Beer: August 1997

The only thing worse than no beer, is bad beer.

Goats, truly a comic born of divine inspiration, an abundance of spare time, and a propensity for the development of beer guts. The constant that holds it together, at least in my mind, is that ancient and noble beverage...beer.

It's taken me a while to arrive at my present state of understanding of our malted friend. For many years I was confused by the marketing hype surrounding the bastardized beverage called beer in this country, but I was sure that somehow it held the key to my destiny, and drank it anyway.

It was when I spent a year in the land of lederhosen that I had my almost-religious revelation: exposure to a purer form of beer. Suddenly my eyes were opened to the true grace and beauty of the beverage.

A year and 20 lbs later, I returned to America. But I returned a changed man (besides the obvious 20 lbs) I had a mission, I had a purpose, and I had a beer gut. Combining all of those, I swore to never again soil my taste buds with weak, tasteless, mass-marketed swill, but to learn all that I could and strive to become one with this beverage of the ancients.

I also brew my own beer these days. My last batch was a very nice IPA. For the newer initiates into the world of beer, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. It's a form of a British beer called, surprisingly enough, a Pale Ale. It has the India preprended to it's name because it originated as a Pale Ale that was shipped to the British soldiers in India. In order to withstand the long voyage, alterations were made to the style to help it hold up better. Primarily, it was brewed with a slightly higher alcohol level, and extra hops were thrown in. Hops, as well as posessing beautiful bittering characteristics, are added to beer for their preservative qualities. Thus was born India Pale Ale, the high gravity, and even hoppier cousin of English Bitters and Pale Ales.

I'm still playing with this recipe, to see what I can learn by changing the flavor with only subtle alterations to it. For my next batch, I'm going to add oak chips during the secondary fermentation.

General brewing tips:
(or at least notes about how I brew.)

• Use a two stage fermentation. Getting the beer off of the spent yeast is an easy way to clean up the taste. I use a plastic bucket for both primary fermentation and bottling. I keep the wort in a glass carboy during secondary fermentation.
• Use liquid yeast. It costs more, but it's better yeast, and not really any extra hassle.

Ingredients: 6.6 lbsLight Malt Extract 0.5 lbCrystal Grain Malts 0.5 lbCara-pils Grain Malt 2 ozBoiling hops (Cascade) 1 ozFinishing Hops (Cascade) 0.5 tspIrish Moss. Wyeast #1028 3/4 cupPriming sugar.

1. Put all the grains in a boiling bag, and add them to 2 gallons of cold water in a large pot...start the boil.
2. When the weater starts to boil, remove the grains, add the malt and the boiling hops, and boil for 25 minutes.
3. Add the irish moss for another 20 minutes.
4. Add the finishing hops for a final couple of minutes, and then turn off the heat.
5. Pour this into your primary fementer, with enough cold water to get the whole volume up to 5 gallons. Put the whole thing in a cold water bath (in your sink?) and cool it to between 70-80 degrees.
6. Add the yeast, and stir like a madman (or mad-woman). You really want to get the wort aerated to let the yeast have some food.
7. After 4-6 days the inital fermentation should be done. Siphon it into your secondary fermenter. This is where I'm planning on adding the oak chips.
8. After another week or so, it should be ready to bottle.
9. 2 weeks after that, you can start partaking of it's beery goodness.

As all my friends are sick of hearing about beer from me, this is my opportunity to espouse far too much knowledge without fear of being hit. If you have questions about beer, want to try and stump me with good beer trivia, or want to share a recipe, drop me a line.

-- phillip karlsson, brew guru
august 1, 1997