO.
3. Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, in Milton, DE.
4. Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River, in Santa Rosa, CA.
5. Bill Madden from Vintage 50, a local brewpub in Leesburg, VA.
6. Rob Tod from Allagash Brewing, in Portland, ME.
7. Eventually, the esteemed Ken Grossman and his son from Sierra Nevada, in Chico, CA.

So right there you have some of the best in the industry on the stage. What's awesome about the dynamic between these guys is that it's a tight-knit crew. There were hugs between people from the different breweries, their wives, etc. They've taken trips to Europe together, brewed together, and more or less created an industry together. These guys know each other well, and therefore have free range to give each other total hell for the audience's amusement. More importantly, they know beer and the industry, and are great sources of information for beer geeks.

It won't do the event justice to try to summarize anything that was said, but there was a lineup of 16 beers from 6 brewers to enjoy. Here they are, in order, with my thoughts:

1. Dogfish Head Festina Peche: Nothing rare or weird here, and a beer I find barely drinkable. It's a clear golden ale with a sour, fruity aroma and a sour apple taste with nearly no hop flavor. I find it incredibly linear and not even very peachy at all.
2. Port Brewing Hot Rocks Stein Lager: This beer was created and brewed by Bend Brewing's Tonya Cornett with the help of Tomme Arthur (if I recall correctly), and uses hot rocks to heat the wort, which lends some really interesting characteristics. It pours a dark caramel, and has a very toasty aroma. It had a syrupy, toasty flavor, with a bit of hop bitterness on the finish, but leaves the mouth a bit dry. I found it excellent and yet another beer I wish I could get here.
3. Avery Brabant Barrel Aged 100% Brett: This beer utilized two yeast strains, according to my notes. It was a dark, dense beer, with a bubbly head, and a fruity, winey scent. It had a vaguely winey flavor as well, with a slightly tart and dry finish.
4. Vintage 50 Molotov Hoptail: This is a newer creation of the local Bill Madden, and one I really wish I liked... It was a cloudy, foamy IPA with a very generically hoppy aroma. The taste was very fresh and creamy, with a lot of forward hop flavors. I found it to have a very "homebrew" character and it didn't really resemble the output of the more industrialized brewers. It also had a base, alkaline flavor in there that was quite off-putting.
5. Allagash Confluence: Golden with a very juicy, fruity aroma. I found the taste very juicy and thin, with a bit of juicy tang - disappointing. I will note that I had this a week or so later at a different bar and found it quite different, so I won't say it's universally bad or anything.
6. Russian River Blind Pig IPA: Basically a classic west coast IPA, and it didn't disappoint. A super clear, deep golden beer with a bitter hoppy aroma. The flavor is very balanced with a slightly sweet, hoppy, citrus flavor and a smooth mouthfeel.
7. Dogfish Head Pale India/Hoppy Onion: A bizzare new creation of DFH that involves indian spices and sweet onions..... don't ask me. It poured a hazy, golden color, and smelt of sweet onions and spices (unsurprisingly). You could definitely taste the ingredients, and the lightly spiced flavor definitely sticks around in your mouth. It was pretty darn good in a weird way, but I'd have to see how well a 12oz bottle went down.
8. Lost Abbey Carnevale Bretted Saison: I don't have much written down besides that it was a golden color, smelled of vaguely familiar saison aromas, and had a sweet, flavorful taste with a slight tang. Couldn't have been that great, I guess.
   
9. Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA: This blew me away, and cemented itself into my top 10(ish) beers. It was a clear, deep golden beer with a thick head, and my notes say "best smelling IPA ever?" - sweet and hoppy. It was incredibly flavorful and "mad bitter", but it must have had a lot going on besides bitterness for me to write "Amazing!!!"
10. Allagash Hugh Malone: This was easily the best Belgian IPA I've had, and even though I find the style silly and mostly sub-par, this was a very high quality beer. It poured a hazy, caramel color, with a "saisony" aroma. It was definitely a hoppy belgian saison flavor, with a nice hoppy finish, and my only note besides that is "awesome!!" I'll update later on when I pour the bottle I just purchased.
11. Vintage 50 Headknocker: A cask ale that I actually liked, which is saying something. A golden brown, mild smelling english style barleywine. It had a nice mouthfeel, although it was a bit thin up front.
12. Port Brewing 3rd Anniversary Pale Strong Ale: Clear and golden, with a sweet smell. This was amazing... sweet, sticky, totally my style. My note for this? "YES!!!" Another gem from Port.
13. Russian River Consecration: Aged in cabernet barrels, this brown, toasted caramel colored brew had a syrupy, sweet/sour aroma. The flavor was HUGE, with a delightful sour flavor, while not being overly acidic. A great brew that I responded to with "wow".
14. Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron: Nothing new to me, but still a great beer. A deep, dark ale with a dark head, the flavor is a sharp, sweet candy with some liquor. Definitely recommended if you haven't had it.
15. Avery Mephistopheles Stout: At this point, my notes say: "16%!!" and "Huge, awesome". Grab one if you see one, I know I will.
    
