Bulgarian Brews

Looking at my pageview stats the other day, I noticed one access from Bulgaria.  I decided to see what the brewing situation was in Bulgaria, as you don't generally hear anything about it in our press or online media.  I did some basic Google searching and of course ran across www.bulgarianbeer.com which provides a listing of the eleven of the thirteen breweries in the country.  Most are owned by large brewing conglomerates like InBev, Heineken and Carlsberg.  I checked each name, (Almus, Ariana, Abtika, Boliarka, Burgasko, Kamenitza, Ledenika, Pirinsko, Shumensko, MM Varna, and Zagorka), in RateBeer.com to see others' comments.  Beer only came to Bulgaria in the mid 1800s, brought by immigrants from France, Switzerland and Austria.

The highest rating was a 58 out of 100 (within the style) and 3.06 weighted score (where the mean is 2.75) for Stolichno T’mno (Bock) from Zagorka.

Some nice comments about it, but one thing that I noticed about many of the reviews of the brews from Bulgaria, was that there was often a comment about a metallic taste.  I looked for some pattern, as for Stolichno, the comment came from an Israeli drinker, so perhaps it was due to the canning and time in transit or on the shelf.  Although, other reviewers in Norway and Denmark didn't report it.  I then went down the list and looked up Kamenitza T’mno, a dunkel, from the oldest commercial brewery in Bulgaria.  Again an Israeli finding a metallic taste, but at least this brew had a lot of reviews, many very positive.  Finally scrolling through the reviews, someone from New Zealand, then some from Sweden, Ontario, CA, Finland and Wisconsin, US reporting a metallic taste.  Overall the comments were very complementary, the weighted rating fairly average and one reviewer brought up the point that dark beer had only been introduced in the mid 1990s to the Bulgarian brewing scene.  Having just lagered a dunkel over the summer, I can sympathize with the brewers' difficulties with it.

Next I checked Pirinsko Svetlo Pivo, a pilsner from the Pirinsko brewery owned by Carlsberg.  Again, Israeli and Finnish reviewers reported metallic tastes.  I checked back to see if they were the same reviewers as before.  Neither the Israeli or Finnish reviewers were the same as reported the metal in the Kamenitza.

If Kamentiza was delivered in a bottle as shown on Ratebeer, then the metallic taste isn't from the canning.  However on the Bulgarian Beer site, it shows both bottles and cans, so who knows how the reviewers received the product.  Back to the reviews.  Aha - the reviewer from Wisconsin got the brew in the bottle, as did the reviewer in Finland.

Next I Googled "water quality in bulgaria" and reached the site http://www.aquamedia.at/templates/index.cfm/id/20679 which has a very detailed analysis of the water in Bulgaria from 2007.  Phew, the analysis certainly seemed like the water itself could be at fault - some parts of the country have natural lead, chromium, manganese, nitrates (which have a twangy taste), and iron.  The water treatment systems in the country don't remove these metals, so I imagine in many cases they end up in the beer, unless the brewery specifically treats the water.

It would be interesting to see if the water is treated at the breweries, given the sizable backing most of the breweries have.  I don't think this would be enough for me to not sample Bulgarian brews, given the chance and the many positive reviews I've seen.  Perhaps the viewer from Bulgaria will fill us in on the breweries' filtration systems.

Brew 12 - Belgian Wit..sort of

My son is a big fan of Blue Moon's Belgian White Ale, although sometimes he'll grab a Shock Top.  some folks are quick to point out..."YOU KNOW ITS MADE BY MILLER/COORS?" 

Yeah, we do, and you know those guys have been making beer a long time and their brewers maybe hamstrung by the guys in the marketing department, but they do know their stuff.  Blue Moon is actually a separate craft beer division a couple layers removed from the mass produced Coors and Miller Genuine Draft divisions.  They have their own brewery, brewmasters, etc. and have come up with some really good brews - red ale, pumpkin ale. farmhouse ale, various wheat ales and an abbey. 

So since my Saison is almost gone already, the next brew on my list was a Belgian Wit, to see if I could make something my son would like.  I wasn't trying to exactly duplicate Blue Moon, but wouldn't complain if I did.  Should have looked deeper before starting, since I didn't realize they use oats in the brewing too.  I found a Belgian Wit on beersmith.org from some brewer named Brad.  I found several others and combined the recipes and altered the ingredients a bit to use up some of the stuff I had on hand.  Well, a little more than a bit.

