An Attempt at Homebrewing Consistency: The Patty Melt Syndrome

I have a favorite place I go to for patty melts. It is located in my home town and, aside from the fries (steak cut instead of the superior waffle), the basic components of the meal have not changed in over a decade. Every time I get the melt, it comes out the same way. Until I ventured out and tried other patty melts, i didn't realize how special that was. It's a simple dish that is surprisingly easy to screw up. The wrong bread, or cheese, or even amount of meat can make a patty melt completely inedible. Every so often, I torture myself with someone else's melt just to prove that point.


This isn't a patty melt blog, but this is what we call in the biz an "analogy" for brewing. If you are a commercial brewer or even a popular homebrewer, the best recipe in the world is only good if you can replicate it to the same degree of success. Not just the same ingredients, but brewing them for the same amount of time with the same temperature. With so many variables, it's easy to make one change that noticably affects the final product. Imagine if you bought your favorite beer every month, yet every month it tasted different. Would it still be your favorite beer? Would it still be the same beer?


Due to the recent success of the Saison I brewed in May, Wife has requested that more be made immediately. My first concern was the Patty Melt Syndrome; I want to provide the same great thing using a new raw batch of ingredients. I've been working on replicating my batch as exact as I can make it. This will be the first repeat batch on my all-grain system. Looking back at my original process for this brew, there are a couple of things I would like to thank past me for:

Pictured: Past me. I was going through a phase.

Thank You for Mashing Notes - Past me was adamant about taking notes, especially since this was the inaugural brew on the new mashing system. It's full of happy faces and scribbles. More importantly, it has things like starting mash temp, strike water temp, and water/grain ratio that really helped me dial in my mashing schedule.

Thank You for a Complete Ingredient List - Not only do I have the complete ingredient list, but I also have any substitutions made and the expected gravity of the brew jotted down as well.

Thank You for Detailing your Shortcomings - None of my brew days are perfect, but some are less not-perfect than others. Past me gave a harrowing account of how his strike water kept on missing its temperature. It reminded me how important pre-heating my mash tun is.

The one thing I wish Past Me had detail more of was a description of color, opacity, or fermentation activity. Right now, I'm looking at my new repeat batch and obsessively thinking, "God, it's quite cloudy. What it this cloudy before? Did it fall out after fermentation? It was nice and clear when I bottled it. Did I miss something? Why is it still cloudy? WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Right now, the air lock is bubbling and the temperature is steady. I guess that's the best I can hope for.

Related Note: My Orange Stout and "Belgian-ey" Wheat are almost ready. Full report to come!

Festival Time!

As the great poet of our time, Will Smith, once said of summer:

"...School is out and there's a sort of a buzz, but back then I didn't really know what it was..."

Well, as it turns out, he was buzzing about the summer festival season. Either that, he was experimenting with underage drinking during his summer break. Maybe I'm reading too much into this.

Summer is chock full of it's Brewfests, Beerfests, Puckerfests, and Friday the Firkinteenths. While I'd love to do nothing but tour the festivals of this great nation, there is only so much summer to be had. I really only make it out to one: The Michigan Brewers Guild Beer Festival. 

The Brewers Guild runs a well organized event. Spread out over two days (Friday, July 27th, and Saturday, July 28th) across a sprawling riverside park in Ypsilanti, MI, the festival brings breweries from all corners of the peninsulas. Add in food that fills a beer belly and you get an event that is extremely well attended. I remember when you could get tickets a few days before from your local brewery. Nowadays, you would be pushing your luck to get your tickets three weeks in advance!

There seems to be a special effort by many of the brewers to bring a little something extra to the festival. There are frequent tappings of special barrel aged ales and lovingly crafted sours appearing only at the festival. Some were only available for one day, or even only for a few hours. experimental brews also reared their foamy heads. Round Barn had an extremely well balanced Grape Expectations Fruit ale last year. Short's Brewing brought along an India Spruce Pilsner. Yeah, that's Spruce, as in the tree. It was... pine-y. 

...Delicious?

Thankfully, as with all good crafters, there is a lovely balance between the "traditional" style and the "out there" experiments.

