Citrine (Batch 01): Recipe

RETRO: Post written on July 24, 2014, but set to publish on the date of the original brew session to maintain order within the blog.

This was the first sour that I brewed, and it came fairly early in my brewing career.  I chose the name "Citrine" to have a theme for what I was then labeling my "sour program."  I thought that gemstones would be a cool idea, as there isa variety of color for naming fruited versions, and the whole "from the earth" thing fits in with the mysterious nature of spontaneous fermentation taking whatever yeast and bacteria are naturally around and using those to ferment a beer.

The recipe for the full batch is as follows:

Batch Number: 15
Brew Date: January 23, 2011
Bottle/Keg Date: June 22-25, 2012
Batch Size: 5 Gallon
OG: 1.048 (estimate)
FG: 1.000 (estimate)
Fermentation Temperature: 65-70*F (Room temperature throughout)
IBU: 0.0
ABV: 6.3% (est.)
SRM: 3.6

Mash: Single infusion at 150*F for 60 minutes

Boil: 60 minute

Fermentables

4lb 8oz Pilsner Malt

4lb 8oz White Wheat Malt

Salts & Water

At this point I wasn't doing anything besides filtering the water and adding 5.2 buffer, so that's probably it.

Hops

3oz Liberty (Aged; 0.0 AAU) at 60 minutes

Other

See fruit additions in notes below

Yeast

Only dregs.  See below.

Notes

Bottle dregs were the only yeast/bugs used.  They were from the following bottles:

2006 Cuvee des Champions

Cascade Sang Rouge

Drie Fonteinen Straffe Winter

2010 St. Lamvinus

2011 Girardin Gueuze 1882 Black Label

07.04.2011 -- Down to 1.012.  The Brett character is really strong with a bit of pineapple and quite a bit of fresh citrus and rind.  Added one ounce of medium-toast Hungarian oak.  Oak smells fairly earthy with a bit of tobacco.  Shouldn't add too much character, though if it does, it's something that would probably work very well with cherries or another dark fruit.

11.18.2011.  Sour Program #1 is fairly citrusy and seems to be more Cantillon-esque.  Hopefully the combination of Sour Program #1 wort and Drie Fonteinen dregs will grow up a culture that is a bit funkier.

05.15.2012.  Notes for Sour Programs #1, #2, and #3.  Two gallons each of #1 and #2 were put in separate one-gallon jugs.  One gallon of #3 was put in a single one-gallon jug.  Here are the fruited portions:

Gooseberry: 6 pounds of Vintner's Harvest Gooseberry Puree was mixed with a little under a gallon each of #1, #2, and #3.

Kiwi: Two pounds of freshly-chopped kiwi was added to a one-gallon jug.  Enough #1 was transferred over to fill the jug.

Blueberry: Two pounds of blueberry that had been smashed and frozen was added to a one-gallon jug.  Enough of #2 was added to fill the jug.

Rhubarb: One and a half pounds of chopped rhubarb that had been frozen was added to a one-gallon jug.  Enough of #2 was added to fill the jug.

06.22.2012.  Bottled #1 and #2 in 375mL Russian River-style corked bottles.  For each, 2 gallons got 3oz of pure can sugar, aiming for 3.5-4 volumes of CO2.  Ran out of CO2 for the Beer Gun and could not bottle #3.

06.24.2012.  Bottled #3 with the same procedure as #1 and #2.

06.25.2012.  Bottled each of the fruited versions, aiming for 3 volumes of CO2 each.  Kiwi, Blueberry, and Rhubarb were bottled in green Belgian 375mL bottles with 29mm caps.  Each yielded 8 bottles.  The gooseberry was bottled in green Belgian 750mL bottles with 29mm caps.  That yielded 9 bottles.

The names are as follows: Jade (kiwi), Sapphire (blueberry), Rhodonite (rhubarb), and Peridot (gooseberry).

