Seek Inclusion: Iron Hill and Brew Lounge 5/22/08

Wow. Ya know, i'm just gonna come clean. This blog is probably the closest thing to a confessional i'll come to for a while so the beans are gonna spill around here people.

I used to have a really short sided view of the Iron Hill brewpubs. If you've read much of my blog, you'll know that i now sing their praises pretty regularly...so what happened? Well, i opened up my mind and realized that i don't know everything after all. Full conversion began in Media with their Berliner. Larry Horowitz' lineup for the War of the Worts was just plain ridiculous (and you can't talk about the beer business with a more positive minded guy than Larry). I missed the Belgian event in West Chester, but have been told by a very reliable source that it is something to make a point of catching next year.

They used a tabasco barrel for God's sake. (Sake, not God's Sake)

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I'd always been a fan of the food at Iron Hill and i thought i had them all figured out years back when i first checked them out. I thought they played it safe and just catered to a dinner/family crowd. I thought they didn't have anything to offer to me....Then i met the Quadfather, then i met their Wee Heavy, then i met their Roggenbier, then i met their dry hoppped Iron Bound on cask, then i met Iron Bound on nitro (an APA on Nitro?), then i met their mug club parties.

Tim Stumpf, 'my' Iron Hill brewer is doing a hell of a job in Phoenixville. I have been trying to stop weekly since joining the Mug Club and he has kept things really interesting. The staff is friendly as can be and i've even begun to meet some of the natives.

So to the Mug Club party then? Strap on your boots...here's what they had on tap:

Hefeweizen
Maibock
Pig Iron Porter
Wee Heavy
Bourbon Barrel Wee Heavy
Baltic Porter
Rye IPA
Cannibal

NITRO: Bourbon Barrel Russian Imperial Stout
CASK: West Coast Wheat

Add to that some Cypress Grove goat cheeses and something local (Birch Run?) from the Big Cheese himself, Mike Romando and you've got yourself a party.

Or you've got yourself a party to go to.

The Brew Lounge held a meetup last night at The Drafting Room in Exton. I was a late comer, but there was plenty of hanging out left to be done. TDR had tapped Hop Head Red, so i finally got a taste and as usual, they had a lot of great stuff to try.

Our wounded soldier, Cask Ale Kev was there as was Adam of Beer Bits 2. We talked homebrew with Jeremy and Greg from Exton beverage showed up for a chat. I'm sure Bryan will write the thing up properly so i'm reserving space to link to it right.......here.

Adam is starting a monthly homebrewing blog post, a' la The Session, so i'll definitely be hopping on that train. Check out his blog, its a great read.
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Let's Just Talk About Food For A Minute

I posted a quote from Brewmaster's Table in my scribblings about a Victory beer dinner a little while back and i am finding that it really, really rings true.

The jist, if you didn't click over, is that sometimes we get too wrapped up in the day to day operations of life to concentrate on a good meal. Sometimes we have to eat just to fuel up and don't get to sit down and really enjoy something.

This has been happening to me lately, i honestly don't know why, but i've been running around quite a bit during my prime kitchen hours and haven't been cooking nearly as much as i want to.

So here's where my head is at. I've been discovering all types of foods that i'd just never had before over the past few years. The more i read, the more i poke my head into different restaurants, etc the more i end up getting exposed to, as anyone would. I've been watching No Reservations too, so that has certainly opened my eyes (and in many cases my stomach...but not all).

So maybe it is ironic between gourmet Indian cuisine, traditional Indian fare, Thai, and getting over my fear of scallops (thank you Andy Dickerson) that what i've found myself getting into from a food shopping and meal prepping aspect has been food that is so much more simple and in many cases so much more plain. It's not laziness, i know at least that much. I love to let the hours slip away over the stove with a couple records playing.

I've made some connections with, of all things, traditional English cuisine. A long and winding story i'd tell you over a pint would reveal a novel i started writing sometime during college. At times the words poured out of me, but in other spells i would force sentences out one by one. I was overthinking something i didn't know how to properly execute and its ended up as chapters and notes and ideas on a computer disk.

But the place is very much like the portrayals of Olde England and port towns and villages i'd seen in books and cartoons growing up. They stuck, don't know why. Bustling cobblestone streets, voices all muddled together as people sell their wares in an open air market set up in an alley, fat red-faced men laughing as they sip from tin goblets, buskers that resemble The Band trying to make a pound on some corner.