I'm looking forward to this year and it's tap list. My wife and I signed up for an Enthusiast Membership, allowing us to sneak in an hour early each day and avoid the long line to get in. I'll be sharing my anticipations and observations right here. In the meantime, anyone else attending?

Dispatch from the Beeriverse (Brewniverse?)

Surfing the web for beer stuff is a lot like being on YouTube or Wikipedia; you can keep clicking links until you're tired, hungry and need a shave and your loved ones become worried about you. The section of the internet given over to beer purposes is unimaginably vast. Just scrolling through this list of beer blogs takes minutes, and we're not even listed! Among our competition: 2 Beer Guys Blog (which is actually four people), A Beer in the Hand is Worth Two in the Fridge, Beer Blogging Buddies and a bajillion more. That's not to mention brewery sites, industry news, home brewing videos and on and on (I wonder if trappist monks have websites?). Anyhow, here's a few highlights I've picked up in the last week or so.

Randall the Enamel Animal
The folks at Dogfish Head really are innovators. I just discovered this contraption one of their guys invented, an "organoleptic hop transducer module." It's a tap filter that gives whatever beer its attached to more hop flavor. Imagine drinking a pint and wondering whether it might benefit from more hopiness. Now that dream can be a reality! Apparently I'm late to the party because they're already on version 3.0. Clearly the Dogfish folks are hop fans (and probably Back to the Future fans), as evidenced by their hop-centric brews: 60 Minute IPA, 75 Minute IPA, 90 Minute IPA and 120 Minute IPA, among other beers witch are still hoppy but have broader flavor profile. Hooking the 120 Minute IPA up to the Randall filter might buy them some time if anybody tries to put them out of business by inventing the 180 Minute IPA. You can buy one of these bad boys from Dogfish Head, or you can make your own (pdf). I appreciate their open-source attitude to beer tastiness.

IPA Risotto
This recipe sounds incredible, but according to the author (from the cleverly named site No Meat Athlete), the IPA flavor doesn't really come through. Huge bummer. Maybe the recipe could be adjusted to substitute more beer for stock, or perhaps a different beer would lend more flavor? I'd like to try this out as I am a big fan of home-cooked risotto. There are a lot of other tasty-looking recipes using beer on the site linked at the top, so head on over there. If cooking with beer sounds familiar to you, it might be because you read about it in 2004 in our newspaper column: Buddies cook with beer at Thanksbeergiving. Can you believe that was eight years ago?

Victory for Raging Bitch
Last up is the Michigan-to-Maryland connection. Just to get everybody up to speed, I moved to Baltimore in 2008 and have since been enjoying beers from Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD. This brewery apparently moved to Maryland from Colorado a few years ago. Their most popular beer is the Raging Bitch Belgian-style IPA which, because of it's name, was temporarily banned in Michigan. According to the Flying Dog blog post linked above, the beer was banned by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) but the ban was lifted when the brewery took the argument to federal court. Although the ban was lifted, Flying Dog is pursuing the lawsuit in order to get MLCC's actions declared unconstitutional and for the money they would have made from beer sales during the ban. More details are here. This pissfest about getting to use the word "bitch" is ridiculous. The MLCC should not have the authority to ban an alcohol product based on whether they find the name offensive. That's government censorship, not alcohol safety. The name is clearly offensive to some folks, including me, but retailers are free not to offer it for that reason. If I ran a family restaurant that served beer, I might well choose not to put it on the menu, but if I ran a college bar like Crunchy's, I wouldn't have much concern. My criticism of Flying Dog is apparent by now. They've used their dog theme to get away with using the word "bitch". Apparently the appeal of that loophole didn't wear off after the third grade. To kick it up a notch, they added the word "raging", reminding us all to keep that sexist phrase in our lexicon. Anybody who has known me since my pre-Drinking Buddies State News days might remember that I support each citizen's freedom to be a tasteless jerk. But just because you can doesn't mean you should. That said, Raging Bitch is a delicious beer and Flying Dog has a good lineup overall. Their artwork is done by Ralph Steadman, illustrator of several Hunter S. Thompson books, which is unassailably cool.

