IT'S ALIIIIVEE!!!

We finally got around to brewing the hop bomb of mass destruction, the Chael’s Ale. This brew was put together in the spirit of Super Dave’s infatuation of overly hoppy beers. Moderation? We think not. Huge hop additions abound in this recipe. We threw down the gauntlet of tasty hops including Citra, Sorachi Ace, Chinook, and Centennial in hopes of creating some variation of a beautiful hop elixir that so many professional breweries are putting out these days. What was the method to the madness of pairing these hops together? You can do endless research about which hops pair well, cohumulone levels, late vs early additions, and about every other variable brewers obsess over to get an educated guess of what may work. FatCat chose a more rudimentary approach. Think of my favorite hoppy beers I’ve enjoyed in recent memory (check), find out what hops were in those (check), and throw them all in one goliath of a brew (check). The wait is on and we will find out whether this plan was ingenious or whether it's a hopped up nightmare. One thing is for sure, this is the most hops I’ve ever put in a recipe. The smells while brewing were amazing and I can’t wait to try it out. Taking sips from left over wort gives hint to the powerful bitterness this brew should be capable of.

We may have to come out with another FatCat public service announcement:
“Friends don’t let friends abuse hops”.

I did want to show some resemblance of restraint on the bitterness level and used the approximate bitterness ratio of the Green Flash West Coast IPA as a guide. The West Coast IPA is about the upper level of bitterness I want to see in any brew so that was our ceiling. One way to tell how much bitterness will be “perceived” is by looking at the BU:GU (Bitterness Units : Gravity Units). Simply looking at the IBUs doesn’t let you know how bitter a brew is actually going to taste. Imperial stouts for example have high IBUs but generally don’t taste exceedingly bitter because they have so much malt character to counteract it. The BU:GU ratio gives you a peak as to how hoppy the brew should actually taste while considering the effects of the malt character. Based on some quick research anything over 1.0 is going to be approaching the super bitter category. The BU:GU of the West Coast IPA is 95 IBUs and a roughly 1.37 ratio (95 IBUS/69 from a 1.069 OG) which gives hint to its extreme bitterness. Following in the overboard category we followed suit with 92 IBUs and a BU:GU ratio of 1.27 for the Chael’s Ale.

For the detailed recipe click here.



Malts and Fermentables

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L
51% 15 0 American Two-row Pale info 37 1 ~
17% 5 0 Biscuit Malt info 36 23 ~
14% 4 0 Pilsner (2 Row) Ger info 37 2 ~
10% 3 0 Munich Malt - 15L info 35 15 ~
7% 2 0 Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L info 35 20 ~
2% 0 8 Honey Malt info 37 25 ~
     29 8 Total

Batch size: 12.0 gallons Original Gravity
1.073 / 17.7° Plato
12° SRM / 23° EBC
(Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)

HOPS and More HOPS
use time oz variety form aa
boil 60 mins 1.0 Centennial info leaf 10.8
boil 60 mins 1.5 Citra info leaf 13.7
boil 20 mins 2.0 Chinook info leaf 13.9
boil 15 mins 0.5 Centennial info leaf 10.8
boil 15 mins 1.0 Citra info leaf 13.7
boil 15 mins 0.5 Sorachi Ace info pellet 15.7
boil 10 mins 0.5 Centennial info leaf 10.8
boil 10 mins 0.5 Citra info leaf 13.7
boil 10 mins 0.5 Sorachi Ace info pellet 15.7
boil 5 mins 0.5 Centennial info leaf 10.8
boil 5 mins 1.0 Citra info leaf 13.7

92.4 IBU / 31 HBU

BU:GU
1.27

Cheers!

Happy American Craft Beer Week!

I was trying to figure out something to proclaim in honor of Craft Beer Week but KCBeerblog pretty much wrapped up all of the event announcements for the area. What is a FatCat to do? I did some soul searching and came up with the most profound Craft Beer Week proclamations I could muster. First off, I'll just say whether you celebrate(d) Craft Beer Week out in one of the wonderful establishments in our city or you choose to do it in the quite confines of your abode, be sure to try something different. This week is about celebrating craft beer which to me means to celebrate the fact we now have tons of quality beer to choose from. We are no longer limited to the fizzy yellow stuff and can spread our beer wings and fly. Secondly, if you're like me you don't fancy the bars all that much and you find yourself celebrating Craft Beer Week at home. What to do for entertainment?