Lucky Charm (Batch 01): Recipe

RETRO: Post written on July 24, 2014, but set to publish on the initial brew date to maintain order within the blog.

This was my first Berliner Weissbier attempt.  My biggest memory of this one is draining fruited kegs over Fourth of July weekend in 2011, sitting on the deck with my father-in-law in the townhome my wife and I rented in Alexandria, Virginia.

The recipe for the full batch is as follows:

Batch Number: 09
Brew Date: April 3, 2011
Bottle/Keg Date: [Not Recorded]
Batch Size: 5 Gallon
OG: 1.029 (estimate)
FG: 1.002 (estimate)
Fermentation Temperature: 65-70*F
IBU: 4.0
ABV: 2.5% (est.)
SRM: 2.6

Mash: Single infusion at 149*F for 90 minutes.

Boil: 15 minutes

Fermentables

2lb 12oz Pilsner Malt
2lb 12oz White Wheat Malt

Salts & Water

At this point I wasn't doing anything besides filtering the water and adding 5.2 buffer, so that's likely it.

Hops

0.5oz Hallertauer (3.8 AAU) at 15 minutes

Other
Eventual fruit additions, per notes below.

Yeast
White Labs Berliner Weisse Blend (WLP630)

Notes

04.03.2011 – Mashed at 149*F for 90 minutes.  Temperatures pretty much where I wanted them to be.  Used the double sparge technique.  

Ran off approximately 5 gallons and then added about a quart of filtered water to account for the boiloff during the 15-minute boil. 

Added fruit on 05.15.2011.

About 2.5 gallons of each portion.  Base was at 1.005.  One carboy got 24oz of frozen raspberry and 10oz of frozen blackberry.  The kiwi got a little under 3lbs, which was the pulp of 20 kiwis.  Gravity on kiwi portion went back up to 1.015.  Forgot measure berry portion.

Took awhile for fermentation to kick back off. A few bubbles in the blowoff starting the evening of 05.17.

Demeter Noir: Recipe

RETRO: Post written July 24, 2014.  Set as being posted at time of brew session.

This was the first batch of saison that I brewed way back in early 2011 (I brewed my first beer on January 1, 2011).  The initial plan was a clean base and then to split off a portion to age with wine-soaked oak cubes and dregs, but I ended up using dregs on the entire batch as the initial flavor of the clean beer was too banana heavy for me.

The recipe for the full batch is as follows:

Batch Number: 05
Brew Date: January 23, 2011
Bottle/Keg Date: [Not Recorded]
Batch Size: 5 Gallon
OG: 1.071 (estimate)
FG: 1.002 (estimate)
Fermentation Temperature: 65-70*F
IBU: 22.0
ABV: 8.1% (est.)
SRM: 5.5

Mash (from original notes): "Use a step infusion mash, which will emphasize the maximum production of fermentable sugars.  Start with a ferulic rest at 113 F for 30 minutes.  Follow this with a protein rest at 131 F for 15 minutes.  This is then raised to 144 F for a 30 minute saccharification rest.  Finally, perform a 15 minute dextrine rest at 154 F before mashing out at 165 F.  The total mash is thus 90 minutes."

Boil: 60 minute

Fermentables

10lb 8oz Pilsner Malt

12oz Munich Malt

12oz White Wheat Malt

2oz CaraMunich Malt

In the boil: 1lb Table Sugar

Salts & Water

At this point I wasn't doing anything besides filtering the water and adding 5.2 buffer, though per the notes below, apparently forgot 5.2 buffer for this one.