On a more personal note, I am about to leave on a vacation to Munich and Rome. Among my other sightseeing goals are to visit a beer garden and or hall in Munich and to assess whether Italy has anything to offer beyond Peroni. If anybody reading this has any suggestions about where to visit (or avoid!) in either city, please comment on this post to let me know.

National Beer News

This heat wave sweeping the nation has me in quite the mood for cold, crisp pale ales and air conditioning.  But these things are at risk!  The Washington Post reported earlier this week on the derecho which knocked out power to much of the Mideast and the consequences it has had on the Port City Brewery. It's an interesting look into the modernization of the brewing process, especially considering the long history of brewing and the relatively new invention of electricity.

Beer of the Month (July)

   Hello fellow drinking buddies, quaffing pals, and imbibing comrades! I'm Trevor -- you may remember me from such blogs as F/stop Architectural or...actually, let's not talk about the livejournal days.
   I'd like to kick off my Drinking Buddies contributions by introducing the Beer of the Month!  Our trusty webmaster Ryan informs me that the Beer of the Month will soon have its own sidebar somewhere to the right of this post ALREADY HAS A SIDEBAR.  Here's the idea:
   Each month i'll pick a style of beer --suggestions are welcome. Subsequently i will drink of this libation, then finally, hopefully after sleeping off the alcohol, i will share with you my insights.  This month's beer will be...

The Noble Wheat Ale

   I admit i spent the better part of thirty minutes researching and double-checking my memory in regards to which beers fall into which category.  I should disclose that when i began homebrewing, my brother Ryan gifted me a copy of John Palmer's book How to Brew, which i still consult prior to every new beer idea.  He describes with the following chart and description.

Figure 111 - Relative Flavors of Beer Styles This chart is not to any scale but is a subjective attempt to describe how different beer styles taste relative to one another. As an over-simplification, a beer may be Malty - Sweet, Malty - Bitter, Fruity - Sweet, or Fruity - Bitter. Each beer style was placed on the chart via a great deal of "arm waving". The flavors often overlap between styles, and the variation within a single style can often bridge the positions of the styles next to it. This chart also fails to describe a beer's intensity. Some beer styles like Imperial Stout and Barleywine can literally cover half the chart in their complexity. A beer like Coors Light™ would be smack-dab in the middle (and probably on another plane behind the chart). As I said above, this is an oversimplified attempt to give you a first glance at how a lot of the beer styles relate to one another.

   The entirety of How to Brew is available totally free online at www.howtobrew.com.  I strongly suggest actually purchasing the book though, as laptops in the kitchen and splashing pots of boiling wort do NOT mix.

   Of course, the fruity-malty and bitter-sweet spectra don't fully describe the many qualities of a beer that make it distinctive.  There's also appearance, aroma, and the perennial favorite, mouthfeel.  Historically there are specific rules which govern how certain styles are made, but with the rising popularity of microbreweries and homebrewing these distinctions are fading.  As i understand it, much of the popularity of pilseners in Pilsen or ESBs in England had to do with the quality and chemistry of the water available in those locations.  These days you can just buy spring water, or if you're feeling really adventurous you could brew with whatever comes out of your tap.  Depending on the company you bought the spring water from, it might be the same thing.  Larger breweries are a bit more at the mercy of the local water supply, but they also have the option of experimenting with adding trace minerals themselves.

   The point is that there's no one definition for any particular style, so if you're offended that i lump light lagers (e.g. High Life Light) in with adjunct lagers (Natural Ice), well, you can just go soak your head, mister. Seriously though, i'm not going to make any beer Beer of the Month that you can buy in the infamous "dirty thirty."  If you're drinking along with the Beer of the Month, you're welcome.

   What was i writing about?  Right.  Hefeweizens.  Let's talk about three of them.  Maybe that will be a recurring Beer of the Month theme, discussing three beers.  I don't know, i'm not clairvoyant.

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier

   This beer holds two distinctions in my mind.  First, it is the archetype, the type specimen, the epitome, even! of a hefeweizen.  Secondly, it is entirely impossible to pronounce intelligibly in a crowded bar.  Ratebeer.com gives this beer a resounding endorsement with an absolute score of 99 and a style score of 100 (the internets seem to have a strong preference for stouts and IPAs).  Like all hefeweizens, the Weihenstephaner entry has a nice cloudy haze to it, a product of the suspended yeast particles that remain unfiltered.  I'd be interested in brewing a hefeweizen, but i seem to have mediocre luck picking yeasts, so i hesitate to brew a style that relies so heavily on a good yeast flavor.  Perhaps one of our readers has a suggestion.