This food falls right in line with that. Although not connected by geography, the writings of Dylan Thomas have always connected me to that same unconcious place. Whether it be men doing the devil's work or a simple rousing night on the town, Thomas would frequently takes us to a room full of characters deep into the night's allowance, with a watchful landlord presiding over the action.

The image in my mind was always one with a necessity for simplicity and these foods certainly represent that. Many derived more from an approach of 'What do we have left?' than anything else, this food has stayed very much the same for hundreds of years. It is easy to picture it served in a pub on a dull, rainy day just the same as i see it laid out in the hearth warmed kitchen of an English farmhouse. The dishes alone can blur the lines of time. I think that is a huge part of why i am drawn to it.


What am i eating you ask? Right now stuff that's easy to prepare. I've got a lot to learn in the kitchen, but these meals are as much a therapeutic touch as anything else really. They taste great, of course, but they're a transporter and that is really important.

The Ploughman's Lunch:

A lot of people believe this is a meal with a manufactured history, that's fine, i'll bite. The idea behind the meal is that it's a simple offering of goods a ploughman could take from home in a sack and unwrap and enjoy at midday right in the fields. You've got a nice chunk of English cheese, bread, pickle, tomato, and maybe some pickled onions and bit of mustard. There are variations, i've certainly added and subtracted for my own, but for such a raw, bits and pieces meal you really get to enjoy a lot of different tastes and flavors without eating a whole lot.

Toad In The Hole:

Basically it's sausage baked in Yorkshire pudding with gravy on top. I'm still working out an English ale gravy recipe, but this is easy to prep and easy to make and will fill you up in a hurry. Talk around the lunch table has involved tossing some veggies into the batter, so i may go in that direction next time around.

Bangers and Mash:

Of course. Sausages over mashed potatoes, gravy over everything. So simple, so delicious. There's a pub down the street from me with bangers on the menu and i ducked in during a snow storm over the winter and it was absolute perfection. Too messy to drive to work, not messy enough to keep the town out of the bars. Seems to be a theme every winter.

The English Breakfast:

Eat your heart out. Most everything is fried up in the full English Breakfast and that's just fine with me. Eggs, meat (sausage please), tomatoes, baked beans, fried bread, black pudding. Pile it on and pile it high boys.

Now i have never had black pudding, but i think i'm ready to try. It's not nearly as frightening as it might seem at the onset. What's the saying? Use everything but the squeal? I buy into that at the time being.

What to drink? There's no way to turn your back on the classic and obvious choices here. There are certainly a great number of American craft beers that would serve up well here...Brooklyn Brown was my beer for my first stab at Toad In The Hole, but let's remain in traditional form here.

I am very partial to the Brewery at Tadcaster, the Samuel Smith line of outstanding British Ales. This is due in part because i learned about many styles of British beer by way of their products. In the necks of the woods i was drinking beer in when i was learning about Porter, Oatmeal Stout, English IPA, and Nut Brown Ale, Sammy Smith was what as available. Thank you for your hard work Mr. Finkel.

Samuel Smith

Not to be a single-dimensional or brand loyal consumer, i've got to celebrate other good beers and breweries here who are owed their due. Fuller's is widely available and worth your while, the ESB and London Porter are all over the place. I've yet to try Adnam's and with rosy cheeks i'll admit to still not having experienced Old Speckled Hen or at least not since its meant anything anyway. Bitters and milds, bitters and milds, bitters and milds.

Fuller's
Adnams
Morland's
Conniston's
CAMRA Just because.

So there you have it, a lot of words about something really simple. That's exactly how i feel about this food though so it serves me right for opening my big mouth.

Cheers.


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How i don't set the world on fire, Vol. #1

Ok, status check.

Not a ton to report today, but i'd feel like all this gloomy weather was getting the best of me if i didn't post something.

Actually, truth be told i really enjoy days like the one a lot of us are looking out our windows and seeing. I've done some really cool stuff during rain storms and days of general gray.

My Dad used to take me on walks in thunderstorms in the summer and that was awesome. There was always that element of danger that makes it good to be close to your Dad, it's like some invincibility thing that you feel when you really trust someone.

Getting back on track though, what is happening this week?

