Joy Johnson of Gordon Biersch Brewery dropped me a line the other day to let me know that they had selected a date for these year's festival.
They have moved the festival back to the Saturday prior to the Labor Day weekend. The festival falls on August 26th, 2006.
Last year, the festival had been move down to the edge of the Tennessee River at Ross's Landing Park. Joy indicated that they are going to use the same location this year.
I made it to Bristol Brewing's “Nothing But Stout” Night and had a blast. The evening started out with a cab ride with Yellow Cab so that I could keep the evening safe.
They ran out of sampling glasses, but the guys working the door saved me one of the sampling glasses for me. They felt that since I was the first person to sign up for the tasting that I should get one of the glasses.
Here are the stouts that were on tap:
Artic Brewing's Imperial Milk Stout
Breckenridge Brewing's Oatmeal Stout
Bristol Brewing's Winter Warlock Oatmeal Stout
Carver Brewing's Imperial Stout
Great Divide Brewing's Oak Aged Yeti Stout
Il Vicino Brewing's Chocolate Rye Stout
Phantom Canyon Brewing Co.'s Raisen Stout
Rock Bottom Brewing's Bourbon Stout
Rockyard Brewing's Bourbon Stout
Ska Brewing's Steel Toe Stout
My favorite stout was Il Vicino Brewing's Chocolate Rye Stout
Our first tasting in Huntsville was great! We had over 100 people tasting even more beer.
Don Alan Hankins of Olde Towne Brewery was wonderful to host the tasting at his brewery. He even provided his Hefeweizen and Pale Ale for sampling. A few of us got to sample his Bock beer which is due out around the end of February.
The Rocket City Brewers is the Huntsville area homebrewer club and they had a good showing at the tasting. They brought a big sample of their homebrew, too.
A large number of the Birmingham members of Free The Hops made the trip for tasting, too.
Only bummer of the night was that I didn't have my camera, but others took pictures and I hope to get some to post here soon.
My friends at Free The Hops have their bill introduced in both houses of the Alabama State Legislature. Here is the anouncement from Free The Hops site:
The Gourmet Beer Bill has been introduced to both the Alabama Senate and House. This bill would raise the alcohol by volume limit on beer in Alabama to that of wine, making legal the sale of literally thousands of gourmet and specialty beers already legal in 46 other states and around the world. FTH asks that you contact your Senator and Representative today to ask them to Vote Yes for SB390 and HB530.
Here is the specific part of the Alabama Code that we are trying to change:
BEER, or MALT OR BREWED BEVERAGES. Any beer, lager beer, ale, porter, malt or brewed beverage, or similar fermented malt liquor containing one-half of one percent or more of alcohol by volume and not in excess of five percent alcohol by weight and six fourteen and nine-tenths percent by volume, by whatever name the same may be called.
Both versions are identical and you can read them here:
House Version: HB530
Senate Version: SB390
I hauled beer back from Colorado Springs to server up at the Free The Hops Beer Tasting which is just around the corner.
As you may or may not know, Alabama does not allow a beer to have more than 6% alcohol by volume and the beer bottle can not be larger than 16 ounces.
Free The Hops is working to change these laws. Presently, we are seeking a state representative to sponsor the bill. We are planning on making a presentation to the Madison County Caucus of representative which meets the first Monday in February at the City of Huntsville building.
Our tastings require our members to bring a beer that can not be purchased in Alabama. I selected Mojo Indian Pale Ale from the Boulder Beer Company. Mojo IPA has a 6.8% alcohol by volume. Boulder Beer has a number of great beers and you will enjoy their web site which features a Lego bartender serving beer.
Karen and I went to our first tasting in Birmingham before the holidays and it was a blast. We met a lot of new people and saw a hugh selection of beer from all around the country.
The first beer, to be tasted, was the High Red Tide Bock which turned out to be flat! Bummer. I have my CO2 on it now forcing in the carbonation. I have the CO2 set to 35 pounds of pressure and in a few days it should be good to go.
Next, I tried the Vincent's Wee Heavy. Well, it was over carbonated. I expected this given how strong the fermentation went. I had to bleed off some of the pressure. This beer has some kick! Given the overpressure, I had to pour to beer into a pitcher to let the foam settle out. This beer is on the sweet side as beers go.
[Update: I given to shaking the High Red Tide Bock keg to speed up the carbonation.]
I talked with Don Alan Hankins of Olde Towne Brewing Co. last night and he indicated that their are going to open a brew pub.
Technically, the pub will not be Olde Towne Brewing Co., because Alabama Laws prevent a brewery from servering beer and brew pub can only sell on-premise.
Don Alan indicated they had purchased the building and have started ordering equipment.
Karen and I kegged our bock beer last night. We still have one beer working. And, I expect that we will be kegging it this weekend. But, the beer is still going strong.
We still have not found all of our Mini Kegs, but they should turn up some day.
Our beers have been working nicely for some time now. We have one that has all, but stopped so that means only one thing.
Time to keg that beer!
I would be kegging it today, but I determined that I was out of CO2. (You need to fill the keg with CO2 prior to filling in order to remove the air.)
Normally, I keg my beer in soda kegs. This time, I had wanted to use Fass Frisch Mini Kegs which hold about 1 1/3 gallons. I received these as a gift years ago from my mother, but I have never used them. I am missing the bung which seals the keg. I may have to switch back to using my soda kegs, but I want to try these mini kegs so that I could take keg to parties. “Have beer will travel” has always been my idea planning ahead.
We are starting out by testing our immersion chiller. It worked well. We were able to reduce to temperature of 2 gallon to the 80 in just a few minutes. But, failure struck with the outlet hose burst do to over heating.
Chalk that up to not thinking!
New technique:
We are putting the chiller in after we turn off the gas burner. This should allow the temperature to start dropping.
Our first beer is High Red Tide Bock which is made from 7.7 lbs light malt extract, 1 lb Weyermann Light Munich, and 4 oz. Muntons Roasted Barley. I don't remember the type of hops. I'll be using a White Labs German Ale/Kolsch yeast.
Our second beer is called Vincent's Wee Heavy. It is called this because of the 11 lbs of light malt extract used. The speciality grains Muntons Crystal 60 and Roasted Barley are inlcuded.