Episode 81 - Jim’s Got No Internets

Well with Jim involuntarily unplugged you get a clip show.

Enjoy!

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Episode 79: Happy Halloween – Bring out your dead

A departure from Pumpkin beers, because all the good ones are sold out in Chicago. This week we look at a “scary” beer, Rogue Dead Guy Ale.

News

Tonight story is a little bit of a warning to all you home brewers out there. Don’t try to brew with drugs. A 28 year old graduate student in organic chemistry used poppy pods to brew beer. The only problem is that he apparently used a chemical procedure first to extract the opium from the pods which was then placed in the beer to give it a little extra kick. Well the law didn’t like that idea, and they went after him, but not too hard. His punishment for this fancy homebrew is that he has to have the soil in his back yard tested where he dumped the spent grain to make sure there is no contamination, go to drug classes, and stay clean for the next 18 months. Not too harsh, but still, don’t try to brew with drugs. That is just a bad idea!

Dead Guy Ale

• Now there are surprisingly lots of beers out there with Halloween sounding names, such as Lucifer, Red Devil, Hop Goblin, or the Hopness Monster, however after looking over the shelf I could come up with no better choice than Rogues Dead Guy Ale.
• We have talked about Rogue a few times on the show, but for those of you who are new, Rogue Brewing Company is based in Newport, Oregon and was founded in 1988 and is run by Jack Joyce.
• One thing that most all of their beers have in common is that they use a proprietary strain of yeast they call Pac-Man yeast, which will give the beers a flavor that you can’t find in other ones.
• Tonight’s beer, Dead Guy Ale, is their flagship beer and weighs in at 6.5% abv. This beer is classified as a Maibock beer, which is tends to be a lighter colored bock beer that is generally brewed in the spring around May.
• Before we get into the beer itself, Dead Guy has a very distinctive bottle and tap handle, both showing a skeleton sitting on a barrel of beer. This is probably my favorite tap handle out there.
• The beer is made with four types of malts and two types of hops, and as always it has a suggestion of food on the side which is for pork or hot and spicy food.
• The beer pours a lighter color, maybe a light gold, with a nice pillowy orange white head that sticks around for a bit.
• The aroma here is mainly malt but even that is sort of subdued to some degree. Rather sweet smell with just the vaguest hint of hops in the aroma here.
• The taste is a bitter malt taste at first which is something that you aren’t expecting when you smell the beer. The hops are there, but they aren’t overpowering. However, that is only with the first sip. After I had a few sips, the malt sweetness seems to come forward in this beer and the hops tend to move to the back. There is a little alcohol hotness as well in the aftertaste, but nothing to bad. This is only a 6.5% beer after all.
• I would call this a good session beer, but it is still a little high in abv for me in that regards. I would say that it would make a good Halloween night beer however, so enjoy!

Next Week

Well enough of this Halloween themed stuff, we are jumping back into a normal series again next week, this time it is going to be Rye beers. Which Rye is yet to be seen. This is one of Jake’s favorite styles.

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Episode 76: Budweiser American Ale – About Time!

We’ve been teasing this for weeks and we finally get to pay off and talk about Budweiser American Ale.

News

This weeks news story comes from Denver Colorado and it all about the Great American Beer Festival, starting this week. The 27th annual GABF kicks off this week on 9th and runs through the 11th. If you are in Denver, I highly suggest you stop by, because you will have the chance to sample from 400 brewers a total of 1,900 different beers. Although the event is now sold out, so if you don’t already have a ticket, you won’t be going this year. This is part one of the story, with part two coming next week which will be the announcement of the winners. So make sure to tune in to find out if your favorite beer won.

Budweiser American Ale

• The beer has been on the way for a while now, I think that we have been hearing about it for about 4 to 5 months in the open market but it has been a open secret in the industry for much longer.
• Part of the reason, if not all of the reason that this was rolled out is AB needs to gain a foot hold in the craft beer market.
• Interestingly, AB has also revamped their ad campaign with Bud Lager recently, advertisting it as the Great American Lager.
• The beer weighs in at 5.10%, which is just .1% higher the Bud Lager, but .9% higher than Bud Light.
• This beer pours a a nice little head, a little off white and a amber color. An interesting thing to note here is that the beer did not have a twist off cap.
• The taste is I must say a lot better than Jim would expect from a Bud product. I know, that may seem bias, but so sue him.
• The flavor is a bit malty and sweet, but not over powering. There is a little bit of a caramel malt flavor, but it is very mild. There is also some bitterness here as well, nice little citrusy zest to it, but nothing overpowering like an IPA.
• Overall, I will say that this isn’t a bad beer. It isn’t terribly complex, but it is a pretty refreshing drinker, that if it was at a bar, I would probably get one. I suggest that you give it a try too.

