How time flies!

Once again, Ashley's Westland are having their annual Cask Ale Fest on May 12, from noon-6PM. Early bird tickets are available here for $20 instead of $35. More info posted when available!

Thanks again, Sean.....

....for last night's meal, carefully prepared according to your recipe! The corned beef turned out superbly, as did the veggies. Though, we did have to tweak things a tiny bit. The cooking liquid (which contained both Mr Cicerone's Sunuva Buster 2011, and Matmos Ale) was unbearably, inedibly salty about half way into the cooking time, so I had to start over with an all new batch of cooking liquid complete with beer and spices. And, the beer in the cooking liquid created a lot of bitterness when cooked down, so I added 1/2 cup of buckwheat honey to the cooking liquid, with a delicious end result.

Result- perfectly cooked, unusually spicy corned beef, with the most delicious accompanying vegetables I think I've ever had!

Oh, try this mustard ale sauce, also Sean's recipe, with your next corned beef. It went superbly. I used Bell's Hopslam.

Oh, almost forgot the beers! Of course Sunuva Buster 2011 & Matmos Ale were superb with dinner, as was Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier!!

That's cabbage sprouts on the left- delicious!!

Brew Day, Batch 360: Mild Ale

Time for one of my favorites, English Mild Ale. And so I once again show my skewed priorities, and spend an unseasonably warm March day in my basement. We are hoping to serve this beer as a cask ale one evening in the near future, while we screen select episodes of The Beer Hunter TV series for our friends....

Thank you Homebrew Chef!

Here's to Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef. I came across his recipe for "stout-cured corned beef" last year, but it was too close to St Patty's Day to actually brine the meat (which takes 6-8 days). So, this year I planned correctly!  I have just put 5 pounds of brisket into the brining solution (which contained 32 ounces of Mr Cicerone's SunuvaBuster 2011), and will remove it on St Patty's Day when I'll cook it with more spices, and more beer! 

A big chunk o' brisket

Brining solution, chock full of fragrant spices and beer.

Into the fridge it goes, for 8 days.....

More on the intriguing beer dinner.....

The dinner at The Rattlesnake last Thursday was wonderful, and a lot of fun. Mr Cicerone, unfortunately, was out of town at a family funeral, so my date was Miss Eat It Detroit (who isn't really a fan of IPA, though she's being won over...)  Brian Tennis of the Michigan Hop Alliance was the guest speaker, and he did a wonderful job talking about all things hop-associated, as well as discussing the beers that were being served that evening. Thanks to Alex for the idea, and for putting this evening together - I'm not aware that an all IPA dinner has ever been done before? And thanks to Chef for the amazing food!
Here are some pictures......


...Full post

An Intriguing Beer Dinner

Rattlesnake Club is doing an all-IPA beer dinner next week on Thursday. A very interesting idea; check it out here. What other beer styles would you think might lend themselves to such an adventure?

Brew Day, Batch 358: Gluten Free Ale

This'd be another example of "the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry." Excepting, perhaps, just how well my plans were laid. In my position as royal consort to the Queen of Beer, I have sampled many a gluten free "beer." The quotes are because some of the samples just flat-out didn't qualify as beer. I've had a few decent ones, ones that I've actually ordered multiple pints of- My buddy Doug periodically makes a "CPA," or Celiac Pale Ale, that is quite nice. The Belipago at Jolly Pumpkin Cafe is also quite a good beer. And the Green's beers are perhaps the most impressive of all. So naturally, finding out that my friend Terry, and possibly his brother Brian are experiencing gluten intolerance, I felt the need to reinvent the wheel.

So far, I think the new wheel may have some flat spots.

I had this idea to use sorghum syrup from Briess as the base, and augment it with a small amount of oats, half of which I toasted in the oven. I also planned to continue the oatmeal cookie theme by harnessing the curranty nature of Nugget and Goldings hops. The oat part was predicated on using a powdered amylase enzyme to convert the starchy oats into a sugary solution. This is where I didn't plan things out so well- the powdered amylase doesn't seem to be up to the task. I tried a wide range of temperatures over about 12 hours, and got a moderately sweet pot of oatmeal. Before I jettisoned the oats entirely, I had gooped up around 10 pots and strainers of various size and shape here at Chez Cicerone. (Nothing new....) Thus the entire fermentable part of the wort came from the sorghum syrup with a bit of dark candi sugar syrup for a little bit of color. I ended up going with Goldings, Goldings, and Goldings for the three hop additions, to a calculated 40 BU. The very dependable and neutral 1056 was given the job of fermenting.

By itself, the extract syrup resembles and tastes like pale malt extract. The wort was definitely a bit different than a malt based one, though I couldn't put my finger on a suitable descriptor(s) to explain in what way(s.)

Here's where we're at:

We'll see how we do. If this one doesn't do the trick, we'll figure out how to get the job done. The goal is not, "pretty good for gluten free," but "I'll have another!"