Year Review

This was what Justin found looking back at him when he looked into his stocking Christmas morning. Quite a sight to be sure! ha ha ha. Quick review is that it was a very well liked beer around here. We also got Delirium Noel (yummy!), Sam Adam's Chocolate Bock (also yummy, but not worth the cost we thought), Bell's Special Double Cream Stout (good, but we expected more from it), as well as some other beers that I am currently blanking on. You can see some photos that we took of the beers here though: http://flickr.com/photos/funkymamataney/3154861718/in/set-72157605649531380/ ~ This is Carrie's online photography portfolio, and that link will take you directly to beers. Always a good place to start in our opinion.
New Year's Eve finds us here at Soul One looking both back at the past year and forward at the years ahead (as we're sure it finds many people). Early in the year we began all-grain brewing and have had both success and flops with that. Lessons have been learned, and notes made for next time. We've entered our first competitions, both in our local homebrewer's guild (http://www.starcitybrewers.org) and in a national organic one through Seven Bridges Cooperative.
We've seen one site we had hoped to place a brewery get "crossed-off" because the new Intermodal is supposed to go on the lot that it literally next to it. An small, eco-friendly, artisan craft brewery and a pollution spewing Intermodal facility hardly go hand in hand. We found another tentative site, wondered if it would ever become vacant, and then watched it ironically burn to the ground (we both have alibis! ha ha). We'll see what happens next year.
We finally designed a logo (that I've yet to figure out how to upload to here .. a goal for next year?), and Justin now has our first "official" Soul One Brewery t-shirt, a gift for Christmas.
We've learned a lot this year, taken a lot of notes and talked to a lot of people, readily listening to all advice. We've got a lot planned still for the future. We plan to begin finally kegging early next year. This should be quite a triumph as well as an ongoing source of interest. Our almost 5 year old is already figuring out how to open bottles, and I myself new how to pour beer from a keg at his age ... so LOTS to consider when switching to kegging!! :)
As we mentioned in our last post, we also joined the Beer of the Month Club at Wine Gourmet. Our first month was quite a shock. We had been expecting Bell's beers and, due to an sudden spike of new Beer of the Month members, they had to switch to Ballast Point. We got their IPA and their Pale Ale. Their Pale Ale was a very easy drinking beer, I liked that. The folks at Wine Gourmet told us they hope to have Bell's ready for next month, so we're still looking forward to that as we've had very good experiences with their beers.
We wish you all a very Happy New Year. Much luck in both brewing and drinking. We hope your cup never runneth dry and that the Ales are always plenty! Cheers!!

Christmas, Santa, & a Lump of Coal review

Tis the season and we've realized something. There is just no way that Santa would not leave beer in a brewer's stocking! However, unless he's bringing a time-tested favorite as a treat, he surely would leave a brew that has a nice Holiday theme to it. Ah, the joys of a new tradition being started.
So, yesterday found us at Wine Gourmet here in Roanoke. It is one of the best places to buy beer in the Valley, and their staff couldn't be friendlier or more eager to help! While we were there, as a gift to Justin, we joined their Beer of the Month club, so be looking for reviews and more to come about that.
One of the beers we got was Lump of Coal. It sounded deliciously tempting, slightly naughty, and so we drank it last night.
Here is the review of the beer from Shelton Brothers, http://www.sheltonbrothers.com/beers/beerProfile.asp: Looking forward to a depressing holiday? Here is liquid consolation. This 8% bittersweet chocolate stout is the best you could hope for in these dark times. Actually, come to think of it, considering how bad you’ve been, this little coal-black gem is more than you deserve for Christmas this year.
The handiwork of vastly talented (but altogether too cheery) master brewer Peter Scholey, Lump of Coal is the perfect stocking stuffer for the beer lover or manic depressive in your family.
Though we had high hopes for Lump of Coal we were disappointed. Though somehow it seems like an oxymoron to have high hopes for a lump of coal. Our thoughts? First, it was seriously lacking needed aroma. The only scent we picked up from it was alcohol, which if it was classified as an American Stout (under BJCP style guidelines), wouldn't be too terribly bad. There definitely wasn't any roasted malt aroma or any chocolate aroma either. As far as the look of it though, it looked just fine & had a fine head on it, so that part was good. Flavor: it was definitely a sweet stout (intentional or not), with a slight taste of chocolate, but completely lacked any roasted flavor. Mouthfeel: It was an easy drinking stout, with an appropriate body. -- Ok, this is where we disagree: Justin found it medium to heavy bodied, and I (Carrie) like my stouts full-bodied enough to chew on, so I found it just medium. But still it was fine by definition.
Our over-all impression? It could've used some more time aging, and it definitely needed some more roasted characteristics. Grade - somewhere between a B- and a C+.
Santa's Butt will be in a stocking, so ... well, I don't think anything more needs to be said there. And this month's Beer of the Month are Bell's Two Hearted Ale & Bell's Porter - we've always liked their beers so we're eager to try them.. Tis the Season to have Santa's Butt in your stocking and Bell's beer in the fridge!!

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!