Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie

Agoura Hills. Go. Have the IPA. Trust me.

Beer on tap

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy having beer on tap?

Ladyface IPA

I have a long commute, but it takes me past the Ladyface Ale Companie in Agoura Hills. Last night I had some time, so I stopped and had a pint of their signature IPA. This is a very tasty brew; big hop flavor and aroma in addition to the bitterness you expect of an American IPA.

Beer on tap

I tapped that keg of "Pooh's Blustery Ale" last night. I had just spent the last day and a half on a plumbing project and needed a drink. But, in addition to having beer on tap, we now have a new hot and cold filtered water dispenser and a new kitchen faucet with a big gooseneck.

Dogs and beer

Did I mention that the new dog is a bit of technophobe? And apparently, a5 gallon carboy is a piece of high technology and thus something to bark at.

Beer posts

Ok.... I just looked at the list of posts... The last three were about beer.

Back to beer!

Ok... So I really didn't drift away from writing about beer.

I finally got around to kegging a beer from November. Either I'm really patient or really lazy. Either way, that beer really cleared out.

I'm writing this at the bar at Ladyface. I'm drinking a wine barrel aged ale. It's a sour that's really tasty.

Drinking in the Big Easy

I'm in New Orleans for a trade show. This is the kind of town where you'd have to work it to have a bad meal. And from what I've had from Abita Brewing, you'd have to work at having a bad beer. These folks brew some tasty beers.

More brewin'

I'm in the midst of a brew day right now. I just finished the boil for a new and improved version of my strong ale; new, improved, and slightly improvised!

My mash wasn't as efficient at I had hope, so I goosed up the OG with 2 pounds of brown sugar. I also had to play around with the hops. I didn't have as much of my chinook as I thought I did. So, I lengthened the boil by 10 minutes to pick the IBUs back up. Some people might have gone into freak-out mode at all that, and I might have too, but it was kinda fun figuring out these work-arounds on the fly.

This is all going onto the yeast cake from a batch of a new and improved version of Pooh's Blustery Ale.

With both of these, I did decoction mashes. I really like that rich, malty sweetness that this technique gives. (Technically speaking, the process yields melanoidins which give rise to this flavor.)

An update: OK... So the added sugar may not have been necessary. I forgot to calculate boil-off into the equation. My 5 gallon boil yielded about 4 gallon. So that SG of 1.072 that I thought I had turned  into 1.095.

Oops.

This is gonna be an ass kicker of an ale.

It was just a matter of time

Give the man enough time and he finally does something I can approve of. Obama is brewing beer in the White House

I almost got away with it

I'm sitting here next to an empty beer bottle. My wife walks by and asks "Did you drink that whole pint?" I responded "It was only 22 ounces." There followed 15 seconds of silence where I thought I had gotten away with that one.

A fine haul

Bottling again

That hefeweizen is finally ready to bottle. I'm also putting some of that American stout into bottles as well.

The stout really benefited from an extra month in the keg. The hops mellowed a bit. Now there's a bit less bitterness and more flavor from the hops. There was also a hard water bite that was overdone that's gone now. I suppose that next time I should do something to accentuate the malt character more.

Still bubblin' away

That Hefeweizen is still bubbling away in primary.

This blog

I got to looking at the content of this blog and realized something. I started this as a place for mostly political rants. It's morphed into mostly a blog about beer!

I suppose that one can only take so much of American politics before requiring a drink. It's also important that those of us involved in the struggle to save our nation from the community organizers who would destroy it to occasionally get out and do something fun. We all need to decompress from time to time. If you try to keep your head in this game too long, you wind up on YouTube wearing gold lamé, a Hello Kitty tutu, and ranting about the World Bank stealing your socks. You don't want to be that guy! (Especially if you are a guy!)

What we conservative and libertarian activists do is important, but don't forget to stop and smell the hops.

C'mon America! We can do better!

This graphic from The Economist shows world drinking patterns...



As you can see, we Americans just don't booze it up as much as the rest of the world!

But seriously...

This actually reflects our heritage as a beer drinking culture as opposed to a wine or spirits drinking culture. 235 years ago, ours was a whisky drinking culture. The influx of German immigrants in the early 19th Century changed that. They brought with them a beer drinking culture that was soon adopted by their new American neighbors. Thus our culture, at least when it comes to alcohol, more closely resembles that of Germany than the Mother Country. (See WHO reports by nation)

A mess avoided

I'm glad that I rigged a blow-off tube...



That's yeast and sanitizing solution pooling in the plastic container. What's bubbling out smells of yeast (of course) and bananas. I'm hoping to pick up more clove and spice flavors as the yeast cools tonight.

(Not So) Tiny Bubbles

The Cheesehead Hefeweizen is bubbling away...

Cheesehead Hefeweizen

I was going to brew this up on Sunday, but the game was just too interesting!

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal      
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 3.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 8.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      
4.50 lb       Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        50.00 %       
4.50 lb       Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)                 Grain        50.00 %       
0.38 oz       Hallertauer [4.20 %]  (65 min)            Hops         5.9 IBU       
0.25 oz       Tettnang [4.80 %]  (15 min)               Hops         2.2 IBU       
0.05 tsp      Lactic Acid (Mash 60.0 min)               Misc                       
2.50 gm       Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 min)        Misc                       
2.50 gm       Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min)  Misc                       
4.00 gm       Salt (Mash 60.0 min)                      Misc                       
6.50 gal      Distilled Water                           Water                      
1 Pkgs        Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP300)       Yeast-Wheat                


Mash Schedule: Decoction Mash, Single
Total Grain Weight: 9.00 lb
----------------------------
Decoction Mash, Single
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp     
35 min        Protein Rest       Add 18.00 qt of water at 126.6 F    122.0 F       
45 min        Saccharification   Decoct 7.63 qt of mash and boil it  155.0 F       
10 min        Mash Out           Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min         168.0 F   

But given how long this took to complete, Ale Interrupted may be a better name.

Hefe Interrupted

I've been brewing all day.

Brewing, however, usually isn't an all day event. I was in the middle of mashing a Hefeweizen when I got called away to a lunch meeting. This is my first attempt at a decoction mash. I had to leave in the middle of the saccharification rest, so I figured "What's the harm?". A little extra time for those enzymes to get all happy in the mash can't be a bad thing.

Now I'm about to take off for another meeting. There will still be 20 minutes left in the boild, but my wife says she'll shut off the burners. I'd normally use an immersion chiller at this point, but it's a Hefe; what's the point!?

I'll post the recipe in a bit; though, it's pretty simple.