I had a bunch of small batches of hops laying around - .2 ounces of this, .4 ounces of that.  Remember I only brew 2 gallon batches, so I end up with lots of odds and ends, half packets of dry yeast, half bags of specialty grains, etc.  I did some comparisons on the hops and substituted my .3 oz of Hallertau US hops for Saaz to use as the aroma hops. 

I picked up a regular naval orange and zested it; probably some other orange you're supposed to use. I used SafeBrew WB-06 yeast instead of WLP400.  I did have enough Kent Goldings on hand, pale ale malted barley, some light crystal malt and some flaked wheat.  I still needed a little higher SG so I found half pound of honey.  Okay, so we are way off from Blue Moon I suspect, but there should be enough wheat - 1.6 lbs - to make it taste like a wheat beer.

Went through the normal process, sanitizing, heating up the mash. 

Found out an interesting tidbit from a plumber that came by to flush my water heater.  He said that the resin based water treatment system I have only removes chlorine and particulate, so my water still should have enough carbonate and magnesium for brewing.  That's not what the water treatment guy said, but I'm sure he's just giving me the company line so I don't freak out that there's still calcium in my water.

While the mash was cooking, I took the coriander in a zip lock bag out to the garage and crushed it with a hammer.  Tough little buggers.  Have to do the same with Chocolate malt when I use it - can never seem to get it to go through the mill at the homebrew store.  Almost seems oily.

Kept the mash at 155 instead of the multiple steps I usually do.  Didn't seem to matter, did an iodine test after 60 minutes and it was fully converted.  So started sparging with a grain bag in the fermenting bucket to avoid having to rack the wort:

Then on to the boil for 60 minutes with the Kent Goldings going in as soon as the boiling started.

 

 

Turned off the heat after the 60 minutes and threw in the Hallertau hops, coriander and orange peel and let those sit for 5 minutes while I filled up a cooler outside and the sink with cold water.  This is the part I really dislike, trying to cool this stuff down.  Fortunately the weather has gotten cooler at night and the water in the cooler really helped bring it down relatively quickly, with the help of a few ice packs.  I used the grain bag again to sift out the hops, seeds and peels.  I also poured the wort back into the fermenter and kettle a few times to oxygenate it, plus let it splatter pretty well into the glass jugs.  I had started the hydrating the yeast with some of the wort during the boil, so it was good and ready by now. 

 

Here's all the jugs, hoses and towels ready in the cooler to start fermenting.  Twice a day I soak the towels in cool water to keep the jugs at 70 degrees.  The starting gravity came out to 1.055, which is about what I was targeting.

 

We'll see in a month what I end up with.  Should be fairly drinkable.

Delta King and River City Brewery

Sometime in the early 90s I worked a contract for this insurance company in the LA area.  Notwithstanding some very bizarre management staff and some real characters on my staff, I had several very memorable experiences there.  The first one was on the initial interview - I flew with the IT management team up to Sacramento on the company jet, formerly owned by an Arabian prince, complete with mahogany trim, sleeping space for 4, and a stocked wet bar.  Eventually I was hired and we made several trips to Sacramento.  Later when I worked for a Big 5 consulting firm I also spent the better part of a year in the Sacto area.

One time we were having strategy meetings...<yawn>..very forgetable.  But the best part was that we held the meetings and stayed in staterooms on the Delta King.



The food was out of this world and the interior of the ship was very elegant.  The staterooms were so-so - looked like the original furniture and the mattress felt like it from the 1850s. Kind of a musty smell too.  The IT director had the captain's quarters, so he was living large.  The Delta King is docked at the end of K Street and the whole wharf area has dozens of craft shops, restaurants, bars and is just a great place to spend the evening.  K Street itself is closed off and turned into a pedestrian mall.  Not far from the wharf is the River City Brewing Company.  http://www.rivercitybrewing.net/



River City Brewing is a brewpub and one of the first I'd ever seen.  I wandered in not realizing that they actually brewed right there. The fermenting tanks were a very visible part of the decor.  I took a quick scan of the board and was fascinated by the implications of an Oatmeal Stout.  I'd had settled for plenty of Guinness in the past and knew that there had to be more to stout from what I'd had in England. In the States, it was usually the only dark beer on the menu.  I was really looking forward to the difference that the addition of oatmeal would make.  I wasn't disappointed.