Hops

1.5oz Hallertauer (3.8 AAU) at 60 minutes

.75oz Hallertauer (3.8 AAU) at flameout

Other

2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient

1oz Red Wine-Soaked Medium Toast Hungarian Oak Cubes

Yeast

Wyeast French Saison (WY3711)

Wyeast Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (WY5112)

Russian River Temptation Dregs

Notes

01.23.2011 - BREWDAY

Mash:  For the ferulic acid rest, hit the grain with 9.7 quarts of 125.3 F water.  The temperature was a bit high, so I added .5 quarts of 50 F water to bring the temperature to 113 F.  Rested here for 30 minutes.  Added 2.7 quarts of 212 F water to bring the mash up to the next step.  Overshot warm and then overshot back too cold.  Too many adjustments led to a temperature of 127 F after quite a few minutes.  Added a total of 2.5 extra quarts so that the total infusion was 5.2 quarts.  Hit with 5.5 quarts of 212 F water.  The temperature only reached 140-41 F.  Let it be and rested for 35 minutes instead of the 30 that was called for to make up the diference.  Added 4.5 quarts of 212 F water.  This only brought the temperature up to 149 F.  Let this rest for 20 minutes.  After this, mashed out with 170 F water.   Used 12 quarts for this, adding half, stirring, and then draining.  Added the second half without stirring, then drained.

* Realized during drain-off that I did not add buffer.  Tested pH of mash and first runnings is approximately 5.5 to 5.6.  According to the Homebrew Wiki, the preferred mash pH range is 5.2 to 5.5, so this should be okay. 

01.24.2011 - About 14 hours after pitching the yeast, there is a healthy kraeusen on top of the beer--about 1.5 inches.  Good bubbling in the blowoff bucket.  Yeast was pitched at room temperature, 67-70 F.

*** Make sure to aerate aggressively for this style

*** Use double the normal amount of yeast nutrient

01.24.2011 - After a little over 24 hours in the fermenter, temperature is a bit over 70 F.  Room temperature is between 67 and 68 F.  Carboy is resting in a tub with a grey t-shirt covering it.  Fermentation was pretty strong this morning with a health krausen.

* After primary fermentation, the plan for the batch was to split into two 3-gallon carboys, one of which would receive Brettanomyces Bruxellensis and red-wine-soaked Hungarian Oak chips (medium toast).

Make sure to "warm age" at fermentation temperatures or higher for 3-8 weeks.  See Phil Markowski, Farmhouse Ales 175 (2004)

01.30.2011 - Took a sample.  Gravity is currently 1.008.  Taste is a bit plain without too much yeast presence.  There are some banana notes.  Perhaps fermentation never really got warm enough.  Will be interesting to see how this develops.  If the yeast doesn't build more character, the entire batch will likely get the oak, wine, and Brett treatment.  The oak and wine started today.  Soaking 0.5 ounce of Hungarian Oak in Klee Pinot Noir ($19.99 at Rick's).  Put in a bowl and filled with enough wine to cover.  The plan is to use this for 2.5 gallons of the saison.

01.31.2011 - Doubled up on the Hungarian cubes and now plan to use the soaked cubes for the entire batch.  The sample taken just didn't have enough yeast character.  There was a bit of banana and some mild spice, but nothing that would make for a particularly-good saison

02.01.2011 - Added a package of Wyeast Brett B.  This was partially frozen during transit from Northern Brewer, so we'll see how things turn out.

02.14.2011 – No apparent activity from the Brett, though I will check again soon.  Added the wine-soaked oak cubes in a hop bag after transferring to a keg.

02.28.2011 – Added dregs from a 375 mL bottle (Batch 005xF) of Russian River Temptation.  Gravity check reveals that the beer is at 1.003.  Still no real oak presence.

How to Pour a Gueuze

Armand Debelder of Drie Fonteinen demonstrates how to pour a gueuze in this short video:

Hill Farmstead Profile

Here's a great profile of Shaun Hill and Hill Farmstead with some brackground information on Shaun and the history of the brewery. Courtesy of Seven Days:

Shaun Hill peers through a hatch into a large metal tank that resembles the Apollo space capsule. Steam coats his face and shaggy brown hair as he pours green hops pellets from a plastic container into the simmering beer. He steps down from a platform, sets a timer and starts to squeegee water off the brewery’s concrete floor.

