Nov 5, 2012

Terry Dustin

Home brew is where the heart is

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The Sydney Morning Herald

Executive Style

Andrew Robson, Head Brewer at the Lord Nelson Hotel, The Rocks.

Like father … Andrew Robson produces several 600-litre batches a week. Photo: Marco Del Grande

You could say that the head brewer at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, Andrew Robson, has beer in his genes. His father, Mel Robson, was a home-brew mentor and friend to many – myself included – who started mash or all-grain home-brewing in the 1990s.

Mel was the senior operator of a wholesale/retail home-brew business, Eastern Suburbs Brewmaker, which became a training ground of sorts for a handful of his customers who graduated to careers in craft brewing: the senior brewer at Malt Shovel, Rob Freshwater; the head brewer at Mountain Goat, David Edney; the owner of St Peters Brewery, Matt Donelan; and Scott Morgan from Rocks Brewing are a few who come to mind.

Knocking out 20-odd litres of beer every weekend is not quite the same as brewing 600-litre batches several times a week, but that has been the pathway for such people who wanted to turn their hobby into a career.

Lord Nelson Brewery Pale Ale.

Boutique brew … Lord Nelson Pale Ale. Photo: Marco Del Grande

”All the principles are the same but the techniques are different,” Andrew says of the leap from home-brewing to commercial brewing. ”It’s mainly about understanding the equipment.”

For 27-year-old Robson, the journey to join the ranks of craft brewing was an obvious choice. After leaving school a decade ago, he joined his father’s home-brew business, based in a warehouse at Peakhurst. ”That’s where I started mash brewing,” he says.

When his father sold the business five years ago, Robson joined the Lord Nelson – Sydney’s longest-running brew-pub – as cellarman and assistant brewer. When previous head brewer Damon Nott moved on a year ago, Robson stepped up to man the brewing kettle full time.

Robson is now brewing four times a week and trying to juggle available tank space to cope with the demands of the pub. ”[Over summer] demand is higher than the brewery’s capacity, which means there’s pressure to put new batches on a bit early,” he says.

Because most of the house beers are drawn directly from bulk serving vessels, Robson likes to give new brews a few days to condition before they go on tap. This allows the unfiltered house beers time to clear after they’ve been carbonated, but it’s also a luxury when customers need their favourite ale.

”I’ve got six [regular] beers to keep on top of and 95 per cent of beer pulled across the bar is made here. This is only a fairly small bar but we get a lot of dedicated regulars who like to drink our beers over a session – sometimes they get through a [600-litre] tank of Three Sheets over a weekend.”

To supplement the in-house brewery, production of the Lord Nelson’s bottled beers and some seasonal brews has been outsourced to the Australian Brewery at Rouse Hill. An American brown ale, 2IC, and One Eyed Rye, a refreshing golden ale made with 50 per cent malted rye, are two seasonal beers on tap at the Lord Nelson.

”We originally made One Eyed Rye with straight Amarillo hops,” Robson says, ”but I’ve been using [US hop varieties] Cascade and Simcoe as well in the latest batch.”

Robson says he’ll be flat out brewing the Lord Nelson’s regular beers – Quayle Ale, Trafalgar Pale Ale, Victory Bitter, Three Sheets, Nelson’s Blood and Old Admiral – over the summer period. ”Maybe around autumn we’ll do a new Belgian wit beer. And I’d love to put some Nelson’s Blood in a rum barrel to see what happens.”

TASTING NOTES

Lord Nelson One Eyed Rye (5.2 per cent)

Hazy, medium-gold. Aroma: fruity and grassy hints. Palate: chewy texture; fruity, nutty and spicy notes in mid-palate; dry herbal finish with sappy/spruce hints. Overall: refreshing golden ale with delicate complexity.

Lord Nelson 2IC (4.7 per cent)

Hazy, copper-amber. Aroma: biscuit and toffee notes, hint of spicy hop. Palate: sweetish, malt biscuit notes initially; plummy hop flavours in mid-palate; moderate bitterness balanced by toasty, caramel characters. Overall: quaffable brown ale.

Lord Nelson Three Sheets (5 per cent)

Deep gold, bright. Aroma: clean with hints of stone fruit and delicate spice. Palate: juicy malt notes upfront, well-integrated hop bitterness with citrus undertones; finish well balanced between medium bitterness and clean malt characters. Overall: the flagship house ale is in fine form.