   The Hefe Weissbier has a pleasant but not overpowering bananas and cloves flavor to it.  I've had a few estery brews from friends (and from commercial brewers!) that, as John Palmer puts it, could "flag down a barrel full of monkeys".  This beer instead nicely complements the fruitiness with soft hops and heavy carbonation, a combination which results in a very full mouthfeel.

   One of my favorite parts of drinking a hefeweizen is pouring it into a pilsener (or weizen) glass.  Invert the glass over the bottle, then flip both back over and slowly pull the bottle out of the glass, allowing the beer to flow straight down.

Bell's Oberon Ale

   This seasonal ale is a staple of the Michigan beer scene.  I particularly enjoy that it's something everyone, even devoted drinkers of the "Champagne of Beers" Miller High Life, seems to be able to agree is "good beer".  Oberon is a fairly light varietal as craft beer goes and not too heavy on the hops.  Spices are noticeable along with a refreshing orange flavor.  Some people enjoy a slice of orange in their Oberon, which doesn't offend me, though i think it pushes the flavor closer to a shandy.  Wikipedia informs me that "shandygaff" is an acceptable alternate word choice, which is just wonderful.

Blue Moon Belgian White

   This witbier is often referred to simply as a "Blue Moon", which is terribly confusing since the Blue Moon label (owned by Coors) produces a dozen different styles of beer, ranging from dubbels (the Winter Abbey Ale) to pale ales (the Pale Moon).  The comparison to Oberon is inevitable, at least in Michigan bars, as everyone seems to have a strong preference one way or the other.  The very first Blue Moon i ever tasted was badly skunked, and i've been unable to shake that distaste, so i personally fall on the Oberon side of that debate.  While the base of the Belgian White is very similar to Oberon, the spices and orange are replaced with a coriander and lemon/grapefruit flavor.

If you have thoughts on these three beers, or on the Wheat Ale style in general, i want to hear what you have to say!  Also leave suggestions here for next month's Beer of the Month.

Europe is Enjoying American Beer, Latest Brews

I ran across the end of a news piece on my radio dial today talking about American craft beer having more of an influence overseas. I had to go back and hear more of it, especially when they made the comparison between the U.S. craft beer rise in Europe with the "Judgement of Paris" wine revolution and subsequent California invasion into the world wine market. There is also a subtle dig on the Reinheitsgebot culture at the very end. 

While I don't expect Bear Republic to appear across bars in Munich, I would not be surprised to see a few more U.S. brands outside the big 3 to get more traction. When you think of the foothold regional European beers have made across the U.S., who is to say the reverse couldn't be true?

Here's the link to the episode (The story starts around the 10 minute mark).

Meanwhile, back in my closet, I've had three different beers mature in their bottles. I've been very enthusiastic about the results I've been getting from my brand new rectangle cooler mash tun. For a man who doesn't usually build things, this is pretty solid. I only lose 2 degrees while I mash and I haven't had a stuck sparge yet. I'll put some pictures of my system in another post.

Here's a breakdown of what's been bottled:

Saison- I made this Saison largely as a test of the system. It couldn't have turned out better. Light, crisp, subtle Belgian yeast notes on the end. I would like a little more bite from the hops, but it was a great first effort. So good, in fact, that I'm brewing it again this week. Another 1/2oz of bittering hops this time around should round things out.

American Orange Wheat- I thought I'd get fancy with the next brew and do an American wheat. I know oranges don't ferment well, but I thought if I added the crushed oranges vs. orange juice in the ferment I would get a better flavor. This one turned out to have a very "white wheat" profile similar to a Hoegaarden with a cool citrus note, but not really much of an orange tinge. I don't think I'd throw the oranges in next time, but the beer is solid and perfect for summer. I did another batch with Belgian Wheat yeast ( the original had American wheat yeast) to see if I could detect any difference. It's sitting in the fermenter right now and should be bottled early next week. Given how long I conditioned this first one, the Belgian Wheat should be ready for tasting around mid July.

