Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Last Day To Sign Up For Brookston Baseball

By

baseball
There are six spots left in Brookston League Baseball, a rotisserie fantasy league for the 2011 season. But hurry up, the league will draft tomorrow, so sign up today if you want to play along.

In order to join the league, go to game front page, click the “Sign Up Now” or “Get Another Team” button and follow the links to “Join a Custom League”. When prompted, enter the League ID# and password below. If it won’t let you join, it’s probably because we’ve reached the limit for the number of teams allowed in the league.

League ID#: 119845
Password: beer

brookston-baseball

Gordon Biersch Creates World’s Rarest Beer: Hoppotamus Maximus

By

gordon-biersch
I ran into Dan Gordon, from Gordon Biersch, at CBC yesterday and he told me about a new beer they’ve created, Hoppotamus Maximus, a hoppy and oh-so-rare beer that few people — unfortunately — will ever get a chance to sample. He’s teamed with Justin Crossly of The Brewing Network to tell the story of how he created the beer. It’s a pretty funny spoof of the hype surrounding hard-to-find beers, and the humor is as dry as I expect the beer would be.

Fritz Maytag & Ken Grossman Give Keynote At CBC 2011

By

anchor-steam sierra-nevada
Earlier today the 2011 Craft Brewers Conference began with the morning program, which ended with a keynote address by Fritz Maytag and Ken Grossman. It was more of a casual talk or reminiscence, with Maytag and Grossman talking about their early days, with both the challenges and joys of those times when their were trying to get their respective breweries off the ground. They sat opposite one another on comfy chairs and talked for just over 30 minutes finishing with a toast using the collaboration imperial stout they did together last year, Fritz & Ken’s Ale.

P1030605

It was a highly entertaining talk and even quite funny in places. I’d forgotten my Flip camera, but I did manage to record the audio of the talk. The keynote is introduced by Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Small Brewers Association, and then it’s Ken and Fritz for thirty plus minutes. Enjoy.

Beer Making Is Marvel Of Industrial Chemistry

By

copper-kettle
In June of 1933, just as Prohibition was in its death throes, that month’s issue of Popular Science magazine ran a two-page spread entitled Beer Making Is Marvel Of Industrial Chemistry, illustrated by Benjamin Goodwin Seielstad. It’s great fun to see it all laid out the way it’s done here. It seems like they were laying the groundwork for the return of brewing in America.

beer_making_1

There’s not a great deal of text accompanying the chart, but here it is in its entirety, from page two of the beer making chart:

With the removal of national restrictions against the manufacture and sale of beer, American brewers are again in action. Their operations represent one of the most extensive applications of modern industrial chemistry. More than 2,000,000,000 pounds of malt, 650,000,000 pounds of corn and corn products, and 41,000,000 pounds of hops are a part of the vast consignment of raw materials that experts will turn each year into beer. On these pages, our artist shows how the transformation is accomplished in one big, and now active, American brewery.

Beer is the fermented product of malted or sprouted grain, usually barley. Its manufacture requires the conversion of the grain’s starch into fermentable sugar, and the transformation of this sugar, by fermentation, into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. During the process, the beer is given its characteristic bitter flavor by the addition of hops, the yellowish-green cones or catkins of the hop vine.

Malt, the principal raw material, has previously been produced by steeping, sprouting, and drying barley. Germination develops an important enzyme or digestive fluid called diastase, capable of turning the malt’s starch into sugar. Since this task does not exhaust the enzyme’s power, additional starch in the form of corn or rice is often added at the start of the brewing operation. Subsequent steps from the mash to the final product are explained in the drawings. The color of the finished beer depends upon the raw materials; natural malt yields a pale beer, while caramelized, or heat-treated, malt gives a dark beer.

beer_making_2

Food & Drink’s 50 Most Important Discoveries & Inventions

By

sliced-bread
The Daily Meal, a food-oriented website, has come up with a list of The 50 Most Important Inventions (and Discoveries) in Food and Drink. It’s a pretty interesting list, and at the very least got me thinking about how much we take for granted and how important so many of those simple items are to the enjoyment of our lives.

The process of creating the list began with saying to yourself. “I simply couldn’t cook without my….”

