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This has to be the slowest time of year for us. The cellar is just about full. I am planning ahead for the Maifest. This year we are going to try a new hop, Crystal, in the Maifest. In previous years we had the same finishing, Hallertau Hersbrucker hop in the Maifest, Schild Brau, and Oktobefest. I feel as though it makes those beers too similar. Last year, we tried Liberty hops in the Oktoberfest, with great success. Both Liberty and Crystal are american Hybrids of Hallertau Mittlefruh, the classic and much sought after German Hop.

Mittlefruh has been over cultivated in Europe, and is now very expensive, since it is very susceptible to disease like downy mildew. This year, with the heat wave, was a terrible year for hops in Europe. Our hop, Hallertau Hersbrucker is a hybrid and fared better than most, but it is still up two dollars a pound compared to last year. I consider it to be essential to our Schild Brau Amber, though, so I will not be changing that hop.

These American Hallertau variety’s have some American type hops bred into them to get them to grow in our different climate, which give them different aroma qualities. In particular, Crystal is 1/6th Cascade (a famous American Hop) which should give it some interesting citrus notes. All cultivated hops are female hops, and new variety’s are created by cross breeding them. Hops are planted using root stock, called rhizomes. They are rather like wine vines in that respect. Hallertau Mittlefruh may grow in the US, but it will not thrive as it is not adapted to our climate and pathogens. So the interbreeding is often done with a little bit of ‘wild’ american hops.

So there is a short little lesson on hops for you.

In other news we are have ATF approval for the Johns Generations White Ale, and they are off to the printers. Don’t get too excited, I hear there is already one hiccup with the color format that we sent already. But the beer is done and ready to go. Most importantly, it is on tap here at the brewery. Here is the evidence:

Sometime you have to wonder what is going on at the Capitol in Des Moines. Look at the following proposal on raising the stakes on underage drinking from a 100 dollar fine to a two year prison sentence and 5000$.

I think that the forbidden fruit theory says that this will only make teens drink more. It will be more dangerous, and therefore, more attractive. Just think of the effect this will have on a college campus like Iowa City. Almost all the college kids drink, they always have, and probably always will. I know I did, and I turned out just fine (well maybe not, I now make beer for a living!)

The best way to stop underage drinking would be to lower the drinking age, and require that 20 year old drinkers be responsible like the rest of us. When kids are drinking out in the open, there will be better ways to make sure that they stay in control. It amazes me how soon we forget the lessons of Prohibition!

Today was a good day. Today I finally got some of the new stainless valves for the tanks down in the basement. We have been using these old clunky valves that I am so very sick of. I was even more upset to meet the original brewmaster of the brewery and find out he was sick of these clunky valves, 15 years ago!

I now have a digital camera to update this site with, so i’ll show you the new ‘bucket of valves’ in the their stainless steel glory:

The valve to the left is a “butterfly valve”, they are very nice because there is nothing hidden on them, so they are practically self cleaning. The valve on the right is a sanitary style of ball valve. We are going to use this one on bright beer tanks, since the positive closure aspect of a ball valve makes it unlikely to leak under pressure. Then we have a sanitary tee, and two types of threaded to tri-clamp adapters, and then a triclamp itself.

That box full of wrapped tri-clamp fitting is worth over a thousands dollars. We have been using old threaded and teflon taped fitting down in the basement. Removing the tape on those fittings with a wire brush has been a right of passage here at the brewery. Now with these triclamp fittings, the number of threaded connections will be at an absolute minumum. This should allow me to get more done in a day of tank cleaning, as I won’t be “scrubbing tape” all day. Though it was a nice way to sit and listen to the radio….

We are slowly making progress at modernizing this old brewery. When things get bad, I just have to remember what it was like when I started here. I can just think about that old cast stainless steel plate and frame filter, which leaked about a half barrel of beer for every three barrels I filtered, and I feel much better right away. (We now have a very modern D.E. filter). One step at a time!

I had a great opportunity to get on the radio in Des Moines and alert the listening audience about the attempts at the capitol to raise the beer tax in Iowa. I was on 95 KGGO morning show, for about 15 minutes at 7:30 last thursday morning. I had some ’stage fright’ about it at first, but once I got on the microphone, I found I had more to say about the issue than I had time for!

I’m hoping to get more opportunities like this. Things do not look good for us. Already there are two bills to raise the tax, and the supreme court decision on the Iowa gaming casino’s has only made the states budget even more dire.

Here is the latest update from the IWBDA:

“BEER TAX – There has been considerable discussion on the beer tax and we already have two bills introduced to increase the excise tax on beer. The “Healthy Lifestyles Coalition of Iowa” distributed information to every legislator this week that advocates doubling the tax to $.38 per gallon. The information states “… teen deaths and injuries, violence, teen pregnancy …” all would be reduced by increasing the beer tax.”

I’m sure the “healthy lifestyles” coalition is just another front for MADD and other anti alcohol forces. We need to band together and prevent this from happening.. beer is already taxed more than enough in Iowa!

We woke up friday morning feeling a bit of pain from the night before at The Great Dane. After a few cups of coffee, everything was fine and were off on our way up to Stevens Point, which is about 90 mins north of Madison.

Well, its 90 minutes on a normal day. It was like we had crossed a boundary as soon as we got north of Madison, it started to snow. It was one of those light drifting snows, that made visibility very difficult. We driving a Toyota Prius hybrid, which I now know has ‘reduced friction’ tires to get better gas milage. That does not translate into good handling in snow! Thankfully we had the car loaded down with beer so we got a little extra traction. I wish we could have put the beer right on top of the engine though, because that was where the weight was needed.

After about two hours were finally in Stevens Point. This is the city were I had my first brewing job, at a small pub called Isadore Street Brewing that is now defunct. I can say that it was a great learning experience. It was here were I learned to make good beer, and I had plenty of help from my friends Matt Hall, the QC manager at Stevens Point Brewery, and Paul Graham, a fellow brewer at the little brewery of Central Waters.

Stevens Point is also is in the dead center of the state, and a great place to drink the beers from all over Wisconsin. There are over 60 bars in this little town of 20,000. That includes 8000 college students. Iowa City/Coralville has about 60 bars for its population of 100,000. Yea, things are different up here!
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