Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

So, as promised, here is the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale review:

So I wanted to review another Pumpkin Ale since it's that time of year.  The next one I wanted to write about is the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale.  This ale is a brown ale brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Appearance: (The picture above is not mine, I am meaning to import my pic). The color is very clear, light to medium amber.  There was no head that formed on the pint glass.

Aroma:  The nose had a slight brown sugar hint at first, then a faint whiskey-ish smell, then cinnamon, and fading into the aroma of pumpkin.

Taste:  First a smooth, creamy texture turning into the taste of pumpkin, then maybe a brown sugar flavor, finishing with the taste of cinnamon on the back end drawing me back in for another drink.

Drinkability:  Even though it's a 7% beer, the alcohol is masked enough to make this one very drinkable in my opinion.

Overall:  A very drinkable high-gravity pumpkin ale.  Has more of a spice finish than a pumpkin finish, but there's nothing wrong with that...depends on how much you want of the pumpkin flavor.   The Schlafly one had more of the pumpkin going on and a fuller flavor.  This one is nice, but a little lighter in pumpkin flavor compared to the Schlafly.  It has a nice fall spiciness to it though  I would definitely drink again.

Rating: B

It's that season again...pumpkin beers and Oktoberfest!!!

Wow, has it really been that long since my last post. Man, I've gotta get better about updating this site. Over the next few days I'm gonna put up some posts about some of the pumpkin beers that you can buy in the area (Nashville) and maybe some of the Oktoberfests that I've had recently. A few weeks ago, I was in the Oktoberfest (which started yesterday in Germany actually) mood, but now I'm all about the pumpkin beers. In the past, I haven't been the biggest fan of these, but I don't know if it's changing tastebuds or the fall weather setting in, but I am really seeking these out at the moment. They just really go with the feel of the season. The first one that i would like to talk about is the Schlafly Pumpkin Ale. It's an ale brewed with pumkins as well as spices(nutmeg, clove, cinammon). I picked mine up at Woodland Wine Merchant, but I've seen it at Midtown Wine and Spirits, and I'm sure you can find it at any other craft liquor store (It's and 8% beer by the way) in town. Let's get to tasting:

Aroma: Definately have cinammon and clove on the nose. You can smell a decent hint of pumkin as well. Definately smells like it fits the season and makes me crave pumkin pie.

Appearance: Poured into a snifter with no head forming to speak of. Beautiful color that matches the fall theme. Beautiful sunburst color ranging from dark amber to lighter orange/amber/golden hues.

Taste: Sampled at about 45 degrees (know it's probably gonna be a little more flavorful at a slightly warmer temp though). It's definately one of the more balanced "pumkiny" flavored beers I've tried this season. The spices come through nicely as well making this one very balanced and drinkable. It tastes like more of what I have expected a pumkin ale to taste. Like a nice piece of pumkin pie with good cinammon, clove, and nutmeg holiday flavor balance. Also, the alcohol content is nicely masked, but there is a hint of the alcohol warmth a few minutes after swallowing.

Drinkability: Weighing in at 8%, I think this is actually a very drinkable pumkin ale. I think 3 of them may be the max I could drink, but if you appreciate pumkin ales, I think this one is really enjoyable. Not necessarily a session beer, but a nice one to have in a snifter at the close of a pleasant fall day. One that will probably make you want one more before ending the night.

Overall: Probably the best pumkin ale I've tried this season although I've only tried a few so far and have some other good ones to taste. I think this one is exactly what one would expect from a pumkin ale. Ever present pumkin flavor, smooth body, not harsh, and nicely spiced but balanced bringing the changing color of the leaves to mind. Very good impression with this one. If pumkin ales aren't your thing, you might want to skip it, but if you're seeking out something with a lot of fall flavor, I highly recommend this one this year. Next up is the Dogfish Head Pumpkin ale. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Score: A

New Belgium Ranger IPA and Trippel

Word on the street is that New Belgium Ranger IPA and Trippel are coming to Nashville on Feb. 24th. At least that's when the folks at Frugal McDoogal said it would be available. Ranger IPA, New Belgium's first year-round IPA offering, was created due to a high demand from New Belgium beer "rangers" (the people that make sure that New Belgium's products are being poured and stocked in areas near you) who wanted something offered that had "more hops"! Ranger IPA has already made it to some markets, but is said to be in this area at this time. I'm also excited about the Trippel finally making it to Nashville. The Trippel has been offered for a while in a lot of New Belgium markets, but I'm excited to see it making it's way to middle Tennessee. I'm not sure if any of the other year-round offerings are coming as well (Abbey and Sunshine Wheat). The folks at Frugal said that these beers will be high gravity and, therefore, will be for sale on the liquor side. For more information on these products, follow these links:

Ranger IPA: http://www.newbelgium.com/rangerland

New Belgium's site (for info on the Trippel and other year round offerings): http://www.newbelgium.com/beer

Pliny the Elder brew day!