Everybody who prepares food at home (or professionally, for that matter) has an implement or appliance or five or ten of them that they consider essential to their culinary practices. But how many of these things really matter in the larger scheme of things? How many are truly essential, or at least very important, to the preparation — and the ultimate consumption — of food (and let’s throw drink in here as well, just to wash it all down with)?

We were sitting around talking about this one day and came up with the obvious candidates: pots and pans, the knife, the oven, the (hey, we’re up-to-date around here) food processor… Then somebody said, well, what about the things nobody invented but somebody figured out or harnessed — like, er, fire, without which cooking as we understand it would never have been born? And what about methods of collecting food, means of storing or preserving it, ways of taming it? We started making a list, including not just things we have in our own kitchens (salt, four-sided grater) but also natural phenomena (fermentation) and specialized tools (sous-vide equipment — which we don’t have in our own kitchens yet).

We decided to leave out foodstuffs — miraculous innovations that became veritable building blocks of civilization, like bread, wine, cheese, vinegar, bacon-cheeseburgers — though we did include two substances that we ingest, salt and gelling agents. We left out all the vehicles and devices with which food is planted and harvested (with one exception; see below); we omitted broad concepts like the domestication of animals and the development of genetic studies, though both have obviously had enormous effect on what and how we eat (among other things); we decided not to include means of conveying information about food, from the book to the iPad.

What we ended up with is a list of things that we, yes, simply couldn’t cook — or eat and/or drink — without. As usual with such compendiums, we have been both selective and subjective. We’ve probably missed some obvious and vital items, and we have frankly allowed ourselves to have a little fun here and there. Should you decide to assemble such a list yourself, of course, it would almost certainly not be the same as ours.

Here’s the first five:

  1. Salt
  2. Fire
  3. The Knife
  4. The Spoon
  5. The Pot

All pretty important, no doubt. And at number 6? Drum roll, please …

  • 6. Fermentation

Awesome, well-deserved. Seven more alcohol-related items also made the list.

  • 9. The Barrel
  • 10. Wine Press
  • 13. Distillation
  • 18. Cork
  • 25. Pasteurization
  • 26. Refrigeration
  • 50. The Pull-Tab

Some other faves that made the cut included the blender, the restaurant and the fork. Personally, I would have put the Deep-Fryer higher than 32, but then I probably eat fried food every day. But it’s a fun list, despite many commenters taking it way too seriously. Here you can see the full list. But I have to ask, why do we always say something is the best thing since sliced bread. Besides that, what would you add?

Session Five-0 Ponders The Philosophy Of “How Do They Make Me Buy Their Beer?”

By

session-the
Our 50th Session — The Big Five-0 — is a monumental one and our host, Alan from A Good Beer Blog, is tackling it with appropriate seriousness, especially considering it’s on April Fool’s Day. He’s chosen as his topic How Do They Make Me Buy Their Beer? Alan elaborates:

What makes you buy someone’s beer? Elemental. Multi-faceted. Maybe even interesting.

  • Buying beer. I mean takeaway. From the shelf to you glass. What rules are dumb? Who gives the best service? What does good service mean to you? Please avoid “my favorite bar references” however wonderful. I am not talking about taverns as the third space. Unless you really really need to and contextualize it into the moment of transaction at the bar. If you can crystallize that moment of “yes” when the bartender is, in fact, tender go for it.
  • What doesn’t work? What fad or ad turned you off what had previously been turned on about some beer’s appeal? When does a beer jump the shark? When does a beer store fail or soar? When does a brewery lose your pennies or earn your dimes?
  • Go micro rather than macro. You may want to explore when you got tired of “extreme” or “lite” or “Belgian-style” but think about it in terms of your relationship with one brewery rather than some sort of internet wave of slag … like that ever happens.
  • What is the most you paid for a great beer? More importantly – because this is not about being negative – what is the least? I don’t mean a gift. What compels you you to say this is the quality price ratio (“QPR”) that works best for you? When does a beer scream “you would have paid 27% more for me but you didn’t need to!”?

So pull out your wallet. Stare at it. What beer makes you open it up and throw down your hard-earned cash? Then tell the world what it is for the next Session on Friday, April 1. No fooling.