Since I don’t have anything new and interesting to announce about the bar scene this week, I’ll let you in on FatCat’s secret to home relaxation while enjoying craft brew. How does trailer parks, jail, booze, drugs, kitties, Samsquinches, and irresponsible handling of firearms sound for the ultimate in soothing in-home therapy? Yeah sounds awesome to me too! If you enjoy partaking in home-based sudsy refreshment while longing for entertainment that provides hilarity without the need to pay close attention, then Trailer Park Boys is the show for you my friend. It’s my favorite “drinking” show on Netflix and is my way of relaxing with a cold one (well actually cellar temp if it’s a stout, barleywine…oh never mind). If laughter is the best medicine, Trailer Park Boys is the morphine of TV shows. Now you too can roll like the FatCat!

Still don’t believe me? Here is a preview try not to pee in your panteloons:

Ricky: Bubbles, are you sure we gotta play space here? This is kind of stupid.
Bubbles: Come on Ricky look at this! This is awesome! Mission control this is Commander Bubbles. I’m getting an NPS warning light on the link monitor controls subsystem. I’m requesting reallocation to main OMS firing to CDS at level six, please advise.
Julian: Copy there, Commander. Reallocating there, Commander Bubbles.
Bubbles: Try some Ricky!
Ricky: (sighs) Breaker breaker, come in Earth. This is rocket ship 27. Aliens fucked over the carbinator in engine number 4, I’m gonna try to refuckulate it and land on Juniper. Uh, hopefully they got some space weed, over…How’s that buddy? I don’t fuckin’ know!
Bubbles: Ricky, that’s not very good. Use space words, real ones, not talkin’ about space weed!

Mr. Lahey: You feel that Randy?
Randy: What, Mr. Lahey?
Mr. Lahey: The way the shit clings to the air.
Randy: What Mr. Lahey?
Mr. Lahey: Randy m’boy, it’s already started.
Randy: What started, Mr. Lahey?
Mr. Lahey: The Shit Blizzard.

Cheers!

World Beer Cup 2012

The winners have been announced and the trophies have been issued.  One local brewery walked away with the Gold for their Maibock.  Blind Tiger Brewery and Restaurant claimed top honors for their Maibock and furthered their stellar reputation.  The Blind Tiger Top Gun IPA is highly touted in most tasting publications and I confirmed it's awesomeness in Parkville.  Now they can add the Maibock to their must try list.  Congrats to them for their outstanding brew.

Here are some of the other winners and the brews that should be available in our area.

Category 10: Rye Beer, 29 Entries
Gold: Ruthless Rye IPA, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, CA

Category 13: Other Strong Beer, 35 Entries
Bronze: Double Pilsner, Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO

Category 17: American-Belgo-Style Ale, 48 Entries
Bronze: Le Freak, Green Flash Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category 25: Kellerbier/Zwickelbier, 45 Entries
Bronze: 5 O’Clock Shadow, Grand Teton Brewing Co., Victor, ID

Category 38: German-Style Schwarzbier, 40 Entries
Silver: Point 2012 Black Ale, Stevens Point Brewery, Stevens Point, WI

Category 40: German-Style Heller Bock/Maibock, 38 Entries
Gold: Maibock, Blind Tiger Brewery & Restaurant, Topeka, KS

Category 46: American-Style Dark Lager, 18 Entries
Gold: Leinenkugel’s Creamy Dark, Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., Chippewa Falls, WI
Silver: Shiner Bock, The Spoetzl Brewery, San Antonio, TX

Category 58: Belgian-Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale, 32 Entries
Gold: Ommegang Rare Vos, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY

Category 61: Belgian-Style Dubbel, 39 Entries
Bronze: Ovila Dubbel, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, CA

Category 67: Classic English-Style Pale Ale, 33 Entries
Silver: Summit Extra Pale Ale, Summit Brewing Co., St. Paul, MN

Category 76: Sweet Stout, 25 Entries
Gold: Steel Toe Stout, Ska Brewing Co., Durango, CO

Category 87: American-Style Strong Pale Ale, 82 Entries
Silver: Odell IPA, Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO

Category 89: Imperial India Pale Ale, 93 Entries
Bronze: Palate Wrecker, Green Flash Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category 91: Imperial Red Ale, 38 Entries
Silver: Bigfoot, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, CA
Bronze: Pursuit of Hopiness, Grand Teton Brewing Co., Victor, ID

To see all of the results visit the World Beer Cup website.