Outside, the weather is wet and raw, but inside Hill Farmstead Brewery it feels like a sauna. Hill and his apprentice, 24-year-old Owen Miller, are brewing a batch of autumn saison, a Belgian-style ale that farmworkers would drink at the end of a hard day’s labor. While Hill minds the kettle, Miller rakes the steaming malt, oat and barley mash from the tank where the brewing began earlier that morning.

In this modest garage off a dirt road in rural Greensboro, 31-year-old Hill is using a blend of chemistry and artistry to create some of the most buzzed-about small-batch beer around. That buzz is coming not just from Vermont but from the broader beer world.

Since launching last April, Hill Farmstead Brewery has racked up accolades from beer buffs on websites such as BeerAdvocate, where last week Hill’s Ephraim Imperial IPA was ranked No. 2 on the list of Top Buzz Beers. Even more impressive: Three beers Hill brewed while working as a guest brewer for Nørrebro Bryghus brewery in Denmark won two golds and a silver at the 2010 World Beer Cup in Chicago this past spring.

“I have never seen such demand for beer from such a small producer,” says Jed Davis, co-owner and chef of The Farmhouse Tap & Grill in Burlington, which keeps three or four Hill Farmstead beers on tap. “Shaun is a rising star in the local brewing scene. Shaun Hill and Sean Lawson [of Warren-based Lawson’s Finest Liquids] both have this cult following.”

The cult remains a select one, since both Lawson’s and Hill Farmstead beers are currently only available at a handful of bars and restaurants. Hill sells growlers and bottles in his tiny retail shop at the brewery, but the lion’s share of the 400 gallons he brews each week is kegged for wholesale distribution to Vermont, New York City and Philadelphia. He hopes to break into the Boston market next spring.

Locally, Hill’s beer is on tap at The Farmhouse, Bluebird Tavern in Burlington, Blackback Pub and Flyshop in Waterbury, Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier, Claire’s Restaurant & Bar in Hardwick, The Parker Pie Company in West Glover, and Willy’s Restaurant in East Burke.

Beer is in Hill’s lineage. In the 1800s, his great-great-grandfather, Aaron Hill, operated a tavern at the bottom of Hill Road. That’s the same road where Hill lives and brews now, in an old clapboard farmhouse with hops growing vine-like up the side, on the 100-acre homestead where his ancestors settled eight generations ago. Their former taproom provided the inspiration for the brewery’s hourglass-style logo, which is branded on Hill Farmstead’s wooden taps and oak barrels and silk-screened on T-shirts for sale in the brewery.

“I came across the sign while visiting my cousin Lewis Hill, who lived up the hill,” recalls Shaun Hill. “I was sitting, drinking tea with Lewis, when I looked up and noticed this great sign that reads “A. Hill Entertainment.” Also on the sign was a carafe and a wine/libation glass. Instantly I knew what the logo should be for the brewery.”

On the day Seven Days visits Hill Farmstead, brewing the saison starts with 600 pounds of barley, oats, hand-toasted Munich malts, and flake rye for color and flavor. That’s mixed with 760 liters of water in an enormous, propane-fired mash tun.

When it’s done, the liquid wort is pumped into a cone-headed kettle, into which Hill dumps five tubs of hops pellets throughout the 75-minute cooking cycle. After that, the liquid moves through a heat exchanger to cool it to a temperature — about 70 degrees — at which yeast can be added without being killed. From there, the brew filters into five large fermenters where yeast joins it and the wort becomes beer.

In every spare second, Hill is cleaning his equipment, dealing with propane delivery drivers, answering the phone and filling growlers for customers.

Beer has kept Hill busy for a while: At the age of 15, he brewed his first batch for a high school science-fair project. He used malt extract, hops, water, a package of dry yeast and some raspberries to demonstrate how fermentation works. The result was a strange brew that was almost undrinkable, Hill recalls. He gave some to his teacher and poured the rest down the drain.

