High Point Brewery Tour

On Saturday, November 9th, club members visited High Point Brewery in Butler, NJ, home of the Ramstein beers. This was an open house day, where they debut their Ramstein Oktoberfest. They only have 4 of these open houses a year, and at each open house, they debut their latest concoction. High Point follows the strictest of rules for making real German beer. By law, they can only use 4 ingredients: Water, Wheat or Barley, Hops, and Yeast. They do not use any adjuncts or flavoring ingredients, and do not artificially carbonate. All of the flavor comes from the brewing process and the yeast.

Greg Zaccari, founder, has worked in a brewery in Southern Germany, and has brought his expertise and proprietary yeast to the US to start High Point Brewery. Originally, he wanted to open his brewery in High Point, NJ, because of its pristine location and beautiful landscape. However, the water was not pure. So they moved to Butler, NJ, where they had access to pure mountain water.

The tour that Greg gave was very educational, and he was very approachable, in case you had additional questions. They had served 5 or 6 different styles of beer. The hefeweisen and doppelbock were two of my favorites. They sell growlers anywhere from $5 to $40, depending on how ornate you like it. You get 2 tickets at the door, then pay about $4/ cup. There were other vendors that sold pickles, flattened bottle ornaments, stone hearth pizza and sausages. 

We all had a really good time! The size of the brewery is similar to Cricket Hill and also difficult to find. It's hidden in the back of brick-lined warehouses. 

This is what happens when you drink too much!!

The Ship Inn - NJ's First Brewpub

On Saturday, October 19th, club members visited New Jersey's first Brewpub in Milford, NJ, The Ship Inn. Like many Ship Inns in England, this brewpub serves English pub food and beer. One thing that is special about this place is that they brew in the Olde English style with open fermenters (see picture). They import their grains from England and cook them in a brick-lined cooker. On tap they had a Golden Wheat, Extra Special Bitter, a Red Coat Ale, and Shaak's IPA. On the hand-pump, they had Best Bitter and Dark Charger. For a full list of beers that they brew, check out this link.

I had the Red Coat Ale, Dark Charger, and the Best Bitter. In my opinion, the Red Coat ale and Dark Charger are mild beers with good color, but similar in taste. The Best Bitter was not as hoppy nor bitter as I liked, given the name, and would feel it to be even less hoppy than a Sierra Nevada.

As for the food, the British faire was comparable to standard. Half of the group had the mac-n-cheese, which was quite cheesy and yummy. Mike had it with bacon and local ham. They source local meats and cheeses, especially from Bobolink Farm. I had the British Sampler that included a Scotch Egg and Piccalilli, Cheese & Onion pie, Tiddy Oggie, and Sausage Roll served with traditional HP sauce.

It was nice meeting members' s.o.'s, and the kids had a great time. After lunch, a few of us visited the Bobolink Farm to taste their artisan cheeses and bread that they make on site. Do check them out as they have cheese and bread tasting. They make unpasteurized cheese. They also have pig roasts and meat from them sell out quickly. After that, the little ones enjoyed hiking at Ringing Rock park where they banged on rocks with hammers.

Until next time...drink a beer!

Bottling on our Chilean Malbec

On October 4th, beer members went back to Cask and Kettle to bottle their wine. We filled 20 750 mL green bottles and 19 375 mL blue bottles. Bottling wine was much like bottling beer, except we had to "soak our own corks" (funny reference)!

In the top 2 frames, Joe, Frank and Craig prepare the bottles for filling by washing and drying. In the bottom 2 frames, on the right, Mike from Cask and Kettle is helping us transfer the wine from the fermenter to a bottling bucket. On the left, the dead yeast and other sediments that were created during the clarification step remain on the bottom of the fermenter. 

Here, the guys take turns filling and corking. We will wait at least a month before tasting our brew. However, Steve already jumped the gun and had one the night of and commented on the wine: "Buttery and vanilla-y, but super harsh on the finish. Will wait a few months!" Here is the finished product:

First Brewery Tour - Cricket Hill in Fairfield, NJ

Last Friday, the club visited Cricket Hill Brewery in Fairfield, NJ. It was a little difficult getting to, considering the brewery is in the back of a non-descript warehouse and their signage is so small. But once you find it, you are embraced with some live electric guitar music and the smells of beer. Friday nights, they have a beer "tour," where, for $4, you get a pint ($3) and donate ($1) to the guitarist. When you get your plastic pint and a ticket, go to the back where the bar is and tell the bar-man that you're "new" and you want to get a little tasting of what they have; that's the "tour." That night, they had 5 varieties on tap: Hopnotic IPA, American Ale, East Coast Lager, a Smokey Rye, and the Fall Festivus Ale. Of what they had, my favorite was the Hopnotic IPA and the Smokey Rye was nasty. I am not a big fan of strong IPAs, but the Hopnotic was quite pleasant. It's bitter, but the sweetness of it helps balance it out; sort of sucking on the pit of a sweet grapefruit. All of the others were different in their own way, but in the end still have some bitterness. So I wouldn't say that their selection is all that diverse. 

The head brewer is somewhat of a nut-job. He gets up on a platform, smoking a cigar, and gives his shpiel about how CH is a brewery and not a bar, and yadda yadda yadda. Wasn't paying all to much attention to him. They have a whiskey barrel beer that is currently fermenting and will probably be ready in a month in a half. 

