The Reinheitsgebot; Live It! Breath It!

Things are moving along slowly in my attempt to re-enter the home brewing hobby. For my first batch, I've decided to concentrate on pulling off a good run of my old daily staple beer: Boar Snout Amber. This is a basic but rich pale ale reminiscent of Sam Adams Boston Ale.  I figure it will be best to have a few cases of this in bottle for the early winter as I contemplate a couple of specialty ale recipies for after the holidays.

I just got in an order from my old hop supplier, Fresh Hops. In the inventory was 8 oz of 2015 Cascade (8.2% alpha acid), my main bittering hop; 4 oz of Mt. Hood-2014 (7.5%) and 4 oz of Willamette-2014 (5.1%) both for aroma hopping. I actually prefer Hallertau for this but it doesn't appear to be available anymore. In the past I would put in my yearly order in the late fall to take advantage of their new harvest. But now that their storage bags are oxygen free, it looks like they sell certain hops from the previous year's vintage. We will see what the quality is like.

I'll definitely be missing my stainless steel kegging system and being able to do my secondary and tertiary fermentations in steel and transferring under CO2. But no matter. They were making very good beers for centuries even before the invention of the thermometer so no need to be worrying about this sort of thing now. I plan to concentrate on the simple things I can control like the yeast pitch and quality of ingredients. I've always tried to stay as close to the Reinheitsgebot or German beer purity law as I could. I states that beer can only be made from water, malt, and hops. Generally that's all I include although for my Boar Snout Ale I do use "clean" adjuncts like white rice to boost the alcohol content and Irish Moss to help with the hot break. I just pulled out for review my old copy of Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer". Although I'm not a lager brewer this book contains one of the best technical descriptions of the all grain mashing process around and is very useful for the ale brewer.

Now to start analyzing my very hard well water!

A New Beginning

Welcome to the Oak and Iron Nano-brewery blog. I am planning to make this my weblog for documenting my future home brewing activities. I began brewing in the late 1980s, just before the microbrewery revolution really hit hard in the mid-Atlantic region. Back then the only unique craft beers that could be found were mostly from California (Anchor Steam, various Sierra Nevada offerings, etc.). And these tended to be fairly expensive. I began brewing not just to save money but for the quiet satisfaction of knowing that the beer I drank regularly was made with my own two hands. It also helped to have a scientific background specifically in microbiology which made sanitation practices and yeast culture a bit less daunting.

I followed the normal transition that many home brewers do today; malt extract brewing from a kit followed by enhancements to the boil and fermentation set ups, eventually incorporating specialty grains and then finally going "full brewer" via whole grain mashes following Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Home Brewing like it was the bible. I bought stuff from my local brew store, The Flying Barrel,  originally operated by Bob Frank in Frederick, MD. I also attended meetings of the local brew club, F.O.A.M back when it really didn't have a name but consisted of local home brewers who would meet at Bob's stall in an antique emporium.

Competitions began in 1989 when I entered a Porter in the Great Frederick Fair. Back then they didn't have a dedicated home brew category but would take entries under their wine category, sub-heading "barley wine". I took second that year and the die was cast. Shortly after I had to leave the area and in 1990 decided to enter my first national competition, The American Homebrewer's Association National meeting. That year I only got a bronze (27/50) for my Boar Snout Amber mainly because I submitted it to the wrong category. Because I used white rice in the mash to boost alcohol content, I put it into the Specialty Category. Big mistake since this was the category for the odd styles/ingredients. However the highlight of that entry was having it judged by Papazian himself! I returned to the area in 1991. By then the Frederick Fair had a dedicated home brew category and I entered my Boar Snout Amber. It took first place and Best of Show earning a perfect 20/20 score! From then on this was my standard house ale.

After that, life became complicated. The kids came along, work became more complex, and life just got in the way. I sold off my kegging system but kept the basic gear for doing all grain mashes. The years flew by with only an occasional batch of my beloved house amber and a yearly dunkelweizen to celebrate the change of seasons.

But a few weeks ago, a local brewer asked if I could help out with one of his home brew classes at our local beer fest. It was great to be in a large crowd of beer aficionados again, something I hadn't done since the early 1990s. It got me thinking; beer prices are creeping up again. I tend to eat low carb so I only drink an occasional beer on the weekends. Why not dust off the gear and get back in the game?

So stay tuned. I just put in my first order to Fresh Hops in about fifteen years (thank goodness they still are in business). And I'll need to start collecting ingredients. But if all goes well, i should have something bubbling in the basement for Christmas. Or at least that's the plan (maybe New Years).
 
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