The Ginger Brew definitely lives up to its name, with an easily detectable ginger flavour – not like a hot, spicy Jamaican ginger beer, but more like a classic spiced ale. It is fairly sweet with the ginger/spice flavour up front and a bit of brown sugar at the finish. It is also the cloudiest bottled beer I have seen in a long time, so I am thinking this is an unfiltered beer. The 7% ABV is also well hidden.

Full marks for their label design (what do owls have to do with beer though?):

I also picked up nine pounds of Montmorency sour cherries this week, and spent the better part of today washing, pitting and freezing them for future use, likely in a cherry lambic. I missed out on them last year, so I was happy to get my hands on a bucket. They seem to come and go pretty quickly when they are in season. That or I do not live near a decent supermarket (these came from a farmer’s market). They are quite tart, so I hope this character carries over into whatever beer I make from them.

Finally, last night I stopped in at Bar Volo for the launch of Microbrasserie Charlevoix in Ontario. I have always sought out their beers when I am in Quebec, so it is great news that their products will be turning up at bars in our province. I was glad to finally try the Dominus Vobiscum Hibernus and the Dominus Vobiscum Lupulus  which always seem to be sold out when I visit Quebec. Later we ventured to the Only Cafe, which had hosted a Charlevoix launch event of it’s own on Friday, and they were sold out of Charlevoix – a good sign that there is demand for these excellent beers.

However, this crop (which is cascade and Mt. Hood)  has been much more aggressive than last year’s, which meant that we had to run twine from above our deck to our garage:

Burrs that will mature into hop cones (there are already dozens!):

So while I wait for the hops to mature I am passing the time by working my way through a recent USA beer haul:

The picture above is about a quarter of what was brought back from a recent Michigan visit. We grabbed plenty of Rogue, Dogfish Head, Avery, Bells and Great Lakes. So far highlights from this batch have been the Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter (maybe the best porter I’ve had), Bells Hopslam (a mighty, imperial hop monster) and Stone Double Bastard (really surprised by this one, almost a Belgian character to it that I was not expecting). It may be hot outside, but there’s no need to be thirsty!

Is Mondiale de la bière the best beer festival in Canada? It certainly trumps the baseball cap and macro-suds fest that we have here in Toronto each year. Unlike the Toronto fest, there are literally hundreds of beers from around the world, with microbrewed beers getting as much profile as any of the mass-produced stuff. It is also mentioned (favourably) in Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing, so they must be doing something right.

This past week was my second visit to Mondiale in three years. I have to say that I was deeply impressed by the lineup of beers available at this, the 17th edition of the festival. There is just no way that you could possibly get through all of the beers on offer inside of the five days the festival runs (your wallet and your liver would give out). This is not an elitist beer snob festival by any means (though they definitely seem to be welcome). There is no admission charge and no minimum spend on the coupons you exchange for beer samples, so if you want to blow seven coupons (coupons are $1 each) on 1 oz. of Sam Adams Utopia or stick with the 1 and 2 coupon samples, the choice is yours. You can even bring your own sampling glass in lieu of the official degustation glass (priced at $8).

Some quick highlights: Kuhnhenn Solar Eclipse (a 17% ABV stout), Birificio de Baladin’s Noel (a nice Italian-made spiced beer), a number of strong offerings from Le Trou de Diable (I’m always envious of the extent of the microbrewery/brewpub scene in Quebec – there are two brewpubs in Shawinigan!) as well as new (to me) brews from US heavy hitters like Dogfish Head, Rogue, Great Divide and so on. The only letdown was the new Unibroue offering – Blonde de Chambly – which, if you ask me, tastes pretty much the same as Blanche de Chambly.

I’ll be posting more about Montreal shortly. I made my first visit to Depanneur Peluso and picked up a few really solid Quebec microbrews that deserve their own postings. In the meantime, ponder the greatness of a city that offers this kind of cusine (yes, it looks like a glutinous mass of gravy and fries, but it’s turkey and peas poutine):

Have to say I was (pleasantly) surprised to see our hops return for a second year. Funny thing is that these hardy customers have come back even though we didn’t bother to harvest any rhizomes last fall. They seem to be sprouting very quickly this time out – the picture above is a couple of weeks old and these are getting up over a foot long. Really hoping for a more plentiful harvest this year, as well as hops with more alpha than the 2009 batch.

I also got another brew day in recently. I had a pretty good stash of citra leaf hops that I wanted to use before they started to lose too much of their potency, so the lot went into this batch. “Citracide”, as I’m calling it, clocks in at well over 100 IBU. It’s currently dry hopping and goes into the bottle in a few days.

Citracide Ale Recipe

6 lbs. 2-row
6 lbs. Maris Otter
1/2 lb. Crystal Light
1/2 lb. Cara Amber
1/2 lb. Wheat
3 oz. biscuit
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 60 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 30 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 15 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 10 min.
2 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 5 min.
1/2 oz. Citra (leaf) @ flameout
2 oz Citra (leaf) dry hop
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 min.
Mashed at 150°F for 60 min.
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.010
Est. ABV: 6.3%
Est. IBU: 122

This was the case this past weekend when I took part in my first group grain buy with the Southern Ontario Brewers - (or SOBs for short). I really must tip my hat to the  guys in the group who put this together as we were able to take delivery on a staggering 162 bags of grain (each bag contains 55 lbs. of grain, so if you mulitply by that by 162 you get, well, a hell of a lot of grain. Definitely more than you could get in the back of a ‘77 El Camino).

This was by far my largest personal grain buy so far – something on the order of 150 lbs. of grain (mostly pale ale malt and maris otter, along with smaller quantities of a number of specialty grains). I was also able to collect five pounds of hops – also part of another SOB group buy - that had fortuitously arrived in time for the grain pickup. All this took place on the grounds of the Amsterdam Brewery, which generously donated space for this event.

