Author Archives: Bishop

Craft Beers – Snowshoe Brewing Co. and Others

Now posted in the correct place!

Sitting in First Street Alehouse in Livermore California sampling a couple of beers and getting my tri-tip fix!!! First up was the Snowshoe Pale Ale. Snowshoe Brewing Company is in the town of Arnold in the Calaveras county area made famous by Mark Twain and the 1849 California gold rush. The beer had a nice hop aroma and just enough bitterness to let you know that the hops are there. It was a nice compliment to the tri-tip sandwich! The tri-tip was not as rare as I prefer but I still enjoyed every bite.

First Street Alehouse, Livermore, California – from my iPhone

Next up was Snowshoe’s Grizzly Brown. A beautiful creamy tan colored head covered the brown ale. The flavor is creeping up toward the toasty roasty taste of a porter but just a ways short. Their website compared it to a Newcastle Brown – Newcastle is a bit on the puny side of the Grizzly but in the same broad category. I like this Grizzly better than the Newcastle. As I sit here sipping this brown ale, and sip and savor is a must with this brew, I contemplate whether I should sample a Berkley California brew.

Snowshoe Grizzly Brown….from my iPhone

The Pyramid Apricot Ale sounds interesting as does their Hefeweizen! Nope, went with the Lost Coast Great White. I am concerned about the unnamed secret blend of Humboldt herbs!!!!! I hope I am not subject to random drug testing! Nice beer – my wife Kathy would love it- citrusy like a Blue Moon or Shocktop but a little more subtle flavor .

Lost Coast Great White Ale – From my iPhone

Great service in the First Street Alehouse and the evening was perfect for outdoor seating….unfortunately I was not able to get a table outside! Kudos to my server Maria B…..knowledgeable and went out of her way to answer some of my more beer technical questions.

TTFN

Bishop

Lost Beer – Found

My best friend’s son just graduated from Texas A&M this past week. Son Ryan loves his beer, but that is not much of a surprise. We met Ryan the day after graduation night over at his parent’s house…Kathy and I made up a nice sample of good micro brews and a lone bottle of my aged Imperial Stout….a stout that was brewed December 2010 and has aged so very well. I took a 22 oz. bottle – John and Ryan split it three ways so we could all get a good taste of the beer. Ryan loved it!!!!! to say the least. I told him that I had held back one 22 oz. bottle for a special occasion.

I don’t know if it was the stout or the fact that he had been partying for 30 plus hours but at 9:30 PM he was horizontal and snoozing. I can only guess but a day or so later I received a text from my son Ben, a good friend of Ryan, asking me to save the last bottle of stout for him. Ryan must have bragged a little! I agreed but the beer disappeared before Ben came home to get it! Hmmmmmmm – seems like daughter Lisa absconded with it and shared it with her friend John….The report back was that he beer was superb. Sorry Ben!

I went to look at my storage locations thinking that maybe I had put a couple of bottles back but….no luck but I made a discovery……two cases of beer from a mystery batch. I use colored caps to differentiate the batches…I finished up the blue caps a month or two ago, the red caps last week, I still have the Dirty Blonde in the 6L bottle and a handful of flip top bottles of the same….where did the 45 bottles of silver capped brew come from?

Looks like the only hope for Ben getting a bottle of the Imperial Stout is if our friends the Mageean’s have not consumed all of the thqank you bottles I gave them for hosting and helping Joe this past fall. Donel Mageean is Irish so…..it is possible that it has been sampled completely.

I usually keep records of each batch brewed, dates, OG, FG, etc. But no records in my book for these 45 bottles! Ok – so lets chill one and taste it. It was very good….Like a Belgian Wit…. Where did it come from…Not Defalcos, Not Northern Brewer, not our local store in Humble…..I sometimes use Williams Brewing and I checked my order history there….ahhh in November I bought a seasonal kit…the “Christmas Wit” yes….now I remember…two cases capped with silver caps. Yeah, I think I remembered that I wanted to bottle condition for an extended period of time, yeah that’s right….and I will swear to the story.

Just add “Christmas Wit Ale” in the label area and you can imagine how the label looks on the bottle.

Cooking with Beer

Several ways to do this……

1. Allow the beer to work it’s magic from the inside out…. – grab a nice microbrew, sit back and savor the the taste, enjoy the heady aroma of malt and hops and let the magic of the alcohol stir your creative juices.

2. Once inspired, grab another beer, in this case it was an Amarillo Ale I brewed with a distinct citrus flavor – use it to marinate the chunks of New York Strip steak and chicken thighs cubed for shish-kabobs. Soak the meat overnight along with your favorite grilling seasonings..

3. Fire up the grill, load the skewers, flexible SS cable skewers given to me by my daughter, meat, bell peppers – yellow and orange, onion, cherry tomatoes and due to CRS I forgot the chunk pineapple purchased for the masterpiece.

