Sure, San Diego Beer Week is about drinking great beer for ten days straight. But if you really want to get something out of this extended week other than a big ol’ hangover, make sure you participate in a meet-the-brewer-type of educational event. I decided to do just that this past Sunday at Blind Lady Ale House (BLAH), and came away with some beer info that can only be learned by talking with the guys that make it. Mother Earth Brew Co.‘s Daniel Love and Kamron Khannakhjavani were in the house showcasing some of their more interesting brews, including a collaboration with Lee Chase of Automatic Brewing Co.
First up in the flight of six five-ounce beers was California Creamin’, a 5.6% ABV nitrogen-dispensed cream ale with Madagascar vanilla beans. A pound of the beans were sliced down the middle and then quartered before being sanitized via flash heating at 180 degrees for five minutes — Love went on to say that his hands were died a distinctive black color and smelled like vanilla for weeks. Bags of the beans were then added at the end of fermentation and left there for a period of 48 hours. Kamron then described the process of getting nitrogen, “an inert gas that doesn’t infuse into the beer,” into the kegs. Laborious and time-consuming, this technique of forced carbonation created a creamier mouthfeel that this beer definitely benefited from.
Mother’s Milk, an Imperial Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Bean Cream Ale, was up next. This beer is a collaboration brew with URGE American Gastropub in Rancho Bernardo, and Love told me that Mother Earth will produce one beer per quarter for the craft beer-centric restaurant. Tondro of URGE was looking for a “thinner beer,” and thus Love decided to use chocolate wheat and the more delicate Tahitian vanilla bean in the recipe. The yeast, however, remained the same as Love insists on his beers having a “DNA that is clean and unites them all.”
Vanilla Storm Imperial Porter was brewed with local homebrewer Paul Sangster for the Pro-Am competition of the National Homebrewers Conference held here back in June. The beer took first place, and Sangster would go on to win the Ninkasi Award, which goes to the homebrewer with the most wins in the final round of the big competition. This beer was a clone of Ballast Point’s Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter, except that while BP had used vanilla extract in their recipe, MEBC/Sangster went for whole bean.
The idea for Pep In Your Step Porter came up when a customer brought in a bunch of dried habanero peppers to the tasting room. Khannakhjavani described how he pulled off some flat beer from the tanks and used an eyedropper to work out the right amount of pepper for a 16 oz. glass, before simply scaling that up to 310 gallons. Having just gotten his wife Joelle’s name tattooed under his wedding ring, Khannakhjavani cringed a bit when telling us how some of the habanero goodness made its way under that ring as well.
Next in line was Wet Hop Dream, a fresh hop IPA first released about four weeks ago. Love had gotten a call from Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey’s Tomme Arthur asking if they wanted some of the trailer full of wet hops that “looked like it’d been swept off the floor of the rainforest,” according to Khannakhjavani. The guys obviously obliged, and so ten pounds of super fresh Simcoe were used to create this aromatic, piney and citrusy IPA.
Hop Jitters Double IPA, a Mother Earth/Automatic collaboration, rounded out the flight nicely. Lee Chase of Automatic/Blind Lady/Tiger!Tiger! has been on a mission to create six different coffee beers over the year, and considers this the fifth in the series (check out our review of his Coffee Imperial Brown Ale released back in January). Chase, who’s not a coffee drinker, became interested in the different flavor profiles various beans create. It is also interesting to note that Chase acted as a brewery consultant for Mother Earth; Love said he’ll still call him for tidbits of advice here and there, and that is he is extremely grateful for the guidance the Stone alumnus has provided for his growing business. For this last beer in the flight, Chase selected Ethiopian Amaro Gayo from local organic shop Cafe Virtuoso specifically for its grapefruit and citrus notes that would go well with the hops; the coffee was not brewed, but instead added to the beer just like dry-hopping. Chase felt this was “more true to the coffee rather than to the hand that brews the coffee” and that brewing up the beans creates complications with sanitation. Chase’s partner in crime Jeff Motch then gave attendees a fun take-home experiment: add a few coffee beans to an IPA in a screw-top bottle and then leave it in the fridge for an hour or so before seeing what types of flavors are imparted to the beer.
There are tons of great educational events going on this week where you can learn about beer straight from the source. Here are a few from the next three days; find more on our calendar or sdbw.org. Each day this week, Karl Strauss’ original Columbus Street location will be hosting brewery tours from 3pm – 4pm. Peter Zien of AleSmith will be at Encinitas Ale House tonight for a beer & cheese pairing event, On-The-Tracks brewer Nicole is hosting her birthday party tonight up at the brewery, and Khannakhjavani will be at Ritual Tavern tonight at 7 pm for a bit of beer and food pairing. Tomorrow, Neva Parker of local yeast producer White Labs will be at Sea Rocket Bistro for a tasting of four beers fermented with four different yeast strains, Tiger!Tiger! is hosting Beechwood Brewing’s brewer, Village Pizzeria is having a meet the brewer night with Oceanside Ale Works, Yiga Miyashiro of Pizza Port OB will be at Blind Lady for a meet the brewer flight, and New Belgium’s reps will be at Randy Jones in Hazard Center for a unique beer pairing dinner with Randy Jones himself presiding. On Thursday, Chuck Silva of Green Flash will be at Blind Lady for another in their meet the brewer series, Bear Republic brewers will be at The Hopping Pig, and Firestone Walker lead brewer Dustin Kral will be at Tiger!Tiger! for a rare beer pairing.