Brewnotes

Continuing the beer in a can motif, the 21st Amendment Brewery offers Brew Free! or Die IPA.     Two-row pale and munich malts.   Warrior for the bittering, Columbus and Cascade for the finish, then dry-hopped with Amarillo, Ahtanum and Simcoe. This beer has an assertive malt backbone that holds up nicely against the hops.   Hop aroma/presence is prolific and upfront but not overwhelmingly bitter with a hint of pine.   The beer pours a deep golden color with a white head.   Moderate carbonation.   7% ABV. Current Beeradvocate rating: B+ This is the kind of American IPA that I really appreciate.     70ish IBUs are about my maximum.   With all that considered, this is an extremely drinkable beer that I will seek out from time to time.

Ben Brouse Prelude

Dale’s Pale Ale (Oskar Blues Brewery) is arguably the best craft brewed Pale Ale served in a can.  Coming in at 6.5% ABV and 65 IBUs, this isn’t your father’s pale ale. Pale, crystal and probably some Munich malt would serve a cloner well and provide the proper amber color.  Columbus, Centennial & Cascade will provide the perfect bite, flavor and aroma with citrus notes.  I would pick a clean neutral yeast for this one. Beeradvocate current rating: B+ My take:  This beer is highly drinkable with a great balance between malt and hops – real beer in a can.   This beer is also great if you happen upon it on draught.

Ben Brouse Prelude

Picture taken from here.

Michael Jackson describes this beer with the following characteristics,  “golden-to-peachy colour and a sweet, fruity, aroma and palate, with citric notes, becoming tarter, winey and more complex with age” Coming in at 8%ABV, this beer is as smooth as I’ve tasted.   The alcohol is virtually undetectable and deceptively sneaky. According to the brewer, La Chouffe should be served without disturbing the yeast from the bottle conditioning but I don’t seem to care either way.   These bottles change over time and have dates on the neck – clear indications that brett is in play. Current Beeradvocate rating: A-.    For those of you who know me, I believe there is nothing that quite compares to this beer and for that, I rate this beer a must try. Chouffe, originally started by brothers-in-law, was sold in 2006 to Moortgat, producers of Duvel.   One taste of these beers and its clear that they use crystal malts, dry sugar and coriander – confirmed by the website here.    Hops are not pronounced and therefore are probably Styrian Goldings like most belgian brews. For those of you wondering, Chouffes are the red-hatted gnomes on the bottle.

Ben Brouse Sonata

According to Urbanspoon, the #1 restaurant in Central Baltimore is Fogo de Chao.    It’s listed under “Best Fine Dining”.  

So my question is simple – how is Fogo de Chao fine dining?  Any restaurant with a salad bar automatically should be compared to Ponderosa – “Darn Good Steaks, Big Honkin’ Buffett”.  I’m feeling sick just thinking about the hoards of meat/protein that are deluged onto your plate.

Yuck.

People of Baltimore – You can and should do better than this.

Ben Brouse Restaurant Reviews

My American Brown Ale (10C) entry took 2nd place in the monthly competition @ CRABS last evening.    Very exciting since I brewed this beer specifically for this event and now feel competent using my counter-pressure bottle filler.   Chris G. named this beer “Brown Recluse” since it has good hop bite to it.

If I was going to make any changes to this beer, I would change the Crystal 40L to Crystal 60L to help darken up the color and provide a little more malt sweetness.

Ben Brouse Food & Drink, Homebrew

Today I fixed my counter pressure bottle filler from MoreBeer.   This is a cool piece of equipment that allows you to bottle already carbonated/kegged beer.    That was all fantastic – I commenced to fill a bottle with little to no foam, and then BAM!    I forgot to release the pressure in the bottle to atmospheric before removing the device.   You guessed it, I got a BEER SHOWER.     All over the kitchen ceiling, counter, floor and more importantly me.    Lesson Learned.

Ben Brouse Food & Drink, Homebrew

This is my entry for the CRABS Feb competition, brewed last evening.  This is a true to style English IPA (BJCP 14A).   I was careful to select malts (Thomas Fawcette) and hops that would be used in England.    

This is the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles on pg 183 with minor tweaks.   “A hoppy, moderately strong pale ale that features characteristics consistent with the use of English malt, hops & yeast.  It has less hop character and a more pronounced malt flavor than American versions.”

This batch (#35) has me very excited as the brew day went flawlessly. 

Ingredients:

Hops:

Yeast:

Yield:

Stats:

Ben Brouse Food & Drink, Homebrew

This is my entry for the CRABS Jan competition, brewed on 1/4/2010  You can see from the stats below that this recipe pushes the boundaries of the 10C BJCP guidelines.   

This is the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles on pg 145 with minor tweaks.   If you like the west-coast style hoppy beers, this one is for you!

Ingredients:

Hops:

Yeast:

Yield:

Stats:

Ben Brouse Food & Drink, Homebrew

This is the first entry in our Sonata column.  Enjoy. One of the quintessential widely available abbey blonde ales of Belgium.   This beer is now brewed in the Stella Artois brewery in Leuve.  The history of the Leffe abbey can be found here. Michael Jackson describes this beer with the following characteristics,  “sunny colour; a fragrant, faint, clovey-ness of aroma; a restrained orangey fruitiness in the palate and cedary dryness” He later suggests that the Leffe beers are made using the Vieux Temps yeast. Coming in at 6.6% ABV, the dryness suggests the beer is fortified with cane sugar.   There is little to no hop character present in this beer.   No evidence of bottle conditioning is present. Current Beeradvocate rating: B.  I feel this rating is off.  You either like this style of beer or you don’t. Our opinion:   The beauty of this beer is it’s ability to be paired with seafood.  It will not overpower something like sea bass but it should clean the palate, leaving you ready for that next bite.

Ben Brouse Food & Drink, Sonata

Over the next few weeks, I’m proud to announce  some exciting changes at Brewnotes.    Brewnotes will be hosting several new columns:

• Prelude – Tracking & reviewing craft beer in the US.   Each installment will highlight one beer and will cover all styles.   Just like a musical prelude, these are beers that may stand on their own or introduce other works.
• Sonata – Reviewing individual beers from abroad, primarily England, Belgium & Germany.   Like a piano sonata, beers from this region are often complex and have many “movements”.   We will focus on the character of the beer from initial impressions, subtleties and to pairing with food.
• Impromptu – Tracking the wines/spirits that we come across from time to time.    We will focus on entries that are “new” to us.    We’ll focus mostly on wine, the occasional bourbon, sometimes scotch and anything else that we encounter.   This special column will only appear from time to time.
• Symphony – Tracking food recipes that complement/pair well with fermentables.    Where it is customary to pair your drink with your meal, we’ll attempt to find something that complements what you are drinking.    This is the big picture.

While many sites/bloggers focus on the drinking scene, we hope to educate and have some fun along the way.    You may not always agree with the assessment but we hope you get something out of anyway.

Ben Brouse Food & Drink