These three beers were created by local professional brewers as part of the National Homebrewers Conference registration package. It’s unlikely these beers will be produced again, unless we’re lucky.
San Diego Dark Session Ale, 3.9% ABV brewed by AleSmith and San Diego Brewing Company
Appearance: Dark but not opaque, brown but in the light it looks maroon.
Aroma: Pine, bitter grapefruit and sweet orange with some earthiness.
Taste: At colder temperatures it’s mostly hops throughout until the end where you get a bready, toasty malt character. Body is light as expected for a 3.9% alcohol beer. Hop character is bitter grapefruit with earthy, piney resiny character with a touch of the sweet orange from the nose. As it warms up the malt character shows more with its toasty, caramel notes with a touch of roasted malt in the end to give it a slight coffee finish. Some slight fruity yeast esters also make an appearance.
Final Thoughts: Just about the perfect San Diego session beer. Sure it’s hop forward but there is some nice malt character to back it up the hop bite as it warms. I wish more brewers would brew such beers.
My full video review here.
La Cruda Porter, 6.7% ABV brewed by Port Brewing Company
Appearance: Dark brown, almost black but you get some red and brown notes holding it up to the light. Pours a large tan head.
Aroma: Smells like fresh porter wort – bready, sweet caramel, coffee and bitter chocolate
Taste: Really fizzy due to the high carbonation in the bottle. Let this one sit out and swirl it around to get the carbonation out. It’s a smooth drinking porter, no alcohol on the taste or nose. There’s a lot of breadiness up front, followed by caramel malts midway through and some fruity yeast esters mixed in. The finish is big on the roast character, big coffee notes with some dark chocolate. The finish is dry with the bitterness coming from the dark malts instead of the hops.
Final Thoughts: Unfortunately the bottle was overcarbonated so it was fizzy to start. Once the carbonation escaped it became a smooth drinking porter with moderate complexity. A very solid porter.
My full video review here.
SoCal Hop Salute Black Double IPA, 9.9% ABV brewed by Stone Brewing Company
Appearance: Pitch black with a one finger light brown head.
Aroma: Hops dominate the aroma. Sweet orange, tropical fruits, bitter grapefruit, peppery spiciness, and grassy, earthy notes. You can barely smell the dark malty base along with a touch of alcohol.
Taste: Your tongue is blasted with hop flavors up front that follow the nose. There’s a good amount of bitterness from the Colombus hops along with the darker malts. After the hop blast the malts show themselves with dark fruity yeast esters, a touch of caramel with coffee and chocolate notes. The finish is dry with lingering hop notes and a touch of alcohol.
Final Thoughts: Just a huge beer.
My full video review here.
In more NHC news, here are 6 reviews of some of the sessions I attended over the course of the 3 days:
Friday morning started out bright and early with Rod Tod, founder of Allagash in Portland Maine, doing a talk called ‘Fermentation Using Wild Yeast & Bacteria’. Rod encouraged homebrewers to try making these beers with Brettanomyces and bacteria since the risk of infecting the equipment and other beers is much lower on a smaller scale. If you have time and fermenters to do so, he thought these beers can be executed if you have the temperature control. Allagash keeps their Brett beers at around 63 degrees and their bacteria inoculated beers at around 55 degrees Fahrenheit which will slow down the process but lead to very clean tasting beers.
‘Historical Extreme Beers’ by Stone brewmaster Mitch Steele focused on the extreme beers produced as far back as the 1700s in the British Isles. Mitch has made several trips across the pond to research historic examples of extreme beer and said he’s working on a book on the history of IPAs. Many styles of beer in the UK became extinct when the First World War lead to rationing of supplies and thus a lowering of the amount of grain used in beer. Mitch talked about the difficulty of researching beers but there are some groups of homebrewers out there trying to re-create lost styles, including the beer sent with explorers on early expeditions to the Arctic Circle.
Wayne Wambles from Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing did a presentation on ‘Unusual Wood Aging’, encouraging homebrewers to try woods other than oak with their beers. Wayne talked about three woods they’ve had success with at Cigar City – Spanish cedar, lime wood and grapefruit wood. He also mentioned that any trees that produce fruit or nuts should be safe to use for brewing and encouraged the audience to seek out other types to experiment with.
Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey’s Tomme Arthur had a talk on ‘Non-sour Barrel Aging’ as the audience sipped on Older Viscosity, Ad Lib and Deliverance, three of his oak barrel aged beers. Tomme concentrated on oak barrels, talking about the different types of oak, chars and toasting the barrels get and how that impacts the flavors the beer pulls from the wood over time.
Saturday morning started off with UC Davis professor Charlie Bamforth giving a lecture titled ‘Hopping Into The Sunset’. The entertaining Dr. Bamforth when into the scientific information on hops regarding bitterness, associated with the alpha acids contained within the lupulin glands of the hop cone. Based on the chemicals found in the hops and how they are used, certain beers at the same amount of bittering units can have different levels of perceived of bitterness. The professor also talked about some of the health benefits of hops and how they could be potentially used outside of beer in the future.
If you have tried The Bruery’s anniversary beers or Black Tuesday then you know that Patrick Rue is the one to have a seminar on ‘High Gravity Brewing’. Patrick wanted to focus on brewing beers 15% ABV and beyond without using any distillation techniques. He talked about mash temperatures (140F isn’t out of the question), water to grist ratios (1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain for Black Tuesday) and dealing with yeast pushed to maximum of their alcohol tolerances. In the case of Black Tuesday, sugar is fed to the yeast the first three to four days after fermentation starts along with yeast nutrient and small levels of oxygen.
Ending the final day of the conference was Firestone Walker’s master brewer Matt Brynildson with his ‘Workshop On American Hops’. Matt talked about the growing regions of American hops and the varieties found in each region as well as talking about research that Sierra Nevada has performed on several varieties of hops. Charts were shown profiling the flavors, the intensity of each flavor found and how the flavors age over the period of two months. Unfortunately it looks like some European breweries are starting to catch on which might make proprietary strains like Amarillo harder to get in the future.