Highland's Gaelic Ale

One of my favorites, Highland’s Gaelic Ale is an Asheville staple in the world of beer. You can never go wrong with a Gaelic Ale!

This beer pours nicely, with a good medium head. A friendly and bold aroma of malt and hops lends to the well-balanced flavor of this favorite beer. Its color is a deep amber to copper.

When sipped a sharp bite cuts in with a nice malty flavor, almost sweet. The hops join the party in the aftertaste, creating a nice balance of maltiness and hoppiness, without being overpowering.

This is a highly recommended beer, and no Asheville tourist should go without at least having a Gaelic Ale.

Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale

I tried a half-pour of Sierra Nevada’s Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale at Asheville’s Thirsty Monk, and they’re not kidding about the freshness of the hops. A bit too hoppy for me, this beer is much more like an IPA than a typical pale ale. It’s a special beer, though, blending seriously-fresh hops from New Zealand with Pacific hops.

At first there wasn’t much of an aroma, but after a few quick sips, the flavors came pouring out. It smelled like liquidized fresh hops. Really. It tasted like liquidized fresh hops. It wasn’t bad, but just way too hoppy.

The color is a nice golden, almost an amber. It is a refreshing beer, however, if you’re not a fan of IPAs, then you probably won’t like this beer all that much.

Sweetwater Blue

Years ago I gave Sweetwater Blue a shot, and I remembered that it tasted overwhelmingly like blueberries, as if they poured some concentrated blueberry right into the beer at bottling time. So on recommendation from Jeff, I decided to give it another shot; he swears it doesn’t have too much blueberry flavoring in it.

(I’m out of pint glasses, so the bottle will have to do for this shot. So sorry.)

After opening the aroma is sweet and malty, without too much blueberry going on. But on first sip, man, this beer sure does push that blueberry flavoring right in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good beer, but the blueberry is just as overwhelming as I remember it.

The aftertaste lingers briefly, mostly the blueberry and not so much malt, hops, or any of the other stuff that makes a good beer. Goes down smooth, and indeed it is refreshing.

This is one of those beers that has, at least to me, an excess of fruit flavoring. Whether or not they use fresh blueberries or some kind of extract, I’m not sure, however I would guess they use fresh. For one, the bottle promises me ‘fresh blueberries’ and for two, it does smell and taste so.

Fru-fru beer drinker, this one’s a good one for you. Manly beer guzzlers, I’d recommend you pass on this guy.

1554 Enlightened Black Ale

This black ale, in my opinion, is pretty damn good! The aroma is smooth, not overpowering, with barely the faintest smell of hops. Nice head, nice smoothness to the pour.

The taste is ever-so-pleasant, with chocolate and creamy overtones and aftertaste. This 1554 Black Ale is probably the best beer I’ve yet to taste by New Belgium. The aftertaste lingers slightly, but mostly it’s the chocolate that hangs out. Goes down very smoothly, rests nicely.

This beer is supposedly a throwback to Belgian black ales, pieced together from ‘an ancient crumbling Belgian library book.’ Even if it’s not accurate to the old Belgian dark ales, this one’s got my number. I hope to enjoy the 1554 Black Ale on a regular basis.

• Dark Ale
• Smoked Porter
• Belgian Witbier (witbier)
• Scotch Ale

The smoked porter was probably the most complicated (simply because it had the most ingredients), but it all makes pretty good sense. However, I’m using several different resources for instructions and guidelines for brewing, but there are some inconsistencies. Some say to steep the grains around 160º F, then remove the grain tea bag, then start adding extracts and other ingredients. Others say to keep the grains in for the entire boiling process. I’m not sure which way is the better, or if it just depends on the recipe.

I’ve noticed that the yeast in darker beers eat a bit more slowly and evenly, and the fermentor doesn’t pyramid up with funky yeast matter. But this wasn’t the case in the witbier. The Belgian Witbier really foamed up inside the fermentor, almost to the point of having to use a blow-off tube.

I also noticed that the witbier changed color drastically. At first it was pretty dark for a witbier, with deep amber and copper coloring. But after a few days, it lightened up dramatically, and it’s about the perfect color: a light-caramel to orange-yellow. It looks and smells fantastic, and I can’t wait until it’s time to pop one open!

My first homebrew!

So I wanted to taste my first home brew a few days ago, but Randy gave me shit about it. He said I gotta have patience! But we popped one open anyway.

Only after a few days, the beer was pretty carbonated! It foamed out all over the damn carpet. So I think we did well with the bottling!

Come to find out that Randy and Rollin popped open one each last night, so I figured it’s only fair that I have one, too. Patience my ass!

It’s a good beer! It’s pretty basic, tastes pretty much like what I thought it would taste like, but it is good! It’s dark, not black, and has a nice hoppiness to it. It’s warming, got a good head, and smells like a simple dark ale. We named it “May Be Ale” because we made it in May and we weren’t quite sure if the end result could actually be classified as ale. Hence the pun.

First pour of my first homebrew!

I think I love homebrewing!

Newcastle Brown Ale

The one and only! Indeed, they’re not lying about with slogan! Newcastle Brown Ale is an old favorite of mine, and it always hits the spot!

This beer has a wonderful amber and copper color, a great head, distinct aroma and flavor, and just an awesome attitude. This is one of the few beers that–in my opinion–actually gets a lot better as it warms, when it stays in the bottle. Out of a glass, it loses its carbonation quickly, so drink up!

The aftertaste has a nice nutty flavor, lingers only for a moment, and leaves a smile on my face, every time. It’s got a wonderful roundness to it and is exceptionally smooth.

I recommend Newcastle almost any day of the week, light or dark!