Source: Good Living

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Oct 30, 2012

Mike Kitner

No Comments

Something’s Brewing In Brookings

BROOKINGS, SD –

It may be known as one of South Dakota’s college towns but an education isn’t the only thing brewing in Brookings.

“He was taking some entrepreneurial classes and did a business plan and he was really excited about. We just took this plan that he made in class, took it into real life and started doing the company,” Heist Brewery owner Thomas Strubel said.

Last year, Strubel started up Heist Brewing along with Luke Rensink. But when Rensink got married, Strubel became the sole owner.

“From ordering the product to brewing, to kegging, to talking with the distributor and bars, it’s pretty much what I’m doing. I have help from the brew club, kind of word-of-mouth spreading stuff,” Strubel said.

Strubel went to school for German and civil engineering. While this may not be the expected career path for either of those two fields, it’s not completely foreign either.

“Every once and a while I run across a German word, there’s math in brewing too though so that works out,” Strubel said.

These boilers are where grains, sugar, and yeast start their process that ends in one of the world’s most enjoyed beverages.

“You definitely have to do some experiments. Right now I’m producing 31-barrel batches so of course you don’t want to experiment on that. So you kinda do that home brew scale, the five-gallon batches. And yeah it takes a few batches to get it where you want it,” Strubel said.

Strubel currently has a stout and an IPA that are selling well. He’s also working on a line of seasonal beers. It’s something beer fanatic and local home brewer Rose Heeb likes to see.

“I love it when my family comes to visit or I have friends come to visit and they’re beer lovers as well. And you can take them to the bar and say, ‘hey I know the guy who brews this,’” Heeb says.

Heeb is part of a local brew club along with Strubel. She says being able to get together and bounce ideas off each other works great with someone who knows his stuff.

“So learning the process and refining things is exciting. Making beer is a learning process so having a local expert is wonderful,” Heeb said.

Strubel also has a home brew store for people such as Heeb. You can come in and get everything you need to make your own concoction right at home.

“I actually have two batches coming up. I’m going to be doing an oatmeal cream stout and an Irish red and Tom has those things on order for me. So I’m excited to see those things come in and I’ll probably bring samples to share,” Heeb said.

And while it’s fun, it’s the future that Strubel is looking toward. You can already find his beer at JL Beers in Sioux Falls and North Dakota and at Cubby’s and Brownstone in Brookings.

“I’d just like to up production and supply South Dakota more, kind of branch out into some more of the cities and then hopefully get West River,” Strubel said.

Strubel says many surrounding states have multiple craft breweries. While he may be one of the few in South Dakota, he hopes it’s something more people will get involved in.

“It’s a great hobby and the more people the merrier. It’s something you need to share. If you keep it to yourself it’s not going to be as fun as it could be,” Strubel said.

Because let’s face it, if a beer is better around a table with friends, brewing must be the same.

Strubel hopes sell off-sale beer at his brewery by the end of the year. If you’re not old enough to drink, he’s even having a Root Beer brewing event November 16.

Oct 21, 2012

Mike Kitner

No Comments

New brew shop opening in Old Town

A Louisiana-based beer brewing supply shop will open shop in Old Town at the beginning of November.

The Brew Shop, located near the corner of North 8th Avenue and Calder, will carry malts, grains, wine juices, and equipment.

Owner Ira Sawyer plans to give brewing demonstrations during a grand opening party on Nov. 10.

“I have a lot of customers who drive to my store right now,” said Sawyer, who has another shop in Sulphur, La.

Craft brewing has picked up steam across the country in recent years and Sawyer said Southeast Texas has a good home brew market.

“There are people in this area that are 10 times better than I am,” said Sawyer, who refers to himself as the Home Brew Guru.

The Brew Shop will not carry any alcohol.

Got an In The Works tip? Email Julie Chang at JXChang@BeaumontEnterprise.com. Follow Julie on Twitter at Twitter.comJulieChang1

Oct 19, 2012

Terry Dustin

No Comments

Home Brew: Sample Beers Made by Piedmonters

There’s something brewing in Piedmont kitchens and basements — something light, dark, yeasty, hoppy, bubbly and, for beer lovers, irresistible.

