Porter Competition

For December's Star City Brewer's Guild meeting we had a 'Porter Competition.' This was the first one we have entered with the Guild, so we were excited. However, our Porter wasn't just a standard Porter, nor was it even a standard Robust Porter. Ours was an Imperial Bourbon Vanilla Porter! So, even though we were eager to enter it, we held no hopes of winning, since it wasn't "to standard."
While I disagree with some of the ratings our beer got, we have to keep in mind that there were 3 different tables of judges, each table with three judges at it. So, you have nine different judges who are coming to conclusions based on whatever personal nuances and opinions they have. Nor did each table get to try every beer, so if you had a table scoring harsher or kinder than the others, then .. well, there you go. This isn't meant as holding any sort of ill-will or anything like that, it is just a statement of facts that can not be taken personally but ought to be noted. Our beer did ok with scoring, though we think it ought to have done better.
One thing though that struck us was the personal reactions we DID get from the judges after the competition was over. Those who had tasted and judged our beer came up to us raving about how wonderful the beer was! This was better, to us anyway, than actually winning the competition.
While we look forward to entering more competitions in the future (and hopefully doing better in them) these past two competitions have given us a lot to ponder. What do WE want out of our beers? What are WE trying to achieve? What is important to US?
We want to use fresh ingredients, brew them well, brew in as great of an eco-friendly manner as possible, and brew beers that people WANT to drink and remember!! Having people coming up to us after the competition expressing regrets that they couldn't/didn't give it higher scores because it wasn't to standard, but saying what a GOOD beer it was, is what we want. We want people to say "wow, now THAT is good!"
So, along those lines, we thought it only appropriate to share a Porter that leaves us with that reaction. From Kona Brewing Company, "Pipeline Porter" http://www.konabrewingco.com/beers/pipeline-porter --- the description from their website: Pipeline Porter is smooth and dark with a distinctive roasty aroma and earthy complexity from its diverse blends of premium malted barley. This celebration of malt unites with freshly roasted 100% Kona coffee grown at Cornwell Estate on Hawaii’s Big Island, lending a unique roasted aroma and flavor. A delicate blend of hops rounds out this palate-pleasing brew.
We couldn't say it better & highly recommend going out, getting a six-pack, and trying it for yourself. Our grade for this beer: Outstanding ... we'd say it'd score easily 45 or higher. Congrats to Kona for such a fantastic Porter!!

Character & Beer

"There can not be good living where there is not good drinking" - Benjamin Franklin
We were told by Seven Bridges that they would call the winners of their contests that night. We never received a call. We weren't really expecting to win - this was certainly a "learning beer" for us, it was our first organic beer and there were new varieties of things to acquire an understanding of. We will try again. Failure builds character.
Just because we didn't win though doesn't mean the days are dismal around here! "Decadence" has been bottled and is almost ready to drink. It needs some more time to mellow, not a bad thing. Our Imperial Porter was bottled this past Friday evening. It is truly a magnificent brew as well. And finally, our first batch of Pumpkin Ale was bottled last evening. Justin used fresh sugar pie pumpkins for flavoring, along with the various spices to really fill it out. And there are still many bottles of our organic "Rainy Day Pale Ale" around for consumption. They're a constant reminder to keep trying, to keep striving.
We may not have won, but we certainly have not lost. This holiday season there will truly be good drinking here at The Blue Nymph. Mr. Franklin, I believe, would be satisfied.

Hard Waiting

The seasons are changing and the days are growing shorter, but they sure seem to be stretching themselves out around here. Waiting is a hard thing to do!
We've entered our first competition (judging on 10/19), Carrie submitted an entry into Seven Bridge's Quarterly Contest, under the "Why Brew Organic" (judging on 10/15), we've bottled our Imperial Stout "Decadence", have the Imperial Porter in the secondary fermenter soaking up the goodness of vanilla beans & oak chips, and this weekend we brewed our first batch of Pumpkin Ale.
We're foaming at the mouth trying to hold ourselves back from getting into Decadence and drinking it down. Ok, Carrie is at least, Justin is much better at being calm! We're also both salivating over the Imperial Porter ~ even the kids are quite nosy about it!
Speaking of the kids, they were quite pleased that they got to help brew the Pumpkin Ale this weekend. Of course, in reality they mostly play on the deck (in the sandbox) while brewing occurs. They are allowed to help dumping in grains, stirring mash, and in the process of cleaning up. Most importantly though they get to learn step-by-step what is going on and what we're doing. They love feeling like and knowing that they are being included, that they are learning what is going on and why each step is important. The pride that radiates from within them is even better than the beer itself.
But, we're still in the LONG days of waiting. Made especially difficult during football season!!

Green Packaging for Organic Competition Beer

Tomorrow we will mail off our first beer that we're entering into a competition. Proudly, it is also our first all-organic homebrew. We blogged about it before, it is our Organic Rainy Day Pale Ale, and we're entering it into the National Organic Homebrew Challenge, located in Santa Cruz, CA. (Yikes ... carbon footprint it takes to get the beer there ... need to do something to offset that!)
But, we CAN proudly say that our packaging of the beer was fairly green. The entry form and labels were printed on 100% recycled paper, the rubberbands were (I think) leftovers from tie-dye projects, and then there was what we used for cushioning.

Per a suggestion from Bryan S., our current SCBG president, we decided to use a poster-tube and stack the beers for sending. First, we needed to cushion the bottom. We decided to take advantage of some of the kids stained clothes (that we were going to use for rags). A pair of shorts was stuffed in the bottom first. Then, we had to wrap the beers. We cut the shirts in 1/2 and, as you can see in the photo above, wrapped the beers.

