MyHomeBrewExperience

Sorry for the long hiatus…but sometimes, life happens.

I have graduated from college with my degree in Music Industry Studies.  I have left my beloved adopted home of New Orleans to return to my childhood home of Teaneck, NJ.  I am in a sea of boxes and organization as I figure out the next step for myself on this journey of music and beer.  I will be stationed up north now, where my brewing and blogging will continue, with some new spins of course.

Until then, check out the map below of the journey I have taken many times in old and new cars.  This time it was finished in a ten foot UHaul Truck with my car on an auto transport trailer…definitely upped the anty on the road trip per se.

I just discovered a true gem in the NOLA beer drinking scene.  Squeal’s BBQ, located on Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans has a very surprising  beer selection for a small restaurant, not to mention their awesome BBQ!

The taps are: Brooklyn Lager, Bear Republic’s Racer 5 IPA, NOLA Brown Ale, Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan Ale, and Bud Light.  The bottle selection includes several light beers as well as a few selections from Indian Wells Brewing Company, a new brewery to me.  The brews they had there were the Amnesia IPA, Lobotomy Bock, and the Orange Blossom Amber.  I enjoyed the Bock the best out of the three.  Overall I was not impressed with any of them, except for the alcohol punch they pack, in excess of 5% is always a good thing.  Check them out online and taste them for comparison reasons, but switching from Racer 5 to anything else is hard to do anytime.  I appreciated being exposed to new brews and a new brewery.

The other brew of interest I ran into was from the R.J. Rockers Brewing Company out of SC.  I had the Bell Ringer Ale (8.5%ABV) and it was very good.  It had a nice balance of bitter hoppiness and enough maltiness to give it good body.  It reminded me of an IPA at first, an Amber in the middle, and a bitter at the end of each taste.  Definitely well balanced between the flavor and the ABV.  It was a relief after trying all three Indian Wells brews with little satisfaction to get a hearty ale with great flavor.  I recommend this one to all Ale drinkers.

The beer list continues to include a “Lobster Lovers Ale”, Shiner Bock and Commemorator, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine, St. Pauli Girl, Coronoa, and a few others.  Definitely can keep you entertained for a while, my roommate and I stayed there for a few hours trying these tasty brews.

The food is enough reason to go the Squeals.  I have had the brisket and ribs and loved both.  They have great traditional BBQ and the sides are awesome too.  PLUS, they are open until 2am on weekends, late night brews and BBQ????? I think so!

So hit up Squeals next time you are in the neighborhood.  Let me know what you think and which beers you try!  I’ll be back to finish the selection off within a few days….maybe tonight.

Another worthy bit of info to note…. there is a Declaration of Beer Independence that has been drawn up by some very passionate beer lovers.  This document asks for selection, quality, and respect of beer.  I am not a brewer yet, therefore I can’t hang this in my brewery, but this blog is the closest thing I got.

Read the Declaration, print it and sign it if you wish.  Keep brewing.

Read the full document here.

In my virtual surfing, I have come accross a great organization whose mission is to preserve the Craft Brewers and Breweries of America…..sounds like my kind of organization.  It’s called “Beer Activist”.

Visit their site.  Sign the petitions. Poke around for a while.

I found this on BeerBuddha.com, my fellow NOLA beer blogger. Check this video out. It speaks for itself.

I Am A Craft Brewer from I Am A Craft Brewer on Vimeo.

That’s right, take a regular old Kolsch, add some strawberries one week in to fermentation, and BAM….. you got yourself a Strawberry Kolsch, or Strawbolsch, as I prefer to call it. The team effort of the Hunter Brown Brewing duo and Natalie Mae’s music and taste for berries is well on its way.

Last night, Hunter and I bottled the Strawbolsch and were very pleased with the results so far. It has a great reddish color, it is chunkless, and it has a more tart than sweet flavor. This experiment is a particularly risky one for me because I really haven’t found a fruit infused beer I could drink more than a few of. Around here, we do have strawberry competition, the Abita Strawberry Lager. Read the BeerAdvocate reviews to see what other people say. I overall agree with them.

My take on Abita Strawberry: Oddly sweet smelling (yes, the yogurt scent does come through), the base is not malty enough, the sweetness limits me to about two of these, must be consumed COLD in hot weather, makes me think of strawberry seltzer with a slight alcohol kick, body too light.

I am very excited about the Strawbolsch because it seems to not have that same aftertaste all my other brews have had so far. I like the body, I like the tartness, and I like the alcohol content (4.5%, as I calculated using this source.

This beer will be featured at the after party for Natalie Mae’s CD release on May 7th here in New Orleans at the Carrolton Station. I think the lightness of the body, lower alcohol content, and tart flavor will be a hit. All will be told soon enough.