A dozen or more local residents have discovered the fun of making small batches of beer at home, often right in the kitchen, and they are sharing their home brews Friday afternoon at the first-ever Piedmont Artisanal Brewing Competition.

Everyone (including children) is welcome at the event, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia Ave. (although only those who are “age-appropriate” will be able to sample the beers). The competition will be outdoors, on the lawn, with Dixieland music to drink by and grilled sausages from Top Dog available to accompany the brews. Admission is $10 per person.

Among the samples: ale produced by Nancy Lehrkind, a Realtor and PCA board member; coconut porter and strawberry blonde from Trevor Fleshman, a 2009 graduate of Piedmont High School who’s now studying fermentation science at UC Davis; and “hacker beer” by Trevor’s stepdad, Carter Dunlap.

“It’s a Pro/Am event,” Dunlap said of the event. “Nancy and Trevor are pros; most of us are a bunch of hackers.” Still, Dunlap is an enthusiastic amateur brewer. He will offer samples of beer recently made and bottled by him and his wife, Patty.

The Dunlap/Fleshman beer nexus got its start with the purchase of a beer-making kit at Christmastime four years ago. The four males at home — Dunlap, his son, Fleshman and a Swedish exchange student — dove in to create their first batch.

Trevor Fleshman was enthuasiastic enough to add fermentation science classes on top of requirements for his major at UC Davis, where he expects to receive a bachelor’s degree in international economics in the spring. He admits to brewing some batches in his dorm room (“under the supervision of my professor”).

“Beer-making can be done on a kitchen table,” Fleshman says. “It can be very simple — and very complicated.”

And, perhaps surpringly, brewing beer is more scientific than making wine, he says. Beer uses just four main ingredients — water, malt, yeast and hops — and the conditions can be carefully controlled, so that different batches taste the same. With wine, vintages can vary tremendously from year to year, even using the same grape varieties from the same vineyard.

While classic German brewmeisters stick to the four basic ingredients, Fleshman said, artisanal brewers have experimented with adding other flavors in recent decades. For his own coconut porter, Fleshman took his basic porter recipe and added coconut flakes (“like the kind on a German chocolate cake”), then strained them out before bottling.

It was a bottle of Fleshman’s beer that led Nancy Lehrkind into home brewing.

“Trevor was in my son’s class at PHS,” she said. “And there was his beer in our refrigerator.”

She’s now on her 25th batch of home-brewed ale. A recent batch was bottled as Lehrkind-Kunkel Wedding Bier for her daughter’s wedding.

“I only make ale,” Lehrkind said. “It’s like cooking bread to me. Lager is more complicated. It requires temperature control and a longer fermentation period.”

Along with lagers, ales and porters, the Friday event will include samples of non-alcoholic beer and ginger beer, Lehrkind said.

To sample a variety of beers after Friday night, Trevor Fleshman recommends the selections at Cato’s Ale House Piedmont Ave., and Beer Revolution, 464 Third St., Oakland, at Jack London Square. He also recommends a visit to the taproom at Linden Street Brewery, 95 Linden St., Oakland.

Don’t miss a day of Piedmont news, opinion and events. Sign up for the Piedmont Patch e-newsletter here.

Oct 15, 2012

Mike Kitner

No Comments

Home brewing big in Brookings, SD

BROOKINGS, S.D. – “Roll out the barrels, we’ll have a barrel of fun.”

OK, so Brookings home-brewing beer barons don’t turn out big wooden barrels of ales and stouts; but they sure do have a barrel of fun making small batches for themselves and their beer-drinking buddies.

Carey Bretsch and Mike Lapka, engineering professionals who work together at Civil Design Inc. (CDI) in Brookings, are professionals in the world of amateur brewing for home consumption. They’ve been in the home-brewing business for about nine years. Lapka’s won a “couple blue ribbons” for his brewing skills, but he claims no special secrets for turning out good brewskis for drinking at home.

He said, “There’s books and the Internet. But it’s trial and error.”

However, the brewer duo did sit down for a visit with The Brookings Register this past week and share some basics of homemade beer.

From start to finish to drinking, the time for turning out a good brewski can be a moving target. They may take as long as two to three months to turn out a quality batch of home brew.