“I was 15,” he says. “I wanted to drink something fruity.”

But the experiment uncorked a passion, and the Vermont native was hooked on home brewing.

At Haverford College, Hill started a home-brewing club with money from the student council and permission to brew using campus stovetops. He used “clone” recipes to imitate his favorite beers but improvised liberally.

“I never brewed a recipe exactly as it said in the book,” Hill says.

After graduation, Hill moved back to Vermont and taught psychology and anthropology at North American Hockey Academy, an all-girls school in Stowe. He stopped in at The Shed Restaurant and Brewery for an after-work beer one day and noticed a job opening for a keg washer. It was his first paying gig at a brewery. Years later, he would be hired as the main brewer at Shed, where he earned a reputation for his talent.

Three years ago, Hill incorporated the business name Grassroots Brewing with plans to open a craft-beer brewery in or around Hardwick. But he couldn’t find the funds. After a stint at Trout River Brewing Company in Lyndonville, where he gained some “production experience,” Hill landed the guest brewer gig at Nørrebro Bryghus.

There he started the brewery’s oak-barrel-aging program and brewed the three beers — an imperial stout, a barley wine and a sour ale — that his Danish boss entered in the 2010 World Beer Cup after Hill moved back to Vermont.

Winning medals for them “was a nice validation,” Hill says. “It’s nice to know I actually know what I’m talking about and what I’m doing.”

The money came through, too. During his time in Denmark, Hill says, he connected with “brewers and beer geeks” who helped provide the $100,000 investment he needed to launch what became Hill Farmstead. Trout River loaned him a kettle, and The Alchemist Pub & Brewery in Waterbury loaned him a mash tun. Hill bought the rest of his gear secondhand.

Hill says his goal is to rebuild the farmstead in “all its glory,” making artisanal beer the way some Vermont dairy farmers make artisanal cheese. He originally planned to grow his own ingredients but says he quickly realized, “I’m not a farmer. I’m farming beer.”

Local sourcing isn’t always an option, either. Hill has had to rebuff local would-be hops growers who wanted to partner with him because, he says, they couldn’t supply the quantity or variety he needs. A sign just inside the brewery’s door warns, “No, we are not interested in your hop-growing project.”

Most of Hill Farmstead’s beers are named for Hill’s ancestors. Edward, an American pale ale named for his grandfather, is his best seller. Abner is a double IPA honoring Hill’s great-grandfather, and Ephraim is a triple IPA named for his great-great-grandfather.

“It’s a good way to reclaim my ancestry and heritage in Greensboro,” Hill says. “All these people are ghosts and wouldn’t be remembered without telling their stories. Someday I’ll be a ghost, and me doing this will be my own ghost story.”

Hill sometimes talks like the philosophy major he was, and he’s also named beers for his favorite thinkers. Fear and Trembling, a Baltic porter, honors the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. It’s made with maple-wood-smoked malts and aged in French oak cabernet and bourbon barrels. Twilight of the Idols, a winter porter brewed with coffee, vanilla beans and cinnamon, is also the title of a book by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Hill uses words to describe beer that some would reserve for wine, such as “elegance,” “roundness” and “softness.” He sniffs his beer before he drinks it, cocking the glass to the side to get a whiff, and says he likes flavors that are “very bright.” He has a limited number of oak barrels — bourbon barrels from Sam Adams Brewery in Boston and wine barrels from California wineries — that he uses to age special brews made with raw honey, microflora or an especially high alcohol content. Hill Farmstead has also produced a series of single-hop IPAs to showcase individual hop flavors lost in typical blended-hop India pale ales.

“He’s definitely an artist and a philosopher,” says Scott Kerner, co-owner of Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier, where Hill’s Edward pale ale is the best selling of 24 beers on tap. “He puts all that into his beer. He is so anal about how clean he keeps his equipment and how precise his measurements are. It’s like a guy who spends his entire life editing and reediting a book so that it’s perfect.”

