Homebrew
Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | Beer, Breweries, Homebrew | 2 Comments
Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies located in Vancouver’s threatened Heatley Block is the soul of Vancouver’s growing craft beer movement. Yes that is correct, the very soul of craft beer in Vancouver is a homebrew shop. If craft beer was a body, the many fine brewers in BC would be the heart, retail shops, restaurants and pubs such as Brewery Creek, the Alibi Room and The Whip would act as the arms and legs, and the dedicated consumers represented by groups such as CAMRA Vancouver would be the mind. All parts play an integral role in a successful beer revival, and although all parts are equally important, Dan’s will always hold a special place in my heart.
My love for beer came from an interest in homebrewing – without Dan’s I may never have been exposed to the diverse selection of beer that the world has to offer. The entire Vancouver area is littered with many small u-brew and u-vint businesses that carry a limited selection of homebrew ingredients and supplies, but none of these compare to Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies. Dan’s is the only retail store in the entire Vancouver area where whole-leaf hops, hop pellets, a full selection of barley, wheat and rye malts, brewing supplies and brewers yeast can be found. This list does not include the friendly advice and recipes that Dan and his staff are more than happy to provide to their customers. Here is a video put together about Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies.
The most creative and experimental beer will always be homebrew. I have to admit that some of the cask beers that brewmasters graciously provide are delicious and very creative, but craft brewing is still a business and the beer they produce must be commercial enough to sell. Whereas homebrewers do not sell their beer and only have to please themselves and their usually appreciative friends – the only limitation homebrewers face is their own imagination. For a mere sixty dollars on supplies and twenty to thirty dollars for ingredients, and add in a small amount of patience and there it is, an incredibly unique and flavorful beer.
The North American craft beer renaissance that was started in Northern California over thirty years ago was largely influenced by hombrewers. Homebrew shops have always and will continue to play a vital role in the growth of craft beer. For anyone interested in homebrewing, I highly encourage a visit to Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies – I am sure Dan and his staff would be more than happy to help.
Cheers,
Erik
IPA Season
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 | Beer, Breweries, Homebrew | No Comments
The spring season is finally here; the sun is shinning, the earth is slowly warming, the trees are beginning to blossom, my garden plants are sprouting and India Pale Ale is now is season. My latest IPA that I started six weeks ago has finally finished bottle conditioning and is now fit for enjoyable consumption, although it is still somewhat green and could use another three weeks to fully come together.
My IPA is not the only IPA of the spring season; many other brewers have used the early spring or late winter to launch their own IPA offering. Central City Brewing, Russell Brewing, and Granville Island Brewing have all recently launched an IPA into the market to compete for the growing hophead demographic. I am most excited about Central City’s Empire IPA and, although it has been sitting on store shelves for quite some time, I have yet to pour it out of a can in the comfort of my own home. Gary Lohin of Central City Brewing is one of British Columbia’s most talented brewmasters and he has yet to disappoint me.
I am less excited, yet still quite hopeful, about the Russell and Granville Island IPAs. Both brewers have shown they know how to craft a delicious IPA, yet have a tendency to water down their beer to reach a larger market. Granville Island’s past seasonal IPA was delicious and Russell’s IPA Cask served recently at DIX was flavorful and well hopped. As previously mentioned, I am not a huge hophead and hope that both the Granville Island and Russell IPAs make great summer beers.
Granville Island’s IPA, named Brockton IPA, and Central City’s IPA have both been available for some time now. Russell Brewing’s IPA has yet to reach liquor stores and I cannot provide a date when this new offering will be available. I recommend visiting Rick Green’s Blog for updates on upcoming beer releases; Rick has an immense knowledge about BC’s beer scene.
As for my IPA, which as yet to be named, it is malty and not overly hopped, but sadly will only be available to those who stop by for a visit or to those who invite me over for dinner.
Cheers,
Erik
Potato
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | Beer, Homebrew | 1 Comment
Today is a day when the world dresses itself up in green and drinks an unprecedented amount of beer or whiskey, often leading to singing and dancing in an Irish fashion. But I must be honest, I did not wear green clothing, I had Pale Ale from BC with a dinner of Chinese food, and I have yet to dance a jig. I am not a poor sport – I did celebrate in what I consider to be a big way. Today I dug up my vegetable garden and bought a bag of soon to be delicious Kennebec seed potatoes. Could I be more Irish!?