Well i am pouring at the Full Mooner tonight at the Ugly Moose... 6:30 - 9:30 PM in the garage. We're pouring Dogfish Head, Southampton, Riverhorse, and Oskar Blues. If you're in the 'yunk and not at Flat Rock then you should come hang out. $10 gets you samples all night.

Thursday is full of events. I'm definitely starting at the Mug Club Party at Iron Hill in Phoenixville and wondering if there will actually be Cannabilistic left (doubtful)...they had on Rye IPA Cask, Rye IPA, and a Kev approved Baltic Porter yesterday too and they're rolling out something special for the muggies. If you've got a membership card i hope to see you there, it'd be cool to put some names to faces in there.

Then i really want to go show my support for The Brew Lounge at The Drafting Room even though Thursday is usually reserved for Teresas Next Door. Can i do all three? Heck no, i rise before 6 am Friday and work until midnight dude.

Other than that it's a very Tiki Memorial Day. Catch me behind the bar Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this weekend. We're rolling out some new beers soon, they may be in this week, they may be in the following.

I made Toad In The Hole last night and paired it with a Brooklyn Brown. I need to work on the recipe just a touch, but you'll definitely catch me making this often.

Raucco's Red Rye has got a nice blanket of Cascades floating on top and will be bottled next week. Johnny gets married the second week of June, the timing is perfect.

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Bridge Street Brewskies

You may have heard the rumors circulating wherever people are drinking good beer. You may have seen the flyer at your local fair trade, hand made joint. I am here to tell you that it's coming people. The organic beer is coming and you should be there to taste it.

What should be the very first of a bunch in the Bridge Street Tasting Series, the event is going down in Phoenixville's 'Happening District' and its approaching quickly.

On June 5th from 6 - 9pm at Earthmart on Bridge Street (in between Wolfgang Books and The Colonial Theater) we'll be tasting organic beers from Peak Organics and Wolaver's. A taster glass is $3 and you can taste until your heart's content.

Earthmart is more than meets the eye, while they offer a great variety of handmade products from kitchen utensils to glassware as well as organic and fair trade food and drink, Earthmart can help you turn your home into a center of energy and resource conservation. From sinks and flue-less fireplaces (which are really awesome) to solar fans for your attic. Where else can you get a veggie burrito and an environmentally safe fireplace in one stop?

This is sort of a pilot episode to see what the turnout looks like, but future tastings are planned to be a bit more involved, with a lot of different beer to be paired with a lot of the different businesses Phoenixville has to offer.

This one will be a good time though, that much is certain. The staff at Earthmart is a lot of fun, Peak is sending a rep, and i'll be humming symphonies and juggling toy cars as i pour from Wolaver's fine organic products.

While things like charity and bettering our quality of life are fresh in my mind, this event is being held simply to spread information about organic brewing and get the names Earthmart and Grain Bill (.blogspot.com) out there to you folks. The $3 will hopefully pay for the beer and ice. Come say hi.

If by some chance you're a business in the Phoenixville area and you'd like to put on a tasting of your own, please get in touch and we'll start planning. Read more!

American Craft Beer Week - Food & Beer

Don't know if i am going to get the chance for my beer and food post today, so in the meantime check out this link to a good article on coasters and white linen. Hopefully we get to talk food and beer later. Read more!

American Craft Beer Week - The Collective

Even though i catch myself doing it from time to time, i really dislike using the term ‘scene’ to describe any community of people linked together by common ideas. To me, it makes the group in question seem transient or passing. To get to the point of even being lumped under such a term though, there has to be enough support and investment to build the community mindset. So this is why I choose the term Collective. It takes people who are there for the love of something, it takes people who are there to further that something’s potential, and it takes people who are there because they realize that the strength of unity is no accident.

The Craft Beer Collective is quite impressive. There is a central goal or ideal that lingers over every corner of activity within the craft beer world. On some ends are the relentless collectors or completists looking to gain access to everything they can by any means necessary. On other ends are those looking to get as locally involved as they can, showing appreciation for what their local brewers or distributors do and will volunteer themselves to the cause. Other ends find groups and clubs, sometimes quite specialized, who gather together under a common understanding and use power in numbers to bind themselves and their goals. Others just float, they like to experience a little bit of everything and find that craft beer attracts a lot of friendly, like minded people who are a lot of fun to just sit and have a beer with aside from stigma or expectation.