So I recently brewed a clone recipe of 'Pliny the Elder' which I purchased from Austin Homebrew Supply. I brewed a 5 gallon batch and the recipe called for around 13lbs. of grain and 17 oz. of hops! Needless to say, this should be a hop monster. I wanted to share some pictures of the process as this was my first ever all-grain brew.

Above is most of my arsenal of ingredients. Malts: 2-row, Crystal, and Cara Pils, Hops: Chinook, Warrior, Simcoe, Columbus, and Centennial. There was also one other packet of hops to the right that is out of the picture.

Above is the converted cooler that I used as my mash tun. I ran my sparge water from a bucket on top of the kegerator (to the left of the cooler, with the towels on it) into the cooler. The wort came out of the spout on the bottom of the cooler into the brew kettle.

This is the inside of my mash tun. I used a washing machine hose and took out the plastic inside to use the stainless steel braids to sift the grains when draining my mash.

So I've added my grains at this point and they are mashing away. I was shooting for a mash temp of 150 and the instructions said to heat strike water to 170 to get this temperature once the grains were added. However, I over shot my target temp by about 8 degrees so I added a little ice to the mash (which I wasn't excited about, but hopefully it won't hurt it too much) to get it down to target level. If I brew this again, I may shoot for my strike water to be around 163-165 to get closer to, if not right on, the target 150 temp. If not, I can at least have a little window to adjust as needed, up or down.

Here's what the grain bed looked like once the sweet wort had drained out. I used the tupperware top on top of the grain bed to regulate my sparge water flow. I ran the tube from the bucket of sparge water, to the tupperware top, then onto my grain bed.

Alright, now we can begin the boil of the wort that I just drained!

Let's take a little break to see the rare snow outside that we had for this brew day in Tennessee.

So, around 2 hours later (!), when the wort started boiling, I was able to do my first hop addition!

90 minutes and 3 more hop additions later, it was time to stop the boil and to try and cool the wort down as quickly as possible. I tried to use my wort chiller for the first time, but some of the tubing on it wasn't cooperating properly, so I had to ditch it and I tried to take advantage of the rare weather conditions outside. I built a little snow tower around my boil kettle thinking that it would cool it down pretty quickly, but it wasn't working as quickly as I had hoped.

Since my brew kettle wasn't cooling down as quickly as planned, I thought that I could go ahead and throw the wort into my glass primary fermenter which I thought would help it cool since, A) It was glass, and B)It would be taking the wort out of my brew kettle which was pretty hot. This idea didn't work as well as I thought and was cooling it down at about the same rate as the brew kettle. I decided that all I could really do was wait at this point. So around 9:30pm (I started the process at 8am), my wort was ready for the yeast to be pitched.

Yes, this process did take a while, but there are some things that I can do next time to shorten the process. I am used to extract brewing, so I didn't think about things like working with a larger volume of water with all-grain and the time that it takes that amount of liquid to heat and to cool. It was a fun process though, and a learning experience. I feel like this was the first 'real deal' beer that I have brewed since I dealt with all aspects of the process for the first time (mashing) and didn't use extract (mashing done for me). I am happy to say that my fermentation was rapidly churning along the next morning when I woke up, and I am excited to try my first all-grain brew! I'll let you know how it goes! Also, if you have any questions about my experience brewing this recipe or any of the methods used, or just have any feedback, please feel free to ask or to post your comments. Thanks for checking this out!

Sorry about the lack of posts...Hope to get going with it soon!

Haven't put too much time into this blog in a little while. Sorry about that! I've had a lot of things that I wanted to write about though and sipped on a lot of new beers;) Also, I'm getting ready to brew my first all-grain batch of beer. It's going to be a clone recipe of Russian River Brewing's "Pliny the Elder". An Imperial IPA with 17 ounces of hops in a 5 gallon batch! I'm pretty excited about it. I'll try to get some pictures up of the process soon. Thanks for checking back every now and then and hopefully I'll get to updating this site more and more. Thanks again. See ya!