Next Week

We will be getting back to a series next week, and I think it will be something seasonal, maybe some pumpkin beers.

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Episode 75: Refrigerator Roulette Part Three – The return of the Fridge.

Perhaps our last in this non-series series. Jim once more dives into the unknown realms of his fridge. This week it’s Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale.

News

Believe it or not, one of the hottest items out there right now for theives are metal kegs. With the price of some metals skyrocketing, the kegs are often worth more than the deposit that is put down on them. A pair of sheriff’s deputies in El Paso, TX were eating breakfast when they saw two men, one chasing after the other, running across a parking lot. The police followed and found out that the man being chased had just robbed a beer delivery truck for the empty kegs.

Refrigerator Roulette – Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale

• Well here we are at week three of Refrigerator Roulette. For those of you who don’t know what is going on, well the basic gist of it is that Jim reaches in the fridge and grab a beer. Usually Jim’s fridge has at least 10 different types of beer in there, so it can be fun.
• This week, we are going to be doing one that we actually did before, we just didn’t record it correctly. But hey, that happens. It is Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale from Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, California.
• Part of the reason that we don’t review too many of these beers is that I can’t get them in Chicago. That being said, you can get these beers from coast to coast these days and they are coming to more and more markets.
• Arrogant Bastard Ale is probably considered their flagship beer, with its slogan being “Your not worthy”. The generally are seem as some of the bad boys in the brewing industry, brewing things that they like and not necessary things that have mass appeal, however they do sell very well.
• Tonight’s beer, Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale, is the regular AB just shoved in an oak barrel for a while. It weighs in at 7.2% which is the same as the regular AB.
• It pours a reddish color with a creamy white head, with the aroma of citrusy and sweet all at the same time. The taste is rather aggressively hoppy, however the oak does come through with a little bit of a vannila taste.
• I will say this beer is not for the beginner and only give it a shot if you are up to it.

Next Week

Who knows, hopefully we will be doing the American Ale that we have been talking about, but if not we may talk about Momma Mia Pizza Beer.

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Episode 74: Refrigerator Roulette Part Two – The revenge of the refrigerator!

So not a real series, but sort of a series. Jim reaches into his refrigerator again and pulls out an Imperial Dortmunder from Great Lakes Brewing Company.

News

A German man has been sentenced to three years in prison for selling his partner as a sex slave to his neighbor for a crate of beer (wonder what kind of beer it was). The bizarre deal between the 39-year-old man from Hersfeld-Rotenburg and his 60-year-old neighbour was revealed after a 32-year-old woman told police about her ordeal. The court in Fulda established that the woman was forced by her alcoholic partner to have sex with the elderly neighbor for several weeks. The neighbor paid with a crate of beer for every visit. The neighbor was sentenced to a two-year suspended jail sentence and a single payment of $3463 to the victim.

Refrigerator Roulette – Great Lakes Imperial Dortmunder

• This week I reached in and pulled out a bit of a special beer, Imperial Dortmunder from Great Lakes Brewing Company, out of Cleveland Ohio.
• Why is this so special you may ask? Well, Great Lakes just celebrated their 20th birthday, and in honor of that, they brewed this beer.
• Their regular Dortmunder is probably considered their flagship beer, and is far and away I would think their most popular beer.
• A regular dortmunder can be described as something close to a pilsner, however the beer was made popular in Dortmunder, Germany as opposed to Pilsen.
• Now the original Dortmunder from Great Lakes weighs in at 5.8% abv, however because the word is Imperial is thrown in front of this one, it is actually a bit stronger at 7.3% ABV.
• This one poured dark gold with a thick white head. You could tell right away that this was a little bit different than the regular Dortmunder.
• The smell is of hops with just a little bit of sweetness. The taste is more of that sweetness, with a little bit of alcohol taste, which may acutally be contributing to the sweetness. There is a little bit of sweetness at the end, however it is not nearly as bitter as the smell.
• All in all, I think that I probably didn’t like this as much as the regular Dortmunder, and I probably wouldn’t get it again, however I think it is only a one time brew so it really doesn’t matter too much!

