Brewer Blog @ Grittys.com
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April 14, 2008
It was a fun day at the brewery today. First Andy and I tapped a special brew I came up with, a Rye PA. You can read all about it right now on the main Gritty’s blog, but briefly, it’s a pretty hoppy beer, both bitter and with lots of Cascade and Saaz aroma hops. I used about 12% rye malt, which has a very different flavor from barley – you’ll be able to taste it easily, even through all those hops. Brewers reading this may know that rye is infamous for being difficult to brew with. It’s sort of sticky and full of protein, which can make it hard to run the wort through the mash and into the kettle. Luckily, I had no major problems when I brewed the Rye PA. By the way, all that protein in the rye also makes the finished beer a little bit hazy. My thanks to Gritty’s for the opportunity to brew my own recipe.
As if the Rye PA wasn’t enough excitement for one day, we also tapped the first of the Vacationland Summer Ale this morning. Since we won’t have tank space for draft Vacationland for a few days, we decided to put some on cask and dry hop it with some extra Cascade whole flower hops. The Vacationland is light in color but fairly big in flavor. Along with Pale Ale malt and malted wheat, it’s got lots of Caramalt, a specialty grain that gives a rich, malty taste. What I personally really like about Vacationland is the hops. The late addition hops (the ones you smell and taste, not the ones that make it bitter) are mostly Saaz and Cascade, which give the beer a refreshing, slightly citrusy aroma and flavor. It’s a great summer beer, and with the way the weather feels this week, it doesn’t feel like summer’s too far off. We’ll be brewing with the door open this week!
Cheers,
Ben
April 5, 2008
Thanks to everyone who’s talked to me about my last post, on the hops shortage. I’m happy that it helped some of you understand what’s going on with brewers these days, and it’s also just nice to know that people are reading my blog! Well, there’s all kinds of news from Gritty’s this week. Greg Sansone, the head brewer at Gritty’s in Freeport, stopped by the Portland brewery the other day and told me that they did their first brew with grain from their new silo on Wednesday (April 2). According to Greg they still need to make a few minor adjustments, but it went very well. The silo will save a lot of money and help keep costs (and beer prices!) down, and it has a great side benefit for the three brewers in Freeport, too – not nearly as many bags of malt (55 pounds each) to lift and haul around. I spent a month doing my beer school apprenticeship in Freeport, and I can attest firsthand to the effort that goes into every brew there. Now Greg, Bob, and Shane will be just a little less tired at the end of a brewday.
There were some exciting developments at the Portland brewery this week, too. On Wednesday we hosted the first meeting of the newly formed Maine Beer Writers Guild. Because I write this blog, the other members were kind enough to invite me, and we had a great time talking about beer writing, beer culture, local beers, and – well, you get the idea. It’s nice to see yet another sign of Maine’s thriving craft beer scene. Check out the blogs and columns of the Guild members to find out what’s happening with good beer around the state, at Gritty’s and beyond.
By the way, the writers seemed to enjoy the Irish Red Ale quite a bit. The first batch, tapped on St. Patrick’s Day, was such a hit that Andy and I did a second one. It won’t last long, so be sure to try it. A couple of the beer writers mentioned to me that it tasted slightly smoky, which I hadn’t picked up on at first. My guess is that the smokiness comes from the small amount of roasted barley we used in the brew, and especially from a special malt from Germany called Caraaroma. This malt is quite different from what we use in our other beers, helping to give the IRA that deep red color, and some added malt complexity. There’s a lot more Portland news to tell you about, but I’ll save it for my next post, so stay tuned. Hopefully I’ll see some of you on Monday the 7th, celebrating the repeal of Prohibition with $2 pints!
Cheers,
Ben
March 24, 2008
If you’ve gotten to this page, you probably noticed the pictures of the new malt silo at Gritty’s in Freeport. The price of malted barley (and most other grains) is climbing sharply, and in a double whammy to brewers, the situation with hops is even worse. I won’t go into all the reasons for what brewers are calling “the hop crisis,” so if you haven’t already heard about it, just Google “hops shortage” or “hops crisis.” It’s been widely publicized in mainstream media, and it’s a serious problem for brewers of all sizes, especially in the U.S. Not only have the prices gone up astronomically, but many varieties of hops are simply unavailable right now, and could stay that way for a year or more.
With all this talk about hops, lots of people have been asking me why hops are so important to brewing good beer.
March 10, 2008
With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, Andy and I, as well as the brewers in Freeport and Auburn, have been busily getting ready. We’ve made sure we’re well stocked with Black Fly Stout, and last week we brewed a batch of Irish Red Ale. I wasn’t around to try it last year, but everyone tells me it’s one of their favorites. It sure smelled great while I was brewing it, really malty but backed up with plenty of hop bitterness, flavor and aroma. It looks like it will be a beautiful dark red shade, too, and that will look especially good since we’ll be serving it with nitrogen.
Speaking of nitrogen, in Portland we’ve done our last two batches of Scottish Ale with nitrogen, and lots of people have been asking me about the difference between nitro beer and regular draft beer. So, it seemed like a good time to talk about the three ways we serve beer in the brewpub.
First, there’s regular draft beer.