Thoughts on Beer

After last year’s tailgating season, my friends and I started brainstorming ways to pay tribute to our game-day homebrew.  Slowly our ideas grew from a tap attached to a board sunk into the ground, to a way to contain the homebrew and dispense the beer.  After the Big Ten college football conference gained a member and divided into two divisions, the Legends (which the Iowa Hawkeyes are in) and the Leaders division, we decided to create a ‘totem’ pole that could hold two homebrew 5 gallon soda kegs, one stacked on top of the other.

Once we decided on our idea, the design was next.  What should we make it from?  How do we engineer it to dispense the homebrew?  After one of our designer friends took the idea and ran with it, we came up with the idea to use 12-inch diameter concrete forms.  Two of the tubes are 8 foot tall, and all it took was some engineering to make it all work.  The bottom tube is secured with 6-inch L-brackets with removable bolts.  The top section has long beams that are secured with bolts, and has a notched hole-less peg board for wings of the top figure.  The bottom section contains two gas lines, one for each keg, and the top section has two beer lines, hooking up to tower-style shanks.  After several months of planning and design, we unveiled the keg totem at opening day weekend!

The Concrete Forms, Before Painting

Full Mockup

Primed Tubes

Applying the First Coat of Paint

Bottom of the Totem After the First Coat

Sizing Up the Wings

Completed Totem

Set Up at the Tailgate

The Inaugural Pour

Brewfest 2011

This past weekend was the first Iowa City Northside Octoberfest.  This year, Brewfest was combined with the celebration, to expand the audience of the event.  In addition to Brewfest, there was live music, food  vendors, and Sodafest for those who wanted to try different sodas.

At Brewfest, there were almost 90 different beer vendors with over 400 different beers.  Some of my favorites included two new Lips of Faith Beers from New Belgium: Kick and Clutch.  Kick was described as a slightly-sour pumpkin cranberry ale.  The beer had a lot of cranberry flavor, but the pumpkin was very light.  Clutch was a slightly sour brown ale.  It reminded me a bit of New Belgium’s 1554 with a bit of sourness.  Look for both these beers in Iowa soon.

Also, Peace Tree Brewing had several very nice special beers for the festival, including a bourbon-barrel stout (their Belgo-style Black River Gumbo Stout aged in bourbon barrels), a slightly-funky and a bit sour Cornucopia with Brett yeast, and a light and fruity German-style Kolsch.

Did you go to Brewfest 2011?  What were some of your favorite beers?

Boulevard Collaboration #2

I had a chance to sample the Boulevard Smokestack Collaboration #2 – White IPA, a collaboration with the Deschutes Brewery in Oregon, over the weekend and I found it to be a great beer.  Imagine a Belgian style wit beer with more hop bitterness.

At first sip, it definitely tasted like a witbier, with nice spicy fruitiness.  As the beer hits the back of your tongue, it goes into more of the piney, herbal, stronger American hop flavor.  The hop-forward flavor wasn’t overpowering, and balanced out nicely with the witbier spice and citrus notes.

Overall, I loved how the White IPA started like a wit but then finished with a nice and firm, but not overpowering, hop bitterness. It was a very good beer, and I hope this collaboration sticks around or happens again.  It’s great to see breweries pushing styles out of the way to make a great beer.

Did you try the Collaboration #2?  What did you think?

Festival of Iowa Beers

Last Sunday was the 7th annual Festival of Iowa Beers, and each year it continues to grow. This year,all the Iowa breweries, including the newly-named Backpocket Brewing, and many of the Iowa homebrew clubs participated.

Overall, it was a great day, and a great day for beer, with interesting beers from the commercial breweries, including a new Extreme Series beer, a dark rye, from Millstream Brewing.

Just like the previous Festivals, the homebrew tent offered the most interesting beers, including several barrel-aged beers, including an imperial stout aged in a Templeton Rye barrel, along with several meads and ciders .  My favorites from the homebrew tent were the Templeton Rye barrel-aged stout, an Imperial Wit, a Duvel clone, and a Munich Helles.

As always, I look forward to next year’s festival.  Did you make it out to the festival?  What were your favorites?

Samuel Adams Harvest Collection

As the days grow shorter and the leaves start to fall, Samuel Adams has released their latest variety pack, the Harvest Collection Variety Pack, just in time for the season.  As they usually do, they have replaced one beer style, the dunkelweizen, with another German style, the rauchbier, which is a beer that uses smoked malt to lend a smoky flavor to the beer (it goes great with grilling).  I’m very interested in Samuel Adams’ take on the style.

In the pack, there are 2 bottles each of:

• Boston Lager
• Octoberfest
• Black Lager
• Harvest Pumpkin Ale
• Bonfire Rauchbier
• Irish Red

All in all, a fairly good mix pack, except for maybe the pumpkin ale (which I’ve expressed my displeasure before).  Get it while it lasts!

Have you tried the Harvest Collection Variety Pack? What’s your opinion?

New Belgium Grand Cru Abbey Ale

After sampling New Belgium’s Super Cru, I decided to try New Belgium‘s ode to another one of their original beers, the Abbey Ale, in the form of a Grand Cru Abbey Ale.  This tribute has more malt, to increase the strength, but the additional sugars keep the body low.

The beer had a nice sweet aroma.  In the taste, there were some plum and fig flavors with the aftertaste having hints of plums and raisins.  There was a little bit of alcohol warming in the finish, but overall was a nice light finish.  It was a nice strong abbey ale, and a good tribute to the Abbey Ale.

Have you tried the Grand Cru Abbey Ale?  What was your take?