The head was dense, tan and lasting; the taste was out of this world.  Thick layers of coffee and roasted grain flavors and that distinct hint of oatmeal comprised the complexity of its taste. Nice medium body and silky mouthfeel...just the perfect example of the style.  From then on I was hooked on stout. Whenever I had to go back to the downtown area, I made a point of stopping in for one.  It's not on their menu now, but they now have a Black River (dry) Stout, that I'm sure is made with as much quality.

Iron City Brewery...changing with the times

I used to travel quite a bit with work, oftentimes returning to the same city for a week or two every few months.  I visited places like Lynchburg, VA, Windsor Locks, CA, Andover/Tewksbury, MA, Sacramento, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Dayton, OH, Houston, TX, and Pittsburgh, PA several times.  This was mostly from the mid 70s to mid 90s.  I'd often tried to sample the local brew when I hit those towns, although during the early part of those travels there weren't a lot of breweries to sample.  By 1977, there were only 40 breweries left in the country.  Among those left, was the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, brewing Iron City lager.  Whenever I travelled to Pittsburgh, that was my brew of choice...mostly because I liked the name and wanted to support a local brewery, as the brew itself wasn't really distinctive.  Actually it seemed to pick up some of the metallic taste of the can, or maybe iron really was one of the ingredients.


Iron City Brewing Company goes back a long way to 1861 to its founding by Edward Frauenheim on 17th Street.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_City_Brewing_Company  You can read the whole story there, but it quickly grew and took over many other local breweries and eventually by the end of the century became the third largest brewery in the U.S as the Pittsburgh Brewing Company.  In the 1980s the company started going through a period of hard times, in spite of having come out with a lite beer in the late '70s that boosted sales for awhile.  In 2007, the bankrupt remnants of the company were bought once more and the name returned to the Iron City Brewing Co.  Their product line is much more diverse now and their namesake brew is a Pilsner, but is joined by a couple of Munich Dunkels, a Vienna lager, fruit beers, a pale ale, a brown ale, several other lagers and malt liquors.  I look forward to getting back there to give them another try.

Saison uncapped.

Well, probably like most homebrewers, I get impatient.  It's only been a week since I bottled my Saison, but heck, it's just one bottle.  I threw it in the fridge for a few hours and took off on a bike ride with no particular destination, just east.  Headed for Sunrise Mountain and snaked my way through railyards, industrial parks, petrol dumps. around Nellis AFB and came to realize that the road that the map showed going toward the mountain was inside the base.  Headed up to LV Speedway, checked the map and couldn't see any reason why I'd want to go further north, except to see more flat, trash filled desert.  So turned around and took a different way home on larger streets.  Pretty uneventful, although Nellis has some pretty nice buildings on it, including the Federal hospital that's across the street.  About 16 miles round trip, mostly flattish.

Went home and cracked open that Farmers' Ale. Nice pffft when I lifted the cap.  It's only been a week sitting on the floor at 80-85 degrees, which should be perfect for that Belgian Saison Ale yeast.  When I poured it the resulting head was beyond expectation for just a week.

 

 

Love that color...about an SRM 14.  The head was as thick as any I've seen and really stuck to the glass in thick strips.  Very dense.  Mouthfeel was good and moderate.  Definitely some peppery aftertaste from the peppercorns and the yeast itself.  Not much malty flavor coming through, rather a bit bitter from the dry hopping of the Goldings.  Last time I dry hopped I used Cascade which has much less alpha acids than Goldings.  Be interesting to see how the taste develops overall during the next few weeks.  Next time I might eliminate the dry hopping and spices just to see how the base brew comes out.  Still a pretty looking brew.

 

 



Brewing White House Porter for new brewers

The news that the White House had started its own homebrewing operation and the subsequent FOIA release of the recipes has gotten the attention of a lot of folks new to brewing.  Even experienced homebrewers are taking a go at the recipes from what I've heard in the home brew shop and local homebrew meetings.  Most of the experienced folks have converted it to an all-grain recipe.

So a new brewer was asking for advice last night on Twitter regarding brewing the White House Porter.  He had all the ingredients gathered, and fortunately hadn't started before asking for assistance.  Upon reviewing the instructions again, as I'd gotten the recipe a few days back, I noticed some gaps that would trip up someone new to brewing.

The recipe assumes you know how to brew.  First off - there's no mention of equipment needed.  It is easy for a new person to miss pulling together things like a spoon, funnel, measuring cup, can opener.  Planning ahead can be crucial to the brewing process so you don't end up in a pickle when you need something and don't have it at hand or clean and sanitized when you need it.  The recipe also doesn't mention sanitizing, which means you better know what implements you are going to need, so you can sanitize them before you start.

