BREAKING NEWS: New Bryan Adams album scheduled for release this fall!
Billboard.com announced in late July that Adams’ next studio album, which has been in the works since 2005, is almost done. The major holdup at this point seems to be the conspicuous lack of a record deal. We have faith that this will not stop the sound of Brya Adams from gracing our eardrums sooner rather than later. Like his most recent album, Adams recorded his next release on the road in various hotel rooms and other locales:
I bring out an engineer, everything fits into a suitcase and we just record. I have so much spare time during that day that it makes sense to utilize it to do something creative like that, as opposed to just sitting around the hotel and sightseeing or something.
When the new album comes out, be sure to stop by MNB to give it a listen. We always play Bryan Adams for the hour that we’re boiling the beer. AKA, we rock hard.
Hot hop water. Delicious.
We dry hop both our pale ale and our IPA (dry hopping means adding hops to secondary fermentation in order to impart their aromatics and, to a lesser degree, flavors). Usually we use whole leaf hops. We find we get better aromatics out of whole leaf than pellets. Unfortunately, the whole leaf hops turn into mini beer sponges in the fermenter, and have a tendency to reduce our yield substantially.
And so, in an effort to keep our yields up and preserve that great hop aroma simultaneously, we introduce a third technique, which we are tentatively calling “hot hop water.” Take a gander.
We boiled a bit o’ water, threw hop pellets in there and dissolved them. We then poured the hot hop water into the bottom of the carboy via a funnel. Finally, we transferred the beer into the new carboy, directly on top of the hot hop water. The result was a well-mixed blend of hops and beer. We’ll let you know if the technique holds any water (zing!). And, for those who appreciate pictures of Joel acting a fool, I leave you one final gift:
Names to ponder
Bottling our barleywine on Monday has got me thinking about names again… And I can’t get away from the hobo motif. Do any of these strike a chord (or trigger a better name?):
Bindlestiff Barleywine
Glad Rags Barleywine
Jungle Buzzard Barleywine
Steam Train Steve Barleywine
New friends and new tap handles…
Every Monday tends to hold some sort of new surprise. Be it a new recipe, a new twist on an old recipe, a new toy (read: kegerator, heat exchanger, autosiphon) or just some new friends to stop by. New toys and new friends are generally speaking my favorites. From this past Monday….
The first official MNB tap handle. Okay, I didn’t show you the bottom of it in the pic because the little screw doesn’t quite fit but I’m nonetheless proud of my work with the jigsaw and router to make it look like a semi-legitimate tap…and it’s just a first pass beta edition. Jonathan and I plan to hold carpentry day sometime in the near future and crank out one of these for each beer.
New Friends:
I think we must have had nearly 15 new friends at MNB this past week in addition to many of the regulars. While it took its toll on the supply chain (to the tune of about 9 gallons of beer) it was a stellar evening. Included among the newcomers were the homebrewers from Whittier Mill, the Bhutanese girl who works with Jonathan, and some guys who found our site because they were in London and were avid reader’s of Stonch’s blog. We are so international like that.
I think I’ll start doing a semi-regular new friends/new toys post. Maybe even feature a particular new friend and how they did (or didn’t) help with the brewing process.
Friends in high places
We sent a care package to our friend James Spencer of Basic Brewing Radio. Kind of a “thank you for interviewing people about yeast” present. He sent us back this dandy photo. I’m not going to say we’re famous, but…
The Southern Monk gains a home
We are finally ready to introduce a new label to the world. Presenting… The Southern Monk. Or, another possible option, Mulletproof Monk. Granted, the monk is actually the opposite of mulletproof, but I thought it funny nonetheless. The quote for the Southern Monk label comes from Will Rogers:
?The South is dry and will vote dry. That is, everybody sober enough to stagger to the polls will.?
Comments?
Why brewing beer is not like baking a cake
I was listening to a three-part Basic Brewing Radio podcast on the subject of yeast in beer a week or so ago (I know, right?). I started thinking about my preconceptions of brewing prior to knowing anything about it. I think I assumed that it was kind of like following a recipe… 2 parts barley, 1 part alcohol or something.
I was wrong. Brewing is so much more complicated… and I think the primary reason is because, unlike cake, which is dead, beer is alive. It is literally a living organism, and like all living organisms, is difficult to understand and control. I never would have thought that variables such as a temperature change of a few degrees or the addition of a half pound of a certain malt could impact a beer so severely or in so many different ways.
I think this is also the reason I like brewing so much. While you definitely need a knowledge of the science of brewing, there is really a strong “art” component associated with working with a living thing. We are able to pour ourselves into our beer (pun intended) the same way that an artist pours himself into his art.
And with that, I formally conclude my ruminations. Have a good weekend!