4. Pull a pint form my min-ikeg…..the Dirty Honey Blonde Ale I recently brewed……then a Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA – a nice beer to try if you are not sure about IPA’s….they can be more bitter, i.e. hoppy. This one is pretty mild and has a nice hop/floral aroma. The website claims IUB’s at 60 but it doesn’t hit my taste buds as anywhere near that hoppy.

5. Enjoy the grilled flavors, aromas and beer!

TTFN

Bishop

Getting My Head Around Colorado Beers

I was in Denver Colorado last week working with a good friend and co-worker – Gary. We both enjoy a cold one and on this trip we were in a hotbed for craft brewed beers. We didn’t get a chance to visit any of the local breweries but cruised the establishments that line the 16th Street Mall in Denver.

Our first night we visited the Paramount Cafe – a fun and laid back place with cold beer and good burgers! I decided to sample….they had a flight of 5 – 5 ounce glasses of local IPA’s. One problem….they were out of one of the Colorado beers so I subbed in a California IPA, the Firestone Double Barrel. The flight included a very nice Odell’s IPA, the Titan IPA, the Denver Pale Ale and the Raging Bitch Belgian IPA. The Odell’s and the Firestone were top notch. Gary had the New Castle Ale – a big one! We were off to a good start Monday night.

The day we arrived we spotted the Yard House. In 2008, Gary and his wife Pat joined me and my wife Kathy at the Honolulu Yard House – 102 beers at that time on tap…Yum. We put a dent in some of the local beers and a few others. So we added the Yard House to our plans for the week.

Our second night we took my friend John’s recommendation to visit the Rock Bottom Restaurant with  a brewery smack dab in the middle of the room – 8 large fermenters located upstairs. I sampled the House Amber Ale and it was very good! Gary had the house Red Ale and he found it pretty tasty. Maybe I had two beers????? oh well. Our waiter was very beer  knowledgeable and invited us back for the Thursday tapping of the Vienna Lager at 6:00 PM. We promised to return on Thursday and to try the house Texas Fire Steak that he highly recommended.

We made it to the Yard House the next evening. I stayed with the Colorado theme and had two beers from the Tommyknocker Brewery – the Nut Brown Ale and the Hop Strike – an IPA. Gary went back to Honolulu and sampled the Kona Longboard Lager twice.

We finished up the training class we were delivering on Thursday and headed back down to the 16th Street Mall. First stop was the Yard House to cut the dust. I had an Odell’s Myrcenary Ale and Gary reminisced again with the Kona Lager. Tempted to try more but but we had a commitment back at Rock Bottom.

Gary started with the Fire Chief Ale – the house red ale and I went with the house IPA – Yum! Then two Vienna Lagers and it was worth the trip back. Then my notes get fuzzy – Looks like a house Stout was consumed….that was probably mine. A Pale Lager of some sort – likely Gary’s choice. The a Belgian #2 – maybe mine…A red Ale – I am sure that was Gary’s, then something listed as a cask ale ?????? – The house Kolsche – I remember that one and it was superb! Lastly a Barley wine was consumed – or at least we payed to consume it…that tasting session would have been better spread over two or three nights. We just ran out of time. The 6:00 AM drive to the airport Friday morning was a bit hazy.

I think  summer trip to Colorado with a DD is in order. Beautiful scenery and awesome craft beers. PS – if you stay close to the 16th Street Mall you can stumble back and not need the DD.

TTFN

Bishop

A Birthday and a Lot of Love Prevent a Butt Whipping

Growing older is not such a bad thing….I like waking up on this side of the grass. Today is the 13th of March, the day after my 61st birthday and the celebration that went along with it. I had a nice series of calls from friends and family, a handful of meaningful email notes and the Facebook posts that made me feel pretty darned good. Had a great BBQ lunch at the  Goode Co –  My wife scored some really nice tickets for the Houston Rodeo and the Zac Brown Band concert –  We shared the evening with our best friends Beverly and John….it was an almost perfect night. It could have all been spoiled by my “inattention to detail” the evening of the 11th!

On the 11th of March I took one of the two 6L mini-kegs that had been conditioning and “tapped” it. I had chilled it and then installed the spout and CO2 cartridge. I decided to sample a little taste……. 5 or 6 ounces or so just to ensure that it was good…..and yes it WAS! I pulled the short glass of beer and closed the valve on the spout…..or so I thought. When fulled closed you feel it bump a little as it goes fully closed a detente type of valve . When fully closed you also have the option of engaging a toggle lock  to avoid any accidental discharge of beer. The valve will stayed closed without the lock if it is indeed fully closed…….that is where I must have erred. I sampled at 6ish and I went down for the count at about 9:40 PM. Sometime after 11 PM our son Joe came home and went to the back fridge for water or a soda….not a beer and found a very wet floor in front of the fridge and the smell of beer heavy in the air. He called out to my wife who opened the fridge only to have  a cascade of Dirty Honey Blonde ale run out onto the already soaked floor.