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Erik
Where did the flavour go – take II
Saturday, March 14th, 2009 | Beer, Breweries, Events, Food and Recipes, Homebrew, Pubs | No Comments
I have been battling a cold all week. For a person who loves food and beer, a cold is far more than a runny nose and a sore throat – a cold renders taste buds useless, clearly it is evil in its purest form. I have not been able to taste anything all week which has made for a somewhat mundane week. I was saddened to arrive at DIX Cask Thursday with a numbed pallet. The company at DIX was quite enjoyable, but both ales, which I am told were delicious, tasted only of bitterness. Now both Cask beers were quite hop heavy and bitterness is to be expected; however, I missed all of the subtleties and nuances that the brewer has intended for. Fortunately I am well on my way to recovery and should be in good drinking condition this Sunday for the cask at The Whip.
Prior to this cold destroying one of life’s greatest pleasures, I found a great ale house/beer bar in Everett, Washington last Sunday. This unintentional last hurrah for my taste buds took place at the poorly named Flying Pig Brewing Company. I have read that the Flying Pig was once a brewpub, but recently stopped brewing and now only serves local Northwest craft beer. Their selection of beer is quite impressive, but I do think a name change would be in good order.
After getting over the fact that no beer was brewed on site I ordered a pint of Hood Canal Oatmeal Stout. This stout has a delicious roasted malt flavour and a thick mouth feel. I had no choice but to order the pulled pork sandwich – my love for pulled pork is bordering on obsession. It wasn’t the greatest pulled pork, but nothing to complain about either. My wife order a pint of Alaskan Pale Ale, and from the sips I manage to steal, it was quite tasty. All in all it was a great place for a Sunday lunch.
I did manage to snap a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.
The Flying Pig Brewing Company
Hood Canal Oatmeal Stout
Holly with an Alaskan Pale Ale
Beer Selection
Pulled Pork - ignore the finger, I'm not a photographer
Erik
Okay, I’ll admit it – I love yeast
Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | Beer, Food and Recipes, Homebrew | 5 Comments
The world of beer aficionados is generally divided into two camps; hops heads and malt lovers. This particular part of the world, the Pacific Northwest, is chock full of hop heads and rightly so – Washington State is one of the world’s greatest hop growing regions. But as much as I enjoy drinking an over the top Imperial IPA, I’m not a true hop head. Neither am I a true malt lover – although I can’t image ever turning down a malty Southern Brown Ale. So where does this leave me – will I forever be lost in this state of limbo? No, for I am a yeast lover.
Yeast is such an under-discussed and unappreciated ingredient – without yeast beer would not exist and the world would be worse for it. Beer was brewed without hops for centuries and although beer would not be the same without malted grain, a whole plethora of sugary ingredients are out there just begging to be added into the brewing process, but yeast cannot be replaced or substituted. Baking Powder just will not do in this situation.
Yeast can be a completely neutral ingredient, imparting almost no flavour at all in its creation of alcohol and carbon dioxide, which is desirable in many beer styles. On the opposite side, yeast can create esters, and phenols and many other compounds that add a range of fruit flavours and spicy complexity to beer. Not only can yeast create flavour, but it can also add mouthfeel and can draw out or hide the maltiness of certain beers.
The Belgians are masters at controlling spicy, fruity, sour and almost sweet flavours that yeast can create, Germans have brewing with neutral lager yeast down to a science, the English know how to control malt flavours with yeast, and North Americans have embraced a whole gamut of yeast strains to brew with. Brewers understand the importance of yeast, but that understanding does not make it to the consumer often enough.
Yeast is a living, breathing organism that is responsible for the creation of beer and I think these creatures deserve a little more attention in the world of beer. A knowledgeable beer drinker should be able to determine the different hop varieties in a beer and perhaps even the different malts, but I believe only a select few could determine the style of yeast used to ferment the sweet wort into beer.
My obsession with yeast has grown to new heights. So far I have collected two wild yeast cultures; one for bread and one for brewing my very own authentic West Coast Lambic. The third yeast culture was harvested from my last homebrew and is essentially an IPA flavoured Wyeast 1968 ESB yeast. Instead of brewing with this yeast, I think I will try to make pizza dough with the yeast. Add some heat to the pizza sauce and I would imagine the the pizza would pair perfectly with an IPA – both sharing the same yeast.