Big Brew 2012

Big Brew, Cinco De Mayo, and Super Moons oh my! With all this awesomeness focused on one day the results could be catastrophically fun! Big Brew is the first Saturday in May (today) set up by the American Homebrewers Association in pre-celebration of National Homebrew Day (May 7). Big brew is meant to help unite brewers around the country in celebration of homebrew and to help spread the word to the non-believers on how righteously kick ass homebrewing really is. The plan is to get together with your friends, family, or brew clubs and brew the same recipe as everyone else. This year’s recipe is for either an American Brown Ale or a Northern English Brown Ale. The exact recipes can be found on the AHA website. To further the camaraderie there is a toast set to happen at 12pm CDT. If you’re not brewing today you can head out to the local homebrew shop Bacchus and Barleycorn in Shawnee, KS as they will be brewing in their back lot. You’ll get a chance to see different equipment setups and meet with fellow homebrewers. I went last year and it was a lot of fun.

Looking for a great way to celebrate Cinco De Mayo after Big Brew? How about throwing together some beer battered fish tacos and mango salsa? I made these last year and they turned out amazing. I’m looking forward to pigging out and drinking some brew to celebrate this outstanding Saturday. As far as Mexican style beer recommendations, I would have to say Negra Modelo is my go-to Mexican brew. Other than that Pacifico is not too bad and if you want to be like Hellboy you can throw back a couple cans of Tecate.

As always be safe, be responsible, and have fun!

Cheers!

3 Word Beer Review

Here it is! I’ve been slacking on the beer reviews lately and it took this brew to snap me out of it. I was killing time the other day on BeerAdvocate and ran across a thread discussing the downfalls of Belhaven containing their beers in clear glass bottles. Belhaven Scottish Ale is one of my all time favorites so this article caught my attention. I originally fell in the love with the Belhaven Scottish Ale at the Flying Saucer, of which they have it on nitro tap. The typical Saucer trip for me is picking out a couple of giant beers (Imperial Stout, Barleywine, etc) and then eventually coming to the conclusion I need to lighten the mood. What always comes next is the Belhaven Scottish Ale. The sad part of the story was I figured I would be forever limited to experiencing this brilliant creamy nitro’d creation only at the Saucer. That is until now! I was glancing over the comments on the BeerAdvocate thread when there it was…a picture so great it brought tears to my eyes… it was a Belhaven Scottish Ale in a can with a nitro widget! Could this be? Is this here and I didn’t know it? The answer is yes and yes.

I could go on and on about the qualities of this brew but it wouldn’t do the brew any justice. I tried to “review” the beer the other night and describe its consistency, its smoothness, its subtle malt sweetness, and so on but I kept coming back to damn that’s good. OK concentrate this time, drink, damn that’s good. OK that’s enough spacing out, write something down, drink, holy crap that’s really good. I reached the bottom of the glass in short order and didn’t have much to show for it. So I conceded to greatness and wrote a 3 word review.

The review:

Smooth Creamy Awesomeness.

Every time I taste this brew I am reminded of the Benjamin Franklin (mis)quote: “Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy”.

The original quote referred to wine and went something like:
“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”

Bam! You’ve just been hit with some knowledge. Sorry if you own the shirt.

Cheers!

FatCat's Inebriated Parkville Review

What a difference a year makes!  If you’ve been following me the whole time you know that last year’s Parkville Microbrew Festival busted my beer festival cherry.  I was rather intimidated in 2011 by the sheer mass of humanity.  Just a simple glance at all of those people reinforced the fact I just wasted $40.00 and I would never get a drop of beer out of this mob.  Choices:  Break my tasting glass against a tree and leave; wade my way into the masses for whatever brew I could scrounge.  Luckily I picked the latter and really enjoyed myself in 2011. 