Apparently the valve was not fully closed and had emptied an entire 6L mini-keg of good beer as a fine spray inside of the refrigerator. Fortunately my birthday was less than an hour away and she  chose the high road….and let me sleep rather than rousting my sorry butt and putting me to work on the mess. So, love and respect for an aging and feeble minded husband prevented what could have been a serious butt whippin’!

Thanks hun….. I still owe you big time and I sure appreciate the fact that you love me!

One of My Favorite Birthday Cards

Das Dirty Honey Blonde – Es Schmeckt Gut

First Taste

I hope the German I learned back in 1972 translates ok!

I bottled the Dirty Honey Blonde about 10 days ago and I just had to sample it. First impressions….mighty good. I have two 6 Liter bottles and 10-16 oz. bottles sitting in a nice dark place. I think it will benefit from a few more weeks but it is very drinkable now. I have about 4 or 5 more glasses of Belgian Wit in one of the other 6 L bottles and once finished I will tap the “Blonde” and have her ready to dispense from the fridge.

The folks down at Backyard Home Brewers Education Center in Humble, TX gave me a winning recipe for this Ale. It is a partial grain recipe and turned out very nice… Local readers need to check them out.

http://www.backyardhomebrewers.com/       Listed below are some upcoming events for the local readers.

Advanced Homebrew Water Class: March 10th beginning at 4 pm.

Birthday Bash Beer Night! March 16th beginning at 6 pm

Join us for Adam, Jon, Preston and Chad’s birthday as we celebrate being born in March with lots of homebrew and craftbrew! – Since my birthday is on the 12th of March I think taht I should qualify!

Rogue Brewers Homebrew Club Meeting: March 29th at 6:30 pm

All Grain Brewing Class: March 31st beginning at 1 pm

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were off to Tennessee again. We enjoyed craft brews in both Nashville and in Knoxville.

Downtown Grill & Brewery in Knoxville

Nice beers, great people….even wearing our LSU colors locals would come over and welcome us. An Assistant DA for the City went out of his way and really made us feel welcome..Great place to visit and sample very nice craft beers. The brew kettle will be idle for a while – or at least until my inventory gets worked down a little.

TTFN

Bishop

Do Dirty Blondes Have More Fun?

A Nice Amber Color From The Start

I  am back to the brewing pot….I went down to the new brewing supply store in Humble, TX and had them help me design a blonde ale for an easy drinking session beer. What we came up with has the name – “Dirty Honey Blonde”. I was going to go real simple but I was easily talked into doing a partial grain recipe. It takes a little more time on brew day but it should be worth the effort. The grain bill included Vienna Malt, Honey Malt, Biscuit Malt and Cara-Pils Malt for body. The extract is an Amber Malt…. One hitch in the recipe was with the recommended hops, Hallertauer….they were out so we subbed Cascade hops…..when I cut open the package for the hops my nose was hit with an aroma that immediately took me back to my days of drinking Olympia Beer in California…. it was one of those beers that was just a little outside of the taste range for most of the new-rookie beer drinkers. What I realize now is how much the good use of hops influences beer taste. As a young man it was more about cost…..a case of Coors in the bottles was $5.25 – still a hefty sum in 1969 but I couldn’t tolerate Brew 102…the cheapest beer we could get. Yes, the Cascade hops….very nice, the clone recipe for Oly also includes Willamette hops but then again Oly is a lager and I am making an Ale!

I I did my darnedest to keep the cat hair at bay and soaked anything that came near the beer in Star-San!!!!! Mike, I am not going to lose another batch – It is into the fermenter now and it looks like it is off and bubbling. The  OG is 1.047 – about what it should be and will wind up in the neighborhood of 4.8% ABV. A nice session beer. Color is a nice amber  and a calculated IBU of 23.2 won’t make it real hoppy – that will make the bride happy.

My Amarillo Ale is done and seems to have mellowed out. The Amarillo hops……not from Amarillo, TX, give the beer a  definite  citrus floral  flavor. It has a bit of a grapefruit taste to me and Kathy says her buds pick up a hint of lemon. It slides down very easy. ABV of about 4.9% so it won’t whack you right away and the IBU comes out to about 58. The recipe claims – “somewhat dry ale with a strong floral-citrus accent” – and yes it fits the description.