Harvested Wyeast ESB Yeast - Wild Yeast for brewing - Wild Sourdough Yeast
Wild Yeast for a Lambic experiment
If you only take away one thing from this post I hope it is this: Yeast creates beer, and without beer where would the world be - would happiness as we know it exist?
Cheers,
Erik
Brewday 2009
Monday, February 23rd, 2009 | Beer, Homebrew | 3 Comments
Last Saturday was the first of hopefully many brew-days this year. I have been an active homebrewer for almost a year and a half now. My love for homebrewing started while walking down a Home Hardware store in the small town of Qualicum on Vancouver Island. This particular store sold a home brewing kit – the thought of brewing my own beer was intriguing and had never previously crossed my mind. Although I did not buy the kit that day, I made it my personal mission to become a homebrew master – I’m not there yet, but one day.
Unfortunately, all of my friends, including Chris, who clearly cares more about Mats Sundin than me, were busy, so had to go it alone. All in all it was a relaxing Saturday spent brewing what will hopefully become a delicious IPA.
- Wyeast 1968 London ESB Yeast – it should leave a pronounced malt flavour in the beer to balance out the hops bitterness
- The Mash Tun – 2 Row Pale Malt, Munich Malt, Caramel 80, Biscuit, Carapils. This should be maltier than most American IPA’s
Vorlaufing - Draining sweet wort from the mash and then recirculating back into the mash tun again and again until the wort runs clear. Any grain left in the wort could result in an astringent taste and mouthfeel.
Wort slowly filling the brew kettle
Sweet wort in the brew kettle approaching a boil. Once it reaches a boil the foam layer on top explodes everywhere - if the brewer is not standing by.
The Brewkettle
Adding hops to the wort. Centennial 60 min, Cascade 30 min, Amarillo 5 min
Immersion wort chiller cooling the wort. The hot wort needs to go from boiling to room temperature as quickly as possible. If not a nasty infection could spoil the brew.
Cooled wort beginning its week long ferment.
Erik
Beer & Bread
Friday, December 19th, 2008 | Food and Recipes, Homebrew | 1 Comment
I have been unemployed for three weeks now and have a lot of free time on my hands. With nothing else to do, I started to bake bread – I love bread. So far I have made quite a few loaves of focaccia bread, a loaf of braided French style bread, dinner rolls, croissants and standard white bread. Baking bread is dead simple and incredibly satisfying, plus it will make your house smell amazing. If you haven’t made bread before you must give it a try.
Making bread is very similar to making beer. In ancient Egypt, it is suspected that brewing and bread baking took place is the same place and possibly by the same people. In Egypt, a brew master would also be a baker. After all, the ingredients are almost the same, including grain, yeast and water. Hops are the only ingredient that separates beer from bread; however, hops are a recent addition to brewing and would not have been available to Egyptian brewers.
Baking and brewing, siblings at birth, have sadly been torn apart for thousands of years, and now I, Erik Wolfe, am going to reunite them together again. We shall once again have balance in the world. To do this, I have decided to go back in time and use the same baking & brewing techniques that Egyptians may have used thousands of years ago.
The first bread ever eaten would have been an unleavened flatbread made from an ancient grain such as farro. Without cultivated yeast, which was not available at grocery stores back then, bread will not rise and beer will not ferment. Fortunately, wild yeast is floating in the air all around us just waiting to eat some sugary grain. Early forms of leavened bread and beer would have been fermented with wild yeast. In present day, bread made with wild yeast is called sourdough bread and beer fermented with wild yeast is called a lambic beer. Once a baker or a brewer has fermented their beer or bread, they can cultivate the yeast by continuing to feed grain (sugar) to the yeast, allowing the yeast to be reused again and again. In the form of bread, this is somewhat difficult without refrigeration, but beer is easy to store and is shelf stable at standard room temperatures. By adding beer, instead of water, to grain flour the bread receives a healthy dose of cultivated yeast allowing it to rise and turn into bread.
Beer-Sourdough Bread Starter - Yum!
To recreate a piece of food history, I made a sourdough starter by adding 1 part wheat flour to 1 part beer, my own home brew of course. The starter has been sitting and being fed grain for three days and is bubbling away nicely smelling just like fermenting beer – only brewers enjoy the smell of fermenting grain. The yeast from the beer will continue to eat the flour creating more yeast. Once it has been a few more days, and I have a good amount of yeast in my starter, I will add it to a standard bread recipe and make bread as usual. I will keep you all posted, including the recipe when it is complete.
Erik