Hill Farmstead is attracting other brewers from far and wide who are eager to observe and talk shop with Hill. On the day we visit, Hill is assisted by Brian Strumke, a self-described “gypsy brewer” from Stillwater Artisanal Ales in Baltimore, who travels from brewery to brewery “spreading the craft-beer gospel,” as a recent National Public Radio profile put it.

Earlier in the day, Mike Lackey of Great Lakes Brewery in Toronto swung by Hill’s remote outpost as part of a four-day New England brewery tour. The visit ended with a beer exchange: Lackey left bottles of Orange Peel Ale and Sweet Pete’s Peach Wheat from Great Lakes, and took home bottles of Hill’s Fear and Trembling.

Chefs and restaurant owners are raving about Hill Farmstead, too. The Farmhouse purchases more beer from Hill than from any other brewery, according to Davis. Earlier this fall, the Burlington restaurant hosted a special beer-and-cheese pairing event with eight of Hill’s beers and cheese from Jasper Hill Farm.

Both Hill Farmstead and Lawson’s are planning expansions, so Davis sees “good things coming down the pipeline for beer lovers in this state.”

Hill’s expansion wouldn’t take him away from Hill Road — there’s still room to grow where his forebears farmed. He’d like to rebuild a barn beside the brewery that burned down years ago in a hay fire.

“If we can rebuild that barn, we could grow to four to six times what we are now,” Hill says. Because, in brewing as in life, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Belgian Sour Beers

A short synopsis of the Belgian sour styles, courtesy of Young & Hungry:

Big news today for sour beer lovers, as master blender Armand Debelder of Belgium’s 3 Fonteinen brewery announced that he would retire from brewing his deliciously bright, acidic beers and focus on distilling beer into eau de vie. Debelder started this move to liquor production to recoup losses from summer 2009, when an equipment failure spoiled 100,000 bottles, almost one-third of his stock.

Debelder will still be blending his beers (by taste, like wine blends are made); the only difference is that the part of the blend that he used to brew will now be made by another Belgian brewery. If the transition is done well, drinkers shouldn’t notice. However, all this talk of blending probably sounds like nonsense to most ordinary folk, so here’s a quick, abbreviated guide to the sour beer known as geuze. (Oh, it’s also spelled gueuze sometimes. Confusing, right?)

Lambic is beer fermented 100% spontaneously — that is, instead of inoculating it with yeast, the beer is kept in an uncovered vat called a koelschip (think “cool ship”), where yeast critters that exist in the air around us air settle in and make themselves at home. These “wild” yeasts spoil ordinary beer and wine, bringing all kinds of funky and sour flavors that nerds like to describe as “horse blanket.” I’ve never smelled a horse blanket, though, so that’s not very helpful.

Also, to be called “lambic,” a beer must also be made in Belgium’s lambic region, or Patjottenland — it’s region-specific, like champagne and calvados. Pure lambics, that is, a straight lambic that is unblended with anything else, are rarely drank on their own.

Geuze is a blend of lambics, the grand cru of sour beers. By definition, they must contain some “young” lambic (unaged, or barrel-aged for less than a year), some 2-year-aged lambic, and some 3-year-aged lambic. Nothing else. Since the fermentation is 100% spontaneous, batches differ wildly, so in the end everything rests on the palate and personal taste of the blender.

Then there’s all the other beers labeled “lambic” (but not “pure lambic”). These can be any variety of flavored beers that start as a lambic but are blended with other stuff, especially fruit. Some of the popular ones include kriek (cherry) and framboise (raspberry) — and even these vary from syrupy, like Lindemann’s, to complexly tart, like Cantillon.

I’ll stop there, because I see that your eyes are glazing over. You should probably get some rest, or have a beer. But if you’re looking for something shockingly tart, sour, and other worldly, make it a 3 Fonteinen.