Thanks goes out to the folks at Backyard Home Brewers and Education Center in Humble  TX.  A couple of the beer blogs that I follow are written by women brewers…..and guess what, while I was in the store a young woman – I would say most are younger than me now!- she was in to grab some supplies to brew on the weekend. The owners are helpful and easy to work with… if you are thinking about brewing and live in the area check them out. They hold classes on a regular basis and usually have something to sample and rate when you visit.

http://backyardhomebrewers.com/

Until Later

Bishop

 

 

If You Can’t Brew’em Then You Have to Sample’em

I am more than a thousand miles from my home brewed beer but I can’t stop thinking about the pleasures of lovingly hand crafted beers. I did a little search of Grand Junction, CO and asked the locals for some recommendations for good beer and a good meal.

Our second night in Grand Junction, Colorado found us in the Kannah Creek Brewing Company. Good food, nice pizzas and hand crafted beers. I had the Lands End Amber Ale. Here is a description from there webiste. A 2010 Gold Award winner.
“Kannah Creek Brewing Company was awarded a Gold Award in the German-Style Brown Ale/Dusseldorf category for our Lands End Amber Ale. This beer is light amber in color, with a medium malt sweetness and a light hoppy flavor.”
My work partner on this trip is Pat McAdoo, he is a wee bit Scottish so he sampled the Scottish Ale charged with nitrogen for a very nice creamy head. He gave it it a strong thumbs up. If you like Whiskey….. they offer up a nice list of choices but saddly I/we did not partake…..next trip fer sure!!! American Bourbons, Irish Whiskey and ouf course Scotch Whiskey. Locals can walk away with growlers full of craft beer as well. If you are in Grand Junction it would be worth a visit.
http://www.kannahcreekbrewingco.com/
Tonight we are off to Naggy McGee’s Irish Pub….. or The Ale House or The Rockslide Restaurant and Brewery! So many choices and so little time. I may sample more than one or two….we fly home early tomorrow so I “should” behave! I will report back soon.
TTFN
Bishop

Dicks Danger Ale – May It Rest In Peace

After the transfer to the carboy

I had very high hopes for this beer, a clone partial grain recipe. It looked, smelled and tasted great racking from the primary to the secondary carboy. No hint of problems when bottling the batch. I was patient and let it sit for nearly 5 weeks. Ahhh, the reward, or so I thought. Somewhere along the process my ale became infected, infected so severely that I had to pronounce the batch as terminal. I have blamed the cats in the past but I think I may have to admit that I might not have taken the sanitation  to the nth degree. I have been very successful in the past……

For the future, my preparation will include scrubbing down the entire work area, strong cleaning measures for the equipment & bottles and keeping the air still – no cat dander or whatever it may be. I like my beer far too much to let myself become subject to beer-brewing malpractice! I received significant coaching from my better half two weeks ago as I bottled the Double Belgian Wit. She made valid comments and I was reduced to the simple and only right answer a man can give at that point – “Yes Dear”!!!! She likes her Belgian Wit and does not want it to not die a tragic death due to my controllable actions!

In the near future I may consider a conical fermenter and eliminate the racking to the secondary all together. Maybe I should size up to the next size, this would allow me to make 10 gallons at a time and brew a little less frequently. Hmmmmmm – Not a big cost difference in equipment –  I should also add a bigger boil pot too! I will write-up the AFE and see if I have adequate justification with the CFO to proceed with the capital investment.

Better news in the next post…….. I hope!

Bishop

Beer Advice – Patience, Just Patience!

Serrano Pepper Jelly is Ready--- My Beer Isn't

On the 25th of November the kitchen saw double duty – I bottled my Dick’s Danger Ale clone and made a batch of Serrano Pepper jelly….. all of the peppers from my backyard “farm”. The jelly is so good right now……. but unfortunately I have to wait and wait.  It has been a long two weeks and I know I should have waited but…… I just had to check on it.

I had a batch of a Double Belgian Wit in my primary fermenter and it was time to transfer it over to my secondary. It is a well-known fact that to ensure a good beer, each step in the process requires a good beer in hand. I popped the top on my – what I should have known, immature beer. No, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad bit I now know that I need to be a little more patient and let this beer age a little more.

I did sample the Double Belgian and I am excited about it too! Be patient Bishop – another 15 days in the secondary and at least three weeks aging after bottling…. Let me look at the calendar -hmmmmm –  can I wait until next year before I can sample it? I will have to ……. I may even wait until Super Bowl Sunday and then bust it out……well maybe a taste test to ensure its quality is up to my standards.  I have been known to have a broad range of acceptable standards when it comes to beers. basic requirements are; 1. It must be cold and that is somewhat negotiable, 2. It must taste good and I like a lot of different flavors so again it is broad range, and 3. It must make you smile….. non-negotiable!

What’s next – I saw a good-looking for a Cream Ale – an easy drinking beer that should make my bride happy. I have a few weeks off so I will look into to it soon…. Now I need to check in with my nephew to see how his batch is coming along. And remember Sean…… be patient, use your uncle as an example…sometimes a not so goood one!

TTFN

Bishop