Amber Ale- I feel like I should call this "Random Amber" because I literally threw the recipe together seconds before I started driving to the store to get the grains. It was the best work I have ever done. Medium body with great head retention and a delicious bite at the end. This is something I feel like I can hang my hat on.

Cases of beer just waiting to be drunk. What a perfect situation for summer!

News roundup

Here are some beer-related articles I've been reading recently:

Malters Bring Terroir to the Beer Bottle - NYTimes

I know what this looks like, another NYTimes "trend" article about yuppies going back-to-the land in hopes of living more "authentic" lifestyle. Other cliche keywords that come to mind: sustainable, small-scale, homesteading, natural, craft, etc. This characterization is somewhat true, but what this guy is doing is also really cool. He buys grains from Mass. farmers, malts them and sells them to brewers. He also still has a day job. The advantage of a smaller-scale operation like this is that beers can have regional variation instead of many brewers all using the same industrially-grown grains, making their beers taste the same. It also mentions that "small malt houses largely disappeared during Prohibition," and has since been dominated by commercial-scale companies, making it difficult for small malters to break into the business. It amazes me that brewing is still recovering from Prohibition.


Beer Glasses - NY Times

Clearly the main attraction here is the jaunty suit and hat worn by the guy in the picture. You might argue that he's taken East Coast style too seriously, but I would dress like that if I could afford it. You know his shoes have tassels on them. What is this article about again? Oh, beer glasses; good thing the headline doesn't beat around the bush with any snooty language like "terroir." I like this guy's attitude. He acknowledges that although certain beers should be sampled in certain glasses, sometimes you just want drink a pint and enjoy yourself, and you don't want to mess around with crazy glasses. Best quote: “I could see a pilsner or a saison with a nice cap of foam over the top, sitting on an outdoor summer table looking like little ice cream cones of happiness.”


New 'Beer' Has Dogs Barking for Brews - ABC News
You just can't make this stuff up. I don't even want to talk about the crazy things people do for their pets and how much money they spend to do those things. This is "beer" sans alcohol and hops, which is apparently toxic to dogs. Turner & Hooch had led me to believe neither of those things was a problem, but I guess animal food science has come a long way since 1989. Alcohol is toxic to humans, but ironically is a major reason people drink it. This dog "beer" is really just an uncarbonated mix of meat broth and malt barley, so the "beer" thing is just a marketing gimmick (but that wouldn't stop me from buying it). Best quote: "People have an incredible emotional bond with their dogs, so it's just natural for people to want to include them and say, 'My dog can have a beer too.'" I'm not gonna hold back on you: Bowser Beer.

And we're back!

Sorry if we forgot to mention the totally planned six year break. We needed to regroup and rethink the philosophy of The Drinking Buddies blog, and like a fermenting ale, thinking can't be rushed. You might expect after six years of thought, we might be considered bodhisattvas of all things beer. Of course we are too humble to acknowledge this. What we have learned from our mediations under the mash tun is this:

Life consists of suffering flavorless beers. Suffering is caused by attachment to our beer preferences, which is in turn attached to the beers our forebears. Only by liberating ourselves from the tyranny of perpetual flavorlessness can we be truly free.

Okay, so we didn't really spend six years meditating under brewing equipment, but with any luck, time has made us ever so slightly wiser. The result of our hiatus will be a more dynamic blog. The aim is not to recapitulate the Drinking Buddies State News column, because that would be less fun for us. Each of us who contributes has different ideas about what kinds of things to post, so we are hoping for a lively mix of content. What kinds of things might you see? Ha! What kinds of things won't you see?! There will be beer news and commentary, brewing updates, tasting reports and more, all with the carefree, devil-may-care effervescence that only The Drinking Buddies can deliver.

We are hoping to expand the round of regular and irregular contributors to those with all sorts of interesting perspectives. Basically, the idea is to touch on anything interesting in beer-related activities. From pro-brewer to home-brewer, mashing to marketing, Michigan to Maryland, if it is worth writing down, we'll try to write it here. In the near future, we have festivals to attend, new beers to try, breweries opening, and various home concoctions that should be shared in their triumph/failure.