New Pliny The Elder Video By The Famous

By

pliny
The San Francisco-based band The Famous regularly plays the beer circuit and can frequently be seen performing at beer festivals and brewpubs around the Bay Area. They’re a terrific band. I’ve seen them several times, most recently at Vinnie Cilurzo’s 40th birthday party at Russian River Brewing. At Vinnie’s party, The Famous did a song created for the occasion, Pliny the Elder or The Pliny Song, an awesome little homage to the beer and the man it was named for. They’ve now recorded a studio version of it, and have created a music video to go along with it. Enjoy.

The Chemistry Of Beer

By

ACS
I got an interesting press release this morning from the American Chemistry Society (ACS) touting the Chemistry of Beer, as they put it, “just in time for Saint Patrick’s Day. Today they “released a new video, The Chemistry of Beer, which focuses on the science involved in producing the world’s third most popular beverage (after water and tea).”

From the press release:

Shot in high-definition format, the video features Sam Adams Senior Brewing Manager Grant Wood, who holds a degree in Food Science & Technology from Texas A&M University. It explains the process of turning barley, hops, water and yeast into a lager or ale. Among the insights:

  1. Yeast is the most important ingredient because it determines if the brew is ale or lager.
  2. Water is crucial, too, and it must be free of organic substances and “off” flavors.
  3. Key flavor compounds are packed into those little flower clusters called hops, which add flavor and a pleasant bitterness to the beer.

Produced by the ACS Office of Public Affairs, the video includes plenty of “did-you-know” fodder for those St. Patrick’s Day conversations over a pint. Did you know, for instance, that the fermentation process in which yeast produce alcohol also produces almost 600 flavor compounds? The Chemistry of Beer ends with a message that all drinkers should take to heart, St. Patrick’s Day and every day: Drink responsibly!

The whole video was shot at Boston Beer’s pilot brewery in their Jamaica Plain location in Boston. Grant, who you probably know if you’ve visited the brewery or have been in the industry for any length of time, gives a polished tour and explanation of the brewing process. It’s probably nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s relatively comprehensive and does a good job of explaining brewing in a nutshell, with an emphasis on the chemistry, of course.

Guinness Chocolate Cheesecake

By

guinness-glass
My sister-in-law sent me this delicious looking recipe for a chocolate cheesecake made with Guinness, though I suspect any Irish dry stout would work. The recipe comes from Closet Cooking, a food blog by a man named Kevin in Ontario, Canada.

Guinness-Chocolate-Cheesecake-2

This recipe for the Guinness chocolate cheesecake is a pretty basic chocolate cheesecake recipe with the addition of the Guinness but the similarities stop there. The addition of the Guinness changes the texture and properties of the cheesecake making it more souffle like. Normally you can tell when a cheesecake is done by shaking it a bit and if only the center wiggles it is done but the entire surface of this cheesecake will wiggle the whole time, even after 2 hours of baking. You pretty much just have to trust the recipe and the results are certainly worth it!

Guinness-Chocolate-Cheesecake-3

The Guinness chocolate cheesecake is a moist one as might be expected with all of the extra liquid provided by the Guinness but it is also nice and light and creamy. This cheesecake has a texture that seems to be like a cross between a souffle and fudge and it is simply amazing! The Guinness flavour is very subtle but it seems to enhance the overall chocolate flavour which is quite welcome. In all honesty, this cheese cake does not need any garnishes but feel free to top it with some Bailey whipped cream if you like.

Here’s the recipe, but without the blockquotes for ease of reading:

Guinness Chocolate Cheesecake
(makes 6+ servings)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
12 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons heavy cream
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup Guinness

Directions:

1. Mix the graham cracker crumbs, cocoa powder, sugar, and butter and press into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan.
2. Melt the chocolate in the cream in a double boiler.
3. Cream the cream cheese.
4. Mix in the sugar, chocolate, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and Guinness.
5. Pour the mixture into the spring form pans.
6. Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 60 minutes.
7. Turn off heat and leave cheesecake in the oven with the door slightly ajar for 60 minutes.
8. Let it cool completely.
9. Chill the cheesecake in the fridge overnight.

Guinness-Chocolate-Cheesecake-1

Boy that looks tasty. I’m hungry.