I planned ahead for the 2012 Parkville Microbrew Festival and purchased online tickets.  This seemed to be what everyone else had in mind so FatCat didn’t get too far ahead on that strategy.  The line to enter the event was tremendously large.  By dumb luck we got out of line to check out the little tent to the left of the main tent and scored.  We only waited behind about 10 people and we were in.  My friend who came later advised that strategy was no longer viable and he had to wait quite a while to get inside the festival.  Not wanting to miss out, I used the mobile website to make a list of all the brews I wanted to try beforehand.  Once we got in, I tried to hit as many of the chosen tents as I could before the crowd fully engulfed us.  In fairly short ordered I was in full beer festival mode!

The beer I was most excited to taste was the No. 50 Liberty Stout from Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company out of Hays, KS.  This stout won Great American Beer Festival Gold in 2009 and 2010.  I had been salivating over this brew all week and I think the anticipation got the best of me.  I made my way to the tent and acquired my pour of this gold medal brew.  It was a solid brew but was not a knock out.  It was more of a dry stout with good roasted malt character.  In an attempt to coax out some additional malt character I let the brew warm up. It improved but still not what I was dreaming of.  There was nothing wrong with the brew, I think I was expecting way too much for it to live up to. 

My second most anticipated brew of the festival was the Blind Tiger Top Gun IPA.  This brew did live up to expectations.  This was a brilliantly complex hop concoction of greatness.  The smooth citrus character up front clears the way for some delicate floral notes.  Then the citrus comes back dancing with the flowers providing an amazing finish.  Awesome!

The other beer I was “looking forward” to was the brisket beer.  I didn’t really expect anything outstanding about it, I was just interested.  The first taste of this brew was almost enjoyable.  The brew was decent through the middle of the palate and finished with a very briskety smokey flavor.  It went down hill from there as subsequent tastes allowed you to catch up with the almost slimy consistency of the brew.  It was definitely interesting but I think I’ll keep my BBQ and my beer in separate containers.

My favorites of the festival were the Top Gun IPA (of course), Nebraska Brewing Barrel Aged Hop God, Broadway Brewery Oak Aged Imperial Stout, Buffalo Rye IPA, and Lucky Bucket Certified Evil.

This year at the festival I didn’t think the lines were too bad.  We went through Broadway’s line to get the Imperial Stout at 3pm and were about 5 minutes early.  We went to the back of the line and made it up to the front again in less than 10 minutes.  The layout was poorly planned and was not at all conducive for travel inside the “ring” of tents.  Hopefully at future events they will spread the tents out better and not make a circle of madness.  My other gripe was the tasting notes booklet.  They were very nice quality but whoever puts them together should really learn to use the SORT function.  Is it too much to ask to put the damn breweries in alphabetical order? 

Overall I liked this year better than last.  I personally didn’t think the lines were as bad as last year but I arrived earlier this year.  I was in “festival mode” earlier as well so maybe that’s why it didn’t bother me as bad this year.  The variety of special releases was a big plus over last year.  If the organizers can figure out a better layout and expedite the entry process, this festival could be absolutely positively awesome.

Cheers!

Boulevard New Year-Round Brew

Boulevard is in the midst of adding a new year-round brew to their arsenal.  What could it be?  Is the suspense killing you yet?  Wait for it…wait for it..one more time.  According to Bob Sullivan of Boulevard, it will be called 80 Acre Hoppy Wheat.  I’ve heard a lot of fan fair about the Hoppy Wheat of old but I’ve never had the chance to partake.  There isn’t any additional info as far as if this new Hoppy Wheat is the same as the old or what taste profile they’re shooting for with this new one.  It makes sense.  Their leading brew is Unfiltered Wheat, so to introduce another wheat beer in hopes of snagging a few more customers seems logical.  The release date is anticipated to be late summer. 

Derived from article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/kansascity/news/2012/04/18/boulevard-plans-new-hoppy-wheat-beer.html