Here's a little more info if you're interested:

Webpage: http://crickethillbrewery.com/

Address: 24 Kulick Rd, Fairfield, NJ 

Wine Making for Beer Guys

So as we finished bottling the last few drops of our brew, we were off to another fermentation project. Not of the hops variety, but of the grape variety. Yes, yes, yes...it's not beer, but wine. Hey, it's still fermentation and it's got alcohol too, so why not!

We decided to make the Chilean Malbec.

Malbec Leaf

Here's a little more info about this grape variety for you (from Wiki):

Malbec Grapes

The Malbec grape is a thin-skinned grape and needs more sun and heat than either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot to mature. It ripens mid-season and can bring very deep color, ample tannin, and a particular plum-like flavor component to add complexity to blends. Sometimes, especially in its traditional growing regions, it is not trellised and cultivated as bush vines (the goblet system). Here it is sometimes kept to a relatively low yield of about 6 tons per hectare. The wines are rich, dark and juicy.

So, at Cask and Kettle, we got a box of concentrated malbec juice, which we first diluted with crisp, clean water. Here are a few pictures of people taking turns mixing and adding yeast:

 

Here the wine is checked for the correct specific gravity before it is stored for fermenting.

The wine sits in the fermenter for 3 weeks before the next step, which is the clarification step. The wine was transferred to a glass carboy. The specific gravity was rechecked at 0.994 (normal is < 0.996). At the same time, the alcohol was checked at 13%.

At this point for clarification, potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite are diluted in water before they are mixed into the wine for a few minutes.

Potassium sorbate is added to wine to prevent the yeast from reproducing. So any existing yeast can still continue to ferment any residual sugars. Once they die, there will be no new yeast. The potassium metabifulfite, when added, produces sulfur dioxide gas that prevents most microorganisms from growing and acts as an antioxidant to protect the color and the delicate flavors of the wine. The last part is mixing in the chitosan, which is used to precipitate out any solids in the wine. 

After mixing in all of the chemicals, the airlock is replaced and the wine is allowed to sit in the carboy for another 3 weeks to clarify before the bottling phase.

Stay tuned next time for wine bottling.

Beer Making, Part Deux

Three weeks later on Aug 23, the crew went back to Cask and Kettle to bottle their brews. If you remember, we made a Creamy Stout and a Belgian Ale. During the time before, we were in development of some labels for our brew. For the Belgian Ale that Steve, Joe, and Tinyee made, we called it "Joe's Breath Belgian Ale" by "Three Heads Brewing Co." Granted we didn't know this was actually a real brewing company name, but oh well, it's just for fun. The Creamy Stout by Simman, Frank and Craig, was so named "La Brea Cream Stout" by "The Mad Scientists."

Take a look at our brew before we bottled it. The yeast definitely did its work, bubbling and toiling.

Now comes the fun part: draining the brew into a separate bucket; preparing our priming sugar by dissolving a couple of ounces of sugar into boiling water and mixing with the brew; cleaning bottles and filling them with our brew and "bust" a cap! See these slaves do the work! (jk).

 

In the end, we managed to bottle close to 50 bottles per batch. Special thanks go to Joycelyn for helping us put on our bottle labels. 

And here are our babies...that we'll let sit at room temperature for a few weeks to develop the carbonation.

Yeah, it's hard to see the labels. Note to self: don't use clear labels. Stay tuned until next time as we taste what our babies have become.

Beer Making at Cask & Kettle

On Friday August 2nd, the club members tried their hand in making beer at the Cask & Kettle in Boonton, NJ. The Cask & Kettle is a beer and wine making shop that provides all of the necessary ingredients and equipment for the home brewer/fermenter. The six of us chose to make two batches of beer. We decided on a Creamy Stout and a Belgian Ale, called "It's a Trap."

The beer making process is not that complex, but the various ingredients that accentuate the beer definitely are. We split into 2 teams: Simman, Frank and Craig were in charge of the stout, and Joe, Steve and Tinyee were in charge of the Belgian Ale. The first step was to measure out all of the ingredients precisely.

 

Next, we start by steeping the grains in a cheese cloth bag in 170-180 F water for 30 minutes. The steeping allows for the flavors of the grains to be released into the water as well as darken it.

  

Cream stout almost ready

After steeping, the bag is removed and drained. Next, malt extract and other sugar crystals are added to dissolve with constant stirring. Once the sugars are in solution, the brew is brought back up to a rolling boil before the next ingredients are added. When it's boiling, there will be a lot of foam as the proteins from the grains start to precipitate. Lowering the heat will help reduce the foam. Once the foam starts to subside, hops are added. If the foam still doesn't go away, you can add a few drops of a silicone-based de-foamer. Depending on what type of beer you make, there could be other additions of hops and/or adjuncts, like orange peel or spices. After another hour of boiling, the brew can be cooled down to 75 F. At this moment, you can wait patiently and have a beer or two, or use a 75 foot copper tubing immersion chiller. Once the beer has cooled to room temperature, the beer is drained into a 5 gallon bucket. A mesh sleeve was used around the drain to catch any additional precipitous material. Last, the yeast is added. The bucket is lidded and an airlock is inserted into a hole at the top of the lid. At this point, the beer will now ferment.

Stay tuned until next time as we bottle our beer after 3 weeks...