Beer VS Wine Throwdown!!

Support the Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra by attending their "Beer VS Wine" Throwdown fundraiser on Friday June 8. 6 small plates paired with both a beer, and a wine! You vote! And,  be entertained by a jazz quartet at the same time!

Mrs Cicerone is doing the beer pairings!
Tickets available here.

Speaking of Rauchbier... An Educational Afternoon

Several weekends ago, our friends Jeff and Susan invited a few of us beer nerds over to their place on a Sunday afternoon. They had recently been on a trip to Bamberg and the surrounding area, and generously decided to share with us the treasures they'd brought home. Also their excellent homebrew and smoked pork loins, and other tasty goodies. After some tasty homemade dunkel and a couple variations on pils, we started with the Dusseldorfer Bonus Round:

Im Fuchschen, Zum Uerige, Hovels altbiers

Three way-fresher-than-you-can-get-here samples of real by golly altbier! The Hovels was the softest, with rich malt, well-integrated bitterness, and a dry finish. Fuchschen was a step up, but still very easy to drink. The Uerige was massively bitter, and then, like the others, vanished cleanly from the palate. The common attributes of all of them were a rich malt aroma and flavor up front, with a strong medium high to very high bitterness, and a disappearing finish. A huge burst of flavor, then little to no aftertaste. It would be very easy to drink these all day, as Jeff reported doing.

Then, the main course: rauchbier. Rauchbier and rauchfleisch. Jeff smoked a pork loin over river birch, and one over orange wood. Both were distinctly different, and both were delicious, particularly with the beers we had with them.

Fresh Schlenkerla Marzen, Spezial Lager, Spezial Marzen

These beers are available here in the states, but 't'would be rare to get any as fresh as these samples. The Spezial Lager came off a bit smokier than the Marzen, likely owing to having a less melanoidin-intense malt profile. The Schlenkerla was uber-smoky as usual, the smokiest by far, but also exhibited a huge, rich malt character. Eventually, we stopped stuffing ourselves on meat and potatoes. (We ate them all.) Just to cap things off, we enjoyed a couple half-pints of Jeff and Susan's Timothy Taylor's Landlord clone and soon to be famous cream ale. Yeah, we were drinking that stuff before it was cool....

Brew Day, Batch 365: Rauchbier

Because Mrs. C. says we'd better not run out, as barbecue season approaches. Can't argue with that. Especially considering how hard we are hitting the last keg of batch 349; it won't hold out much longer. Now that I've made one batch with the current 'crop' of rauchmalt, I can dial in the recipe a bit. 349 turned out pretty much as expected, dark gold to light amber color, malty like a Marzen, and moderately smoky.

We are tweaking it just a bit today, boosting the rauchmalt from 67% to 72%, and shifting the balance of the Munich malt toward the darker Type 2. This should deepen the color only a tad, but give us a little more of the intense caramelly melanoidin flavors. Hops are in a supporting role only, 24 BU from Crystal and Mt. Hood. As is often the case, the esteemed Wyeast 2308 Munich yeast will do the actual work.

The Key Ingredient

Looking forward to enjoying this out back with some smoked cheese, gazpacho, and mebbe some barbecue....

Brew Day, Batch 364: Dynamomium

OK, the name of this beer came first. Clearly, it's an Imperial IPA, though. As to the question of what exactly Dynamomium is, well, only my brothers and I know. And even then, it's not all that clear. It's a reference to one of our childhood tropes, anyway, and we are amused. For everyone else, it's a beer of mid-high 70s gravity, well attenuated, with 80 BU from a blend of Cluster, Magnum (20.5% alpha!) Crystal, Mt. Hood, Citra, Willamette, and Nugget, added frequently throughout the boil. Said hop addition amounts and times were arrived at via precise frantic calculations conducted minutes before each dose was tipped into the kettle. Also, Uncle Dave threw a couple of unscripted small handfuls of Nugget in at the end of the boil, for good measure. The specific hop varieties used were selected mostly for their flavor and aroma characteristics, though the Magnum was included also because of its monster alpha content- where else can you use more than a pinch of the stuff? As it happens, the Magnum also has a very bright, citrus-candy aroma when rubbed fresh. Speaking of handling this stuff: another way of stating 20% alpha is that this stuff is over 1/5 lupulin. You can pick this sticky stuff up, but putting it down is something else entirely! Check it out:

 

 Yeah, buddy!

I don't think there's much point in posting a 'recipe' for this, as it was a pretty seat-of-the-pants type brew day. We basically took the grist from here, added a couple of pounds of Dynamomium (which bears a remarkable similarity of appearance and flavor to dextrose,) and hopped it up as described above. The resulting wort was served up to a bit more than a quart of fresh 1056 slurry, which set upon it like a hungry wolverine on a nice, juicy hamster. Stay tuned for results....

O! How we love New Orleans!

 We just spent 5 glorious days enjoying The City That Is The Happiest Place On Earth. Yes, we did everything we set out to do, including eating fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House, dancing in the sun to Hot Club of New Orleans, slurping oysters, drinking Guinni at Monagahan's (Erin Rose), drinking pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, eating crawfish in every way imaginable, discovering The Bulldog multi-tap in Uptown, throwing down to Bonerama and Evan Christopher, waving to Ignatius J Reilly, buying the weirdest thing we could find for Mr Cicerone's daughter's birthday, eating turtle soup at Court of Two Sisters and Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, drinking Sazeracs at The Roosevelt Hotel, and, in general, eating, drinking and laughing until we fell down. Uncle Dave, and our friend Nicole of Eat It Detroit, came along on our adventures, and I just know we would not have had quite as much fun if they had not been there with us.

Highlights- the food! Everything we ate!