Next Week

OK, one more Roulette show next week, and it is actually going to be a beer that we looked at about a year ago, but just never really recorded it correctly. It is Oak Age Double Bastard Ale from Stone, so tune in.

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Episode 73: Refrigerator Roulette

We couldn’t get Budweiser American Ale so Jim just reached into his fridge and pulled out Brooklyn Pennant Ale, that’s what we talk about this week.

News

We have been talking so much about the one big brewer, Anheuser Busch, that I feel that we are leaving out the other big brewer in the market, MillerCoors. MillerCoors is being sued by a group in regards to their Sparks brand energy beer (products that we have not nor never will cover on YNB). The group, Center for Science in the Public Interest, states that the ingreidents in Sparks, including Caffeine, Taurine, and Guarana should not only not be used in alchohol, but in addition they feel that this product is being marketed to kids. Now, this same group threatened to sue AB if they didn’t take their energy drinks off the market earlier this year, and AB caved in. Analysts are saying that MillerCoors will end up fighting this one tooth and nail however, so stay tuned for the blood bath.

Refrigerator Roulette – Brooklyn Pennant Ale

• Alright, so we admit that we haven’t come up with a new series yet. We are just not sure what style we want to take on next. On top of that, we had planned to do a show on the American Ale from Budweiser tonight, but I could still not get a hold of it. I am being told that hopefully next week I should be able to get some, but untill that time, we have Refrigerator Roulette.
• So the rules of the game (which I just made up) are simple. Go into my refrigerator, grab a beer, and that will be the one that we talk about tonight. Now first let me say that my frige is no ordinary frige, I have a bit of selection present, I think 14 different beers in there at last check.
• The beer that was pulled for the evening is Brooklyns Pennant Ale, out of Brooklyn Brewery, in, you guessed it, Brooklyn, New York.
• Established in 1987 by Tom Potter and Steve Hindy, this brewery was founded to extend the pairs fascination with home brewing.
• This weeks beer, Brooklyn Pennant Ale, is named after the 1945 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers. It is described on the website as a honey colored pale ale, close to an traditional english style pale ale.
• It weighs in at about 5.0% ABV and is made with 3 types of malts and 4 types of hops.
• One of the great things about Brooklyns website is that they suggest food pairings with the beer. For this one they suggest roasted and grilled meats, robust fish, crab cakes, and spicy food.
• It pours a nice little bit darker than described, I would go maybe a shade darker than honey, with a slight colored head which seems to disappear in a hurry as well.
• The smell is more on the sweeter side, some carmel notes there, and just a little bit of bitterness from the hops in the aroma.
• The taste is a little bit different than the softer smell, with almost a slightly acidic taste, almost crisp apples in the fall. This is a good thing though. There is a little hop bitterness but that really isn’t too strong.
• This is a really good example of an English Pale Ale, not too strong, not over powering with the hops, and rather well balanced.

Next Week

Another week where we aren’t exactly sure what we are going to do. Another attempt at Budweiser’s new American Ale, but if we can’t get that, it may be back into Jim’s fridge.

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Filler

So someone unplugged Jim’s cable so no show tonight. Stay tuned tomorrow night for all new episode.

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Episode 65: Clip Show

Erin and Jacob are closing on a house today, so welcome to our third clip show.

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Episode 60: The Mystery Show – Because you don’t always have to drink good beer.

Well for the last couple months we have looked at some serious beers. We have talked about Dubbels, Trippels, and Quadrupels. Beers that were deep, complex, full of flavor and generally high in both alcohol and body. Well, we are taking a break from that tonight and looking at Miller Chill and Bud Light Lime. Call it a bit of a pallete cleaning show.

News

A Japanesse brewer may soon have your brew. Sapporro Breweries is going to brew a pilot batch. about 100 bottles of beer, made from barley that is grown from seeds that spent five months on the international space station in 2006. The brewers say that they are really looking forward to seeing what the beer tastes like. Our guess, it that it will taste EXACTLY like normal beer. But hey, who knows, maybe space does strange things to barley and whoever drinks this will end up being 37 feet tall.