With that being said, this will not exactly be a blog dedicated to hard hitting journalism, but more of a journal of the beer and brewing world experienced by an enthusiastic few. If you feel the same way, please join us and share your experiences, too!

-Matt and Ryan

A great time of year

This is a wonderful time of year for beer drinkers. I enjoy choosing my beer according to the season and in that respect, fall is my favorite beer season. I enjoy citrusy wheat beers in summer, but I just can't resist the quaffability of an Oktoberfest brew. That's my keyword for fall beer: Quaffable. The perfect Oktoberfest drink is a balance between fall spices and drinkability. You want more than a watery pilsener this time of year, but you don't want too much. If the beer's too heavy, you can't toss down more than one or two while you gobble wiener schnitzel and brats. But what do I know, I'm a vegetarian. Here in Michigan, I enjoy my fall beer with other pumpkin-related food, candy corn, stuffing, yams, etc. As far as accessability goes, you can't miss with a Sam Adams Octoberfest, but you know that already. Of course there's nothing wrong with finding a few beers you like and sticking with them. Nothing wrong unless you enjoy robbing your tastebuds of exciting new flavors. Honestly, live a little. You won't kill your tongue with a little bit of adventure, not unless you slam a bottle of Chili Beer. (Check out their website, it features a muscled chili pepper beating up a lime and what sounds like Bob Dylan singing mariachi music.) I think what I'm trying to say is that you really should take a look around your local beer markets for a six-pack of Victory Brewing Co.'s Festbier.

Although this picture, lifted from Victory's website, depicts only three beers, I assure you that I was able to buy an entire six-pack. I found it at Oades Big Ten (314 S. Clippert St., Lansing). I balked at the price, but forked over the money. When I got to my party destination and opened a bottle, I was sweetly rewarded. I wouldn't spend $10 every weekend for this beer, but it's a worthwhile occassional indulgence. Its flavor rests primarily in its malts, but is not sweet or heavy. I can honestly say that this beer is unique. I was suprised to find on their website that it includes no spices. I shared it with three acquaintances at the party and quickly found I had three new friends. If you take a look at the design, depicting laborers and a prominent "V", not to mention the name Victory in the first place, it has a distinctly communist feel. That's okay though. I've heard communists criticized for many things, but not for their beer. They hail from Pennsylvania, which as you may or may not know is not a state but a commonwealth. With all this communalism going on, you'd think they could cut a comrade a break on the price of a sixer.

Aside from Sam Adams, another widely available Oktoberfest in the Midwest is Leinenkugel's version. It's not bad, but is light on flavor. It's not too expensive, so give it a try and see what you think. It definitely hits the drinkability measure, but doesn't stack up to the others on taste.

I promise a pumkin beer update in time for Thanksgiving.

Must We Rock?!

Much to the disappointment of our loyal fans, we've been remiss in our duties as bloggers. In fact, for almost a month, we have failed to live up even to our name of Drinking Buddies. I can't speak for Matt, but I must admit that until today, I'd lost the drive, the spark, the motivation to continue bringing beer blogging to the world. Am I melodramatic? No! Not compared to the pedestal on which we've recently been placed by the fine folks at The State News. Today my interest in this journal was invigorated by a brilliant editor of the S'New's entertainment section: The Lowdown. Casually flipping through the newspaper this afternoon, I saw a tag for the Drinking Buddies on the entertainment front. Not two paragraphs into her column, Jessica Nowak (the editor), began to praise our former newspaper glory. "Since I began this job, many fans of 'Drinking Buddies' have approached me in one way or another, demanding their return," she writes. But that's not all. Later she calls us "cult icons." It nearly brought me to tears. Unfortunately, I didn't have a beer to cry into, so I held back. There's much more to the column, which you can read here. So inspired was I that I went right over to Crunchy's (10-12 hours later) to enjoy 25 ounces of New Holland's Ichabod Ale on tap. Fall is a tasty time of year.

I feel re-committed to the ongoing success of the Drinking Buddies and I will do my best to ensure that we have at least one post per week. And please help us out by giving us feedback on how you think we're doing and what kinds of things you'd like to read. Comments, concerns, cuestions?