Hovering above all of this are the tools of unity, the references and maps that are shared uniformly by those who enjoy craft beer and those who making a living from it. Some are as simple as a website, magazine, or newspaper and others are events that can serve as a proving ground or marketing exhibition for all to revel in and experience.

The collective mind though has one common tie that binds all of its components. Everyone is here for beer that’s made honestly from the best ingredients in the world by the best brewers in our country. Support is at the forefront as the craft beer world realizes amidst all the fun that it is still the little guy. The collective has arrived with and achieved greater understanding of what support systems are all about; simply by our placement in the grand scheme of things, we’ll always have an eye over our shoulder for Goliath.

So what makes the world go round in this community of craft beer brewers and drinkers? Well, a whole lot of stuff.

Most importantly, there are so many breweries and brewpubs that go to great lengths to build relationships with their customers. They throw them parties and special events, they invite them into their breweries to help out, they use them as a test market. Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione writes in his book, Brewing Up A Business, “We were fortunate to have some really savvy, beer-drinking regulars who were more than happy to give us their opinions on which beers worked and which ones didn’t. We would tweak the recipes to satisfy our own palates and those of the customers who understood the kinds of beers we were trying to brew. They shared with us what they were looking for in a beer, and we tried to educate them on the kinds of beer we were hoping to brew. These regular customers and the staff and Dogfish Head learned a lot from each other.”

The communication between those making the products and those buying them is extremely tight knit for an industry that has begun to post multi-billion dollar retail sales numbers in recent years. The connection and interaction is kind of amazing in the face of those numbers.

Falling right in line with this, competition between craft brewers is rarely perceived as something more than a bit of fun. In a market with so many options, it would seem that everyone would be clawing at shelf space and sales, but many craft brewers are quick to note that everyone is the little guy in the face of the macro breweries. Craft brewers support each other, brew together, offer up equipment at good prices when they expand, and even hang out together. Despite the thousands of different stories and backgrounds that make up the people working in the craft beer industry, there’s one spirit common to them all and it’s one worth celebrating through their hard work and their products.

For those with all the other jobs there are to have in the world, there’s a world of possibilities available to them and they’re all taken advantage of to the fullest. From weekly trips or after work stops to the local brewpub and beer bar to cross country treks for brewery tours and beer unavailable on their home turf, craft beer drinkers let little stand in their way.

Clubs support the industry greatly whether they are formally driving towards a certain goal or simply giving people an excuse to get together. They are varied far and wide: While some gather to brew their own beer, others gather to trade beer from all over the country as they sample and tell tales of how they’ve gotten some of the rarest beers in America. Other groups seek to educate in a relaxed atmosphere and others simply want to exhaust the possibilities of their city’s available barstools. Many brewpubs and bars are quite accomodating towards the quirks these clubs may have (this includes clientele).

It is easy to stake this claim with no research done whatsoever: the biggest number of people flock to the quickest source and get the majority of the information. Beer Advocate is the epicenter of craft beer’s informational and social needs. It is a database, a meeting place, and an educational kiosk where one can get quick answers to a ton of beer related questions. Jason and Todd Alstrom have created a place for beer lovers, beer geeks, and beer inquisitors to have their voices heard and questions answered. Aside from 35+ specialized message boards, one can easily find information on beer styles, serving and pairing suggestions, events, venue information, and complete offering histories of just about every brewery in the world. Plus if you ever wanted to know what some random dude in Alaska thinks about a beer, you can look up his thoughts on any beer he cares to place a rating on.

Likewise, you’ve got Rate Beer, another great resource site. With an organizational bent that’s a bit different than Beer Advocate, Rate Beer is a great reference. With breakdowns of states and countries where you can look up your local distributors or brewpubs, the site is a definite one-stop source for tons of valuable information. The more you hop around the site the more you will find including homebrew recipes, a glossary, and some well thought out articles.

From homebrewing to news and tasting notes, the craft beer airwaves are full of voices and the sounds of glasses being filled. Podcasts and webcasts pop up all the time to the delight of cubicle workers from coast to coast. Simply searching through google will turn up a ton of options and digging through the archives of many different shows will always yield some very interesting and relevant surprises.

