Warsh Pail Brew Day
Today we brewed the first batch of Warsh Pale Ale for this year. I love the amount of hops in this beer, 15lbs of hops, compared to the measly 4lbs of hops that is our Schild Brau. All you hop heads in Iowa can expect this beer to be ready the 1st of June or so. Though it will not be in 12 oz bottles, for a bit. We have the final revision of the label, you can see it below, it is going out to the ATF and printer as is. Wish us better luck than we had with the Wit label!
Speaking of Wit, we made 80 bbls of that this week too. Along with a 20bbl batch of wheat, that makes for a brew week of 120bbls, one of the largest we have ever done. I’ve been quite busy! Sunday night was an all night brew for me, which has sort kept me off all week as I try to readjust to normal hours. I’m thankful that our busy season is in the summer, so I don’t have to spend most of the evening brewing in the dark!
The two Belgian wit batches are nearly done fermenting. We split the 80bbls into two 40bbl tanks. For a reason I won’t go into here, one of the two batches stayed at about 5 degrees higher than the other during the fermentation. It is very interesting to taste the difference, the warmer batch has a more intense ester profile. I’ll wait for the beers to finish, and then i’ll decide what we will keep for ourselves. The beer club is going to take only 60bbls, so I leave us with what I consider to be the tastier of the two batches. This is one of the fun things about being a brewer!
I had several conversations with homebrewers today, asking where to get homebrew supplies. There really aren’t any homebrew stores in our area since Stone City closed. While I am willing to accomodate homebrewers in anyway I can, this is not a homebrew store, and I really don’t have time dole out ingredients for everyone (and we don’t have room to stock supplies). There is a great homebrew store in Des Moines, and it has a nice webpage. Heartland Homebrew Supply is run by a great guy, Jerri, and I totally recommend his store.
I hear from John’s Grocery that my Beer Dinner next tuesday, the 18th is nearly sold out. You may want to try to register if you can, I promise it will very tasty! More info here.
May 17th, 2004 at 2:55 am
Aaron,
You could refer the inquisitive potential homebrewers to the THIRSTY website (http://chorus.inav.net/~pdiltz/thirsty/ for now). There are links to several homebrew stores there.
Gary G., THIRSTY member
May 18th, 2004 at 11:02 am
Everything was great…my hats off to everyone involved. My wife and hopefully at least one friend will come next time.
This was the first time I’ve enjoyed the pairing of a dessert and a beer, and all the food (especially the porkchop dish) was superb. And that beer that Doug had (some sort of lambic?) was probably the most interesting that I’ve ever had.
I’m also happy to hear that others share my affinity toward the Maifest you guys make. Maybe next year we’ll see it a little longer and a little more widely available?
Man, I’m turning into a total beer geek. Well, even more than before, heh
May 19th, 2004 at 8:49 am
Thanks Chris. I rather enjoyed it too, even though I had a cold and wasn’t really feeling that great. The first two courses were really superb. The third I felt did not really go that well with the Schild Brau (though it was a very good dessert!. I need to do some research to find a good ‘dessert pairing’ with our beers. If only our Stout was a year round offering! But alas, it does not sell very well in the summer.
We will keep the Maifest short though. Everytime we extend a seasonal, it just ends up hanging around forever. It gives people something to look forward too..
Good point Gary. The thirsty page has got a lot of good links. My point though was to bump up a local supplier. Any others that I have missed? I think the Coralville Liquor store still sells supplies, but I cannot recommend them (for anything!).
May 20th, 2004 at 5:10 am
Well, the first two courses were definitely better pairings, but I thought the carmelized fruit matched well with the Schild Brau. The difference is, I don’t think either the beer or the dessert accentuated the other (I think the salad + Belgian wit was best in this regard), they just weren’t repulsive together (like say, Bud and chocolate cake would be!).
Thanks for taking time out to answer my questions there (and here!)