I am officially converted to using at least half whole grain malt/wheat. The flavor is so different in an authentic beer kind of way. Hopefully a mashing tun will be in my future, after which I can really get down to some serious brews.

Check out the slides to see the color of the Strawbolsch. I particularly like the before and after pictures of the strawberries….fermentation really did some tasty damage to them. However, I do not recommend eating the used strawberries….trust me.

Looking to brew your own fruit beer? Check out this site for some recipes. I didn’t use it myself, but it looks like they have some good stuff.

Cheers!

Natalie Palms

Everyone knows beer and music goes well together. But it is rare that homebrewed beer and original music is paired up into one hand-crafted event!

Well I am very happy to say that the Strawberry Kolsch will be the featured beverage at the Natalie Palms’ CD release after party on May 7. Check Nat’s music out here.

Natalie is a wonderful singer/songwriter with an even more wonderful personality. It is a pleasure to be a part of her first albums’ release. Please do come out on May 7 at Carrolton Station on Willow Street. Natalie is a multi-instrumentalist with a wonderful voice and deep love for music. If you like folk music, homebrews and a good time, come check her out with me.

This is the first event that I am getting to bring my two loves together in a pure way, beer I made with music of my friends. The whole event is being produced by a team of my fellow Loyola University Senior Music Industry Students. We are taught to make things happen and have fund doing it, here’s an example. I hope the future has many more events like this one in store for me. Stay posted.

Back at it folks, and the first ever fruit beer for my homebrewing operation is currently fermenting. There are three new elements to this brewing process.

In homebrewing there are basically two methods to start making wort, adding malt extract (either powdered or syrup form) or using whole grains to properly “mash” on a small batch scale. Most homebrewers start, as I did, with the extract since it skips the “mashing” step and allows the homebrewer to use less equipment. My partner Hunter, my roommate Carlos and I have noticed that all three of our batches have ended up tasting the same. The first American Ale was the most consistent in terms of maintaining taste over aging. The second American Ale developed to taste like the first, and event the Belgian Blonde lost its crispness after a week or so and has a similar taste to the American Ales. We don’t know why this has happened, but such has been the case. We suspect that using malt extract from the same company three times in a row is the reason for all the beers to be tasting similar.

So, this batch, we refined the technique with a mid-step between extract and whole grain… half and half. Thanks to the new local brew shop that opened up on Oak Street her in NOLA (Brewstock), we were supplied with three pounds of powdered malt extract as well as a nylon strainer bag in which we put four pounds of a malted barley and wheat mixture. This bag acts as a huge tea bag with which you can steep the grain in water at 152 Deg. F for about an hour (more or less, it’s up to the brewer) to start the wort with a more natural base. The warm water extracts the sugars from the wort which are later eaten by the yeast to create alcohol.

To properly mash, a homebrew mash tun is needed. I would like to use an old keg to convert into my own mash tun, but this will have to wait untill funds are acquired.

I added the malt extract and brought the wort up to a boil as I stirred it. The propane heating source is tricky to regulate in terms of maintaining a consistent temperature. We had a small overboil, but nothing intense. The powdered extract seemed to dissolve better into the wort compared to the syrup extract.

The hopping schedule included two additions of Hallertau Hops, both for the flavoring and aromatic hops. A Kolsch is not meant to be hoppy like an IPA, but does need to have a bitter and crisp taste, thus we uses the same type of hops twice.

After pitching the dried yeast, we let the wort sit for 8 days before we added the strawberries. It is important to add the extra flavorings after the initial fermentation has begun, so the yeast does no get confused as to which sugars to eat. On the eight day, my friend Natalie Palms brought over about four pounds of strawberries roughly chopped to add to the beer. The beer will continue to ferment for another 6-7 days until it is time to bottle. We will strain the berries out before bottling.

Enjoy the slides and comment as you wish. I am very excited to taste the new batch as usual!

Hey folks,

I was able to get part of the documentary/promo video I made for Heiner Brau Microbrewery n Covington, LA onto the site. This is only about four minutes of a total of 15. When I get the rest converted, it will be posted immediately. Check it out and please let me know what you think.

Thanks to my man Noah up in Philly, I just read a nice article written in the NY Times about the New Orleans beer scene. They cover Heiner Brau, Abita, and the newest addition and featured business of my last post, NOLA Brewing Co. Crescent City Brew House is mentioned and they skipped Gordon Biersch.

It’s nice to see us getting some recognition from afar. I feel motion happening in our beer industry down here. New things are being created and new ideas are being developed. Hopefully the press continues and we can jump start some serious motion down here.

Tell your friends! Read the article! Drink New Orleans beer!