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| mmm...the good stuff |
I recently discovered that Denver is home to The Great American Beer Festival. The first festival was held in 1982 in Boulder back when there were only 22 breweries, 40 beers, and 800 attendees. As the attendance and popularity of the festival has grown over the years it has moved to bigger and bigger venues. This year the festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary and 49,000 attendants are expected. Last year 526 breweries representing 48 states and 3,930 beers were entered in the competition. There were 167 judges from nine different countries and tickets to the event sold out in three weeks. Suffice it to say, Beer is a serious business in Colorado. So when my friend Jon, Colorado native and home brewer extraordinaire, told me he was going to be starting a fresh batch of brew, I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the process first hand. After all, what kind of newly declared Colorado girl would I be if I didn’t embrace the local cultural and traditions?
We started the afternoon by going to a store called Hop To It to pick up our ingredients. We were going to be recreating a medium-bodied amber ale similar to the one sold by Odell called 90 Shilling. First stop was the malted barley room where tubs of barley were stacked on shelves. We measured out what we needed from the plethora of selections and ran it all through a small mill to chop it up, we then moved on to the yeast and hop selections of the store. I had no idea there were so many different options available!!
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| A small sample of the selection of Barley Malt |
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| Measuring out our quantities |
Our recipe called for two different types of hops to be added at different times during the boiling stage of the brewing process. Hops contain several characteristics that brewers desire in beer; They contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt and contribute floral, citrus, and herbal aromas and flavors. We also picked up about a pint of malt extract; it has a consistency and taste similar to molasses. Oh--I should mention that Jon talked me into tasting everything at various stages during the day. Most of the barley was pretty unimpressive and the hops tasted terrible. I have no idea how people first came up with the idea to cook it all together, let it sit for months on end, bottle it up, call it beer and drink it.
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| Malt Extract and some finished product from a previous brew. I was impatient. |
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| Keeping the mixture at exactly 155F. Easier said than done. |
But alas, I digress. The first step in the process was to heat a 4-gallon cooking pot full of water to 155F, we would then add our malted barley, in a stocking like sack for easy removal later, and leave the mixture to stay at 155F in the oven for an hour.
Once this part was done, we removed the barley from the mix and brought our brown brew to a boil on the stove. We added in the malted extract and measured out and added different quantities of hops in progressively quicker intervals during the next hour of boiling. The hops are bright green and cause the brew to turn green and foamy when they are first added. I felt a bit like I was in a potions class at Hogwarts. (If our beer turns out tasty, 100 points for Gryffindor!!)
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| Measuring out our first addition of hops |
During our downtime, between brewing stages, Jon told me an interesting story about how India Pale Ales first came into being. In the 18th century Great Britain faced a vexing problem. They were of country full of fine men who liked to drink fine beer. The had also just established one of the greatest navel forces in the world and the navy sailors would be out on voyages in hot climates, sometimes for months at a time. The problem was that the beer the navy sailors were used to drinking did not keep well on these long excursions. The hot environments resulted in flat, sour, undrinkable beer. Not having beer for months on end was a HUGE problem so the crafty brewer's set about to find a solution.
The only defenses against spoilage they could find were alcohol and hops. The alcohol provided an unfriendly environment for micro-bacterial growth and the hops inhibited the growth of Lactobacillus. So the original pale ale recipe was modified to include a much higher concentration of hops and a higher alcohol concentration to keep the beer from going bad. This produced a beer that was very bitter and strong that had a shelf life that would last on the trips to India. And so the IPA was born.
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| Bathtub Brewing |
Ok, now back to brewing. Once the hops were all added we
needed to bring our mixture down to 80F as quickly as possible because
it is at this stage in the process that the beer is most susceptible to
contamination. Our solution was a bag of ice and a bathtub.
I have to say our beer looked pretty gross at this point, much like really dirty brown water. I sampled a bit and it sure didn’t taste like any beer I’ve ever had before, but there are still a few weeks to go of fermentation before we can bottle it or keg it and then a few more weeks or months after that before it will be ready to drink. I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it turns out!
I love Colorado.