And then we stuffed it down into the tube! We also stuffed a shirt in between bottles for extra cushioning. Needless to say, this entire process had us laughing our asses off!! Once we got all three bottles in, we capped it all off with another 1/2 of an old kid t-shirt for padding. We wondered if we should've included a note "Beer is INSIDE clothing" --- should that be included in the tube or written under where we wrote "FRAGILE" on the outside of the tube?
Though we hope the recipients of our tube find humor in the packaging, we do take delight in the fact that not only is the beer green (obviously though not literally in color!), but so is the packaging: recycled, soft, cut up clothing!!

Check out our poll!

As those of you who know us already know, Carrie is prone to getting some wild-ideas and crazy ass theories, and once she gets them in her head they tend to stay for a while!
We thought we would run with her latest one & put a poll up here to see just how close she is to being correct. Without giving away her theory here is her thinking: men and women have very distinctively different tastes in beer. This is an IN GENERAL and AS A WHOLE type of thing!
So, take a minute and scroll down to the very bottom of this page. There you will see two polls: one for guys & one for gals. Please only vote for the gender that you are! If you don't see the type of beer you prefer or aren't sure, read some of the examples listed and see which one suits you the best or closest.
Thanks for voting!

Harvesting Hops & Rainy Day Pale Ale

In part because of the hop shortage and in part because of our desire to be organic & self-sufficient, we grew hops this year. Or, rather, we tried. Dogs and puppies, when paired with an inexperience in growing hops, managed to leave us with only one vine that produced. We originally plants 2 fuggles, 1 kent golding, 1 magnum, & 1 cascade. The one we got anything from was the cascade, but it did manage to grow the full height of the trellis (with attempts to grow higher), so we were happy. After all, you learn best by trial and error.
On Wednesday the 20th we harvested our first round of cascade buds. We were able to get 1/2 an ounce (dried weight). Not too shabby, since this was from one rhizome and it's 1st year planted. We dried them in the dehydrator and froze them once they were nice and dry. They look good and we are eager to use them in a brew!
We also have decided to enter our 1st competition. This is something we're very excited about, as it is an organic beer competition. The 2008 National Organic Homebrew Challange is being put on by Seven Bridges Cooperative and is being hosted by Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant (http://www.gordonbiersch.com/) in San Jose, CA.
We had originally wanted to enter a couple different styles, but we all know how the economy is and so with limited finances and a heavy sigh, we settle on one. We decided upon a Pale Ale as our beer to enter. It has been given the name "Rainy Day Pale Ale" because, as you can see in the photo, as soon as we began brewing it began raining! One of the things you have to love about SW VA, late summer "mood swings": if they call for rain, we won't get any; if they call for sunshine, it will rain; if you put off brewing till Friday because there is a 90% chance of rain on Wednesday (& 0% on Friday), you will be hit with a quick-moving, clothes-soaking downpour!! Thankfully, as you can see as well, we have our super handy (albeit weather beaten) porch umbrella! TADA!

We haven't bottled the beer yet, and it finished with a lower O.G. than we had planned on, but it should still come out well. We'll let you know as soon as we do!

"God D*mn Brewery!"

Ok, before any complaints roll in ... it's a quote from Beerfest, get over it. ;)

The reason for this title is because of an incident that occured on 8/13/08 at our house. We had visited Vintage Cellar up in Blacksburg, Va that day (well worth the visit, as always!!) and picked up a selection of beers for tasting. Brought them home, put them in the fridge, and eagerly awaited till after bed-time for the kids so we could begin our tasting.
We were standing in the kitchen with Justin in front of the fridge, holding a beer, when suddenly the beer exploded. He wasn't trying to open it or anything like that - the damn thing just exploded. Luckily he wasn't badly injured, but it did put a nice little cut in his leg.

Here is a, somewhat, close-up photo of the exploded beer. There were shards of glass across the width of our kitchen, with beer splattered and spilled over 10' in one direction and a good 6' out from the fridge. The beer that blew was a Vanilla Java Porter from Atwater Block Brewing Co. out of Detroit, Michigan.
We immediately called the brewery, though it took a couple days (and several more phone calls) before Mark Reith, the owner, bothered to call us back. He acted barely sympathetic and tried to blame the distributor, Hop & Wine out of Sterling, Va, as well as the store for not having the beers refridgerated (even though they were in a building with AC, and then went into our fridge), and for not rotating product (even though how accurately you could do that since there are no dates of production on the bottles is a good question). I told him I wanted his insurance info so that we could give him the bill from the resulting doctor's visit. He actually tried to tell me that he doubted they (Atwater) would be responsible for the bill, but that IF I wanted to send him a copy he would "make sure it gets forwarded to the proper people."
We have since found out that our incident is far from being an isolated incident (despite Mr. Reith's claims) and that two people were severly injured on Aug. 2, 2008 up in Michigan. This has become a hot-topic on www.beeradvocate.com ~ here is the direct link: http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read/1498371
While we support small breweries & the entire art of craft-brewed beers, it is the fact that Mr. Reith accepts no responsibilty, even though there is obviously a problem with their brewing & bottling methods, and shows little-to-no concern or care for his customers health and well-being. In doing so he also shows that lack of concern for the trade of craft-brewed beers in general.
To craft brew beer is an act of love. You must love beer, you must love what makes good beer good, you must be willing to show that love and dedicated not only to your beer but to the entire craft/micro-brewed trade. Mr. Reith, where is your love???