Doctor Duvel

I'm like a sommelier, but for beer.

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Location: Upstate New York, United States

Favorite Beers: Orval, Samuel Smith, Duvel, Hennepin, Oude Gueze, Chimay, Dogfish Head, Anchor Steam, and anything made by Trappist monks.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Angry Beer Tasting

2/27/09

4:10 Bryant and Sharon arrive. Stout and Obama's Brown IPA are consumed.

4:20 Randy and Rick arrive. Randy's ass is wet from a beer spilled in the car. He blow dries his ass. We drink Reconciliation, a brett brux beer. It's lovely, dry, half tart, mildly funky.

4:45 Sherry-ish oxidized Flemish brown with raspberries--lovely.

4:55 Old lambic. Chlamydia aftertaste. Super weird, funky lambic. Really grows on me, Randy, and Rick. Sharon and Lisa are not down with it. Understandably.

5:05 Draft Kriek is consumed. It is deemed overly fecal, but complex and highly sour. Rick likes it more than Randy does

5:25 "Vin" Chardonnay beer is drunk. Oaky, buttery, vinous, plums, hard-to-place fruit, butterscotch. Good stuff.

5:50 Moreval is horsey, leathery, dry. Great beer.

6:10 Kyrie is a gorgeous, dead perfect, floating on a cloud saison. Rick regards it as the best beer of mine that he's had.

6:30 Bad Angel black saison is gorgeous. We like it.

Groups splinter off for other events, but it was a fine beer tasting.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

DIPA Brew-day

Had been trying to work up the energy to brew for a good week and I finally found it, more or less. The result is an un-named DIPA. It's very loosely based on the morebeer.com kit recipe that is a Cilurzo-authorized Pliny the Elder copy. OG 1075; theoretical 217 IBU; should be a good 8% a.b.v. The grain bill is like the Pliny recipe, only subbing half pilsner and half Maris Otter for two-row and replacing 5 oz of Crystal 40 with 4 oz of Crystal 60. So it'll be a little nuttier and toastier than the traditional Pliny. So be it; that was what was around. Hops were more or less done ad libitum, using as many varieties as possible, keeping half an eye on the Pliny quantities and timing. First wort hopping with Chinook; bittered with Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, Summit, and Amarillo; flavor addition of Cascade and Centennial; crushed at shut-off with Chinook, homegrown Cascade, Amarillo, and Centennial. Absurdly large dry hop in fermentor and keg with most or all of those hops to be determined. Oughta be pretty damned tasty, I would think. Go yeast! Go! Fly, my pretties!