Radio shows include:

Basic Brewing Radio
Craft Beer Radio
The Good Beer Show
Big Foamy Head
The Sunday Session
The Jamil Show

The internet even has a hub for its pros to hang out in. ProBrewer.com is a comprehensive resource for the craft beer industry to get business ideas and tips, buy or sell equipment, seek out help, advice, and employees, and discuss industry trends and issues. Featuring articles, message boards, and classified ads as well as a database of suppliers and vendors, a lot can be learned about the business by just reading and watching.

While you’re online you may as well check in with the zillion beer bloggers worldwide. With everyone from brewers to bar backs blogging away, if you want to get up to speed on what’s happening in with a brewery, country, city, or specific brand of beer, you can find it on a blog. Really easily. Some bloggers are high profile and give readers a glimpse of things that they’d only hear stories of well after the fact, while others are dedicated to reporting on one topic and one topic only, but do so everyday. You’d really be hard pressed to have an interest in something beer related and not find a blogger talking about it. Blogs are also being used as a link between breweries and customers or bars and patrons, it’s a great bridge that doesn’t require the purchase of webspace or a webmaster. I personally have my own little rotation of blogs that I’ll check each day just to see who’s talking about what. My favorite blog right now is Jay Brooks at Brookston Beer Bulletin. He posts so much great content and has so many great links that he is a must see.

Other great beer blogs (there are so many):

Charlie Papazian
The Lost Abbey
Appellation Beer
Seen Through A Glass
A Good Beer Blog
The Brew Lounge
Liquid Diet Online
Russian River
Rick Lyke
The Beer Lass
Hair of the Dog Dave

So you like to take your information on the train or to the dentist’s office, do you? Not a problem, some of the most well known voices of Craft Beer are all tangled up in the monthly and bi-monthly beer publications that serve our entire nation. From the many brewspapers that localize their news and keep entire regions up to speed to the nationally distributed magazines that feature great stories and interviews, there is certainly something in print for every level of the craft beer appreciation. There are trade magazines that go directly to the members of the industry and there are mags that only deal with brewing beer at home, both of which include work from writers who are quite active in many other parts and segments of the industry.

From publications like All About Beer, Celebrator, Draft, & Beer Advocate to Zymurgy and Brew Your Own to New Brewer, to the brewspapers like Brewing News and Ale Street News there is a need for depth and diversity when it comes to writing about beer. Some of the industry’s finest writers about beer are able to service all of these different types of publications and more while running their own blogs and actually getting out of the house for a beer once in a while. Some beer writers names you should know are: Stephen Beaumont, Stan Hieronymus , Lew Bryson, Don Russell, Andy Crouch, Garrett Oliver, and Carolyn Smagalski and Bob Skilnik and Maureen Ogle. Between them they’ve written books, articles, and torn through cyberspace in addition to leading lectures, discussions, tastings, and beer dinners. Among them there are very few topics that have gone undiscussed.

Any talk of beer writing calls for a mention of Michael Jackson. He will always be The Beer Writer and The Beer Hunter. Mr. Jackson invented beer writing and always wrote with passion and care, inspiring more people in the beer world than could be realized. His passing last year was quite sad, but if ever there was a test of the craft beer collective’s unity, they certainly passed, sending him off honorably and with much praise.

So when do we party? All the darn time actually. There are beer festivals, beer gatherings, beer dinners, and promo events daily in the United States. Now whether or not one is right around the corner that’s a different story, but with the average American (I guess I can consider myself to be one of those?) living within 10 miles of a brewery, options are usually more than they are less. Bigger events like Great American Beer Festival, Savor, Extreme Beer Fest, and American Craft Brew Fest attract people from all over the world, while most states have a bunch of festival that attract breweries from across the country. There are also many smaller festivals held in cities throughout the year that celebrate specific beer styles, wood aged beers, and the release of yearly offerings like, most recently, Maibocks.

If all this is any indication of the power in numbers craft beer has as an industry, keep in mind it is by far the minority when it comes to beer production and sales. This works to craft beer’s advantage in many ways, but still as the industry and popularity continues to grow each year it is interesting to see how each part of the collective grows with it. There’s room for everyone and some of the best things are surely yet to come. So as this weeklong celebration of American Craft Beer gets closer to its end, why not take a look ourselves and be proud of the different ways we’ve contributed to its success. I consider myself lucky to have had the limited experiences that I have had and look forward to many, many more in the years to come.
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American Craft Beer Week - Homebrewing

I haven’t brewed a beer in a few months. It’s a lot more fun when there’s something sitting in the carboy and you’re keeping a steady eye on it, waiting to bottle it up and share. Situations being as they may, I was lucky enough to save a batch that i thought would be lost back in February and it turned out to be one of the better beers that I have made yet.

