Brew School?

Thought about getting a professional education in commercial brewing? I found this blog of a brewer attending the program offered by Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin (VLB). I haven't read much of it myself but the gist of it is that he is a brewer that is blogging from Berlin about the program and his experiences there. Worth checking out if it's something you have thought about doing yourself.

Midnight's First (But Not Last) IPA

Well faithful readers (all two of you) it has been awhile and for that we apologize. But the wait is over and a new post is come. I bring you a tale. A tale filled with adventure, mystery, intrigue and disaster. Okay maybe not the first three so much as that last one but hey if it reels you in, it reels you in.

So several weeks ago, back in ye olden times of February, we set out to brew the IPA I prattled on about. It was going to be marvelous. As expected the local brew shop did NOT have a good selection of hops AND they had jacked up the price. Well not to be put of we forged ahead and chose an assortment of hops, some of which we had never worked with before, much less heard of. Let me lay it out for you:

Base malt of 2-row barley (naturally)

Vienna malt

Cara-pils to add a little body

As for the hops this is where it gets wild and crazy:

Mt Hood pellets 4.2% AA

Chinook pellets 11.2% AA

UK Phoenix pellets 10% AA

Saaz whole leaf 2.5% AA

Kent Goldings whole leaf 5% AA

SG:1.056 (corrected)

The SG was somewhat higher than anticipated. Normally we do not have the best efficiency in the world and so overload on the grain a bit. Apparently our efficiency has improved. In any case by the end of the boil our brewery (read: the back deck) smelled overwhelmingly hoppy. We were on the right track to IPAdome.

Now this is where the "adventure" begins. It turns out that a member of the Midnight Brewing team who shall remain unnamed (not me) neglected to bring the sink adapter for our wort chiller. Normally not such a big deal but we were on a tight schedule. Places to be, beers to drink, the usual. So instead of the usual cooling of the wort and pitching of the yeast we decided to risk letting it cool on its own in the fermenter and ask our kind and gracious... brewery landlord/adjunct-assistant-junior-brewer-in-training/Allison pitch the yeast in the morning.

At this point I bet you are thinking: "Where's the adventure? Your fermenter will be sealed even if it cools slowly it should be at least somewhat aseptic. Sounds more like a tale of laziness than intrigue." Fear not fair reader for there is still more. So not only was the yeast going to be pitched in the morning but we noticed that the gasket on our fermenter lid that the airlock passes through was torn. So there was a small, ever so small opening through which potentially contaminating wild yeast and bacteria could move and get at our cooling wort. But hey, we are adventurous so why not forge ahead. It gets better. The yeast we were going to use (from Wyeast Laboratories in one of those convenient smack to activate pouches) had been activated say... a month ago... or two... give or take a month.

So there you have it... adventure and definitely mystery. Would this actually work? Shall I skip ahead? Well the short answer is no. Of course not. This is a tale of mystery, intrigue and disaster. So a week and a half later we set about bottling. The bottles had all been cleaned and sanitized, labels were removed (Thank you brillo pad) and caps were ready. First we made the transfer from our fermenter to our bottling bucket. That's when you could smell the first hints of disaster. Something was off. It smelled hoppy but only a little bit. It seemed more muted than it should have been. There was something else there covering it up like that layer of dust that covers our brewing books on how not to screw up a brew. Not only that but it was far cloudier than it should have been. So we decided to have a little taste before bottling just to be sure all was well with Midnight Brewing Co's first IPA.

Normally this is where I would go on and on about how good it tastes. No. No, not this time. Tell me, have you ever licked the wall of a basement? Or maybe just chewed on some wet cardboard. Perhaps both in one sitting? If not then you can't quite fully understand the flavors we were getting. It was heinous. I mean it was bad. Not only that but the taste didn't really seem to want to go away. No, no it would rather chill on your taste buds letting you enjoy the rankness for as loooong as possible. I will have nightmares about this one. So long story short it was a tragedy. The whole batch went down... the... drain. Tears ensued, albeit manly ones. The Midnight Brewing flag was lowered to half staff.

The first Midnight IPA has joined the ranks of such brews as the Raspberry Wheat and the Scotch Ale. Though I think this one definitely tops the list of Midnight's catastrophic brews since it was utterly undrinkable by anyone (for some bizarre reason that totally escapes us there are some people out there who love the raspberry wheat AND the Scotch Ale).

Lessons learned: Don't cut corners. Do what must be done. There is nothing like investing so much time into a brew and watching it swirl down the drain like so much Budweiser. We are going to repair the fermenter gasket and someone is going to pin a note to their chest from now on reminding them not to forget the sink adapter. Oh and I will remember to buy fresh yeast this time (yeah that was my bad).

Until next time readers, grab a homebrew and raise it in silence as testament to this failure.