“It’s just a lot of waiting,” they both agreed. They brew the equivalent of about two cases (48, 12-ounce bottles) per batch. Home-brew can’t be sold, but CDI employees “participate in the brewing process.”

Lapka explained, “If they want to brew a batch, they just basically pay for the ingredients and then we’ll brew it up.”

Bretsch said, with a smile, “It’s our employee incentive program. It’s a morale booster. It’s a teambuilding exercise.

“When we built this facility (CDI) here, we set it up so that we could brew beer in the garage.”

He added, “The philosophy is that it takes beer to make beer. So while we wait around for the beer to reach its next stage, we sit around and consume a beer or two from a previous batch.”

Lapka said they usually start in October and November: “We might brew a batch a week for a month. That gets your system started.” Bretsch added, “It gives us enough beer so that we can brew another batch.“

He and Lapka are willing to brew whatever their contributors of ingredients provide. Wheat beer and stout are popular . Lapka continues his own quest for a brew that comes close to Guiness.

To make five gallons of beer requires about 10 pounds of grains, some hops and yeast. Ingredients are easy to come by and can be ordered from readily available suppliers.

The average cost of a homebrew for the duo is “about a buck a bottle.” When they first started brewing, they used plastic pop bottles. Both pointed out that some commercial brewers use plastic bottles.

However, Bretsch noted, “The good beers use glass; we pretty much use all dark glass right now.“

Bretsch added that Lapka has built much of the equipment that they use. They have a capper, and they sterilize and reuse bottles. They then insert CO2 and condition the beer and then put it into bottles using a “beer gun.” But first they put the beer in kegs.

Bretsch explained, “It’s a two-part system. The beer gun actually squirts CO2 into the bottle first. Then you drop the beer in and then cap it.” Bottle vs. keg

One question is often raised in the world of both commercial beer and home brew: Is there a change when beer goes from keg to bottle or can? Can a bottled beer taste as good a draft beer? Sometimes.

Lapka said, “There is a slight difference. It depends on your beer. I think a dark stout tastes better in a bottle after about a year than it does in a keg.

“In a keg it has a tendency of overcarbonating. In a bottle it won’t overcarbonate, because you have such a small volume of it. In a stout you don’t want it to be overcarbonated. The best stouts we’ve had are a year or two old.” Bretsch added, “Typically, the darker, heavier beers, usually they’re a lot better after they’ve aged for a while. Usually a year is a good aging period for a beer like that.“

Lapka explained, “We try to stay away from the lagers. They’re really hard to make because they’re temperature controlled. And they require a special yeast. And you can taste your mistakes so much easier, because there’s very little other taste to hide it.“

And “light beers“? Don’t even think about it. They laugh about an episode involving a request for a light beer. They pretty much brewed a regular beer and got it to the light stage by watering it down.

Carey and Mike really like the stouts; a big reason is that stouts allow for much more flavor variety, such as a hint of coffee. Home brews have about a 6 to 9 percent alcohol range. That can be raised even higher by adding more sugar, up to a point.

If there’s a month that’s tied to beer drinking, it’s got to be October, with its beer festivals across the nation and in parts of Europe, especially Germany. Maybe that’s why October seems to be a good month to brew beer.

Sunday afternoon in Brookings found Joe Portz and Chris Bessler hard at work in Portz’s kitchen making a total of 12 gallons of home brew: five gallons of Kinderweisse, “a lightly soured ale, once synonymous with wheat beer in Europe, but now a living dinosaur of a style. It’s a grainy pils and wheat malt character underscored with gentle earthy lemon-like sourness that used to be a common thread in beers like this“; five gallons of Belgian Strong Golden Ale; and two gallons of Aztec Mexican Cerveza, with “light golden color, clean refreshing taste with a crisp finish, best served ice cold with a slice of lime.“

In about six weeks, Joe and Chris will be ready to pound down a pint or two of their new brew.

Portz is the more experienced brewer of the two, with about 15 years’ experience in the homebrew business.