Dry hopping refers to putting hops into beer after fermentation. This means that the hops aren’t cooked during the boiling stage, when making wort. Some brewers worry about contamination, but apparently it’s not too much of a risk.

Beers like IPAs or pale ales are typically dry hopped, which lends to a more distinct, fresher taste of hops in the beer. The hops are placed directly into the fermentor after fermentation is pretty much complete, and they should rest for a couple weeks. I can see how this would really give the beer a very fresh hop flavor.

View some directions on dry hopping.

We went to the local home brew store, Asheville Brewers Supply, and picked up some final pieces of equipment we were lacking. The only things we didn’t purchase were

• Hydrometer (they were out)
• Thermometer
• Capper/Caps
• Bottling Bucket

The brew guy told us we would be alright without the hydrometer and the thermometer for now, and he also said that if we were unsuccessful in at least making wort, we probably didn’t have any business brewing anything in the first place. I took this to mean that brewing really isn’t that difficult.

Dark Ale

We decided to go with a dark ale, using the malt extract Northwestern Dark. Randy wanted to use malted barley, but I felt I should stick to an extract for now.

We also picked up the yeast, two kinds of hops (Brew Gold and Fuggle), and some miscellaneous other stuff. And a Highland Mix Pack to keep us company while we brewed.

Northwestern Dark Malt Extract

Sanitize

We sanitized everything! Any equipment that physically touches the beer needs to be sanitized, to minimize any risk of contamination. The sanitizer I made is a weak mixture of bleach and water, a ratio of about an ounce or two of bleach to about five gallons of water.

Wort

It was time to boil some wort. Following a combination of instructions from the home brew store and The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, we put two gallons of fresh cold water into our clean, 6½ gallon carboy. We would add the hot wort directly to the carboy, then add more cold water to cool it all down for the yeast.

Malt Extract and Water for the wort

Our wort was rich and dark, and if Rollin hadn’t been the designated stirrer (and doing a great job!), I guarantee that it would’ve boiled out all over the place!

Boiling Dark Wort

Rollin was the designated stirrer

Hopping

When it came time to add hops, we followed the instructions of the home brew store. We dropped in our first round of hops, known as bittering hops, after the wort had boiled for 10 minutes. Fresh hops smell so good!

After boiling for 30 more minutes, we dropped in the other hops, known as finishing hops or aroma hops. Let it cook for about another 10 minutes, then turned it off and drank another beer.

Add hops to boiling wort

Adding wort to the fermentor

After a few minutes of cooling, and opening yet another beer, we added our hot wort into the fermentor. We poured it into a large funnel with a pretty tight filter on it, and most of the now-powdered hops were caught in the filter and out of our beer. Finally after the wort was added, we added in our last two gallons of fresh, cold water.

This actually got the temperature of the beer at nearly room temperature right away. Some brewers recommend using a wort chiller, which is a coil filled with running cold water that is inserted into the wort pot to cool the wort quickly. I’m not sure if it would work any better than our method of adding cold water to the wort.

Add yeast

When the beer was at room temperature, we added our yeast. We were a bit worried that our yeast was bunk since it wasn’t refrigerated. We added our yeast and attached a fermentation lock, which is a valve-seal that allows gas to escape but doesn’t allow anything to enter the beer.

After about fifteen minutes, we noticed a bit of action in the fermentation lock, but nothing very impressive. Worries grew.

We then placed a black trash bag over and around the carboy and put it in a cool corner of the house. In the morning, I woke up and checked on the beer, and the yeast was rocking and rolling! Plenty of CO₂ was escaping, meaning that our yeast was eating! It wasn’t bunk yeast!

I now command the yeast to EAT!

Wait a week or so

This coming Saturday, we’ll bottle our dark ale. Then we’ll have to wait about two weeks until we can pop one open!

Final thoughts and questions

After brewing my first batch, I do have some lingering questions that I’ll address with future batches.

• Is a wort chiller really necessary, and what benefits does it have over simply adding cold water?
• How much more control will I have over flavor if I go with malted barley, rather than malt extract?
• Should the fermentor be kept in the dark? For all yeasts?
• Should I always use liquid yeast? And shouldn’t yeast always be refrigerated?

I may have a few more that come up, but these float around my head when I begin thinking about my next batch, which will be a smoked porter, a recipe from Hops and Vines, another local home brew shop. I’m putting the recipe here, just in case they update their site and remove it.

Our next batch, Hops and Vines’ Smoked Porter 7% ABV

A partial mash recipe based on the beer I brewed for the 2009 Highland Pro-Am Competition that won Best in Show. $42.95 this month only!

Malt Extracts

• 6 lbs. Northwestern Amber Liquid
• 2lb. Northwestern Gold Dry Malt

Steeping grains

• 2 lbs. Smoked malt
• .5 lb. Black malt
• .75lb. Chocolate malt

Hops

• 1oz Fuggle (60)
• 1oz Fuggle (20)
• 1oz Fuggle (10)

Yeast

• White Labs British Ale
• Ferment at 62-70 degrees F

Starr Hill Northern Lights India Pale Ale

I had an opportunity to drink a couple of brews from Starr Hill Brewery, including the Northern Lights IPA (India Pale Ale) and the Dark Starr Stout (see this post on the stout).

The IPA was, well, just an every day IPA. I’m not a huge fan of IPAs; too hoppy and bitter, and the aftertaste lingers on for far too long.

The Northern Lights IPA, though, really wasn’t bad. It tasted salty, I think, but I couldn’t tell because the damn hops just overpowered everything! Each time I thought I could observe another flavor, nope! It was just hops, man. Lots of hops.

If you’re an IPA fan, then this IPA will probably do the job for you. It’s not bad, but it’s not incredible.