16. Vintage 50 Wee Heavy 2002: No notes. I think it was pretty good at least. :)

I thought this event was amazing, so much knowledge passed along by some of the best brewers in the country, and the rare appearance of Ken from Sierra Nevada - I felt very fortunate to taste the beers and get the experience. A great night.

Secondary fermentation - easy, right?

The thing that has become most obvious to me after my first experience with home brewing is that EVERYTHING TAKES LONGER THAN YOU THINK, even if you think to think about every damn thing involved. If you haven't brewed before, trust me, you haven't - especially in an all grain process. I'll be posting pictures and a write up of my first brew day later, but I wanted to talk a little about moving my beer to secondary last night.

Mark and Bill are the guys who have the space and equipment, so my first batch has been fermenting in their basement for about 5 days now, and the primary fermentation appeared to be over. I told Mark that it couldn't take more than a half hour, all I had to do was clean the 5 gallon carboy and siphon off the beer from the primary fermenter. You know what takes a long time? Cleaning carboys. Why does brewing have to involve so much damn WATER? Every time I think about brewing in my apartment I start imagining methods to get some kind of rubber flooring I can put down in there....

So basically I cleaned and sanitized the 5 gallon carboy, cleaned the autosiphon Mark had used to transfer beer to the bottling bucket, tried to sanitize that, and cleaned and sanitized an airlock. Took it down to the basement and siphoned the beer off to the carboy. Then I tossed in the pellet hops for dry hopping and about 3/5 of the oak cubes. I was a bit worried that I hadn't waited long enough for the primary to finish - the bubbling was no longer active, but the krausen was suspended and had not settled back into the beer. Maybe that's a good thing? I dunno, we'll see. Secondary fermentation is debated heavily on forums and such, so hopefully I didn't make things worse instead of better.

Updates to come!

The Euros make some weird DIPA

I've recently had two Imperial IPAs from european breweries that were wildly different from the beer I typically enjoy - that being American Imperial IPA, of course. I'll just put my cards on the table here - I love big, sticky, resiny beers, loaded with flavor. Sometimes, though, one has to branch out and explore the world, and the opportunity to try some new big IPA is hard to pass up.

I was in Atlanta last week, and at the excellent Porter I tried Brewdog's Hardcore IPA. Brewdog is a Scottish brewery with a unique brand and a penchant for brewing big beers. However, calling this an Imperial IPA is a stretch, since the beer that poured out of the bottle was a thick, creamy, fruity beer that tasted vaguely ciderish. Low carbonation, very low hop aroma, and very low bitterness. You could sense what they were going for, perhaps, but there was none of the zest that only a face full of alpha-acid rich hops can bring to a drink. I mean, it wasn't a bad beer at all - very drinkable and enjoyable, really - but it's hard to fathom what they were doing besides purposefully making a non-American Imperial IPA.

I had a similar beer tonight at the far-too-close Rustico, who had an Impy IPA out of Denmark, WinterCoat's Double Hop. While I could ignore their choice to serve it in what was essentially a mojito glass, I couldn't overlook the similarity in taste and composition to Brewdog's offering. Low carbonation, low bitterness, little hop aroma, but big apple flavors and a thick, creamy mouthfeel. It drank easily enough (but little doesn't for me, sadly), but it certainly didn't quench my thirst for IBUs.

So what's up with these breweries? Are they making statements against the American DIPA trends, making poor imitations, or just making a bigger ale with familiar flavors for their local markets? It's not quite a trend by any means, but it's something to keep an eye on.