Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Beer and Food


As most of you know, Elise likes to cook with beer whenever she can. Tonight, she made a southwestern chili using our oatmeal stout. It is cool to see something we made being used in food.

Brown Ale


Last night we brewed a brown ale that Elise wrote the recipe for herself. We are trying to make a clone of a cross between Brooklyn's Brown Ale and Avery Ellie's Brown. We are trying to emulate the sweetness and balance of Avery's, and the hoppyness of Brooklyn's. There were 3 hop additions to this beer, Centenial, Willamete, and Cascade. This will be our first beer that we will start experimenting with dry hopping. After fermentation is complete, about 3 days before we bottle, we will add 1 oz of Cascade hops to give the beer a more hoppy aroma. Because the Winter Warmer beer is still in secondary, the Brown will just be in primary for about 2 weeks and then bottled.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Denver Beer Week

In honor of the Great American Beer Festival which starts Thursday the 24th, Denver is having a beer week. There are events every night at local restaurants and bars all week ranging from 5 course beer inspired dinners to keg rolling races. Breweries from across the country are bringing special limited release beers to bars and having special release parties and chances to meet the head brewers. Elise and I attended an event on Friday at Great Divide. They unveiled their Claymore Scotch Ale which was aged in Stranahan's Whiskey barrels for about 6 months. Stranahans is a local whiskey distillery only a few blocks away from Great Divide. The whiskey barrels will impart a whiskey-like aroma to the beer, as well as a subtle bourbon taste. The barrels also impart a nice blend of vanilla and oak flavors to the beer. The beer was dark, sweet, and fairley strong at ~9% abv.
Next week they are also unveiling a Sour Whisky Bourbon Barrel Aged Claymor Scotch Ale. The "sour" comes from the addition of lactobacilus, a bacteria that is usually thought to spoil beer, that is innocculated into the barrel and imparts a sourness to the beer.