down south in the land of the pines

tour of NC/SC

organic ales are just better

Freight-hopper

On my way through Tennessee's oldest town, Jonesborough, I stopped into the Depot Street Brewery for a tour. I caught the brewer before he headed out, on a beautiful day, to go ride his mountain bike. The small brewery serves a very local region. I sampled what he had on draft, and I was impressed with his beers. I brought home a sixer of his Southbound Scottish Ale, which was surprisingly light in body for a strong ale. This beer is going in my cooler and heading for Pisgah Forest.
I had celebrated the first Saturday in May with the thoroughbreds for 7 years, before coming to East Tennesse and beginning a new tradition of suffering like a Thoroughbred. The usual suspects are are heading for the mountains of Western North Carolina to ride in the Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race.

Also, good luck to those heading to the hills of Tennessee for the 12 hours of Dirt Sweat and Gears. There is alot of bike racing going down this weekend, and I'm fired up!

Insert in cooler and head for the mountains:

When I made it back to Knoxville-town, there was a package waiting on me, containing some hop rhizomes. Erin and I are getting our garden together, and this year we will be growing some hops.


The Double Pale Ale I brewed has turned out great. Wednesdays are happy hour at the The Back of My Car Bar, found at your local trailhead.

This reminds me of a funny story: My wife, Erin, was telling some people at work about last weekends bike race and how we drank copius amounts of beer. Her co-workers asked "is that what they do when they ride their bikes?" To which my lovely wife had a wealth of hilarious stories from beer-dinking-bike-rides to tell them. So when her boss was leaving the school with screaming kids, she looked over at Erin and said "I need to go for a bike ride."
Now when they want to get a drink, they refer to it as "going for a ride."
Cheers!

Bottle of Brews

Harvest the Brew UPDATE:

5 gallons of Imperial Pale Ale are being transfered to (24) 22oz. bottles for bottle conditioning. I am skipping the secondary fermenter and going straight to bottles since my homebrew stash is nearly empty.
As a homebrewer, I only make real ale, which is matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed.
Based on the initial taste during bottling and the IBU numbers (90), the hop bitterness will be very pronounced. It will be a hop heads delight. I call it 10 Minutes of Pleasure.

Imperial Pale Ale: Harvest the Brew

Here's the methods and recipe I used in brewing an Imperial Pale Ale. Mr. Tomato, this bud's for you! Go forth and flocculate!

Hop Variety Alternatives
Recent hop shortages have led me to experiment with hops. My local homebrew shop introduced me to Columbus hop. I bought 3 oz. with an Alpha Acid level of %12.2. I will us this hop for bittering, finishing and for aroma.

Commercial breweries use different methods than I will outline here, however, I will make an excellent and fresh beer. The most notable difference in methods, would be that commercial breweries will make a tea or "Wort" from all-grain. Whereas I will use a partial grain recipe. The grain I am using will contribute color and a grain-flavor, but it is likely that I would not be able to extract sugars from this grain. The sugars will come from 2 pounds dry amber malt and 6.6 pounds of Amber malt extract, which is a malted grain that has been lautered and cooked down to an extract which yields excellent quality homebrews. Commercial breweries add the extra step of starting with all grains for economical reasons and their ability to obtain specific style characteristics.

Help in designing this recipe came from: Extreme Brewing

Here's a list of ingredients:
1 lb. of crushed Crystal 120L Malt
2 lbs. Dried Amber Malt
6.6 lbs. of Amber Malt Extract
3 oz. Columbus Hops
5 oz. of priming sugar
Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale Yeast

Process
1. The first step is to bring 3 gallons of tap water up to 170 degrees, while putting 2 gallons of spring water in the freezer (for later use, to help cool the wort.)

2. Next step, open a bottle of beer, pour into a glass and relax, in this case I have smuggled a six pack of Yazoo Dos Perros over the Cumberland Plateau.

3. With water in brew kettle reaching 170 degrees, place crush Crystal Malt into grain bag and soak for 30 minutes with heat off. After 30 minutes remove grain bag and bring wort to boil.

4. Meanwhile, you should be sanitizing the fermenter and other tools needed (long handle spoon, hydrometer, thermometer.)

5. Upon wort reaching boil, remove from heat and add dry malt. Return to boil.

6. After 15 minutes, begin adding hops to kettle. Add 2 oz. Columbus hops and set timer for 45 minutes.

7. At timer, add 1 oz. Columbus hop. Add Amber Malt Extract. (I added an additional 1 pound of local honey to boost the final gravity) Stir. Set timer for 10 minutes.

8. At timer, add 1 oz. Columbus hop. Set timer for 5 minutes.

9. Cool wort rapidly to 70 degrees.

10. Measure specific gravity.

11. Pitch yeast.

12. Ferment 7 days.

13. Bottle in 22oz. Bombers.

14. Age 4 weeks in cool basement.

15. Drink at joyous occasions often.

Starting Gravity: 1.064
Target Final Gravity: 1.016
Final Target ABV: 6.1
IBUs: 90

In related news, thanks to the guys at Harpers Bikeshop for taking care of a homey on a busy Saturday! Here's the completed 18" Purple Unit.


Brew update: Sunday morning 4-6-08 a.m., heading out to ride and checked the airlock, fermentation has taken off rapidly!

Rocking the Boat

Knoxille Brewer's Jam
Deafened and enlightened; and still reeling from the Melvins and the barrel-aged beers sampled in ample amount at the brewers party; I grabbed my bike and headed back downtown on what was becoming one of the most beautiful days of the year! I arrived at the World’s Fair Park early enough to claim my volunteer pass and offer my services as a laborer. However, there really wasn't much that I could do, since all the booths were well manned. I was able to surf the field of dreams until my wife showed up, and we met up with Eric and his wife.
Seems like at about 4 or 5pm the crowd had gotten livelier and the scene was reminiscing of the first Saturday in May, at Churchill Downs. The Derby-like atmosphere of the infield celebrated a blue-sky day, without the anticipation of the two-minute thorobred grudge-match. Flowing libations ran unfettered, and the tasty beers plastered smiles across the exuberant crowd of the Knoxville's Brewers Jam.

My Beer Comes From the Man Hut

Sunday is brew day. I woke up early and headed out on my road bike through downtown and out to Sevier County. Found some cool roads and revisited the natural spring on Porterfield Gap. Tarklin Valley was the highlight as I rolled between the ridges of Bays Mountain. Came home with almost 5 hours of riding, played with the dog and started right into brewing (after cleaning up thoroughly.)

Beer. The other White Harvest.

3-weeks to bottle-condition.

Brews Cruise tentataivly scheduled for Tuesday, July 17th, a pre-Mt. Mitchell warm-up. The ride will start and end on my back porch with refreshing India Pale Ale at the finish.