Mocha Death-Iron Horse Brewery

I have been a fan of Iron Horse Brewery since I first had the luck of finding Quilter's Irish Death in a bottle.  It's name being a smack in the face to the Irish Ale's out there, being that it is a Scottish style ale, grabs you from the first glance.  This seasonal adaptation of an already great brew spawned a jig out of me when I noticed it in the isle.  I had to try it as soon as I could.

It pours a clear dark brown with a small khaki head, and some lacing.  The smell is of coffee grounds, and cocoa bean, but the malty goodness of its unmolested big brother is still present.  The taste is smooth, with a strong coffee mouth feel, a little chocolate in the back of the throat, and a mildly sour malt at the end that ends a little on the bitter side.

By far, this holiday season, this is my favorite brew.  I plan on buying a case of this, when the wifey lets me, just on the sheer fact that I don't see it being trumped this holiday season by any offerings in its category-stouts not included it is a Scottish Ale.

Willy Blanks

Deschutes Jubelale 2009

Me first winter season brew. 12 oz bottle poured into pint glass. Dark amber in color, looks black until you hold it up to the light. 1/4 inch off white head(but it did not last long). Smells floral and slightly boozy. Tastes piney all the way through with a mild amount of maltiness that gives good balance. That's pretty much it. Almost just like a slightly malty IPA. This year kinda disappoints. I seem to remeber the previous two years having holdiay spicyness in the hops like; clove and toffee. Not so this year, but still a decent brew. I just don't feel the jubel in this ale.

Round Two...

Well, the Vanilla Bourb...err...I mean "Vanilla Tennessee Whiskey Stout" (wow, that doesn't roll off the tongue at all) was finally ready to transfer to secondary they other day. I got myself three NICE Madagascar Vanilla Beans from Cost Plus, split them open, scraped out the insides and dumped them in a bottle of Jack Daniels to soak ahead of time (you know, bring out all those great alcohol-soluble flavors). Addressing some comments that I know I just generated:

Q: Why Crack Daniels instead of a *real* bourbon?
A: Well...cuz I like it :-) And it's my beer so :-P

Q: How did you know how much Jack Daniels to use?
A: Simple...I took a 12-ounce beer, added a teaspoon, took a sip, repeated until I liked it and scaled up to five gallons :-)

Anyway, here's me using my awesome auto-siphon. If you don't have one, get one. It's the best $8 you'll spend.



Yep...and here's me still waiting (it's not exactly a quick process)



You can see some of the vanilla beans floating around in there. I tell ya, this thing smelled AWESOME by the time it was all done mixing!



I was pretty impressed at the sediment in the bottom. Hooray Irish Moss...and Hooray Gravity!



Here it is from another angle...



Anyway, I know this wasn't as exciting as the initial brewing...what with its crazy boil-over action and whatnot, but it was pretty novel to me. Happy Brewing!

Holiday Porter

Blanks and I just put this brew into the primary fermenter. Our new keg-kettle worked pretty good, except for the fact that the filter for the siphon got clogged because of the fresh grated ginger root that was added to the boil. Oh well good thing I put handles on it allowing us to drain the hot wort into the fermenter. I will keep this post updated as the process unfolds.

Bier de Pharoa!

I was in Bethlehem PA recently for a business trip and ended up staying at Historic Hotel Bethlehem. (Aparrantly it is haunted. We did have some weird things happen, but thats another story!) Wouldn't you know it, there was a brewery right down the street. Bethlehem Brew works was the name. I decided to try some of their seasonal faire and they had a Meade called Bier de Pharoa. Here is their description of their tribute to the ancient kings of old.

"Biere De Pharaoh has an amazing 13.8% A.B.V.!The strongest beer ever at the Brew Works. Biere de Pharaoh is only available at the Bethlehem Brew Works. Brewed with 660 lbs. of locally produced orange blossom honey in homage to the ancient Egyptians, who were the first brewers. Reaching out across time to give us a beer that is sweet and thick with a deep honey color."

When I first got it, I was thinking "wow... thats not a lot of beer, and this thing cost me almost 10 bucks!" What I was not prepared for was the sucker punch to the throat that it will give you. When you first taste it, you get a really sweet orangy taste due to the orange blossom honey. It is almost a bit overpowering. The aftertaste it leaves is that of straight honey, but you can tell its the orange blossom honey because its has a little citris aura about it. One of these little gems will pretty much get your buzz going especially if you have not had anything to eat. The only downside is, it is so sweet that if you are planning on having dinner you need to choose your food wisely to compliment the brew. I had ordered a burger and once i had the burger the tastes were so offsetting that it made the meade unenjoyable. Definatly would have been worth it though with like a salmon over rice pilaf. something light like that.

Tried a couple new brews this weekend

Jeremy had an awesome idea with posting about new brews you've tried and liked/not-liked...The aren't really "seasonal" brews, but they were new to me, so I thought I'd mention them :-) The first beer I picked for two reasons: The first and foremost was that Courtney and I were doing a fondue and the cheese recipe called for a "light beer"...I decided some artistic license was required and, instead, opted for a "light-colored beer." I mean seriously...If I wanted to drink that crap I'd have bought a bottle of Mountain Dew and left it outside with no lid for a week. Anywho, I randomly selected this guy:



I gotta say, for a cheese fondue, this was AWESOME! It was just a touch more "fruity" than I've been used to (don't know if this is normal or not...but it was new to me). The best way I can describe it was being pretty "sharp." It wasn't as full bodied as a stout...which is normal since it's an IPA, but it definitely had a stronger aroma and flavor. All in all I'd recommend it. I'm still a stout kind of guy, but this was a very fun experiment.

The next one I tried was admittedly selected because 1) it was sort of a "stout" and 2) it was dirt cheap. I wasn't really interested in it for it's good qualities, but rather because I was looking to calibrate how much bourbon to add to my vanilla bourbon stout :-)



I poured exactly 12 ounces, added a teaspoon of Jack Daniels, took a sip, added another teaspoon, took another sip, etc, and then just scaled up to my 5-gallon batch. For THAT purpose, it was pretty good. I have to say, though, for a stand-alone beer, the only word I can think to describe it is "meh." It was dark, alcoholic, and somewhat drinkable (I guess) but pretty earthy and not really one of those that made me thing "dang, I gotta get this again!" Sadly, I didn't even make it though the whole thing. It wasn't that it was "bad" per se...it just wasn't that great. I suppose this is one of those cases where price reflected quality. I know that's not always true (sometimes the opposite), but in this case it was.

So that was that. I can't WAIT until my own batch is done :-D

Mondays...

Today was especially hard to get up... scrapbooking all weekend -Jerm seemed to like what I created... even geeked out and showed Justin right when he walked in the door last night! Can't wait to scrapbook our beer pics- YES! Those will be fun to do, especially after I get pics of those enjoying our scrumptious drinkage! (FYI, that's your only warning! Reading this gives me all access to embarrass you!) Anyways, back to work- someone's gotta bring home the bacon... :)