Miller Chill and Bud Light Lime

• Miller, based in Millwaukke Wisconsin, best known for Miller Lite and of course the ever popular Miller High Life.
• Anheuser-Busch (AB) on the other hand is best known for Bud Light and the ever popular Budweiser.
• So what about the beer. First up, Miller Chill. It weighs in at 4.10% ABV, and comes in a green bottle. It is billed as Light beer brewed with a hint of salt and lime. So, in other words, if you want to make this beer at home, grab a Miller Lite, through in a lime and a pound of salt.
• When I had this beer I couldn’t believe the salty taste. I really didn’t expect that from a beer, however, I guess it did say that on the label and all.
• Bud Light lime, which weighs in at 4.2% ABV, is a newer product. In fact, I just tried it tonight for the first time.
• The taste isn’t nearly as bad as Miller Chill. It is described as Light beer with Lime flavor, and that pretty much hits it on the head.
• This tastes a lot like a lazy mans Cornoa, the lime being pretty prevelant but not too over powering. I can see this being a decent beer on a hot afternoon, although you can’t really drink more than a couple.

Next Week

Alright, next week we will be back to our good beer, starting our brown ale series. Not really sure what beer we will start with, but it will be a brown ale.

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Episode 57: Brewing Basics

A bit of a departure this week, and a little longer show. We’re looking at brewing basics this week. If you’ve ever wondered how beer is made this is your show.

Ingriedents

• Beer is made essentially of four ingredients: Malt, Hops, Water, and Yeast.
• When we refer to malt, we generally are referring to malted barley. Malted barley is a process where by the barley is made to germinate, or grow, and then the growth is halted by hitting it with heat.
• Malted barley can come in all types, from Crystal Malt, which can give beer a lighter flavor; chocolate malt which is a darker more roasted flavor, caramel malt which actually has a bit of sweet flavor.
• Hops are what give the beer their bitter flavor and aroma. We have talked quite a bit about hops in this show. The hop is actually a flower, and is a very distant relative of marijuana.
• One of the biggest hop production sections of the US is the Pacific Northwest and have a distinct difference in flavor from English hops.
• Water is the fourth major ingredient and make a tremendous impact on beer. Depending on where the water comes from, it could have various minerals that effect the flavor.
• Today in the US, most of the water used to brew beer is filtered at the brewery in order to give it a consistent flavor that most consumers will expect.
• Finally, there is the yeast, the living part of the beer.
• The way yeast works is that is eats all of the sugars in the wort (we will cover what wort is later). Once the sugars are eaten, they become alcohol and produce CO2.
• Now different yeasts also produce slightly different flavors. For example, yeasts used in wheat beers tend to produce a clover and banana flavor.

Brewing

• First, the grains to be used in the beer have to be weighed and measured out. This is really where the beer is created. You can think about this step as getting the ingredients together, a little of this, a little of that, all used to balance the flavor.
• Once we have the grain, it must be milled. Milling will crack the malted grain to expose the starches inside. The starches, or sugars, are what the yeast are going to later eat and turn into alcohol.
• After the grain is cracked, it is loaded into a large vat called a mash tun, and mixed with hot water for form what is called the mash.
• The mashing processes helps to break down those starches into more simple sugars so that they can be digested by the yeast. This process can take an hour or so.
• After the mash is cooked it is pumped into a lauter tun, or a giant strainer of sorts, and the sweet syrupy goodness, or wort, is drained off. Once that wort is drained off and into the brew kettle, the grain is typically sprayed further to collect more of the sugar if possible, a process called sparging.
• Now that the wort is in the brew kettle, it is brought to a boil and the hops are added. Now depending on when in the boil you add the hops, they will do different things to the product, such as add aroma and add bitterness. Ones added to the beginning of the boil are typically for bitterness while ones added at the end are for aroma.
• Once the wort is has boiled according to the recipe, it is strained and cooled down and sent to a fermentation vessel. Here yeast is added, and depended on the yeast and the temperature that it is fermented, you will have a lager or an ale.
• Well that is brewing in a nutshell. There is much, MUCH more that you can learn about brewing, and if you think you may enjoy giving it a shot yourself, try the Basic Brewing Radio and Video podcast, one of the best ones out there for home brewing.

Next Week

Next week we are done with the brewing and back to the beer, so make sure to tune in try to remember all that you learned today. We’ll continue our Belgian series with either St. Bernardus Abt 12 or Victory Twelve.

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