Bessler is a rookie, trying his hand at brewing for the first time. But he isn’t brand-new to turning out alcoholic beverages at home: he’s made wine. And in a fashion, his wife, September, got him started in beer brewing: The Aztec Mexican Cerveza was a gift from her. It’s a simple all-in-one kit for someone who wants to get started in brewing beer at home: “Mr . Beer.“

Meanwhile across town Richard Drawdy and Thijs Hammink, two members of the South Dakota State University Brew Club, were in Drawdy’s garage turning out about 10 gallons of a Hop-forward Pale Ale based on a recipe by Nebraska Brewing Company’s Cardinal Pale Ale. Drawdy, an accountant at Daktronics, is in his second year in the SDSU club, which has about 15 members. He said they meet “every second Thursday at about 7 p.m. set up through our Facebook page ’SDSU Brew Club.’” The Club has been approved by the Student Association; its members include faculty, students and a cross-section of the Brookingsarea community.

Hammink, 24, an SDSU student majoring in electrical engineering technology, has been home brewing for about two years. Like Bessler, he started out with a Mr. Beer kit.

The club does enough bulk buying of brewing ingredients, such as 50-pound bags of grain, to keep costs down. And they re-use yeast, which might surprise someone unfamiliar with home brewing. Drawdy explained, “It’s a living organism; it’s basically just populating and living and growing in your fermenter; so you can take what you’ve done in one batch and actually split it three ways into three more batches. You keep going and going.“

While they keep going and going, they won’t even come near the home-brewing legal limit of 200 gallons a year: “It’s pretty tough to reach that volume. If we did that, we’d have to be brewing every weekend,” Drawdy explained.

But the beauty of home brewing is in the quality, not the quantity. Good beer, like all good things in life, should be enjoyed in moderation.

—-

If you go: The Club will be meeting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13, at Heist Brewing, 611 Second St. S., for a brewing event. It’s open to the public.

Oct 12, 2012

Terry Dustin

No Comments

‘Barrels of fun’: Home brewing big in Brookings

BROOKINGS | “Roll out the barrels, we’ll have a barrel of fun.”

OK, so Brookings home-brewing beer barons don’t turn out big wooden barrels of ales and stouts; but they sure do have a barrel of fun making small batches for themselves and their beer-drinking buddies.

Carey Bretsch and Mike Lapka, engineering professionals who work together at Civil Design Inc. (CDI) in Brookings, are professionals in the world of amateur brewing for home consumption. They’ve been in the home-brewing business for about nine years. Lapka’s won a “couple blue ribbons” for his brewing skills, but he claims no special secrets for turning out good brewskis for drinking at home.

He said, “There’s books and the Internet. But it’s trial and error.”

However, the brewer duo did sit down for a visit with The Brookings Register this past week and share some basics of homemade beer.

From start to finish to drinking, the time for turning out a good brewski can be a moving target. They may take as long as two to three months to turn out a quality batch of home brew.

“It’s just a lot of waiting,” they both agreed. They brew the equivalent of about two cases (48 12-ounce bottles) per batch. Home-brew can’t be sold, but CDI employees “participate in the brewing process.”

Lapka explained, “If they want to brew a batch, they just basically pay for the ingredients and then we’ll brew it up.”

Bretsch said, with a smile, “It’s our employee incentive program. It’s a morale booster. It’s a teambuilding exercise.

“When we built this facility (CDI) here, we set it up so that we could brew beer in the garage.”

He added, “The philosophy is that it takes beer to make beer. So while we wait around for the beer to reach its next stage, we sit around and consume a beer or two from a previous batch.”

Lapka said they usually start in October and November: “We might brew a batch a week for a month. That gets your system started.” Bretsch added, “It gives us enough beer so that we can brew another batch.”

He and Lapka are willing to brew whatever their contributors of ingredients provide. Wheat beer and stout are popular . Lapka continues his own quest for a brew that comes close to Guiness.

To make five gallons of beer requires about 10 pounds of grains, some hops and yeast. Ingredients are easy to come by and can be ordered from readily available suppliers.

The average cost of a homebrew for the duo is “about a buck a bottle.” When they first started brewing, they used plastic pop bottles. Both pointed out that some commercial brewers use plastic bottles.

However, Bretsch noted, “The good beers use glass; we pretty much use all dark glass right now.”

Bretsch added that Lapka has built much of the equipment that they use. They have a capper, and they sterilize and reuse bottles. They then insert CO2 and condition the beer and then put it into bottles using a “beer gun.” But first they put the beer in kegs.

