Rise of the Beer Baron Pt 5: A Homebrewer Is You!

It's been a while since I blogged about the beginnings of my love for craft beer.  So when we last left off I had just gotten my first homebrew kit.

 







This was my introduction to how beer was made.  Even with the first batch I learned A LOT about the mechanics of brewing.  Here is a quick list of lessons that I learned:

1. Brewing the beer is easy, it's the pre-cleaning, post-cleaning, and bottling is hard.
2. You will learn to clean EVERYTHING.
3. Repeat step 2 in case you missed it.
4. No really, read step 2 again, it's important.
5. Having and empty plastic jug on hand for water is a nice to have
6. Don't even bother with the plastic bottles that comes with the kits.  Move right into glass
7. If you start with Mr. Beer and love it, you will quickly want to invest in a more mature kit
8. You will want to watch your beer every day, note, I didn't say need to.  You will just want to to make sure it is okay.
9. In the end, you're entire job is to make yeast cells happy.

In the end I was very happy with my first beer.  It was a style I had never had at this point (a Vienna style ale), well carbonated, and wasn't too bad.  But I know I could do better.  I quickly moved to the next step kit from Midwest Homebrew Supplies.

I did a lot of beers with honey during this phase.  I even got creative with a batch of beer, using my Mr. Beer kit to experiment.  Here is the recipe that I used:

2 Cans of Stickey Wicket Stout (from Mr. Beer)

2 Packets of Brewers Yeast

1 pouch of booster

14 oz of coconut in the fermentor

3oz. of chai tea per 22oz bottle during bottling.

Yeah.  I know it sounds a little strange, but it was one of the best beers I ever brewed.  Not enough beers utilize coconut....

So now the fire was lit.  I was beginning to understand the basics of brewing, beer styles, and proper beer handling.  It was time to see how the big boys play, it was time to start meeting the great brewers of Minnesota!

Beer Style Guide: American India Pale Ale (IPA)

The temperatures rise as we push nearer to August.  The rain storms of June have stopped, but the humidity has not.  Now is the season for lawn mower beers.  Today we will talk about what is arguably the most popular lawn mower beer in the craft beer industry:  The American India Pale Ale (IPA). 

As beers go this beer is relatively new on scene, but it parent beers the American Pale Ale, and the India Pale Ale have roots that date back hundreds of years.  The India Pale Ale dates back to the 18^th century at the peak of British Colonization.  Pale ales were very popular at the time.  Now contrary to the name, the “Pale” in pale ales only means that is lighter than a porter (a heavy dark brown or red), and it covered a wide variety of beers we now call by different names.  As Britain colonized east including India there was a growing demand for British made beers, but there was a problem with the delivery service.  It took months for the wind powered ships of the days to make the voyage.  Now it is greatly disputed who was responsible for this, but someone figured out that if you put an abundance of hops in the beer that it would survive the voyage.  Thus IPAs were born. 

American Pale Ales was the beer that launched the craft brewery industry.  New Albion Brewery, started by Jack McAuliffe , was looking to brew something the big national brewers were not.  He started with heavily hopped (at least at the time, compared to today’s standards it’s pretty mild) pale ale.  While the brewery did not last for very long, it started the trend of craft brewing in the US, and it would have an early influence on Sierra Nevada Brewing, a brewery known for its hoppiness. 

The trend of hoppy beers became very popular in the craft brewing scene, creating a sub culture of beer drinkers called “hop heads”.  This lead to extreme breweries like Surly and Stone creating hoppier and hoppier beers.  Thus the American India Pale Ale was born. 

American IPAs generally start out with a caramelish or raisin like base malt.  They are then given a fruity or citrus like aroma hops, usually Cascade.  IPAs tend to be stronger and lighter in color then Pale Ales, but this is not always the case.  IPAs can range from straw gold, to a mid-range red.  Flavor wise, it is usually a characteristically citrus like hops, usually accompanied with a sweeter maltiness.  (Mosher, 2009)

Just about every brewery these days makes some version of an IPA.  So finding a local version of an IPA should not be very difficult.

Minnesota:

MankatoBrewery:  Haymaker IPA

Flat EarthBrewery:  Northwest Passage IPA

Surly:  Surly Furious

Big WoodBrewing:  Bad Axe (Seasonal)

Wisconsin:

LakefrontBrewery Inc.:  IPA

ValkyrieBrewing:  Supernova

Works Cited

Mosher, T. (2009). Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide To The World's Greatest Drink. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing.

Oliver, G. (2012). The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press.