One of the things I told him was to pay lots of attention to sanitization and if he uses bleach, to rinse everything three times with tap water; including all the pots, hose, racking cane, thermometer, spoon, measuring cup, funnel, strainer, everything.  If he was going to use StarSan for sanitizing, he wouldn't have to rinse as much.  They claim you can leave it on, but I don't.   

I also told him to practice with the siphon hose.  It is one thing to get the flow going, it's another to get it to stop and start again without spraying the floor, yourself, counter and everything in between.  I told him that I've used a hemostat with much better success than the kit-provided clamp.

The recipe calls for just dumping the honey and the LME into the wort.  It is a lot easier if you warm them up first so everything comes out of the can or bottle quickly without having to use a spoon or stand there for 15 minutes waiting for the last thick drips to stop.

Although the recipe calls for adding cold water to help bring down the temperature of the wort, it will still need a lot of chilling to get down to 70 degrees. I told him to think about how he was going to move 50+ lbs of hot wort splashing in a kettle from the kitchen to the bathroom to chill it.  Also, did he remember to get enough ice to fill the bathtub.  The wort needs to be chilled in about 30 minutes in order to avoid any off flavors.

The instructions also don't mention prepping the water by either boiling it or letting it stand overnight to remove any chlorine.  That could be especially bad for the water used to hydrate the yeast.

Finally, again with the sanitization, it doesn't remind the brewer to sanitize the racking cane, hose, pot, bottles and caps before the final step.

The final advice I gave the brewer was to pay attention to sanitization and rinsing, temperature and timing; and he would have a great chance of success.



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Ballantine

Ballantine...haven't thought of that word in years, then I just read it last week somewhere. 

At one time Ballantine Ale was the third largest brewer in the U.S. (ahead of Budweiser) and one of the oldest. It was founded in 1850 by Peter Ballentine and later when his sons joined, the company name was P. Ballentine and Sons.  The original brewery site in Newark, NJ was used as a brewing site since 1805.

This was one of the brews we had in our house when I was growing up.  Heck, we had to, they sponsored the Yankees.  I remember Mel Allen, the sportscaster for the Yankees announcing "Baseball and Ballantine" and "Hey, get your cold beer! Hey, get your Ballantine!...Just look for the three-ring sign/And ask the man for Ballantine." After which Allen would advise, "You'll be so glad you did" (from fallstaffbrewing.com).  Interesting that Ballantine wanted to cut costs, so they cut Mel Allen and put in Phil Rizzuto (aka the Scooter) a former Yankee.  I got his autograph on my mitt outside the stadium, along with Jim Bouton the Yankee pitcher who wrote the expose about Yanks on and off the field, and Spud Murray, the batting practice pitcher.  Spud was funny - he said, "I don't know why you kids want my autograph, I just throw goofballs."  Hey, he was walking into the clubhouse door and he was bigger than life.  Mantle and Maris breezed by, not daring to stop.  But I digress.

The genius of Peter Ballantine was evident in his coming up with the three ring sign when he saw the condensation rings on a table.  Anyone who put down their brew of any kind would imitate that and immediately think of Ballantine.  Then to add a bit of meaning to it, they put "Purity, Body, Flavor" each in one of the rings.

I remember the taste of Ballantine and asking about the difference between ale and beer, with the usual answer that ale was stronger.  Few knew the difference between top fermenting and bottom fermenting yeasts.  Ballantine Ale had a very distinctive and strong hop flavor.  It's a shame that they didn't hold up through the 60s, but it has been a long time since then that strongly hopped brews have come to the fore, like today's IPA fever.  Ballantine even brewed an IPA aged in wood casks, a Porter; a Brown Stout; a dark lager; and a Bock beer.  They also brewed higher ABV specially aged ales and barleywines for internal distribution, much like our craftbrewers do today.  It's a shame that this diversity in U.S. brews was blown away by the lager producers.

It's is now owned by Pabst, but brewed by Miller under contract.

Some descriptions of the taste of the current brew are at:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/447/876
I remember the taste being as what the last 2 posters, CaptnJack and the one before him, described, especially the tinniness and hoppiness.  I'd have to taste it again to see what other flavors they describe correlate to my memory.

Lots more of great info and pictures at:
http://www.falstaffbrewing.com/ballantine_ale.htm
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Ballantine_Brewery?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Brewery