Bretsch explained, “It’s a two-part system. The beer gun actually squirts CO2 into the bottle first. Then you drop the beer in and then cap it.” Bottle vs. keg

One question is often raised in the world of both commercial beer and home brew: Is there a change when beer goes from keg to bottle or can? Can a bottled beer taste as good a draft beer? Sometimes.

Lapka said, “There is a slight difference. It depends on your beer. I think a dark stout tastes better in a bottle after about a year than it does in a keg.

“In a keg it has a tendency of overcarbonating. In a bottle it won’t overcarbonate, because you have such a small volume of it. In a stout you don’t want it to be overcarbonated. The best stouts we’ve had are a year or two old.” Bretsch added, “Typically, the darker, heavier beers, usually they’re a lot better after they’ve aged for a while. Usually a year is a good aging period for a beer like that.”

Lapka explained, “We try to stay away from the lagers. They’re really hard to make because they’re temperature controlled. And they require a special yeast. And you can taste your mistakes so much easier, because there’s very little other taste to hide it.”

And “light beers”? Don’t even think about it. They laugh about an episode involving a request for a light beer. They pretty much brewed a regular beer and got it to the light stage by watering it down.

Carey and Mike really like the stouts; a big reason is that stouts allow for much more flavor variety, such as a hint of coffee. Home brews have about a 6 to 9 percent alcohol range. That can be raised even higher by adding more sugar, up to a point.

If there’s a month that’s tied to beer drinking, it’s got to be October, with its beer festivals across the nation and in parts of Europe, especially Germany. Maybe that’s why October seems to be a good month to brew beer.

Sunday afternoon in Brookings found Joe Portz and Chris Bessler hard at work in Portz’s kitchen making a total of 12 gallons of home brew: five gallons of Kinderweisse, “a lightly soured ale, once synonymous with wheat beer in Europe, but now a living dinosaur of a style. It’s a grainy pils and wheat malt character underscored with gentle earthy lemon-like sourness that used to be a common thread in beers like this”; five gallons of Belgian Strong Golden Ale; and two gallons of Aztec Mexican Cerveza, with “light golden color, clean refreshing taste with a crisp finish, best served ice cold with a slice of lime.”

In about six weeks, Joe and Chris will be ready to pound down a pint or two of their new brew.

Portz is the more experienced brewer of the two, with about 15 years’ experience in the homebrew business.

Bessler is a rookie, trying his hand at brewing for the first time. But he isn’t brand-new to turning out alcoholic beverages at home: he’s made wine. And in a fashion, his wife, September, got him started in beer brewing: The Aztec Mexican Cerveza was a gift from her. It’s a simple all-in-one kit for someone who wants to get started in brewing beer at home: “Mr . Beer.”

Meanwhile across town Richard Drawdy and Thijs Hammink, two members of the South Dakota State University Brew Club, were in Drawdy’s garage turning out about 10 gallons of a Hop-forward Pale Ale based on a recipe by Nebraska Brewing Company’s Cardinal Pale Ale. Drawdy, an accountant at Daktronics, is in his second year in the SDSU club, which has about 15 members. He said they meet “every second Thursday at about 7 p.m. set up through our Facebook page ‘SDSU Brew Club.’” The Club has been approved by the Student Association; its members include faculty, students and a cross-section of the Brookingsarea community.

Hammink, 24, an SDSU student majoring in electrical engineering technology, has been home brewing for about two years. Like Bessler, he started out with a Mr. Beer kit.

The club does enough bulk buying of brewing ingredients, such as 50-pound bags of grain, to keep costs down. And they re-use yeast, which might surprise someone unfamiliar with home brewing. Drawdy explained, “It’s a living organism; it’s basically just populating and living and growing in your fermenter; so you can take what you’ve done in one batch and actually split it three ways into three more batches. You keep going and going.”

While they keep going and going, they won’t even come near the home-brewing legal limit of 200 gallons a year: “It’s pretty tough to reach that volume. If we did that, we’d have to be brewing every weekend,” Drawdy explained.

But the beauty of home brewing is in the quality, not the quantity. Good beer, like all good things in life, should be enjoyed in moderation.

Oct 12, 2012

Mike Kitner

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Home brewing beer big in Brookings; South Dakota buddies pros in world of …

BROOKINGS, S.D. — “Roll out the barrels, we’ll have a barrel of fun.”