Now it’s up to me to figure out what to brew with all of these ingredients. There’s definitely enough to keep me going for a few months. I guess this is what happens when you go from buying by the bag to buying by the pallet!

I re-used the Rogue Pacman yeast that fermented my last brew (a single hop ale made with Sorachi Ace hops). The re-pitched yeast took of pretty quickly, with lots of bubbling inside of two hours. I had to improvise a bit on the hop schedule, as I am down to my last few ounces while waiting for a new batch to arrive.

Toasted Brown Ale

9 lbs. 2-row
1 lb. biscuit
1/2 lb. brown malt
1/2 lb. melanoidin
2 tbsp. chocolate malt
1 lb. toasted oats
1/2 oz. citra (leaf) @ 60 min.
1/2 oz. citra (leaf) @ 30 min.
1/2 oz. hallertau (pellet) @ 10 min.
1 oz. chinook (leaf) @ 5 min.
1/2 oz. chinook @ end of boil
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 10 min.
Yeast: Wyeast Rogue Pacman
OG: 1.050
Est. IBU: 50
Mashed for 60 min. @ 150°F

Sorachi Ace – just the name of this hop variety is intriguing.  It is a high-alpha (11.1% AAU) hop that originates from Japan and it is said to have a somewhat lemony flavour.  I didn’t detect a lemon note in aroma of these hops when I opened the bag on brew day, so we’ll have to see if it comes through in the finished beer a few weeks from now.

My decision to make a single hop ale came about for two reasons. Firstly, I had been reading Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing and had noted his observation that you could get more hop flavour and aroma with late hop additions. Being a bit of a hophead I wanted to try this technique out. Secondly, I had a 4 oz. bag of Sorachi Ace hops lying around and this seemed to be about the right amount for what I wanted to make (a hop-forward beer with a fairly low ABV). Besides, I’m sure you could try every ale in every bar listed on 118.com but still enjoy your own just a little bit more, simply because you made it yourself! Or perhaps not, of course, depending how successful the attempt is! Whatever the end product tastes like though, the process is always fun.

What I’ve ended up with is a pale ale that comes in around 55 IBU, fermented with the Rogue Pacman yeast.  This is also the first beer I’ve made using two new toys – my Barley Crusher grain mill and an 0.5 micron oxygen stone, as well as building the largest starter I have done to date (about 1/2 gallon).

Sorachi Ace Ale Recipe

7 lbs. 2-row
1/2 lb. melanoidin
1/2 lb. light crystal
1/2 lb. carafoam
1/2 oz. sorachi ace (leaf) 60 min.
1/2 oz. sorachi ace (leaf) 30 min.
1 oz. sorachi ace (leaf) 10 min.
1 oz. sorachi ace (leaf) 5 min.
1/2 oz. sorachi ace (leaf) at end of boil
1/2 tsp. Irish moss 10 min.
Total boil time: 60 min.
Yeast: Wyeast Rogue Pacman
OG: 1.036
Est. IBU (ProMash): 55

The Belgian Bitter Brown seems to have turned out well.  I used Wyeast’s Flanders Golden Ale yeast, which I gather is often used as the base yeast for a sour ale or a lambic.  I decided to go for something brown and moderately hoppy (see the recipe below).  This was also the first time I tried brewing using decoction and I think that process has resulted in a beer with a maltier backbone than I’ve been able to achieve in the past.  Again, it will take a few weeks of bottle conditioning to really see how things have turned out.

Belgian Brown Bitter Recipe

8 lbs. pilsener
1 lb. special B
1 lb. Vienna
0.5 lb. Munich light
2 oz. black patent
0.5 oz. super styrian @ 60 min.
0.5 oz. super styrian @ 30 min.
1 oz. hallertau @ 20 min.
1 oz. saaz @ 10 min.
0.5 lb. brown sugar @ 10 min.
0.5 oz. coriander @ 5 min.
0.5 oz. orange peel @ 5 min.
0.5 tsp. grains of paradise @ 5 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 min.
Yeast: Wyeast Flanders Golden Ale (from starter)
OG: 1.052
IBU: 45

All hype aside, I wondered if a beer this strong would be palatable.  At this strength did it still have the characteristics of beer?  Would the flavour be dominated by the burn of alcohol?  In short, was it any good?

What I can tell you is yes, Tactical Nuclear Penguin is definitely beer.  It’s thick and black and there’s basically no carbonation.  You don’t need to bring the glass to your nose to pick up on the intensely smoky aroma.  Yes, you do feel the warming of alcohol as it goes down, but it does not dominate.  It packs a real wallop for the first sip or two but, baby, you are in flavour country.  Billed as an “über-imperial stout”, this tastes like a smoked stout that has been reduced to its very essence.  The flavours – and the warming effects of the alcohol – come at you in waves.  By the end of the 1/3 glass that I drank my gums were numb and my tongue was tingling.  Talk about mouthfeel!

Sadly, Tactical Nuclear Penguin is not (yet?) available for sale in Ontario.  I’ve read that it may make it into the U.S.A. sometime in the spring.  If it does, don’t expect it to be cheap, as a 330 ml bottle goes for 35 UK pounds (about 70 CDN).  But even at that admittedly high price tag it would be worth tracking down to share with a couple of close beer lovers or to greedily savour on your own on a cold winter night.

In the meantime, local beer agents Roland & Russell have brought Brew Dog’s Punk IPA into the LCBO as a winter seasonal.  I strongly recommend it to any of you out there who love hop-forward beers.  Here’s hoping that they can bring in more from this UK upstart that appears to have shown that extreme brewing is not strictly the domain of American craft breweries.

Dry hopping my black IPA