Here's what Mr Cicerone had to say about Cochon.....

The Green Goddess can only be described as SUPERB, AND I WANT TO MOVE IN THERE. Jacques-Imo's was, as usual, fantastic. Platters of fresh oysters at Felix's were worthy of the king's proverbial ransom. The turtle soup at The Court Of Two Sisters was unrivaled. Jambalaya at Coops, the crawfish boils everywhere one looked, the cheese at St James Cheese Company, fried green tomatoes and etouffee at various places. Groan, groan, groan. And....the fried chicken at Wilie Mae's Scotch House made Mr Cicerone weep tears of joy.

The beer!
There's a really nice pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, good Guinness at Erin Rose, and a few really good beer bars if you know where to look. There's DBA in the Marigny, Cooter Brown's at the end of the St Charles street car line 30 minutes from The French Quarter, The Bulldog in Uptown (awesome!), and The Avenue in The Garden District, where I was stunned by the diversity of the draft beer list (Tilquin Gueuze on tap!), but a little dismayed at being served line cleaner in my glass instead of beer. (Note- I'm sure this was a "once-off". There are two Certified Cicerones on staff, and it was not they that did this.) Most of the bars and restaurants carry Abita, and beers from NOLA Brewing (Flambeau Red, Blonde & Hopitoulas were all good), as well as newcomers Bayou Teche   (LA-31 Bière Pâle & Biere Noire were excellent).
Note: The "International Beer House" (of which there are more than one) on Bourbon Street are sad, smelly watering holes that are to be avoided for the most part, though we did enjoy a pint of Paulaner Helles purchased there.

Pictures? Here's a bunch

I'll stop now, and just add that YOU JUST HAVE TO GO THERE. NOW.

Dinner at Chez Cicerone

Tonight's dinner made use of a GIANT (7.5pound!) chicken that Mr Cicerone smoked last weekend. We barely made a dint in it, and on the spur of the moment, this evening, as I was starting to chop the leftover chook for chicken salad, I decided to make quiche instead. So, thank goodness for food processors, because like magic, the pastry was made. As it rested in the fridge, I sauteed some shallots, smashed the garlic cloves that had been used for aromatics inside the chook's cavity, and made the custard for the quiche with 3 DUCK eggs that I'd been lucky enough to find at Eastern Market last Saturday. (Whip eggs, add 1/2 cup cream, one cup milk, salt & pepper.). The pastry then got rolled out and fitted into a pie dish, and blind-baked for 20 minutes, then brushed with egg yolk. A thin layer of grated Manchego covered the bottom of the shell, then the shallots & garlic, and handfuls of chopped smoked chicken, then the custard poured in. Baked at 375 deg F for 45 minutes. Served with a simple green salad, and Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier.

That's Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier in the Schlenkerla glass.

Lovely as the quiche was, next time I think I'll add some bacon!! And, there will be a next time. We still have about 2 pounds of leftover chicken, and 9 more duck eggs!

Brew Day, Batch 363: Classic American Pils

Some years back, our gentleman friend and fellow dashiki-wearin' dude Jeff Renner led a campaign to resurrect an indigenous beer that had been largely killed off by Prohibition.

Blame this guy.

The beer, once lost, can be considered successfully revived. Commercial producers have picked up on the crisp, bitter lager as something worth celebrating, and one can find some nice examples out there; I recommend Craftsman's 1903 from Pasadena, CA. Capsule history: Pilsener beer was the 'It Girl' of the brewing world in the mid-late 19th century, and European immigrant brewers, mainly from Bohemia and Germany, sought to make a pils-type beer from the ingredients they found in their new home. The biggest problem was that American barley malt, typically made from 6 row barley, was significantly higher in protein and husk material than the 2 row barley of Pilsner's place of birth. The protein created potential haze problems for a beer celebrated for its brilliant clarity, and the grainy flavors from the husky 6 row were not desirable. The silver lining of the husk issue is that that's where the enzymes in malt are found, and 6 row malt has enough spare enzymatic power to convert added starch in the mash to fermentable sugar without breaking a sweat. Thus, American brewers cut the 6 row malt with corn grits, which are almost pure starch, comparatively speaking, to thin out the protein rich wort. Hop profiles were similar to the original Pils in terms of perceived bitterness, although American hop varieties were frequently used. So goes the story, anyway. Today's story proceeds thusly:

(10 gallon recipe)

12  lbs. Briess 6 row malt

3   lbs. Flaked maize

1.8 oz.  Cluster hops, 8.7%AA (kettle addition, 60 min.)

1   oz.  Saaz hops, 5.1% AA (flavor addition, 20 min.)

1/2  t   Calcium Chloride in mash liquor

Wyeast 2308 Munich lager slurry

Simple decoction mash-

Doughed in 1 qt./lb. at 130F for 123F strike. Rested 30 min.
Pulled 8 1/2 qt. thickest mash for 1st decoction. Heated to 155F, rested 15. Heated to boil, held 10.
Returned to main mash for 146F, rested 20 min. Infused to 150F with 2 qt. boiling liquor, rested 20.
After a negative starch test, pulled 8 qt. thin mash and boiled 5 min. Returned for 166F mashout.

Vorlauf/lauter/sparge until runoff drops to 1.009; collect 12 gallons sweet wort.

Boil/hop as noted above. Chill to 55Fish and pitch yeast. Rack and lager like the dickens when fermentation subsides. (Note: with this yeast, a diacetyl rest is necessary; allow temp to rise to mid-60s for the last few days of primary fermentation.)

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

I am writing about this as if I am some sort of authority, when in fact this is the first CAP I have ever brewed. Plus I mostly pulled the recipe out of my hinder parts. You may want to disregard this entire post....