So i’m back in business. New brewery, different kettle, more organization, more space to maneuver. Things are looking good. I had to take a half day from work last Tuesday, so i got myself my ingredients and set out to finally make a beer that i’d designed a few months ago. It certainly wasn’t the best brew session i’ve had yet, i tried some new stuff, showed my rustiness a bit in some parts, and came out a couple of gravity points below where I’d wanted to, so this beer isn’t going to be exactly as I’d wanted it, but we’ll see what happens.


I had two major objectives when i sat down to make a recipe for this beer: Make a hoppy red ale and use rye. So a name immediately popped into my head and from a long and winding tune i could hear the words: Rye Rye Rocco, but this beer would not be made in honor of Mr. Esquandolas. My longtime friend and current Jacksonville native, Johnny Raucco is getting married in about a month or so. I’m not able to make it down there for the wedding, so I brewed this beer in tribute to him and his lovely wife to be. It’ll actually be just about ready to drink on the day they get married, so i will be sure to do so on their behalf.



Raucco’s Red Rye

3 lbs Rye
2 lbs Carared
1 lb Caramalt
3 lbs Extra light DME (late addition 39 mins into boil)

1 oz Cascade pellets for 60 min
1 oz Crystal pellets for 5 mins

Music: The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike

I’m doing a 2 oz Cascade dry hop in the secondary as well.

So i was really excited to brew and took my time sanitizing and making a 2 Liter starter with Wyeast 1084 (their Irish Ale yeast) last Monday night. Laid everything out nicely and was ready to roll for Tuesday. I’d forgotten to get muslin bags for my grains, so I had to put everything into my big nylon hop bag, which would turn out to be a problem.

I already wasn’t excited about doing this because 6 lbs of grains in one bag doesn’t lend itself to much of an equal distribution of water to grain. The stuff on top or in the middle isn’t going to reach the same temps as what's on the bottom…so i knew i’d be stirring quite a bit. Not the problem. The problem was the fact that the bag either burned or ripped in the kettle. I am assuming the force of six pounds of grain right down onto the bottom of the kettle melted two nice tears into the bag.

So now not only am i far from optimal steeping conditions for myself, now i have grain coming out of the bag everytime i stir. This would have been much better if i’d had some bags and actually been able to perform a real steep of these grains.


So that was an adventure. I pulled the bag about 10 minutes early because i didn’t want any more grains in the wort and i was concerned about the weight on the grains on bottom right against the heat source. The bag was pulled, I had to perform some straining magic to get about 2 lbs of grain out of the kettle and then i was finally ready to boil. I added a little bit of light DME and waited for my three gallons of water and sugars to get to a boil.



It came and it wasn’t the most ferocious boil i’d seen, but it was a boil nonetheless. In went the first hop addition and the hour long boil was on its way. I did my late extract addition with 21 mins to go, gave everything a nice solid stir, then dropped in the immersion chiller at about the 20 minute mark.



Crystal in at 5 and everything was fine and dandy. I’d like to use crystal more in the future. I have a feeling they’re going to get hidden a bit by the dry hop, but my wort smelled wonderful during cooling. My specialty grain issue may have marred the appearance and gravity of my beer (came out at 1.050 and I wanted 1.053), but it sure did smell nice.


My growler of starter had been eating away for about 22 hours and went into the wort hungry like….sigh…the wolf. It took a while longer to get down to pitching temperature, but i pitched at 66 degrees and had my fermenter down to about 62 by morning. My airlock was showing activity when i woke up Wednesday morning, so things got started in much less than 12 hours.

I plan to keep the fermenter as close to 62 as possible which means the temperature inside during fermentation will be right in the middle of the 1084’s recommended temps. For a yeast i’m using for the first time it seems like being right in the middle will show a lot about how the yeast performs.





So I’ll keep you posted on this thing. I was relying on that steep for a lot of the beer’s character and i wasn’t able to do that step the way i’d like to, so we’ll have to see what effect it will have on the finished beer.

I’ve already got my eyes on the next batch and it should only be a couple of weeks until the next session.
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